Eastern Mediterranean Tour - Italy- Rome

Eastern Mediterranean Tour - Italy- Rome

Map of Rome with our routes

Day 14: Tuesday 25^th  December 2012 Rome (Cathy) blue

Again at Rome airport we are dealt with quickly and efficiently and start to look for the shuttle bus. One man tries to coerce us to buy bus tickets for 14 Euros and we decline knowing that there is a much cheaper service. He growls and mutters to us – ‘well if you want the cheap service …’ too right we do! Terravision offers a perfectly good service for 5 Euros a head. The bus deposits us at the Terminali part of Rome after driving past two of the 15 Egyptian obelisks that adorn Rome. Both trains and buses terminate here, a bit like Victoria in London and like Victoria the area is full of hotels. We can walk quite easily to our hotel at number 66 Via Nationale the Hotel Espositione. We are right opposite the opera house so it will be difficult to get lost! The lift is a bit antiquated and very small and we struggle to reception on the 3^rd floor only to find that we will be housed in the building next door and have to struggle down again and back up in the next building. We are on the 4^th floor with a wonderful view of the street and the opera house. Our room is great, really big with a high, elaborately painted ceiling and everything that we need. The biggest boon being the space. The kids take showers and change to freshen up and then armed with a guide book we set off into the streets of Rome, merry Christmas!

We are within easy walking distance of everything, beautifully positioned. All of the museums are of course closed today it being Christmas so we take in some outdoor sights. We navigate through the little winding streets behind the via Nationale to the Trevi Fountain. It’s crowded with tourists but we get to the front of the crowd and throw in our Namibia dollars and wish to return to Rome. Chris buys the kids gelato, Italian ice-cream is, supposed to be the best in the world, Beatrice finds Nutella flavour – yum! Then we keep on strolling, through little winding streets decorated with Christmas lights and full of restaurants and gift shops. It is so delightful to walk around in a place where every angle is interesting and entertaining if not beautiful, what a joy! I buy some roast chestnuts, they are for sale on nearly every street corner, lovely taste, reminds me of childhood. We pass the Pantheon, closed of course but definitely on the visiting list and move on to the Piazza Navona where a Christmas market complete with a worrying number of Father Christmases is taking place. The kids are worried that the children will be confused! The Piazza is packed mostly with Italians which is nice, the atmosphere is lively and friendly and at last we start to have a Christmassy feeling which has been elusive up ‘til now. We must have passed another four obelisks on our walk, no wonder the Egyptians are unhappy. The Romans have added extra embellishments to them including added ornamentation on the pyramid at the top. On our travels we pass a big church, the Basilica of Saint Andreas. I see people coming out and think why not investigate, it had a real ‘wow!’ effect. A typical baroque church, large but quite sparsely decorated outside but inside encrusted with gold leaf, murals and paintings everywhere, soaring columns supporting a high domed ceiling, equally decorated, the tiled floor was also full of decoration – gosh! As we came in we were greeted with a large nativity scene, giving us more Christmassy feeling. The kids were very impressed with the church although it only warrants a couple of sentences in the guide book. Imagine if this church were elsewhere in the world, it would really be celebrated. But in Rome, where every second building is a historical treasure it is relegated to an also ran. We tell the kids to wait for the Sistine chapel!

We move back into the little streets and find a bistro to have supper, they offer reduced menus for tourists and so we order two tourist menus and one pizza to share between us. The pasta starters are very tasty the pizza also, the main meals are only ok but the pudding, tira-mi-su, is delicious. By this time we are quite tired and so Alex, who is proving to be a good navigator, leads us back to the hotel. As I write this all three of them are collapsed, fast asleep, only Beatrice is actually in bed.

I am still full of the splendours of Egypt, after all we only left there today and so far the splendours of Rome don’t quite have the same impact, it’s hard to top the pyramids of Giza. Hopefully tomorrow our visit to the Roman forum and the Colosseum will be splendid enough for all of us. Alex has a computer game that uses ancient Rome as its battle ground so he recognises all of the land marks !

Day 15: Wednesday 26^th  December 2012 Rome (Alex) red

Our first proper day in Rome. We had a real lie in today, well for us that has become about 8:30, the mere mention of this time to me in Namibia, would send me running to the hills in horror, yet here it seems normal. We weren’t sure exactly what we were going to eat, either the Hotel’s breakfast for 3€, which my father didn’t trust, or a Café, which would be quite expensive. In the end after much thought we didn’t go for either, we went for the option Beatrice came up with and that was that we buy things from Spar and then eat them in the hotel room. So off Beatrice and my father went all the way back to the station, for this was the only Spar we knew of at this point, while my mother and I stayed in the hotel as it has become the norm to update the blog and finish writing the diary. This took up most of the morning and at about 10am, about 50 mins after they had left, Beatrice and my father returned with the essentials for breakfast.

So breakfast was a bit rudimentary, but boy it was tasty, just bread, salami, tomatoes, cheese and pesto, simple but one of the best brunches I’ve had all holiday.

Then we decided that we were going to go to the Colosseum first for this I was dying to go see having heard and read so much about it. We thus set off with me as the guide and my mother with the knowledge, walking down the Via Nazionale to the Pizzia Venezia. From here we could already see the Colosseum, but at first there was the victory monument of Emanuele the second, a massive monument all white, Trajan’s Column, also big and fancy with a detailed depiction of the emperors victories. Then we walked along the Foro di Traino/Imperiali, basically the shopping mall of the time, with columns of course, heading ever closer to the grand Colosseum. The street had been closed to cars today so it was absolutely brilliant for taking pictures and walking, on the way we saw many people being human statues and other crazy things.

We hadn’t brought our passports with us so we decided not to go into the Colesseum, because if you can prove that you are a EU citizen youths between 18-26 only have to pay 7,5€ and under 18 for free, so the moral of the story is always have your passport on you at all times if visiting national monuments. But we still took loads of pictures and walked once around it, for me this is all so cool because I know all the monuments, maybe not by name, but I know the best way to climb it and know what other monuments are close by, this of course is all thanks to the computer game:  “Assasin’s Creed”.

We visited the Arco di Constantino, and had lovely pictures of the Colesseum and the Arc together.

We then walked down to Circo Massimo, a huge area where plays and fights were hosted during the Roman time, actually not very spectacular though, but in a nice surrounding and view of the Palatino ( I can’t explain everything).

Then we walked down to the river Tiber and then over a bridge and then over again, quickly having a look at the Isola Tiberina, aka the Island in the Tiber. The Tiber isn’t like the Seine or the Thames, because it isn’t used, no traffic and its banks are filled with rubbish, quite sad but also interesting, for this river is one of the reasons Rome was even founded at this location.

We then decided to go to the Spanish steps, which was a bit of a way off, but nothing is too far for the Brocks and so off we went. We did have to stop off in a little park for a break and drink, but then it was nonstop walking. For me it is quite hard to walk with my parents, because I walk far faster than them and don’t realise it until I turn around and have to jump to find them and since I’m the guide it is quite difficult for them to follow as well.

We then went past the Pantheon again, but this closes at 1pm already on a public holiday. Then we walked down the Via del Corso, a shopping street with loads of big name stores such as Prada and many others of that genre. We then reached the Steps and discovered that there was going to be a show on, so we waited and only really heard the sound check of the singers, but this wasn’t very spectacular and thus after 15mins we climbed up the steps and then went back down again. And had tea at Babingtons tea shop, the most expensive tea is available here and so only mother had tea, because she was really craving tea. Here my mother forgot/lost her guide book and when we returned to find it, it had disappeared.

Then comes that fun part of the visit to a city and that is locating and going to the Hard Rock Café to buy me, Alex, a pin. It wasn’t hard at all to find it and thus we did as we set out to do and found a cool Café on the way called ‘Alex’!

Once we had reached Via Nazionale again, we had thoughts on dinner, but instead of having to walk all the way to the station again, I located a Spar which is far closer to our Hotel than the other and a bakery, both of which my father and sister must have walked by blindly this morning. Then we had dinner in the hotel room again, with a salad and then chilled and did organizational things. And that wraps up our day.
By the way we have seen about 11 of the 16 Egyptian Obelisks in Rome.

Day 16: Thursday  27^th  December 2012 Rome (Christof) green

A nice relaxed morning again, breakfast in the room … only Cathy is suffering the absence of hot tea. Funny how the hotel rooms in Dubai, Egypt and Italy do not have the basic amenity of a kettle and the wherewithal to make coffee and tea in the room. Even a very basic room in southern Africa has that.

It has been raining in the night, Alex says he saw lightning, this morning there is an icy sun shining with bits of low mist chucked in. We take the bus no. 64 straight from in front of the hotel to the Vatican: St. Peter’s Basilica. Most imposing in the low morning mist, the initial photos have the cupola/dome still shrouded. The queues look formidable and the tour guides (feel like touts), who have licence to skip the queues with their extorted clients, look temptingly appealing. But we steel ourselves and stoically embrace the queue (and think of England!). In fact, it does not take all that long really and we’re inside the biggest church ever built (?).

The basilica was only started to be built (on the much older Vatican campus) in the mid 14^th century by Pope Nicolas V and took 176 years to complete, including towards the end, Michelangelo who did the cupola.  The pietà, Madonna and Jesus, sculpted from white marble by him is probably the greatest attraction … but the whole place is overwhelming, everywhere you look would be a most treasured piece of art anywhere, but here there is over-kill. Cathy and Alex still spend an additional small fortune to visit the Vatican treasury (the richest and most corrupt outfit in the world).

Cathy; the treasury was dripping with gold and precious jewels of course, many of the crosses and chalices having being given to various popes as tribute by the kings and nobles of Europe over the years. Some of the older treasures were very beautiful and there was a lovely ivory chalice formed of carved cupped hands from a more recent African donation. We found the reliquaries the most curious; bits of the true cross, bits of various saints, notably St Sebastian’s skull and one of St Peter’s fingers set in a gilded case making a vaguely obscene gesture but without being attached to the rest of St Peter. The names of all of the Popes since St Peter were inscribed in marble at the entrance of the treasury; missing was Chris’ heroine, the one female pope. Interestingly there was a very old papal throne exhibited at the beginning, it had a seat made only from widely spaced leather straps despite the rest of it being ornately decorated and unlike other thrones it was open at the back. Was this the famous chair that candidates for pope were required to sit on when they underwent examination to ensure that they were really male? Oh Pope Joan, what speculation you have provoked!

Chris again; Beatrice posts a couple of postcards to family using the Vatican postal system, not everyone gets a postcard with a Vatican stamp on it! By now it’s almost lunchtime and we’re moving on the long way (the only way) to the right to reach the entrance of the Vatican museum, including the Sistine Chapel. They are very clever with their marketing: because they may not charge for visiting churches, they cannot really charge for visiting the much coveted Sistine chapel, but by including it in the exorbitant entrance fee to the Vatican Museum (€15!), which otherwise very few people would bother to go into, they catch you out. The other 3 go in while I sit in the warming sun outside … I had seen it before in 1974, almost 40 years ago!

Cathy again!; We and it seems 10,000 other people queue to get into the Sistine chapel, OK it is the Christmas holidays but it does lead one to imagine how it must be in the summer when the crowd is overheated as well as squashed! We shuffle in a disorganised column through the galleries of the Vatican museum on our pre-ordained route, passing massive collections of Egyptian, Greek and Roman remains and artefacts. It reminds me of the sultan’s treasure in Istanbul and seems more to be a demonstration of power than anything else. In more distant times many of these treasures were probably tributes from other states who needed to keep the peace with the Holy See. In recent times they were probably more to do with smoothing one’s path to heaven. But of course the Papacy had also commissioned expeditions of its own. We spot a short cut to the Sistine Chapel and scoot down it and are rewarded with a greatly abbreviated queue. The chapel itself is everything I had hoped but I had not anticipated that I would be viewing it chest to chest and back to back with another couple of thousand enthusiasts. The floor of the chapel is a mass of squashed humanity including a couple of babies in push chairs who must be wondering what on earth is going on. All faces are turned upwards probably to breathe more easily but also to admire the ceiling and the higher part of the walls. Vatican staff tasked with stopping people from taking photos move amongst us with difficulty and increasing exasperation. In such a mass of people it is impossible to 

control the cell-phones, cameras and tablets that are being brandished around. The guide book helps us to read the paintings on the ceiling and the altar wall, all Michelangelo’s inspiration and the kids are particularly fascinated by the Last Judgement. The work of the other old masters on the upper walls receives only a cursory mention in the guide book but the paintings by such as Botticelli and Perugino are very beautiful if not quite so dramatically full of energy.

 The lower walls are painted with a drapery effect. Our exit is by a different route to the tour groups and we suddenly find ourselves released into the galleries of the museum and able actually to look at its treasures and admire the patterned surfaces of the walls, floors and ceilings which are covered in decoration; for me as a textile designer it’s quite thrilling. We are particularly taken with the map room and all of the old globes and also with an exhibition of works collected by missionaries from all over the world which is in a modern gallery and exhibited in a more informative and captivating way. We exit the museum via a spiral ramp and of course take pictures of each other at various levels as we descend. Chris is waiting for us at the bottom of the hill once we are out.

Chris; Afterwards we walk the long way via the Fortress San Angelo and the Palazzo di Guistizia behind it, to the Pantheon. This a perfectly circular pre-Christian temple, in perfect shape. Please note: Christianity was only popularised by Caesar Constantine in the mid-300s AD (of course!), before that the fledgling Christians had a terrible time under the Romans (in Rome!).

After that we still go and see a virtual 5-D film show (with moving chairs, rain and wind!) of the 2,750 years of history of Rome, which I find a bit of an anti-climax for the proud entrance fee charged (€12 pp). While we are waiting for the show to start, we have our one gastronomic indulgence of the day: sit-down coffee, hot chocolate, a beer and one pizza shared by us 4.

Afterwards it’s dark and we head back to the hotel via the newly discovered nearby Spar to stock up for our DIY hotel dinner of mainly salad and wine. While the restaurant mark-up for drinks in southern Africa is a comparatively acceptable 100%, here it is more like 4 times the supermarket price. While that might be fine for a once-off special occasion, we must not forget that we are travelling for 36 days and, thus, any pattern needs to be multiplied by 36! Entrance fees (fixed costs) we can do little about: ’take it or leave it’, but the variable costs we need to be careful about, here we can make a real difference.

After a full day’s walking and a filling dinner, with unrestricted budget wine, in a well warmed room, we are suitably tired. The kids remark that it is like camping, going to sleep quite early. So it is, at 21:30 I’m the last one awake, doing the diary for the blog. Tomorrow is another day, the last day in Rome. Tomorrow we need to ‘do’ the laundrette run, with tumble-dryers, we are running out of clean clothes.

On Saturday, it’ll be off to Firenze (one and a half hours by train), where we’ll meet Wilfried and family. Unfortunately Trudie has had to rush back to Namibia to assist one of her brothers who had a serious car accident which tragically cost the life of his 6-year old son. In Florence we will also meet Eckart & Kerstin (we are looking forward to hearing which of his 2, both married, children will allegedly make him a grandfather during the coming year).

Day 17: Friday 28^th  December 2012 Rome (Beatrice) orange

We got up at around 8am and enjoyed the rest of the panettone from yesterday without any stress, yeah right! Today we stressed a considerable amount. First we stressed about the transport from the Turkey airport to our hotel. Then we stressed about getting out of the building soon to have as much daylight as possible and then we stressed about where the launderette was. So you get my point. Once at the launderette (which was very easy to find) we divided our stuff into dark and light and sorted out when to come back. The owner was friendly and said we could collect our stuff anytime before 12pm and proceeded to tell Alex that he is very handsome and that he should marry his daughter. Alex was rather embarrassed but laughed anyway When we left the owner rushed after Alex and said that he should think about his offer.

Once outside we decided that Mummy would go with me to the Vatican to post my cards, Alex and Daddy would go to the bank and that we would all meet up asap at the Colosseum. All went well, Mummy and I got our bus easily and now knew how to operate the ticket machine. Once we had got off we saw an interesting gallery and agreed that Mummy would look around and I would meet her after I had sent the postcards. Why I had to send postcards from the Vatican was because I stupidly had bought the postcards with post stamps in the Vatican, so I could only send them from there since the Vatican is its own country. That was easy enough and after walking around the gallery to find that Mummy was outside looking for me we asked a shop keeper which bus we would have to take to get to the Colosseum. He told us and we merrily went to wait for our bus. Eventually it came and we got in, looked for the machine to buy the ticket and were confused, for there weren’t any. Mummy went to the driver to ask were we could buy some tickets and we were informed that we had to buy a ticket in advance in a tobacco store and so had to get out at the next stop. Rather peeved we got out and looked for a tobacco store. We had to walk a fair way to find one and went inside to find out that they were sold out. Annoyed we walked on to find that every single store was sold out. 

Really frustrated we had to walk all the way to the Colosseum (the fine for driving without a ticket was 50 Euro per person). Mummy worried that the other two might be worrying and so the conversation was minimal. It was a long walk and when we finally did arrive Alex had already got in the area where we couldn’t join him and so we had to stand at the back of the gigantically long line.  It took Alex 1h 15mins to get in an us exactly 1h. Thankfully we had our passports with us this time and so Alex got in with a reduced fee and I got in free. Meanwhile Daddy sat and read in the sun, 

since he had already seen it before. The Colosseum is colossal and really awe inspiring! Even though the amount of people that entered the Colosseum was enormous it did not see at all crowded, since the big arena had been built for 80000 people. There is not very much to write about our experience except that I recommend it to everyone and the view and history is fantastic.

After a few hours we went back out and met up with Daddy. From then on Mummy kindly gave Daddy her ticket and we three went to the Roman forum while Mummy read her Kindle in the sun. It was very interesting history, fabulous ruins and a really pretty garden. We spent quite a while there coming back out when it was starting to get dark.

Before we went home we walked to the Capitoline Museums. I recognised a few of the politically captured people on the posters that were on the walls there but was a bit to tired to notice anything else specifically because walking around all day taking in a lot of new information is very tiring!

Then we decided to stop in a café for 

some warm drinks, which we could not make in the hotel room and needed to warm up - it was really quite cold! On our way we were stopped to let the president’s procession of cars through and we even saw him as he got out even though I did not know which one of the men with suits he was. The warm drink was good and we continued home. Mummy and Alex went via to the launderette and Daddy and I went via the super market. We made a nice salad and ate it with baguette and afterwards Nutella! After that we stressed a bit more about the train for tomorrow to Florence and went to sleep.

Eastern Mediterranean Tour - Egypt part 3

Eastern Mediterranean Tour - Egypt part 3

Day 11: Saturday 22^nd  December 2012 Hurghada (Alex)

Well today is our day off and that means not having to wake up early, or rather that is what my parents made both Beatrice and me think. The truth I am ashamed to say is rather different.

It was still dark in room 318, not a sound to be heard but the gentle breathing of the rooms two occupants. With a start the two occupants awoke, somebody had knocked quite violently at the door, followed by a sequence of words, which the still dazed occupants merely heard as murmurs. Then the murmurs turned into words, then forming sentences with the basic message : Get up!
What a wonderful way to be woken, can’t think of a better way (sarcasm: for those who haven’t caught on). This was followed by us getting up and then ready for breakfast. Which was the same as yesterday, still having a useless toaster and no pancakes today, they probably didn’t think the world was going to survive the 21^st. Then since we had a free day, but had to be checked out by 12 o’clock, we could do anything. So first things first: find a wifi spot and pack our bags. I thus quite quickly packed and found a café with wifi, which I suspect they were stealing off another café, since the wifi’s name wasn’t that of the café’s but that of the one over the road. Still it got the job done. I sat down did the usual blog update and had a couple of drinks. What was amusing was that the café which we were sitting in was called Dubai, a nice mixture of the trip so far. Meanwhile Beatrice and my mother went off:

Beatrice/Cathy: Beatrice wanted to get a henna tattoo, she had seen them advertised in Dubai and here and some of the Russian girls were covered in them. However Beatrice was going for a small example on her hand. We negotiated with the nearest practitioner and went to his workplace on the beach. It was very quick and the end result was very pretty and the great think is that by the time she is bored with it, it will already be wearing off! We took lots of photos and she enjoyed picking off the henna when it had dried.

Alex again - Then after we had finished with the internet we proceeded to point 2 of our list of the day: go to the Hard Rock Café in Hurgada. This was simpler said than done, as we soon were to discover. Out of the Café and straight into a taxi, who’s driver said he knew where the Café was. It is important to accent the “he said he knew”, for we started driving and after basically having had a city tour of Hurgada and reached a place which wasn’t on the cities map, only at this point did he ask if we were going to Durhab? We had been repeating Hard Rock Café over and over again to him the entire trip, thus frustrated we asked a younger man if he knew where it was and said that it was on the other end of town. The young man gave the driver directions and then the driver gave us a lecture about how it had been our fault, that we couldn’t find Hard Rock Café.

Well eventually we found the Café and enjoyed drinks, plates of chips and ice cream to songs such as Thriller and other well known classic rock songs. A really nice atmosphere but really expensive. I bought my pin to add to my collection and we took the photo in front of the “Hard Rock Café” sign.

It was far easier to find a taxi driver who knew where the Roma Hotel was and off we went. It is important to note though that taxi drivers in Hurgada really cannot speak English. This one for instance was so, on asking how long he had been working in Hurgada he answered with things so off topic, that one could only roll one’s eyes. This was a bizarre taxi it had 7 air fresheners and a sound system which was crazy and so we couldn’t have a discussion and were forced to smell this dreadfully sweet odour. On arrival my father had trouble with pay and was sadly, in all the commotion and speed, conned out of 100 LE. Not good advertising for Hurgada, but when people are desperate they do such things.

Then we had 7 more hours before the bus would depart to Cairo and we couldn’t go back to our rooms. Thus we were forced to sit in the foyer of our hotel until then, this time was filled with reading, writing, eating, playing cards and of course sleeping.

We had dinner in the hotel’s restaurant, it was a buffet and visually very attractive, sadly though it wasn’t very tasty and sometimes even tasteless. A large group of Russians took over a part of the restaurant and started a vodka drinking contest. Luckily we left before they got too out of hand.

Then more time filling and then onto the bus.

Day 12: Sunday 23^rd  December 2012 Cairo (Christof)

Just past midnight, as per plan, the bus arrives in front of the hotel and the luggage is being loaded.  Unfortunately it is mid-sized bus, the seats are not high enough to give taller people any head support and the bus is full. Not a brilliant prospect for an all night (6 hrs) bus ride. But we survive somehow and punctually at 06:15, before the Cairo traffic becomes impassable, we arrive at our now familiar Oasis Hotel. Usual drawn-out checking-in rituals, but in the end we have our room keys. We are told to be ready by 09:30 for the city tour today. So we still get a bit of sleep in.

Today breakfast is not included, but costs an exorbitant LE80 (N$120), so we delegate Beatrice, our breakfast queen, to have breakfast. Her day-pack is lined with a plastic shopping bag and off she goes. Apart having done her best to eat value for money (“den Preis rausgefressen!” ), she also brings a respectable selection of breakfast for us other 3. Alex and Cathy would have been too embarrassed. We say to ourselves that only Grossmutti Greta Brock, myself or Beatrice have the personality to pull it off ... not everybody is the same!

It  takes more than hour of Cairo traffic until we arrive at the famous Cairo Museum. The highlight is obviously the pure gold death-mask of Tutankamen, but badly lit. In general this stuffy old fashioned museum could do with a general facelift … more interactive … more historical perspectives and comparisons. I also  find the Rosetta Stone, a tri-lingual hieroglyphic – Greek translation code, very fascinating. The original is in the British Museum in London. Cathy would probably write another 3 pages worth of details…

Next on the agenda is the Coptic (Egyptian orthodox) ‘hanging church’, so called because it was originally built, in the 4^th century, unwittingly on top of the rubble-submerged remains of a Roman fortress, which has now been excavated below it. Apparently the Holy Family (including baby Jesus) over-nighted here somewhere when they were in exile in Egypt to escape the boy-child purge in Israel at the time.

It is always important to realise that Islam was only introduced in Egypt in about 620 AD, after a 300-year era of Coptic Christianity.  This morning we  saw on the TV in the hotel room that the ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ won the referendum with about a two-thirds majority. Islamic fundamentalism, here we come. Progressive Egyptians will now be worse off than before the ‘Arab Spring’.

Next: the Citadel. Due to high cost of the entrance fee the whole tour votes to only see it from the outside. It is a huge mosque with comprehensive fortifications around it, built about 1200. Has an imposing view over the city.

Lastly the famous and huge Khan & Khalili Bazaar, straight from 1001 Arabian nights. Pure magic!  Alex is finally getting his sew-on Egyptian flag badge, for his day-pack, and Beatrice her mother-of-pearl jewellery box. Also t-shirts for Romana and Helleswite, who are guarding our house in Windhoek. We are also finally getting honest, value for money take-aways from a stall without an English menu. LE2 (N$3.00) for a falafael in a pita bread with salad and tahina. Yes, life can be cheap in Egypt, but where we are staying in our 4-star hotel ghetto, there is nothing cheap and no shops for miles.

But on the insistence of a number of us we stop at a smallish supermarket, with fixed prices (!), so we can ‘illegally’ make a nice salad and drink cool drinks (coke-zero is common in Egypt too!) at supermarket prices in the hotel room.

Tomorrow we have to get up early again 06:00 sharp for breakfast to leave at 06:30 for our daytrip to Alexandria. We had promised Alex this as a special Christmas gift (despite its ouch price), after our visit to the South African town of Alexander Bay in August. Well, Alex from Cape to Cairo …

Day 13: Monday 24^nd  December 2012 Alexandria (Beatrice):

Frohe Weihnachten to you all! We celebrated German Christmas by waking up at 5.40am- oh what fun! And then at 6am to breakfast, this time at least as a family. What surprised me was when we walked into the dining hall we were not alone, seems we are not the only ones to celebrate this early. To accompany our breakfast we had German Christmas carols, would you believe.

Then off we were to the lobby, not to be unpunctual and waited. 15min later the guide for today arrived and with him a very luxurious car with a lot of leg room! Bisho (?) is a very nice guide and speaks good English when on script, if not you will find you are talking to yourself, yet he has a good heart and cares about his history.

The drive was quite fine, but rather long and it rained slightly, proving Alex’s theory, that he can make it rain.

On the way we stopped off at a little gathering of shops and cafés, where Daddy had eaten pigeon eons ago. For us though it was too early for pigeon and so we continued driving to Amud El-Sawari. There we learnt about the Romans, the Coptic the ancient Egyptian’s style of building coulombs and the styles intertwining. There was one 28m tall column, the tallest in Alexandria, dedicated to Eibis, the holy cow, symbol of motherhood and magic, which was flanked by two sphinxes on either side. Scattered around were fragments of columns. We played a short game of ‘Guess the Religion’ and continued via the Nilometer (which was empty, due to the damn) to the temple. This temple was as before dedicate to Isis and therefore contained in one tunnel a statue of a black cow with a holy circle between its horns. The other tunnel must have had sculptures in it which had been taken out. I was not feeling at all well and sat down on the steps, while the rest explored the tunnels for a bit. Outside on the walkways there were odd stumps of concrete and stones which must once have been ends of columns, which dated back to the Romans.

Next to the Catacombs of Caracalla, which is a big underground tomb for a lot of Roman nobles and their leader Caracalla. It has a circular stairway with tiny steps of which there are supposedly 99. Once at the bottom we saw some old rooms with big sarcophaguses for the nobles and next to it a bigger room with loads and loads of shelves were build against the wall where the coffins of the not quite as nobles were stored. These were out of wood and therefore did not make it to the 21^st century. The next room had a big box with bones in it, these were the remains of mummified holy animals, such as the cow. In the tomb, there were very fascinating hieroglyphs and pictures, such as a Egyptian god head with a Romans god body. In case you were wondering why the Roman style mixed with the Egyptian one, it is simple, for Alexander the Great (hence Alexandria) came to Egypt and wanted to befriend them and therefore combined their religions.

After that we went to a big fort called the Citadel of Alexandria, which is right next to the Mediterranean sea. There we found lots of Egyptians, either school trips, couples or a group of friends, but unfortunately no other tourists to speak of. The fort had 3 stories brought together by awfully steep steps and on top there was a mosque, which was still in use. We visited all 3 stories but weren’t allowed to go onto the holy roof. The fort was made out of limestone and was amazing. It felt almost like time travel seeing the lookout places for the guards and their room, where they took turns sleeping. There was not very much history in the fort in comparison with tombs but it was very magnificent. When we went out we saw a strange sight, loads of bicycles for hire in all sizes decorated with some very fluffy fabric in red, green and blue. Mummy thought this was fantastic.

Before our last stop we had lunch at a nice fish restaurant where we were served fish with scales, head and bones (luckily degutted) it was very tasty even if it was a bit messy. Our last stop was the Library of Alexandria. We could see it from the restaurant but it took ages to get there, that’s Egyptian traffic for you. I do believe when we get back to Windhoek we will laugh at the taxis non-dangerous driving. Finally we arrived and it was obvious that our tour guide did not think highly of it which irritated Mummy for as you might know, she loves books. We took the famous picture of Alexander the Great statue and Alex the Brother together and continued taking pictures of all sorts of signs saying Alexander. Unfortunately we did not have time to look into the Library, which wood have been absolutely amazing, but on the one hand we were under time pressure to get back to Cairo and on the other side because the ancient scripts and scrolls had been burnt by some Islamic followers, who believed that the Koran was the only book one was allowed to posses. There had been riots and protests recently near to the university but we saw no signs of anything today.  

So as said we were off to Cairo, all the way back, I cannot say much about this trip because I was sleeping. The only person who did not sleep a bit was the driver, thank goodness!

At first we had one and a half hours to spare, so we thought we could go back to the hotel, one would have thought we had learnt by now, but the traffic was against us and we arrived there half an hour to kill. So we went into a very nearby café and had a hot drink to warm us up. Then off we were to the Sound and Light show. To get there we drove through a few smaller streets where the guide kept saying: “You probably have seen this on the TV, people fighting and demonstrating.” The biggest riot in those streets had been the “Battle of the Camels”. It was a very odd yet interesting experience driving down roads, where real history had happened. But there were no signs of it anymore.

The Sound and Light show was at the Giza pyramids and therefore at the Sphinx. Light was projected onto the ancient wonders and stories were told by means of showing and listening. They projected a laser light that displayed the inside tunnels on the outside of the pyramid, giving one the feeling of possessing X-ray vision. The special effect that amazed us the most was the Sphinx, where a light was projected perfectly on it showing Pharaoh Caphron’s face, and therefore how the Sphinx looked like before it had been damaged. It was a fantastic end to our Egypt trip, summarizing all the facts we had learnt in a fun and thrilling way. We all came out of it awe struck. Then it was back to the hotel. We then went to the Italian restaurant preparing for Rome and celebrating Christmas with a very tasty meal.

Day 14: Tuesday 25^nd  December 2012 Cairo (Cathy)

 We are having a slightly odd Christmas spending half of today travelling but there you are! Another early morning, today our driver picked us up at 6am. We actually left far too early for our 10 o’clock flight but given Cairo traffic leaving an hour later may have meant that we missed the flight. We grabbed some quick breakfast and ate it on the bus as we drove.

The airport announces itself with Hollywood style signs as we approach and the architecture of the terminal three building is very stylish and futuristic, unlike what Alex calls the ‘post-apocalypse’ style of the rest of the city. We are processed quickly by rather surly airline staff, maybe they didn’t want to get up early either! We while away our time spending the remains of our Egyptian money on coffee and chocolate and soon enough our flight is called and we are airborne. The flight over the Mediterranean is short and soon we are over Greece, my cell-phone bleeps ‘welcome to Greece’ – not yet folks. Both Greece and Italy are very mountainous and both have mountains with snow on them. The view from the windows is quite dramatic.

Eastern Mediterranean Tour - Egypt part 2

Eastern Mediterranean Tour - Egypt part 2

Day 7: Tuesday 18^th December 2012 Aswan (Alex)

So it’s my turn again to write. . . . well . . . today, since we decided not to go to Abu Simbel, which would have been nice to do, we could have a lie in. Well lie in is a bit of an overstatement since we had to have had breakfast by 10 o’clock, this meant that we had to wake up at 9 o’clock, I personally don’t call that a lie in. Then after a shower and groaning for having been waken slightly more early than stated, we went to breakfast. It consisted of falafels, bread rolls, egg and a variety of different toppings. Still I find it a bit weird having falafels for breakfast.
We had until 12 o’clock to do what we pleased, my father and sister went into town to find an ATM machine and my mother and I stayed in the Hotel to finish the Diary and post it on the blog, the wifi was free, straight forward and worked, something revolutionary and fantastic for this journey.

Christof: Beatrice and me intend to take the scheduled courtesy shuttle minibus down to the town centre (quite a few kms away) at 10:00. We, plus 2 others, are sitting in the sun on the stairs, waiting, but as no minibus is arriving, we ask at the reception. They say, oh, you want a minibus, we’ll order you one. Downtown our first task is to draw money on the credit card from an ATM which, after the previous abortive experience has left me a bit apprehensive, but it spews out the demanded amount without blinking an eyelid.

Then we walk along the waterfront boulevard, all the luxury cruisers lying idle. A local man asks me whether Beatrice is my daughter, which I affirm, upon which he asks me how many camels I would need to get from him to have him marry her. I say one million, and he jokingly responds that he is willing to pay one and a half million. Beatrice is disgusted. Later we go up some side streets, where we finally see the cheap cafés/restaurants, that I would have liked to have eaten at … but after a rich breakfast?

With teutonic precision we are back at the appointed pick-up place at 11:15 (having agreed that with the driver when he dropped us), but we wait and wait for 20 minutes before we decide, together with the other 2, to take a taxi back, which for a total of LE 10 (N$15) divided by 4 is hardly a hurtful expense. We’ve just got 15 minutes left to pack our stuff and be at the lobby at the demanded 12:00 noon.

Back to Alex: Then at 12 o’clock sharp all of us who had not gone to Abu Simbel and stayed at the hotel were assembled, yet since we are still in Africa, Wael and the bus only arrived at 12:30, with Wael commenting that his watch wasn’t working .... sure.

Then all into the bus and off to the high dam. Not a long ride from the hotel, plus we enjoyed a lovely vista from the road over the valley. There are two dams in Aswan: one is an old imperial wall built by the English, the other was built in the 60’s with the aid of the Soviet Union and to commemorate this there is also a huge memorial for the friendship between Egypt and the Soviet Union. The dam wall was huge and the lake it had created even more so, the largest man-made lake on earth: Lake Nasser. The dam is also used to generate electricity, in the 1960’s it generated 50% of the electricity needed in the whole of Egypt now in the year 2012 only about 9%. So we had a little walk along the wall and took a group picture, then off to the Nile to get on the feluccas to take us down the river, so North.

Once at the feluccas we first had to repack and reorganise our rucksacks, because we were to have no access to our large cases while on the boat. once that had been done it was “all aboard” and we set sail. We sailed with the current, but against the wind which meant we had to sail in zigzags as to use the wind, which also meant that we travelled very slowly. Yet we had lunch, consisting of yes you guessed it, falafels and Egyptian flat bread aka Pita bread, you’re just fed it every were you go in Egypt, so make sure you like or can tolerate it if you decide to visit Egypt.

The plus side of the cruise was that the drinks were cheap, the beer cold and the view and atmosphere brilliant, we are 9 tourists 2 captains and our tour guide called Peter on the boat. The best thing though about our felucca is the rudder: it basically was a shrine to Bob Marley, with rastafari colours, with Bob Marley flags, the horns of a cow, a plastic sword and a plastic crocodile, absolutely brilliant. We sailed until about 3:30pm then stopped to have a swim for those who wanted, which meant that I was the first one in and the last one out. The Nile wasn’t too cold, about 22°C, which meant that my mother already shrieked when putting her toes in. Beatrice still joined me and 4 others too. Then a quick dry off and  we sailed until it was dark which wasn’t long. We then all joined in with card games, well except my parents, and played a game similar to UNO and then a game called change and each time you lost you received a letter from the word D-O-N-K-E-Y, when the game ended most were at the D-O-N stage but I  didn’t have one letter, pretty good if you would ask me. At about 6pm we landed and had dinner on the boat, which to my surprise didn’t consist of falafels, but rather of noodles, vegetable broth, kofta ( a sausage kind of thing, but more crispy) and of course more flat bread. Then all were obliged to go ashore along a plank they had put out for us and then we all crowded around the fire. It was just like being in a story such as Aladdin or alike: a fire going, stars in the clear sky, the shisha burning, the desert on one side a river on the other and men all dressed up in traditional Arab clothing singing and drumming weird songs you don’t understand. Although after saying that it was very fun when after a traditional song, they would slip into song such as : ”she’ll be coming round the mountain when she comes”, though with an Egyptian twist: “she’ll be swimming down the Nile or smoking hubbly-bubbly or dancing like a Nubian when she comes”. All really fun and exciting. The rest of the evening went on like this, from time to time one of us going back to the boat to either sleep or get more beer and then give a loud exclamation that the walk plank to get back onto the ship was  more and more submerged. Yes, south of the dam wall the Nile has tides, at night high tide and in the day low tide, can you think why? Well I did mention that the dam was used to generate electricity didn’t I, so at night time more 

electricity is needed and more water has to go through the turbines and thus the Nile rises. When then we few, the last still going, wanted to go to bed, we basically had to wade up until our knees to get to the boat and on top of that the night was really cold. The open sides of the boat had been closed with cloth as to give the boat a kind of tent feel and to keep the cool air/ breeze away. 

When I finally went to bed it was about quarter to 12 and it was cold and I had been eaten by mosquitoes, but I had had a wonderful day.

Day 8: Wednesday 19^th December 2012 Luxor (Christof)

Quite a chilly night … in the middle of the night I had to ask for my warm fleece jacket back from Alex, which he had used as a softener to the brick-hard standard issue pillow. After that I was fine. The weight on the thin mattress also compelled me to turn from one side to the other from time to time … all in all quite tolerable. Very glad to find out that Cathy had been sleeping well too! As soon as one stands in the early morning sun one gets pleasantly warm, in spite of the chilly moderate breeze.

Ablutions behind any chosen bush on land, then a quick wash on the beach. The crew have readied the breakfast on the felucca in the meantime: pita bread, a boiled egg, a wedge of processed cheese, a factory packed chocolate wafer (Beatrice has mine too!), butter, jam, coffee and tea. Then it’s off to the minibus, which has now arrived at the road some 100 m away  up a sandy slope. The wheels on the heavy suitcases don’t help here! Alex kindly carries Cathy’s suitcase, which the crew have given up on.

Then it’s a quick half hour down river (north!) to the first site of the day: Kom Ombo. Here is the famous Temple of Sobek and Horus, symbolising the 2 elements of good and bad in all of us. Sobek = crocodile = god of bad, while Horus = falcon = god of good, rather than a single deity.  It was built during the Ptolemaic era, after Alexander the Great and before the Romans, with other words between about 350 BC to 100 BC. It is the standard heavy-set construction method of straight chubby granite lintels and of fat pillars, hardly leaving any room to walk in between. Of interest further is the still functioning nileometer for measuring the level of the river, even though it is quite far from the river, as well as the eerie mausoleum of mummified crocodiles (god symbols!).

 

Then we are whisked of a further 60 km downstream to Edfu, where the huge, well preserved Ptolemaic cult Temple of Horus is. Here and there one finds remnants of the original colourful decoration, but Napoleonic soldiers have the dubious fame of having camped in the temple and their fires irredeemably blackened the ceilings. Also, somebody took great trouble to chisel out the faces and hands of all the carved images of the gods (it is a taboo to represent the face and hands of God in monotheistic religions), but the sheer number of them must have overwhelmed these villains and they gave up half-way. What a glorious view this must have been in its original form!

 

Then it’s off in the minibus to Luxor, a further 110 km downstream. Every square meter along the Nile is under irrigated cultivation: mainly sugar cane (we drove past the huge processing plant) and lucerne (there is no grazing, let alone communal grazing) but also quite a bit of cabbage as well as mango groves. Like in Noordoewer or Aussenkehr along the Orange river in southern Namibia, the second the irrigation stops, usually because the mountains start, it is pure desert.

The very frequent mean ‘sleeping policemen’, aka speed humps or traffic calmers, slow down the trip considerably. By the time we are at the swanky new Hotel Lotus and have showered etc (no showers this morning!) there is only about an hour of daylight left, but we want to use the opportunity to savour the town a bit. Just outside the hotel we are accosted by one of the very many horse cart operators. As he is offering to show us around town for about an hour for only LE 10 (N$15) we jump at the opportunity without hesitation.

This trip proves to be the highlight of the day. We soon realise that on foot we would not have been able to reach the market within the deadline of having to be back in the hotel at 18:00 for the briefing regarding tomorrow. We are being driven through the market lanes barely wider than the horse cart itself, and without being hassled! Our driver is a nice young chap called Ali and, of course, he is taking us to a very large art/craft shop (maybe he is getting percentages there?). We are treated to the ubiquitous hibiscus tea … without obligation to buy, of course. And of course, because tourism business is bad, there is a 50% discount today … just for you my friend. But in the end Cathy finds her coveted Christmas present: the Ankh the sign for eternal life as a pendant in good silver. We also manage to get some roasted chickpeas (as a snack) and a half kg of local excellent strawberries for a pittance. On the way back it is getting dark and the Temple of Luxor, along which we ride,  is lit very attractively. After a last spurt galloping we reach the hotel at exactly 18:00, Alex is relieved! He can’t help having inherited his paternal grandfather’s genes in this respect! We give Ali 3x what he had asked us.

After the (delayed) briefing the tour guide manages to lure us into going to a restaurant around the corner (where he no doubts eats for free for bringing clients). It is ok.

Back at the hotel I’ve got enough time to write the diary. Late I’m satisfied that I’m up to date and switch the computer off, but alas, when it comes to the question: do you wish to save? for some idiotic reason I press NO and my labour is gone in one fell swoop! I’m furious with myself, but it is irreversible. It will be tedious to have to rewrite it all …

Day 9: Thursday 20^th December 2012 Luxor to Hurghada (Beatrice)

Brace yourself, I certainly am, we did a lot today and so this might be a long diary entry, but I’ll try and keep it short.

We woke up at 6.40 and got up shortly before 7am. Shortly afterwards a hotel worker knocked at the door to inform us via sign language (since it became obvious I had no idea what he was trying to tell me in ‘English’) that we ought to have breakfast now or we would not be finished in time for the bus. So following his advice we had breakfast (with omelettes made for us in front of our eyes and coco pops!) and then proceeded to check out, store our luggage in the luggage room and wait for the bus, as we have now been accustomed to do.
But we still left on time which is the most important part and headed out to sight 1 out of 5!
Valley of the Kings was pretty amazing. Instead of building pyramids the more (if one can even say that) ‘modern’ pharaohs build underground tombs, because the robbers had already cottoned on to the pyramids having pots of gold, so now they had to hide the tombs under piles of stone and sand. These tombs were found way later that the pyramids (obviously) but had also been robbed, not by the pyramid robbers but by the artists, for they got very little pay.
In total we were each only allowed to visit 3 of the many tombs, but since Daddy had already been here, he had kindly given his 3^rd to Mummy. The first and best tomb we went into was Ramases IV, where the colour was mostly intact. Every single wall was covered with hieroglyphs and paintings in yellow, red and blue. We had to almost drag Mummy out.

The next belonged to Meneptah, which went very steeply down and I kept wondering how the one lady in a wheelchair, whom I had seen earlier could see all the tombs. The most special thing about this tomb, apart from the obvious fact that it is ancient and underground, was that it had two sarcophaguses, the first one being a false one (Alex said it might have had poison inside) to trick the robbers who came to steal. In here we also saw the first graffiti, not as we know it but there were names and crosses of the orthodox church on a few walls and they had also damaged the heads of the pictures, for they believed there was only one god and that that was obviously theirs and no one else’s.  This was also really interesting but not as beautiful as the first.
The third belonged to Ramases IX, which still had some paint left on the walls and ceiling. The walls had loads of pictures of the afterlife and what the pharaoh had done when he was alive, in this case conquer a lot of towns and enemies. As with the first tomb as well the ceiling was mostly covered with stars in the sky. There was one odd picture though which I could not at all understand (not that I completely understand any picture) were men walking upside down on what looked like the roof. A guy had told and shown us a few things which were rather interesting yet when we came to the exit he demanded money, which we didn’t have. So with a twinge of guilt we went on. We sat on the steps with the other group members while Mummy dashed off to see the tomb of Ramases III.
I do not know which Ramases it was but there was one that had 54 wives, 196 children of which 88 were boys. He lived up to 97 years old and therefore was worshiped as a god while he was still living, they average age of death being 30-35 years old.

He had built the biggest tomb for him and 55 sons, which would have been amazing to see, but unfortunately it was unsafe to enter.

Then we were off to Al-Deir Al-Bahari Temple aka the Temple of Hatshepsut. Hatshepsut was (the first) female pharaoh, who wore a beard and wig so that she would be taken seriously. Her temple is the only Temple that was 3 stories high, since her architect was amazing. In the hills nearby there a small holes to be seen, this is where the builders and. in a more fancy hole, the architect lived. There were loads of columns, hieroglyphs and massive statues. To describe this all would take ages and I did say I would try to keep it short.

So off we went to the next stop: the temple of Amun Hoteph which was being restored and there were only two very large statues to be seen called ‘Memnu’ which means whistle, for there used to be gap just below the head of one sculpture which made a whistling noise if the wind blew through it. The people did not know where the sound really came from and praised the gods. We stepped outside and as usual were bombarded by trinket sellers saying how nice one’s eyes look, even though one was wearing sunglasses and calling one Chakirra for no apparent reason! Someone offered 3 miniature pyramids for 300 Egyptian Pounds. Daddy did not say a word and the seller bargained himself down to 30 Egyptian Pounds. And he was not the only seller who had to stoop so low, it is really sad what the Regime and Government has done to its people, especially in the tourist market. The people are desperate.

The fourth stop was to the Karnak Temple, which is actually a whole series of amazing temples, every generation building onto what was left by their predecessors. It is interesting to walk from the newer generation back to through the old generation to the ancient buildings. Unfortunately the last generation never completed the main entrance, leaving it looking a bit lopsided yet it was still utterly amazing, the highlight of my day. There are 134 columns, which Alex recounted, each with engravings and a phenomenal height! There were lines and lines of sphinxes with a ram’s head and 2 amazing 26m high obelisks! There was one tiny tip of a previously fallen down obelisk which in itself was not tiny at all! It was enormous and that was just the tip! next to it was a statue of the holy beetle (scarab), which if you walked 7x anti clockwise around it brings luck- so me and 3 other girls did it, I mean, who knows if it’s true or not?  

Apart from the amazing architecture there were a lot of other Egyptian tourists, which always pleases Mummy to see, yet there were a few very peculiar ones, that completely inconspicuously (warning; sarcasm) took pictures of us with their cell phones or cameras. Some guy kept asking everyone if he could take a picture of you with his son. At one point the group was being stalked by some small boys, in general we were being quite harassed. On our way out we saw two girls dressed very skimpily and asked ourselves how badly they would be harassed.

But no time to do anything about it and so we were off to ‘New Hamees Papyrus’ which is a shop selling, guess what, papyrus. There was nothing at all in there that I would buy and to me it is mostly (not all) kitsch, but I would not stop anyone from buying a bedazzled pharaoh’s head. But as all Egyptian places we were offered a nice welcoming hibiscus ice-tea, this I must say is always a warm welcome and does make one think again about buying something. Also the owner showed us how to make papyrus out of, well obviously, papyrus. Yet the very interesting part was that one does not use any other substance whatsoever to make the paper apart from the actual papyrus plant, which is cut up, soaked, layered and pressed. Another interesting fact was that one can write on it, wash it and use it again. A few of us tried it out but, Murphy’s law, when I wrote the pen punctured the paper leaving a hole. The owner jokingly said I had to pay for it and everyone chuckled but I could have died of embarrassment.
By this time we left it was after lunch time but the only thing near to us was a small store selling crisps, so we all bought some and munched happily onwards, enjoying our highly healthy and vitamin filled lunch.

Afterwards it was off to Luxor temple. Here we went through the first and only metal detector that worked, since all the others weren’t even switched on. Luxor temple has two rather long rows of sphinxes with human heads at the entrance. When you walk through the temple, it is rather awe inspiring until you see the mosque built on top of an ancient building. You might find this disrespectful, but it was not intended to be so, for the entire temple was covered with sand and the Muslims hadn’t dug deep enough to find out the truth.

Yet they were not the only ones who changed the appearance of the temple. No, the Romans as part of a shrine painted (romantic style) an entire scene, of which only fragments are left, on top of the hieroglyphs.
Next to it was a sort of stone graveyard, with odd bits and pieces of the wall and it’s pictures. Apart from just seeing all of this, we learnt a great deal about the history, which however will take far too long to explain.

We were getting rather hungry by now, since it was 5pm and our last meal had been this morning at 7am, yet we did not have time to stop off for a snack (the Americans and Australians asked for McDonalds) since we had a deadline to leave to Hurgada or otherwise we would not get through the vital police checkpoint. As it turned out it was all fine and we were off soon enough.

The way was 4h, not short but not long either, the road reminded us of the road from Usakos to Swakopmund. On the way we stopped for a snack, hunger now quite large amongst the group. Daddy and a few others wanted to eat at the small restaurant, but apparently it was only for truck drivers and nobody else, this left us quite disgruntled. Yet we had to eat something, so we bought a packet of cookies, which mind you were rather expensive.
Finally we arrived at 9.30pm at the ‘Roma hotel’ and after showing our passports we went to our rooms and soaked some clothing in the bathtub. Afterwards we walked down the street and found a nice little fish restaurant. The waiter did not understand or speak very well and so communication was not of the essence. But the food still tasted good!

Hurgada has more Russians than Egyptians, the proof of this is that one could only buy Vodka by the bottle. After someone had offered 1Mil camels and one chicken for me, Daddy and Alex were contemplating of going in on the bargain. This is disgusting.

When we arrived back in the hotel Alex and I finished washing our clothes and saw that it was past midnight. With the thought that the Mayans weren’t quite right, we went to bed.

Day 10: Friday 21^st  December 2012 Hurghada (Cathy)

Well the Mayans definitely were wrong – we are still here and it is well into the evening. The meteor has not hit nor has the tsunami overwhelmed us and we are in the right place for inundation – right next to the sea.

Quite a large part of today was spent on or underwater, much of the rest of the day was spent watching the local wildlife – Russian tourists. The Russians have adopted Hurgada as a holiday home-from-home, most of the shop signs are in Arabic and Russian script, sometimes but not inevitably in English. The Egyptians are pro-Russian anyway because when the West turned its back on Egypt the Russians stepped in to finance their infrastructure, particularly the Aswan dam. The Russians have favoured status here, get good tourist deals and have invested in building up Hurgada as a holiday resort in a big way. Unfortunately this has resulted in a quantity of hotels that have been constructed with a great deal of bravura but dubious workmanship. Our hotel has an imposing granite tiled entrance hall but the glass lift while affording a view of the atrium as we rise moves at a snail’s pace, doors in our rooms do not quite close or do not quite open, hot water is not to be relied on, bedside lamps have to be specially requested and then are probably taken from other rooms. We were touched when we arrived to find that our towels were folded into flower shapes (Alex’s was folded into a boat shape) and that fresh flowers had been laid on them, unfortunately we arrived so late last night that the flowers were all withered and shrivelled but as with much that we have found here, it’s the thought that counts!

Whenever something fails to work in our hotel room Chris just says “Russians!”

We did not sleep so much last night but we did sleep well, no mosquitos and the bed was warm enough. We did not sleep much because we had to be up early to get onto the bus to the boat. Today was the snorkelling day.

Breakfast was a mélange of Russian and Egyptian, interesting. The Russians tucked into a selection of meats and then moved on to a selection of pastries, in many cases a large selection of both. Fruit and vegetables were shunned. The Russians seem either to be of extremely robust proportions or to be very thin, either way they do not stint at breakfast. The kids and I tried the toast machine but even on the highest setting I gave up after my bread had been five times through the machine and was still only just warm. I joined the Russians at the pastries. At least there was plenty of tea.

After breakfast the hurry-up-and-wait part of the day began. We all arrived in the lobby on time (when will we learn?) and eventually collected swimming towels and got on the bus which took us far to the extremes of  Hurgada, at least we got to see how big the place is. Many of the hotels are unfinished, many are closed. The tourist industry has taken a hit here as much as it has elsewhere but it is more obvious here since Hurgada is only about tourism. It is only eight in the morning so we shouldn’t speak too soon but even later in the afternoon we see that most of the thousands of sun loungers are unoccupied and most of the beach bars are un-patronised.

             We arrive at the Tiger Aqua Centre and thence to the boat the ‘Sea Song’ and we literally walk the gang plank to get on board (narrow and very springy), it is chilly and we all bundle up in jumpers and wind-cheaters and use our swimming towels as added insulation. We sit hunched up in our blue and yellow stripes waiting – waiting – waiting for what? Ah another bunch of tourists – Russians. One looks like a long skinny translation of Putin. One is the classic bleached blond. Do all Russians look like cartoons of themselves?

Finally we get going, it is well past ten. I start to worry about the sea temperature since the air is definitely nippy but under the jetty there was clear blue water and we could spot the flicker of brightly coloured fish so I am optimistic about what we are going to see. We travel towards a group of islands around which are coral reefs and eventually anchor in the sand just next to a reef. On the journey the chief diver explains briefly to the novice divers how to scuba. One of the South Africans on board is scandalised at the brevity of the introduction. Normally you are required to go through a thorough course before you go out into open water. These novices are about to be literally thrown into the deep end.

It is quite clear that the snorkelers are not favoured on this boat. Perhaps we are all regarded as cheapskates? Diving is expensive and in our opinion also needs prior training but the snorkelers, and we make up the majority, are given the feeling that we are the poor relations and given no attention. Chris eventually asks for some guidance about what to look for and where to look and is told more or less to jump off the boat and look for himself. The chief diver says to him that ‘this is a diving boat’ but if that’s true why are we with this boat and not one that is more accommodating of snorkelers? We battle to find fins and masks and snorkels to fit in the baskets on the diving deck. None of the crew offer us assistance. Eventually one of the South Africans locates some fins for me. We edge to the back of the boat avoiding the novice divers, one of whom seems to be in full panic mode, and jump into the sea. Immediately all of the irritations fall away and we enter the separate world of the reef. So beautiful, the fish flitting like birds around the coral, so many colours so many styles what a delight. I take a while to get into snorkelling mode, after all last time was in Mozambique and that’s a while ago but after a couple of panics I calm down and lose myself in this wonderful place. The occasional snorkeler enters my peripheral vision like a big colourful fish on the surface, Alex and Beatrice glide past me like seals, waving, Chris comes to touch me reassuringly from time to time and the novice divers stumble past supported on either side by helpers, I hope they are having fun. The water although a bit of a shock at first is cool but not cold. I seem to have been in only around 15 minutes when I check the surface and find that nearly everyone is on the boat, I have been swimming around for more like 45 minutes. Getting out is quite simple since there is a ladder but Alex has to help me take off a flipper before I can get on board. The waves get in the way! We start off once more towards the island and I have a cup of tea and chat a bit to the divers. They are quite friendly now that I am not wearing incriminating snorkelling gear. Pretty soon we are called from the upper deck to collect our lunch. It’s the usual mix of salad, flat bread, noodles and kofta but it’s very fresh and tasty after the swimming. 

After lunch we are dropped on the island. we can snorkel from the beach of coral sand while the divers do their second dive. The beach is quite chilly since the wind has got up. Alex, Beatrice and I take to the water, this time without fins, finding a pair to fit is simply too time consuming and they are not so necessary in shallower water. The water is warm in comparison to the beach. pretty soon Chris joins us. He tried to take a walk to a viewpoint but was told that it was off limits to go towards the cell phone tower or the solar panels that power it. I see an anemone with what looks like two clown fish in it, they have the look but are apparently Red Sea anemone fish – oh well not then! there are plenty of parrot fish, wrasses of many varieties and shoals of fish in varying shades of blue to match the varying shades of blue of the water which in the shallows is a brilliant turquoise. I follow several fish around especially two brilliant yellow ones the size of breakfast plates that I found were called masked butterfly fish. My favourite is a fish that has its eyes half way down its back and is decorated with a very snazzy arrangement of stripes on a pale background. It turns out to be called an Arabian Picasso fish which endears it to me even more. Sea urchins lurk blackly in the rocks causing me to keep my hands and feet well away while I admire them and the fish that swim around them. Some of the soft corals wave in the current and small clams appear to pant as they filter the water. Eventually I surface having no sense of time and find that everyone in our party is on the beach bundled up again against the wind. I am feeling like it’s time to emerge – gosh it feels cold in the wind! I fall back into the sea a couple of times before I am brave enough to make a rush for my towel. I have been in the water over an hour – how did that happen?

I join the group on the beach, most are lying flat trying to avoid the wind and absorb the sun. Alex is digging holes and burying himself, normal practice, Beatrice is collecting tiny shells, Chris is fast asleep. I collect shells with Beatrice and watch the Russian tourists frolicking in their swimsuits oblivious of the cold wind. Many of them are tanned a deep brown, more recent arrivals are still very red. There is no self consciousness which I find very refreshing. Fat or thin they wear the skimpiest possible costumes to facilitate maximum browning although one middle aged woman, over ripe and well past her sell-by date, really should not have been wearing a thong bikini.

The call comes to return to the boat so we walk along the beach past the reef to the sandy area where we can be picked up and transferred to the Sea Song. We are quite tired by now and so the journey back is quiet. I collect some more tea and drink it on the upper deck watching Hurgada coming closer. By four thirty we are back at the hotel. The hot water is working in our room, hooray! I take a shower and wash the salt water and accumulated dust of the past days out of my hair. Chris visits the supermarket to buy fruit and Beatrice finishes her diary entry.

 

At around seven thirty we walk down to 
the shops and restaurants looking for somewhere to have supper and a sew-on badge for Alex’s rucksack. We are strolling along looking in the shops fielding the inevitable inquiries and entreaties from the shop keepers. “Welcome! what’s your name? Where are you from? (Namibia always throws them – some don’t believe it exists some think we are lying when we say it’s in Africa.) Come and see my shop – just looking only….” Gosh I wish I was rich and could buy something small from each of them. There are so few tourists and they are so desperate but manage most of the time to keep a smile and a sense of humour in their approaches to us. Not sure I would be able. Some of the entreaties  ave a note of pleading in them. In one back street a young man starts to follow us. He will not leave us alone. We let slip that we are looking for a fish restaurant and he tries to convince us to follow him. We try ignoring him, try telling him we want to be left in peace, nothing works but eventually he seems to leave us only to turn up again in front of us. Unwittingly we have followed him and he reads the wrong message from our actions. We pass a fish restaurant and he tries to get us to come in. We don’t follow him and he gets terribly upset. His desperation is showing, this may have been the only commission he has stood to earn in days oh dear, by this time we are all upset and rather shaken we regain the main road and go to the fish restaurant that had attracted us earlier due to its offering a dish called ‘Tuna Pena’ the names of our two nieces. 

It is a lovely restaurant with a great view of the street, well staffed, well decorated, the food is good and the tables are nearly all empty. It is an alcohol free restaurant but the mineral water is well iced and I have a mango lassi, delicious! After our meal we browse some more but Alex’ quest is not fulfilled. In one shop I find the names of the Red Sea fish in a leaflet, in another shop Beatrice is horribly ripped off over some post cards. So we have had a day of mixed fortunes but on the whole a good day and now it is midnight and we are all still here. Apparently the descendents of the Mayans are having a big party today to celebrate the dawn of a new era – good idea!