cairo December 31, 2008
When our five hour mini bus ride arrived in Cairo we court the metro to our hotel.
We organized a tour for tomorrow where we went to the pyramids of Giza. They were great to look at. We were allowed to clime on them to a certain point. It was the Cheops pyramid. Witch is the tallest one of them all and the one that you can go inside. We didn’t go because it is better inside the Saqqara pyramids.
We drove to a distant area to look at them from a better angle. Next was the Great pyramid, the second tallest. It was said to one have been covered in gleaming lime stone but the top of the pyramid was once covered in 90 % silver and 10 % gold.
Then there was the smaller pyramid, Menkaure and three smaller pyramids for family members.
W drove to the pyramids of Dashour. We saw a bent pyramid that the architects mucked up. The king thought that it wasn’t good enough so they had to build an other one.
And that’s the one we went inside. First we climbed up about a quarter of the way up the
pyramid then we went through a tunnel that you had to duck your head to walk along. As we went down the tunnel further and further it began to get hot and by the time we were in the tomb we were taking lots of layers of clothes off.
We came to a chamber about 5 meters high in perfect condition. We walked on a bit then went up a stair case and came to a tomb. We took a photo even though we weren’t supposed to. When we came back out we put on all our jumpers again because it was freezing outside, witch is strange for Egypt. But it is winter.
We drove to the last pyramid. That was a step pyramid, the first ever pyramid in the world. We went into a nearby tomb that had some brilliant hieroglyphics and Egyptian paintings.
The next day was Christmas. We spent a bit of time in our hotel room giving each
other presents. I got a nice shell box, a bar of chocolate and a toothbrush. Freya got some perfume bottles and a papyrus paint kit. I couldn’t find anything for mum and dad so I just gave them a drawing that I did. In the afternoon we went to the souk at Khan al-Khalili in the middle of Islamic Cairo. There were a lot of markets and every 2 seconds somebody would jump out into your way and tell you “hey boy you come to my shop very good quality, my shop cheap, cheap for you boy. Come in come in just looking”. At the market I got a pharaonic chess set, my main Christmas present. It weighed about 4 kg so I put it in dads pack for him to carry.
We walked on and came to this guy who offered us to go up the minaret of a very old mosque. We new it was one of those scams for money but we did it anyway. When we got up to the top he said “ok this is top secret no tell any one ok” then he hurried us down because it was nearly call to prayer time and that would have blasted our ears out!
Back at our hotel and organized a boat trip on the Nile with a meal and belly dancers and whirling dervishes. The belly dancer was average but the whirling dervish was very entertaining.
The next day we went to the Cairo museum witch was huge but the best parts were the section with the things they found in tootin’carhorn (tutenkahmen’s) tomb. Lots of gold. I liked his throne the best. We also visited the mummy room. There were 8 gruesome mummies, some with hair. One king had a hole in his head because he had been hit in a fight.
Then we had a bit of a walk around Coptic Cairo as well. A place for the Christians in Cairo. There were some very old churches and we saw some kids practicing singing for the Egyptian Christmas which is the 7th January.
Early next day we went to the metro to catch the train to Luxor.
Winton
siwa and the western desert December 29, 2008
Siwa is the sort of place that looks good on the map. It is an oasis way out in the Western Desert. Reading about it confirmed my desire to get there. The family is not big on long bus trips but we did allow time in the itinerary to make the journey. From Alex it was a 8 hours by bus, firstly along the Mediterranean, through El Alamein then at Matruh south to Siwa, only 50 kilometers from the Libyan border.
There are more donkeys than cars in Siwa. Not far out of the centre of town are thousands of date palms, olive trees and even a few figs. Not far beyond this are sand dunes. We ended up staying in a hotel overlooking all the action of the main street.
The problem with a place where it does not rain is the dust. So the palms, the streets, the restaurant table tops, even the rubbish lying about is dusty. Being 90 percent desert most of Egypt is like this. But beyond the dust and rubbish we found Siwa charming.
We hired bikes and rode out of town to the spring fed lakes. The first lake was a salt reservoir that excess irrigation water ran into. There were some flamingos on the lake. We explored the ruins of a nearby village. The walls of the houses had been made from salt mixed with stones and plastered together with clay. Palm tree trunks provided structural support. Three days of rain in1926 washed half the village away.
After lunch we headed off in the opposite direction on our bikes, and eventually came across another ruin – the sixth century BC Temple of the Oracle, once visited by Alexander the Great, seeking advice from the oracles.
Another day we climbed about the spectacular organic shapes of the 13th century mud Fortress of Shali, right in the middle of Siwa. A few people still live in the ruins. We were invited in to one place selling local handicraft. The girls who sold us a weaving were part of a family with ten children. Their father had another wife elsewhere in Siwa also with ten children.
Later that day we took a tour into the desert in a four wheel drive. We hooned around about the dunes in vehicle and on foot. We stopped at a place full of shells and fossils from the sea. We swam at hot springs, visited a cold spring and watched the sun set before heading back into Siwa.
Next day we committed ourselves to a couple of days in the desert to the East. We needed to get to Cairo and the quickest way is back via Alexandria but the more adventurous route is via another oasis at Bahariyya. The road is definitely a four wheel drive track. We joined with a Belgian couple to share the costs. Our first day involved about 8 hours traveling but we did take time to play in the dunes along the way. We went into the town of Bawiti to buy some supplies and then out to the desert for a night under the stars. It wasn’t too windy but we did wear nearly all our clothes to counter the cold.
Next day we traveled south through the Black Desert then into the White Desert. There was a chilling wind all day but the day was clear and sunny. We traveled through some remarkable terrain. The White Desert is an amazing region of blindingly white rock formation worn by the elements into strange shapes. The rock formations were a little like icebergs. There is a tendency to want to photograph each weird shape you come across. The day grew very windy and the air very sandy. Finding a sheltered area to camp was a priority. Luckily the wind died down as it became dark. We enjoyed cups of tea by a small desert fire. Our guide, Senosi, was a good cook and served us very well.. We survived another night huddled in our sleeping bags in the sand.
The White Desert is 500 kilometers from Cairo so that accounted for all the next day. The wind became little short of a sand storm. We stopped to take a few more photos, especially the 800 year old Acacia tree, blooming away in a place no plant has a right to even think about living. Back through the Black Desert and goodbye to Senosi in Bawiti. The bus to Cairo was fully booked but we found a mini bus. We drove around town for more than an hour picking up passengers, got permission to travel from the Tourism Police then five hours to Cairo.
Grant
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