Egypt

DAY 1 - On Friday May, 29, I had a 3am flight to Egypt. I was traveling with Kat, another volunteer here. We traveled to Douala, where another volunteer, Felipe was living. The evening before we left, we went to a party at his friend’s house. There are a lot of ex-patriots living in Douala, and Felipe is friends with many of them. There are also a lot of volunteers there from other countries. All of these foreigners somehow became friends, so I met a lot of them at the party. We hung out for a while, then Felipe helped us get to the airport. We checked in, and flew to Casablanca Morocco for our layover. Luckily, Royal Air Maroc is awesome. If you ask, they offer a guest house if you have a long layover. They gave us a shuttle to a really nice hotel, a free buffet lunch, and shuttle back to the airport. All of this was free, so kat and I enjoyed a nice nap, lounge by the pool, and a ton of food. We continued that evening to Cairo.

DAY 2 – We arrived late in the night, so went to a hotel, then back to the airport to meet kat’s parents. On the bus to the airport, we made a few Egyptian friends, and I started to learn Arabic. I don’t know why, but that language intrigues me. I guess I have too much experience with the romance languages and crave something different. We picked up her parents, and went to our hotel. We had a nice kebab dinner, and smoked some sheesha. Now, I don’t like cigarettes, in fact I think they are disgusting , but so many people in Egypt smoke sheesha that I wanted to see what it was all about. It is just flavoured tobacco that they smoke out of a hookah, but I think its all about the socializing. A group of people will sit around the hookah for hours, just talking and enjoying. I think it’s the same way that Cameroonians are with a bottle of beer. You don’t buy it because you love it. You buy it for the social aspect. Anyway, the sheesha wasn’t horrible, but it gave me a headache.

DAY 3 – The first real day of the tour began, with the Egyptian Museum. It was really cool. We saw old tombs and statues and carvings. We saw a copy of the Rosetta stone, originally found in Egypt, but now in the British museum in London. We even saw King Tut’s tomb, with a lot of the items that he was buried with. That was amazing. We saw his outer tomb (there were actually 3), but it was the best one. It was all gold (12 kg of it), with gem and paint inlay. There are scarab beetles on it for luck, and the cobra, for protection and royalty. We saw a ton of the jewelry he was buried with (for the afterlife), and most of it was solid gold, with gems and different stones. Sadly, I didn’t have a chance to see the Mummy room, but I heard it was spooky, seeing all the dead bodies. I saw pictures of some, and a few still have hair and fingernails. Gross. From there, we traveled to Giza, to see the pyramids and the Sphinx. There are 3 pyramids there, Cheops was buried inside the Great Pyramid, Kefrin in the Second pyramid, and the Third pyramid has Mykerenos. The pyramids are a lot larger than you could ever imagine, with each block almost as tall as me. Each pyramid has thousands upon thousands of blocks. Its amazing. We didn’t pay to go into the great pyramid, but we did to go in the Second pyramid. you climb down a small ramp into the center. The opening is barely large enough to fit through, and you much hunch over. There is a flat space in the middle, then the path climbs up again, and there is a large chamber. Along the way, you can see where they closed up the tomb. There was nothing in the pyramid anymore, but it was pretty neat to see. It was really really hot inside though, so I didn’t stay long. From there we saw the Sphinx, also larger than you would imagine. You can not get very close to it though. Two days later, Barack Obama walked through the same places that I did. He was on every news channel, and part of his tour in the pyramid was shown on CNN. We traveled to a papyrus school after and saw how Egyptians make papyrus. I was tempted to buy some, but I knew I had a lot of traveling ahead of me, so I didn’t. when people completed their purchases, we went to the train station to go to Aswan.

DAY 4 – We arrived in Aswan, which soon became my favorite place in Egypt. Everything in Egypt is along the Nile River, because it’s the only fertile land. Everything else is desert. Aswan is very relaxed and calm, almost like a beach town. There was an excursion, but I was running short of money, so I went into town to get more. I used my few Arabic words to bargain for a pair of sunglasses, so I was pretty proud of myself. After, I went to the Nubian museum with some other tourists in my group. That was really cool. The Nubians were another group of people living in the southern part of Egypt. Their history is a bit longer than the Egyptians. In the museum, every single thing was over 3000 years old. I saw a human fossil from 17.000 years ago, and pottery from 6000 years ago, still in good condition. It was amazing. Outside the museum, there were caves, and they put actual cave paintings in them. The history in this country is amazing. It really makes you think about all the things that have happened throughout history, before we came along. We took a taxi back to the hotel, and the driver wanted to buy me for his wife, in exchange for the taxi fare. In the evening, we took a motorboat across the Nile and rode camels. My camel’s name was Mohammed. Every time I wanted him to go, I was supposed to yell “Yalla” which means “lets go”. After our ride, we visited a Nubian village for a traditional meal – there was moussaka, tomatoes, cucumbers, pita bread, rice and a few other dishes I didn’t recognize. It wasn’t completely traditional bc they also had ziti and French fries. It was all delicious. After we ate, a few of us got henna tattoos, which was fun.

DAY 5 – We got up at 3am to travel to Abu Simbel. It is a really famous monument, near the border of the Sudan, and there are a lot of kidnappers and bandits, so everyone that wants to go, must travel with a tour group, and you must be in the convoy. It leaves every morning at 4am, and if you miss it, the road is closed and you can not pass. There is a checkpoint at the beginning of the road, with lots of guards and machine guns, a long road through the desert, and a checkpoint at the end, with more guards and machine guns. It was about a 3 hour journey. At Abu Simbel, there are two temples. Ramses II built one for himself, and one for his wife, Nefertari, which was unusual. A few years ago, the nile started to flood the temples, so UNESCO funded a project that cut each temple into cubes and shifted the millions of cubes back 300m. it took years to complete the project, and now, you would never be able to tell that it was taken apart and reassembled. The temple of Ramses is huge, many hundreds of feet high. Inside there are paintings and carvings, and both temples were really cool. I spent a few hours just staring at the paintings. We left around midday to get back, and had a traditional Egyptian lunch, called kochery. It’s a bowl of spaghetti, rice, elbows, chickpeas, crunchy lentils, and chickpeas. You then choose which sauces to add to it, like a spicy one, or garlic. It’s a strange meal, but not bad. I got an ice cream cone after lunch, then went for a swim in the pool. The pool was right next to the nile, and had an amazing view. In the evening we went for a group dinner then to the market. I bought a few things. Im really comfortable in the markets there – they are just like the ones in Cameroon. You have to bargain for everything. Since I was used to it, shopping was easy.

DAY 6 – In the morning, went to the market quickly with kat for a scarf. The Egyptian cotton is so nice, and there are so many nice scarves, that I ended up buying one also. We rushed back to begin our felucca (sailboat) ride down the nile to Luxor. The felucca was large, covered with mattresses and pillows so we could relax. It was really nice for a few hours, but then got a little boring. At lunchtime, we went for a swim in the nile. Its really not the safest thing, but I couldn’t resist. There are lots of crocodiles and schisto, but I took the risk. There were a few little kids up on the dunes, so I thought I would climb up with them. It took me a few tries, bc that sand was hot! We continued on down the nile, and for fun, we held on to ropes behind the boat and had it pull us. That boat was moving surprisingly fast. We stopped at an island for another swim, then a different island later to stop for dinner and the night. It is illegal to take a boat on the nile at night. There were a few other tour groups there, and one of them had a bonfire and singing, so a few of us checked it out. Throughout the day I became friends with one of the deckhand’s son, Abdu. I was practicing my Arabic with him, and he showed us the way to the bonfire. I learned the Arabic phrase “in your dreams” and I tried to practice it with Abdu. It was pretty fun.

DAY 7 – I did not sleep very well that night on the boat, bc it was surprisingly cold and noisy. I was up early enough to watch the sunrise, which was beautiful. After a short boat ride, we stopped and drove to the komombo temple. It’s a really interesting temple, bc its two in one. Half is dedicated to horus, the falcon god, and half to the crocodile god. It was really neat to see how the two were joined. From there, we saw the Edfu temple, the second largest in Egypt, and then traveled on to Luxor. Karnak temple is in the area, which is the largest temple in Egypt. I went with a few other people, and it was really cool. I read about it in the guidebook first, and the main point of interest is an area with 138 huge columns, designed to look like papyrus stalks with lotus flowers at the top. If the temple was ever flooded, you would see the tops of the papyrus, just like when it is growing. Anyway, they were huge and amazing. I walked through the area in awe. Each column is over 100ft high, and so wide that if I try to hug the column, I cant even reach halfway around. It was one of the best temples. In the evening, we were all temple-ed out, so I strolled through town with one of my friends. Luxor has its own temple in the center of town, so we just looked at the outside. Each night it was lit up and really pretty.

DAY 8 – We took a boat across the Nile for our donkey rides to the Valley of the Kings. My donkey’s name was Casablanca, and surprisingly comfortable. Much more comfortable than the camel. When we arrived in the valley, we saw 3 tombs: Thutmes, Septaken, and Ramses IV. They were really cool. They were all underground, with many chambers. There are fake chambers at the beginning, to throw off thieves and tomb robbers. Inside all of the chambers and halls are paintings. They are still in amazing condition. In fact, that is how these tombs were discovered. There was flooding in the valley of the kings, and someone passing through saw a river of blue water. They traced the source, and found the opening to a tomb.There were also stone caskets inside. Sadly, I didn’t see King Tut’s tomb. It was one of the most boring inside, with no paintings, but you could see his little tiny mummy. It is only about 4 feet long, but so fragile that they can not move it from the tomb. From there we got back on our donkeys and visited an alabaster factory. We had a chance to watch men carve the alabaster, and it was really neat. Then, to Hatchepsout’s temple. She was the only female pharaoh, and served for about 20 years. Hers was my favorite temple in Egypt. It was huge and beautiful. At the side there was a small temple dedicated to Amun-Ra. It was outside, but had paintings and carvings that were in great shape. Sadly, in the evening I was a typical tourist, and I ate at Mcdonald’s. I hate eating chain restaurant food when I travel, but it was one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten. I had a mcchicken sandwich, fries, and a chocolate milkshake. Amazing.

DAY 9 – We flew from Luxor back to Cairo in the morning. Straight from the airport, I drove to Alexandria with Kat and her parents. We visited Pompey’s pillar, which is one single pillar. The area is a marriage between Roman and Egyptian architecture, which is interesting. There is a place to go underground, to see the Daughter Library. It was Cleopatra’s library, where she stored her correspondance with Mark Antony. We left there and went to see the Catacombs. It is basically an underground mausoleum. There is space to hold about 500 bodies, including children (which was sad – seeing mini tombs), and an altar to sacrifice horses. After, we saw the Biblioteca Alexandrina, the largest library in the world, before going to the Fish Market, a famous seafood restaurant, where we were taken advantage of because we were tourists.

DAY 10 – We relaxed in the morning and watched MTV Arabia. It was really interesting bc we watched American shows with English subtitles, and censoring. Anything that was even remotely scandalous was beeped out or covered with the black rectangle. Even the word “intimate” was beeped out, and girls in swimsuits were covered with the black square. It was ironic that they were showing a story about a gay man. In the afternoon we went to the Citadel. It is a huge walled compound, containing one of the oldest mosques in the world. It is now a military fort, and there are 3 different museums inside. We had a chance to enter the mosque, and I’m so glad I did. Usually if you are not muslim, you can not enter. I was just in time for the call to prayer, and it was amazing to see.

DAY 11 – Kat and I brought her parents to the airport, and did some things in Cairo. We mostly went shopping. We strolled to the market (which took a very very long time), but on the way drank mango juice. It was amazing, and really cheap at a vendor’s stall. For hours we shopped. We literally shopped til we dropped, but I found some great souvenirs to bring back, like leather and Egyptian cotton.

DAY 12 – Leave for Morocco.