Day 1 (24/10/08): Arrive Cairo / Welcome to Egypt!

After about ten hours of traveling, my two travel companions (David and Quin) and myself arrived safety in the Cairo, Egypt airport. We were greeted (thankfully!) by a guide from the travel agency we had hired to help guide us throughout our ten day adventure in Egypt. Ahmed, our guide, helped us as we bought our Egyptian visas, became overwhelmed by the ubiquity of soldiers and armed guards, and boarded our bus - hotel bound! We unpacked and came to terms with the fact that we were Egyptian tourists for the next week an a half. We wandered around the city a little that night and ate some local cuisine - a lot of rice, barbecue meats, breads, pitas, and fruit juice. The streets were chaotic and crowded, and we held our breath as we dodged oncoming traffic and tried to follow the path of locals as they ventured across the busy streets.

Arrival to Cairo at sunset / horrible Cairo traffic:

Day 2 (25/10/08): Cairo “Desert Tour”

The next morning we woke up, got ready for the day, had breakfast in the hotel, and met our tour guide downstairs for a full-day outing through Cairo and Giza. Giza (الجيزة al-Gīza) is an important western district of the Egyptian capital Cairo - a city in its own right, but for a long time now absorbed as part of the heavily-populated and sprawling Cairo metropolis. Giza is best known as that part of Cairo closest to the world-famous Pyramids of Giza, situated high on the desert plateau immediately to the west of the urban district, itself located in the valley and centered around the Pyramids road, linking central Cairo with the ancient wonders. Cairo (Arabic: القاهرةal-Qāhirah), which means "the Vanquisher" or "the Triumphant" is the capital and largest city of Egypt and on the African continent. It is the Arab World's largest and Africa's most populous city. While Al-Qahirah is the official name of the city, in Egyptian Arabic it is called by the dialect's name for the country, transliteration: Masr. It surprised me that Cairo is one of the largest cities in the world and the largest in Africa. Cairo's metropolitan area has a population of about 17.8 million people. Cairo is the sixteenth most populous metropolitan area in the world. However all of our tour guides tried to convince us that it was the fifth largest city in the world. However one repeating theme was the inability of Egyptians to plan ahead. One example of this is that the city was built to accommodate only one million people, so the streets were so congested it takes hours to move what should only take minutes.

Our first stop was the famous Great Pyramids of Giza. The Great Pyramid of Giza, also called Khufu's Pyramid or the Pyramid of Khufu, and Pyramid of Cheops, is the oldest and largest of the three pyramids in the Giza Necropolis bordering what is now Cairo, Egypt, and is the only remaining member of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It is believed the pyramid was built as a tomb for Fourth dynasty Egyptian King Khufu (Cheops in Greek) and constructed over a 20 year period concluding around 2560 BC. The Great Pyramid was the tallest man-made structure in the world for over 3,800 years. Originally the Great Pyramid was covered by casing stones that formed a smooth outer surface, and what is seen today is the underlying core structure. Some of the casing stones that once covered the structure can still be seen around the base. There have been varying scientific and alternative theories regarding the Great Pyramid's construction techniques. Most accepted construction theories are based on the idea that it was built by moving huge stones from a quarry and dragging and lifting them into place. Egyptologists believe that the Great Pyramid was built by tens of thousands of skilled workers who camped near the pyramids and worked for a salary or as a form of paying taxes until the construction was completed. The worker's cemeteries were discovered in 1990 very close to the pyramids – the workers were much more respected and held in regard than depicted in the “Ten Commandments” movie.

A few hundred meters south-west of the Great Pyramid lies the slightly smaller Pyramid of Khafre, one of Khufu's successors who is also commonly considered the builder of the Great Sphinx, and a few hundred meters further south-west is the Pyramid of Menkaure, Khafre's successor, which is about half as tall. In May 1954, 41 blocking stones were uncovered close to the south side of the Great Pyramid. They covered a 30.8 meter long rock-cut pit that contained the remains of a 43 meter long ship of cedar wood. In antiquity, it had been dismantled into 650 parts comprising 1224 pieces. This funeral boat of Khufu has been reconstructed and is now housed in a museum on the site of its discovery. A second boat pit was later discovered nearby.

We were able to climb on and around the pyramids, occasionally when we would get too high or climb somewhere where the signs blatantly said you couldn't, the dozens of uniformed and machine-gun-armed soldiers would start yelling at us in Arabic. It definitely gave you a jump but was a fun game so long as we trusted they would give us a warning shot before opening fire. It was bizarre to see from the pyramids out in the distance you could see very metropolitan areas, such as "Giza Gardens" which is an urban area at the foot of the Giza Desert Plateau. In contrast, from a different angle, you can just see out to the uninterrupted desert as far as the eye can see. It is a fascinating mix of old and new.

Next we journeys up to the beginning of the plateau where tons of scarved men waited with camels to let tourists ride them or pose for the perfunctory commemorative picture. Our guide found a man and arranged for three camels for us. I always thought that camels would be kind, gentle creatures given their doe-eyes and comical body compositions. However, I was in grave error. I am pretty sure one of the camels was rabid, as it proceeded to snap and chew on the owner's clothing. Fortunately, I was not given that one; unfortunately for Dave, he was. So they hit the camel with some weird stick on its legs a couple times for it to lay down. Then you climb on top and hold on for dear life, as the camel isn't the most coordinated animal. Rather it chooses to stand its two back legs up entirely so its face is in the ground and its body (and you on top) are at a 45 degree angle with the ground. Then it eventually gets around to standing up its front legs also. After we all mounted our camels, we began on a trek back down the plateau toward the pyramids. It was an awesome 30 minute ride through the desert, sunny but very windy, with a panoramic view of the desert, pyramids, Giza city, and the Sphinx down below as well.

(notice his name says Michael Jackson)

Finally we arrived at the pyramids again, and then continued by car down the hill a minute or two to arrive at the Great Sphinx. The Great Sphinx of Giza is a half-human, half-lion Sphinx statue in Egypt, on the Giza Plateau at the west bank of the Nile River, near modern-day Cairo. The largest monolith statue in the world, it stands 73.5 metres (241 ft) long, 6 m (20 ft) wide, and 20 m (65 ft) high. Commonly believed to have been built by ancient Egyptians in the 3rd millennium BC, it is the earliest known monumental sculpture. The Great Sphinx is thought by most Egyptologists to represent the likeness of King Kafrah (also known by the Hellenised version of his name, Chephren) who is often credited as the builder as well. After the Giza Necropolis was abandoned, the Sphinx became buried up to its shoulders in sand. It was in 1817 that the first modern dig, that the chest was uncovered it wasn't totally excavated until 1925. The one-metre-wide nose on the face is missing. The Egyptian historian al-Maqrizi, writing in the fifteenth century, attributes the vandalism to Muhammad Sa'im al-Dahr, a Sufi Muslim fanatic from the khanqah of Sa'id al-Su'ada. In 1378, upon finding the Egyptian peasants making offerings to the Sphinx in the hope of increasing their harvest, Sa'im al-Dahr was so outraged that he destroyed the nose, and was hanged for vandalism. Al-Maqrizi describes the Sphinx as the “Nile talisman” on which the locals believed the cycle of inundation depended. Some legends claim that the nose was broken off by a cannon ball fired by Napoléon’s soldiers and that it still survives. Other variants indict British troops, Mamluks, or others. However, sketches of the Sphinx by Dane Frederick Lewis Norden made in 1737 and published in 1755 illustrate the Sphinx already without a nose - and thus the mystery remains....

We then left Giza and headed back into south of Cairo for lunch. We arrived in the town of Memphis, the capital of the ancient kingdom and one of the most important cities throughout the history of ancient Egypt. Memphis, located on the west bank of the Nile, was the ancient capital of the first name of Lower Egypt, and of the Old Kingdom of Egypt from its foundation until around 2200 BC and later for shorter periods during the New Kingdom, and an administrative center throughout ancient history. Here we had more amazing Egyptian food and tons of different breads and spreads, of course topped off by our new addiction: Guava juice. After lunch, we resumed our tour and visited a museum full of artifacts including a giant statue of Rameses II.

Lunch:

Ramses II:

Next we headed to to Sakkara, the vast Necropolis of ancient Memphis, located about 30 km south of Cairo. Sakkara has the first Pyramid and the world’s oldest stone structure. While Memphis was the capital of Ancient Egypt, Saqqara served as its necropolis, or cemetary Although it was eclipsed as the burial ground of royalty by Giza and later by the Valley of the Kings in Thebes, it remained an important complex for minor burials and cult ceremonies for more than 3,000 years, well into Ptolemaic and Roman times. The step pyramid at Saqqara was designed by Imhotep for King Djoser (c.2667-2648 BC). It is the oldest complete hewn-stone building complex known in history. The most striking feature of the necropolis, however is the Step Pyramid of the Pharaoh Djoser, which dates from the Third Dynasty. In addition to Djoser's, there are another 16 pyramids on the site, in various states of preservation or dilapidation. Exciting enough, they actually found another one in the past month which shows the density of these areas when it comes to uncovered treasures (http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/11/11/egypt.pyramid.discovery.ap/index.html?iref=newssearch).

To wrap up our day we made two stops which were half informative half sales pitch. The first was the papyrus museum, which was essentially a large workshop and sales floor where a man demonstrated the ancient art of paper-making and tried to sell us some pricey hand-painting replications of the Egyptian burial arts on the paper. Needless to say, we left empty-handed.

Papyrus Plant:

The word paper actually derives from the word papyrus, which is the plant that grows wild in marshy areas like the Nile. Papyrus is an Egyptian word that originally meant "that which belongs to the house" (the bureaucracy of ancient Egypt). At about the same time as the ancient Egyptians moved from prehistory to history by developing a written language, they discovered the need for a medium other than stone to transcribe upon. They found this in their papyrus plant, a triangular reed which symbolized ancient lower Egypt. Papyrus was used to create the first paper in history which dates back to 3000 BC in Egypt and, interestingly enough, the methodology remained unchanged for 4000 years. To begin the process, the stalk of the papyrus plant is collects and the outer rind is stripped off, leaving the sticky sticky fibrous inner pith. The pith is then cut into thin strips, which are next soaked in water to remove the sugar content. Then they are laid out in two layers (crosshatching horizontally and vertically), hammered to remove the moisture, and dried under pressure, forming smooth, thin sheets. To change the color of the paper, the strips were left in water longer to darken the pigment.

Upon these tough sheets of paper, the Egyptians often transcribed stories, histories, or other information. Some were even used to recreate the large paintings that you see inside the walls of the temples, tombs, and pyramids. One of the famous paintings that was drawn within the tombs was “Final Judgment.” The ancient Egyptians believed that, when they died, they would be judged on their behaviour during their lifetime before they could be granted a place in the Afterlife. This judgement ceremony was called the Weighing of the Heart. The ceremony was believed to have been performed in front of Osiris, the chief god of the dead and the Afterlife, and a tribunal of 42 dieties. A giant scale would weigh the deceased's heart against the principle of truth and justice (maat), represented by a feather, the symbol of the goddess of truth, order and justice, Maat. If the heart balanced against the feather then the deceased would be granted a place in the Fields of Hetep and Iaru. If it was heavy with the weight of wrongdoings, the balance would sink, and the heart would be grabbed and devoured by a terrifying beast that sat ready and waiting by the scales. This beast was Ammit ('the gobbler'), a composite animal with the head of a crocodile, the front legs and body of a lion or leopard and the back legs of a hippopotamus. Once the heart was devoured, the deceased would cease to exist - an idea which terrified the ancient Egyptians.

Last Judgment on Papyrus:

These works were done with paints created from pigments from nature. The majority of pigments in Ancient Egypt were derived from minerals, iron oxides, soil, and bones. Color was widely used by the ancient Egyptians and was considered to have magical and healing properties and around this time, 1500 BC, paint making as an art became quite widely established in Crete and Greece with the Egyptians passing their skills to the Romans. Paint is made up of a pigment, a binder to hold it together and appropriate thinners to make it easy to apply. 5000 years ago Blue Frit was the first synthetic pigment being produced by the Egyptians from ground down blue glass.

Next we went to a perfume shop where everything was made from the oils from dozens of different flowers. We drank some delicious tea as the man showed us different flowers and how the extracted the "essence" and explained that when you buy perfume in stores it is 1% essense and 99% alcohol or some similar ratio, which is why the scent eventually changes and goes bad or doesn't last long on your skin. We tried a few dozen perfumes which he shipped all over the world. He even showed us the crowning achievement of his business: a picture of him with John Travolta in the 1980s when he bought perfume from him. One of my favorite parts was how you could ask for any perfume or cologne by its sale name (Chanel No 5, Bulgari, etc) and he could go and bring back the flower oils that make that scent and it was dead on! It was a fun time, except for the awkwardness at the end when he realized we weren't going to buy 60 euro bottles of perfume.

End of the day, back at the hotel with our tour guide Muhammad:

That night we packed up our bags and headed to the train station, where Ahmed handed us our tickets and waved goodbye as we got out on overnight train to head south to Aswan (roughly a ten hour train ride). And off we went into the night.