Egypt - 1999

Egypt

           

Wednesday night we landed at long last after the flights into and out of Rome and were met by a total stranger (we were bemused by the idea of a country where meeting people at airports is a valid profession) who ushered us through passport control and then led us a long way across the empty parking lot in the dark to a van with a man in it. It was all very strange and a bit unnerving. The man drove many miles into and around Cairo to the Hotel Safir and we checked in and went to bed. Don’t remember seeing tour leader Dick Caldwell that night, but we may have.

Thursday morning the group assembled, got on a bus, and went to the Pyramids. I remember looking across a cultivated field from the bus and seeing an 8- or 10-story apartment house, with the Cheops pyramid looming behind it. That sucker is big. We wandered around the pyramids, fending off importunate men who wanted us to ride camels or to take their picture for a fee. The site is amazing. We walked down past the Sphinx and toured the temple that has been excavated near it. We crossed the street to an unfortunate commercial area with things like Pizza Hut to meet the group and get on the bus, then went to Christo’s for lunch. As soon as we ate we galloped to a nearby hotel that had a bank so we could get money. Egyptian money, by the way, is of such a consistency and filth that you feel like wearing surgical gloves to handle it.

After lunch we drove to Saccara to see the Step Pyramid. It was much more impressive than we had expected. Photos don’t give any idea. Luckily we had seen, on a visit to the Met in New York, a model of the whole complex made as part of an exhibition. One of the astonishing things you can’t see in pictures is that the long stones it is built of are inserted head-on into the pyramid: as the stone is undressed you can see this when you get up close. We walked all the way around the walled area in front of the pyramid. The architecture book that we had brought along was a big help, even though it wasn’t a guidebook. People were peering over our shoulders to see the details reproduced in it.

We stayed at brand-new resort hotel with huge grounds and many buildings—quite elegant and not Dick’s usual style. We met Dick’s latest mistress, who is rather quiet but dominates him so remarkably that he hardly came near us the whole trip. Most frustrating, as we normally enjoy his company and he seems to enjoy ours. (He has often come to visit us at home.) Had dinner at the hotel and helped a couple whose luggage hd been lost by providing airplane socks and toothbrushes. They were most grateful; we ended up spending more time with them than with anyone else on the trip. They were rather unprepossessing to look at, as in nerds, but were much more amusing than they appeared to be.

Saccara was where we could really see the effects of Nile flooding. The hotel was in the middle of lushness, with grass, trees, bushes, flowers, and was surrounded by forest. Then there was an absolute line, and it was desert where the archaeological site is. Like crossing a street, with no trace on either side of the other.

We went back to the Step Pyramid the next morning to tour the tombs that are behind it. They were enthralling, with wonderful reliefs: dancing girls, fishing—with boats and very realistic fish, farming, etc. I couldn’t figure how to control the flash on the new camera (flash not being allowed); I managed to complain while standing next to a guy who was bedecked with cameras (another architect) and he took pity on me and demonstrated. Otherwise we would have had no pictures.

Dick broke the news to all of us that the boat owners had canceled on him for the boat trip on Lake Nasser. Small tour groups are treated very cavalierly in Egypt—reservations seem to mean nothing if something better comes along. He had substituted a trip to the Siwa Oasis, at the other end of nowhere. We drove for endless miles all afternoon and well into the night past endless military barbed wire and sentry boxes along the Mediterranean shore, which were followed by resorts with huge high rises that were just being built, even nearer the Libyan border. Made no sense. Finally got to Matra Medrone (?) and lousy hotel, El Kazar. Poor dinner, and I got very upset stomach and threw up later. Bonine cured me, but I ate a light breakfast. The tour group and Dick rebelled at the hotel and Tarik, his Nubian arranger, found a much nicer hotel right on the beach a few blocks away. Of course Dick was blamed by the complainers in the group for the bad one and Tarik given credit for the good one, although Tarik had made the arrangements for the bad one as well. After we settled our bags, we left for Siwa.

Long ride through the desert, with an armed guy in a suit riding with us. A jeep with soldiers escorted us out of town. They don’t want to lose any more tourists. Nothing much but sand, dunes, and stray camels on a long straight road, although near the oasis there were many remnants of salt mines. The Mediterranean used to cover this area a gazillian years ago—that’s why there is so much salt.

Siwa was interesting, but dirty and depressed. Their old town is in the middle of the new one. Very odd: the old town was a hill of mud brick houses that lasted for ages until I think it was the 1920s when they had several inches of rain in one day—unprecedented—and the town melted. It looks weird, like sand castles after a wave, and is abandoned. The oasis is very large: none of this one palm tree and a little water hole. It has a lake, many plantations of date palms, which they raise, and a couple of towns. The main attraction for us was the hill on which is the oracle that Alexander the Great consulted, that told him and the Egyptians that he was the rightful Pharaoh. Sure. There are only a few columns surrounding a sort of room at the top of a Cappadoccia-like hill with tunnels. I think it was actually an old fort built around the temple/oracle. Good view over oasis and desert for miles in every direction.

This meant that we have now seen, with Dick, all of the four great ancient oracles: Delphi, Dodoni, Didyma, and now Siwa.

We finally had lunch (at about four) in Alexandra’s, which was not prepossessing but had okay food, and then drove back for hours and hours at night to the good hotel, the Beau Site. Then we had to walk to the bad hotel to have dinner—that was the only way they got out of the reservation. Much muttering among group. It was not a very good group: we could chat with some—the aforementioned couple and a nice gay pair—but a lot of them complained hugely and I hate it. They were of the ilk that wants to be spoiled rotten with every wish attended to, and Dick certainly doesn’t do that—and makes it clear in his brochures that he doesn’t. They were with the wrong tour. We have never expected that, and have always had a wonderful time with him.

In the morning we walked along the beach, which was very nice, and then we all got on the bus for Alexandria. Another long drive. We stopped at El Alamein with its little museum, which a number of people wanted to see. Not me, particularly. Got to the city, which you just about have to circle to get into, and stopped for another very late lunch along the great concourse (whose name I forget) that runs along the whole waterfront. Great view onto the water from restaurant San Giovanni, pretty good lunch.

The hotel was another very fancy one, on the grounds of the former king’s palace in a park. There was a casino nearby and a fantastic Victorian edifice that I took a picture of. Wretched excess. The hotel was lovely, though.

Next morning (Monday) we first toured the fort, right on the waterfront. I can’t remember its age, but certainly there has been something there for lo these many years. Then we went to the museum, which is small and manageable, with good stuff. After lunch we drove to the one remaining site above ground in Alexandria, Pompey’s column, which ain’t much. There are a couple of granite statues, sphinxes and such, on the hill, and the column. It was hardly worth the trip through all the traffic, though we had a motorcycle escort all day. (I have learned since that they have now found that most of ancient Alexandria is now under water, because of earthquakes. They have found huge amounts of temples, statues, etc. etc., under the waves.) We then left for Cairo, arriving back at the Safir Hotel, where Don and I ate across the street at a reasonable pizza restaurant.

Driving almost anywhere we saw mud-brick huts that looked tumbledown and abandoned: then we’d see laundry hanging out to dry. The poverty was palpable. We were also struck by the itch to wall off everything: we had seen rows and rows of suburban-size lots (with sand instead of grass) on the outskirts all with such elaborate gates and fences that they were like what you’d see here in a gated community or a huge mansion.

Tuesday morning Don decided to walk to the Egypt Air office not far away to reconfirm our reservations. He came back in a state of shock. We had tickets to fly to Rome on the following Tuesday afternoon. The clerk had calmly informed him that Egypt Air never flies to Europe on Tuesdays. Only by Don’s making a loud noise did they even consent to validate our tickets for another airline. Of course by this time the Alitalia flight an hour later was full. All flights on Wednesday were full. The first reservation he could get was Thursday. And we had a paid hotel reservation in Rome for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights. We also had no guidebook or map for Cairo and no reservation in Cairo. Panic, and no time at all to do anything about it. That disaster was looming over our heads for the rest of the trip.

We flew to Abu Simbel later that morning on what turned out to be a private plane. It was fascinating to fly over the desert and see all the marks of what looked like rivers, but no water. Abu Simbel is astonishing in itself, and even more so when you consider that they moved the whole thing back from the encroaching lake. We wandered, went inside the temples, where there are friezes and columns of great impressiveness, and then walked through the whole manmade “mountain” against which it is placed. What an amazing accomplishment—both the original building/statues and the moving. And of course the whole thing was an ego trip for Rameses II.

We got back on the plane and flew to Aswan, where we had a late lunch (again) in a tented place on the water. Dick then learned and broke the news to us that we had another cancellation of his plans. Obviously Egyptians don’t believe in honoring reservations if something better comes along. This time there was a medical convention in Aswan, and the Old Cataract Hotel had simply cancelled our rooms. Dick’s Nubian flunkies had managed to find a seedy place on the market street, but they almost lost that—by the time the guy making the reservation over the phone got to the hotel the leader of another group was there swearing that his group was Dick Caldwell’s. Much more complaining from group, this time with justification, but of course they complained against Dick, not against Egypt. No wonder he hates going there.

Some of us did go to the Old Cataract Hotel for drinks and sat on their nice terrace overlooking the park and the river.

Don had come down with a miserable cold, so he went straight to bed and to sleep. I went out on our room’s balcony and hung over the rail in complete fascination for two hours. People milling around, tourists and natives, cars approaching and always honking—they drive with one hand on the horn so you just assume it is part of the background noise (it drives me nuts when people honk at home, but this was somehow different), stores opening and closing, watching what people were buying. It was enthralling.

Of course the group people who didn’t have a balcony were left with a very crummy room and a barely clean bathroom. Not a pleasure.

In the morning we went on the river for a felucca ride: sailboats that tootle around all over. Went up and downriver quite a way and had lunch (accompanied by the inevitable rolled-out bundles of things for sale) on the boat. Very nice views, very pleasant.

After returning from that boat, we went to see the unfinished obelisk that cracked when they were sculpting it several thousand years ago and was therefore left on its side in the granite pit. Much of what they know about how these were made stems from this accident. Then off to other boats for the ride to Philae, the great temple complex that also got moved from one island to another when it was to be totally flooded (it had been partially flooded in its original site when the first cataract dam was built). This was our first enormous temple—and turned out to be very much like all the others, no matter when they were built. It is very impressive, with its great gate pylons and multiple halls. Some smaller outbuildings were really nicer, including the hall with its papyrus columns that is always shown standing in water in older books.

This night (Wednesday) we finally got to bed down in the Old Cataract Hotel. Huge halls, brightly lit, and huge rooms, very dimly lit. This is the only time I used the Itty-Bitty Book Light I had schlepped all over. We also had dinner and breakfast there in very elegant halls. The décor is straight out of the great mosque in Córdoba, Spain, with the keyhole arches all over.

Next morning (Thursday) we went to the brand-new Nubian Museum, which was very well laid out and quite interesting. We also saw another temple, Kom Ombo, about which I remember nothing. We went to our Nile cruise boat for dinner and bed.

Friday (I think) I woke up with a massive case of diarrhea, so Don went to the temple of Horus at Edfu without me. By lunchtime I was recovered, thank goodness. Don still had his cold, which had developed into a bad cough. We sat on deck and watched the Nile go by for hours. We could see farms, with camels coming down to the river to drink, little settlements, some up in the arid hills and some down near the water, and a couple of locks that we had to go through.

We docked at Luxor, had dinner on the boat, and walked through a bunch of other boats (they moor the dozens of boats side by side) to shore to go to the sound and light show at Karnak. Very impressive and spooky while we were walking through all the temples and the hypostile halls; a bit less so when we got to the stadium area where there was sort of a lecture with no special effects. Definitely worth it, though. Back to the boat for sleep.

Next morning we bussed to the west bank for all the goodies over there. (It still seems backwards—I keep thinking of it as the east bank.) First the Ramesseum, another of Rameses II’s ego trips. It was sort of nice to see one of his gigantic heads split open on the ground where it had toppled. I think it was here that I saw an Egyptian in his galabyah with a long rag on a pole actually dusting the columns—an exercise in futility in the middle of the desert if ever I saw one. I tried to take a picture of him without his knowing, but they have built-in radar for cameras and I got him grinning at me and not dusting. We saw the Colossi of Memnon (?), the two monumental statues sitting by themselves in the middle of nowhere. They are in very bad shape, but are impressive just for their size. Then on to Dar al Bahri for the Hatshepsut temple. Don and I were both astonished: it has grown since we studied it. A group of European archaeologists (Danish?) have reconstructed a whole third story on top of it from the remains. It looked totally different from all the pictures we knew so well from art history courses—much more vertical. We were delighted by this site. The columns with heads of Hathor, with her cow ears, the paintings still inside the colonnade, the totally ruined temple next door—just a pile of rubble—that this one used to be just like before reconstruction, were all interesting.

From there we drove to the Valley of the Kings and walked through a couple of the amazing tombs. I had thought it would be claustrophobic, but it wasn’t: the ceilings were high and the vaults very spacious. Unfortunately, everywhere in Egypt you are required to hire a local guide; their English is totally incomprehensible and they probably would be full of misinformation if you could understand them. Dick tried standing next to this one and explaining what he was saying, but the guy took offense and Dick had to stop.

Then we went to the excavated workers’ town, which we had seen with John Rohmer on the Learning Channel. Went down in their tombs, which were claustrophobic. They copied the style of the nobles and pharaohs, but not the size. It is amazing how much archaeologists have found out about the workers—how they went on strike when their pay was late, how they traded tomb paintings for other work, what they ate, how they cooked, etc.

On the way back we stopped at one of the innumerable alabaster shops. Dick had bargained with the Nubians: we could stop there (the kind of thing he loathes) if they gave us a carriage ride around Luxor after dinner. Some people went in and bought—the Californians who had schlepped their unopened boxes of wine all through the trip bought many things including a rather large statue. God knows how they were expecting to get it back.

I wrote down that we had lunch/dinner at the Peace Restaurant. I don’t know if this means we combined the meals or what. I do remember the restaurant, on the L of a corner with gardens around it  and several buildings. Just beyond it was the shell of a burned-out Nile cruise boat. We stayed that night in the Hotel Mercure. Don and I went exploring trying to find a pharmacy: down the one-block market near the hotel and then along a wide street behind it. Saw a sign that led a block down a dark, deserted alley to a small lighted building at the end. Inside, a large, fat woman, seated in an easy chair, inquired in stately bass tones, “May I help you?” We said Don had a cough. “Wet, or dry?” she asked. “Both,” he answered. She considered for a moment and then ordered her assistant to fetch something. We paid, thanked her, and went back to the hotel. The stuff helped his cough a lot.

Later Don went to bed and I went with a group on the carriage ride, which was pretty interesting. We got put off for a time in a street with outdoor coffee shops (they don’t have bars) where some people tried the water pipes.

Next morning, Sunday, we toured the Temple of Luxor and the Temple of Karnak, all in the same huge area. They have unearthed the remains of a whole avenue of little sphinxes lining a road between them. Overwhelming. I had wanted to see the hypostyle hall at Karnak since studying it in art history and also since seeing the model of it in the Metropolitan Museum. Took far too many pictures. We walked from one end of the site to the other, marveling.

After lunch we flew back to Cairo and drove back to the Safir Hotel. Check-in was chaotic as usual. The archaeological record shows that ancient Egypt had the most bureaucratic red tape system ever known, with thousands of records that detailed everything imaginable. They haven’t changed a bit. They had to inspect every one of our passports in detail and take down all the information (by hand) from them, despite the fact that this was our third stay here in a week. Other groups were checking in and out: suitcases were piled everywhere, tripping and blocking people. It was an amazing mess. We finally got settled and ate in the hotel coffee shop, too tired to even go across the street.

On Monday, still in a state over our ticket situation and not knowing what to do, we joined the group on the bus for a tour of Old Cairo and the Coptic sites. Some rather interesting old churches in a rabbit warren of streets. One of our number wasn’t going to be allowed in the churches because he had on shorts, but someone found a raincoat that he could wrap around himself enough to satisfy the authorities.

We had lunch at the Hilton, of all places, because it was right across the street from the Egyptian Museum. And there in the Hilton was Alitalia. We went over there to see what they might have. Was there any way we could get to Rome tomorrow?

Well, there was, sort of. We could fly to Milan at three a.m. tonight, change planes there, and fly back to Rome. And it would cost almost $800 more than the validated tickets we had. We regretfully declined and left.

Then we went to the Egyptian Museum. Another inept guide, the most offensive yet, told us how he had 20 years’ experience and knew everything in the world. His English was terrible. He spent the whole time rushing us through galleries at a gallop so we would have time to hit the gift shop (and his rake-off) at the end. I just walked away from him and explored on my own. The only time I rejoined the group was to get into the King Tut exhibit, which was fantastic beyond measure. Then the guy had the nerve to gather us all in a dark corner and hit us up for tips. I walked away again. I’m not sure whether Don caved in or not. But he joined me and then we went back and explored a lot of the museum on our own, having a much better time. The museum is incredibly overcrowded with artifacts, all except the Tut things very dusty and neglected. No wonder they want a new one. And the domed lobby, which had about six tour groups whose guides were all speaking at the top of their lungs in several different languages, was ear-shattering.

We went out and got on the waiting bus. There had been a little confusion about time: we thought 5:00, Dick thought 5:30, so he wasn’t there. We waited.

Don and I looked at each other. We really, truly didn’t want to stay in Egypt for two more days. Really truly. He got off the bus and ran to the Alitalia office. Luckily he made it before they closed, and they still had room for us on the flight to Milan. We considered it money well spent.

Back to the hotel. Tarik insisted on arranging for a cab driver to pick us up at 2:00 a.m. and, with a great deal of trepidation, we paid in advance. Many people in the group were going to a fish restaurant that was supposed to be not far away, so we decided to join them. Dick said he’d come too. We were eating early, about 6:30 or 7:00, because many of them, like us, were leaving in the middle of the night—although none of us at the same time. One wonders why so many planes leave Cairo between one and four a.m.—it hardly seems convenient.

Dick then called us in the room to say that his mistress (have I forgotten her name on purpose? Is it Aishya?) didn’t want to eat so early. He said he’d meet us there later, but we never saw him again. We took a cab with another couple to the restaurant, had a convivial and very good dinner, and managed to walk back without getting lost. Went to bed betimes, with a 1:00 a.m. call, dressed and packed after our brief nap, checked out, and then went outside hoping that the cab driver would show up. Fortunately, he did, much to our surprise and relief. Of course he was supposed to take our bags to the gate for us, and of course another guy grabbed them as soon as the taxi pulled up at the airport, and of course the other guy was very annoyed that we had almost no money left for a tip for a service that we (a) had already paid for and (b) didn’t want anyway. We got on the plane, heaved a sigh of relief, and left Egypt forever.

We’re glad we went. It was something we had always wanted to do, and it was worth it. We’re glad we’re not going back. Even the airport in Milan felt like home.

We had a wonderful three days in Rome.