After finishing up in Vic Falls, we decided to head to Egypt. Although we usually prefer to do our own thing and operate out of rental houses by ourselves, we decided that, based on the current situation in the Middle East, it would be safer in a group. We booked with a tour group that would pick us up at the airport, drag us to all the sites, and then drop us off at the airport at the end. Our tour guide happened to be an Egyptologist with several college degrees, which was pretty cool.
The day after we arrived, we visited Pompeii's pillar and some ancient Egyptian catacombs. The catacombs were amazing. It was found when a donkey that was walking along fell into a hole in the ground, where the catacombs were hidden. The catacombs started with a long spiraling staircase that wound around a central pit where coffins were lowered down. Then, you turned off into a sort of antechamber that had passages leading off in several directions. The first pit/shaft continued lower than where you turned off and leading out of it was a coffin shaped tunnel. This tunnel led through the ground and through a second shaft in the antechamber. It continued for a while before ending near the center of the burial area. Coffins would be lowered down the main shaft and then dragged through the tunnel until reaching their destination. Then they would be lifted out and dragged into their slot. The catacombs were for a ruler, which could be deduced by the images of a man with a crown in the family burial room. The family burial room was a medium sized room, about the size of a large bedroom, and fully decorated with carved scenes from the afterlife. One wall was the door, and the other three has sarcophagi built into them. Only, there was a secret. The lids on the sarcophagus weren’t lids. They were part of the sarcophagus! The secret was revealed later when we went into the common burial area, which was just coffin shaped slots in the wall, for the rulers friends and family. There, our guide showed us a small tunnel in the ground that led to the inside of the lid-less sarcophagi The coffins were inserted into their sarcophagus and than the passage was sealed to thwart grave-robbers. We also saw another less lavishly decorated family room that just had regular lids. (The owners were less rich). The family room had three sarcophagi, one for the wife, husband, and firstborn son.
The catacombs were massive and 100% carved out of the underground stone. There was also a dining room about the size of a large garage that the family would have a meal in to spend time with deceased loved ones.
One thing that has been in the news lately is the Grand Egyptian Museum. The museum is setting the record for the world's biggest archeological museum- and we got to visit it before it even opened! Our tour company made a deal with the government so that we could visit before it opened to the public, and it was amazing! We didn’t see the whole thing because it was too big and the entire thing wasn’t open yet, but even just the fraction that was open was big enough to spend a week examining. We saw a massive statue of a pharaoh, a crocodile mummy, and a gallery of amazing statues that, as the archeologist explained, were a huge mystery because the tools that were discovered were not strong enough to cut the stone of the statues. The grand Egyptian museum was amazing, but it was nothing compared to what we saw next. Unfortunately we were unable to take photos, but you can find photos on the internet. We went to the old Egyptian museum and saw the most famous artifacts in Egypt. First, we saw the solid silver coffin of Pharaoh Psusennes, which, to the Egyptians, was even more valuable than one of solid gold, because silver was rarer in ancient Egypt. Then we saw the coolest thing ever- Tutemkanenn’s treasure. It was spectacular. The room was gleaming with gold everywhere. The jewelry was of simply amazing craftsmanship, and there was enough of it to -regardless of historical value- buy just about whatever you wanted. We saw all his jewelry, his beautiful funerary mask, his alabaster organ box, his solid gold and gold plated coffins, and my favorite- a knife made with meteor gold. It was by far the most beautiful knife I have ever seen. The place was spectacular and it was amazing to see it all in person after my whole life hearing about it in documentaries and such. It was one of the coolest things I have ever seen.
On the next day, we went on a trip to Giza. Our guide explained about the pyramids for a while and then we went in. We decided to do the walk inside the pyramid, so he took us to the entrance and told us to follow the instructions of the security dudes inside. First, you walked down the tunnel that grave robbers had started and archaeologists had finished. Then, you came to the point where the tunnel intersected with the original passage. Then we followed a steep corridor with a low ceiling that led to the main gallery. It was great but it could have been improved by some fans because it smelled terrible and it was hot and steamy from all the sweaty tourists. The main gallery was a huge narrow tunnel with a super high ceiling that slanted steeply upward. Then at the top you arrived at a passage that alternated high and low ceilings. After following this for a while, you arrived at the burial chamber, which was a huge rectangular room about the size of a small house. It was empty except for the massive stone sarcophagus at one end of the room. There were some fans in a corner attempting futilely to cool down the steam bath. There was also a fan that had been arranged so as to suck air down the shaft designed to let the pharaoh's soul come and go. After we were done sweating, we squeezed back down through the mob of smelly tourists and back outside. Then we walked around the pyramid and back to the bus. The bus then took us to a photo spot and then to the sphinx. The sphinx was supposedly just a huge lump of stone they had been doing while clearing the Giza plateau to make way for the pyramids. The pharaoh had decided to carve into a guardian for the tombs. There are several theories to explain the sphinx but that is the only one I can think of at the moment. There are also several theories as to why its nose is so mangled, ranging from erosion by tourists to sandstorms to Napoleon shooting it in the face because he was grumpy. We then visited a papyrus shop where they explained the process of its creation and how to tell it apart from fake papyrus (banana leaf paper). Then we went back to our hotel, picked up our luggage and headed to the station to get on a 40 year old sleeper train, where we spent the night.
After we got off the sleeper train, we went to a temple that I can’t remember well enough to write about, then to a local market. The day after that, we went on a camel ride to an old monastery. Then we went to elephantine island, which I also can’t remember well enough to write about. After that, we hung around the hotel for a while before going and getting on our felucca. A felucca is a type of sailboat that was used by ancient Egyptians and is still in common use today. The felucca has a sort of short and wide hull and a very tall mast. Ours also had a bathroom and the deck was covered in mats. We were also accompanied by a large tugboat that ended up pulling us the whole way because the wind was too strong, and was also used to store luggage and as our dining room. We got on the tugboat and had lunch, and then we set not-sail. We tugged along for a while, and then Tim and I got bored so we found a nice way to annoy our parents. One of us climbed onto the roof and knocked on the roof above them while the other crawled under the deck and knocked below them. After a while we stopped and tied up on shore. We went and looked at a traditional Nubian home and my mom got henna. I wanted to get a tattoo of a potato but my dad wouldn’t let me. Then we went back and had lunch before we went to bed. We got up the next morning and had bekfast before docking and getting off in Luxor.
We visited some other temples and then split off from our group to go to the Red Sea . On the way we visited by far everyone’s favorite temple that had well preserved paintings and carvings and secret stairways and catacombs. Then we drove on to the Red Sea where we went diving and swimming and just relaxed on the beach for a few days. After that we headed back to Cairo to fly to Greece. We decided that we would spend our last night in Egypt at a whirling dervish show. We spent an hour or two roaming the mazes of the Egyptian markets until we found our way to the show. Then my dad and I wandered out again to find some food. We ended up just gettin a few kilos of fresh dates (cheap, plentiful, and delicious in Egypt) and then we sat and watched the show. The show was mostly music, where individual players would take turns coming to the front and dancing around. Our favorite player was a man with castanets who made funny faces and annoyed other musicians with his antics and attention hogging. After an hour of music, the dervishes came out and did complicated dances with their huge heavy skirts. I am unable to go into too much detail because it has been a while, but it was a lot of fun.
Notable Quotables:
Carol: If Egypt is a mostly muslim country, why do they produce so much wine? Guide: Well we have christians.
Carol: It's like they painted lines on their roads because they saw them in a movie and thought they should have them, but don't know what they are for. (Referring to crazy Egyptian driving, at one point we counted 9 cars abreast on a 3 lane highway)
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