A.E.O.

Ancient Egypt Overload

We have a touch of it but we are finished with the monuments now so it's going to be restful from here on out.

We left off in Aswan. The Temple at Philae lives up to expectations. It was a beautiful sunny day and sailing to the island gives a nice feeling that one is approaching a sacred site. However, our driver didn't mention that we needed to arrange the boat ourselves. Twenty pounds for two people or 5 pounds each for groups of 8 or more. I did remember reading this in the guidebook so I wasn't totally confused but I think Tim was a little. We quickly got a group together and were off. Mohammed Ali was our captain so that was easy to remember. During that day, which was Feb. 13th, we also went to the Unfinished Obelisk which is lying still in the quarry and is cut on three sides. It developed a fault so the masons just quit working on it. We also so the Great Dam that day. In the afternoon, it was time for our first Felucca ride to Kitchener's Island where the botanic gardens are and to Elephantine Island. The felucca is a sail boat which has a pretty wide base and a sail that folds out from the top down vs. the sailboat which you hoist the sail from the bottom up. Know what I mean? The feluccas are sparse. A covered cabin in the front for the captain which is about 1 meter high and then open seating in the rest of the boat. We got off at Kitchener's Island to tour the garden. There were alot of people there and plenty of litter. There were signs saying no soccor playing yet people still played. It could be a very nice place if there wasn't so much garbage around. I still don't get that about people all over the world. Oh Well. We gave photo copy of our passports to one of the guys at the felucca so he could get the permit. They asked what time we wanted to leave the next day and we said 10 is good but they decided on 11.

Our next day we were to leave on our 2 night/2 day felucca trip at 11:00. Captain Shaggy arrived around 11:30 but he needed to sit down and have tea with the hotel owner first. Then we were off to the boat where we were waiting for the permit from the police. I'm not sure why it took so long but I guess the guy never went to get the permit the day before. While we were sitting in the boat, Shaggy told us that we can't sail to Edfu in the amount of time we had, we could only make it to Kom Ombu which was about 1/2 the distance. We sailed around 1 pm.

We sailed a little while but then needed to stop after about 15 min. of sailing to 'get the permit at the office'. We sailed for a total of about 1 hour 15 min and then stopped at Capt. Shaq, the boat owner's house where we took lunch and picked up some blankets (thank goodness!). Capt. Shaq reiterated that we couldn't sail to Edfu in the amount of time we had but I was still skeptical since we had been farting around for about 4-5 hours already. It was kind of interesting going into someone's house but we were a little impatient since we started so late, found out that we can't go where we had paid to go, had been sitting around for a few hours already, etc. The inside of the house was clean and well kept. The walls were painted a light industrial grean and the furniture was painted industrial green. The furniture was typical western style. Television was on with I guess, Brittaney Spears' newest video. Decorations included a few silk flowers and stuffed animals. Lunch was ok. Okra in tomato sauce, a bread and rice mixture, a bright green 'dip' made of seaweed, and bread and tea. We left Captain Shaq's home at about 3:30 PM. It was then that they realized they had left the boat's license at the police office where we stopped to get the permit. So we had to let Captain Yasser off to hitch a ride back to Aswan to pick it up.

We stopped a few hours later to pick up Yasser again and we were off. The wind was pretty chilly so I wore three layers and my coat and two socks but it was not quite enough. I started wondering when it was getting dark where we were going to stop. The boat doesn't have an electricity. Since it was Valentine's Day, I sang Tim some Beatles songs from the White Album as my present. We finally stopped on an island around 8 pm and met up with another group who luckily had a fire going. There was Mick from Australia, Alfred from Texas and a couple from Argentina. Mick had a CD player so we were able to listen to some Nick Cave. We all had dinner together which consisted of koshery, potatoes in tomato sauce, rice, and bread. We only had water to drink. It was good talking to Mick and Alfred. Mick was funny, he seemed to hate all non-Aussies equally, everyone was lazy, a liar, filthy, a cheat, a miser, or something. We went to sleep at around 10:30. They had put up the canopy and side shades. It was a full moon and good stars.

The next morning we woke with the sun. Shaggy and Yasser didn't. I decided that at about 8 we would start making some noise to wake them up. The other group left the island before 7 am. Shaggy woke up around 8:30 but Yasser had gone out the night before and partied until 4 am so he stayed asleep. Shaggy made breakfast, hard boiled eggs and bread with cheese and jam, and coffee. I have not been eating the eggs just because everyday, that is what breakfast consists of.

We left the island at about 10:00 am and Yasser crawled off to sleep in the captain's quarters. Tim and I had been up 6. We sailed until 1 pm and then stopped for lunch. Shaggy worked on cleaning the sides of the boat since they haven't had much business lately and there was alot of build-up on it. We had lunch of bread and a mixture of tomatoes and eggs. Yasser woke up around 2 and we sailed again at about 3:15. When we were stopped the sun was warm and there was very little wind so it wasn't cold the whole time. We had 4 blankets at night so we were warm enough. We stopped briefly at a town, I think called Sapquara and Shaggy got off the boat to go do something. We could see Kom Ombu from there. We sailed a little longer and camped across from Kom Ombu at about 6 pm. No fire. Luckily, I am very good at sleeping when there is nothing to do so I just dozed all evening. We and Shaggy got up at 6 am the next day (the 16th), had breadfast, sailed across to Kom Ombu arriving at 8 am. We didn't go to the temple there but got in the convoy to go to Edfu and Luxor. The temple of Horus at Edfu was pretty good. I liked the temple laboratory where they had the recipes for perfumes and incense in hieroglyphs on the walls. The van began to overheat on the way to Luxor so we had to stop. The police were right behind us so it was no big deal. We got to Luxor about 2, met with our guide, Mohammed, had showers and then went for some refreshment.

We will be visiting the travel agent when we get back to Cairo for a refund on the Felucca ride.

In Luxor, we are staying at the Arabesque Hotel which is much nicer than the one we had in Aswan. On the 17th we visited the Colossi of Memnon (no big deal) the Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens and the Temple of Hatshepsut. Our guide was pretty good. In the Valley of the Kings we went to the following tombs: Tutmosis III, Tawosret/Sethanakt, and Ramses III. The second one was the best. We decided not to go to King Tut's tomb. We also saw the outside of KV5, the most recently discovered tomb. The Temple of Hatshepsut was pretty cool but a bummer since her step-son, Tutmosis III tried to rub out her image and name off of every monument she ever built. In the Valley of the Queens we saw the tomb of Amunherkhepshep (young son of Ramses II) and of queen Titi. I made a joke that since Amun... was buried in the Valley of the Queens, what did that say about him? Actually the V of the Q was for all the queens, princes, and princes. Now comes the big disappointment, the Tomb of Nefretari was closed on Jan. 1 for restoration. I was pretty bummed out about that one since it is supposed to be so well preserved. You have to pay alot extra and they only allow 150 people to visit for about 10 min each but I still wanted to go. Oh Well.

On the 18th we got up early again to go to Abydos and Deandra. It was again a convoy situation but I didn't realize that Abydos was 3 hours away. It was strange because all the cars kept passing each other. I really couldn't figure out why since we have to stay in a group. Abydos is the site of the Temple of Seti I. The temple is basiclly square but in an l-shape. The most interesting parts for me were the reliefs of Seti introducing his son, Ramses II, to the gods. The temple was pretty well intact so it was good in that respect compared to so many others which are just scattered rubble laying around.

I was suprised by the Temple of Hathor at Deandra, that wasn't even on my to-see list. I'm a little partial to the female gods so I like this one and we got to go down into the crypt and up on the roof. The ceiling of the temple has paintings of the sky goddess Nut which is also one of my favorite egyptian gods. It also has zodiac signs on the ceiling. The Christians destroyed the faces of Hathor adorning the top of the many columns in the hypostyle of the temple. Silly people. On the outside of the temple there was a relief of Cleopatra with her son, Ptolemy XV (son of Caeser). We got back around 5 pm and headed to the Kings Head Pub. It was too expensive to have dinner there so we ended up at Pub 2000 where we met Judith. She's 60-something traveling here with her nephew for her birthday present. She's from Manchester and told us we must get there in August for the Beatles Festival. I made sure Tim walked her home just to be nice. We got back to the hotel very late about 1 am.

Our next day was to be a 1/2 day tour of the Temples of Karnak and Luxor. I didn't feel much like getting up early again but onward. We really didn't have enough time at Karnak but I was also suprised by how destroyed the complex was. Actually, I'm not suprised since it is like 5,000 years old but I was not expecting it. We had a female guide for a change. Her name was Hanna and she was very good. We did the usual stop and shop between the two temples and then on to Luxor Temple. There, we had enough time so I liked it better. It was more intact with lots of statues of Ramses II and the avenue of the sphinx. We did some more stop and shop after the Luxor Temple but that took about 2 hours. We had an ok cheap meal and then back to the hotel around 5 pm and to bed. We are just going to take it easy today.

I am running out of typing steam. It been two hours on the net. Hopefully, this post didn't sound too much like I was complaining, I'm just giving the facts. We are a little tired but Tim has been reading about Greece and seems psyched up for that. I told him he can figure out the itinerary then. Hope all is well at home! Send more e-mail we miss you!