Eastern Mediterranean Tour - Egypt part 3
Day 11: Saturday 22nd 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 21st. 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:
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 21st. 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 23rd 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 4th
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 24nd 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 21st 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 25nd 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.
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