Back from Cairo

We returned from our trip to Egypt around the end of December. We decided to do this all-inclusive tour because our friend Orrie did it last year and really loved it. He travels a LOT and said it may have been his best trip ever. We travel a lot, too, but I've never done anything in the exotic all-inclusive department like this so what the hell and it was pretty cheap. We got to New York and flew directly to Cairo from JFK. We upgraded to Business class but the Egypt Air planes are so old it wasn't what I'd call glamorous. Plus, they serve NO ALCOHOL. Did you get that? NO ALCOHOL for a flight lasting eleven and one half hours. There was a First class section but the only people up there seemed to be family and friends of the pilots.

The tour company rep met us at the airport, there was a big crowd of us there. Hector and I looked around our group and it was ALL old white people. The tour people collected all our luggage, which was no easy task, and off we went. Our hotel was really nice, the Cairo Marriott, located on the island of Zamalek. It was built as a guest house for the Empress Eugenie for the opening of the Suez Canal. It's come down a little in the world and now it's a Marriott. We didn't like our room and they quietly moved us. But the hotel was busy 24 hours a day, full of Saudi sheikhs and exotic women covered head to toe.

Next morning they corralled all 132 of us into one of the ballrooms and gave us some stern instructions about always sticking with the group, watching our step because this is Egypt, not Omaha, and the temple floors are all uneven. As we looked around we saw were in for a lot of falling and wandering off. Next we divided into 4 groups that would be our permanent travel groups for the duration. And we got the nicest guide (they prefer the title Tour Director), Basem, although not the cutest one. That was Attia.

Then we went over to the Egyptian Museum, which is a wonderful old building straight out of Indiana Jones. But it's in need of some serious attention. It's crumbling, has broken-out windows and no one has dusted anything above eye level in years. Unlike other countries, the proceeds from the admission tickets do not automatically go for the upkeep of the museum. They go into somebody's pocket farther up in the government and are never seen again. So here's this fabulous collection of some of the most incredible artifacts in the world and most of them are almost completely unprotected. Well, a number of the more important items are screened behind plexiglass and certainly all the extraordinary King Tut artifacts are well protected. But there were initials carved into the feet of the some of the pharoah statues, and not ancient initials, either. Grimy handprints, things crowded together. About half of the items had a faded, descriptive index card that looked like it was typed on Howard Carter's Olivetti. I looked under a stairway and there were some ancient tablets just lying in a corner. However, having said all that, it really was an incredible experience and I have to say that the air of dilapidation made it more fun, as though I really was in an Indiana Jones movie.

The next morning VERY early we caught a plane for Luxor to board our boat, the Anuket. This was to be our home for the next week. The ship was very comfortable, although small. It held about 140 passengers and 75 crew members. 4 floors with a very flat bottom because the Nile River isn't very deep. Our cabin was larger than I expected, 2 beds with a private bathroom but best of all, huge windows that opened like a sliding door with an absolutely fantastic view. We began our cruise and it was sheer heaven, gliding past tiny villages and green farmland. Little children ran to the bank, waving and shouting English phrases like "Hello" and "What's your name?" Everyone was very friendly to us, which was a bit of a surprise since there was a machine gun mounted on the back of the ship and armed guards with us everywhere we went. In fact, all of the Egyptians were warm and curious. But the Egyptian government is trying very hard to encourage more American tourism, we account only for a small percentage of overall tourism there.

To save space here I won't go into detail over each and every temple and tomb we visited that week. But we saw Abydos, Dendera, the Temple of Luxor, Karnak, Valleys of the Kings and Queens, Edfu, Kom Ombo, Philae and Abu Simbel. And at each and every one someone tripped and fell and had to be hauled back to the ship or wandered off and got lost.

Although each site was distinct with it's own wonderful story, I must say I enjoyed Karnak best. It's sheer size was overpowering. We returned to see it at night and it was just as impressive. We visited small villages and local markets and got a lesson on proper bargaining techniques, which seemed more obligatory than anything else. In a country as poor as Egypt what is the point of bargaining from 50 cents down to 25 cents? We did learn that if a merchant is really hassling you and you want to shake them, just speak Spanish to them. They won't waste much time with you since it is quite well known that the Spanish are cheap. This is not my own opinion but merely what I was told by the guides.

One night we were waiting our turn at a lock on the river. A lot of us were up on the top deck watching the action, when we began to hear voices from below shouting "hello! hello!" and suddenly small missiles came whizzing past our heads and plopping on the deck like tear gas canisters. It seems that merchants will sail out to the waiting tourist ships to sell their wares. They throw things up at you wrapped in a plastic bag; say a scarf or one of those robes they all wear, called a galibea- you just open the bag and look at the merchandise, lean over the edge and haggle with them a bit, then if you agree on a price, they throw up a second bag and you put the money in and pitch it back down. And it doesn't matter if you hit the wrong boat or don't even hit a boat. They all know whose is what and it's great fun.

After a lovely week on the boat we got up VERY early one morning to catch our plane from Aswan back to Cairo, where we were to spend a few more days. Oh, did I mention that I got deathly ill on the cruise? There was a bronchial infection going around the boat, all the seniors were hacking and wheezing the whole time and I finally caught it. I had a fever for 2 days and Basem brought a doctor on board the ship (that was a novel experience). He poked around on me, gave me some medicine and I started getting better. So, now back in Cairo and having recovered from our initial timidity, we took long walks around the island and went to restaurants away from the group to have dinner and took advantage of the nice spa and massage facilities at the hotel.

Our next-to-last day we finally went to Giza. It was the highlight of the entire trip, the pyramids and the sphinx are just as impressive in person as they are on NOVA. We took thousands of photos. I rode a camel; a flea-bitten, pathetic, wreck of a beast. I just did it for the photo op and regretted every second of it. It is inconceivable that there could be as many tourists in one spot as there were at Giza that day. You could wait hours to get a good photo of yourself without throngs of other people in it (see photo above). Plus, this was a big surprise, the city of Cairo comes right up to the very edge of the Giza Plateau. So instead of greeting the vast desert by the dawn light like he did in the old days, the Sphinx now greets a Burger King.

One thing about wandering around Cairo alone: the streets are deathtraps. Our first day, Basem told us to never, never cross the street alone. Wait until you see an Egyptian crossing the street then cross right next to him. That way he will get hit before you. They don't bother with putting lines on the pavement, the traffic signals mean absolutely nothing, and if you do get hit they will just keep running over you rather than stop. Two separate people on our tour told us they had friends who were killed in traffic accidents in Cairo.

On our last day most of the group took a day trip to Alexandria but we decided to go instead with Freddie, an Egyptian friend, to the Red Sea. He owns a condo there in a community below the Suez Canal. It took about 2 hours and it was like driving on the moon. There's nothing, nothing growing. It's miles and miles of brown dirt with huge billboards of President Scary Mubarak all over the place. Freddie's condo was very comfortable and the Red Sea was just beautiful. Blue. We had lunch and drove back. Next day Basem asked us what we had done on our day off and he just about fainted when we told him we went off on our own to visit the Red Sea.