Trip to Egypt Fall, 2010

My trip to Egypt was probably similar to most tourists trip to Egypt, I would guess. However, for those who haven’t been, I’m writing an overview of my few days there. I was in Europe for business so I hopped down there for a few days of sightseeing.
I arrived at around 2AM and made it to the Novotel Airport Hotel. I couldn’t sleep so I grabbed a bit of cucumber and spoke to the tourist agency. I was surprised he was up. I went ahead and booked a trip to the pyramids to begin only 6 hours later. I was like wow, no one sleeps here. Then, I learned it was Ramadan which is an interesting time to be there. Everyone was fasting for Ramadan which meant that from 4AM to 630PM, one is not allowed to eat, drink –even water-, nor look at woman. One also cannot eat pork, beans, or eggs. So from 630PM to 4AM everyone is eating, meeting their friends, and enjoying the nice evening weather. When in Rome act as the Romans so I attempted this.

The first day I went to see Saccara, Giza, and the Sphynx. I was excited to go see Pyramids - i mean that is what one does in Egypt right? I met an Egyptologist at my first stop who walked me through the history of these places. I was so lucky because i would have been looking at structures with no idea what it really was. It made the trip so much more interesting and brought everything to life. I learned about the history (2-3000 BC), why the structures were built the way they were, and theories around how they were built.
About 2PM in over 100 degrees, my dehydration kicked in while climbing the stairs to of the Darfur Pyramid. This was the one Pyramid you could actually go in, so I went in. There was about a 100 meter walkway down to the tomb in the middle of the pyramid. About half way down, my quads went into spasms and I cramped. I had to sit down in the middle of the walkway in utter pain. Even running marathons, I’ve never cramped in my legs. Anyways, after I made it out of the tunnel in a very slow walk, I broke down and drank some water. I’m just not as tough as those guys, I thought.

After arriving in Giza, I decided to do the camel ride. Camels are much more athletic, strong, and flexible then I would have every imagined. They were walking up and down very steep sand hills that I think I could only sled down. Do note however, you don’t want to Gallop on top of a camel. He lost control for a bit and it took about 30 seconds to settle him down. It made it easy the rest of the day not to look at woman – I could achieve 1 of the Ramadan requirements.

I arrived in my hotel around 530 and spent the next hour watching the clock for 630PM so that I could eat. When 630 struck, I was so tired I didn’t want to eat but I finally made it out around 10PM for a Falafel. Requirement 2 met. It was amazing to see the streets filled with people just walking, talking, and hanging out. The community feeling was so strong that it made me somewhat envious. I ended up walking around till about 1AM when the Cairo night lived on.

The next day my Egyptologist and I went to the Egypt Museum, the Citadel, and the Coptic Place. The Egypt museum was really amazing. I saw mummy’s that still had their hair, teeth, and toenails (sometimes painted red). Today, modern chemists know the chemicals used to mummify a body, they don’t know the mix of chemicals. It is still a modern day mystery. Another fascinating site at the museum was King Tut’s foundings. King Tut is famous primarily because his tomb was the only tomb of the Valley of the Kings that still had the treasures. In all other tombs, thieves had stolen them. King Tut’s coffin was amazing. There were 3 pure gold coffins, with gems all around it, one placed inside of another. The preciseness of which they did this was amazing. Other interesting items included a chariot that was wrapped in a thin layer of gold. Most everything was gold plated, even the 3 large boxes that housed the 3 small coffins – all which were placed one inside the other. It just amazed me the amount of effort that went into preparing for death.
I also learned there that I was in lower Egypt, northern Egypt. The Nile River is one of two rivers that flows from South to North so Cairo is actually called lower Egypt.

After the museum I went to the Coptic Place. There was a catholic church – supposedly the one that Jesus and Mary stayed from their trip to Egypt when he was a child – a synagogue, and a mosque. Christianity was the first religion in Egypt but many years later many people converted to Muslim. This is apparently the same for places like Syria and Iraq. What was interesting about the Coptic place is that all 3 monasteries were right next to each other – conveying open religious tolerance. I also learned that in Egypt on your passport, one must reveal their religion. So while Egypt may be tolerant, it is not private. I could only wonder why.

After that I went to the Citadel, which was one of the coolest fortresses. It seemed akin to some the structure of the Citadel University in South Carolina. Never a battle was fought there so it was mostly in tact.

That night I went to Khan el Khalili. The open air market was quite cool actual. You could be clothes, hukas, jewelry and an assortment of things. I was so tired from being hustled for money that I regretfully, didn’t buy anything. Egyptians had several negotiating patterns that I’ll now expand on. First, they will ask you where you are from and tell you they have relatives, girlfriends, or anything from there. Once they get your attention, they will invite you into their store to give you something, whether a tea, one of their products, or whatever. Once you’ve gone that far, you are hooked. If you walk out they will start screaming emphatically at you. If you offer them a few dollars for a cheap item, they plead with you. At one point, some guy grabbed me and I lifted my hand to hit him; the look on his face was ghastly but he let me go. I guess i won't make a good Ambassador - or maybe i would. Often the threat of doing something is what is needed for a deterrent.
Another tactic they had was to negotiate with you in Egyptian pounds and then switch to dollars. At the end of the negotiation, they would say, ‘ I meant this is US dollars, not Egyptian pounds’ so then the negotiation starts again. It’s the old bait and switch.
The last negotiation strategy was to serve you before they tell you how much. So if you needed a taxi ride, horse ride, or even a painting – they would give it to you and then tell you how much. How do you negotiate when you already took something? The funny thing was they won’t tell you how much until you actually took it!

The next day I went down to Luxor where I stayed at the Emilio Hotel. It was decent place for $50. My Egyptologist introduced me to his friend. At 7AM he picked me up in a van with about 20 other tourists and off we went to the valley of kings, valley of queens, and queen Hatshe;…. Temple. The coolest thing was the valley of kings. It was crazy to see all of the tombs carved out of a huge sand mountain. After the trip around 1PM I had a breakdown. I really hadn’t eat for 24 hours and decided I was raiding the FFF (Fast Pharaohs Food) at McDonalds. Note a Pharaoh was considered higher than the Gods and at the time the Kings were Pharaohs who liased between humans and the Gods. At some juncture in time, this changed and the Pharaohs became subservient to the Gods. I enjoyed my Fish Fillet Big Mac immensely. I only survived 2 days of Ramadan, how weak I thought.

The last day I went to Luxor Castle and Temples of Karnak. Both were interesting but by this time I was rather drained from the heat, commotion, and pyramids. Also I was flying out that night so off I went. Out of everything in Egypt, the temples and ruins were fascinating, but I think the Egyptian airports were quite nice as well for such a poor country. I was quite impressed.