Finally, the Pyramids

Yes, we did eventually make it to the pyramids, on our second-to-last day in Egypt:



I must say, with the first glance as we were entering the pyramid complex, I felt a little like we were entering an amusement park - some addition to Universal Studios, I suppose.



It's not until you're right up against them that you really get a sense of how massive they are. And you're simply struck for a moment. Wow.


And then you turn the corner and you see the self-proclaimed "Dr. Photo," who looks suspiciously like an armed policeman holding both a large weapon and a camera, as he directs a lady, "Okay, move your arm a little higher, higher, there. Now smile!" And you have to wonder if she's really going to have a photo of herself touching the top once she gets the roll developed...

We were lucky to get into the pyramid complex just before it was technically open, such that we were allowed to climb into the Great Pyramid without the typical claustrophobia-inducing nightmare of inching up the tight shafts behind hundreds of other crouched and inching tourists on the way to the main chamber.

After taking a round of photos in front of it, we worked our way to the second pyramid and hired a camel named Columbus out to a hill with a view of the pyramids nicely aligned. J was trapped into buying some soft drinks and the camel driver didn't exactly get us all the way to the Sphinx as promised, but we checked the experience off our lists and were thankful the ride hadn't been much longer.

I'm still not sure what to make of the Sphinx, and it seems I'm not the only one- no one really knows why it was built. It's really an odd sight to see - interesting, impressive, and a bit bizarre (and maybe even a little kitch?) all at the same time. It's much closer to the pyramids and smaller than I had imagined.



From Giza we moved on to Sakkara to see the Step Pyramind (precursor to the pyramids),








and from there to Dashur for the Bent and Red Pyramids. Dashur is something of a military zone, and so we had a miliary escort in the vehicle with us. The Bent Pyramid, which I was perhaps most interested in seeing, is off limits, so we had to take our photos from a distance. It was something of a"practice" pyramid. You can see the base that was built at a steeper angle than the rest. As far as they can tell, it didn't seem sufficiently stable, so the angle was adjusted to that of the top half. The second angle was then used for the Red Pyramid - the first of its style - and then the rest of the pyramids.

Palm Trees and Seashells in the Desert?

Looking back now, I can't believe I ever even considered skipping the Siwa Oasis, worrying that it was too far away and that we wouldn't have enough time there to make it worth the distance.

I think the day at the Siwa Oasis was probably my favorite day. The previous morning we got an 8:30am bus from Alex that followed the coast of the Mediterranean until Marsa Matruh and then made a left turn South toward Siwa. The landscape between Marsa Matruh and Siwa was not much to speak of until we were quite close, when suddenly mountains of sedimentary rock would appear here and there. Just after sunset, there was no doubting the fact that we were in the middle of the oasis and its 330,000 palm trees. After finding a hotel and dinner with a pair of new Japanese friends, we went quickly to sleep. Up early, we headed first to the tombs at Gebel al Mawta. We hopped on the back of an already-overloaded pick-up truck, greeted by locals trying to discourage us. One of us was quite hesitant in the matter (I’ll let you guess which one!), but we were able to hop off at the tombs without any problems.

Then for the rest of the morning, we hired a donkey cart and the three boys that accompanied it. Enjoying the day off of school, it seems that the father of one them lent them the use of his slowest donkey to earn a little cash. Fortunately, we were in no hurry, as the only time the donkey seemed to move faster than we might have walked ourselves was when the shade was quite close in front of us.

Stop One was the Temple of the Oracle, where Alexander the Great himself had come to consult the oracle and enjoy a little rest and relaxation- not too much left to see at this point.





















Next we headed to what I kept understanding as "Kilbatra." I'm embarrassed to admit that not until I actually saw the sign for "Cleopatra's bath" did I realize what they were saying. The boys quickly jumped in, and J and I were quite content to sip some Karkadee tea and watch.


Finally, we headed up to Gebel Dakrur. The mountain was a what was left of the wind-eroded sedimentary rock, and the most common sight on the way up was the boys shouting down at me, "Come on, Angeli, come on!"

Still, every effort was worth it once we could see the entire oasis from the top. As we made it to the second peak, the smallest boy brought me what looked like a handful of rocks. On closer inspection, they were clearly fossils of seashells, and they could be found all over the top! Who would have guessed that we were climbing up to what had once been on the ocean floor?

The afternoon presented us with a safari in the Great Sand Sea. With nothing but giant sand dunes as far as the eye could see, our driver quite successfully did his best to elicit squeals as he took us up angles I was sure would leave us tumbling backwards (okay, only one of us was squealing...). So much fun! J, always braver than I, rode up on top of the vehicle for a bit. After I saw that it didn't kill him, I joined him for a while and really enjoyed it. We stopped once for a chance to run, leap, scramble, and dive down the dunes and again later to catch the sunset. If I hadn't already covered my pants in tar in Luxor, I might have been more concerned about the large amounts of sand that I just couldn't seem to get rid of...

Other treats on the trip included both a cold and a hot freshwater spring, and another heap of fossils seemingly in the middle of nowhere.












That night we climbed through the ruins of Shali (top photo), an old salt-and-mud built fortress that hadn't held up well to heavy rains in the 1926. Mother Nature accomplished in three days what invadors hadn't in six centuries. In the main square, however, there is a rendition of what it was said to have looked like:

Alexandria

On our way from Dahab to the Siwa Oasis, we stopped a day in Alexandria. Much less touristic than anywhere else we visited, Alex is definitely a city with an eye on business. Famous for its ancient library, most of old Alex is six meters beneath the current city. When materials of interest are found during rebuilding projects, archeologists must fight to be allowed time to explore or preserve, and so much of the current excavation occurs in the Mediterranean Sea.






A new library was built in 2002, a tribute to the ancient one:

Mount Sinai

The traditional way to visit Mount Sinai is to trek up in the wee hours to catch the sunrise view. So we piled into the minibus with our posse at midnight, trying to sleep just a little during the two-hour ride. When we arrived, we met our bedouin guide Hassan, who insisted on calling us "Dahab Group" despite our best attempt to go by "Killer Cobras." We would follow the "camel path," the gentler of the two ways to the top. J and a few of the guys initially wanted to hire camels for the climb, but we talked them out of it, and a 30-minute ride later in the trip proved it to be the wiser (less painful) choice.

I think the climb took about three hours, though I really lost track of time. As it got colder and colder (between elevation changes and desert climate), I wished I hadn't forgotten my sweater in Cairo while feeling thankful J had loaned me an extra shirt, but they cheered me on with the promise of blankets available for rent up at the top. In retrospect, the ideal system would be to wear several layers (and gloves!) starting in the beginning, shedding most of them after warming up with the hike to avoid sweating, and adding more again as it gets colder, especially at the top.

Have I mentioned the killer cough and insufficient clothing enough? And J wasn't feeling so well either. We were quite a pair, neither of us certain we would live to post pictures of the event. Still, our twenty-something-ness got the best of us, and for the sake of not having to wait for the seventy-somethings, more than a few times we were scrambling up places not really meant for scrambling up. All the while we were calling out "Dahab Groub? Killer Cobras? Killer Cobras!"

Nearing the top, we enjoyed a hot tea, rented a blanket and a pad to sit on, and moved toward the top to find a spot with a good view. And then we waited. And waited. And dozed. And coughed. And waited. And even with the blanket, I thought I was going to freeze to death. Then the sun started to come up from behind the rows and rows of mountains, and the view was enough to make me forget that I couldn't feel my fingers or toes.


On the way down, we took the second path - the Steps of Penance - set by a monk at St. Kat's Monastery and definitely steeper than the camel path up. Taking the road less traveled offered the advantages of fewer crowds and the ability to set our own pace, though fatigued muscles led to a few slips and trips by the end. Reaching the monastery at the bottom, we went inside to see the burning bush*, which - if I may say so - was a little underwhelming but still not to be missed if you're going to the trouble of climbing up and down the mountain.

*Disclaimer: said bush claims to be a descendent of the original burning bush. Note that the bush, pictured here, is not burning, nor does it change colors, nor do much else of interest. One hopes that said bush may bloom red, orange, and yellow at some time of year, but the present visitor witnessed no such phenomenon.

Transportation Bingo

As I'm standing in the women's line for subway tickets, you can see here the beginning of what we would eventually begin to call "transportation bingo."


By the end of the trip, we had gone by airplane, foot, flippers,
subway, car,




pick-up, Jeep, taxi (including one with a meter), bus,





minibus, microbus,
train, tram, rowboat, sailboat,

ferry, cruise ship, carriage, donkey cart,

and camel.

Seeing the Red Sea

Finally temple-saturated, we opted for a change of pace, and oh-so-mellow Dahab was the perfect location. Situated on the Red Sea to the north and east of Sharm El Sheik, Dahab is much less of a high-end tourist destination than Sharm while still boasting great opportunities for underwater exploration and endless excursions.
The day or two I thought we'd spend there quickly turned into four or five, as Dahab became our comfortable and practical home base for snorkeling/diving and our trek to Mt. Sinai.


Dahab was also the place of making and leaving friends, as nearly all who had traveled with us up to that point ended up there for at least a few days before splitting off in their own directions. We also met a great new group during our various activities, and a "the more the merrier" policy led to a very merry time.


I did two snorkeling trips - to the Blue Hole and a few other spots. The fish and coral varieties were amazing, but I could only stay in for so long before jumping out for some hot mint tea. It's a bit chilly in November! J took some longer dive trips, including an overnight to Ras Mohammed National Park, rated the 2nd best diving in the world. I should have read up earlier and gotten my certification!

Temple Trail

Most of the first week we devoted to the cities with all the temples and tombs - the famous parts of ancient Egypt short of the pyramids. I left this section to last, and it seems I've run out of steam... But the short version that won't communicate amazing I found it all to be:

From Aswan the first night, we caught the police convoy (no other choice) at 4am down to Abu Simbel near the Sudanese border, and by early afternoon we had come back to the island of Philae near the Aswan Dam. The temples at both locations had been moved (no easy task) when the dam caused their original sites to be submerged by Lake Nasser. After a couple of days in Aswan, we took an overnight felucca cruise up the Nile to Kom Ombo (more temples), and a bus to Luxor - the old Thebes (many, many more temples and tombs)...

Photos from Abu Simbel, Philae, Kom Ombo, and Luxor...