So Thankful for the Extra Time

23.03.2018 - 23.03.2018 

 

As I mentioned, we booked through a local company, and we had customized several parts of the trip. That original itinerary, however, meant that our first planned day in Egypt would be a whirlwind of activity to try and see all of Cairo in a day. With our now day-early arrival, we were able to adjust and add a few things, but it also meant that our first few days would be far less exhausting than originally planned. I was incredibly impressed with our tour company, in general, and our tour director in particular, as he was seemingly always on-line and available. It was past midnight in Egypt when we finalized our revised itinerary, which had us arriving a day early. I wrote Mohamed and within minutes he wrote back that all the arrangements had been made. During our layover in Munich, we e-mailed him asking for suggestions on how to adjust our schedule to accommodate the extra time, and by the time we landed in Cairo, an entirely updated itinerary was sitting in our inbox.

Our hotel in Cairo

Our Approximate Itinerary

View from our Room in the Morning

We all got varying degrees of sleep during the preceding night. When K, Anna, and I arrived in the lobby at 9:00am to meet our tour director and local tour guide, Barbara and Charlotte were nowhere to be found. Anna texted Charlotte, and I immediately got a text from Barbara saying there had been a problem with the time and that they'd be right down. There is a one-hour time difference between Germany and Egypt, and for some reason neither Barbara nor Charlotte's iphones had synced to the new time, so they thought they had an extra hour. It was no problem, but highlighted an interesting quirk of the iphone. Our local guide for the next two days was a Coptic Christian named Josef, and our driver was -- believe it or not -- Steve. We had the same 15-passenger van as the night before, so there was plenty of room for everyone. From the moment we met Josef, we knew that we would enjoy him. He was a certified Egyptologist, with more than 20 years experience as a guide. He was simply wonderful.

As expected, the weather was bright, sunny, and warm (if not hot). Egypt would go through an unseasonably hot spell during our visit, with temperatures about 20 degrees above normal on some days, but was not really noticeable until we reached Upper (southern) Egypt later in the trip. We started with a drive down to the ancient Egyptian capital of Memphis, and on the way Josef gave us an Egypt-101 primer on many things we'd be seeing during the course of our trip. The drive down to Memphis was along a highway in various stages of decay, and we immediately began to see the poverty in which many Egyptians live and, most striking to me, the extreme pollution throughout the country. There was trash, literally, everywhere, along with countless feral cats and dogs just roaming through the trash heaps. I know it was an eye-opening experience for both Anna and Charlotte. I'm glad both girls had an opportunity to see it firsthand.

Our Van

That's A Lot of Garlic

Along the Road to Memphis

The site at Memphis is not very large, but we got our first glimpse at some genuine ruins and it helped ease us all into the Egypt tour experience. We had our first encounters with overly pushy salesmen hawking every imaginable touristy tricket. Their stalls were overflowing with every conceivable Egyptian tchokske. Barbara and I were already familiar with the incredibly pushy and forward salesmen, but K, Charlotte and Anna all had to learn to deal with their extreme tactics. The best course of action is to simply ignore them, no matter what they say to you and or how nice they seem, but that also goes against our nature as Americans. They would immediately descend on tourists and hawk some tourist crap, and if that didn't work, they'd ask "from where you are?," and if you responded, they would tell you why they love whatever country you are from, and then again seek to lure you in. They would bark prices at you and were, simply put, relentless. They are the biggest drawback to any visit to Egypt, and it is especially sad that I don't think they realize that they hurt themselves more than help. As we would see and hear throughout the trip, competition is fierce for any sales, and tourism has yet to even approach pre-revolution levels, so people are desperate to get any money out of tourists. It was truly sad in many instances, and for many items we bought, we stopped haggling -- even though we could have done better -- simply because we realized they needed the extra few dollars more than we did.

Our guide, Josef

Memphis

From Memphis we drove out into the desert, to the town of Saqqara, with it's famous "step pyramids," which were the ancient Egyptians' first attempts at building pyramids as tombs for deceased pharaohs. We drove through a very large and lush forest of palm trees which then abruptly ended at the edge of the desert, beyond which there was only sand. There were security check points at all of the tourist sites we visited on the trip, all as part of an obvious effort to telegraph extreme measures the government is taking to keep tourists safe -- or to at least put on the biggest appearance of doing so. We would routinely pass through one or two checkpoints, manned by armed soldiers or policemen, who would check the driver's papers and then ask about the van occupants. Soldiers were also stationed at obvious points around the perimeters of most sites. How effective they might be, however, during an attack remains an open question. We laughed somewhat, too, as at the entrance to every site, would have to either have our bags physically inspected or put them through an x-ray machine, while we'd walk through metal detectors. Those inspections, however, at least for foreigners, were simply jokes. We would set off the metal detectors everytime, but were never checked, and more often than not, no one was even looking at the screens of the x-ray machines. While I'd like to think that they were profiling, and that "locals" would get far more scrutiny, I more convinced that all of the security was more for appearance sake than effectiveness. I'm not sure who they were trying to fool, however, as it would be obvious to any foreigner that the inspections were a joke.

Security Checkpoint

Saqqara

Saqqara

Saqqara was very interesting to see, and as would be the case at most sites we visited during the week, there were no crowds of tourists. At many places, we would often find ourselves as the only visitors.



I remember from my trip way back in high school that our tour included stops at "factories" making rugs, papyrus, alabaster figurines, and perfume. Well, this is obviously part of ANY itinerary to Egypt and times certainly haven't changed, as we ended up hitting everyone one of these places during our trip. The first stop was a carpet factory, ostensibly funded in part with USAID money to teach young children how to make hand-made rugs. As touristy as it was, it was interesting, too, and of course had a chance to visit the showroom and have an obligatory beverage -- usually we were offered tea, coffee, Pepsi, water, or hibiscus juice. The rugs were very, very nice, and while we had no intention of doing so, we ended up spending more than I would have liked on a rug, which is being shipped to us. In fact, it arrived the day after we returned.

Our Purchase

From here we drove back toward Giza, and made one final shopping visit to a papyrus "factory" where we witnessed a demonstration of how the paper is made. Most all of us had a chance to have a go at making papyrus. It was fun; we drank more tea and shopped, but no one made any purchases.

Making Papyrus

View From Lunch

Next stop was lunch, at a very nice Arabic restaurant directly across from the Sphinx and pyramids. Our table sat at the window overlooking the Giza plateau, which was quite something. After sitting for lunch, we all were a little tired, but we rallied and then headed over to visit the pyramid complex, which includes nine pyramids in all. Our guide and driver were able to get themselves onto the complex, which thankfully meant a lot less walking for us. We visited the three main (biggest) pyramids -- the father's, son's, and grandson's -- and then drove to the highest point, where we all boarded camels and rode a short ways into the desert for some awe-inspiring views. The air was quite hazy, and how hazy was even more apparent when we returned a week later, under better conditions, and when we realized how much further we could see without so much dust and sand in the air.

We were spent after all of this, yet somehow we agreed to make a stop at a jewelry shop, where several of the ladies purchased cartouches, which are Egyptian necklaces with your name written in hieroglyphics.

Inside the Jewelry Shop

By the time we were done here, we were all very, very tired, and we all felt dirty. We returned to the hotel for a couple hours to recharge and clean up, before heading back to the pyramids for the sound-and-light show. I vaguely remember the show from my high-school trip. While it certainly has been upgraded to a degree, it still came across as a little touristy, and all of the dust in the air meant that many of the cool light effects were not clearly visible. In addition, the wind had picked up, which not only exacerbated the dust, but which also meant that most of us were quite cold. In the end, everyone save myself and Barbara retreated behind some clear plastic sheeting in a neighboring restaurant to shield themselves from the wind.

Sound-and-Light Show

We returned to the hotel around 8:00pm, and went to one of the restaurants for some local food. During our very good and protracted dinner, we also had the opportunity to take in a belly dancing show, which was quite something. After we ate and watched the show, we all ordered "hubbly-bubbly", or "shisha" water pipes with flavored tobaccos, and had a grand time. It was quite late when we all dragged ourselves up to a our rooms, but it was a truly memorable day.

Smoking Shisha

Are They Real?