Hey, everyone.
I'm back already with a new post about last weekend's trip to Cairo, which was, in short, a somewhat madcap experience.
One of our party, Lynne, was leaving for the states at the end of the Cairo weekend and brought (literally) about 150 pounds of luggage, including Berber rugs and Moroccan trinkets galore. So last Thursday night, we began our trip by dragging our stuff down the main street we live on, traffic swerving around us, to the local supermarket/cab stand; we then crammed into a cab together to the train station (complete with bungee cord on the trunk), lugged our stuff up and down the station steps, on and off two separate trains, and finally into the airport at Casablanca. We then proceeded to engage in a comedy of errors, during which: posted signs told us to go to Terminal 3; various uniformed officials led us from one end of the airport to the other; we had to force ourselves and luggage through hundreds of people waiting for arrivals outside Terminal 1; we caught some kind of airport or hotel van that took us on a 10 minute drive to a dark and desolate Terminal 3; we were told by an angry uniformed (and armed) man that there were NO flights from Terminal 3; we returned with the van to Terminal 2 (where we originally entered the airport) in time to just barely catch our 11:00 pm flight. Now, we've traveled quite a bit together as a group, and this is the first time people were getting a little white around the gills!
We had a nice flight on Royal Air Maroc of about five hours duration (and were actually served a meal and free alcohol). We arrived at 6:30 am (Egypt's two hours later than Morocco), groggy, but excited. We again had a strange experience finding and negotiating a cab ride into downtown Cairo, but managed to do it without too much confusion. (Lynne's bags were roped to the top this time.)
Here's an aerial shot of Cairo that isn't great, but gives you some idea of the pervasive greyish brown soot that covers the city and pollutes the air of Cairo. It has the second worst air in the world, and they're not kidding. The city is really dirty; coated in gray dust and littered almost everywhere.
We stayed at the Lotus Hotel, ranked 35 out of 125 hotels in Cairo by TripAdvisor. Well, it was quite a dump, and I'd say about 50 years past its prime. My bed was like a wooden door with a towel over it; the floors were interesting original parquet, but hideously dirty; the towels were miniscule, stiff and grayish white; the showers sprayed water across the entire bathroom; and, the lobby was smoke-filled and had not been dusted EVER. Of course, to be fair, this place cost us each $15 per night!!
On Friday afternoon we ventured to the nearby and famous Egyptian Museum. (Okay, another side note. We thought traffic was nuts here in Rabat, but in Egypt it's insane.
As a pedestrian, you just have to wade into the oncoming cars to cross the street. We sidled up to the locals, and did what they did; I admit, I always made sure one of them would get hit first.) By the way, here's an Egyptian license plate, using the Arabic numbers. Cool, huh?
The museum was fantastic. We saw the tomb of Tutankamun and all the objects recovered therein, including his famous solid gold mask. We saw royal mummies, including Ramses II and Cheops, their hair and nails and teeth still intact. There were lots of fabulous statues, stiles and sarcophagi. I don't have any interior pictures, because none were allowed.
On Friday night, we took the (required, really) dinner cruise on the Nile. Regrettably, we discovered that the person who sold us the cruise lied about alcohol being served; we all needed a drink after our crazy trip and were strangely crushed to learn it was a dry boat. (Egypt is much more conservative than Morocco.)
It was a beautiful evening though, and I was able to spend a lot of time on deck, watching the bridges and mosques and hotels go by.
The entertainment was a belly dancer that had a face like Cher, an un-ladylike outfit, and I think, a rather poor technique. After that, the midget fake Sufi dancer did his thing, followed by the full sized fake Sufi dancer pictured here.
What a night!! We finally got our drink at the nearby Four Seasons hotel, where we relaxed in blissful Western style for an hour.
We arranged for a guided tour of the Pyramids for Saturday. Our guide was named Sherin, and thankfully, she was great. The van ride from Cairo was through suburbs and small towns; again, these were strewn with litter, clearly very poor and featured the now-familiar mix of trucks, donkeys, mules and camels. (In fact, at one point, in slow motion, we watched a man's mule break lose from his wooden cart and run directly in front of our van. We screeched to a halt, just missing the poor beast. All I could think of was how much that farmer relied on this animal for his livelihood, and how devastating the loss would be. It all ended okay, though.)
We went first to Dahshur, to see the second-oldest pyramids of our trip, both built by Sneferu, the father of Cheops. One of the pyramids there was nearly as high as the Great Pyramid, but one was a failed practice version, called the Bent Pyramid.
The area was closed until 1993 for military use, and appararently, the Egyptians are still using it for military training. We saw several thousand soldiers on some kind of maneuvers.
We then went to Saqqara, which featured the oldest, stepped pyramids.
Then it was on to Memphis (the original) for a tour of various fallen statues and stiles from the reign of Ramses II and others. Here you see a massive limestone statue of Ramses II; in his right hand the stick he's carrying shows his "cartouche," or the symbol of his particular reign. Cartouches are ovals with hieroglyphics in them, used only for royalty.
Finally, we were headed to the Great Pyramid and Sphinx at Giza. But first, a trip to Pizza Hut for a late lunch. Look closely at this picture and you'll see how close the town of Giza is to the actual site, and certainly how tourism and history mix!
Below is a group shot of all of us; some of us had just climbed up and then down into the Great Pyramid, a trip to Hades if there ever was one! Very steep in both directions and you have to stay hunched over almost the entire time. At the end, you simply see a plain chamber, with one remaining stone sarcophagus. (Apparently, some people were meditating in this hot smelly room, behind the coffin, but I missed seeing them myself.) Anyway, it cost $20 and our legs were killing us the following day, but for some reason, it was still worth it!
And then it was on to the Great Sphinx, where we were greeted by a dog that was actually vogue-ing! He stood stock still on a stone wall, right in front of the whole scene. It was weird. I kept expecting someone to rush in and ask us for money for taking the dog's picture, but he seemed to be running the show himself.
Finally, a few short minutes of climbing through various temples with thousands of other milling tourists, and bam, a scene I have dreamed of seeing for a lifetime. It was truly awesome, and one could tell that everyone there, from all over the world, was experiencing a similar thrill.
That night, we treated ourselves to a Western dinner in the super-clean Ramses Hilton. (Of course, even that was not without mishap. Lynne and I feared for our lives in the traffic, so got a cab for the short ride. Unfortunately, we don't speak Arabic very well, and when the cab went over the Nile I knew we hadn't made our destination clear! We ended up going about 20 minutes out of our way, as the driver was unable to make a U-turn for miles.)
At 4:00 AM on Sunday, we said our farewells to Lynne, headed back to the airport and had an uneventful, sleep-filled flight back to Casablanca.
It was a crazy, challenging and fabulous journey. I have been in the presence of one of the seven wonders of the world, stayed in the cheapest hotel of my life, witnessed the shriveled dried skin, toenails and hair of the Pharoah Ramses and seen the golden mask of Tutankamun. Not bad for a long weekend.
I'm back already with a new post about last weekend's trip to Cairo, which was, in short, a somewhat madcap experience.
One of our party, Lynne, was leaving for the states at the end of the Cairo weekend and brought (literally) about 150 pounds of luggage, including Berber rugs and Moroccan trinkets galore. So last Thursday night, we began our trip by dragging our stuff down the main street we live on, traffic swerving around us, to the local supermarket/cab stand; we then crammed into a cab together to the train station (complete with bungee cord on the trunk), lugged our stuff up and down the station steps, on and off two separate trains, and finally into the airport at Casablanca. We then proceeded to engage in a comedy of errors, during which: posted signs told us to go to Terminal 3; various uniformed officials led us from one end of the airport to the other; we had to force ourselves and luggage through hundreds of people waiting for arrivals outside Terminal 1; we caught some kind of airport or hotel van that took us on a 10 minute drive to a dark and desolate Terminal 3; we were told by an angry uniformed (and armed) man that there were NO flights from Terminal 3; we returned with the van to Terminal 2 (where we originally entered the airport) in time to just barely catch our 11:00 pm flight. Now, we've traveled quite a bit together as a group, and this is the first time people were getting a little white around the gills!
We had a nice flight on Royal Air Maroc of about five hours duration (and were actually served a meal and free alcohol). We arrived at 6:30 am (Egypt's two hours later than Morocco), groggy, but excited. We again had a strange experience finding and negotiating a cab ride into downtown Cairo, but managed to do it without too much confusion. (Lynne's bags were roped to the top this time.)
Here's an aerial shot of Cairo that isn't great, but gives you some idea of the pervasive greyish brown soot that covers the city and pollutes the air of Cairo. It has the second worst air in the world, and they're not kidding. The city is really dirty; coated in gray dust and littered almost everywhere.We stayed at the Lotus Hotel, ranked 35 out of 125 hotels in Cairo by TripAdvisor. Well, it was quite a dump, and I'd say about 50 years past its prime. My bed was like a wooden door with a towel over it; the floors were interesting original parquet, but hideously dirty; the towels were miniscule, stiff and grayish white; the showers sprayed water across the entire bathroom; and, the lobby was smoke-filled and had not been dusted EVER. Of course, to be fair, this place cost us each $15 per night!!
On Friday afternoon we ventured to the nearby and famous Egyptian Museum. (Okay, another side note. We thought traffic was nuts here in Rabat, but in Egypt it's insane.
As a pedestrian, you just have to wade into the oncoming cars to cross the street. We sidled up to the locals, and did what they did; I admit, I always made sure one of them would get hit first.) By the way, here's an Egyptian license plate, using the Arabic numbers. Cool, huh?The museum was fantastic. We saw the tomb of Tutankamun and all the objects recovered therein, including his famous solid gold mask. We saw royal mummies, including Ramses II and Cheops, their hair and nails and teeth still intact. There were lots of fabulous statues, stiles and sarcophagi. I don't have any interior pictures, because none were allowed.
On Friday night, we took the (required, really) dinner cruise on the Nile. Regrettably, we discovered that the person who sold us the cruise lied about alcohol being served; we all needed a drink after our crazy trip and were strangely crushed to learn it was a dry boat. (Egypt is much more conservative than Morocco.)
It was a beautiful evening though, and I was able to spend a lot of time on deck, watching the bridges and mosques and hotels go by.
The entertainment was a belly dancer that had a face like Cher, an un-ladylike outfit, and I think, a rather poor technique. After that, the midget fake Sufi dancer did his thing, followed by the full sized fake Sufi dancer pictured here.What a night!! We finally got our drink at the nearby Four Seasons hotel, where we relaxed in blissful Western style for an hour.
We arranged for a guided tour of the Pyramids for Saturday. Our guide was named Sherin, and thankfully, she was great. The van ride from Cairo was through suburbs and small towns; again, these were strewn with litter, clearly very poor and featured the now-familiar mix of trucks, donkeys, mules and camels. (In fact, at one point, in slow motion, we watched a man's mule break lose from his wooden cart and run directly in front of our van. We screeched to a halt, just missing the poor beast. All I could think of was how much that farmer relied on this animal for his livelihood, and how devastating the loss would be. It all ended okay, though.)
We went first to Dahshur, to see the second-oldest pyramids of our trip, both built by Sneferu, the father of Cheops. One of the pyramids there was nearly as high as the Great Pyramid, but one was a failed practice version, called the Bent Pyramid.
The area was closed until 1993 for military use, and appararently, the Egyptians are still using it for military training. We saw several thousand soldiers on some kind of maneuvers.We then went to Saqqara, which featured the oldest, stepped pyramids.
Then it was on to Memphis (the original) for a tour of various fallen statues and stiles from the reign of Ramses II and others. Here you see a massive limestone statue of Ramses II; in his right hand the stick he's carrying shows his "cartouche," or the symbol of his particular reign. Cartouches are ovals with hieroglyphics in them, used only for royalty.
Finally, we were headed to the Great Pyramid and Sphinx at Giza. But first, a trip to Pizza Hut for a late lunch. Look closely at this picture and you'll see how close the town of Giza is to the actual site, and certainly how tourism and history mix!
Below is a group shot of all of us; some of us had just climbed up and then down into the Great Pyramid, a trip to Hades if there ever was one! Very steep in both directions and you have to stay hunched over almost the entire time. At the end, you simply see a plain chamber, with one remaining stone sarcophagus. (Apparently, some people were meditating in this hot smelly room, behind the coffin, but I missed seeing them myself.) Anyway, it cost $20 and our legs were killing us the following day, but for some reason, it was still worth it!
And then it was on to the Great Sphinx, where we were greeted by a dog that was actually vogue-ing! He stood stock still on a stone wall, right in front of the whole scene. It was weird. I kept expecting someone to rush in and ask us for money for taking the dog's picture, but he seemed to be running the show himself.
Finally, a few short minutes of climbing through various temples with thousands of other milling tourists, and bam, a scene I have dreamed of seeing for a lifetime. It was truly awesome, and one could tell that everyone there, from all over the world, was experiencing a similar thrill.
That night, we treated ourselves to a Western dinner in the super-clean Ramses Hilton. (Of course, even that was not without mishap. Lynne and I feared for our lives in the traffic, so got a cab for the short ride. Unfortunately, we don't speak Arabic very well, and when the cab went over the Nile I knew we hadn't made our destination clear! We ended up going about 20 minutes out of our way, as the driver was unable to make a U-turn for miles.)
At 4:00 AM on Sunday, we said our farewells to Lynne, headed back to the airport and had an uneventful, sleep-filled flight back to Casablanca.
It was a crazy, challenging and fabulous journey. I have been in the presence of one of the seven wonders of the world, stayed in the cheapest hotel of my life, witnessed the shriveled dried skin, toenails and hair of the Pharoah Ramses and seen the golden mask of Tutankamun. Not bad for a long weekend.
This coming weekend, we're planning a day trip to Casablanca, and perhaps some horseback riding. After that, it's on to Dublin for my visit with childhood friend Susan McIntyre.
More soon, and best wishes to all.
