Egypt 2023 - Day 12 - Flights Home and The Great Summary

With bleary eyes and heavy hearts, we waved goodbye to Egypt today to begin the long trek home to our lives, roles, and adult responsibilities. Camel-sore, an incessant cough beginning to develop, I could tell by the time we hit the Cairo morning traffic that this would not be a fun journey. Honestly, the traffic wasn't so bad, and we had our old friend Ahab (i.e., The Captain) there to help us through any challenges the Cairo airport might throw at us. But, with two alarmingly short international layovers and fear of Egypt time causing delays, to quote Star Wars, I had "a bad feeling about this."

Our first hurdle was early, at the ticketing counter for Turkish Airlines, which was quite closed when we arrived, a line already snaking its way around the vinyl belt maze in front of the empty counters. We were the only group of the morning shuttle gang that was taking Turkish Air that morning, so we stood alone while everyone else worked their way through first-stage security. Half an hour later, the line finally got moving. I thought it was crazy that they'd booked the shuttle four hours before our departure time of 10:00, but now I could see why.

Once we finally got through security and said goodbye to Ahab and our luggage, we headed to our gate, which was...not open. Again, we were too early. Another half-hour wait, then through the gate security checkpoint. At this point, Egypt time went into effect, and our flight, which never strayed from the status "on time", didn't start boarding until half an hour after our scheduled departure time. By the time we arrived in Istanbul, we had one hour to get through another security line and all the way across the Istanbul airport to our connecting flight to Seattle.

Istanbul Airport is beautiful, but by Atum, it is *vast*. I have never been in a larger airport, and we really had to hoof it to get to our flight. Every time I thought we were nearing our goal, we'd turn a corner and boom, another mile-long corridor to traverse. By the time we got near our gate, the flight board was flashing "last call," though plenty of people were waiting in line when we arrived for yet another security inspection of our bags. I was coughing up a lung and wheezing and nauseated from exertion by now (I would discover later that this was due to contracting acute bronchitis somewhere along the way) -- it was not a great way to start a twelve-hour flight.

After choking down an unsatisfactory meal of mac-and-cheese (my own fault), I took a sleep aid and had a restless eight-hour nap, trying to find a comfortable position for my camel-bruised posterior. By the time we arrived in Seattle, I'd slipped into that other world of jet lag and exhaustion where nothing feels real.

The rest of the journey home progresses without incident, aside from an ironic near-accident in the taxi on the interstate back to Sacramento. I will spare you those details. 

It's time to summarize this trip.

As I said at the start of this adventure, cruises aren't really my thing. I don't tend to have much in common with the cruise crowd, and I don't like events that I consider 'forced fun.' I tend to find that cruises often go to the worst possible locations, so filled with tourists as to be uninspiring, and so tainted by the cruise routes themselves as to be pastiches of their original paradises. I have to say, though, even as a fairly seasoned traveler, I was very intimidated by the idea of going to Egypt due to its reputation for taking advantage of tourists, for the undrinkable tap water, the inhospitality to people of my own, and my husband's orientation, and a perceived lack of the conveniences that I've grown so accustomed to in all of the "English-friendly" places I've got to in the past.

This was another one of those "check your expectations" sort of moments, and precisely the reason travel is important. Were our experiences filtered through the lens of the tour, the cruise, and our delightful Egyptologist who made sure we were focused on the 'right' things? Of course they were! I am under no presumptions that we saw one-tenth of the 'real Egypt' that modern-day Egyptians experience every day. While we did get some understanding of the country's current socio-economic state, we were there to revel mostly in Egypt's rich past as the cradle of civilization and not to bear some sort of Western witness to its modern problems.

All of the native Egyptian people we met on the cruise and the hotel staff were friendly and personal with us. Walid, our Egyptologist, became a friend along the way. He was honest about Egypt's difficulties as well as its pride. He was ebullient and excited by our understanding and interest in the things that also bring him joy: his country and his life's work. We saw students being students, kids being kids, and hard workers hustling their trades. We saw people just trying to get along in less-than-ideal socio-economic situations, like everywhere else.

There were parts of the journey that made me uncomfortable. The trash problem facing Cairo is a real issue, and the massive, invasive city projects sometimes make the place seem more like a war zone than a functioning city. The levels of poverty are high. But within all of that muddle is the will of a tough people who might just be able to figure it out.

I loved this trip. The efforts through the centuries by the whole world to unearth and preserve the history of a land that represents so many of the 'firsts' in human history have been really awe-inspiring to see. Every temple, tomb, and ancient wonder we witnessed had its own mind-boggling story. I got to touch the sands of the Sahara and put my fingers in the Nile. I got to see places that dwarf the entire history of my country by millennia that are still standing to this day. Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair! Indeed, Ozymandius, indeed.

The Bus One gang in our only picture together

I'm very grateful for having had the opportunity to see such a beautiful land and experience a culture so far from my own experience. Thanks to my fellow bus one partners, my awesome travel companions Steph, Rob, Carrie, and Gordon, and a special thanks to my lovely husband Sean for sharing this adventure with me. It won't be one I'm soon to forget. With that, I'll sign off this travelogue once again. Until our next adventure!

Thank you, readers, for going along with me during this once-in-a-lifetime journey, and keep traveling!

Egypt 2023 - Day 11 - Sakara, Memphis, Giza & Farewells

 You'll forgive the writer's laxity, as yesterday was a 27-hour skin-of-our-teeth adventure through many airports. I'll discuss that in the next post, along with my final thoughts on this trip.

The last day of our tour was packed, starting back on the bus at 6:00. Our first destination was the Saqqara necropolis, where we saw the original step pyramid created by the pharaoh Zoser. Before about 3200 BCE, the ancient Egyptians didn't mummify their dead the way we know them to have in later dynasties; they simply buried the bodies in shallow graves in the desert. This led to a lot of dead royalty being eaten by jackals.

After that, they began covering their dead with large square slabs of sandstone called mastaba to protect them from burrowing paws or eager robbers. It was Zoser, the founder of the third dynasty (of thirty dynasties), who first decided to stack the mastaba on top of each other. He had his chief architect,  Imhotep (who you might remember is deified in the Roman-era hospital area of Kom Ombo), create a design for the original pyramid tomb, which, after several revisions and added stacks, was completed around 2700 BCE.

Our Egyptologist Walid lecturing to us about the Step Pyramid of Zoser

Did you know that mummies were really only designed to last about a year, as that is how long the ancient Egyptians believed it took for the soul or ka to make the trip through the afterlife to be judged by Osiris and return to reclaim their bodies? They would travel back down to Earth, pick up their flesh suits, and then move on to A'aru, the Field of Reeds, to spend eternity. The masks that adorned the mummies and the sarcophagi made in the image of the pharaoh were to assist the ka in finding the body when it returned to Earth.

Saqqara was home to a few noteworthy tombs, including those of Zoser and Unas, both of which we visited.  The entire complex was surrounded by an enclosure wall made of sandstone and actually polished with sand in its day. Nowadays, the corridors of the funerary temple built into the enclosure wall are shiny from just around shoulder to waist level, where countless tourists have touched it. Walid says this is the oldest wall in history, but the internet notes that the walls of Jericho (8000 BCE) and the prehistoric walls of Theopetra (21000 BCE) are markedly older. I think you might be reading this, Walid, so feel free to correct me!

Walking through the Funerary Complex at Saqqara

One fascinating thing about Zoser's pyramid, other than being the original, is the multiple entrances leading to an entire subterranean complex of tunnels and galleries, all dug below the pyramid instead of starting from within it like in later pyramids. Each of the major galleries had its own ground entrance, only one of which led to the actual burial chamber of the king.

The other pyramid we visited was that of the pharaoh Unas, which, honestly, from the outside, isn't much to look at. The pyramid was reduced to rubble by earthquakes. However, the burial chamber and passage to it remained blissfully intact, and it's a real treasure because not only is the journey down into it pretty easy, but the burial chamber itself contains a wealth of some of the oldest known hieroglyphics in pristine condition, with the original coloring intact. 

The crumbled pyramid of Unas

There is also an amazing hidden engraving of King Khufu (of Giza pyramid fame, more on him later) located on the side wall of the burial chamber. But why Khufu when this was the tomb of Unas? Unas was pharaoh at the end of the fifth dynasty, a time of financial depression for ancient Egypt, and many of the blocks used to create the tomb of Unas were actually pilfered from either the Great Pyramid itself or from Khufu's palace, which remains undiscovered to this day.

The secret image of Khufu in the Burial Chamber of Unas

After Saqqara, we made another shopping stop, this time to one of the many rug academies in the surrounding county of Badrashin. Students and teachers hand weave stunning wool, cotton, and silk rugs. The difficulty in weaving increases with the fineness of the material, so the silk weaves are reserved for the more advanced students and the teachers themselves. We got to observe how the silk is spun from silkworm cocoons after extracting the worm and soaking the casing, and watched as many of the students worked on complex pieces to be added to the upstairs gallery. A portion of sales from the academy goes to funding the students' education. Larger pieces (some as big as 3 meters by 5 meters) can take up to three years to complete.

Student hand-weaving a complex pictural rug

I admit to making a rather expensive purchase here of a gorgeous silk rug we plan on using as a tapestry on one of our walls. It depicts the tree of life, a common theme in Egyptian art, and while not huge, it was definitely the most expensive thing we purchased on the trip. I'm in love with it, though.

Our beautiful new silk rug with a depiction of the Tree of Life

The next stop on our packed day was the Museum of Memphis. Memphis is Egypt's original capital, located not too far south of Cairo. It was the capital city of Egypt for about a thousand years before Thebes took its place. Sadly, not much remains of the city. Earthquakes and time have reduced it to a few artifacts, mostly housed in the small outdoor museum. 

The centerpiece of the museum is the massive fallen statue of Ramses the Great. It is the largest extant depiction of Ramses and would have towered  22 meters (72 ft) in height when it was upright. It is made of limestone and is so heavy that the Antiquities Ministery could not move it from its present location, so they built a museum around it. Originally, the statue would have been mere meters from the Nile River, but the river has since shifted to be about three miles away.

Titanic statue of Ramses II at the Memphis Museum

The other great treasure of this museum is the Alabaster Sphinx, which honors an unknown pharaoh, as there are no cartouches engraved on its surface -- I guess this is one that Ramses II didn't get his mitts on. It's believed it may depict Hatshepsut or possibly Amenhotep II or III. It is one of the largest alabaster statues to come out of ancient Egypt and is beautifully preserved, considering the softness of the stone.

Alabaster Sphinx at the Memphis Museum

After Memphis, we had another 45-minute bus ride to the crowning destination of our journey -- the Great Pyramid complex at Giza.  The Giza necropolis houses nine pyramids in total, along with the Great Sphinx. The three largest pyramids are dedicated to a single line of Pharaohs: Khufu III, his son Khefre, and Khefre's son Menkaure. While the Great Pyramid is pretty...great, it is frankly a bit spoiled by the sheer number of tourists making the pilgrimage to see it and the extra-aggressive peddlers that surround it to hock their cheap wares -- the same ones available at almost every tourist location. But it was marvelous to see up close, and of course, as is the way of these things, pictures cannot do it justice.

 

Here's a picture of the Great Pyramid of Khufu anyway, with a dog for added appeal. Thankfully, he did not demand tips.

There is a lot of speculation about how the pyramids were built and the time it took to build them. Herodotus claims that the construction of the Great Pyramid of Khufu took only 20 years, but there's speculation that it was closer to 30. Khufu's pyramid contains 2.5 million blocks of limestone and was allegedly built by only ten thousand workers. Archaeologists believe many of the stones were quarried nearby, while the higher-quality finishing stones were moved down the river from Aswan. At any rate, all (reputable) archaeologists agree that it wasn't ancient aliens, just plain old human ingenuity and labor.

The second large pyramid at Giza, Khefre's, appears taller than Khufu's Great Pyramid due to its construction at a higher elevation, but where the pyramid of Khufu had an original height of ~147 meters, Khefre's was ~143 meters. Only the pyramid of Khefre still has some of its remaining polished limestone casing. 

Kefre's Pyramid in the Giza complex. Note the remaining outer casing at the top.

While we only viewed Khefre's pyramid from a distance, we actually had the opportunity to delve into the pyramid of Menkaure and see the burial chamber. Like our exploration of the Red Pyramid at Dashour, going into the burial chamber is more of a bucket list item than a particularly spectacular tomb. It is, however, a much easier delve and only took about a minute of back-hunched, graded climbing to get down into the ante-chamber. It was still a fun time, however, and since a lot fewer people were willing to go down into the cramped corridor, it was less jammed with tourists.

I'm in a pyramid

After the ground-level (and subterranean) tour of the pyramids, we drove to a panorama site where we took a group photo of our whole bus (We were bus 1 of 3) and got some very nice shots of the pyramids from higher altitude and then...to the camels.

As Walid said, it's almost always the first question people ask when you say you've gone to Egypt -- did you ride a camel? Well, we wanted the answer to be yes, so almost everyone on the bus dropped 20 bucks a person to hop on the back of the giant creatures; they seem way bigger when you're astride one, as your head is easily almost 3 meters (12 feet) above the ground. I certainly wouldn't call it a smooth ride, either. Camels are very bumpy walkers, and while you can get into a natural rhythm with them, we did a lot of stopping and were tethered together in a tight caravan, which meant they were starting and stopping quite a bit. We galumphed out about a hundred feet into the Sahara, got some pictures taken, and harumphed back to the vista. Sean and I were both pretty epically sore the following morning. But hey, we can claim my official camel-rider merit badges now.

Proof of camel riding

The last major site of our journey was the enigmatic Great Sphinx. The ancient Egyptians didn't refer to the ~22 meter (66 foot) statue as a "Sphinx"; the Greeks associated the chimeric statue with their own legendary beast. Some writings refer to the Sphinx as "Horus on the Horizon," though the defender of the necropolis looks nothing like the falcon-headed god.

While the face of the Sphinx is likely the visage of Khefre, there's some debate in the archaeological community that it might have been built by Khufu, while Khefre may have gone back and re-carved the face to be his own. There's no physical evidence to support the claim, but there's some circumstantial evidence -- Herodotus claimed a connection between the two, and its position in the Giza complex is closer to Khufu's pyramid than it is to Khefre's.

The Great Sphinx

Waving goodbye to the crowded Giza plateau, we were off to our last actual stop on the tour (aside from the hotel, of course), which I have to say I was disappointed in. This was another shopping stop at a local department store specializing in Egyptian cotton goods. I could see the appeal for some; they had some fancy tablecloths but were a lacy style that didn't fit our taste. They also sold additional luggage, though no one on the bus took advantage. All in all, it felt like an off-note on an otherwise extremely memorable day.

At last, we returned to the hotel. On the way back, Walid gave his farewell speech, which seemed to choke him up. He said we'd been one of the most fun groups he'd toured around, and even if that's just a line, we were happy to accept the compliment. Maybe we were all a little choked up, too. Carrie was certainly bawling, but she'd cry at a rather nice-looking leaf in the breeze, I think. (I love you, Carrie!) Walid hugged us all individually as we got off the bus, and we managed a group photo with him and the small council. We also got his contact info in case he visits California, which is a real possibility! Then we can tour him around and return the honor.

The gang saying goodbye to Walid

Tomorrow is the return trip, and I'm dreading it for multiple reasons, including a nail-biting short layover in Istanbul and, of course, the 12-hour leg from there to Seattle. Tomorrow, I'll sum up the trip, and then I'll likely do a little piece with some travel tips.

As always, thanks for reading!

Egypt 2023 - Day 10 - Back to Cairo & the Grand Egyptian Museum

The end of our journey on the S.S. Sphinx, stepping out of the ship for the last time at the dock at Luxor. Tips were included in our experience, but of course we added a little extra for the cleaning staff and our great bartender Mosen (nicknamed Moses). I thought three hours for a regional airport seemed a bit overboard, but boy was I mistaken. The Luxor airport was *chaos*. There are multiple security checkpoints in the airport, the first o be at the front door, and there was a huge “line” to get through. I put line in quotes there because there were so many people trying to push through, cut in line, and generally be the main character of the story. It was an absolute mess of people vying to get their boxes through the x-ray, and the guards were doing little to help the situation.

A half-hour of that, and we entered the main airport, where we then had to go to the ticket counter and check our bags as usual. After that another security line, this one with the full ritual of shoe and belt removal and all the things you’d do in a US airport, only with the added chaos of Egypt. People jumped queues rapaciously, forcing themselves in front of us, making new lines to wedge their way into a longer line. Lots of people (including our lovely guide Walid) were starting to lose their patience at this point. Lucky we had those three hours, but by the time we got through security and into the gate area, there was still a little wait before the plane arrived and was ready to board. So our 10am flight left around 10:45 “on time”, which is what we’ve dubbed “Egyptian time”.

An hour flight and then the large group separated into two. A third returned directly to the hotel, and the rest of us took an hour long bus trip to the site of the brand new sparkly Grand Egyptian Museum.

You’ll recall at the very beginning of the trip, on Day 2, we visited the old Egyptian Museum. While impressive, the original museum was built in 1902. Over 100,000 artifacts have been discovered since then, 80,000 of which are stored in the warehouses in the lower floors. There is simply not enough room to showcase all of the pieces. This has also been an excuse for countries like the US, Great Britain, and many many other international museums that are showcasing Egyptian artifacts *not* to return them to Egypt. Because there’s “no room” to display them. After the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum, which I will now refer to as GEM, that excuse will vanish.

The GEM is vast. Easily the largest museum in the world, with a floor space of 81,000 square meters (872,000 square feet.) The largest museum currently is the Louvre, with 72,735 square meters (782,910 square feet) of gallery space. It will house nearly all of the currently discovered artifacts in Egypt’s possession, and negotiations are taking place to reclaim many of Egypt’s stolen or traded treasures from around the world.

Exterior of the entrance to the GEM

The GEM is part of a wider program called Giza 2030, which includes a massive rennovation of the flow of tourists around the pyramids, as well as a new subway station and a private bridge that connects the GEM to the Giza plateau directly, which will be home to a caravan of electric busses to cart people back and forth to the pyramids, which are less than 2 miles away from the museum.

The facade of the building is decked out in Pyramid shapes resembling the Sierpinsky triangle and above the main entrance is a massive pyramid shaped covering made of alabaster, which glows with light from the inside at night. Around the entrance are cartouches to all of the Egyptian pharaohs. The only one that is currently missing (probably much to his eternal frustration) is the cartouche of Ramses II, although apparently the missing cartouche allows the sun to shine of the face of his large statue in the central atrium.

It’s hard to describe how vast and gorgeously modern the space is. Polished granite floors, alabaster, basalt, and marble bedeck the whole place. The design of the building was the result of an international contest. A Dublin design firm named Heneghen Peng won the contract, and the entire project has already cost over 1 billion US to complete, with much more to come in the remaining parts of the Giza 2030 project.

Large statue of, you guessed it, Ramses II, in the atrium of the GEM

While the museum is technically not yet open, private tours allow tour companies like Uniworld access to the main atrium, the grand staircase, shops, and the “Tutankhamen Experience”, an 20 minute, heavily cg immersive show projected against all six surfaces of a rectangular room that houses maybe 100 people at a time.

The coolest part of the section of the museum open to tourists was the Grand Staircase, featuring a procession of Pharaoic statuary, obelisks, and sarcophagi, all leading up to a breaktaking view of the great pyramids on the Giza plateau. While the Tutankhamen Experience was a bit too low-rent CG for my taste, the grand staircase and atrium made up for it.

The Grand Staircase at the GEM

I will say, that the building as we saw it was not quite complete. Benches are still being built in some places on the grand staircase, and the whole thing probably wouldn’t meet US safety standards, as there are exposed open pools of water all over the atrium, and. Staircases with unusual angles and drop offs that would make a US safety inspector jump out of their skin. But the entire place is going to be *amazing* and will easily rank among the top, if not *the* top, museum to visit in the world.

That was pretty much our day. A farewell dinner in the hotel was a good, but relatively quiet affair, with no speeches or goodbyes. We all are still meeting tomorrow for one of the biggest tour days of the trip — to Sakarah, the Giza Plateau, the Sphinx, and two stores, a rug academy and a cotton store. It’s an early start tomorrow so after dinner we all just sort of faded back to our hotel rooms to rest for the early start tomorrow.

As always, thanks for entertaining my ramblings and keep traveling!

Egypt 2023 - Day 9 - Esna & New Year’s Eve

Last night, the ship stopped at Esna, and this morning, we left the ship and walked directly into the town. We walked through the market or souk, where Walid showed us a traditional tailor’s shop making galabeya and an ironing shop next door. The market was of the usual sort, but it was cool to see the old style of ironing, where the vendor sprayed starchy water from his mouth (!!) and used his foot to apply pressure to the flat iron.

Shopkeep ironing a galabeya in Esna Market

After the souk, we spied the oldest standing minaret in Egypt, right next to the souk, and then walked a few meters to the temple of Khnum. Khnum is a creator god responsible for sculpting the faces of babies on a spinning wheel while they are in the womb. He is the patron god of Aswan, but his temple at Esna is really special. It was buried under the sand until its discovery in 1816. It was only discovered because a massive sandstorm cleared off the roof.

Excavation of the temples at Esna is still occurring. The main temple is 9 meters (29.5 feet) below the city's current ground level. But an ancient temple, probably dedicated to Amun-ra, is buried behind and below the Roman-era temple to Khnum. 

Façade of the Temple of Khnum at Esna from ground level

The exterior of the Roman Temple has a huge set of columns topped with the lotus blossom motif. King Mohammad Ali used the temple as a storehouse for cotton from Cairo, and his soldiers trained by shooting at the architrave; thus, many of the friezes at the top of the temple were heavily damaged. Inside remained remarkably intact, but the paint was rendered black by smoke and time. USAID has restored much of the painting and continues its work to this day.

The Hypostyle hall with its painted colonnade is breathtaking, and the high reliefs all over the walls are in near-perfect condition. It’s become one of my favorites, alongside Dendera and Karnak.

The gorgeous painted capitals inside the Temple of Khnum at Esna

We then took a brief stop at the Esna Cultural Center, the renovation of which was just completed by USAID this year. It is set to open as a new market and small museum next year, but we got a tour of the building and its roof, which allowed us to get some good pictures of Esna from a bit higher. Esna is just a village, and much of it is still in disrepair. Many of the multi-family houses with their sycamore balconies are no longer habitable. Part of the renovation of the city is to demolish many of these unsalvageable mud-brick residences and replace them with modern Egyptian housing at no cost to the villagers. If the money holds up, Esna should look pretty amazing in ten years.

The current town of Esna undergoing extensive renovation by the government

The trip to Esna was short, and we returned to the ship before lunch, setting sail once again to our final destination, back at the port of Luxor. 

A performance of various dances representing different parts of Egypt was part of this evening’s entertainment. The troupe included a band playing traditional Egyptian instruments, including the darbouka, a goblet-shaped drum; the ney, an Egyptian flute that’s similar to an oboe; a hand drum; and the rababa, a single-string sort of lute played with a bow. They performed several dances, including a whirling dervish-style dance, where a (quite handsome) man in a multi-hued circular coat spun wildly in a tight circle. The dance must have gone on for 5 minutes, including a moment when he turned on electric lights on the outfit that illuminated the whole darkened room in a rainbow of colors. I doubt it was a particularly classical interpretation of the dervish dance, as sufis that practice the true dervish take vows of poverty and austerity, and it is considered a sacred meditation.

Dervish dance with the band playing behind

Tonight is New Year’s Eve, and there was a special dinner planned for us with Beef Wellington, smoked salmon with caviar, and a big impressively decorated dessert buffet, mostly filled with cakes of various flavors and a few other nummies like crème brûlée (the only one of the desserts I actually cared for in the spread, quite frankly.)

New Years Eve dinner getting started

After that, the lounge was turned into the dance floor, where, at least conceptually, we were to dance the night away until midnight. The crowd was slow to congregate, but Sean was eager to get to dancing, so he, I, Moses, our amazingly cool bartender, and a few of the other staff got dancing early to 70’s disco. About an hour later, the dance floor was almost 75% crew, rocking out to Arabic dance music. The wait staff of the restaurant kept rushing out to grab crew members from the back until half of the crew was out on the floor. It was a delight to join, but man, I could *not* keep up with their enthusiasm. By 10:00, Sean and I were pretty well done. I returned to the room first and Sean about fifteen minutes later.

The flight back to Cairo is tomorrow, but the adventure isn’t quite done. We’ll be visiting the not-quite-yet-open new Grand Egyptian Museum for a bit a sneak peak at a few of the exhibits an the grand staircase after we arrive, and then the day after is probably the busiest day of the trip. 

Saying goodbye to the beautiful Nile

But more on that tomorrow! Now to pack and get ready to say farewell to the brilliant, attentive, friendly staff and crew of the S.S. Sphinx for the last time.

Thank you for reading.