Matt + Janae

...at least for a while. Janae used to be a tour guide and was reminded of the many tactics she had to use when showing people the sites...mainly shopping. Travel agencies have pre-arranged kick-backs from stores they take their clients to and capitalize on this by taking people to as many of these shops as they can between the sites. Pyramids, shopping, Memphis, shopping, etc.
We first stopped off at a carpet making school where we were given a tour of the factory where children worked for money to further their education. After teaching us about carpets came the showroom floor and the sales pitches. BTW, the shop owner swears children have to be over 8 to work. I'll let you be the judge...

Next stop was papyrus making workshop (we actually ended up buying some papyrus at this place), followed by other Egyptian souvenir shops. Good thing we stayed an extra day and saw the lesser sites of Cairo like the Egyptian Museum where King Tut's treasures, ancient dental and surgical tools, and perfectly preserved mummies are found. The Citadel, an Islamic fortress and mosque, which overlooked the city was also a highlight.


The cruise? Amy said it best when she said we're too neurotic to be cruise people. Hours and hours docked on the Nile strung next to other boats with no agenda followed by a rushed one hour tour of all the sites each day. Having more time to explore would have been nice. As the cruise was 5-star and run by Movenpick, a Swiss company, they did have options catering to those who wanted to include more in their all-inclusive package. Excursions were offered during scheduled nothingness for additional fees.

Now that I have the complaints out of the way, onto the more interesting parts of Egypt. But first,

More passport issues

Emad's first task was to get us through the airport. We were there 3-4 hours while Egyptian officials tried to determine the validity of my Mom's US passport. They claimed it could be a fraud. How could they tell? They were armed with a boxy old skool fone on a large desk in the top inspector's office. No computers, scanners, connections to a National Security database...just the phone. Even though it took over 3 hours, I still don't know how they verified the passport. It must be some powerful phone.

We spent the night at the 5-star French run Meridien hotel...it was nice.

the Pyramids

We spent the first day visiting the pyramids of Sakkara, Giza, the old capital Memphis, and lots and lots of SHOPPING.

Pyramids are interesting. Climbing on the outside was prohibited, but entering one of them was possible for a fee. So, off we went into the pyramid! For as large as they were, I thought the interiors would be large and spacious. Instead, the inside consists of 1-2 chambers smaller than the average bedroom and a 4-5 foot tall tunnel leading from the outside to the burial chamber.

As they were burial sites of kings, they were full of treasures, and easy targets for grave robbers. It was later that Kings hid their burial chambers in the mountains at "Valley of the Kings." To prevent others from knowing the exact locations of these tombs, workers and artists were blind folded then transported to the secret sites to work. At the end of the day they were blind folded again and taken back to the city center. These graves are a lot tougher to find for grave robbers and archaeologists alike, but are preserved with color hieroglyphics (egg whites was the secret? I still don't get how egg whites was the secret, but we heard it over and over).

Sakkara is the site of the first pyramids built in Egypt, built in "steps" as opposed to the smoother faced versions later found at Giza. The first columns are also be found at this site. Notice the columns on the temple -- they are attached at one point by a wall. They were built this way because people, new to the concept of circular free-standing columns, didn't know if they would stand on their own so they extended the wall to the column to add support. It is absolutely amazing to see the initial design of architectural structures take form.

Death Threat

At one of the crazy night markets of Cairo, I received my first death threat. It was the only time I felt my life in danger on our trip. Makes for a good story now, but I was a little shocked at the time. I was in a small shop looking at a hand made box while waiting for one of the shop owner's posse to get a toy camel for Janae. (All shop owners had a posse. The main guy with his little enterage out in front of the 5×5 shop.) I asked how much the box was...he replied with some crazy amount. I put it back and said I wasn't interested.

How much u pay for it?

No, I don't want it.

This conversation repeated over a dozen times. I finally gave him a throw-away bid of $1 to end the sillyness. He sat down, put his head in his hands, and then proceeded to rub his eyes with his index fingers as to calm himself down. When he finally looked up he whipped his eyes straight into mine and told me in a calm psychotic voice

Get out of my store now. If you come back, I kill you. Get out now.

I started to break out in laughter thinking 'is this for real?', but caught myself when I realized he was serious. As we left, another of his posse looked at me and said the man was serious...

He's not jooking. If you come back, he will kill you.

I walked out of there with a grin not knowing if this was for real. Apparently I offended the man.

Ancient Temples and some mythology

Ancient temples of Egypt were fascinating as there were many similarities to other temples such as Solomon's temple and modern LDS temples. The layouts are similar and symbolic. They contain a couple outer courts each increasing in level of sacredness until the 'Holy of Holies' (they even call it that!). Only the High Priest or the king was allowed in this place. The 'Holy of Holies' would house a statue of one or more gods and it would be the responsibility of the king or the high priest of the temple to go to the statue, take off its clothes, wash and annoint the statue before giving it a new set of clothes.

Osiris is the god of gods in Egyptian mythology and the god of the underworld. He takes one from the passing of this life into the next. Why is he honored with this task? His evil brother Set at one time killed Osiris out of jealousy and ruled in his stead. Osiris obtained power over death and resurrected becoming the god with power between both worlds. With the help of his wife, Isis, and son, Horus, Osiris defeated Set and ruled once again. The story has resemblances to Christian tradition of conquering death through resurrection and the after-life...interesting!

In a hieroglyphic papyrus labeled "Judgement," a man is taken through the journey of judgement. A panel of judges rule on his deeds. He is then presented before another scribe-god where he is judged again. Here, his heart is weighed against a feather. If his heart is good, it will be lighter than a feather and if not, he's eaten by an alligator (the animal representation of Set, the god of hell). As the man's heart is lighter than the feather, he passes to the next stage where Horus, the son of god, presents this man to his father, Osiris, the god of gods, who sits on a throne with his wife, Isis, behind a veil in a separate chamber...absolutely amazing!

The business of moving temples and astronomy...Abu Simbel

As the Aswan high damn was being built on the Nile, temples would have been flooded by the newly formed Lake Nassar. UNESCO embarked on a project to relocate most of them. The ones that didn't make the list are are under water now. The project was was funded by various countries as Egypt couldn't put up the 10's of millions to move just 1of the temples. Certain temples were completely funded by a particular country and were moved out of Egypt to that particular country...I would have loved to bid for one of these things or the one to negotiate that part of the contract! We'll help you salvage your temple, but we're going to have to ship it back to our country.

Abu Simbel was one of the temples that was stayed in Egypt. As it was originally cut out of rock, an artificial hill was built around the new site to preserve the integrity of the relocation. The temple was built by and dedicated to Ramses II as a god, the first of its kind. Ramses II, king for over 60 years, wanted to be deified and did so by building a temple unto himself as a god. In this temple, the Holy of Holies housed 4 different gods - one of which was a god of darkness. Ramses himself made the cut and is found among the other 3. The temple is layed out such that on 2 days of the year, one in Feb and one in Oct, the sun will shine from its entrance into the Holy of Holies, the deepest chamber, and cast light on 3 of the 4 gods...the god of darkness being the one left in the dark! The days? One was Ramses II's birthday and the other his coronation date! The new site of the temple had to be chosen such as to preserve this special characteristic. The team of crack scientists/contractors missed one of these 2 dates by a day. I wonder which scientists were paid more - the ancient Egyptian ones or the ones contracted by UNESCO? Maybe if UNESCO contractors were threatened with death by alligator they would have got their math right.

taxes and the Nile-o-meter

How would one measure the amount of water used by farmers from the Nile to assess a tax? The Nile-o-meter, of course. This gem measures the water level of the river to determine how much to tax farmers that year for the amount of water extracted for irrigation purposes (Knowing the Egyptians, I'm sure they also measured rainfall and considered evaporation and other factors).

More pictures of Egypt