March 30 Goodbye Third World ..Hello Europe

We leave Luxor bright + early to catch our plane to Rome. On the way to the airport we see our last donkey carts.
We arrive in Cairo for an 8 hour layover. You would think there would be something to do. We did not know security there would be tight as a drum. We can't even get into the departure concourse until 3 hours before flight time! Guess where all the shops, restaurants and bathrooms are. Our luggage is x-rayed 3 times before we board. Oh well this has been pretty much a lost day. We get to Rome on time. We knew it was going to be expensive but this is insane. The cab ride to go one mile was $30. Breakfast (if we ate in the hotel) would be $70. We luck out and find a great little restaurant around the corner where prices are within reason. Our hotel is in a beautiful section of Rome just outside the Borghese Park.. This is a picture of the gate to the park at night.
Ted Northrup
704-332-5557
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March 29 Carnak Temple + cab ride

On Saturday we explored the Great Temple of Carnak. This was something I thought Johnny Carson invented. Turns out he took it from the Egyptians. This is the first temple we've been to that is large enough to get lost in. One section is larger than a cathedral with 138 columns 75 feet high and 6 feet in diameter. It is blazing hot today and we see one woman being dragged out after succumbing to the heat. The Temple is filled with bus after bus of European tourists

After Carnak, we went to a "Papyrus House" where they sell Egyptian artwork on papyrus. We bought some artwork and got to know the salesman pretty well. He asked us where we were going next and I told him McDonald's. OK. That's not very adventurous, but I wanted a milkshake in the worst way. He said he was going home and invited us to ride in a cab with him and he would drop us off at McDonalds. It turns out there are special cabs for the locals. They are a hybrid between a bus and a cab. They are a mini-van with four rows of seats that run a consistent route. People hop in and out thru the open sliding door and pass the driver a pound. (About a quarter) True to his word he dropped us off right in front of Micky D's and paid for our ride too.

One thing about Egypt is that it is still a cash oriented society. Our hotel wanted to be paid in cash. It took us about half an hour to find a machine that would cough up 1500 pounds. By that time we decided to forego the Felucca ride or the camel ride and just go back to the hotel for dinner.

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March 28 - Valley of the Kings

The day starts early with a wake-up call at 5AM. We are planning to take a hot-air balloon at sunrise through the Valley of the Kings. This is the valley where many of the Pharoahs had their tombs. As we pulled up to the field upwind of the valley, we saw dozens of ballons ready for take-off. Some are 6 passenger baskets, others are 12 passenger baskets. Luckily, ours is just six. We are amazed as the pilot lifts off and times our travel just right to float right over a major temple. The sky is filled with antiquity and a couple of dozen balloons. Some comment is made about fear of heights and thinking it was a joke I make the statement "nobody with a fear of heights has any business in a balloon". How does that foot taste Ted? The lady in front of me is gripping the edge of the basket with white knuckles because she's afraid of heights! We make a very graceful landing in the desert a couple of miles downwind. Here's the ground crew helping Patrice out of the basket.

Our next stop is King Tut's tomb. Here's the thing, almost all these tombs are completely bare. the sarcaghagous and riches have all been moved to museums. (like the one we saw in Cairo) Still, the design of the tombs and the well preserved paintings and hieroghyphics are worth seeing. Here is our guide Mohammed.

After going most of the way around the world I think I can say that the Egyptians are better than anyone else in the world at parting Westerners from their money. They have really raised it from a technique to an art form. If you go to any of these sites without a guide you are mobbed by people selling their wares. If you DO have a guide, you are spared the constant barrage, but inevitably end up at "a nice clean place to use the bathroom and get a cool drink". It turns out to be a nice store of a friend of the guide. OK, we are not immune to needing the bathroom so guess who's bringing yet another souvenir home. Here is our host and master salesman, Akmed.

Our last stop today is the tomb of Queen Hatchepsut. (pronounced Hat Cheap Suit) She is one of the few female Pharoahs and Patrice is keen to see how she pulled it off. It's a long story, but it has something to do with marrying her half-brother.

Her tomb has been restored and is really interesting to explore.

March 27 to Luxor

We are thrilled that our second EgyptAir flight is on time and uneventful. We are met at the airport by a driver who's nickname is Shakespeare. He's never read any Shakespeare, but knows the quote, "two beers or not two beers, that is the question". He takes us to a little hotel (El Nakil) that is tucked away in a small village across the Nile from Luxor. It has a funky driveway between some old houses. This what greets us on the driveway.....

But once inside the hotel compound it's actually quite nice. Here's a picture outside our door.

After we get settled we grab the ferry across the Nile to Luxor. We are almost the only Westerners on it.

From the ferry it's an easy walk to the Luxor Temple. This temple was built for Rameses the Great. The columns tower 80 feet high. After exploring the temple we took the ferry back to our hotel

and saw all the feluccas taking tourists for a ride.

We had dinner on the terrace and saw this beautiful sunset.



Ted Northrup

March 26 The Pyramids or Tales from the Crypt

This day may have been one of the most exciting and interesting days on our trip. One thing we did right was to arrange for a guide from our hotel. We really got the hook-up. Our "guide" was a retired archeologist who had actually done some of the research at one of the sights we visited. Her name is Salwa and she made for a great traveling companion the whole day. There were great discussions not only of events 4500 years ago but modern day events from the Arab perspective which was something I wanted to hear. She took us to 3 sights, Memphis, Sakkura and the Great Pyramids. More importantly, she took us to a great place for lunch but more about that later. Memphis was interesting because we saw the large statue of Ramses The Great while Salwa filled us in on interesting stories about Ramses family.


Along the road, Patrice took a lot of pictures of typical Egyptian farm life. The overwhelming part of the population are still farmers. She thought this guy looked particularly colorful.

Our next stop was Sakkura. It is the home of the oldest pyramids in Egypt. The best pictures here are actually short movie clips taken inside the tomb. We were surprised to learn that all the tombs, except Cheops, are actually below the pyramids. In Sakkura, you can actually go down, down inside the crypt. I really felt like Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Tomb. The entrance was 3 feet wide and 4 feet high. It went down at a 45 degree slant so the floor actually had rungs that served as a sort of ladder. When inside theres a little guard in there that puts his fingers to his lips and then motions to give him your camera. He was really chapped when he found out all I had on me was 2 Egyptian pounds.
The other cool thing at Sakkura was seeing all the hieroglyphics that depicted everyday life. I was shocked that you can actually touch writing that is over 4000 years old. Of course it really helped to have Salwa along to point it out, but the meaning of the writing became very clear.


At the end of the day we visited the Great Pyramids. One of the things I didn't realize was how big the individual stones were that made these pyramids. When you look from a distance they all blend together. Each stone came up to my waist. You can go inside Cheops too, but its an extra $20 and I have had enough crypt crawling at this point. Finally, Salwa took us to this vantage point to get pictures. You really get a feeling of being in the desert when you are at this site. Unlike our deserts it is a very fine sand and it gets in everything.

But... what might be the high point of the day was actually lunch. Between Sakkura and Cheops, she took us to a garden restaurant that had a tame lion cub. There is nothing like holding a lion in your hands. This little kitty was heavy too. Thankfully, he is only 3 months old. his owner told us that by the time he is a year old, he will have to go to the zoo. I held him and petted him but never let myself forget that this is a lion. As you can see, Patrice was a little less apprehensive.

March 26 Supp. Shakedown

There's a thin line between adventure and risk. We might have crossed it tonight. We arranged to visit a local Rotary Club in Cairo. Its' meeting place was suddenly changed to a restaurant in downtown Cairo. We gave the address to the cab driver who proceeded to take us to downtown Cairo.
He let us out on a busy street, We discovered that the restaurant had moved. We wandered up and down a few streets when a stranger came up and offered us his assistance. He said he knew where it was and was willing to walk us to it. After a block or two we smelled a rat, told him we were too late for the meeting and did a 180! Was he setting us up or trying to be nice? You be the judge.
Ted Northrup
704-332-5557
www.mapshop.com

March 25 - Mummy I want to come home

The weather was forecast hot today, so we decided this would be a good day to do the Egyptian Museum. This contains the largest collection of ancient Egyptian art and mummies in the world. King Tut taught me one thing... you can't take it with you. After a while you do get AEO (Ancient Egyptian Overload). The artifacts themselves are fascinating but th museum itself is kinda dingy. I could not take many pictures and the mummies themselves are kinda creepy.




Our next stop was the Khan El Khanlili, the ancient market that is supposed to typify old Cairo. There were hundreds, maybe a thousand stalls there. Vendors were there hawking all kinds of wares; cloth, copies of Egyptian antiquities, and as usual everything is negotiable. We bought a small Egyptian cat there. The market also contained Cairo's oldest coffee house, El Fishay. We had some strong Egyptian tea there and saw men smoking their "hubbly bubbly" water pipes. On top of the burning tobacco they put little white rocks. I did not ask what they were.

The last shot is of the Egyptian Museum at sunset.