Woody in Egypt
Arriving in Cairo at night was not the best time so I spent the remaining hours of darkness sleeping on the airport floor. I then ventured into the centre of the city which heaved with a great seething mass of people and traffic, worse than any city I had previously visited. Horses and carts travelled amongst the traffic, dust and the smell of kerosene wafted through the atmosphere and the whole scene was chaos. Beggars sat on the streets with hands outstretched, the sound of the Call to Prayer came from the mosques, shopkeepers shouted out for me to visit their shops to buy something and small children offered me all kinds of goods with small plaster models of pharos being the most common.
After visiting the Cairo Museum to view their collection of mummies and artifacts and wandering through the never ending crowds of central Cairo, I caught the overnight train to Luxor which wasn’t the most comfortable experience. My seat was located immediately to the right of the door allowing people to pass from one carriage to the next. Whenever somebody opened the door I was struck on the left knee making sleep impossible. To make things worse my knees were jammed against the wall in front. Eventually I reached Luxor with aching limbs, feeling completely washed out and it took me a day to recover in a local bed and breakfast joint.
After viewing the magnificent temple of Luxor and dwarfed by the huge statues of pharos found there I hired a bicycle and peddled down to the Nile from where I caught a ferry to the other side. From there I rode to the Valley of the Kings where many of the pharos of Ancient Egypt are buried. Passing through a local village I was stoned by a group of youths but I made my escape quickly before they could pull me off my bicycle. A little further along the route I saw two huge stone figures of pharos situated each side of the road. I knew at once that I was getting close to my destination. I was told that you can sometimes hear noises coming from these gigantic statues but I heard nothing. A man dressed in a blue and white striped cloak riding a donkey was dwarfed by these figures as he passed across the road and rode towards a flock of sheep. A line of Egyptian women with their black abayas blowing in the wind walked along the side of the road with brass pots balancing on their heads. They turned away whenever they suspected I was about to take their photo.
The Valley of the Kings was a pretty desolate place with sandy hills and openings in the ground where the burial chambers of past pharos can be found. I ventured into the tombs of Tutankhamen and Ramses II and viewed the painted walls and burial chambers. The artifacts had been removed and placed in the Cairo Museum so there wasn’t much to see for my $15 entry fee. In reality it was rather disappointing.
The Valley of the Queens was a little more interesting mainly because of the impressive remains of the Palace of Nefertiti. This stood at one end of the valley and dominated the area. Little else of interest could be seen. Apart from the occasional tourist voice the area was eerily silent.
On my way back to the river I stopped in a small village to take photos and got invited into the house of a poor family for tea. Only the son could communicate with a little English while his parents spoke periodically in Arabic. A donkey stood tied up to a pole next to the hovel in which the family lived. After an hour talking to the family and eating a meal which they had provided I continued my journey back to the River Nile where I crossed into Luxor on the ferry.
Travelling farther down the Nile by train to Aswan I saw the famous dam. I then took a flight into the Nubian desert where I visited the famous temple of Abu Symbol. Situated in the desert, it had two seated figures of pharos each side of a small opening in the cliff face. The small opening led into a long, narrow winding passage that finally revealed a massive opening as big as the interior of St Paul’s Cathedral. It was worth the twenty minute flight from Aswan to view this wonder.
Travelling back to Cairo from Aswan I spent the best part of the afternoon eating sugar cane provided by a travelling local farmer as I watched agricultural life by the Nile rush pass. Time passed quickly and I was soon in Cairo and decided to visit the pyramids and Sphinx in Giza.
After being surrounded by hawkers and fraudsters I eventually allowed a guide named Ahmed to take me into the 4,000 year old Great Pyramid. The exterior was incredible with large stone blocks leading to the top of the construction and carvings of initials from the distant past still clearly visible including Latin inscriptions left by the Romans during the 1st century and those of Napoleonic French soldiers from the early 19th century. The interior of the pyramid was rather plain without much to see, only long corridors and little else but the construction itself was more than impressive. The sphinx was surprisingly smaller than I had imagined and badly eroded but I could clearly see where renovations had taken place as the disfigured face of Ramses II stared ahead from its lion’s body. Tourists periodically passed by on camel or horseback while hawkers haggled with them.
After escaping the outrageous financial demands of Ahmed who had originally told me that his guide services were free, I took a camel ride across the desert to Memphis. This took almost two hours and the boat like motion of the animal from one side to the other and half a bottle of whisky left me in a happy mood. I took a boat ride to photograph the temple in Memphis and also visited the Step Pyramid of Sakkara.
After less than a day in Giza and Memphis I travelled up to Suez to see the famous Canal surrounded by bullet riddled buildings left over from the 1967 Israeli-Arab war. The canal with ships passing through was quite a sight. When standing about 50 yards back an optical illusion made the ships appear to be gliding through the desert like a gigantic mirage. During a conversation with the Egyptian operator who opened and closed the canal I was invited to meet his family and have a meal. As it is considered rude to turn down an invitation in the Arab world I accepted and soon found myself shaking hands with members of his family in a suburban house not far from the canal.
During the process of talking to the family the man’s wife entered the room holding a live white chicken by the legs. It was flapping its wings. I was asked if I would like this for my meal. I nodded and within an hour the unfortunate bird was being served up on plates with vegetables to the gathered throng which totalled about sixteen people. After the meal my host gave a speech in Arabic then with the eyes of all those gathered fixed upon me asked if I could contribute twenty dollars for the meal. Shocked, I considered his request outrageous but I found myself in an almost impossible situation. Realizing that I had been tricked by a calculated psychological ploy, I still handed over a twenty dollar bill and thanked the family for their generosity with an awkward feeling and a desire to leave as quickly as possible.
Reflecting on a trip that was historically and culturally fascinating, I made my way back to England after spending a little more than two weeks wandering around Egypt.
