C Travel Adventures: 2010

I have published two posts in one go - day 7/8 is below

Hatshepsut Temple, Luxor

Luxor is a strange city in Egyptian terms, because the east bank is heavily developed but the west bank is largely rural. This is strange, because the Nile isn’t particularly wide when it reaches the city (a bridge exists 6km out of town) and means that the west bank, where the major sites are, is actually very underdeveloped. After a breakfast at our hotel that included my first English tea of the trip, we headed across on a ferry to the west bank. The sites on the west bank - tombs, temples and the famous Valley of the Kings, are spread over a large area, so some form of transport is required. The majority of package tour tourists will get air-conditioned buses from their hotels, across the bridge and from there they will hop from site to site, but being backpackers, we hired some bikes (motorless ones this time) from the nearest town and cycled around. This was actually a far more fun way of getting around - cycling along an Egyptian road involves avoiding not only people and cars, but donkeys, camels and tour buses. It further confirmed our theory that package tours miss out on most of the interesting things in Egypt. Our first stop on our bicycles was the Hatshepsut Temple, which is so well preserved that it actually looks like a modern building. It is essentially a temple carved into the rockface, but is mainly facade - what you can see in the photo is pretty much all there is there. As massively impressive as it is, we didn’t spend that long there - the amount of tourists was huge (notice how my photo has been completely ruined by all of the people standing on the steps to the temple).

Lunch at the Mohammad Restaurant, Luxor

The temple was a fair cycle away from the ferry point, so we were now just about ready for lunch, so cycled around looking for somewhere that was off the coach tour trail, and therefore likely to be a reasonable price. We found a place (with a bit of help from Lonely Planet - notice how amazingly useful it is), that was actually not far from the ticket office and was based around a small courtyard where jazz music was being played. We have found that in rural restaurants, menus just don’t exist and you just chose which meat you want with your meal. Eating traditional local food in a jazz-filled courtyard in the middle of the desert amongst Ancient Egyptian temples, was actually pretty epic.

Ramesseum, Luxor

The courtyard was pretty epic, and the others felt that once you had seen one temple the others were fairly similar, so sat around while I cycled off to the next site - the Ramesseum. This isn’t actually a temple - it is more of a shrine, to Ramses II and whilst it is massively important in Ancient Egyptian history, it is missed out by all of the tour companies on their busy schedules. As a result I had the entire site to myself - my ticket was checked by a enthusiastic policeman who was lying by his shotgun at the entrance and seemed genuinely pleased to have something to do. The site isn’t particularly impressive compared to Karnak or some of the other temples, but it was nice to be able to walk around in total silence and get some photos with nobody else in. The thing is, that if the Ramesseum was anywhere else in the world, it would be a massive tourist attraction, but located as it is on the Luxor West Bank with what Lonely Planet describes as “an embarrassment of archaeological treasures”, it is overlooked.

Paint on a column at Medinat Habu

I cycled back to the cafe and collected the others before heading off to the next site (and our final temple of the day) at Medinat Habu. This was another overlooked site, though when we arrived we found that one Russian tour company had ventured out to it - which is nothing compared to the hundreds at the Hatshephut Temple. The paint on the walls was particularly impressive here - just the thought that the paint has been there for thousands and thousands of years is incredible. It was also, like most of the sites here, fairly complete. It strikes me just how true this is for the majority of the sites in Luxor. The Pyramids at Giza look pretty dilapidated in comparison to some of the sites and the Ancient Egyptian monuments are far more intact than those from other civilizations that are thousands of years younger. It actually takes a lot of energy to cycle around the desert from site to site, so we only managed three of the major places today - despite probably cycling about 10 miles or so. We aim to come back tomorrow for our last full day and visit the Valley of the Kings, which is pretty exciting.

Our mean machines, with the Colossi of Memnon

On our way back to the boats we stopped off and had a photo by the Colossi of Memnon - two massive statues that have the epic backdrop of the Luxor escarpment. We got the boat back to the other bank and were annoyingly charged triple the price to return, because the boat owners know that everyone has to get back at the end of the day to their hotel in the east. Once back at the hotel, we went up to our rooftop pool and just collapsed on the deckchairs to watch the sun go down again. We found out tonight that the mountains behind the west bank are lit up - only in Egypt would the authorities light up mountains for the sake of tourists, and we have an amazing view of them from our roof. Luckily for you the reader, I was able to pull myself away from this (and beer, chips and my book) to walk into town to an internet cafe, where I have been sat blogging for the last two and a half hours. I have no idea what they are going to charge me for this. It may well be the last blog I write from Egypt (I might write up the Valley of the Kings post when I get back to England) as using Egyptian computers is like pulling teeth. I will leave you with our view of the west bank.

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Danni and one of the Khozam family

As the epic title suggests, the last few days have been fairly busy. They also, due to lack of any reasonable amount of sleep involved, can be counted as one continuous day. We started in Bahariya, where our hostel had provided a lift into town to the local minibus station. The previous day we had hoped to buy bus tickets to Cairo, but unfortunately they had all sold out. As a result, we had to do the next best thing in the form of a minibus that left the oasis when enough people had decided that they wanted to make the 300km journey back to Cairo. Before we left, we bid farewell to the Khozam family, who we had been staying with. We had actually got fairly friendly with them all and it was a shame to go. The younger of the sons had seen me writing the blog and wanted to have his photo on it, so here it is. The minibus back to Cairo was quicker than the normal bus, with a journey time of more like 3 and a half hours than 5, but was more expensive and also very cramped. On top of this, it didn’t actually stop, so was pretty unpleasant. But it was better than being stranded in the Sahara.

Khan el-Khalili market, Cairo

We arrived back in Cairo at about 3 in the afternoon and headed for the Khan el-Khalili market, after briefly dropping off our bags at the hostel that we had stayed at. The market is a large area of shops and souqs which is the direct equivalent of the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, which I had unfortunately missed last year due to Eid. The shops sold pretty much anything - from spices to souvenirs to clothes to bric-a-brac items as obscure as a photo of Saddam Hussein. It was also probably the area of Cairo where we were most open to be hassled, as the cushioned western tourists in their coaches were common there, so everybody wanted to talk to you and sell you stuff. Just a hint for when you go, make sure your shoes are shiny - my boots are ingrained with desert sand and dirt and had every single shoeshiner in the area following me. This wasn’t helped by Tom pointing at my feet everytime we saw one. I didn’t actually buy anything (or have my boots cleaned - dirty shoes make me feel like a proper traveler), but it was worth going in just to get the feel for the place. Despite the intensity of some of the bargaining and hassling, there was an air of good humour about it all, which was both surprising and pleasant. After a brief Turkish coffee and collecting our bags, we headed for the station.

First class on the Cairo-Luxor line

Our train to Luxor left at 10pm and it was now 6, so we had a fair bit of time to kill. We decided to head back to our hostel to pick up our Lonely Planets and get some ideas. The fact that we then ended up visiting two seedy Egyptian bars, where all they sold was the one Egyptian beer (Egyptian Stella) and were full of smoke and drunks, was ENTIRELY Tom’s idea. He said it was to see the other side of life and culture in Egypt, so I begrudgingly accepted his two hour underworld tour. Not a moment too soon it was time to head for the station. The Egyptian rail system was installed by the British when they were a major power here. A lot of the trains that are used were produced in Britain and contain first, second and third classes. Walking along the platform to first class (the only class that tourists are allowed in) via third class was a real eye-opener. Both Danni and I were reminded of the conditions of the trains used in the Holocaust. There were no lights on and just a sea of faces in the carriages. To give you an indication of the wealth divide over here, first class is only about 10GBP more than third class.

Luxor Temple, Luxor

We had decided that a sleeper train was too expensive, so we planned to just fall asleep on the train itself. Unfortunately this was easier said than done, due to a variety of factors. Firstly Egyptian rail tracks hardly lend themselves to a smooth ride, secondly the train was full of a group of like 30 people from China who seemed to have purposefully psyched themselves up to be as noisy and excited as possible on the journey and thirdly because the seats were uncomfortable and difficult to lie down in. I slept on our luggage, Tom slept on the floor and Danni slept across the seats. To top it off, the mosquito/bed bug damage that my skin sustained in the desert meant that I spent most of the “night” scratching. I reckon we probably got about 2 hours sleep in the journey which left Cairo at 10pm and arrived at Luxor at 8am. All in all, a pretty horrific journey, but an essential part of seeing as much of the country as possible in the time we had.

Great Hypostyle Hall, Karnak Temple

On arrival in Luxor we headed straight for our hotel. Danni and I had decided to splash out a bit for the final leg of our journey and were staying at the New Pola Hotel, with a balcony overlooking the Nile and a rooftop pool. As luxurious as this may sound (and it is pretty nice), it only cost us 15GBP a night - less than most of the hostels on Overlord. Tom had found a hostel in town, but decided to hang around at our pool anyway. He and Danni were tired from the journey so spent the day by the pool sleeping, but I was restless and wanted to see some sights, so took myself off to the Luxor Temple in the town centre. Having spent an hour or so walking around here, I got a taxi to the temple of Karnak in the north.

The view the policeman showed me of Karnak

The temple of Karnak is the biggest religious building ever constructed and is roughly the size of 10 cathedrals. The Great Hypostyle Hall alone, one of the most recognizable monuments in Egypt, could hold both St. Paul’s in London and St Peter’s in Rome. The temple itself is a massive complex of smaller shrines and halls, so it is essential to have some kind of guide - either in the form of paying a local, or using the Lonely Planet. The locals in the temple are very amusing. Dressed in traditional Arab clothing, they wander around the site and will pounce on tourists, telling them a few facts and then asking for “bakshish” - a small fee for the service. While I totally ignored most of these, after wandering to a particularly deserted part of the temple I found a policeman who took me to several places where there were some particularly good photos. The police in Egypt perform a very strange role - they are everywhere and heavily armed, and yet spend most of their time sitting around or giving directions. There were, for example, three riot vans parked at the end of our street in Cairo for the whole time we were there, with about 50 heavily armed policemen who just sat around smoking. This one was armed with an AK-47, so made a particularly amusing tour guide for the five minutes he walked with me. The complex is difficult to describe because it is so unlike everywhere else. The closest I can come to is to say that it is like a smaller version of Pompeii, except that it is far more intact (there is a lot of paint remaining on columns for example). I spent about two hours wandering around here before heading back. That evening we watched our first proper Nile sunset from our rooftop pool, before going out for a properly traditional meal in a backstreet Luxor restaurant - Tom had pigeon, to give you an example of how traditional it was. FINALLY we got back to the hotel at about half 11 for our first actual sleep since we left the desert.

Sunset over the Nile from our balcony

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Desert Safari Home - our hostel, with our room on the bottom floor

It seems that somebody has fixed the keyboard and installed Mozilla Firefox on this computer, so blogging has become massively easy. First off, I have to admit something, because Tom told me that if I didn’t put it on the blog, he would put it on himself. You know how I left my passport on a bus in Slovenia? Well I left it in a restaurant last night. Along with Danni’s. LUCKILY I realised in time and sprinted back to find that they were lying on the floor where they had fallen out of my pocket, which was a massive relief as getting a replacement passport probably would have taken the rest of the trip. Needless to say, Tom is now looking after Danni’s passport, and I have finally learnt my lesson and started wearing a money belt with it in. My bad. With that out of the way (and Tom happy that enough people know never to trust me with valuables), I shall describe today, our last full day in the desert. We woke up late and had breakfast at the hostel. This consisted of an egg and some traditional bread which is fairly filling. Whilst the other two got ready I took the chance to take some photos of where we are staying, because it is just so pleasant. For those of you interested in the costing of the trip (a full summary will be provided at the end), this hostel has cost us 4GBP per night each. Pretty good.

Danni owns the locals at dominos

After breakfast we hitched into town (it seems that so many people have seen us hitching in and out that they have stopped accepting money, which is cool) and rented the same motorbike as yesterday. Danni and I also took the chance to do a bit more gift shopping, while Tom went and got some provisions for us to ride out into the desert in search of springs. We took the road to the north of the town, which was in theory towards the lake around which the oasis is based and where the best hot and cold springs were meant to be. Nothing is that far away when we are on a motorbike, so we were able to go to the furthest spring first - about 15km away. After riding for a fair while, we didn’t quite know where we were, so asked some locals for directions. The locals were a group of three men sitting outside their house on a rug, and upon seeing us they immediately invited us to sit down for Bedouin tea. It seemed to be a once in a lifetime opportunity, so we obliged and after drinking the local tea for a bit, a small table appeared with a set of dominos. The locals challenged us to a game, thinking that we wouldn’t be very good. Tom and I allowed Danni to represent England in this international dominos match and amusingly she won three of the four games - much to the locals surprise. They repeatedly offered us camel rides to the springs (I think they were camel herders) and lunch, but we couldn’t face another camel and had food with us.

A spring in the Oasis

We did however let them take us to the spring that they had in their back yard. It was very warm, but very pleasant with a view over the desert which was where their camels roamed. One of the locals was particularly friendly and took some photos of/with us while we swam. The water was very similar in temperature and smell of sulphur to the Blue Lagoon in Reykjavik (for those who went on the HBS trip). However, instead of glacial blizzard, replace the surroundings with Sahara Desert and that should paint a reasonably accurate picture. After a bit of a swim, we dried off and sat outside the farmhouse on a mat, with a bigger and bigger crowd growing to come and meet us. One of them turned up in a pickup truck with his speaker system blaring out music and as he parked up it became apparent that this was traditional Bedouin music which they all seemed happy to clap and dance to. We were happy to sit and clap, but it seemed they were after something more and soon Danni (to mine and Tom’s amusement) and then me and Tom (to our horror) were pulled to our feet to dance a kind of ‘hands in the air and sway dance’. This was very amusing, but I am glad that it was only strangers who were able to see it. As the owner of the only camera on the trip (it’s my camera, so any videos of me dancing that may or may not exist are published at my own discretion), I shall upload to facebook the video of Tom and Danni at a later date - as the computer here won’t manage it. Well worth a watch/listen.

Lunch on a mountain top plateau

It was difficult to tear ourselves away from such kindness, but even though they offered us food we decided to carry on our journey. To be honest, meeting these Bedouin locals put us completely to shame - it would be ridiculous to expect a British family to offer drink, food, swimming and dancing to somebody who was asking for directions, but here we got the feeling that we would have got exactly the same treatment whichever farmhouse we had stopped at. To top it all, they refused to take any Egyptian money and only begrudingly accepted a British five pound note - which they will probably keep as a momento rather than cash in. We jumped on the bike and were waved off by the group of them, which had now swelled from three to about twenty. Our plan was to head for the 'Black Mountain’, which is known locally as Djebl al-Ingleez, or English mountain, because there is an abandoned British WW1 fort built on the top. It is the tallest mountain around and was therefore chosen by a British captain as the site for a fort from which he could monitor the movement of local tribesmen. Unfortunately we didn’t quite know where we were going and ended up climbing the wrong mountain to eat our lunch - which wasn’t the end of the world really because from the top we could clearly see which one actually was Black Mountain. After a lunch of crisps, water and 'Dorios’ - Egypt’s version of Oreos, we headed back down for the bike and drove on along what was now little more than a track through the desert towards our target.

The British fort at the top of Black Mountain (notice the bike in the background)

Once we had got there it seemed that climbing the Black Mountain would be quite challenging. I was very up for it (British military fort in the desert - what’s not to love!?), but the other two weren’t so Danni and Tom had a go at a bit of off road biking whilst I did my best to jog up to the crest. Luckily, I found what must have been the track used by military vehicles to get to the top, so it only took about 10 minutes at a jogging pace to climb and once at the top I decided to jog back down and fetch the other two along with the bike. Some local kids with local instruments were also in the area and sat at the top with us playing their drums while we explored. There wasn’t much left of it - only the walls really, but it is more the idea that once this outpost was a little bit of Britain. I am annoyed I didn’t have my Union Flag with me. The location was superb, with our first 360 degree views over the whole oasis and the desert beyond it. Unfortunately the sun was beginning to set, so we stayed for a few snaps before making our way back along the desert track to the main road which took us back into Bawiti. We dropped off the bike (it cost about 20GBP to rent for 5 hours - a bargain) and did a little bit more shopping, before heading back to the hostel on the back of a truck to write the blog and have dinner. I don’t know quite when I will be able to update the blog again - the madness of Egypt is that an internet in the Sahara is probably just as reliable as in Cairo or Luxor. Tomorrow we leave the oasis at 10am, for a 5 hour bus journey to Cairo, where we hope to see a few more sites before an epic 10 hour train journey to Luxor in the south, which departs Cairo at 10pm. It will be a long day, but it is necessary as our flight departs from there! It is a shame to leave the desert as I have never been made to feel as welcome as I have here. We are a little bit worried that Luxor will struggle to live up to Bahariya, but we will do our best to make the most of it. It is, after all Thebes, the capital of Ancient Egypt - which can’t be bad.

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Bahariya Oasis on the horizon

I am currently nursing an electricuted hand, courtesy of the hostel computer which doesn’t really have any casing. So there is another excuse for any typos. Also, a notice for mum and dad, when I texted yesterday saying “the internet has desert” I actually meant that the desert has internet. It was too expensive to send another text correcting that.

Bedouin Tea on arrival

Yesterday we left Egypt’s sprawling metropolis of a capital for the Sahara Desert. We had originally planned to spend 4 nights in Cairo, but we felt that we had seen what we needed to see, and were also starting to get a bit tired of it. It is a city of 20 million people - an inconceivable amount that is nearly three times larger than London, and it heaves with an energy that is invigorating at first, but after with something as simple as crossing the road being fairly life threatening, we were after somewhere a bit calmer. The bus journey to the Bahariya Oasis took 5 hours and was an amazing experience. We drove through the oil fields to the west of the city where the landscape is completely barren, bar the odd oil derrick. Half way through the journey we stopped at a small bus station and this was probably the only thing that resembled a settlement on the 300km between Cairo and the oasis. To think that the Sahara continutes for thousands of miles beyond this is amazing. The oasis was exactly what I expected to be, except on a far larger scale - all of a sudden there is a shimmering on the horizon that develops into a large green area covered in palm trees. Bahariya consists of several oases, and we were staying at the main town - Bawiti. A minibus arrived to collect us from the bus station and took us back to the hostel, along with three french people who we got talking to.

Pick up truck ride to town

We arrived at the hostel and were given Bedouin tea (which is very sweet) to drink in the shaded seating area, before being shown to our room. I then spent two hours writing the preceding two blogs - it is a marvel that there is internet this far from civilization so I am not really complaining. The owners of the hostel offered to make us dinner while we went into town, so after a little wander to see the sunset we came back and had a meal of soup, local bread and fish - all for about 2GBP (there is no pound symbol and the word pound is confusing anyway). After the meal we were given fresh mango juice made from fruit picked from the garden, while we watched Argentina vs Brazil with Arabic commentary and also a comedy about two Egyptian guys on holiday in Bangkok which the family here found hilarious. The nights here are epic because the sky is so clear - my camera can just about take photos of the massive amount of stars.

Tom giving me a motorbike lesson

Woke up late the next morning, which was surprising considering that my bed is actually made of bricks. We showered, which was amusing because the water smells like rust and it is really just a hose on a hook. It was warm though so we can’t complain. We hitched a lift into town on the back of a pick up truck (all the locals drive them and are happy to let us hop in if we flag them down) and rented a motorbike for the day for 20GBP. A lot of the local Bedouin people have bikes and are happy to rent them out when they aren’t using them. Tom had ridden before and gave me and Danni lessons for the morning, which was fun but tough on the sandy streets - I fell off when I tried to go too quickly around a sandy bend, but its all cool. We then tried to go and find one of the springs around which the oasis is based, but only found little ones - or hot sulphurous ones that were not recommended. A local guy saw we looked confused and decided to help us, telling us that a cool spring was “one minute away”. Unfortunately it became clear that after half an hour of walking, ‘one’ was the only number he actually knew. Amusingly, when we arrived it turned out that it was a little warm pool with water that came up just above our ankles - so tomorrow we are going to go and find one we can actually swim in. After walking back into town and doing a bit of shopping and postcard writing, the three of us got on the bike and Tom drove us out into the desert.

Tom and our motorbike

This journey was epic, and three English people on a motorbike was definitely the most exciting thing that the town had seen in a while - EVERYONE waved or said hello. It took us five minutes or so to negotiate the town centre and to reach the desert beyond, where the roads are deserted and we were able to reach far higher speeds (nothing unsafe mum and dad - I’m still alive right?). After driving about 20km out of town, to where there was nobody around at all, we parked the motorbike by the side of the road, took the key out and wandered out into the desert. The Bahariya oasis is surrounded by high cliffs and mountains made of sand and rock, so we picked one and decided to climb to the top of it. The walk wasn’t as tough as I thought it would be - there were a lot of rocks in the sand which were good for getting grip. At the top, me and Tom who were slightly ahead of Danni had the one in a life time experience of seeing a desert fox. Apparently they are incredibly rare, but unfortunately we scared it off as we got over the crest of the ridge. We decided to try and follow it, walking further into the desert whilst vaguely following its tracks, but we didn’t find it. We headed back to the ridge and found a load of broken pottery which could have come from anywhere - Ancient Egyptians, Romans, Englishmen and Bedouin have all settled in the oasis, so to find pottery was epic. We had a team photo on the ridge and then ran back down the dunes towards our motorbike. It was approaching the time that we had promised to return the bike and it was getting dark, so we headed back into town as the sun setI decided I felt comfortable enough to hold my camera whilst on the bike, so there are now some EPIC video clips of us riding through the desert and the town, with every local that you see waving at us.

View over the Sahara

We hitched back to the hostel after a quality day and are now sitting around watching the TV and will go out for dinner in a bit. We don’t know quite what we are doing tomorrow - we would like to find a cold spring and are also tempted to spend a night camping in a Bedouin village, but the prices they are charging are very high. Who knows. But log in tomorrow anyway.

Team photo

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I have just received a text from Ellie saying that there are two typos in the first paragraph of the first blog (found below). If it is any excuse, this keyboard is in arabic and is very sticky. But apologies.

Preparation of a cow for Eid

After rejecting both the 4am minaret alarm and the 9am alarm that we set, we settled on getting up at 10. Danni and I walked out onto the balcony to find that the mosque below was in the process of slaughtering and preparing a cow for the Muslim festival of Eid. The festival is a family time and is marked by the traditional preparation of half an animal for the family and the other half for poorer people. This was what we saw happening and watched with fascination as the head was hacked off, the skin torn off and the guts pulled out by a group of around 10 men. The reason that I haven’t been able to get on a computer until now is that the internet cafes have been shut for Eid - just like the Grand Bazaar was shut when I was in Istanbul for Eid last year. An annoying coincidence. We still had an appetite for breakfast after the slaughter however and ate before we got a taxi for the Pyramids. Tom had already been, so Danni and I lost our Arabic speaking guide. We were still able to travel the 12km to Giza on a combination of the Cairo metro (which rivals any that I have been on in the west) and a taxi. The outgoing journey cost 11EGP for the two of us - about one british pound.

Me and Danni in front of the Great Pyramid

There are two things that struck me first about the Pyramids. The first being just how much they dominate the surrounding area of city, which comes right up to it (they would be visable from most of the city if it weren’t for the Cairo smog) and the second being just how small the Sphynx is in real life. We paid our entrance fee and wandered towards the base of the Great Pyramid, past people selling all kinds of Ancient Egypt minatures and offering rides on camels and rather ill looking horses. It was here that we picked up the camel owner who, after following us and lowering his price as he went, we chose to give us a tour. This meant that we had to partake in the terrifying, but worthwhile experience of getting up on to, travelling around on, and getting back off, a camel. They are remarkably tall, because the passengers sit on the hump which towers above people on the ground. The tour lasted for about an hour and yielded several once in a lifetime photos. It was ridiculously expensive (in Egyptian terms - we are now all massively stingy and will quibble over as little as 50p) but we were willing to pay as he had been friendly and had warded of the numerous little kids who spent their time riding around on horses, trying to scare the camels and in doing so cause them to throw off their tourists. Our guide even said he loked like his son - which was a nice attempt at making me like him, but was pretty inconceivable considering that I have yet to see a ginger Arab.

Blinded by the Light - notice man with pizza board

After the epic camel we wandered around for a bit, went down into a small tomb (we weren’t able to go under the Pyramid itself as the number of tickets was restricted and they had run out) and then headed for the exits. One of the major flaws on my travels is that I am bad at fitting in meals - last night our dinner consisted of the free bar snacks at the Four Seasons. As a result we didn’t have lunch until 4 in the afternoon and by then were so hungry that we went to the first place we saw - the Pizza Hut opposite the Pyramids entrance. It was far cheaper than in England and the food was similar, and there was the added advantage of a terrace overlooking the Pyramids. It was up here that we found a group of other English speaking backpackers - Aussies, Canadians and Americans, who wanted to watch the “Light and Sound Spectacular” at the Pyramids, but weren’t willing to pay for it. Unfortunately the authorities had realised that people would try and “steal” their show by watching from outside the gates, so had put massive floodlights up that shone onto the terraces of the surrounding buildings. We shielded our eyes though with whatever we could (Lonely Planets, cardboard boxes and even, amusingly, a pizza serving board) and actually saw a fair bit. It was pretty cheesy and not worth the 95EGP entrance price, and the cynical attitude of the 15 or so English speakers we spent time with made it far more amusing than if we had paid.

The Pyramids illuminated

The “spectacular” finished at half 7 and we made our way back to town and met Tom for dinner - a full meal which cost about 1.50GBP each. A lot of locals were about for Eid and Tom said that this was because all of the children get a new pair of clothes from their parents for the festival, and walk around town showing them off. We ate our takeaway dinner on our hotel balcony and stayed up talking with the owners until midnightish when we went to bed. We would be leaving at 8am for the town of Bawiti in the Bahariya Oasis about 300km west of Cairo in the Sahara Desert. Worlds apart.

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Sorry for taking so long to update the blog - I am now in the Sahara Desert at the Bahariya Oasis, where the internet is easier to come by than in Cairo. With a new era of blogging comes a new format. I now plan to write my blog “on the hoof” in my moleskine diary and ten just type it up when I get to an internet cafe. This is partially because with a third world internet connection, I don’t want to hang about, but it is mainly because I aspire to be like the hypothetical love child of Indiana Jones and Howard Carter. And this hypothetical love child would carry a moleskine.

We had to get up at like half 4 in the morning for our 9am departure. I did some last minute packing and found that my watch had stopped, leaving me with the choice of either having no watch (which would kill me) or borrowing mum’s pink Swatch. I went with the latter and all of the Egyptian men give me funny looks. The flight out (Heathrow to Cairo with BMI) was very painless - we arrived early and didn’t queue at any of the desks or checks, allowing me time to buy some sunglasses and an epic full English breakfast. The flight was just over 4 and a half hours long and as it included TVs in the seats, lunch (all day breakfast amusingly) and free drinks - the two of us had wine, the time flew by. Like the plane did. See what I did there. Upon arrival we headed through passport control and got our visas with Danni getting her stamp from Canada completely obliterated by the massive Egyptian one. In her annoyance she left her passport on the customs desk (tourist mistake number 1), but luckily the guy shouted after her. The hostel sent a free pick up to the airport, but it took a while for us to find our name sign as the guy had written “Mr Alex” on it. I commited tourist mistake number 2 as I tried to get into the driver’s door. We are learning.

The view from the balcony

The drive to the hostel on the roads of Cairo was an experience in itself. There was a constant sound of horns, the road markings appeared to be strictly decorative, there were no rear seatbelts and there was a variety of people and animals walking around the roads/highways. However we arrived at our hostel (Hotel Meramees) in one piece and waited around for Tom to turn up before going out for a late night walk to the River Nile - an experience that was quite special, with it being probably the most famous river in the world. We also had our first Egyptian meal at the grand cost of 57p each for a chicken sandwich. Our hotel has a balcony over the street, so we sat up until the early hours.

The Egyptian Museum, Cairo

Tom had been staying at a different hostel and had already been to the Egyptian Museum, so didn’t make his way over with us in the morning. We were woken up at about half 4, by our very own “Allah Akhbar” alarm clock - the balcony on our room is literally in front of a minaret, before heading downtown. The museum is very grand and surrounded by massive security - we went through two sets of metal detectors. Unfortunately we couldn’t take photos and its hard to describe the place, but part of the spectacle is the sheer amount of artifacts and how intricate and intact they are. The museum itself is pretty rustic, but this is part of its charm - despite the grand building, it has the feel of an old fusty bookshop. The only part of the museum with shiny steel and glass is the Tutenkhamun exhibit - this was so amazing to see “in the flesh” that we went in and saw it twice. On the topic of “in the flesh”, we decided to pay the extra fee to visit the special exhibit holding the actual 4000 year old corpses of the Pharoahs - so we have seen the actual body of people like Ramses and Nefertiti, which when you think about it is massively impressive.

The Citadel, Cairo

We left thoroughly impressed and met Tom before getting a taxi to the citadel - the 700 year old castle complex that used to be home to the rulers of Egypt. The area is built on top of a hill with a wall around it and contains several mosques and museums along with epic views of the city. There were however loads of touts and sellers and we received our first offer for Danni’s hand in marriage - in the form of 50 million camels. So you won’t be hearing anything else of her, but we now have a lot of free transport which is nice. The people of Cairo are very talkative - they always say hello and welcome to Cairo and only a small proportion actually then proceed to try and sell you stuff. They seem genuinely warm and interested. Next to the citadel is Al-Azhar Park, which used to be a landfill site, but was turned into the city’s only park (and green space). It was very well laid out, with rivers, streams and gardens along with a well priced restaurant where apparently Cairo’s elite hang out. We ate there - me and Tom were adventurous and tried the Lebanese chicken, only to find it was very…youghurty. Having finalised our plans for the rest of the trip, the three of us (we didn’t actually trade Danni) went to the train and bus stations to get tickets for the rest of the trip.

Buddha Bar - Sofitel Hotel, Cairo

After returning to the hostel and freshening up, we went out to sample the other side of life in Cairo at the Four Seasons Hotel bar, on the banks of the Nile. We were welcomed in and sat at a polished table next to the grand piano and a view over the river and the high rise city centre. After a bit of sipping expensive spirits, we went for the equally upmarket but slightly more exciting “Buddha Bar” at the Sofitel Hotel. The security was tight, but once inside it was wonderfully opulent and there seemed to be an assumption that as three 18 year olds had the nerve to sit at the bar of a five star hotel, we must be someone important and were treated as such by the staff. We stayed out until like 3am - early by Cairo standards, and got a taxi back to the hotel. A classy end to a very busy day.

Me and Tom at the Four Seasons

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It is now November and Overlord is long gone. For the last few months I have been restlessly working to earn money for a few more adventures over the coming ‘gap’ year. I am hoping that gap is a rubbish way of describing the coming year as I am intent upon it being very well filled. The first part of this filling the gap comes in the form of a 10 day trip to Egypt. For all of you avid Overlord followers who witnessed the dramatic cliffhanger in Ljubljana which left me without a passport, I am pleased to tell you that I have a new one. I have to say that Egypt hadn’t particularly occurred to me as a destination and the principle reason for my travelling there is that I have a friend out there already. Tom, of being hit by a branch through the train door fame, is currently in Alexandria teaching English and will be our in country rendezvous. I say we because I shall have an accomplice for my trip - Danni Swinburne for all those who don’t know.

After Overlord, a name which was originally a joke between me and Daniel in the common room, stuck so emphatically to our interrailing in Europe this summer, (www.overlord2010.blogspot.com) I wanted to try and think of a catchy title for this trip. At first Operation Pharaohlord/Overpharaoah seemed promising, until I decided it sounded ridiculous and realized that perhaps the trip didn’t suit a nickname. The blog, however, needed a title and this would have to incorporate something Egyptian, with the fact we are going in winter, with a bit of Britishness and this of course led to Ice Cold in Alex. For those of you who don’t know, this is a fiction book written about a group of British soldiers in World War Two who are stranded in the Egyptian desert and spend a lot of time thinking about having an ice cold beer in Alexandria when they find civilization again. It is tenuous and nowhere near as catchy as Overlord, but it will do until I can think of something better. At the very least, my name is Alex and I am so cool I am ice cold. Or something.

I have, of course, planned the trip extensively. We depart on the 14th November from Heathrow to Cairo and arrive back from Luxor on the 24th November. We are lucky that at the start of November, Easyjet opened up a route from Gatwick to Luxor which is a third of the price of British Airways/BMI/Egyptian Airways, who have up until now held the monopoly on flights to Egypt. There is a good chance that it will open up the country to budget travel. At the moment, the itinerary is thus:

14th Nov to 18th Nov - Cairo

The Pyramids at Giza, Cairo

18th Nov to 20th Nov - Alexandria OR one of the Oases

Alexandria Harbour

Siwa Oasis

20th Nov to 24th Nov - Luxor

Hatshepsut’s Mortuary Temple, Luxor

Having said that Egypt hadn't occurred to me as a destination, there isn’t really a good reason why not. As Lonely Planet points out, tourists have been arriving in Egypt for thousands of years - thinking about it, there are few cities in the world that evoke such feelings on interest and exoticism as Cairo. For the modern tourist it has everything - some of the most famous sites in the world (including the only remaining wonder of the ancient world), a culture that is very different to the west, a wonderful warm winter climate and, from what I gather, enough chaos that to plan and pull off a trip there should give a real feeling of achievement. Out of my travels to date, I feel that this trip is the most challenging. It isn’t as long and complex as Overlord, or as dangerous as Costa Rica, but we are truly going to be a lot more isolated in Egypt - with neighboring countries of Libya, Sudan, Israel and Palestine, it is clear that this region of the world is one of the most volatile. I say that I think we will feel isolated because of the language gap - Arabic is so completely different to English that it will be impossible to translate any signs in Arabic script. I am hoping that the English (and more recently Americans) have had enough of an imprint for multi-language signs to be common.

The hotel in Cairo is very budget - it costs £3 per night per person, but it has very favourable reviews (apart from a few which say there tend to be a lot of dead cats around, but some people are just overly negative). In Luxor we are going a bit more upmarket (to £15 per person per night) and this will get us a hotel with a rooftop swimming pool and a Nile view balcony. Our primary means of travel around the country is the railway system, a remnant of the British colonial days. The trains apparently have three classes, appropraitely named first, second and third. A third class ticket from Cairo to Alexandria costs about 50p, A first class ticket costs about £5. As I say, there is definitely the potential for shoestring budget travelers to start arriving here. There is a gap between Cairo and Luxor which is, painfully for me, as yet unplanned. What we do in these few days will be decided when we are in country. The original plan was to spend some time with Tom in Alexandria, but it now looks like he will join us for the whole trip and he says there isn’t much point in going there, so who knows where we will end up. We depart in just over a week’s time. See you in Cairo.

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