The Young Jeremiah Chronicles - Istanbul to Cairo Part 5

My emails continue.  We'd left behind the less travelled section of our journey and now found we had too much time in Egypt.  As reflected here by a plethora of 'final' emails.  Anyway, picking up the tale in Dahab, tourist resort on the Sinai Coast.

Wed, 1 Sep 2004 14:43:05 +0000
Subject: Walk like an Egyptian

Hello everyone
 (gee, my starting greeting has been consistently uninspired throughout this trip, lets try again shall we.....)

Greetings, from the depths of space and time, through the miracle of modern technology, I bring you this communication from the African continent, electronically propelled through vast strands of sub-molecular infra-structuring containment levelings, I come to you now to report on what has transpired...
Nah..

Hi everybody,
We're in Egypt, which is of course in Africa, new continent for me and all. The last continent on this trip so it happens.  Anyway, as I'm tripping over my own babble here, I'll move on.

I left off in Dahab, as we arrived from the spectacular Wadi Rumm, the day after the email, (sorry I sent it so many times by the by, problem on this end) we had breakfast, met some people (oh yeah, before I forget, welcome to the mailing list Jason, Chimene, and Laura ye'll probably regret ever giving me ye're addresses;  is that a chorus of groans I hear across space?) and basically just loafed around in the sun drenched holiday touristy place, sipping chocolate milkshakes and the like. Eventually we got up and wandered down that long and winding road, that leads to your door... no wait, that leads to the beach, far far away. And luckily for us, Eoin had brought along his goggles (on a desert trip) so we were able to wander over the spiky reefs out to where it fell away into imaginative depths.

  Whereas the sky here lacks imagination, all one shade of blue, the sea, in its depth is full of such wild imaginings as to enthral.

One by one we took the goggles, followed the scuba divers, and plunged off the reef, beneath the surface we swam amongst schools of fish in every colour that scattered frantically as we broke into their shifting formations, we swam among  vast corals shaped like mushrooms, ripples, stratiated like cracked rock, all covered in aquatic livelihood  It was pretty damn amazing,  and not what I was expecting at all. Bonjour mon amis, et velcome to ze vorld of ze deep (okay so you try doing French phonetically) It was pretty darned impressive anyway, cept for those weird things that looked like parts of black eels scattered everywhere, scary.

We relaxed the day through, until Chimene and Laura had to get the bus to Sinai, and we retired to bed.
Awoke the next morning at six, as is par for course on this trip, and, assaulted by flies, we quickly dressed, (I neglected to mention here that our accommodations were somewhat 'budget' we had managed to procure mattresses from a slightly over expensive hostel compound made up of several low houses; unfortunately the only place to put them was outside next to a wall that bounded the compounds rubbish tip, hence the flies.) said our farewells to Jason who was bound for Cairo, and headed off to get a taxi to the bus station. There we met the two Frenchmen we had met in Wadi Rumm, and two Czech guys, one of whom knew Suez, our destination, like the back of his hand. We headed off.

Thus follows an incredibly tiring and monotonous trip complete with tiring and monotonous grey yellow desert landscape to either side.  Suffice to say we got to Suez. On the way in we were treated to the surreal sight of giant tankers and freighters creeping their way across the sandy horizon, blocking the sun with their vastness, they were of course following the Suez canal hidden from our view by one too many dunes, crazy sight, we tunnelled beneath the canal,  followed the Czech guys amazing directions (two maps he drew us, with gas stations, banks and souqs marked) to a hotel, which was full, but we got another just across the road.  Our room was dingy, had a strange smell, 70s wood panelled walls, and a weird hooked metal pipe sticking straight out of the middle of the toilet, designed to shoot straight up your ass ('fun') but it had beds and we needed them after ten hours. 

The Suez canal

Before sleep we managed to get down to the canal, via a guy with a good green car (he was fond of his car) who also offered us a paid for lift to the station the next day. The canal was dark and only a tug passed us on that straight course, people relaxed on its banks, and we joined them, dozing for an hour, until the guy appeared and drove us back again. 

That night as I slept, I apparently  jumped up, and started frantically searching for something underneath my bed, when Eoin asked what I was looking for, I told him it was something to stick onto my glasses, despairing that I'd never find it I went back to sleep. I have no memory of this, weird eh?

Anyway, next day we found the bus to Luxor at eight (yes we had gotten up at six again) was full so we got tickets for the later bus to Qena, before getting a bus from there to Luxor. After trying to bargain with some guy for water, with him looking at me blankly, we set off on another unhealthily long journey. For hours we drove, the sea blue and flat on one side, with the occasional dot of a distant ship, the desert on the other, blank and immense, vast and monotonous. Two very bad comedies were shown on the buses TV, we got the slapstick, but the plot seemed confused and unconnected, one moment the guys getting married, then learning English, then selling bicycles in Sharm el Sheik.

We drove on and on for hours, at one point stopping at a fantastic little restplace in the middle of nowhere that wouldn't have looked our of place in a Humphrey Bogart movie. The toilets stank and swarmed with flies, but I enjoyed the ambiance of this palm shrouded cantina. We left again, and continued on, passing Hurghada, a ghost tourist town, or so it seemed from the bus, what should be swarming with package holiday makers seems empty, lost. A recurring theme we find here in Egypt, much to my despair.

Eventually we arrived somewhere in Qena, not sure if we were to get off yet, I went to the top of the bus to ask, but everyone I asked started shouting 'Luxor' 'Luxor' and flapping their hands limply, my second attempt prompted them to lead me around to the side of the bus. There I saw, lying next to the bus, limp on the cold concrete, our bags, dumped from the bus. Quickly I rushed on board, urging Eoin to leave, again I tried to clarify things with the bus steward, he shouted 'bye bye' and jumped aboard the now moving bus which quickly disappeared from view. Kids swarmed us trying to sell tissues and wafer biscuits, trying to remain polite despite my increasing frustration.  We somehow managed to decipher events in order to get a taxi to the minibus station, the next step to Luxor. We zoomed suicidally though Quna, past modern façades and then into crumbling mud brick suburbs, eventually arriving in what looked like a camel mart, though packed to the jiblets with minibuses.  We headed for the Luxor bus. already filling with Egyptians, we were told NO, not allowed. And offered a 'special bus' with police protection. He said Khamseen, Arabic  then 5, I knew however that kamseen was 50, and told him, confusion reigned, but in the end it seemed a fair price. after all we rented an entire minibus, no Egyptians could be trusted to travel with us, we even needed police escort.

We had entered a world of paranoid security, since 1997s Heptetshut incident in which 60 tourists were gunned down by terrorists Egypt has become extreme in its attempts to show the western world that, yes, Egypt is safe. Most of these attempts seem farcical, switched off metal detectors at tourist sights, that one has to walk through on principal,  even when they are on and it beeps to high heaven, the line is still waved through. No sugar crops are allowed to be grown next to the roads, in case terrorists shoot out of them.  In addition, buses with tourists must travel in convoys. On our way down the Nile from Qena to Luxor, we passed a line of buses between 50 to 75 strong, big waste of time, big target.

 Security checkpoints litter the roads, but they don't check anything just wave you through. Only once have our passports been checked, and I've never seen so many constant guard towers in all of my days. Nuts. 

Our very own bus

Anyway, aside from that the scenery improved. The whole day we had seen nothing but barren wastes, but now as we thundered down the Nile  we were treated to a sight for eyes weary from the monotonous desert : Fertile Egypt in all its grandeur, palms  fields and plenty, in a display that reminded me of Thailand for its over-abundance of green. very nice

The banks of the Nile

We arrived in Luxor and booked a trip to the west side, the dead side of the Nile for the morning. (As the sun rises in the East, the East side of the Nile is the side of life, while the West, the side of the setting sun and thus death, is where the valley of the dead and all the various tombs are generally located)

We awoke early yet again, this time at seven though, so we got a bit of a sleep in, and headed down to meet those who would also be taking the tour, a good bunch, got our bus, and met our guide, Aladdin  yup, that was his name. He was an Egyptologist, and also an expert in Greek and Roman studies, as well as scuba diving, he had also been to Cork, complaining it was very wet, his favourite two words were 'excuse me'. He knew his stuff though, and commented on every subject from Egyptian housing tax, to the tourist industry, and everything in between. Out first stop after crossing the Nile, was the colossi of Memnon, two grand statues of Amenotep the third, (buried in the valley of the babboon don't you know) the two seated statues are all that remains of his great temple, the rest, after being shattered by an earthquake was nicked by one of the 22 Ramses to build his Ramesseum.

The Colossi of Memnon

 More interesting however was the town in the distance, jutting up against the mountainous enclosure of the valley of the kings that stuck out of the greenery like two much spilled salt on a green salad. It was the town of Kornay, and the Egyptian authorities aren't happy with it, they want it to move, as its on top of many tombs. The towns people don't want to move, and so the government have cut off their water, nine years its been off, and they have to walk miles to get water, they are now threatening to cut off the electricity. Aladdin says the government is right, as the people in the village, or their descendants have no doubt looted the tombs at some point in their history, if this is the case, once the houses have been vacated and checked by government officials to see if their basements have been dug through, they will not go to their new village, but straight to Jail, even if the crime was committed by their ancestors. This sins of the grandfather thing to me sounds crazy, and I couldn't help but cast a wary eye in the towns direction as we passed through it on the way to the valley.

Next was the temple of Hetepshut, built in 1550, this three story embalming temple, took 18 years to build, and was only used for 220 days, it was here that the 60 tourists were killed. The columns are still scattered with bullet holes.

 Hettepshut was killed by the man who was her stepson, her brother in law, and her nephew. If that doesn't tell you anything about Egyptian royalty inbreeding, nothing will. They were deformed for Christs sake! Stop sleeping with each others ya maniacs! Anyway, temple had impressively preserved heiroglyphs with 3000 year old colours still vibrant. 

Heptepshut

We got back to the bus via the very slow 'Disneyland train' very bizarre. And here I noticed fully the tourist lack. The vast tour bus car park stretched before us lay empty but for one side, theres nobody here in Egypt, nobody, tourism is the mainstay of the Egyptian economy and it seems shattered from the events of 9/11, Aladdin told us that where 6000 tourists walked these valleys a day, now only 900 do, that's crazy, and economically devastating  Luxor is emptying, the many carriage tours smack of desperation as their prices get lower and lower, for once I wish I had to push through crowds, my heart goes out for the Egyptians. EVERYBODY GO TO EGYPT!!

After that we entered the valley of the kings. Since I was young I've had a mental image of the valley of the kings, the high ridges, the white rocks, my image didn't factor in the tourist train, or the wide neat black road, or the tourist shelters, but no reality is perfect I guess. We entered the Tombs of Ramses 6, Rames 4 and Ramses 12, I think, its all very confusing. The Tombs were amazing, like stepping into a dream, stretching out before you, silent and subtly lit, unable to talk due to the moisture that would cause.  I don't know if I'd have been able to talk anyway, struck dumb by the majesty.  Thousands of colours, from floor to ceiling, whites, browns, greens, reds, blues, yellows, constellations above, men with scarabs or snakes for heads, and the world holding up nut, the sky. Amazing, but I'll quit the superlatives, go there and see for yourself, ancient splendour intact and tangible. And indeed it is splendid.

After the valley of the kings, we went to the valley of the queens, which actually had the tombs of the children. Nefertati's tomb, the most splendid in Egypt was closed last year for good, after a fight erupted between some French and German tourists over tickets. Good says I, its amazing, tourists just wreck things.

Valley of the Queens was good, after we headed back, ate MacDonalds with some Antipodeans we met on the trip, and I finally found a bank that takes my AIB card, so with money in my pocket we wandered the streets of Luxor, shocked at the lack of tourists and what it'll mean for Egypt's economy.
Oh yeah, last night as well, Eoin woke up, to find me (in room with 3 beds by the way) stretched across two beds shouting 'I can do it, I can do it'' Apparently the exorcist comes to mind. Hilarious stuff, god help me wife.
Anyhow, 
Next Email perhaps from Aswan, 
Toodles, or Wa Sallamm
Jerry

 Fri, 3 Sep 2004 17:31:12 +0000
Subject: From the side of the Nile

Greetings from Egypt.

Arrived in Aswan today, after a very historically vibrant time in Luxor. Let me fill ye in on all thats transpired (not all that much but I'll milk it for all its worth anyway)

Our second day in Luxor allowed us for the first time in ages to get a sleep in, fantastic stuff, okay, so its true my sleeping patterns are so messed up that I still wake up at eight, and spend the next two hours rolling around trying not to accept the fact that I'm not gonna get back to sleep, but what can you do. Anyway.  Eventually we got ourselves ready and entered Luxor proper, that is local Luxor, not the pansy parts we've seen before, Crazy.

Karnak collonade

Hundreds of minibuses swept by on either side, mixed in were carriages, bikes, and crazy running people, all were shouting at us to give them money, take them up on their 'ludicrously low prices' or just jump aboard their luxury, air conditioned 'Ferraris' (carts) Little kids too ran along beside us, shouting 'hello hello baksheesh baksheesh hello'' Just so you know, baksheesh is Arabic for tip. I mean what did the little tykes want a tip for? saying hello? madness. 

Anyway, after buying our tickets to Aswan and Cairo in the train station, we headed out to the Karnak temple complex, a long walk. We approached the monumental gates from the wrong side, so had to semi circumnavigate the thing, eventually we found away inside. Karnak was featured in the Roger Moore Bond movie, the spy who loved me, in the movie I think its next to the pyramids, which are twelve hours drive away' Jaws throws rocks at them from the top, but a pillar falls on him. All well and good, but these pillars are huge massive  things, not like wimpy Roman ones you see everywhere, paint still clings to them, and they flock about you like a labyrinthine stone forest. Its pretty damn amazing, this is the entrance to Karnak, beyond are numerous obelisks, statues and lots and lots of hieroglyphs  all depicting someone giving something to a god, be it spilling oil, blue balls, things that look like toys, or potted plants, the gods want it and the Egyptians got it. Great stuff

Luxor entrance

Also in great supply in Karnak were baksheesh hunters, these were guys who were extremely 'helpful' to the unwary tourist by pointing out such fascinating things as 'that's a statue' or 'look! alabaster!' and then expecting to be paid. Naturally we scurried quickly away from whatever they were pointing at, with calls of 'look' 'look' peeling after us in desperation. At one point we ran into an enclosed courtyard, the baksheesher heading to the door, to block our point of ingress you see. We split up commando style, running for separate exits, turns out most of them led to extremely dark rooms with squeaking swirling bats, so we had to quickly duck out, and head for another door, but they were all dead ends. there we were, scurrying around, heads down. Being called to by a baksheesher, changing course if he pointed to a door we were headed to, eventually we had to duck past him and scurry off over the horizon, annoying to say the least.

We then ate and headed for Luxor temple, big statues, big obelisks, and big pillars, spotted the cartouche of Alexander the great among the hieroglyphs, that Alexander always involved in propaganda.
It was all very impressive, it was also very tiring, so we started heading back, course in the meantime, Eoin decided to spray about a quarter litre of water at me outta his mouth, he says it was an accident, but the way he drank away, stopped, then turned his head slowly towards me, and suddenly hosed me down was pretty deliberate looking to me. Maybe he thought I'd melt. Skins not green enough.
Oh yeah, Eoins starting to grow a goatee. Stop, close your eyes (no not now, wait till you've read the sentence)  imagine Eoin with a goatee. Now laugh.  

Sorry Eoin, its lovely really.

Anyway, next day we boarded our first train, 2nd class it was, but had loads of legroom, air conditioned enough to freeze us, and really comfy chairs. We zoomed down the Nile towards Aswan, and once we got here didn't do much. We wandered about, ate in a lovely raft restaurant overlooking the Nile, across to the picturesque elephantine island, feluccas (amazingly delicate sailboats with the grace and poise of a genetically modified swan) gliding past. Amazingly colonial view really, made me think we were all part of the evil British empire once again.

The Cataract hotel

Eoin and myself being all posh and colonial

We boosted this feeling by going to one of the poshest hotels in Egypt, the old cataract hotel, which  is where all the presidential potentates and those with a higher bearing in society, and with a stiff upper lip and all that pip pip, it was all very spiffing, large fantastically jolly old viewing area don't ya know.  It had the most amazing view though, as it looked over a bend in the river created by elaphantine Island through which streamed numerous feluccas half seen through palm trees that leapt up from the bank. We had a minimum spending limit, and all that, but it was very jolly. Very posh and colonial.

The view from the hotel

Walked back, offered feluccas once more by hundreds of people, no thanks we said again and again and again in arabic, same happened with carraiges, taxis and god knows what else, quite annoying. 
Anyway, now that life is solidly nile side, its all great, only 10 days left to go, although tomorrow we're up at, wait for it..... three in order to head into the desert to abu simbel by the shores of lake nasser, 50 degrees there, but we can take it, so used to the heat now, Ireland will be ridiculously freezing for us.
Anyway, I'll see most of ye all before 2 weeks are up , so 
Asallam once again
Jerry


 Sun, 5 Sep 2004 17:12:37 +0000
Subject: Elastic Twang

Hello from sunny Aswan, on the banks of the lovely Nile.

Still in Aswan, we've been keeping ourselves busy, despite the fact we're both pretty exhausted from the month and a bit of travel, but we keep going regardless, whats happened since eh? Well thats pretty much the point of this email isn't it? Or did ye all think I was just emailing to see how ye all were? Yeah, like I have the time to do that. (well actually I do, but we won't get into that just now)

The title of this email refers to the fact that after almost 40 days of travel we've reached the furthest point that we're going to reach, and our course, into the bosom of an elastic band, is about to twang us right back to Ireland in a quarter of the time, we're heading closer at an alarming rate (though not at the mo, just sitting in Aswan)

The morning after the last email we were to be up at 3am, which was, you know, good. What was doubly 'good' in my strange appreciation of the term anyway, were the many factions conspiring that night to keep us awake. Foghorns, car horns, cats, ceiling fans and Japanese tourist all succeeded in keeping us tossing and turning, sleepless. Eventually I pulled myself up outta bed, marched across the hall and gave the Japanese a strong , 'would you mind keeping it down please' that did the trick and I got to sleep.
An hour later the alarm went off, and we staggered into our clothes, stumbled down the stairs, and wondered why we ever embarked on this mission. Turns out everyone in our hotel, bar us, are Japanese, all of them with comic perfect hair at three o clock in the morning.  After a delay, as one of them slept in, we fumbled our way out to the waiting minibus and went to the edge of town to wait for the convoy to assemble. In the tried and tested fashion of true Egyptian paranoia, we tourists need convoys to travel across the desert, elst we'll be blown up or something, also in typical Egyptian fashion, this 'convoy' disappeared seconds after we cleared the checkpoint at the edge of town. Same thing happened on the way back, pointless.

Anyway, we drove into the night, crossing a half seen dam, and then into pure blackness. I tried to sleep, squashed into the back corner of the minibus, my legs jammed into the space between Eoin's right leg, and the wheel niche, for a while I put my leg on the niche, and was quite comfortable, until it fell asleep, and had to move it back, annoying the hell outta Eoin, I think I might have got half an hours sleep at the back of that bouncing minibus, woke to see sunrise over a desert that looked burned black in places. Almost too tired to appreciate the savage beauty, almost.

Dawn over the desert

We arrived at our destination, Abu Simbel, on the banks of the artificial lake Nassar, at about seven thirty, we wandered zombie like outta the bus towards the glitzy high cost tourist stands, past hundreds of rich, chunky tourists on top class package holidays, very fake and all that. 

Oh yeah, we'd crossed the tropic of cancer to get here. You see, I coulda just stuck that in above, as this is a computer and all, but I refuse to recognise the innovations computers have brought to typing hilariously long emails. But I digress.

Anyway, we paid our money, were properly checked and scanned, (a first in Egypt  and wandered down to the left side of what looked like a yellow orange gravel slope.  We knew we had reached our destination when we saw the hundreds of tourists gawking, and taking videos that they;d never watch again (I mean who watches holiday videos that are long static slow moving, or even static shots of large rocks? Even if the rocks are carved? No pacing, No script, and certainly not very funny) all were looking at something out of sight to our right, in a cleft in the fake hill. It was of course Abu Simbel. 

Eoin's scientific shot of Abu Simbel

A month ago Abu Simbel would have quite literally blown my socks off, now, however, its more like, cool, thats pretty big isn't it? Apart from saving me serious money in boot repair, its a little worrying. We sat on the seats for the kitsch Sound and light show (very popular in Egypt, at Luxor, Karnak, and apparently the pyramids) And ate our breakfast of eggs, bread, cheese and fig jam, while munchingly marvelling at the 4 huge sitting statues of a rather smug Ramses the second, carved into the rock face. Of course the whole thing had been painstakingly moved when they flooded the Nile to create Lake Nassar after the building of the Aswan High dam, of course the visitors centre only makes reference to the 'mysterious rising Nile against which the builders of the huge cofferdam raced' Very unsubtly avoiding the whole controversial issues for not in the know tourists. 

Me and Eoin, as far south as we were going to go

Anyway, it was quite impressive, although the interiors of both temples (there was a smaller one as well) were a bit too Disneyland for my liking, melodramatic lighting, fancy wooden floors, and air conditioning didn't make it all that easier to realise the whole thing was real and very impressive.
Afterwards we got back on the bus, less zombie-like, and enjoyed the trip back, which was way longer then we remembered it,  Lots of very very very very flat desert, as far as the Eye could distinguish, that is the nearest curve in the earth, the sky underlined by watery mirage.

After a very long time we switched bus to another bus doing apparently more exciting things. The first of which was to visit the controversial Aswan High dam. Well. It isn't very high, in fact its quite low, a road curves over the top of it, but it isn't very impressive, in fact my first thought, was that it could have been built by a couple of very ambitious beavers. I mean the diagram on top revealed the main building material to be, and I quote, 'rock muck' Yep, pretty impressive.

Off to Philae island

After we were blown away by the low mucky dam, we headed for the sacred island of philae, which was also moved when the beavers built their dam, it was moved rather funnily, I thought anyway, into the reservoir between the high dam and the low dam. We got on a boat, sailed out, and wandered amid the thick columns of yellowed rock, in some rooms were such crazy Egyptian inventions as electricity junction boxes  cables and lights. For yes, Philae too has a kitsch light show. It was all very grand, but again Eoin and me have seen so much of this thing already so we literally speed walked through it.

On the moved island

We boated back on the rickety ole motor boat, again noticing the dessication of the tourist industry, Abu Simbel had been full of package tourists, here a whole fleet of rickety boats stood empty.

Next, we thought we were heading back, but we;d forgotten, there was still one more GREAT destination.

Eagerly we queued up at what looked like a ticket booth next to an old quarry
Excitedly we climbed the wooden steps, grabbed the guide rails and clambered up what still looked like an old quarry
Enigmatically we reflected that yes indeed, we had paid to get into an old quarry.
Well it did have an unfinished obelisk carved into one of the stones, if it had been finished it'd have been the mostest impressive piece of stone in the whole wide world, but it wasn't. Still at least its making money. On the way back down we spotted security guards in towers overlooking the quarry, in case it got rammed by a plane or something.

Anyway, we went back had a lovely lunch, and were about to go to bed, Eoin did, then I changed my mind, wandered about town, rang home, checked train time tables, and wandered down the waterfront to find an ATM.

There I was befriended an undercover cop, who worked around the bank, he was from saqquara and complained about the long transit time every weekend down the Nile  He wanted help with his English  so we walked about town, chatting and joking. After an hour or so, we stopped to get tea with his friends, he insisted on paying, he saw my drawings of Eoin, and asked for a portrait, I sketched away jovially of course. After a while I rushed back to tell Eoin where I was, he was still asleep, but he soon got dressed and joined us. Anan, for that was his name, invited us to try proper Egyptian cuisine, we accepted, lovely food lovely meal.

But then as we left the restaurant, I offered to pay my share, he accepted, then multiplied the actual amount I owed him by about 3.. Yes thats right, I'd trusted this guy, spent the whole day talking and laughing with him and his friends, he was a police officer, and now he was trying to rip us off. I got angry, I got real angry I lost my cool, and suffice to say he got no money from us. I felt betrayed. After the genuine nature of absolutely everyone in Syria and Jordan, its impossible to tell who to trust in Egypt. Of course they're not all bad, afterwards we went to look on the internet, for ages, and the proprietors showered us with free tea and drinks. Oh yeah, and they overcharged us,(we didn't notice) then rushed to our hotels to pay us what they owed us. Nice stuff. 

Of course by this point it was 12 o clock, I had gotten 1 and a half hours sleep in about 36 hours, yet I wasn't tired at all, must be all the sugary tea. That changed when I saw my bed, and the next thing I knew it was morning.

Today was pretty relaxing, we got a felucca up the Nile, I kinda forget its name, but thats pretty much unimportant to ye at home now anyway, so I'll just say what a felucca is. Its a really nice sailboat with a smooth whip of a mast and no danger in the turning, or something, dunno much about boats, but it was a nice one.

Felucca from the Felucca

 We zig zagged our way across the Nile, somehow avoiding several collisions, and disembarked at the sandy side, dominated at one end by big rocky dunes and the other by big duney dunes. Up there we wandered into Egyptian cliff tombs, with no light but my dying torch, we stumbled down the dust like sand, soft underfoot, and headed back to the boat in just over half an hour.

The dune bank, the tomb we visited was in the rocky area beneath the hut on the right

Next stop was a botanical gardens (actually we thought the felucca ride was just gonna be sitting in the boat, relaxing on the Nile  I even considered bringing my very thickly academic book , the very grand sounding 'culture and imperialism' but its probably beast that I didn't as I might have thrown the damn thing overboard.) 

At the botanical gardens we were wandering down the marble path between lamp-post regular palm trees, when suddenly from behind we heard the cracking growl of branches mysteriously detaching themselves from a pair of palm trees, to land heavily on the marble flooring. Course the funny thing was we had just been standing where they had landed. You see, god is trying to kill us , but you see his timing is thankfully just a few seconds off. Or else I'm not loved by trees. Take your pick.

Me and Eoin in the botanical gardens

The botanical park was no fota gardens, oh yeah but at one point a skinny guy popped like a jack in the box from behind a hedge, and shouted the name of a tree, I think he wanted baksheesh. Funny that. Hes probably still there, coiled to spring. Actually if he stayed there all day and night, just to spring up and shout names, then he'd deserve a tip; but he didn't.

Next was Elephantine Island. pronounced with an almost mythical awe by the locals. On the way we passed several small kids in tiny coffin sized boats, paddling with tiny cardboard like pieces of wood. The police kept hounding them though. They were from the relocated Nubian village on the island, their homes had been submerged with Philae Island, abu simbel, and gods knows what else, when those pesky beavers built their dam. 

We landed again and headed up to the soon to be closed (and rather unimpressive museum  a man ran around after us in the museum shouting out the labels, hoping to be paid for the trouble. silly man.
We wandered around ruins a bit, badly remade with modern cement and cartoon hieroglyphs  before some guy wanted money for saying hello. We laughed and left for our boat, dry land, inexpensive water, and this internet cafe
Phew, that was some mouthful of an email now wasn't it dearies.
Until next time, when we'll be very far from here.
Assallam
Jerry

Wed, 8 Sep 2004 14:31:47 +0000
Subject: T..t..time is running out
Well, Istanbul to Cairo, that was the name of the trip, and well, here we are in Cairo.  

Its difficult to sum Cairo up in a couple of words, so I'll sum in up in a load, that is when the time is right, and since introductory paragraphs are supposed to encouraged readers to keep reading, well this then is definitely not the time. Weird, huh? Only 5 days left.

I left ye, hanging to the edge of ye're seats, after our adventures on the river Nile, the day after the Felucca, with tired email fatigued fingers.  We got a train back up to Luxor, retracing our steps for only the second time in the whole trip. The first time was way back in Istanbul, due to that whole madness with the bureaucracy of doom, this time it was built into our schedule, as the only way to Cairo was through cities we knew.

Days before we had booked our 44 euro tickets on the 1st class sleeper train, now we hastened to catch it, although when I say hastened it basically meant loafing around Luxor for a day looking for something to do. Of course I must mention that BEFORE that we had spent a day in Aswan waiting for the train to Luxor, travel can be so exciting sometimes!!

We tried the souq, we wandered about trying to sense some sort of exoticism in the air, some smell of spices, instead we found a clean covered way, dominated by 'I did Egypt' T-shirts, hookahs, and fake alabaster trinkets (you can tell alabaster from fake alabaster, by dropping it on a hard floor, fake alabaster smashes loudly and blackly, the real stuff seems invincible. Great fun) Worse still were the tens of marketeers racing towards us, grabbing our hands, mistaking us for Dutchmen  and promising no hassle. Its an odd moment indeed when a man grabs you by the arm and shouts 'No Hassle No Hassle' into your face, still I guess odder things have happened on this trip.

The souq therefore took us all of five minutes, so we wandered down to the small cold mummification museum.  Here we saw that they amazingly applied egg yolks to the bandages wrapped around the mummy BEFORE they wrapped the bandages round the mummy. Here also we saw mummified cats, Fish, Monkeys, goat legs, and Ducks. Those Crazy Egyptians. I also learned about an Egyptian god who has since become my favourite, his name? Happy the monkey! Okay so hes a babboon, and his name is spelt Hapy, but still, Hapy the babboon. You gotta love it!

After the Museum we thought about heading for the Luxor museum  but alas it was closed, so we hung around, went on the internet for too long, and ate like pigs. 

At half nine we finally boarded our train, and found that yes, indeed it was first class. Ushers served us dinner, we had our own beige star trek the next generation cabin, we had a sink, cool 2001 a space odyssey eerie dim enabled lights, and a window. The bed was very comfortable too, the only problem being that the porter guy, who we of course had to tip, being the rich millionaire types that we are, woke us up at 5am which was very cheering I MUST say. We arrived in Cairo at about seven o clock this morning.

Taking the fast, quick paced door closing action metro to the Nasser stop, we walked out in search of our latest hotel,entering the dingy lower floor courtyard of a rather high building, which looked to me like something outta the third man, signs directed us to trek to the 6th floor. For some reason I choose not to remember for the sake of drama, Eoin was against using the antiquated lift, so we instead walked up the stairs, bags on backs. The receptionist geezer didn't hide his puzzlement well.

The miranda hotel is very nice and colourful, like a college dorm, with a balcony high over a busy Cairene street. Cairo itself, to me is not as I imagined, its very very European, with big open plazas, (especially maydan tahrir, Jahosephat!) bustling thouroughfares, and an almost New York like pulse (not that I know having only been in New york when I was 2) its pretty cool, everyone we've met along the way complained of a dirty city, but I can't see that city, the only city I can see is one full of life vigour and the 21st century, But of course older things still lurk as well.

Cairo from our hotel balcony

For today was the day I finally got to see the pyramids. I think I've wanted to see the pyramids ever since the first time I  heard about them. Dunno when that was, the age I'm guessing is four. I know a bit about them, not as much as I'd sometimes like, but quite a bit. I know how early Christians thought they were the granaries of Joseph (yep, he of the amazing technicolor dreamcoat) they apparently match up almost exactly with the plow in the stars, a caliph once had an obsession to destroy the things, so tried to blow up the pyramid of menkare. I've known their interior layout for years, know that they're over 5000 years old, and that their secrets haven't all been revealed, but to tell the truth Egyptology never struck my interest as much as Roman or Greek myth and history, so I don't know as much as I'd like.

We approached those big regular endless staircases on a bus, as the city of Cairo now stretches to the edge of the giza plateau, which is basically a 5 minute walk. They suddenly burst into view from behind some much smaller buildings, perspective playing its usual tricks. In fact perspective seems to have used up all his tricks and more on the giza plateau. Its difficult to tell which Pyramid is bigger, which is nearer, or smaller, sometimes they all look the same size, and stretch for miles, but that just isn't true, they are masters of engineering, and we're all still confused. 

On the side of the pyramid

We paid quite a bit to enter the largest of the pyramids, the Pyramid of Cheops, while it lacks the limestone cap of its neighbour, the pyramid of Khafre, (Cheop's son) its still mightily impressive. The doorway lay about 10 metres up the face, so we forsook the stairs and climbed the stairs meant for giants that is the pyramids slopes, those blocks are very big, almost mansize, but we managed easily enough, meeting the other tourists at the door, yet when we went in, we were alone, why? Some quirk of fate. Dunno really.

We entered through the gap in the slope into a short winding corridor that looked as though it had been carved out of the living rock itself,this quickly ended as the path branched off in two directions, we could only follow one. It was about a metre high, so we had to crouch, and walk up its slanted length, for slanted it was, it matched the slope of the exterior pyramid perfectly, after a while it opened up into a vast elongated pyramid shaped chamber, ever sloping steeply, wooden steps had been provided for the tourist, it was a tough steep climb, and at the top sweat poured from us. We passed into another extremely low tunnel, past where doors had once closed off the inner sanctuary  and entered the tomb proper, which opened out to our right in sealed space. Black flat closely fitted bricks were our surroundings now, the only smell that of sweat, and the slightly stale odour of old places. At the end of the room sat the tomb, black and rocky,empty of course, buts that's how things in Egypt always are. 

We left the way we came in, and wandered out into the desert beyond the pyramids. We searched and found the perfect pictures, acted like idiots for a while, taking silly photos, and then sat, trying to take in the only remaining wonder of the ancient world.

The perfect picture

After that we entered a low lying 70s structure huddled in the shadow of Cheops pyramid, it looked like a cross between a submarine, and a rocket from a crappy science fiction move, Eoin didn't like it, I thought it looked funny. Inside was a 5000 year old wooden boat, beautiful, sleek, and magnificent, amazing how its survived so long, all of wood and rope.

Ancient boat

Of course before our desert trek we had wandered down towards Cairo to look at the sphinx, didn't think the thing was as well preserved as it was, but its feet look silly, enclosed in bright white brick, I know however that they are only that way as archaeologists and geologists are trying to save the sphinx from an unknown agent that is eating it slowly from the inside, they have no idea how to stop it, the sphinx won't last another hundred years.

Me and the sphinx

We bused back into town. My mind trying to figure out if the pyramids had been a little bit anticlimactic. All my life I've said, I wanted to go see the Pyramids. Now thats in the past, relegated to the misty dustiness of memories. Odd that, now where will I go?

Stupid thing to complain about I know.

Sphinx and pyramid

We got back into town, meant to eat in an Italian restaurant, but ended up eating in the Hilton by accident, we had ordered before we realised that the tables outside 'DA Mario' did not belong to the restaurant, but to the super expensive American Hotel chain. We really should have noticed the complete absence of Italian food, but I guess we were tired.

Now typing this somewhat humourless email, sorry about that, tired I guess.
Tomorrow to the city of Alexandria, then the Egyptian Museum  and finally Saquarra, then we watch the match and go home. 
Wow, one sentence summed it up, I guess so did Istanbul to Cairo
Well we're here
Sallam
Jerry

I'll leave off here for now.  Didn't realised I'd written so much, but at least they've been a little more consistent RE: style.  The next will see the last two emails and back home via Prague