Egypt: Part I.

On October 12, the Jewish holiday of Sukkot began, which meant that we had a week and a half long break from class. During this break, I decided to go with three friends, Jacob, Ellen, and Sara, on a trip to Egypt. We planned to visit Cairo first, and then take a train down the Nile to Aswan. After spending a day or so in Aswan, we planned to head up to Luxor, seeing the Egyptian tombs there, before taking a train back up to Cairo, where we would finish up our trip. Considering the time we had, about ten days, and the amount that we planned to do, it was a fairly ambitious plan, but it all worked out in the end. We had an amazing time. I took over 750 pictures too, which is part of the reason why I’m splitting up the trip into three separate posts: one for Cairo at the start of the trip, one for Aswan and Luxor, and one for Cairo at the end of the trip.

In order to be able to enter Egypt, I had to first get an Egyptian visa- a step my friends had already done. This meant that I had to take a bus to Eilat on Tuesday night, so I could get the visa Wednesday morning, and then leave with my friends once they arrived from Jerusalem. It turns out that the buses leaving from Jerusalem were full, so my friends had to go to Tel Aviv to find a bus, which delayed them for several hours. It also meant that we missed the bus we planned to take to Cairo, and when we crossed into Egypt, we had to take a minibus/taxi thing instead.

The beach at Eilat. Not a bad place to wait around for a couple hours.

From our minibus driver, we learned that we had to pay a border fee before we could start our journey, and that we could only pay the fee in Egyptian pounds. Predictably, the ATM at the border station was broken, so we were forced to buy Egyptian pounds from our driver instead. This led to a fierce battle over a fair exchange rate which lasted around twenty minutes, and during which I began to doubt we would ever make it to Cairo. Finally, we agreed on a rate (5 pounds per dollar), after which our driver, who until this point had acted very irate, broke into a broad smile, extended his hand, and, while chuckling, said: “Welcome to Egypt.”

That car ride through the Sinai on Wednesday night was the only time in the entire trip that I felt unsafe. Not because I expected terrorists to jump out of nowhere and kidnap us, but because our driver seemed to be under the impression that he was invincible, and therefore didn’t need to pay any attention to local traffic laws. I spent hours gripping my seat as we sped towards massive semis and took tailgating to a whole new level. To make matters worse, I couldn’t sleep through the ride due to the odd, atonal, prayer-like Arabic music that was blaring on the radio. The entire time I felt as though I was in some sort of weird, surreal nightmare. But, against all odds, we managed to arrive safely in Cairo.

Sinai truck stop.

The next morning, we awoke and went to the train station to purchase our tickets to Aswan, then headed to downtown to the Egyptian Museum. The Museum was incredible, and we spent hours admiring the countless artifacts on display. We also saw a special exhibit devoted solely to mummies, which was amazing. There’s really nothing quite like staring into the face of a three thousand year old man. Unfortunately we had to leave our cameras at the door, so I don’t have any pictures to share.  After the museum, we went to dinner, wandered around Cairo for a bit, and then went to bed.

Friday was devoted to the Pyramids. We went back to the Egyptian Museum, and waited for a bus that supposedly left from just behind the museum, and would take us straight to the Pyramids. We ended up boarding the wrong bus, which let us off somewhere in Giza (just outside Cairo), and wandered around for a bit, hopelessly lost, until we came across a man who lived right next to the monuments. He invited us over for tea (Egyptian tea, by the way, is incredible), and we took a taxi to his village. He even insisted on paying the taxi fare, which was nice.

Our new friend (forgot his name) wasn’t joking, we could see the pyramids from his living room window, and got an even better view from the roof of his apartment building. He explained that his entire family lived in this building (aunts, uncles, etc) which is apparently quite common in Egypt. After tea, he took us to a business owned by a friend of his, where we were able to rent camels to take to the pyramids. We were also able to cheaply rent a taxi to take us to Saqqara and Dahshur (where there are even more pyramids) after we finished our camel tour.

It was a little hazy that day, but this is the view from our friend's living room. You can just make out the outline of a pyramid in the distance.

Riding a camel was an interesting experience. There was a lot of leaning and swaying involved, and my camel (mysteriously named ‘Michael Jackson’) wasn’t the most pleasant of creatures. The pyramids were awesome though. I’ll let my pictures speak for themselves, but it was amazing to see the last existing wonders of the ancient world. The Sphinx was pretty cool too.

My faithful steed, Michael Jackson.

Camel cam.

Jacob and Ellen, on Secret of the Desert and Mickey Mouse.

Pyramids.

They were huge.

More pyramids.

Michael Jackson. Also, my new facebook profile picture.

Our camels, enjoying the Egyptian sun.

Looking up from the base.

Looking back towards Giza and Cairo. The city was much closer to the pyramids than I expected.

Another pyramid shot.

Sphinx

Luckily, there weren't many tourists around.

I could have looked at these all day.

After our tour of the Giza pyramids, we hopped in our taxi and drove to Saqqara, home to the first Egyptian pyramid ever built. We spent about an hour there, and then drove a bit further to Dahshur, home to what is known as the Red Pyramid and the Bent Pyramid. We were able to go inside the Red Pyramid, which was an amazing (if overly hot) experience. After we reemerged from the Red Pyramid, we took a break before heading back down to our taxi (the entrance to the pyramid was about halfway up the structure itself), and started talking with a group of people who were about to follow in our footsteps. It turns out they were studying at the American University in Cairo, and they knew Charlotte Berschback, a high school classmate of mine who was studying there as well. Small world, I guess.

There was a small museum at Saqqara as well. This was inside, a small sphinx of the pharaoh who ordered the building of the stepped pyramid.

The Stepped Pyramid at Saqqara.

The ruins of a temple complex near the pyramid.

Stepped Pyramid.

The Bent and Red Pyramids as seen from Saqqara.

Ruins at Saqqara, with the Giza pyramids in the distance.

The Red Pyramid. About a third of the way up is the entrance to the structure itself.

View from the Red Pyramid.

Another shot from the Red Pyramid.

Descending.

One of the chambers inside of the pyramid. There were three of these.

Passage connecting the chambers.

We had to climb these to reach the final chamber, which once served as a pharaoh's tomb.

Tomb chamber. Very cool. Also very hot and very humid.

Ascending.

Bent Pyramid. And camel.

New and Old.

Mosque.

The red building is the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. There was also a burned out building on the left, which I would guess is a casualty of the revolution.

After experiencing the pyramids, we returned to Cairo. We had a couple of hours to kill before our train left, so we grabbed some food, and then decided to head to Tahrir Square, to see the epicenter of the Egyptian revolution. Turns out there was a protest going on, and after spending some time observing from a distance (don’t read this part, Mom) we decided to have a closer look and see what the protest was all about. We wandered around the square, talking to people and looking at the flags and posters they were carrying. From what I understood (which wasn’t very much), they were protesting something the police had done during an earlier demonstration put on by the Copts. But I could be wrong. Either way, it was a once in a lifetime experience.

Tahrir Square protest.

Wandering around the square.

This made me really wish I could read Arabic.

These were on display in the square, though I have no idea what they mean.

This one was really cool.

Don't know who these people are.

A huge mosque in Cairo.

Here's a video that I took of the protest! It took forever to upload, so I hope it works. At one point I pan over to some locals who we asked about the protests. So if you suddenly see a close up of some random Egyptians, that's why.

Well, that’s it for Part I of my Egypt trip. Stay tuned for Part II, where I’ll talk about Aswan and Luxor!