Cairo :: Egypt
Day 243 and it all started to sink in.
Places: Edfu, Aswan, Abu Simbel, Kom Ombo & Cairo.
Coolest thing I did: Spent 2 days with 3 very good friends on a felucca on the Nile.
Coolest thing I didn´t know: Coptic cathederals sometimes have an anamatronic Mary out the front.
The banknotes in Egypt all have two sides (der), one showing things from the Ancient Egypt people think about (sphinxes and whatnot) and the other side showing the current, more Muslim present. It amazed me that it's so possible to forget that you are actually in a Muslim country here. We managed to change that by going to Edfu. The temple at Edfu was built by the hiers to Alexander the Great's empire in the Pharonic style so it's the last and most intact of all the temples we've seen. We spent the afternoon checking this out, but found ourselves stranded in this small town due to the fact you can't just get on a bus aanywhere south of Luxor. Due to the Luxor massacre of tourists in 1997, all tourists have to travel in a twice daily convoy so we had to wait for the next morning. This meant staying in one of the scummist hotels on my whole trip (thought the breakfast was outstanding) and trying to amuse ourselves. We walked through the chaotic souq and were helped to purchase bananas by a bloke who ended up inviting us back for diner at his nearby house. We broke the daily Ramadan fast on his bedroom floor with his wife and young son (3 years old), who was pretty happy with the new attention. He then took us out to old man coffeehouse to play dominos and smoke shisha pipes. We found out women like Yvette look pretty out of place there, shisha that the Arabs smoke is way stronger than the stuff they give the tourists and some of these blokes play way too much dominoes.
On the way home they took us to see the local Coptic church and it was something else. Chandeliers inside and on the outside an anamatronic statue of Mary, complete with angels who flap their wings. Pretty cool stuff.
The next day was supposed to be watching the Rugby day (and all you Poms can keep your bloody opinions to yourselves) but instead we spent it at a military checkpoint waiting for the convoy. Rather confusingly, one of the soldiers made a bouquete of flowers which he gave to Tim, rather than Yvette. We think Tim has that special something that attracts Arab men. The elevator guy in the hotel in Luxor also called him beautiful on more than one occasion.
We found Aswan to be a nice place, but the hassle factor is a bit higher than Luxor. This is the place to get on a felucca and the felucca-pimps (the guy whose English is the best tends to outsource the actual sailing to his brothers/cousins/nephews) are always trying to get you into a boat everytime you walk past. We managed to get a day trip which the guy got a bit too pushy with the wanting a tip at the end and got very upset when we tipped the guy that drove the boat and not him. Something to watch for.
Thanks to Lee's arrival from Cairo we moved from the budget digs across town to the New Cataract Hotel. It's the more modern annex to the Old Cataract, where Agatha Christie wrote a couple of novels. On Tim's birthday night, when we were putting away cocktails in the Old Cataract bar the bartender got us up to see the suite where she stayed. For $US600 a night you can have a Nile view from either her writing table or the bathroom where she did her business (which is the size of most appartments I've ever lived in). The treat of this luxury was a good end to my staying in hotels for this trip. Lee get's residents rates so we could split the cost of the 2 rooms between 4. Knowing these expat teachers has it's perks.
We did a very early convoy (4am) to Abu Simbel to see THE temple in Egypt. This is worth the effort just to see the four (well 3 and a half now) seated Ramses II colossi guarding the front. When the Nile was damed in the 60s the whole thing was cut into big pieces and relocated to higher ground. You wouldn't have a clue from looking at it. Amazing stuff.
The next day we left our new comfortable digs and got on a felucca for 2 days. This is a smallish, canvas sailed boat and despite that description, we found it the perfect size for us and the three crew. They couldn't remember our names so the gave us Nubian names, of which they could then only remember Tim's. I can't remember what the called me. Anyway, it was 2 days of cards, reading, watching the nile go by, drinking beer, drinking vodka, smoking shisha and singing very badly and knowing the words to not many songs. I think between us we never managed to sing a song all the way through. This amused the Egyptians no end.
After an overnight train ride we moved into Lee's very nice house in Cairo's expat friendly Ma'adi district. We're seeing what expats do with their time (drinking seems popular) as well as ticking some boxes on the tourist trail.
The Pyramids are big, pointy and old. There's nothing that hasn't already been written about them at some point in history that I could add.
The Sphinx, however, suffers from the Mona Lisa Syndrome. There was a whole lot of "is that it? I thought it would be bigger" going on.
It's become very real that I'm going home soon this week. I've just confirmed with (ironically enough) Romanian Air Transport my flight at stupid oclock tomorrow morning and there's now less than a week til I'm on the flight back to Australia. Good Lord.