The Hotel Metropole, Marc's birthday!

Built in the late 1800s, this hotel is a classic! Part of me felt like we were walking into Don Wolvin's living room, or Marc's grandmother's apartments with the brocade curtains, Louis the XIVth chairs, ornate carvings, gilded frames surrounding large, dark paintings, marble everywhere. The lobby! We arrived to check in and were greeted with a chair, a sweets table and a freshly squeezed lemon and lime drink. So civilized!

The rest of the hotel was equally elaborate. Breakfasting every morning, lounging with tea and wifi late afternoons, you got the feel of the place when ball gowns, jewels and men's evening coats were required. Service was top-notch.

The elevator was a classic!, as was the brass plated call buttons. The service ware was porcelain, 1946, made in Egypt,  complete with gold trim, real silver. 

We had Marc's dinner in the dining room, and as we were 1 of 2 tables of guests, we were personally crooned by the Egyptian karaoke singer. Hilarious! A rare bottle of wine was produced in this alcohol-free country (mostly). Delicious dinner.

I do have to relate a funny story from our first night in this hotel. When we land in a new city, we unpack and hit the streets. Usually getting our bearings of the neighbourhood, finding a grocery store - minim purchase is some cream, coffee, sugar, bread, fruit if we can find it to hold us till the next day's bigger shop. We then find a fast-food dinner - shwarma in Iraklion, pizza in Naples , curried stew in Rome, more shawarma in Athens. It's a small, leisurely circuit that has usually been conducted at dusk, getting to know the neighbourhood. It's been a really enjoyable start to the adventure of each new city. 

On this walkabout, we aren't 100 steps from the hotel, and a dapper man in his late 30s taps Marc on the shoulder and introduces himself as Sammy. He works at the hotel, is just off his shift, on his way home to his wife and 4 kids, are we okay? Yes, yes, and we explain our task. It's quite late for grocers he says, but I can lead you to a store that will have some cream. He is so affable, his English is so good, he works for the hotel, why not? We follow him. And cream we get. He starts leading us back, talking all the while about his family, Egypt, his job and we are quite enjoying his company. He asks us if we need some alcohol, a 3-day holy day is coming up, no alcohol will be for sale, the guy is still open. We debate, and he encourages us, not far, not far, special price, and so we don't even think, we just go along. He takes us on a long circuitous walk, we end up at the shop, buy our beer, and he starts walking us back to the hotel. We've now been with Sammy for 45 minutes  ( "don't worry, you're safe with Sammy") ,  gotten a great background on the city, he talks about his 6-day a week job for the equivalent of about $100 Cdn / month and trying to support his family, his wife cannot work in Egyptian society,  he deep sea free dives for fish a few mornings per week at 4 am, with a gun-spear, but if he had an oxygen tank, man, life would be different! 

We continue walking towards the hotel, he stops. "Don't mention this in the hotel, I could lose my job. If you see me, do not acknowledge me. Don't ask for me. Please. When we get near the hotel, I will stop walking with you." We understand, it makes perfect sense! As he makes his leave, he hits Marc up for a tip. He knows what we have in our pocket after the cream and the beer, 15 Egyptian pounds, which is less than $3 Cdn. He takes it with great thanks.

We never see Sammy again. We talk about it a lot. The ruse. For $3? The perfect scam, we'll never ask, we'll never tell. But $3? We're there for 5 nights, are in the public spaces of the hotel a lot. We never see him again. 

We're so trusting. Coulda turned out much worse, during the no-streetlight portion of the walk to the booze shop. Duh.

Streets of Alexandria

After a quiet post-camel day, I mean seriously, how can you beat that?, we tuck in for the day and get ready to move on. We're only spending 3 days in Cairo - our shortest stay yet -knowing that our preference for travel is smaller urban cities. We just can't manage the melee that is 7 million people!  Crazy Cairo!

Marc heads out with Mohamed on our quiet day to secure train tickets, and returns easily enough with our 2 first class tickets in hand, but with a $40 guide/ car/driver fee attached. A 2-hour train ride costs about $9 Canadian.

The following morning we say or goodbyes to the 2 Mohameds who are running a growing hospitality business via AirBNB and other rental sites despite hard, hard economic times. Our  driver escorts us right to the platform, getting through the metal detectors and massive crowds at Cairo's main train station, the Ramses Station. Originally built in 1852, it has received 3 upgrades, most recently just after the Arab Spring uprisings. We've an hour's wait on our platform, and stick out like sore thumbs - white with large suitcases. 

It's a calm, beautiful ride to Alexandria, Egypt's north coast port. We love how we keep ending up at these historical port cities without really thinking about it, and realize that our next living space, it would be nice to be close to a port of any size. Marc and I could watch boat traffic for hours.

We've booked a hotel for this 6 day stay, thinking ahead that after managing about a month of independence, we need a rest. We're not sure what navigating Alexandria will be like, personal safety,  whether we need to be with guides, our research hasn't indicated one way or the other. But we're hoping that with it being a smaller urban center with a major airport and some tourism presence, that we can move about freely.

We navigate the train exit easily enough, lingering behind on the platform while the rest of the crowds disperse. Let all the hawkers and taxi drivers swarm those travellers first, we figure there will be less to negotiate if we wait till the end. We're right, we're barely swarmed and end up with a lovely taxi driver, Hossim, who gets us right to the hotel 5 minutes away.

We unpack our bags, excited to be here, settle in and prepare to go for a short walkabout. Watching the people below our balcony to get a sense, while the temperatures are warm, there is no skin showing. A wide variety of dress, from fully robed with face coverings for the women, to quite fashionable young women with head scarves. The men are very casually dressed but with long sleeves, some in robes, but not as many as Luxor. We figure we've ended up in a more liberal city!

How wrong we were.  Below right is the outfit I wore on our first walkabout, minus my leather desert boots. I knew my knees, legs, neck, shoulders and arms needed to be covered, not necessarily my head. I have been soooo respectful on this portion of our trip, always carrying an extra scarf too in case my head needed to be covered. 

We leave the hotel, and are met with fierce, fierce winds. Almost hurricane force! But the skies are clear, the temps are warm, and we're out for a walk to test the waters of our independence. I shouldn't have worn the skirt. The winds push it up above my knees by about an inch, and despite wearing dark tights, within 20 minutes I know we have to head back to the hotel and change. Stares, leers, hisses, dirty looks, from both women, men and children. Huge mistake. I'm so upset by it.

We go back to the hotel and lick our wounds, not a very successful first independent walkabout. But the seaside is gorgeous, the waves are massive, we aren't approached by too many hustlers, and we begin mapping out our 6 days in Alexandria. The photos below are from our hotel room balcony. 

Across the road, the sunset glow on the tile work, Turkish influence and the old painted sign on the apartment complex across the street.

More to come as we learn about this most ancient of cities.

The Pyramids of Giza, Saqqara, Memphis

Well, we've dreamed of this day so many times in our life, we wake up quite in disbelief that it's actually happening. Better than Christmas morning! It just may be the most EPIC of days of our entire 4 months. We rise early, meeting Mohamed for 9 am. We hop in the car and are driven a few blocks away to the camel tour store. 

We are seated in front of the tour operator who explains our choices for the morning, small, medium and big tour via camel, and then our jaws drop at the minimum price he quotes. It is about 5 times what we've researched and been prepared to pay. We are truthfully stunned and Mohamed recognizes it. He nudges me and quietly whispers, "it is now that you can begin haggling". We are terrible at this part, always have been! 30 years ago in Morocco we discovered our weakness, we loved Italy because by law, every item has to have its price displayed, and there are no hidden costs allowed!

And so we begin. Through that invisible language of long-married couples, I open the negotiations at about 30% of his quoted price. I know it's low, but I'm trying to get to half! It is more money than we've spent on anything on this trip and it represents a massive dent into our budget, so I get pretty good, and am also prepared to walk, which always helps.

We manage to find the middle ground, negotiate eliminating even more of the small tour to reduce the price even further, we all seem to be happy, we are escorted to the nearby bank machine to get the cash and off we go to get on a camel!

We'll be out in the desert for about 2 hours, we meet our guide, who was a kind, kind young man, I'm sorry I forget his name, because all of these pictures were taken by him.

The smiles on our faces are indeed from ear to ear.

We started off so early in the morning, knowing the heat would rise quickly, that there was literally no one else in the desert. We will never forget the hot, hot wind, the silence, the comfortable sway of the camel's gait. It's easier than a horse! Getting off and on is a bit wicked, they are massive animals. 

Our guide ends up taking us on the big tour any way, which reinforces my low starting point at bartering! We end up way out in the desert, on top of a low rise, the sand undulating and softly  blowing all around us, the pyramids off in the distance. It was an unforgettable ride.

It was so perfect, approaching the 3 pyramids from afar, getting used to the idea of what exactly we were experiencing. We have seen so much beauty and achievement on this trip - art, history, landscape, people - but nothing, absolutely nothing compares to what we experienced on this day.

The Sphinx - massive. Pausing for a moment as our guide began to rush us. We were in awe, felt like our holy place, something Marc has dreamed about since he was a little boy. He had tears during part of this journey, as did I.

We reluctantly turn our camels towards the exit path, our guide broaches the topic of tips, and for the 2nd time in Cairo, Marc is told that what he's handed over is not enough! This part of Egypt really, really irks us.

We hop in the van, and head to our 2nd location of the day, the Step Pyramid of Saqqara. Built 3000 years ago, these 19 pyramids and rubble tombs were the burial grounds for the Kings of Memphis. You cannot get inside but Mohamed walks us around giving us a most excellent history lesson in this time period. It is still an active excavation site, as the scaffolding shows, but it's a Friday, Egypt's holy day and holiday, so there are no workers present.

Our third stop for the day is the town of Memphis, where we can see the massive, massive Ramses statue, currently housed in the protected zone of an open-air museum. You can see the scale of this statue,  in the upper right photo,  compared to Marc. The rest of the Museum was disappointing, dog day afternoon with them all asleep in the shade,  exit through the gift shop! (Which most seemed to be closed)

Mohamed brings us to our final stop, lunch! where we watch a woman baking pita bread , we have never tasted bread so delicious as we have in Egypt. It sells for pennies, and is fresh, fresh, fresh, no matter where we've bought or eaten it. Our lunch is a multi-plate affair in an thatch-covered tourist cafeteria, the food is aplenty and delicious, we're all starving and parched, we hop back into the van, our driver has waited outside, Mohamed falls asleep on the way back, he's a dad to two young children and has been working hard with us! We're dropped off, empty our socks full of sand, have some cool drinks marvelling at our day, and fall into a happy, happy, happy slumber. We are still talking about this day 3 weeks later! Unreal.

Many, many times on this trip, we've been silenced by the beauty and achievement we've seen - art, history, landscape, people. Nothing, nothing compares to this morning. The Pyramids at Giza, Cairo.

Hello Cairo!

Flying in to Cairo, we realized this was going to be like no other city we had visited so far. With a population of 7 million, it's view from the air was massive! We were met at the gate by one of the 2 most awesome Mohameds, who jointly run an AirBnB in Giza, overlooking the pyramids. A one hour drive through CRAZY traffic brought us to our new home for the next 3 days.

First order of business, after showing us around the massive apartment, was to unpack and get some groceries. We'd been advised and decided early on that Cairo was not a place to wander by ourselves, and this proved true. We set off with both Mohamed's an hour later, taking us through jam-packed streets to a large grocery store, where they helped us find and gather what we'd need during our stay here. Hopping on and off Volkswagen vans turned into public transit, an Egyptian pound got us to and from where we needed to be. 

Giza has no traffic lights! And it all seems to work! With my arm safely tucked inside theirs, we navigate 10, sometimes 12 lanes of traffic and pedestrians, judging when to go through each lane by the jam that's occurring. Not for the weak of heart!

We return to our square, We talk about the agenda for the next few days, and Mohamed #2 goes out to get us a lamb kebab dinner. Delicious and so much food! We eat our dinner on the rooftop terrace, pinching ourselves at yet another incredible view. The 3 pyramids, straight ahead, with a light show with commentary going on, the stars and the moon bright overhead. We are absolutely giddy and can't wait for the next morning's adventure.

The square in front is straight out of the wild, Wild West, and we never tire of watching the goings on of horses, camels, caleches, tuk-tuks, walkers, hawkers, crazy Cairo drivers. This square is on the edge of tourist haven where all the livestock, alfalfa piles, horse drivers and taxis of all shapes gather and wait. It's a constant incredible scene of industry.

And off in the distance, there they are. We're so close to this experience of a lifetime!

Goodbye Luxor, with video!

And so our time in Luxor comes to an end. Three weeks later, writing this, I think Luxor has turned out to be my favourite stop in Egypt. The West Bank is quiet, small village, Egyptian families going about their daily business of running their shops, going to school, tending their fields, co-existing easily with the growing number of ex-pats who call this their home. 

We say good bye to our magnificent terrace, the Valley of the Kings, our hosts Claudia, Ali and Iman and their team who ensured we were well cared for.

We say goodbye to the mosques and call to prayers that we heard five times a day, to the fisher boys and men who still work the Nile in wooden boats from sunrise to sunset.

We say goodbye to a way of life that has not changed much, still using manual ways of building,  farming and transportation.

We say goodbye to the daily water traffic, which gave us so much joy to watch, never tiring of the ebb and flow of Nile life. Better than any e-media!

Goodbye to the Hotel al-Farouk, who's garden courtyard gave us a welcome wifi respite, replete with the best lemonade and guava juice, an incredible multi-platter Egyptian dinner, a calm spot in an adjustment storm, where ex-pats gather and we were so grateful to hear so much English! 

And not to disappoint, our driver arrives to get us to the Luxor airport, we're flying directly to Cairo for 3 days. He plays his favourite CD for us to give us one last taste of Luxor life. Thank you to everyone who's path we crossed here. We LOVED Luxor! 

Karnak Temple

Our last must-see site in Luxor is on the East Bank, Karnak Temple. The easiest way to get there is by ferry, using one of the hundreds we've watched ply the Nile over the last week. All of these colourful wooden boats criss-cross the river, from dawn till dusk for the equivalent of $5 each and they drop you at whatever destination you like on the other side. They are festooned with international flags, blaring music, rich tapestries covering their seats, beautifully colourful paint jobs, boat names like The Omar Sharif! 

We don't have to go far, but we get a beautiful view of the West Bank and the Valley of the Kings' ridge as we go. Often in the past we've seen tourists travelling on the roofs of these ferries, taking selfies. Of course, Marc climbs on top!

Approaching the complex, we pass by the caleche stop, one of many throwbacks from the early 1900s and still very much a mode of transportation here in Luxor. The transportation choices are astounding, modified motorbikes turned into tuk-tuks, horses, camels, caleches, Ladas, vehicles that have been running since the early 70s.

We get inside and are amazed at what we are about to see.

Karnak translates into "Most Selected of Places" and was built as the holiest religious site in Egypt dedicated to the worship of Amun, or hidden god. It is 2nd only to the Pyramids in most visited places by tourists. Built over 2000 years by over 30 Pharoahs, it is one of the largest open air museums in the world, the other being Angkor Wat in Thailand. 

Unbelievable, that this has been in existence since 4000 BC. The pillars, the engravings, the sculptures! The sandstone used has been determined to have come from a site further along the Nile over 100 miles away.

I think this might be at the top of favourite places I've stood. Hypostyle Hall, 134 massive columns laid out in 16 rows, top roof pieces weighing 70 tons each. How did they get them up there? The engravings are complex, telling stories of glory, war, lives lived, homages to various gods throughout each Pharoah's life. The size of this part of the Temple complex? The Cathedral at Notre Dame could easily fit inside.

Claudia gives us so much info on this place, she has really enjoyed accompanying us on our visits, and her knowledge and friendship has really enriched our Luxor visit. 

This obelisk, one of 2 at this site, is the largest ancient obelisk on earth! And the paint, still visible from 2000 years ago. I think that is one of the most amazing things about our visit  to Egypt and the sites we've visited. The paint is still there! The stories that are being told, there's "graffitti" on the walls and columns, left by explorers, Pharoahs who tried to erase the glory of their predescessors,  workers, later Christians, Coptics. 

The further we go into the site, the older it gets, until we are looking at 4000 years worth of history. There are toppled ruins everywhere, still waiting to be catalogued and placed.

Bottom right photo is on our drive out, Luxor is working on the Avenue of Sphinxes, rejuvenating a grand Boulevard that has fallen into ruin. As you can see, it will be magnificent!

Mural, West Bank of Luxor

This mural, found in Luxor, is by Alaa Awad, a young Egyptian graffiti artist who painted his messages on the cement barriers erected around Tahrir Square during the 2011 protests. Authorities whitewashed his work, so now he's repeated his murals, as workshops with foreign university programs, on private walls facing public thoroughfares in Cairo and Luxor, some work too now in the US, Denmark and Germany. Look him up!

Felucca on the Nile!

Well, we have spent so much time on this trip beside a river, beside a port, beside the ocean, this time we decide we're getting on the water - the Nile! On that classic boat that you see in so many paintings - one of which hung in Marc's family home for his entire childhood - the felucca! Traditional wooden sailing boats, they have plied the Nile for centuries, design unchanged. Here's our Captain, First Mate, our driver and Ali, our host and guide, bringing the felucca alongside for us to embark. I feel kinda like royalty!

Zachariah, our laughing Captain, his first mate and us, posing, with many more feluccas behind us catching the pre-sunset breeze.

So much beauty to see further downriver, the land still being worked by hand, quietly floating along, dipping our hands in the Nile, to ensure our return one day. 

A banana plantation being build by hand. Ali tells us that a community will get together and work the land for all, bringing whatever resources they have to create a new planting for all. 

As dusk descends, the wind dies, and we anchor near some flats to watch for wildlife. So many birds, so quiet, and on our return, our crew unhinged flat square oars from the mast, and row us back upriver for the journey home. A beautiful evening! We sang, we clapped, we laughed! 

Hat-Shirt-Suit Temple

And so the 2nd half of this day begins, staying near the Valley of the Kings to visit The Mortuary Temple of Queen Hatshepsut. I knew nothing about her or this site until our arrival here! Imagine the site behind us lined with massive sphinxes, probably 20 in all, 10 lining each side of the pathway, with gardens and trees planted in front. Queen Hatshepsut is reported to be the first person to import and plant trees, Myrrh trees from her famous voyage to Punt.

She was a Pharoah's, rare, and I don't know enough to tell you whether she was the only one. But her role in history was one of solidifying Egypt's base, reinvigorating trading partnerships, mending political fences, improving the lives of her citizens. She became co-ruler with her young, young son, when her husband died (Thutmose II or III), and gradually assumed more and more leadership until she declared herself King. She had grown up in a royal household so was well-versed in the machinations. History looks favourably upon her 20+ year rule.

The Mortuary Temple was reserved for the Pharoah's and his/her priests. It was built as a holy place, where the Pharoah would go to receive rites, to cleanse themselves, to accept the Divine, to be in touch with the Gods and receive their blessings. The larger it was, the holier they seemed, the more impressed the citizens were. There are a series of approaches, and the closer you get to the final sanctuary within the Temple, the fewer the priests that would have had access. It is still an active archeological site with the Polish government.

Her contemporaries thought she was crazy building her Temple here, at the time, it was far from anything, at the foot of cliffs, barren. She forged ahead convinced that it would last thousands and thousands of years. It has!

Below top,  left is her likeness, right is the one remaining Sphinx that lined the approach, the other two photos highlight the engraving, color and reliefs within the temple.

A brief synopsis of Hatshepsut can be read here.

What was very cool about this photo below, Claudia is explaining to me the solstice sun point, how the alignment of the entire temple is in concert with the 4 cardinal points ( or something like that!). The sun god, Ra, or Amun, is deified here, and during one of the solstices, the point of life moves across one of the walls that is hieroglyph end with his praise. In the photo on the right, looking at it was NOT this color, and Marc was shocked to see the red hues in the frame. 

There is the story of her epic trade mission to Punt that we will look up and read again. The engineering feat of boat building at the time is really quite incredible, and told in hieroglyphs on one of the inner temple chambers that still has paint on it!

Pretty awesome visit! 

Valley of the Kings

Every morning in Luxor, Marc got up for the sunrise. He so enjoyed his coffee on our terrace, on the banks of the Nile, listening to the West Bank waken, hearing the hum of the East Bank metropolitan side of Luxor rise louder and louder. Throw in the mosque's call to prayer, emanating from who knows how many mosques, well, it's not a time we will soon forget. 

If we went up another flight of stairs from our terrace, we were on the roof, set up as another seating area, and from here we had a 360 view, stunning. Directly behind us was the Valley of the Kings, and every morning hot air balloons rose slowly and quietly in the air, mostly carrying tourists which we were glad to see! One morning there were 13, and their presence lasted just over an hour at the crack of dawn.

Built over a 500 year period from the 16th to the 11th century BC, 63 tombs and chambers of Pharoah's and noblemen have been discovered in the Valley of the Kings to date. Scholars estimate that hundreds more are yet to be discovered.

Here's the layout, below. Reasonably, you can only visit 3 in a half day. King Tut is in this valley too, but our host Claudia, herself an amateur guide and Egyptologist, recommends not paying the extra entrance fee because there is nothing in his tomb to see, all of the goods have been removed. 

We arrive early in the morning (for us and Claudia!), 10 am, and the heat is already high. Claudia is thrilled to see the parking lot filled with tour buses, vans and cars, it's been years since she's seen that many. She is hopeful the tourism industry is returning to Luxor. We walk into the grounds, and she provides our introductory context to what we'll see, answering our many, many questions. Marc is so excited to be here.

Two layouts of the burial chamber design, earlier construction had the L-axis, later ones had a straight line to the sarcophagus. We will see both.

Our first tomb, we have to climb up, up and up, to go down, down, and down. Inside, the walkways are easy as we go further down into the tomb, the walls are spectacular, color still very visible, the heat rising the further we go. Claudia is able to explain many of the hieroglyphs which tell so many stories, so many myths, illustrate the Book of the Dead, the Gates, the tributes. Photos are not allowed and there are guards positioned throughout the tomb, but we manage to squeeze a few in.

So, having succeeded with surreptitiously getting photos, Marc snaps one too many. Claudia had warned us that smaller cameras are better because the click of the mechanism is quieter. We have a pretty big Nikon, so the click is pretty loud, especially in a soundless,  thousands of years old tomb! Marc clicks one too many photos, and a guard comes running. We try to deny it, He asks Marc to click through the photos, he confiscates the camera. Claudia is helping keep the situation calm, reminds him that plenty of other people in this and other tombs are taking photos, he still confiscates it, and tells us we can pick it up at the exit of the tomb. We're upset and worried that he'll either erase the photos (that would be okay, and we deserved it), or worse, take the data card which has days' worth of photos still on it. 

We finish the tomb and head to the exit, and basically we have to pay him, he threatens to take us to the site guard office for questioning, Claudia ends up having to tell them she'll call her Egyptian husband, they soften and we pay. It turns out it's all innocent enough, the guards are paid extremely poorly in this job, and it's a way for them to make extra money. They can often make more by this manoeuvre than accepting a bribe ahead of time to allow a photo. We're rattled and embarrassed, and we move on.

Some better, web-based photos, since we dared not take any more ourselves! 

One of the tombs, below. It really is incredible to think that this was at the end of all those long, long passageways, that so much wealth was buried with them, that so much rock debris was filled in after death. Most Pharaohs began building their tomb here as soon as they assumed power. Some died early and so were buried in someone else's, so much to learn! 

And of course, Exit Through the Gift Souk!