48 Hours with the Pharoahs

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.

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.

Marrakech: A Strange, Strange Place

Hello, all.

Sorry for the big gap in the blog updates. As some of you know, we had a family emergency (my beloved niece Justice experiencing toxic shock syndrome), and I was also in Egypt last weekend. Luckily, after some very scary moments, Justice is now on the path to recovery, and will be able to leave the hospital in a week or so.

So, back to my report on our Moroccan adventures. Two weekends ago, we journeyed five hours southwest, to the city of Marrakech. Most of you have heard of Marrakech, if not from history, then from the Simon and Garfunkel song! It is where the name "Morocco" came from, is a Berber (rather than Arab) city, and was the seat of various Moroccan empires for several hundred years. It's an oasis, large and flat, with lots of palm trees and big red ramparts, with the backdrop of the high Atlas mountains.

It's also a city that's even a bigger tourist attraction than Fes, and desperately seeking status as an international destination. Yves St. Laurent made his home in Marrakesh, as have lots of other celebrities and runaway hippie types. They have international film festivals, and Hillary Clinton was there when we were there, to meet with King Mohammed VI about the situation in Israel/Palestine. So, the crafts are high quality, prices are exorbitant, and the salesmanship is aggressive beyond belief.

Here's your first clue. These strange dudes, dressed in traditional Berber costumes, hang out in the city's giant main square, Place Jemaa el Fna, selling water. If you so much as point your camera at them, they lunge at you, demanding money. This photograph shows the exact moment that I was "busted" after trying to surreptiously photograph them.

It's just the start. There are "snake charmers" who run at you, draping small cobras around your neck, grabbing your camera to take pictures and then refusing to take the snake off you until you pay lots of money.

There are also henna ladies from the countryside, who will begin to draw a henna tatoo on you if you hesitate anywhere near them, whether you want it or not. I had to run away from several, yelling "la!" ("no!").
Finally, there are the hooded men who handle the Barbary Apes (or more properly, macaques; see previous blog), who will also drape them on you and then demand money.

Place Jemaa el Fna is quite famous, and supposed to be a thrill, but I found it rather awful!

There WERE some wonderful places in Marrakech. The first standout was the Jardin Marjorelle, which was an artist's home and garden purchased by Yves St. Laurent and his partner, and then donated to the city when Yves died. The picture doesn't do it justice, but it's a fabulous deep blue home surrounded by acres of bamboo, cactus and flowers. It provided a much-needed break for me to go there and to wander alone taking photos.

Another place that was fabulous was the Palais Bahia, an elaborate palace created to house an obese vizier and his many concubines, in the 1800's. The marble and tile courtyard pictured here was where the ladies hung out to share advice and gossip. Around the courtyard are reception rooms with elaborately painted ceilings, giant tiled fireplaces and beautiful archways and columns.

Typical of Morocco, to get to this sumptuous palace, we walked down a number of dumpy, dirty little streets with pathetic shops and parked donkeys, that would make any but intrepid travelers turn back. It's hard to describe how strange it is to see a country with so many assets not know how to maximize them, even when it intends to have a vibrant tourist industry!

To summarize, Marrakech was filled with freaky sights, obnoxious shopkeepers, underdressed and sunburned tourists, and lots of very devout Muslims, rushing in to the street corner mosques to pray. I'm glad I saw it, but it was my least favorite place so far in Morocco.

Well, it's late here, and I have to get some rest. Later this week I will update everyone on our whirlwind trip to Cairo and the Pyramids.

Until then, b'salaamah.

Meknes: Some Things are the Same Everywhere

Meknes is the twin city of Fes (both having been royal capitals for different dynasties in different centuries). We found Meknes to be quieter (read: less touristy) than Fes, and enjoyed a jitney ride around the city ramparts, past the Mellah (Jewish neighborhood), over to the enormous imperial stables where thousands of horses were once kept, and back to the gigantic main square of the city.

We also found a delightful shop, where four of the five of us purchased Berber rugs without feeling pressured into it. (Unfortunately, mine was the most expensive, but I love it.)

The most notable thing we experienced in Meknes, however, was a vicious catfight. We were shopping in one of the narrow streets of the medina when we began to hear women yelling and a rush of leather sandals on the stone street. A group of middle aged women, all with hijabs covering their heads and wearing lovely djellabas (full length hooded robes of silk or linen) came around a curve, screaming and chasing a younger, similarly-dressed woman. They were raining vicious blows on her head and shoulders, yelling "shuma, shuma!" or "shame, shame" and lots of other mean words that I couldn't quite make out. She looked terribly sad, bore the blows and did not fight back. Eventually, they tore off her headcovering and began to rip her djellaba, exposing her bra (quite shocking in this culture). Finally, when they banged her head into a wall (which we could hear from our distance of about 15 feet, where we cowered, stunned), other people began to intercede to stop the fight. As most people know, no matter how many times you see violence in media, the real thing is quite disturbing. (Bizarrely, after snapping photos so constantly as a tourist, my brain immediately contemplated taking a picture, but luckily just as immediately rejected this horrible instinct.)

Anyway, things settled down, and when we asked someone in our broken Arabic/English what had happened, he said "husband have one woman in house, one woman out of house." Same old story, just a different country! We slinked away, hoping that the aggrieved parties would not notice that their intimate and painful scene was witnessed by foreigners.

Off to bed now. More next week after Marrakesh, insha'allah.

Fes, Part Three: The Merdersa

Dear readers,

Here's a glimpse into the other Morocco, that of stunning architecture and craftsman ship. These pictures are from the Bou Inania Merdersa in Fes (a merdasa is a "madrasa" in standard Arabic, or "school"). This was a residential college, where students would study religion, law, science and art, and was built in the 14th century by one Abou Inan, a sultan.

The three pictures show the carved wooden screen and doors at the main entrance (cedar, I believe); the bands of tilework (called "jellij") and calligraphy that encompass the main courtyard; and the projection of light through stained glass onto a door in the prayer hall. (The stained glass was surprising to see in North Africa!)

The square courtyard was paved in onyx and marble, with a large marble fountain in the center, where students would cleanse themselves prior to prayer. We were able to see the small stone cells on the second floor, in which the students slept, each with a little wooden screened window. Not bad at all - kind of like a monastery.

Fes was and is considered the most learned of Morocco's cities, so this merdasa was an important institution, and home to great scholars over the centuries. It's also one of the few Islamic buildings in Morocco that is open to non-Muslims. (As a side note, non-Muslims can enter mosques in most places, for example, the Taj Mahal is a mosque, but here in Morocco, it's forbidden. Why? Well, the French actually made the law when Morocco became a protectorate in 1912. They wanted to reassure the locals that they would not interfere with religious life. When Morocco gained independence in 1956, the new country decided to keep the law in place.)

So, that completes my Fes trilogy. One more post tonight, about Fes' sister city Meknes, and then I'm all caught up on my blog.

This weekend we will travel to the fabulous city of Marrekesh (for which Morocco is named), and the following weekend, we're heading to Cairo and the Pyramids.

Fes, Part Two, or How Moroccans Use All Parts of their Animals

In Fes, we visited a leather shop which overlooked the ancient tanneries. The white vats you see are several centuries old. They are filled with a solution made from guano, which is used to strip the hair from the hides of camels, goats and sheep, and to soften them. As you can imagine, the odor, even from a distance of 20 or 40 yards, was quite overpowering. The tanners are knee deep in the stuff all day! Nearby are other vats filled with natural dyes made from vegetable materials, such as henna and saffron.

Now, the picture below of the camel head in the butcher shop is a little rough to take, and I debated whether to include it; but, it's life in Morocco. You can also see chickens and ducks and pigeons running free in the souk, unwittingly enjoying their last moments of life dodging the feet of passersby.

The other night, here in the Rabat medina (where I went to purchase a better smock for myself for the orphanage), I saw COOKED camel heads, being ground into street food. Combined with the smell, this was the first sight in Morocco (of many possible contenders) that actually made me queasy.



Okay, I'm going to post this, and will do two more posts tonight, insha'allah.

Never Gonna Do it Without Your Fes On, Part One

Hello, dear followers. Before I traveled to Morocco, my Mom gave me a great Smithsonian article about the donkeys of Fes. The streets of this ancient royal capital of Morocco are so narrow that ONLY donkeys can be used to move products and supplies in and out. The author mentioned that she had a tendency to romanticize the animals; she kept asking the owners what they called their donkeys, and after hearing what she thought was a popular donkey name over and over again (something like Rover), she realized that the Fassians call their donkeys "donkey." They think of them like cars, essentially, not pets. Well, you see one here, parked at the side of the road, while his owner does some business in the souks.

We (the same group of five people that has been traveling together: Dev, Lynn, Judy, Jen and I) journeyed by train to Fes last weekend. It's about 2.5 hours east of Rabat. The train was a modern double decker, and cost roughly $10. In Fes, we met up with a guide who, rather dissappointingly, took us to one museum, none of the famous architectural sites, but PLENTY of shops in the souks (markets) in which we were pressured to buy stuff. It was nonetheless amazing to see the city of Fes. The streets are narrow, winding and labryinth-like. They were also surprisingly steep. The main street is "Talaa Kabeera," or "the big climb." A parallel main street is the "Talaa Sagheera," or "small climb."

In Fes, we stayed in our first "riad," a guest house built around a central open tiled courtyard. It was quite lovely; we hung out the first night on the rooftop with the young man whose family owns the place, a student of English, playing cards and drinking tea in the soft weather. For the first time, we heard non-recorded calls to prayer (in other words, "live" calls from the muezzin). There were probably six mosques within a quarter mile, so each call was the same but different: droning, beseeching, boring, scolding.

Back to the donkeys, and then I'm going to end this blog and do two more about Fes. (Having trouble when I post more than one picture, so will do separate entries.) Anyway, we visited a caravansary still in business, where rural people bringing goods to the souks stable their donkeys on the first floor, and themselves stay in little wooden cells (basically) on the second. Quite a dilapidated and stinky place, but cheap, I suppose!

Okay, time for dinner, then back for entries two and three. And if you're wondering about the title of the post, it's a line from a Steeley Dan song.

Camel Trek, Part Two of Two

Hi, everyone. Yes, that goombah with the Berber headress and the too-big glasses with a line of camel riders and the Sahara desert behind her is me! (One of my famous self portraits.)

When I last left you, I mentioned that we had crossed alot of Morocco, making our way from Rabat to Merzouga, near the Algerian border.

We arrived at what the owners could reasonably advertise as the "Last Hotel Before Thousands of Miles of Desert!" where we were able to change into clothes suitable for riding camels, have our desert headscarves tied for us in the traditional way by our guide Hamza (a native of Merzouga) and take unnecessary stuff out of our backpacks.

With the help of camel herder Mohammed, we selected our steeds, saddled up and then lurched upward with our camels as they stood, probably sitting about 10 feet above the ground. It's a delightful sensation, really. I felt totally comfortable and safe up there. (As in horseback riding, they use the gentlest animals for these treks. We had no bad mannered spitting camels, only burpers and cud-chewers.) We headed straight into the dunes (which were about 50 to 75 feet high), adjusting our bodies to the slow, rolling gate of the camels, and hearing not a sound except the slight plopping noise of camel feet on sand, the instructions of Mohammed to the lead camel, and some indigestion from a number of our beasts. The sun set within 40 minutes or so, but we kept riding into the darkness, with only starlight, for another hour or so, until coming upon various fires and campsites of other groups. It was quite beautiful, and great to see the Milky Way again.

At the campsite, there was more lurching as the camels knelt for dismount, and then an extended stumble through deep sand in the darkness, until we arrived at our large camel-hair tents, with a long rug, table and large propane lamp (mais oui!) in the center area. Amazingly, we were fed a rather elaborate Moroccan meal (a tangine, which I mentioned back in a previous blog). Afterwards, we had a bit of drumming from Mohammed, accompanied by a teenaged Berber boy who lives in the desert with his father as he guards the campsites.

Sleeping arrangements were simple. All six of us crammed into one long tent, using small mattresses and staying warm with lots of oily wool blankets. It's hard to explain how strange this all was without any lighting, and without bathrooms and pajamas 'n stuff. (We used God's great desert to do our duty, and buried our Kleenexes behind us.)

One of the people in our party has quite a snore, so she was the only one who slept that night! In the morning, bleary eyed but resolved not to be cranky, we climbed an enormous dune (incredibly soft red sand, so quite breathless) to watch the sunrise.

Then another lurch up, and back we headed on our camels. The ride back was simply spectacular. We left at about 7:00 AM, so the light slanted across the dunes in a really amazing way. I have lots of pictures of our camel/people shadows, of Hamza's desert visage, and of the tiny tracks of desert mice and beetles in the sand. (Naturally, we took some sand from the Sahara to display in little Moroccan bottles.)

Anyway, after breakfast at the hotel, the ride back was long. However, it was enlivened by a visit with Morocco's Barbary Apes (or more properly, Macaques). These are tail-less monkeys native to Morocco, and living across the cedar forests of the Middle Atlas.

Last weekend, the same group of us travelled to Fes and Meknes, but I don't have time to write that up now. People are kind of in a hurry to see all that can be seen here (as most will not stay for as long as I'm staying), so we're on a rather crazy schedule! This weekend we're going to Marrakesh, and the following (long) weekend to Egypt to see the Pyramids.

By the way, the ranks of volunteers keeps thinning, so I'm now a hot property at the orphanage, with nurses fighting over me. Today I was pulled away from the yellow nest and into the blue nest so that the nurses could have their break. I peformed a solitary rendition of the hokey pokey in a playpen of one-year olds for about 20 minutes. Can you imagine?

B'salaama. Will try to write tomorrow, so that I get the adventure and blog in synch.