Upper Egypt and trains...

I'm pushing through my midterms and slowly catching up on the sleep I lost last week. I'm delaying my Cairo discussion because I have oodles of exciting new pictures for you.

The trip to Luxor and Aswan was lovely overall. Luxor is essentially the tourist capital of Egypt, as it contains most of the best preserved monuments from the pharaonic period... all related to Thebes, which was Egypt's capital during the New Kingdom period. Aswan is located further south at the Nile's "first" cataract (the northernmost of the six, counterintuitively... love that Eurocentrism), where Nasser built the Aswan High Dam that created Lake Nasser, the largest man-made lake in the world. Aswan is also the site of Yebu/Elephantine, an old capital of Pharaonic Egypt and the city that essentially constituted Ancient Egypt's border with Nubia. Mmm, history.

Because we had a holiday on Thursday (and the weekend is Friday and Saturday), a couple of friends and I booked tickets for an overnight train on Wednesday. Ten hours and little sleep later, we arrived in Luxor, dumped our backpacks in a cheap hostel, and set off to explore the East Bank of the Nile. Knowing it would be extremely hot and crowded in the afternoon, we hit Karnak Temple early. It's the largest ancient religious site in the world, built beginning around 1900 BCE to honor Amun, the sun god and patron god of Thebes, and his wife and son. Ridiculously impressive.

We escaped mid-morning as the crowds starting pouring in from the tourist buses. After a walk through the Luxor Museum, we visited Luxor Temple, which sits just along the Corniche. Templicious. We were repeatedly hassled, however, by men who wanted to tell us about the temple and take pictures with us in exchange for tips. It's much more annoying than helpful. Additionally, we were once again swarmed by student groups, including one all-boys high school. As I was the only girl on this trip, this was a mildly terrifying few minutes for me. There must be about 18,000 pictures of me floating around Egypt's cell phone network because of the Egyptians we've met in Alexandria, Giza, and Luxor...

The next day we joined a tour organized by our hostel (these are always quite moderately priced for the convenience, so we often take advantage) and hit the West Bank. First came the Valley of the Kings, which contains the tombs of many of Egypt's most famous rulers, including Tutankhamun and the Rameseseseses. No pictures allowed inside, so the views here are above ground. Beautiful, vibrantly colored paintings stretch along the hallways and stairways that lead you down to the burial chambers. They've left some of the stone coffins inside. Very neat, very old.

Also, Queen Hatshepsut's Temple. She was the first female ruler (an amazing one) and had to invent stories to legitimize her authority... these are depicted on the walls of the temple. She did succeed in getting buried in the Valley of the Kings, however, and had a pretty sweet monument built.

On the way out, we visited the Valley of the Queens and stopped to see the Collossi of Memnon. It was about 100 degrees at this point, so we weren't dawdling. One of the highlights of the day was talking to a couple of university students from Tokyo who were on our tour. Their English was poor, so I translated our guide's explanations for them. They were thankful and very sweet, and I was happy for the chance to practice my Japanese. It's a little rusty, but still works.

I was glad to have seen all the amazing sights in Luxor, but I was equally pleased to leave. It was not exactly a relaxing place between the heat and hassling. Anyway, we took a short train ride south to Aswan (and met an incredible German lady traveling alone who I wouldn't mind becoming in a couple of decades...), found some dinner, and crashed for the night. The next morning we started with the Aswan High Dam. The Nile to the north, looking from the top of the dam:

We proceeded to the town of Shellal, where you can hop a motor boat to Philae Island. Philae Island is actually Agalika Island; the original Philae Island was drowned when the dams were built. Tour groups used to see Philae Temple (dedicated to Isis, the patron goddess of Aswan at its height) by boat, but they moved it to a higher island before the construction of the High Dam. It's unbelievably well-preserved, despite it being underwater for a few decades, and it's gorgeous sitting in the middle of the blue-green Nile.

We then made a quick stop at Aswan's eastern quarry, where the red granite used alllll over Egypt and the Middle East was collected. There's also a famous unfinished obelisk still attached to the rock in the quarry, because the workers discovered a fault that would have made it impossible to remove. So neat to see, though. Our last stop in Aswan was Elephantine Island, which is packed with some incredible mudbrick buildings and a progression of temples that were stacked on one another. Beautiful views of the cataract, too...

Aswan was beautiful and much cooler and more peaceful than Luxor. We would have loved to stick around another day or two or 365, but classes were calling, so we hopped a train that evening, ready for our 13 hour ride back to Cairo.

Now, on the way to Luxor, we had bought 1st class tickets on the non-sleeper train. On the route home, we decided to cut the cost significantly by taking 2nd class... but foreigners can't buy 2nd class tickets except ON the train. This works out just fine, generally, but the tickets you purchase on the train don't really have seats attached to them. We were aware of this beforehand, but we decided we wouldn't mind having to move around since it's nearly impossible to sleep on those trains anyway. Ohhhh, bad choice.

We shifted around 2nd class a couple of times as people with seated tickets got on the train, then migrated to 3rd class when 2nd filled up. We were soon displaced from 3rd class and wandered up to 1st class, searching desperately for empty seats. We found one seat in 1st class that the boys let me take, so I pretended to be asleep for about an hour in order to avoid the frequent ticket checks. Eventually I was discovered, however, and I went to find the boys where they had settled in a 3-foot corridor in the dining car. We sat/stood in that corridor with about 20 other passengers for the last 6 hours of the train ride, chatting with the nice Egyptian guys around us, studying for our exams the next day, and wishing we were anywhere else. It wasn't the best night, but it was definitely an experience. Next time, I think we'll pay for 1st class...

Midterms this week, but a great field trip this weekend. I'll update when there are exciting things to share!

Alexandria and the Mediterranean (Round 1)

This weekend's trip had some very high and low points. The primary low point was returning to Cairo and realizing my disappointment with this city might not actually be culture shock, but genuine dislike (this will be my next entry... gonna stick to the positive stuff today).

Alexandria was great. I loved it. It was a city, but it wasn't Cairo. It was actually a relief to realize that I could like an Egyptian city so much. Some basic background: Alexander the Great founded Alexandria in 332 BCE next to a small Egyptian village. It was the first port on Egypt's Mediterranean shoal coast, so it really revolutionized the way Egyptian society functioned. Cleopatra hung out and died there. It was the capital of Egypt for almost a thousand years, and was famous for the lighthouse and massive library that once existed but were destroyed in fires, earthquakes, pillages, and/or rising sea levels. Now it's the second largest city in Egypt, but is nothing compared to Cairo.

Early Friday morning we hopped on a train in downtown Cairo - tickets are pretty cheap, as Alex is only about 2.5 hours from Cairo. After finding a cheap hotel, we did some wandering, took some pictures, and found our way to the Roman amphitheater. Outrageous. Took some more good pictures (and some goofy pictures), sang Wham's "Wake Me Up" at the echo-y spot in the center of amphitheather like true American tourists, and climbed around on the steps looking at the ancient graffiti.

They had an outdoor exhibit featuring artifacts that had been removed from the bay after thousands of years below water. You can apparently pay a lot of money to scuba dive in the ruins off the coast (and see "Cleopatra's Palace"), but I doubt I'll ever spend the money. Pretty fascinating, though. Some of the inscriptions were eroded away, but most were still legible. Included is a photo of a photo of the removal of one of the pieces.

We then wandered over to an area currently being excavated. We needed special tickets to get there, technically, but after talking with the guard a little, I got us access to the ruins of a Roman bathhouse, Byzantine village, and a famous site called Villa of the Birds in exchange for a small tip. Incredible stuff. In the background of the photo is the Roman site, at an elevation below the Byzantine ruins in the foreground. Amazing that you can actually see how time had progressed.

We grabbed some fresh juice (same delicious liquified fruit I drank in Lamu) and set off for the new Library of Alexandria. It's a really impressive structure, extremely modern, and obviously a huuuuge investment for Egypt, but doesn't have too many books yet. Doesn't stop them from bragging about it. That's the sloped roof on the right.


After returning to our hotel, we learned that an Egyptian club football team was sharing the place with us. Despite their obvious interest in making friends with the young American girls next door, we decided to keep our door closed and locked. This did not keep them from banging on our wall and talking loudly all night, however, so sleep didn't really happen.

Next morning we hit the Citadel (15th/16th century?), built at the site where Alexandria's famous lighthouse used to be. Here's the view from the seafront. It's way off across the harbor (you might have to click the picture to see it).

View of the harbor from inside the fort. The haze is sand that gets blown into the air on windy days. Egypt's "overcast".

There were hundreds of school children visiting from all over the Delta, and they were more than a little excited at the opportunity to practice their English with some Americans. We were repeatedly swarmed, cornered, and asked to take pictures. It was really fun, and reminded me a lot of the orphans we used to play with in Nairobi. My friend Jess is the one in the striped shirt, here:


After the fort, we hit the National Museum of Alexandria for a couple of hours, got more juice, and headed for a beach. The Mediterranean, though clear and blue-green and more beautiful than anything I'd seen since the Yucatan, was freeeeeeeeezing. We ordered some tea and rested on the beach for a while, anyway. Softest sand since Lamu. First picture is taken from a pier, but you can see the lovely color of the sea.

Heather's look of surprise at the cold water, with the Alex seafront behind:

The rest of the time was spent drinking juice, eating bakhlawa, meeting random people from Philadelphia, and relaxing. When we got tired we'd sit along the seawall, breathe the relatively fresh air, and enjoy the view. Our second night we ate at a lovely, moderately expensive Greek restaurant looking out over the harbor, where Heather and I split a fresh sea bass. It was a beautiful night and a great end to the trip. We will definitely be going back. Alex is too close, too cheap, too pretty, and too... not Cairo... for us not to return in warmer weather for a swim. Hence "Round 1".