Sand and ashes - Egypt 2010

In English, so everyone at Mary's who's interested can read this as well.

So, from Sweden to Egypt - with 7 shirts and (still) no coat, I wasn't entirely prepared for a 13 day stay. Of course I always carry band-aids around in case anyone needs them, but naturally the one time I leave such things behind... a natural disaster occurs. Ah well, it's not like our car's never broken down before, so we can deal with it. (How my exam revision will survive this is another story...)

Day 1 - Can you see the sun?

We'd booked a trip with a travelling company with a group - not because we wanted a guide so badly (actually I expected my mum and him/her would try to murder one another by the end of the week) but because it was just that much easier. Fortunately we ended up with a small group of 7 people and the guide was relaxed enough, so all ended well.

When we arrived at 4 in the morning we we allowed a couple of hours of sleep - more actually, until 1 PM! A bit of a waste of time if you ask me: when you've only got 1 week (yes, we were still under that impression then) I don't want to spend it asleep half the day! Anyway when everyone was finally up we visited Cairo's citadel, which was not even very interesting. No Roman stuff, no Greek stuff, not even any ancient Egyptian stuff. I felt like I'd been tricked into it like a tourist - '...something you must see!' ... not really. We did see a bit of the old palace as well though, which was pretty cool; but only because I like palaces.

For some reason everyone wanted to take photos of me? The local Egyptians, that is. Can someone explain this to me? It's never happened to me in Syria or Turkey before. I'm flattered, but a bit sceptical - did they want pictures because I look funny, with my blonde hair and bare legs? I couldn't help but notice the occasional giggle... but I couldn't reject a friendly request either.

We also visited the National Museum of Egypt. The stuff in it was pretty nice - a whole gallery with ancient documents in Latin, Greek, Arabic, Hieretic... The museum itself was quite bad however. There was far, far too much in it - I could've walked around there for two days probably... and most of it had no information, description, or any indication of what it was. Some objects were just standing against the wall, and were blocked by even more objects. It was a bit like Aleppo (don't ask, you'll get a long rant), though I don't think anything was actually broken.

Cairo seems to be a pretty standard middle eastern city with its chaotic traffic - though I have to admit I've truly never seen as much chaos as this before. The city is massive and therefore the traffic problem is as well. The salespeople were more pushy too. It's all sort of like Damascus in tenfold. Still, through the veil of fumes it sort of feels like home, with the people, the smells, the shops, the food (which I am still apparently unable to eat) and the views.

Day 2 - My apologies to archaeology

... but yay I wandered around the pyramids like a true tourist, annoying the guide with my lack of knowledge, and then even disrespectfully climbed on top of one for a photo.

I've enjoyed Egyptian state formation in my Ancient Civilisations of the East class, but pyramids have always been (and remain, really) a bit of a mystery to me - what's in them, how they were built. In fact, I think it's because I prefer temples, or tombs; at least there you can usually see some nice images or statues, or inscriptions of course! (Especially hieroglyphs, in Egypt!) Pyramids, well they're just these huge stone things, and inside, well, it's dark. I'm really sorry, but apart from the excitement of seeing one of the wonders of the world, I'm not very moved by them. They're cool though.

Afterwards we went to Khan el Khalili (pronounced with a Dutch 'ch' like 'Khalid' in case you're doing it wrong in your head at the moment =P), the (tourist) market in Cairo for some shopping (I got some new scarves and a poster for my room).

Then we had Egyptian fast food for dinner (sandwich with cheese, as usual, for me)... and... on to the train. Haven't done anything like that in a while! Blah. We took a night train to Luxor - about 9 or 10 hours. Old German carriage, plain chairs (no beds), broken lights and air condition (it was very cold) and well, lets' just say no toilet. That's all survivable of course - what made me truly sad was the windows: they were so dirty I couldn't see outside!

(Really it all sounds worse than it was - we just went to sleep (though uncomfortably) and woke up in Luxor.) Of course the guide then announced we'd have to pay for breakfast, so being Dutch as we are we all pulled out our crisps and cookies. I forgot to take a picture unfortunately - it looked quite funny I think, all the bags and feet in the little cabin.

Day 3 - Beginners Intermediate Hieroglyphics

... is not quite enough to decipher, well... anything.

Luxor was a bit, or a lot, smaller than Cairo. I can't really remember any traffic jams there because it was just that much smaller, which was such a relief. There we also finally got to see some actual temples; and not just that - if you dived into a little corridor and then into a little corner, you could actually reach spots that weren't filled with tourists, which was wonderful.

First we visited Karnak, an absolutely massive ancient temple. I really liked it because each Pharaoh apparently added a bit to it, so it was built over a period of hundreds of years - very cool.

(Obelisk.)

(Trying to decipher hieroglyph inscriptions... I don't think it went too well. With two extra subjects homework hasn't been going very smoothly this year.)

(Animal population <3)

Then we went to the Luxor museum. This was so much of an improvement on the Cairo museum... words can't describe. If I ever do get to re-design the museum of Aleppo, this is what it looked like in my imagination. There were beautifully lit pieces, with descriptions, on a black backgrounds... subtle arrows on the floor... I think I liked the museum design better than what was in it.

(Hahaha, this was our transport for the day.)

Day 4 - Cameras not allowed

The next day we went to the Valley of the Kings. This is where the Egyptians buried their dead after they got tired of building these enormous pyramids (or well, after they got tired of the pyramids being robbed all the time). This was very nice. I'd expected the tombs to be a bit more elaborate than they were, with little secret corridors and rooms and maybe even some treasure, but even though there was none of that they were still cool. Apparently there's about 60 of them, but we were only allowed to see 3. For some of them you had to pay extra, and some of them were closed altogether except to archaeologists or royalty. So of course I have now made it one of my life goals to see all of them. This means I must become a relevant archaeologist, and my sister must marry a prince. I don't think being named after a queen is going to help much; maybe Jona is secretly related to the Swedish royal family though? Who knows, I can hope.

Next we went to the temple of... her name's very difficult to say (googling the spelling now)... Hatshepsut. Like queen Zenobia she took over as Pharaoh for a while, dressing up like a man and such, and built some really cool things, including two obelisks in the Karnak temple. I think her temple must have been so beautiful when it was still in use. Now there were just too many tourists, and boys who wanted a photo with me, so we sort of ran away again.

(Lol.)

Day 5 - Glad I got a hat

Then... we had another day in Luxor! Yet, not really anything left to do... My mum tried so, so hard to get the guide to take us to Abydos, but no one else wanted to go, and once we'd finally managed to persuade everyone (I mean, really! It's the only thing I clearly remember from the ACE lectures so it's got to be awesome) there turned out to be a huge car accident on the road over there and we weren't able to go. (16 people died...)

So... we went to the Valley of the Queens. This was awesome as well, but slightly disappointing; once again we weren't allowed to visit the nicest tombs, and apparently they also buried other people there, like princes who died young, so we didn't even really get to see a lot of the 'Queen' part of the Valley. Not that any of it looked, or was supposed to look, any different from the Valley of the Kings though.

Next we went to one of my favourite temples of the trip, Medinet Habu. This was really beautiful, and it wasn't very busy; probably because everyone else was spending their time in the Valley of the Kings, not having an extra day.

Then we visited the Ramesseum. This temple was truly deserted. It was a lot smaller and not very exciting, since the main attraction, a massive statue, has fallen down. According to Wikipedia (ahem) this is also the place where Champollion identified the hieroglyphs that make up Ramesses' names and titles.

(Some 19th century French graffiti.)

(The guide =P He says some minarets have a special shape, because of the snow in Turkey.)

Finally, we also went to the temple of Luxor. This is why my mum and I should usually travel with my dad and sister: we walked completely in the wrong direction and spent about twenty minutes circling the temple because we accidentally passed by the entrance. Anyway, once we'd recovered and finally managed to get inside, I was stormed by a group of girls from a school trip. Instead of trying to save me, my mum took pictures...

In any case, I liked this temple because all the way in the back there was a tiny little trace of the Romans. Yay. Also, to just add to that, the muslims managed to built a mosque right in the middle of it.

(Look what we encountered when we were trying to find dinner... Sunday roast. Hahahaha.)

Day 6 - Burial options: A. Palmyranean tomb B. Greek vase C. Coptic village

At night we'd had to get back on the train to Cairo. The chairs were slightly more comfortable this time, and the windows were clean (hence the photo of the sunrise below). Again everyone wanted to go to the hotel to sleep until the afternoon, but then again, there wasn't much left to do in Cairo anyway.

In the afternoon we went to the Coptic neighbourhood of Cairo, which was, well, very, very small. I found some nice gifts to take home there though, and the cemetery was pretty cool. Unfortunately everything else, the nice churches and such, closed at 4 PM, which is about exactly when we got to them, so we didn't get to see much at all!

Day 8 - '... but I saw it on CNN!'

So, by Saturday we were pretty worried about that volcanic eruption in Iceland... and sure enough, Saturday morning, our flight was cancelled. What was there to do about it? Go to the airport at 11 PM and see if we could shout at some people...

So anyway during the day we squeezed the last bit of culture out of Cairo and visited some mosques.

(Looks, it's got my name!)

Next we hilariously managed to squish 6 people into a taxi (hey, I've seen 7 women in burqa in there before, so it's totally possible) and went back to Khan el Khalili for lunch (Egyptian pancakes, yay) and some more shopping - and of course I found some more gifts (don't get too excited, it's nothing spectacular).

Unfortunately, then it was time to travel to the airport and be sorely disappointed. The organisation over there was absolutely horrifying. At one point, when we finally got to the front of the line, and to the important people, they managed to say 'oh yeah but you can't go back - I saw it on CNN'. What the...

My mum never told anyone what her other job is, so everyone was a bit annoyed with her determination, but she tried her best to get some information out of them. Result: no one knew when we could go home - 1 to 2 weeks probably.

So at 2 AM we went back to the hotel quite angry and tired ...

Oh and then my mum got a tropical skin infection. Or bed bugs. Or something terribly impressive and itchy anyway. Gah.

Day 9 - We've seen about enough of Cairo now...

The adventure of the next day: the supermarket. Amazingly, even though they are nowhere to be seen in Holland, I detected Cheerios - there you go Hilary and Katherine, I took a photo. Next I also found German cereal, Dutch cheese, and English hot chocolate.

Our guide was a bit clueless about what to do with us as well, so he took us out for dinner and then coffee down town.

I translated some Greek.

Whoo.

(Yay. Joy.)

Day 10 - Well at least this saved some money...

So that night I managed to get sick again. Honestly...

I'd been eating stupid sandwiches with cheese and rice the whole week, and the day I am supposed to be eating potatoes at home again, I get food poisoning. How is it possible?! I can usually eat anything, anywhere... but the middle east just hates my stomach or something. By the end of the week the whole group thought I never eat anything because I'd been eating the bloody plates of rice the whole time to avoid it, and still!

Fortunately it lasted about exactly 24 hours, and then I was fine again. Maybe I'm improving at least?

Day 11 - Can we finally go to Alexandria now?

We'd been trying to convince everyone to go to Alexandria all week (really, we've seen everything in Cairo...) and now that we were officially stuck in the country they finally gave in. I'd been dying to go there because there's actually bits of Roman stuff there, and of course it's the place of the famous ancient library!

We didn't get there until dinner time though basically (traffic...) so we didn't do anything that day besides walk to the restaurant and back. I am somewhat traumatised from that trip, because on the way back over the market we encountered a sea turtle... Well I can't even really write about it, it was so horrible. It's definitely reminded me why people should be vegetarians though, and that I should donate any spare money to sea turtle protection. Really, I'm serious. Mankind is so incredibly disappointing sometimes.

Day 12 - So can I study here next year?

On our first actual day in Alexandria we spent several hours trying to find the KLM office to yell at them again. The lady there turned out to be very nice though, so not much yelling was done.

Next we tried to visit the museum, which is supposed to be amazing, but failed. It was being renovated. Rather grumpy and not in the mood to chase after a suitable restaurant, we Dutch-ly got some sandwiches at a supermarket and had a picnic outside the closed museum. The guide laughed at the pictures later.

(All seven of us sucked at map-reading (particularly myself); it was terribly pathetic how much time we wasted the whole week walking in precisely the wrong direction lol.)

Then, we visited the library! The modern one, that is. I've never visited a library as a tourist before, let alone bought a ticket to enter one, but it was so, so, so worth it. It was amazing. I want to move to Alexandria and study in that library. Durham completely fails in comparison.

(My Intro to Archaeology book!)

(Look, I found a 30 year old edition of my Beginners Greek book.)

Oh and after the library, there was food! I'm never one of those travellers who longs for food from home, or who brings potatoes, but after 12 days of rice and getting sick I was so happy to have a brown sandwich with cheese. It was wonderful. I know it's very sad, but it was really wonderful.

(At night we had some more non-Egyptian food (hahaha, we'd really given up, hadn't we?): pizza.)

Day 13 - Victory!

So it turned out that 20 students from our hotel had managed to get a flight home on Friday night! They were mentioned in the newspaper, and suddenly KLM felt like helping out. Of course this was entirely unacceptable towards us: we're a little group of 7, and we're still supposed to wait, while there was suddenly room for 20 others? KLM's organisation skills truly fail...

Yet then! The KLM lady from the Alexandria office called! She'd been calling around, and managed to get us all on flights back as well! Not the same air planes, but still - totally awesome. So we went back over to the office, to give her a gift and check in. This was such a relief, you can't imagine...

Suddenly we had to get back to Cairo asap. We had about 2 hours left... and only seen the library in Alexandria! So we took our 2 hours to see one last thing. Our group went to the Citadel, but my mum and I wanted to see some of the actual ancient history, so we went to Pompey's pillar. We really wanted to go to the catacombs, but there was no time! The pillar wasn't very exciting, but, underneath it was a tiny bit of the ancient library! You couldn't see much about it, but still, I can now proudly claim that I stood in the library of Alexandria. I'd like to see the Citadel some time as well, but I am very glad we choose the pillar for this time.

(The most peculiar mosque I've ever seen, outside of our hotel.)

We managed to take about 6 hours to get to the airport (as opposed to 3) so we got there just in time to check in. This took ages as well , because our Egyptian guides don't really do receipts - which we obviously all needed if we want a chance to get anything at all from our insurance.

Having finally checked in though, we could sit down and have some coffee, and relax. Oh and in the bookshop I found an Arabic version of Miffy, which we were able to spend our last money on <3>

(The guides being puzzled by art art of receipt-making.)

And then...

At 1 AM we flew to Paris and at 11 AM we were back at Schiphol. There was (rather disappointingly actually) no chaos to be seen at that point.

I'd had to cancel my boat ticket back to Durham for Saturday, since we didn't think we'd be back by then... So as I am writing this everyone is returning to Mary's, while I won't be back until Wednesday.

My exam revision is a complete disaster. I got a week's extension on my summative essay, but it's all just making me feel terribly stressed out. I was already way behind because of Jona's activities in Stockholm... so now I don't know what to do. According to my colour coded timetable I had 4 weeks to get through all the online lecture notes, 1 week to do my essay, and then 2 weeks to do extra reading. This has now been reduced from 7 weeks to 2 weeks - is it even possible?

I should sound more positive really. It was a nice trip, and I need to go back some time as well; I still have half of Alexandria to see, and Abydos of course! Maybe if we go on holiday to Libya next summer...