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Egypt stock photography trip report, May 28-June 10, 2006 Updated August 10, 2006 Page 3 of 5 Previous page Next page |
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Egypt continued...
It was a "dress like an Egyptian" night and I went as a plain street guy, exactly what you'd see an average Egyptian wear an the street. The French lead people went as Caesar and Cleopatra and the rest were dressed from very plain to being belly dancers. Including the children, all very fun. Dinner was an excellent buffet of chicken, kabobs, vegetables, pastries, fruit and even liver (yum!). All good but my appetite is weak. Spent the time chatting, laughing and comparing the funny differences between our countries. Yes, the Brits use their fork upside down compared to Americans. One of the guys explained that he's one the Isle of Man course on PS2 T.T. racing, a street bike race game. He said he must have been out there when the crews digitized the tracks. All of the Brits knew of Wallace and Grommet like they were the royal family. The Simpsons were totally familiar, too. We cleaned up and sauntered down into the bar and lounge for an evening of games and entertainment, such as pass the bottle, move the potato between the legs, spoon catch, news paper standing and all sorts of games. That burned up a good two hours, though the sound system was on the fritz. It worked well enough to keep us going, though. Stayed up and chatted, exchanged emails, enjoyed hibiscus drinks which the Brits generously covered for me. I had to retire at midnight, just when a bunch of boat crashers came from another ship, looking to get away from their cruise. They said they ate the same food every day, their cabins were tiny and a British guy tried to hang himself off the boat using sheets, distraught that his wife left him. He was saved and arrested, as it's against the law in Egypt to do that and they take it quite seriously. They don't pussy foot around like at home. Saturday, June 3, 2006 Up at a reasonable hour, had breakfast with the Brits, said goodbye to the French and was off. My guide showed up at 8:30am, I left a $3/day tip with the crew, as that was the customary amount and went on with Jaleed. He seemed very impersonal at first, always busy on the phone, so I half slept on the 45 minute bus ride to Luxor. I was staying at the Queen's Valley Hotel, the newest (5 months old) three star in the center of the city. Dropped my things and met with Mr. Impersonal to discuss another tour of the Deir el-Medina, the Worker's Tombs and the Ramesseum Temple on the West Bank. The Deir el-Medina temples were sizeable and duly impressive. The female guide was knowledgeable and was able to save me 25LE with a 5LE tip to the ticket guy she knows, just doing business. The paint on the ceilings and walls is likely a rock colored with a natural binding agent have survived for 3,000 years. Only the ceilings and some of the walls never in the direct sun have beautiful paint. Next were the two Workers' Tombs. The guards were eating and I had to wait for them to finish eating. They invited me to join them but I wasn't hungry and was annoyed at the delay. In retrospect, the annoyance was dumb but I still didn't have the desire to handle the same good as 14 other guys digging in - didn't want to get sick again. The tomb guardian stalled another guy and basically made me take pictures in the Workers' Tomb for a 5LE tip. Fine, fine. The paints were beautiful in the first tomb but not so much in the second, lit by cheap fluorescent lights. I tried putting the camera on the floor to squeeze out the sharpest exposure that I could. We stopped by an alabaster factory to see how the fragile hand-made stuff was created. The factory guy wanted 80LE for a resin piece worth 6LE. I took too long there and annoyed my guide. Oh well. The last stop was the Ramesseum, a partly destroyed temple had enough still standing to be incredible. I ignored the temple harpy's suggestions to look at things. On the way out, we stopped at the Colossus of Memnon, huge statues that used to make sounds when the stone warmed up but no longer do so due to modifications in the 17th century. We only spent 10 minutes there. I was the only tourist at the Ramesseum as it was plain freakin' hot. Even in the shade! I had to stand in the shade to do anything and my guide stayed back hiding in the shade while I wandered the stone temple. She looked like she was going to pass out. What was left of the temple was cool and the largest stone block in Egypt was there, 1000 tons. Wow! Back at the hotel, I enjoyed my expensive club sandwich (13LE) and chatted with a travel chica from Chile, on tour through Europe and Egypt, working as a nurse. She told me about the food place around the corner with far better prices. Perfect. The tour bus picked me up just before 4pm and we made the run for Karnak temple. Stupidly thinking the sun would be lower on the horizon, I left my sun glasses in the room. Dumb. Gad, our tour guide, was entertaining and informative, being playfully serious about the topics he was explaining. He spent 20 minutes touring us and then unleashed us there for half an hour. It wasn't enough time to look around. Karnak temple is stupendously massive - not a hyperbole, either. It was built over a period of 1,000 years. You can blow half a day there easily just looking at the different things if it were not for the heat. It was fun to see the interplay of light and shadows in the Great Hypostyle Hall, a forest of 134 papyrus-shaped pillars. The whole temple is big enough to hold St. Paul's Cathedral and St. Peter's plus 10 OTHER cathedrals just a big. Some of the original stone powder paint remains. The place originally had a roof. Just stood there and was a slack jaw gawker for a minute before shooting and videoing the place. The Obelisks are cool, 80 feet high and at 290 tons each, they were a huge effort to raise up the Tuthmosis I obelisks. The inner parts of the temple were more damaged by time or the invaders over the years hiding out, like the Roman Christians who weren't down with the polytheistic systems. Walking the 10th of a mile back through the Temple and the spare 100 yards to the ticket booth, individuals in the group met up with Gad. Luxor temple is a menagerie of things, built over many king's reigns including Alexander the Great, it has its twisted charm. Deep inside the temple, the Barque Shrine of Alexander the Great rests with his image, with his birth-name and his coronation name that had Egyptian meaning. The regular name is drawn by sound only and has no real Egyptian meaning. A temple harpy lured me into checking out a few things, giving me a chance to waste another 10LE. We bickered back and forth for a while I became angered at the waste of time, so I left 1LE with the harpy. What remains of the Avenue of the Sphinxes is pretty in the sunset light. At one time it ran the 4.5km from Luxor to Karnak. Wow. I spent a good amount of time there and walked back to the hotel right around the corner. At the Avenue of Sphinx, Gad kept calling out to me for a good minute and he tried all the lines of the junk hawkers (Hello, my friend!, etc) and I become so adept at ignoring people that it took him several attempts before he realized he should say "It is me, Gad", and I finally turned to look. I laughed and apologized. Very funny! At 5pm, the city of Luxor (ancient Thebes) returns to life as people seem to hide out from the afternoon heat until then. Went up to the roof top pool, ran into the Chilean girl again and hung out for a while. She explained how she gets Egyptians constantly hanging on her shoulder. Traveling as a single woman in this country can be trying at times. We went out to the restaurant around the corner and had a huge 10LE each. I bid her adieu as I had to get up early, as my camera batteries needed charging and chips downloaded and I'd fallen two days behind on my writing. Sunday, June 4, 2006 Got up late, way late - 7:15am. Didn't know what time the tour was so I jumped out of bed, showered in 2 minutes, grabbed the gear and headed downstairs. No one…. Got a breakfast of a boiled egg, cheese, bread, marmalade, funky cheese and tea. No one. At 8:30am, I had the sense to ask the front desk to call. Outgoing phone problems. Met an Alaskan couple doing an Airtrek.com round the world tour for $2,000US. Not too bad a price! The said you had to choose your cities carefully, that was the trick. I told them about the Valley of the Queens Hotel, that it was nice, clean and new. We swapped info and I left. Michael, a Coptic Christian, was my new guide and we were off to the Valley of the Kings. Funny, I passed the group I was originally supposed to be with. I missed Gad's entertaining personality but not the annoying Canadian girl and I only had five people in my group versus 12. Haha! We only saw three tombs, Merenptah, Ramses III and Ramses I. They are the prime examples and quite nice with vibrant colors on the walls. Merenptah is a massive one, leading you underground with tomb harpies at both ends to prevent picture taking. There are a few signs at the entrance saying you're supposed to leave your video camera, even. This tomb is purportedly the pharaoh of Moses' time. Hapsetshut Temple was just awesome. The long staircase and walkway was right out of the movies. This is the same Queen who erected an obelisk at Karnak Temple, originally covered in electrum, a gold/silver alloy. By now, the sweat was my dripping from my forehead even when I was standing in the shade. In the sun it just hurt. And it was noon. I had to walk up to the temple with the guy from Japan since the Brazilian couple hadn't had lunch yet and were dying. We blasted up there, shot away and headed back down. I've been in saunas that were literally cooler than the air at Hapsetshut temple. There was so much sweat coming off of me that it coated my sunglasses, rendering them useless and blinding me. Even with them off, the sweat dripped into my eyes, making shooting images very difficult, especially since I didn't want to rub my eyes to prevent infection from touching things. I did the collar wipe with some success but it was still a battle. Queen's Valley was not as extensive as King's Valley but still worth the stop. We saw three tombs for the price of two as the harpies weren't checking tickets. The poor Japanese guy, Yushihisa, got suckered into looking at a hole in the ground and then the harpies demanded money, giving him a hard time. I didn't see that until afterwards when he came out of the tomb looking upset. I started yelling at the tomb harpy, "If you're trying to rob him, I'll call the tourist police over here and we'll settle this right now!" The harpy instantly became sheepish, waving sorry and crawled back into the tomb from where he came. Then I explained in simple English how the Egyptian system works here and how to deal with the touts and hawkers. We then tried his new skills at the vendor booths and he did much better and started smiling again. Told him about the AEON English program in Japan and he said he hoped to afford it one day, so I knew it was prestigious. Said goodbye to Yushihisa and the Brazilian couple and was dropped off at the hotel. Grabbed lunch at the hotel, wrote some and went to check out the bus for Hurghada. Apparently a taxi is necessary to get to the bus terminal as it is 14um outside of the city, costing 20LE. You don't buy the tickets in town - you just get picked up at the booth by Luxor Temple in the morning at 8am. It's scary but okay. Came back, downed a liter of water with little effect and went to the roof-top pool. A memorable experience: hanging on the edge of the pool, watching the froth in my hibiscus drink boil to the top in a swirl of red with a view of Karnak temple in the distance. The sun was setting on the Nile and a CD of Shereen, an excellent Egyptian singer, filled the dusky sunlight with an enchanting voice while I pondered nothing more than the individual bubbles in my beverage make their brief trip through inky darkness to join million of brethren floating on the top, waiting to be whisked away in a refreshing draught of foam. It's a chore to get a 20LE taxi over to Karnak temple at night. You get to suffer through 55LE worth of bad dialog for an hour and a half only to return by 20LE taxi. It was cool to be in the temple at night with the lights playing on the millennia old columns but for the cost, you have to question it. The last 25 minutes of dialog over the pool was laughable at best, awful at worst. Had the guys at the hotel buy me a Shereen CD for 50LE and have it delivered by stealth at midnight. Just ask and you can get someone to buy just about anything for you here. Monday, June 5, 2006 I bought another hematite bracelet and a backup after loosing the one in Morocco in the desert. Also bought four canopic jars from a guy on the Corniche, overlooking the Nile. The poor guy pleaded with me that he needed the money, started at 200LE for the set and fell quickly to 100LE. From there he dropped by 10's and 5's to 50LE for the four. Once vendors revert to small movements, you know they're close to their bottom price. Ate the traditional breakfast with tea and sugar and was off to the bus station. Took a slow taxi to the bus terminal in the middle of no where. It was a little stressful because the guy spoke no English (and I no Arabic) so I couldn't explain, without using the dictionary, to go faster. Didn't want him trying to read while driving, though. Somehow it all worked, got me there and I bought the 27LE ticket to Hurghada. Sitting in the terminal right now half way to Hurghada after a bus change, watching a guy sort through trash in a stake bed with bare feet and hands. It was 5.5 hours to Hurghada in a big cruiser bus without air conditioning. When the window was open, the air coming in was hot even at 50 miles per hour. A few people felt compelled to smoke and add to the enjoyment. Met a Canadian father and son travel team doing the one week blow through Egypt tour. They seemed to be able to deduce that we were having a bus change at the trash station in the middle of who knows where. They were handy to talk to. Wandering the desert here for 40 years must have really sucked. Saw one tree the entire trip with a family hiding in the shade. There is nothing but broken rock and dusty sand for hours on end. This is truly a country of desolation and wastelands. Arrived in Hurghada at 3pm and a rather courteous taxi and hotel tout got my attention. He said 15LE to the Hilton Plaza (arranged by my friend waleedtravel@hotmail.com), I countered 10LE and they went with it. These two were unemployed and trying to raise cash. They offered a glass bottom boat ride for $15 for snorkeling. Perfect. I accepted. They also helped set up the ferry ride to Sharm el-Sheikh for 250LE. Gah, the price has gone way up from the 180LE described in Lonely Planet. The ferry doesn't run on Wednesday, so I go tomorrow or never since I have to be in Sharm el-Sheikh Thursday only to turn around and catch a nine hour bus ride back to Cairo. That would be stupid. Dropped the things at the Hilton. Noted that my 3 day old pants were looking a bit gray so it's laundry time. Blech. Rode with Ali back to the Cleopatra hotel, had a hibiscus drink and cheese sandwich since I've only had a Luna bar for lunch and I didn't want to ride on a boat with an empty stomach. The water here is amazing, all shades of blue. The glass bottom boat pilot had been doing this his whole life and tossed in a little bread to attract the fish and gave me some. The fins fit perfectly, the mask pretty close but the regular snorkel sucked and required regular clearing due to a leak. But, for 20 minutes of use in the Red Sea at Hurghada, I lived. It was supposed to be a one hour glass bottom viewing and a half hour snorkel, but it ended up being just over an hour trip total. That was okay, I had other things I needed to do anyway. Saw a colorful guitar fish, endless reef fish, trigger fish and the topper were the little jelly fish. The boat guy said the jellies were harmless so of course I couldn't resist poking them gently. They have the surface feeling of a wet gummy bear with the resilience of the egg white of a boiled egg without the yoke inside. They had a subtle iridescent blue-purple color, quite pretty really! Checked out Ali's hotel, walked 10 minutes back to the Hilton and showered with my level 8 dirty clothes, the worst before getting a disgusting biological substance on them. Changed, downloaded and prepped for dinner. Walked all the way to the north end of the Cornish, a 15 minute walk from the Hilton plaza, the restaurant at the Aquarium, spending 68LE instead of 100LE for a big seafood platter. Previous page Next page |
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