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Egypt was a quick stop for me – 2 weeks, but I covered a lot of ground. I went from South to North, from Dessert to Sea, and even fit in some mountainous climbing. I was able to see various hilltribes, Nubians and Bedouins. Even though it was only 2 weeks, I was able to get a feel for the culture there, test my limits a bit and extract many cultural learnings. There were a few things that really made Egypt distinct and different to me. Sure, there are the Pyramids – that certainly sets Egypt apart; however, I tend to notice and fixate on other things, small things, personal interactions, observations, but they are impactful to me.

It’s A Man’s World:
As I traveled throughout Egypt I abided by the Muslim custom of females covering their shoulders and knees. I didn’t go as far as covering my head, but I felt like I was at a middle ground with the custom and went out walking in the streets confidently. One of the first things that struck me is that there aren’t many women out at all. Sure, there were tons of men sitting at a coffee shop/café, in fact, there were only men – not a single woman sitting and relaxing having a coffee with girlfriends. This seemed to make me stand out even more (as if my Lilly white skin wasn’t enough). I can’t say that I ever got comfortable with this man-only world. Sure, I had fantasized about being the only women amongst good-looking men at times…but in Egypt this was a fantasy gone wrong! Even though you try very hard to not call attention to yourself, you can’t walk down the street of any Egyptian town (Cairo is the exception) without being hassled by the men. I talked to our guide, Mohammad, about it and it really comes down to their view of Western women in Muslim countries. Most, not all, Muslim men see Western women as sexually lose and uninhibited. It was as if I was wearing a Bud Light string bikini, stilettos, sucking a lollipop walking by a construction site in NYC…now do you get the picture? If you happened to be walking alone, then you had a target on you – you could expect to get rude sexual comments, people coming up to you trying to ‘help you’, and sometimes men blatantly came up and grabbed you by the arm or tried to grope you. Sometimes they’d make you feel like you had to pay them off to leave you alone. Because of this, I learned two things – don’t walk alone, but if you do - wear your hard-ass bitch attitude on every part of your body. You had to become Teflon. Strangely enough, you do get used to this environment, you don’t accept it, but you get used to it. After a while, I hardly noticed that I was the only woman at the café, or that I had 3 teenage boys following me trying to get my attention by saying rude things, or a guy came up to me and offered his services to personally show me around the city – I just kept walking, knowing in my head that I was strong, a very strong Western woman.

Gun Control:
This country was loaded…with ammunition. Egypt’s security presence was like nothing I had experienced before, and for good reason. It was probably the most dangerous country I had been to at this point in my travels. The Egyptian government put a lot of time, effort, money, and manpower into protecting tourists. Convoys were flanked by a few jeeps carrying about 6 men carrying automatic weapons, ready to jump out and deal with whatever threat there was. There were little ‘check-point’ huts everywhere – at the temples, in the middle of the desert, in cities – men sitting (sometimes sleeping) in the huts with their AK47 slung loosely around them, smoking a cigarette. There were plain clothes security too…or maybe they were just some guy with a gun for all I know. When you visited a temple or any historic/touristic site it was mandatory that you went through a metal detector and they would search your bags. There was a metal detector before you walked inside the Pyramid, one before you hiked up Mt. Sinai, one at the hotel we stayed at in Cairo and Sinai, one to get on the ferry, one to go to the nightclub on the beach, one to go in the public toilet…and the list goes on. This sounds very comforting…however practically every time our group went through the metal detector it would go off, but we were never stopped – they just told us to keep walking. Many times they would only search our tour leader’s bag, and let the rest of us walk through. I guess being a tourist meant that you weren’t a threat…not very comforting. My favorite gun experience came in Mt. Sinai. We were leaving by minibus from Sinai to Cairo, an 8 hour drive. There were no secure convoys that ‘policed’ this route, so we were on our own…at least I thought so. As we were all eating breakfast at our hotel I noticed this bulky guy in a nice brown suit and aviator sunglasses on…trying to looking like secret service. As he got up to go get coffee, I noticed that he was carrying some sort of automatic weapon on a waist belt in his pants! This was not a pistol…it was large. This may have been disturbing and confusing to see, but after 2 weeks in Egypt – it didn’t really phase me too much. As we boarded our mini bus I noticed that they guy in the suit was sitting in our bus…now I was intrigued. I asked our leader, Mohammad, who the CIA guy was and why he was in our private bus carrying an automatic weapon. Mohammad explained that he was my personal security. Since we didn’t have a convoy to travel with AND there were Americans traveling in the bus (me and one other woman) it was required that we have a security escort. My own personal bodyguard…it made me want to break into some Whitney Houston song! Apparently there were special security rules for Americans, Japanese, and Israelis…go figure controversy pays off sometimes. As we traveled the 8 hours to Cairo – my personal security guard tried to hit on me…(see above…It’s a Man’s World)…which of course didn’t surprise me, but at least I did end up in Cairo safely. I decided to play up the flirting and see if I could get a picture of him when I arrived at Cairo as I would probably never have another bodyguard again…only in Egypt!

House of Cards:
As a kid you may have made card houses…they looked so beautiful, so sturdy, but when you got up close and accidentally bumped the table the slightest bit, it would all come tumbling down. While traveling through Egypt, I didn’t stay at high end hotels, instead, I stayed at middle of the line 3 star places – not super budget, but not expensive. After a week or so, I realized that every time I went in my hotel room, it looked nice, clean, normal – then after being in it for 1 hour, you realized that you were living in a card house and that it was really crumbling down around you! The room maybe had 6 lights/lamps in it – but only 2 of them had bulbs that worked. Sure, you had a western toilet, but only 50% of the time it would actually flush. You had an air conditioner, but it only went as cool as 85 degrees (which sadly enough was still an improvement!). It had a shower, but only cold water dripped out of it. You trained yourself into understanding that no matter how nice it looked upon first site, something essential wasn’t going to be working. (kind of the way I view men I date!) One of my favorite places was the hotel where the front door didn’t even close. The door way had been warped from the weather – and the door no longer closed into the door jam. Instead, we just put the chain on it and hoped for the best that night. One of my favorite sites was the restroom that had this lovely calking job in the photograph above. Honestly – it looked like the calk exploded or that a 2 yr. old did the job. Then again…at least water flowed through the facet…even if it was only cold water.

Gut Instincts:
Sometimes I get lucky. I traveled through out Egypt (and Morocco) and never once got sick…lucky. All of the people I traveled with had some type of GI sickness at some point, but not me…lucky. Photo: Toilet and buday - all in one, and a bit scary! I’d like to say that my gut held out because I was a savvy traveler – I watched what I ate, I always ‘Purelled’ my hands, I didn’t have ice in my drinks, etc…but that’s not the case. I don’t travel like I live in a plastic bubble…instead, I just travel. The only rule I consistently apply is to not drink the tap water…that’s suicide. While in Egypt I ate the fresh vegetables and fruit, I ordered salads, I had ice in my cola, I used public toilets and washed my hands in the water…and I was lucky. I’d like to believe that my gut is well-trained in 3rd world travel, that it has been exposed to bacteria and can fight it off, that it is made of Teflon, yet luck always plays a part. Egypt is most certainly a time bomb for the western stomach. Flies land on your food constantly, the glasses and utensils are never really clean, and the refrigeration is lax. But you have to eat something…so you take the risk. One of the positive sides to traveling in developing countries is that you stop biting your fingernails…as the thought of chewing on your nails with all of the dirt underneath them is not too appetizing!

Ignorance is Bliss:
I have transcended being a tough New Yorker. I have now become a global citizen…one that is adept at making my way around a market and ignoring every man, woman and child trying to sell me something. The key to this is to ignore. Egypt was the pushiest place that I had been in my travels. As you walked through a market, the men and boys would come out in a wave in front of you. You would see them all emerge from their store or stoop and you would hear them all trying to talk to you, selling you something. Photo: Me and a mini-camel in the souks! The noise would raise around you as more and more started to stand up and talk to you – it was like surfing a surreal wave of salesmen. It was a game of sorts – I would ignore them by pretending as if I was in a little bubble, never EVER making eye contact with any of them, I would just keep on walking. They would all try to come up with a clever way to get me to look. They would try to guess where I was from…”Aussie? Canada? Kiwi? “ Then they would start to pull out little funny one-liners from each of those countries to get you to crack a smile and indicate where you were from. They all had the Aussie accent down well. I found it strange that they seldom guessed American…but was thankful too! They would go as far as grabbing your arm and trying to walk you in the store, they would block your way so that you couldn’t get past them, but you just kept on living in your bubble and ignoring them. Kids pulling on your pant leg..ignore. I became so good at ignoring that I scared myself somedays…I was worried that maybe I had become so good at it that I wouldn’t be able to relate to people normally ever again! The Egyptians were professionals though, they would try to lure you into their store by saying – everything is 5 pounds ($1 in US), then when you came into the store to get what they had for 5 pounds…they would say…oh no, British pounds ($10 US). They would tell you that you were beautiful, they would tell you that they would not hassle you, they would beg you to buy…but you just ignored. They would sometimes get frustrated with you and say “What, you don’t like Egyptians”…but I knew this ploy…they just wanted you to be the ‘nice’ Westerner and turn around to defend that fact that you did like Egyptians…then they had you…you had made eye contact and you were hooked into shopping. When someone said to me in a hurt manor…”What, you don’t like Eygptian men?” I said “No, I don’t like Egyptian men”…that pretty much made them go away. I’m not sure what happened to the nice mid-westerner inside me, I guess I lost that somewhere in Asia. When men would come up to you and stand in front of you and forcefully ask “Where you from?”, I would just as forcefully ask “Where are YOU from?” They would answer “Egypt” and I would say “Nice to meet you” and just keep on walking.
The only problem with my ignore game plan was when you actually were looking to buy something…then you had to engage these touts. You had to go along with their games to some extent, sometimes you could even have fun with it, but eventually you would just have to say – I’m going to give you 10 pounds and that’s a fair price, you’d place the 10 in their hands and walk away…normally they would let you do that. I would try to seek out the quiet owners, the ones that didn’t hassle you, but they weren’t easy to find. I still felt like it was important to reward the people that weren’t so aggressive. Regardless, the markets were always an enjoyable experience whether you were ignoring or engaging…you’d always emerge from them with a new story to tell.

A Sprinkle a Day Keeps the Dust Away:
Egypt is dry…parched…hot…it turns your boogers brown thanks to all of the dust in the air. There is no humidity and the sun just shines 12 hours a day nonstop, the dirt is always blowing around you. You come in from outside with fine layer of dust encased on your body and belongings. However, the locals try to combat the dust…I don’t think they are winning the battle, but they continue to try. You walk around a town or a souk and notice that there are locals constantly taking water bottles and spraying them out on the ground in front of their establishments. At first I thought it was just another ploy to get your attention…I was a little worried that they were going to douse me with water in hopes of spontaneously having a wet t-shirt contest. However, I learned that they do this to keep the dust down. There was even a whole art to it – how they threw the water so that they didn’t hit people – a clever, precise flick of the wrist…it was talent. You would see little kids begging their father to let them throw the water…an apprentice of sorts. I don’t know if it really made much of a difference – I still had a layer of dust on me every day – but it was enjoyable to watch them fight the battle.

Photo: My roommate and new friend, Rosaline and I! She was a wonderful travel partner!

Yella!
During my stay in Egypt (and Morocco) I was able to pick up a few key phrases in Arabic…my favorite being the phrase for “Let’s go” – Yella! As with most countries, I was sad to leave Egypt – it’s culture was rich, and extremely different from anything I had encountered in my travels prior. I wasn’t too sad to leave it’s male-oriented culture, but I was happy to witness it and experience it. It made me respect the women there even more. Egypt made me tough – mentally tough, stomach tough, people tough, physically tough - tougher than NYC ever made me. I can only imagine that it is good preparation for India…my next stop!

Great Pyramid at Sunrise

For the ‘best of’ Egypt Photography - click here!

For all snapshots of the Valley of the Kings and the Great Pryamids - click here!

One of my favorite sayings to live by is “work to live” – it’s really what I tried to follow while living and working in NYC. Quite frankly – I worked my ass of so that I could have this year + of travel…the epitome of “work to live”. There are so many people that I know who “live to work” – I’ve never really understood those people…and probably never will. However, even stranger, I have determined that the ancient Egyptian motto was “live to die”. That’s really how they lived their life…constantly thinking and preparing for the afterlife. After all, they believed that the afterlife was really where the fun was….and they were going to take everything with them that they needed…jewels, beds, clothes, pets, and wives. If I lived in this time, I think I would take my sleep sheet, my blow up travel pillow, a good hat, my camera, my laptop, and my ipod to the afterlife. That seems to be all that I need to live these days – and I certainly can’t imagine living without them anymore! In order to house all of these possessions they wanted to take with them to the afterworld – they needed a big place to store all of this loot…and that’s how the tombs of the Pyramids and the Valley of the Kings came to be.

Photo: Colossi of Memnon
My first exposure to the tombs of the Egyptian Kings was near Luxor at Valley of the Kings. Basically this was a secret location, hidden deep in a valley outside of Luxor where the various Kings were buried with all of their loot. Valleys always make me think about the 1980’s and the era of the Valley Girl. I think I even had a book on how to talk like a valley girl…however I don’t think I was too convincing in Peoria Illinois. Even though the Valley of Kings was like totally awesome, I didn’t see one mall there…totally disapointing…I am sooo sure! As we neared the royal valley, we were first greeted by the Colossi of Memnon – two huge statues that were moved to dry ground when the Nile started flooding. They were impressive and cut out of one piece of rock. We arrived at the tombs and this was my first time to really understand what I was about to see…underground tombs that had been preserved for thousands of years. There was a bitchin’ model of the tombs at the visitor center – it displayed a 3D image of the valley topography and underneath the topography it displayed the myriad of tunnels/tombs dug deep into the valley floor. We were to see 3 tombs that day for our entry fee.

Photo: Me in front of King Tut’s tomb
We learned that all of the tombs here had been raided years ago – yes, think Tomb Raider or Raiders of the Lost Arc. The only one that remained a secret was King Tut’s tomb – one of the smallest in the valley. The treasure in King Tut’s tomb has since been safely preserved and is on display at various museums. The Egyptian tombs were really the first concept of buried treasure. The Kings tried to keep the location of the tombs secret as they needed to ensure that their treasures would stay with them so they could have them in the afterlife. They couldn’t just show up to the afterlife with nothing…after all, they had to sleep somewhere and they didn’t have the ability to charge a new bed on a heavenly credit card! In order to protect their treasures they had a small, trusted group of people working on constructing the tombs – about 50 people over multiple years. These workers were treated well, as the King didn’t want any unhappy employees building his tomb…as they would be more likely to give up the location to the treasure.

The tombs were so well preserved they didn’t look real. As I walked through the first one I really couldn’t comprehend how the colors could be so vibrant for thousands of years. It just goes to show why we should wear sun screen every day. The tunnels/tombs are colorfully in tact because they haven’t been exposed to the sun, rain, wind or other elements. Colorful hieroglyphics line the tomb walls and ceilings for meters and meters deep into the core of the tomb. Besides a colorful resting place, there is one other perk to this ‘live to die’ lifestyle - plaster surgery. Our guide described how the Kings would build their sarcofigices/tombs in the form of how hey wanted to be seen in the afterlife. If they were short, they might have made a very tall sarcofigice, if they had a big nose, maybe they made their sarcofigice nose small. As the guide was describing this – one of the men from our group, Archie, said, “Oh, it’s like plaster surgery.”…perfect…I loved the comment so much that I had to use it! I guess even thousands of years ago the grass was always greener…go figure. I had an image float across my mind about my potential sarcofigice – one that had big boobs and thick wavy hair. Unfortunately, you’ll have to go visit the Valley of Kings yourself though as no pictures were allowed inside – but you’ll have to take my word for it – the hyroglyphics were amazing…this means a lot coming from me as I don’t even like old temples normally! I’d rather gag myself with a spoon than visit ancient temples…but the tombs in this valley were like totally worth it!

However – the granddaddy tomb of them all was the Pyramids. Due to my delay in arriving in Egypt, I had to save my trip to the Pyramids until my last day in Egypt. Rosaline and I got up early and had organized a private (air conditioned…thank god) car, and tour guide for our precious trip to one of the Great Wonders. This was it….this was the reason I had wanted to come to Egypt. As we drove through Cairo – we passed over the Nile and through downtown. I was struck by how modern Cairo really was compared to the rest of Egypt. As we drove further the modern thriving city turned into more of a dirty, gritty, apartment filled neighborhood – and all of a sudden I saw it. I could barely make it out in the heavy haze that morning, but there it was – a triangle point sticking up behind these old, ratty buildings. It seemed so out of place, to be so close to the Cairo suburb –a building 4,500 years old…talk about juxtaposition. I used to think that Boston was really unique because it had all of these old buildings amidst the modern ones – however – that thought seemed silly now as I viewed the pyramids sitting 200 meters away from a modern day Egyptian neighborhood.

Photo: Boy sitting on a stone of the pyramid…great sense of scale!
Let’s talk about the numbers. There are actually 9 pyramids in total – 3 large ones built for the Kings (grandfather, father, and son) and 6 smaller ones that belonged to the Queens. The great pyramid was the first pyramid to be built and it contained 2,300,000 stones that were brought from the south of Egypt by way of the Nile River. Each stone weighed from 2 to 15 tons. It actually took 30 years to build the Great Pyramid – the tomb for King Kyops. However, it took 200 years to develop the idea of the pyramids…meaning why they chose the shape, and how they figured out to architect it. It is believed that over 50,000 people worked on building it. These people weren’t slaves, they were regular Egyptians who had plenty of time on their hands – especially during the 4 months of the year when the Nile flooded and people were unable to work the land, instead they worked on the Pyramid.

Calling all geeks…I have a test for you! One of the coolest things that we learned was how the Egyptians actually sealed the sarcofogice/tomb inside the pyramid structure once the king had died. Think about it – the pyramid was already completed prior to the King’s death. There were only very small tunnel openings in the pyramid 1 meter by 1 meter. The King dies – he has a huge, heavy sarcofgice that needs to somehow go into the middle of the pyramid - how do you get it in there?
a. they dig another tunnel and take it in that way
b. they buried him alive
c. aliens put it in there
d. none of the above
…and the answer is…D! As they built the Pyramid they built the burial chamber room in the middle. There were 2 tunnels running out of the burial chamber that ran parallel to the ground and out to two openings at near the base of the pyramid. The tunnels were only 1 meter by 1 meter. As they built the pyramid up, they left the top open that lead to the burial chamber. They plugged the tunnel openings up with rocks and filled the burial chamber and tunnels with sand dumped in from the top of the pyramid. The sand went all the way to the top of the opening…the Pyramid was completely full. Once the King died, they mummified him (a process that took over 60 days) at the temple of the Sphinx. They then placed him in his sarcofogice, put it on top of the sand file at the top of the pyramid. They then unplugged the tunnel holes below near the ground, leaving the sand run out of the tunnel and empty out of the pyramid – slowly emptying and taking the sarcofogice with it right into the burial chamber.

Overall, I was in awe of the Pyramids…I suppose that’s exactly how one should feel when standing in front of the only remaining Ancient Wonder of the World. Let me just remind you again – the Pyramids are over 4,500 years old. It’s really mind blowing when you think of this – actually I was never really able to get my head around the age of these wonders…it just seemed impossible that I was standing here looking at something that could be that old…it made me feel small, very small. It made you appreciate how incredible the world is and the human beings who inhabit this globe are. It made me happy that I was out seeing it and following my motto of “work to live”. My life for the last 11 months has been spectacular and I wouldn’t change a single moment of it.

Guide on Mt. Sinai trail...not an easy hike!

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My only knowledge of Egypt really comes from an unlikely source – Charleton Heston. I can still remember my family all sitting around the one TV we had and watching the Ten Commandments…it was a huge event for us – we were even allowed to eat in front of the TV. The movie was cutting edge - it had amazing special effects – such as the burning bush, turning a staff into a snake, and who could ever forget the parting of the Red Sea – only to close onto the Pharaohs army…that was my favorite scene. Plus, it was a two night event – my first memory of a cliffhanger was probably the Ten Commandments. Granted – the movie is not necessarily about Egypt - but it is set around the Nile, Pharaohs, the Red Sea, and of course Mt. Sinai – all of these things were on the itinerary for my trip through Egypt – so it didn’t surprise me that my memories of the movie came flooding back to me as I traveled the country.

Photo: Kids at work
The movie wasn’t my only source of knowledge of the Nile River though – I have 4th Grade geography to also thank. Sure – the Nile is the longest river on the globe at 4,100 miles long; and it runs south to north – that makes it unique and memorable. However – I still have this image burned into my brain from the Ten Commandments movie where the Egyptian princesses, Miriam, was bathing, washing, and socializing out along the Nile River when a little basket came floating by amongst the reeds with a baby in it…Moses. Therefore the Nile conjures up images of the decadent royal lifestyle, gold jewelry, and femininity…peaceful, yet grand. This is one of the reasons why I chose to tour through Egypt and not simply go to see the Pyramids. I wanted an adventure on the Nile!

We spent 2 days and 2 nights on a felucca on the Nile. A felucca is a single mast wooden sailing boat commonly used along the Nile. I’m positive that Moses had to have ridden on one during his decadent Egyptian childhood! We were to sail down stream (to the North) from Aswan to Luxor. Actually – come to think of it – is it really called downstream any longer if you are going from South to North? Or is that considered upstream? I will probably never know that answer to that question – so I will move on…

Photo: Our felucca on the Nile
Upon my first view of the Nile – it was way different than my childhood memory – first of all – it was much, much wider than the movie set river they used for The Ten Commandments! There were no Eygptian women dressed in gold head-dresses doing their wash in it. However there were plenty of cows washing in it – as well as donkeys and young Egyptian boys swimming in it! Seeing that pretty much sealed the deal for me – I was not swimming in the Nile. There are a number of things written in travel books about swimming in the Nile – most recommend against it due to the fact that it’s rather dirty and full of bacteria. The last thing I wanted was to acquire some parasite from the Nile, however it takes an immense amount of self control to be surrounded by cool water for 2 days in 110 degree heat and not jump in. As I continued to see the myriad of animals bathing, eating, and shitting in it – I decided that I could indeed have self control! So – the Nile wasn’t really a royal river anymore – but it was still the Nile and it was our home for 2 days/nights.

Photo: Deck of the felucca - close quarters
A felucca isn’t necessarily a posh sailboat with a galley – instead – it’s a big wooden sailing boat with a flat deck area – and ….well….that’s about it. There are no other compartments of space. There are no bathrooms, there is no kitchen, there is nothing below deck, there is just a deck. The deck is about 300 Sq ft. – it’s covered with cushions and has a big tarp covering it to protect you from the shade. The tarp was great – as it kept it somewhat cool on the boat - however it was a hindrance too. Since there was a tarp – this meant that you couldn’t actually ever stand upright. You had to walk around on the little cushy pads (across the other people laying there in their little space) hunch backed. In the brochure, it all sounded rather pleasant – not posh, but pleasant. However, when you get there and think about how you are going to fit 15 people on this 300sq feet of space for two days…with no bathroom, and no way to stand up you tend to panic. We were to eat, sleep, rest, read, lounge, socialize, and dress on that deck area…amidst 14 other people…this would certainly be an adventure!

Photo: Felucca crew and band!
We had two crew that operated the large felucca. They were the captain and first mate, plus the cooks, and the entertainment. I was actually surprised at how much wind there was on the Nile pushing us along; only twice did they have to actually get the oars out and paddle! The dinners they put together were quite good – considering they only had 2 gas burners and no kitchen space. They had a little cutting board which they used as a kitchen counter preparing everything. We also had two large coolers full of drinks that served as our bar with water, booze, and juice.

We made rest stops about every 3 hours – where we crawled out and stretched our legs for a bit, made friends with the donkeys and cows around us and peed in the bushes – if we could find any. The inaccessibility of peeing spots, made it rather difficult to drink all of the beer we had brought along in the two coolers. There was this fine line of drinking too much too fast and then you were miserable because your bladder felt like it was going to explode and you had nowhere to go! I actually spent most of my time enjoying the vast view, and reading a book – something that I seldom get the time to do!

Photo: Wildlife and feluccas
We stopped for the first night along the banks of the Nile…along with a few other felucca’s that were doing similar trips to us. We had a lovely view…of cows and donkeys. This also meant that getting off the boat and going to the bathroom included a deadly walk across landmines of poop. To top it off, we had a very curious donkey. He would graze around our little make-shift toilet (basically a hole with some tenting around it), and would peek his head through the tenting while you were in there doing your business. I have to admit – never in my life would I have envisioned myself talking a live donkey while squatting over a toilet…in a field in Egypt. As nighttime fell, I realized that sleeping on a deck with 14 other people had its challenges…a donkey making a jackass sound in the middle of the night 10 ft. from your boat…well, that required ear plugs. That night we enjoyed a bon fire with the passengers and crew from other boats and listened to the Nubian locals play drums and sing for us. I settled down with my sleep sheet, ear plugs, eye mask, and enjoyed my first night of sleeplessness on the Nile.

Photo: Butcher shop in Daraw
The second day of floating down the Nile like Moses included some stops along the way to see temples and a camel market. Unfortunately – there was no camel market that day – so it just looked like a dirt field with a fence around it. Too bad as I was ready to purchase me some camels! Actually – a number of times I had already been offered camels for my hand in marriage – so I guess the market wasn’t really necessary. Had my father been traveling with me – I’m a little worried that he may have accepted some of the camel proposals and sold me off to an Egyptian in exchange for 30 camels that he could raise on his land in South Dakota…it certainly wouldn’t have surprised me! Even though the camel market was not operating that day, we still walked around the small camel trading town of Daraw. Now this was ‘real Egypt’ – a town with no tourists where we were stared at as if we had just stepped off a UFO as opposed to a felucca. We stopped there for some sugar cane juice and were able to walk around the small town and explore for about 30 minutes. This was probably my favorite location in all of Egypt…because it was real. Rosaline and I walked around the market and soon we had a group of school children following us begging us to take their picture. In addition, the men from the fruit and meat stands all wanted us to come over and take their picture. What made this town real was the simple fact that they didn’t ask for money after I took their picture – they simply wanted to look at it. Photo: Man with eyeball They were still virgins to tourism – they didn’t know that the rest of Egypt was asking for money every time you took a picture of someone – instead – they were just genuinely happy to view themselves on the screen. My favorite was the butcher – he wanted to pose for me with his knives in front of the meat…he was so proud…it was priceless. We all gathered and got back in our hot taxi wagon, I was the last to get in as our leader, Mohammad, practically had to push me into the truck as I didn’t want to leave this little oasis of culture! As I got in, this man came to the back of the wagon and had a big round object in his fingers, and he was holding it up yelling something in Arabic. I all of a sudden realized that the big round object was a cow eyeball…and he was holding it up to his eye and laughing. He proceeded to hold it in his mouth as I shot pictures of him as if he were Elle McPherson…he was a star! You can’t beat a cow eyeball pose! That night was stayed on the felucca again, docked by another donkey and cow and had a feast of pasta. Our captains even played drums and sang songs for us afterward. Our time on the felucca was memorable, claustrophobic at times, but worth it! Moses would have enjoyed it…it was much better than a basket!

Photo: Sawa camp on the Red Sea
The Red Sea was next on our Moses Tour. This was my favorite part in the movie…the water even looked red in the TV version – and Charleton Heston’s ability to part it was truly a special effects miracle! Woohoo…Red Sea…here I come! We crossed into the Sinai region of Egypt by ferry from Hurghada (unfortunately no one knew how to part the sea and simply drive to Sinai) then we drove way north to a little white sand camp called Sawa. I think it stood for Sand Around Whole Area…as there was no escaping the fine, white sand. This camp was remote – not necessarily because it was in the middle of nowhere, instead it had no electricity except for 4 hours of generator in the evening, no fresh water (salt water showers), shared bathrooms, and a bamboo hut to sleep in with a sand floor, small mattress and no air circulation. This was roughing it. However – my little sand filled bamboo hut looked out over the Red Sea – and that was all I needed. I could see Saudia Arabia from my little sand and ant filled mattress, and I was no more than 300 feet from some of the best coral reef in the world. The place was quiet, and hot, but once I stopped fighting the sand, I enjoyed it. I was even able to fit in a morning hike through a nearby cannon called Color Canyon.

Color Canyon was a treat….it was spectacular. The wind had formed the sandstone into a canyon – sometimes wide, sometimes very, very narrow. As you walked through the cannon and followed the path of the wind, you would see the various types of rocks, colors weaving through the sandstone as if it were a Paint –n-Swirl work of art. The canyon got so narrow at one point that we had to crawl through a small opening blocked by a boulder. The drop was long and luckily we all banded together and helped each other through the small space. As I was trying to slide through the opening like a greased pig, I regretted all of the potato chips that I had been living off of since I had arrived in Egypt! The walk was all the more interesting because one of the men in our group was a High School Geography teacher…meaning I could ask him anything about the rocks and I would get an answer! Archie educated me about the types of rocks, the colors, the and the formation of the canyon – my own personal tutor!

Photo: Hole in the canyon trail that we had to slide through!
That night we watched the sun set over the mountains. As you looked East over the Red Sea – the sunset light bounced off the Saudia Arabia mountains giving the sea in front of you a deep red glow!

Our final pilgrimage on the Moses roadtrip was the rock that started it all…Mt. Sinai. We left the Red Sea coast and drove into the tourist trap…umm…..I mean holy land. The town and monastery of St. Katherines was teaming with tourists – big tour buses, and tons of video cameras. Our first stop was at the base of a mountain – where Mohammad pointed out a rock formation in the shape of a cow…the golden calf. All of a sudden the vision from the movie came back to me again…Moses coming down from Sinai with a long beard, carrying the holy tablets to find a raging party – a rave minus a DJ - around a golden calf. Apparently the gold from the calf had long ago been stolen – so the rock formation was left. I was skeptical of the stone calf…but who am I to judge. Next we went to the monastery to see the chapel there and learn the story of St. Katherine. Photo: Man playing chess in the dirt with rocks However – the real draw there was the burning bush….yup…that’s right….I saw the burning bush…supposedly. Who really knows if that was the bush or not…but it was good enough for me…it looked old. I can’t say that God spoke to me – but it was certainly hot enough outside that I thought I was going to burst into flames…so why not that bush?

We rested during the hot part of the afternoon as we needed to prepare for our greatest ‘Moses-like’ adventure yet – climbing Mt. Sinai. What took Moses 40 days to do, we were going to do in 4 hours. I was really hoping and wishing to find a third tablet of commandments. Who says that there were only 2 tables of 10 commandments, maybe that was simply all Moses could carry – maybe he left a 3rd tablet up there. The one that said “Thou Shalt Party, Party, Party” or “Thou Shalt Not Wear White Before Labor Day” or “Thou Shalt Not Settle on a Boring Marriage”. We started up the mountain around 4:30 PM planning to make it to the summit by sunset. It was a challenging walk – 3,000+ rock stairs that were relentless – up, up, up – especially since I hand’t done any form of exercise now for 3 weeks…my ass was burning…it was God’s Stairmaster. Photo: Chapel at the top of Sinai The hike was spectacular – the mountain range was beautiful. We made it to the top with plenty of time to see the golden colors of the sunset bouncing off the mountains and the small chapel at the top. I hunted for the 3rd tablet of commandments, but no luck…I guess I would just have to try to live by the existing two tables…which had me a bit worried. We made it down the mountain by flashlight via the camel path…and there was no wild rave party waiting for us…just a large dinner buffet and cold showers.

Photo: My jump for joy at the top of Sinai!

During my stay in Egypt – I reveled in childhood memories of my family watching the Ten Commandments – memories that I hadn’t thought about for ages. In a way, I suppose it was a spiritual journey for me as those memories are precious. After all, family memories are carved in stone, but they are worn away over time - until something jolts you back to them. My jolt was Moses!

Man working on restoring a temple...a large job!

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I must confess – I’m not really into ancient sites, it’s just not my thing. I was bored by Pompeii, disinterested in the Parthenon, and I skipped the Roman Forum altogether – for some reason – these places just aren’t as interesting to me as simply going and sitting in a café and people watching present day culture, or trekking to a village and meeting the locals. However – when you travel around the world, I can’t have people saying to me, ”What do you mean you didn’t go to Pompeii?!!” in shock and horror. They’d look at me as if I was an idiot. In fact – I’m not real sure if it was a good idea that I admitted to never going to the Roman Forum - but you can lecture me later on that. So when I arrived in Egypt and realized that one of the big draws to Egypt is all of the ancient temples, and sites – I didn’t exactly jump for joy. Sure, I really wanted to see the Pyramids, but beyond that, I honestly really didn’t care too much. However – a portion of the tour was about visiting all of these ancient sites. We visited Abu Simbel, Valley of the Kings, the Pyramids, Luxor Temple, Philae Temple, Kom Ombo Temple, and Edfu Temple, Medinat Habu Temple, and the Sphinx. For someone who isn’t a temple person…this is overload. However – I did try to enjoy it – I tried to find ways that I could get excited about it, I tried to walk into the site and think about what it was like when it was bustling with people and functioning as a temple. I was rather impressed with how well preserved all of the sites were – so well intact – it seemed almost fake. However – I found that the most intriguing thing for me about temples – is simply, how the hell they got there and how long it took them to build it.

In my old life I was a Project Manager. My job was to understand what the customer wanted, and break it into hundreds of achievable little tasks that when done in the correct order would yield the final product. This also meant that I had to acquire and assign the resources to the tasks, deal with delays and budget overruns, and provide constant updates to my customer. Some projects were harder than others, some took a couple years, some took a couple months. So, when I started touring around the temples and tombs of Egypt – the one question that kept coming to mind was – “how did they ever put together a project plan for this?” Think about it, something like Abu Simbel took about 20 years to build. Lifespans in Ancient Egypt were short. So that means that there was turnover during those 20 years, plus, it’s a good bet that the original project manager assigned to the Abu Simbel project also died before it was completed – so a new person had to take over. Hell, the customer didn’t even live long enough to see the finished project normally. Your project team for a site like the Pyramids may have included about 50,000 men. My typical project team consisted of 20 people – and that was hard enough to control! Someone might not be pulling their weight, someone doesn’t get along with the next person, someone thinks they deserve a better position, someone always shows up to work late – the list of people issues could go on and on. Dealing with those issues with thousands of people – well, that takes an immense amount of patience and organization.

We live in a society today that is all about immediate gratification. I think that’s why I struggled so much in understanding how these temples were ever finished. How in the world did you motivate people to keep working for years, and years, never really seeing the finished product. Or – better yet, when the king who backed the project died, how did it still get completed – especially when someone else was now in power. After the 5th temple I finally had to seek out some answers – so I went to Connie, the high school history teacher in our tour group to ask her how this all worked.

Once a King took power, he would decide upon how many ‘structures’ he wanted built – this normally consisted of a few temples (for he and his queen) that displayed his might and generosity, and a tomb for his afterlife. He would then discuss this with his appointed priests and provide them with the authority (papers with his seal on it) to get the job done. The priests were really the project managers in this ancient org chart. They were given this job because they were the only people in the community that could read and write, therefore they had a high up position in society and a close relationship with the King. The priests would go away for a couple of years and draw up the architectural plans to share with the King and get his final sign off. After this, the Priests real work began – he was responsible for gathering labor and making it all happen.

You would think that acquiring labor would be one of the hardest parts of the project – but it wasn’t. Many people wanted to do the work - especially in the flood season when there were no crops to tend to. Working on a project for the King meant free food and lodging, people took pride in working on a royal project and showing off their workmanship/skill, and finally it gave you some good karma – because in Egypt – it’s all about the afterlife. The issue of turnover due to death or old age wasn’t really an issue either as in those times, kids were trained in their father’s skills – so the child just took over where the father left off. By this theory I would have ended up an Engineer working for Catepillar all my life…that would have been a site!

So, that leaves the question of what happens when the King dies before the work is done – does the work stop - or does it carry on. I think the real answer is , ‘it depends on how much the new King liked the old one’. However the King’s seal is supposed to be good after his death – therefore that approval that the priest got 40 years ago – is still valid and the project should be finished.

Photo: The raised Abu Simbel…not an easy task!
Like any good project manager – you always have to have a contingency plan…because something ALWAYS goes wrong. I wonder if the priests had contingency plans…what if they ran out of herbs to make blue paint, what it the king died, what if there was a hieroglyphics strike, or what if centuries after you finished the temple, they build a damn on the Nile in Aswan Eygpt and you end up flooding the very temple that you worked so hard to create? This is exactly what happened to the famed Abu Simbel Temple. In 1960 a damn was built, it flooded the area and sent the Nubians fleeing to higher ground. It also threatened the existence of Ramses II great masterpiece. Luckily a team of architects from all over the world sponsored by Unesco embarked upon a huge plan to actually move the massive temple to higher ground. This would seem like an impossible undertaking as the temples are huge and intricate- but they did successfully move the temples to higher ground – cutting it apart and then putting it back together like a jigsaw puzzle. The temple now looks out over the waters of Lake Nasser.
By considering how they planned and executed these massive projects helped me visualize it and respect these temples. The Priest’s work was hard – but it demonstrates to me that Project Management is actually an ancient job….and it was a good one to have back then! I still would have liked to see the Priests work breakdown structure, critical path, and gant chart for one of the temple projects. However – I’ve heard that the old version of Microsoft Project they were using was highly unstable – next time they should install the service pack!

Egyptian Camel

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I mistakenly arrived in Egypt thinking that it would be very similar to Morocco. That’s like thinking that California and New York are similar…and having lived in both – I know that’s not true. Sure, the two countries are in Northern Africa, they are both suffocatingly hot, their language is Arabic (with minor differences), they have the same religion, and they even share the Sahara Desert – camels and all…but beyond that – they really aren’t the same. The difference is that Egypt is all about history – temples, tombs, relics, hieroglyphics, and royalty. Because of that, you tend to see more tourists in Egypt and it is a little more developed in general.

I met up with my new Intrepid tour group in Aswan, Egypt near the southern most border of Egypt and Sudan. I had already met one member of the group – my partner in crime and fellow Casablanca/Egypt Air sufferer, Rosaline, from Australia. We stuck together through the worst of times, now we were ready to experience the best of times. It was actually a blessing that I met her in Casablanca – I doubt that I would have kept what was left of my sanity without her. We flew into Aswan and met the other 10 members of the group. I once again was traveling with Intrepid tour company, but this was only for two weeks and it was supposedly more upscale (basically meaning that there were more included activities planned in a jam packed 2 week period). I wasn’t real sure how I was going to like this form of touring as I was really in love with my backpacking tours that I had taken with Intrepid in the past – but this was only two weeks so I could give it a try.

Photo: Landscape of Southern Egypt…lots of rocks!
We got settled into our hotel and happily changed into new clothes…for the first time in 3 days. We met the other 10 people in the group as well as our leader Mohammad. He was from Egypt so could offer us a lot of good information about the country and the culture. Since the group of 10 had already been touring together for 2 days, we came into it as rookies…and had to learn 10 new names. The group members came from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and one other American.

That afternoon we went on a hot walking tour of Aswan. Aswan was really a good place to lodge for the night on the way to the famous temple of Abu Simbel (close to the Sudan border). The Nile River flowed through Aswan and it had a large Nubian population. The Nubians are the old nomadic tribal people who inhabited southern Egypt and northern Sudan. They had fought turf wars with the Egyptians many years ago as well as turf wars with the Nile as it flooded their land. We took a boat ride on the Nile, visited an old Nubian village, rode some camels, and had dinner with the locals at the village. We finished the evening dancing with the local kids before we boated back to Aswan for a good, but short night’s sleep.

Photo: The convoy!
“Ah, breaker one-nine, this here’s the Rubber Duck. You gotta copy on me, Love Machine? Ah, 10-4, Pig Pen, fer shure, fer shure. By golly, it’s clean clear to Taco Town. Yeah, we definitely got us the front door, good buddy. Mercy sakes alive, looks like we got us a convoy…” The next morning, at the wee hours of 4AM, we joined our first convoy – no, not a camel convoy or a semi convoy - a bus convoy. Since Egypt has had a recent history (within the last 10 years) of terrorist attacks on their tourism industry, the government has tried to put in place programs to improve the safety of tourism in the country. They understand that tourism dollars are a huge piece of income, and you can’t just expect people to come to see the pyramids and old temples and risk their lives doing it. Therefore, they set up with program of convoys to move tourists throughout the country. When the tourists are on the roads in Egypt (outside the large cities), they are to be escorted by security. This would obviously be impossible if they were to let the tourists come and go freely – so instead they came up with the idea of a secure convoy…without Kris Krisstoferrson Tourists are only allowed to move by vehicle as a part of a convoy. So – if you want to go from Aswan to Luxor – you need to check what time the daily convoy leaves and go in it. The convoy mainly consists of tour buses, minivans, medium size buses, and a number of security personnel in trucks carrying automatic weapons as if they were toys. In addition, you had to go through a number of checkpoints along the way. Security personal would sit in these little huts the size of a closet and watch the caravan go through a town, staring at us as if we were the circus coming to town. The caravans would have up to 80 vehicles in it and when you crossed over into another regional section of the country, you would all have to stop and wait for a new security team to take over and lead you into the next region. You’d get out of the van and wait for a bit trying to get some fresh air and you would have men with automatic weapons walking around you. I know it was meant to make you feel safe as a tourist, however, it kind of had the opposite effect – it kind of freaked me out. Especially considering the men carrying the automatic weapons looked about 17 years old. I saw one trying to untangle the strap on his automatic weapon by dangling it by the strap and jerking it around like a tangled bunch of cords until it came free. All I could think was – I hope to God that the gun has a safety on it…and he knows how to use it.

Photo: Security shack…a common site across Egypt
We joined the convoy to Abu Simbel at 4AM. This was a large convoy and I honestly slept most of the way. It was a 3 hour ride, and at about 6AM, I woke up from my bus slumber and was stunned as I pulled the curtain and looked outside. I had to remind myself where I was for a minute. It was pure, flat desert – brown, rocky (not sandy), and every so often there would be a little conical mound sticking up from the flat like a little mini hill. I hadn’t seen anything like this before. I watched the sun come up and ate my little box breakfast of bread, cheese, and jam (my new favorite combination), slathered on sunscreen, and got prepared to sweat my ass off seeing one of the most magnificent temples in Egypt.

Photo: Me in front of Abu Simbel…check out the scale!
I must admit – I knew nothing about these temples prior to the bus stopping and letting us out. I hadn’t even seen a picture of them before…but I prefer it that way. These days, you see so many things on TV, in books, on the internet – and it sets your expectations, and lessens the experience. But when you show up somewhere and truly have no idea what to expect – it’s fun – and you are never disappointed. I had no idea if this temple was big, small, made of gold, on the water, or had a moat. All I knew is that Ramses the Second had built them here near the border of Egypt and Sudan to warn all of the Sudanese to stay away…this was Ramses’ land.

Within our group of 12 people, we had a couple from Canada traveling with us, Connie and Archie. They were both high school teachers that had been teaching across the hall from each other for years. Connie taught History and Archie taught Geography. How fortunate that Connie was with us – as she provided me my “Ancient Egypt for Dummies” education over the next two weeks. She actually kind of served as our tour guide at Abu Simbel, giving us little overviews of the structure, why it was built, what the reliefs (carvings) meant, and answered all of our questions. Photo: The great Abu Simbel…HUGE!
We entered the temple area from the back where it just looked like a big pile of dirt. However, when we rounded the corner and came to the front, I was struck by the size and grandeur of the temple. It was massive – there were actually two temples – one for Ramses and a smaller one for his Queen, Nefitari. Both had entrances that were lined with huge statues of Ramses himself. I barely was the size of is big toe. Both temples faced out onto Lake Nasser.

We moved on to see a few more temples before returning to Aswan. We had a night out in Aswan that evening after a much needed siesta. I’ve determined that it is a necessity to take a siesta in these hot countries – as it’s inhuman to be outside doing anything during the hours of 1PM to 5PM…temperatures were reaching into the 110+F. If you didn’t take time to slow down and drink plenty of liquids you’d end up with heat stroke. While traveling through Morocco and Egypt I think that every single person that I was traveling with was sick at least once…and I don’t believe that it was necessarily from the food – I think it was from the heat – it’s lethal.

Photo: Hubbly Bubbly contraptions…
Our group went out and had a great dinner of grilled meats and then went walking around the souks. As we walked around the souks, I noticed that there were a number of little bars (no alchohol…this is still a Muslim country). The bars were filled with men – and only men. About 80% of the men there were having a coffee and some hubbly bubbly. Hubbly Bubbly - how can you not love that name?! It refers to the smoking pipes that are used throughout Arabia and Middle East. The pipes come in all sizes, and normally have a long tube that you suck in/inhale the sheesha (flavored tobacco). The tube was connected to a glass bottle/vase of sorts which has water in it. The tobacco sits at the top of the pipe above the vase. You put coals on the top of the contraption and suck the heat through the tobacco, the water bubbles, and you smoke in a flavored taste. The flavors were normally apple, peach, or mint. In a country where alcohol is prohibited, hubbly bubbly, or sheesha, is the national past-time. At the bars, the men would simply sit and smoke and watch the world go by. It seemed odd to me that they would get that much enjoyment out of it – it certainly didn’t provide the medicinal qualities of alcohol or smoking cigarettes – but it must have provided something – as the use of it was just too widespread. I asked our leader, Mohammad, about it and he said that it was similar to our culture going to Starbucks and having a coffee everyday, it was a cultural thing. It also provided a very slight nicotine fix I believe, but it wasn’t like cigarettes. In fact, he also told me that it was used an alternative to smoking – or for people who are trying to quite smoking. The good news is that instead of a yucky cigarette smell occupying the air – there was a sweet, green apple smell wafting through the souks – a much better alternative.

Photo: Mohammad demonstrating the Hubbly Bubbly!
As I sat and watched the myriads of men smoking the hubbly bubbly – I started thinking of it as a similar thing to my need to have a Diet Coke or cup of coffee every day – just a slight addiction, a therapeutic way to deal with the day…we all have our vices. However, with the name of hubbly bubbly, it definitely seemed like the most fun vice. Maybe I should start calling my morning coffee - coffee snoffee, or my diet coke - diet cokey wokey. Nahhh – ok, maybe not – I’ll just stick to the hubbly bubbly. The one thing that was clear to me from the first town I visited in Egypt was that the culture was certainly unique – there would be a lot to discover! 10-4 Good Buddy…over and out!