A church a temple and a mosque

This is a photo of the mini-bus that we had for a couple of days. With this mini-bus we had 2 drivers, a guide, an Egyptologist and an armed guard. I didn't want to mention the armed guard until we were back in the UK. My parents were worried enough by our going. That information would have sent them into orbit.

After the Luxor massacre in 1997, the Egyptian government put an armed guard in every tour bus containing western tourists. This isn't widely publicised as the government naturally doesn't want to freak tourists out. It may put people coming to Egypt to see these wonders if they know that they'll be under armed guard. In any case our guides and guards were very pleasant and helpful men.

This donkey cart with its load of melons was clippity cloping right past our hotel in the morning. The Man of the Place ran half way down the block to get this shot (what a hero!).

We visited The Hanging Church in Cairo. Doorway pictured above. A beautiful orthodox or coptic church right in the centre of the city. I was told that 20% of the Egyptian population is Christian. There was a ceremony going on while we were there so we didn't go in, but the children singing was beautiful. Lots of shiny little oil crosses on the foreheads of the children a little while later.

We got a lecture on the journey of the Holy Family in Egypt. They had been reputed to stay in the basement of the Jewish temple that we visited. I have since forgotten every word of this particular part of the tour. I really wish I took notes sometimes, but I was there as a tourist and not a journalist. I can always look it up later. So can you if you're interested.

This is a mosaic that is in the courtyard of the church. I noted the stuff for sale in the church's own bookshop and souvenir stall. I really really really wanted the glow in the dark Madonna, but I resisted. I wish I hadn't now. That aside, one of the things that I liked seeing were the children's bible story books in Arabic.

The Annunciation.

The loaves and fishes (always a crowd pleaser).

And the Nativity with the Three Wise Men on the cover.

This is the beautiful courtyard of the Coptic or Orthodox church. You can see the parishioners spilling out after the service. I was glad I wore some sleeves and a long skirt. Vicky and Emily had to cover up here and at the mosque.

Here is a shot of The Man of the Place as he ambles down an atmosphere laden alley. This alley is near the only Jewish Temple in Cairo. No cameras are allowed near it and it is heavily guarded.

Then it was on to the Citadel of Salah al-Din or as we know him Saladin, famed fighter of Richard the Lionhearted et al during the crusades.

Here is his beautiful mosque on the hill overlooking all of Cairo. It was a oasis of calm in the middle of a dirty and busy metropolis.

Here are some views from the Citadel:

The Pyramids. Just think, those pyramids pre-date this mosque. You've always been able to see them from this vantage point. I liked to imagine how the Cairo between the Citadel and the pyramids has changed over the centuries. Wars, more wars and earthquakes. Let's hope those pyramids and the Citadel stay standing as Cairo and the world keeps changing.

Cairo

Our guard, George and the Egyptologist

On to lunch on the Nile again. Woo hoo!

One Night in Cairo

After the Pyramids and the Sphink-ess we were taken to our hotel. We stayed at the Europa Hotel in Giza. We were told that it was a 5 star hotel but I think that Cairo 5 star and our version of 5 star vary widely. I think they've got a way to go before they reach the lofty heights that a Four Seasons Hotel reaches.

This is the front of the hotel with its security guard and metal detectors.

We were greeted warmly and given a glass of the lovely hibiscus tea that they're all so fond of. While we were waiting, I watched an insect (you know which insect I'm talking about) walk across the lobby's marble floor. This is what I told myself; It was only for one night. We really are getting a bargain. Ignore the bug. We are having an adventure. What's an adventure without a little adversity?

We were taken to our rooms - adjoining rooms with Vicky and Emily - on the 8th floor. We were more excited about that than the worn out rooms themselves. Hey, the sheets were clean! The speaker for one of the mosques was directly across the road from our windows. I mean a real direct shot. We got all the calls to prayer (exotic!).

The best part was what we could see from our windows: The Pyramids! Woo hoo! I had to lean out of the window a bit to get the picture, but you can see them as plain as plain.

We could see other things from the window that weren't as picturesque.

Here is Emily watching the traffic.
Believe it or not, this place has a pool up on the roof. From the looks of the place, it must have been a very fine hotel at one point.

We could also see that there was not only a building site next door, but an odd water garden situation as well. If anybody knows what this is, could you let me know?

The traffic on the busy street down on the ground kept on with its symphony of horns. Egyptian drivers use their car horn as turn indicators and to let other drivers know that they are there. This means that they honk all the time. To let you know how nuts the traffic is get this; When Vicky, Emily, George and I were going to go to a shop across the road, one of the bell boys at the hotel, horrified at the thought that we'd go unaccompanied, insisted that he help us across and back again. It was an ordeal and one that Vicky stated that she would NOT be repeating again in her lifetime.

That evening we went to a nice restaurant near the area where the pyramids are. It took about 15 minutes by taxi and that was really really scary. I realized that Egyptian taxis have a much smaller sense of space than I do. I ended up closing my eyes as my flinching wasn't helping the situation. After dinner the taxi ride was even longer as the traffic at 10 pm was worse! Go figure.

The Pyramids and the Sphink-ess

Giza may have been a separate town at one point, it is now a district stuck onto the side of Cairo. It is home to one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The Great Pyramids of Giza.

Did you know that there are a whole lot more pyramids than these at Giza? There are 108 in Egypt all together. See how much you learn when you have your Own Private Egyptologist.

After we left lunch, we crossed back over the river in our bus and drove into Giza. As we were all excitedly chatting away, our guide casually says, "I think you can see the pyramids from here." All western conversation stopped and I grabbed the camera.
Here is our first sighting. You can kinda see one peeking out from behind that building. We were SO excited about this. Let me say a couple of things about visiting the pyramids.
1. It's HOT. Wear loose cotton or linen that covers your arms.
2. People will try to sell you stuff. Just ignore them unless you really want papyrus or a model of the sphink-ess.
3. Don't forget your camera because it is great!
4. Americans will constantly be reminded of the one dollar bill but won't mention it to their non-American companions.

The pyramids used to have a beautiful smooth covering of limestone, but the limestone facing fell off. There's still a chunk left on the top of one plus a little bit left at the bottom.
This is the bit left at the bottom.

We actually went into one of them. It was really hot and close. You had to bend over the whole way down and back up again. It was a bit claustrophobic and again cameras weren't allowed. I'm glad I did it because I don't have to do it again. That's another box ticked. We went over to the area where everybody has that photo taken of them touching the top of one of the pyramids. Here is beautiful Emily doing her part for tourism.

Neck-est was the Sphink-ess.

A great deal of damage has been done to the Sphink-ess by visitors. The first to do a big chunk of damage was Napoleon. He shot the ceremonial beard off the face of the Sphink-ess. The British Army used it for target as well at some point. In any case, the fact that it is looking so rough is not his/her fault.

The temple that is just beneath/in front of the Sphink-ess is spectacular. We were amazed at the engineering - all done without the aid of powertools. I mean LOOK! It's amazing! This is a shot that either I or Henry took. We both seperately took a photo of the same corner of the temple.

Into the City of Cairo

The first thing one notices on the journey into Cairo is the traffic. It puts Sharm El Sheikh taxi drivers in perspective and shows them to be peach faced youths in comparison to these drivers.

One of the first things we are shown by Our Own Private Egyptologist is this beautiful building. It is the first mosque to be built in Africa.

We go straight to the Egpytian Museum and a look around the treasures there. Photographs weren't allowed in the museum so there are no pictures of us next to desicated mummies or us pretending to be Pharohs in the museum. That didn't happen anyway, we behaved ourselves perfectly. We have, as a result of our trip to this museum, changed the way we pronounce things. It must be the way that Egyptians learn to speak our language or something but the way our guide and Egyptologist said Sphinx and text came out as "sphink-es" and " teck-est" We continued to refer to the Sphinx as the Sphink-es for the remainder of the holiday, much to George's irritation.

After the Egyptian Museum, we went to lunch ON THE NILE. My impressions of the Nile as it runs through Cairo are that this is a VERY clean river. People still fish, wash and do their laundry in this water. There are no rivery smells and it comes across as a beautiful passage through the city. This is a building on an island in the middle of the river. I can't remember what this building is, but we told George that it was the monkey island. I'm sure the building has something to do with the former British occupation of Egypt.

This is a couple that were fishing together.

Some laundry drying and a picture to show you how clean it was. One guide (not ours) dipped his hand in and took a drink. I recognised one of the weeds growing in the water. It was cambomba, something I purchased reguarlary for my aquarium at home. Cool!

Our lunch was on at a riverside restaurant and not actually ON the Nile. It was still lovely and cool.

Its me looking more than a little bit rumpled. Hat on for protection from the beating sun and the ever present bottle of water on the table in front of me.

Side Trip to Cairo

We booked our holiday to Egypt with the purpose of getting in some diving in the Red Sea. Before we left the UK we arranged for 10 days of diving in the 14 days that we were there. Just to cram more into the holiday, we also wanted to get up to Cairo to visit the Egyptian Museum and Giza to see the Pyramids and the Sphinx.

Every holiday company going has their own excursions within Egypt and the Red Sea region. There was an excursion to Petra in Jordan available, but as war broke out between Israel and Lebanon while we were there, that just wasn't an option. We ended up only having time for a side trip to Cairo.

As seasoned travellers we knew that even though the big holiday companies have their excursions to local sites, you can always arrange the same trips on your own for much less money. This is what The Man of the Place did. He made arrangements for the five of us to go by bus to Cairo. The cost was £80 per person. This included the coach to Cairo, an Egyptologist to guide us, entry into the Egyptian Museum (Tutankhamen’s death mask etc . . .) and entry to the Pyramids and the Sphinx, a night's accommodation in a "5 star" hotel, breakfast and lunches on the Nile, trip to the central market/bazaar in Cairo the next day, and then back to Sharm El Sheik. If we wanted, we could have all of this plus the luxury of our own private mini-bus for an extra £10 per person. Private it is then!

If we wanted to squeeze everything in, it meant that we were going to arrive in Cairo in the morning. Its about 6 hours by road, so our bus met us at the Cleopatra hotel at 2 am. Bit of an early start by anyone's standards.

We were ready for our breakfast just as the sun came up. Like magic there seemed to be an Egyptian roadside cafe and shop plunked down in the middle of nowhere at the perfect place for a sunrise breakfast.

Henry wanted falafel but was told that they were out. Falafel seemed to feature heavily in Henry's plans for the entire holiday. They did however have fouls (beans) and Henry promptly ordered that. The rest of us had the safer option of coffee and toast. Surprisingly they had some western style sliced bread. Sadly Henry's beans fell way short of the mark. They looked like plain boiled beans with oil poured over the top. We all laughed as we watched Henry seemingly poison himself. He didn't finish them. The above photo was taken by the manager of this roadside establishment. (George was sleeping in the bus.)

Mom, I am wearing that linen shirt you gave me. It was great for preventing sunburn, even though the sun wasn't quite up yet. I wore it a lot.

I was hoping to see desert wildlife, but I was denied. There was nothing to see. We did see a few tethered camels and donkeys on the way up, but that was about it.

We also came into contact with some Egyptian cats. They look so different to the farm cats around here. For one, they're really skinny. They also have very long tails and big ears.

I was looking in the little roadside shop before we continued our journey to get crisps or cheese puffs or something and came across BOREOS! I wonder if there is any connection to the famous Oreo? They are chocolate cookies with a creamy centre but they're just not the same as our own familiar Oreo.

George says they taste "okay".

We travelled along a road that parallels the Gulf of Suez for a long while. There were oil rigs and loads of huge super tankers floating along on the water. Henry slept through most of it. He also slept through the refuelling stop we made. To be fair, he was on his holidays and we had a very early start. He missed this. The laundry drying in the wind right next to the petrol station.

He also missed the great bargain we were getting with the fuel. I can't figure out whether we bought 43.37 litres of fuel for 72.28 Egyptian Pounds OR 72.28 litres of fuel for 43.37. Usually its the amount of fuel on the top with the price underneath. We probably bought 43 litres of fuel and paid £6.83 for it. Do they know how we dream of those prices. To be fair, the fuel has not travelled very far. Purchasing petroleum products at source would be naturally be cheaper.

Next stop - Cairo! I'm so excited!

Our Hotel

We stayed at the Cleopatra Hotel the two weeks we were in Egypt. Now I will state that the reason we chose this hotel was because it wasn't the most expensive hotel on offer. In fact, it was just one step up in price from the un-air conditioned accommodation. We weren't expecting great things from this hotel as it was such a bargain. I must admit that even though there were some signs of gentle wear and odd decor, we were pleased with the place.

The staff bent over backwards to be helpful to us. Nothing was too much trouble. It seemed that they had a genuine desire to make our stay pleasant.

This is Vicky and the hotel "entertainer" Alex. He organized the music, games in the pool and in the evening he ran bingo or karaoke. Despite the cheesy wacky exterior, he was a well educated and interesting man (degree in sports technology from University of Cairo). He was brilliant with the children and teenagers, remembering all their names and keeping them happy so that the parents could relax by the pool or at the pool side bar.
This is Mohammed, one of the very efficient waiters. He kept George supplied with coke and orange pop. George at the pool side bar with water, Coke and Fanta - shown written in Arabic. By the way, George says that the Coke tastes exactly the same but the orange Fanta is a bit different but not so different that he didn't stop drinking it.

One of the nice surprises was the attention that our rooms got each day from the cleaning staff. All the toiletries would be lined up carefully next to the bathroom sink and sometimes they would make things with our bath towels and decorate them with flowers. . .

They made a crocodile, using the tips of Henry's travel tool set for teeth. Unfortunately George got his head stuck in the croc's mouth.

Glad to be back at home

I thought I'd take a break from the (belated and backdated) holiday blogs to say that I am quite happy to be back at home again. For one, the temperature is a normal sort of warm rather than a quite lethal and unrelenting dry heat. Our house doesn't have air conditioning and we don't need it, this being Scotland. I will say that we about froze at the airport. The temperature when we left Sharm El Sheikh was about 43 C (109 F) and when we landed in Manchester the pilot said it was 16 or 17 C (60 - 62 F). The pilot was a bit off though. The thermostat in the car on the drive back home said that the outside temperature was 11 and 12 C (51 to 53 F).

We can also brush our teeth and drink the tap water with impunity. Making sure that we've got enough water with us was something we got used to as the taps were not for drinking water. To top it all off we can flush the toilet paper again. Egypt like Greece has a rule that you have to put the toilet paper in a little bin by the side of the toilet rather than casually dropping it in the water after use as we westerners do. (This is the part of the story where my niece Annie will say "Eww!")

I must say that my dear friend Helen did one terrific job of tending things while we were away. Everything is thriving! Now that I've done the mowing and a bit of weeding, I thought I'd share what's going on.

The tomatoes are fruiting like mad. I've never had trusses with as many tomatoes on them. These are the plum tomatoes.

These are the beans, happily running up their canes. Just before I left I planted some orphan marigolds along the edge of the garden. They're doing well too.

Here are the sweet peas. Again, I have planted too many plants per wigwam forgetting that when sweet peas get into their stride they are very vigorous. I may have to buy some more vases to keep the bounty of sweet pea flowers in.

The hedge gets cut next month and it really needs it, doesn't it?

The hanging basket by the back door seems to be at its peak. I think it looks beautiful.

Here is the biggest surprise that greeted us on our return from our travels. The stone wall was built! This is a dry stone wall meaning that there isn't a single bit of concrete holding this wall up. If kept properly it will last for hundreds of years.

You can see the now redundant wood fence leaning unwanted against the house. I wonder if we can reuse it somewhere else. . . .

Aunt Vicky and Cousin Emily

Two days in to our holiday we were joined by Henry's sister Victoria and her seventeen year old daughter Emily.

One evening we had drinks at a place overlooking Naama Bay in Sharm El Sheikh. If you look past V & E you can see the Sinai mountains.Here is a better shot of the mountains as seen from our comfy vantage point. I don't know which one of these is the famous Mount Sinai of Ten Commandments fame, but it's in this range somewhere. I've never seen a starker more bare bunch of mountains. There is nothing green on them at all. Climbing them would be an exercise in skinned knees. I can't imagine dragging the twelve tribes of Israel across them.

Interesting fact: The arabic word for teeth is sina. The mountains and indeed the whole region are named after these mountains that look like teeth.

Taxi story #1

When one arrives in Egypt you have to be on your toes, especially if you have to take a taxi from the airport. I would recommend arranging to have a car sent from your hotel even if you think it is a bit pricey. Egyptian taxis are scary and the Cairo ones are the scariest of all. There seems to be a lesser degree of insanity with cars associated with or linked to hotels. Thankfully as we booked a package holiday there was a mini bus waiting for us and all our luggage when we arrived.

There was also a courtesy minibus for the trips from the hotel to the dive centre so we avoided taxis then too. Our first experience with a taxi was coming home from the dive centre to our hotel. The courtesy bus wasn't going to be doing its run for a bit and we were tired, ready to get back to our air conditioned room. We thought a taxi would be the most convenient.

Henry walked over to the informal taxi rank on the road in front of the dive centre to discuss the price to carry us back to the hotel. The driver and H agreed that 40 Egyptian pounds (about £4 UK pounds) to take us back to our hotel. After we got in and were up the road a way, the driver restated the price as 40 Egyptian pounds PER PERSON. There was an immediate argument and Henry demanded that the driver stop the taxi. In the end the driver delivered us to our hotel for the original 40 Egyptian pounds but was sulky about it. We felt bad too, like we were being taken advantage of on our first day. It was a bit of a squeeze getting in and out of this rickety old blue and white taxi and I was in a big hurry to get out of it after the unpleasant and hot ride to our hotel.

It wasn't until we got into the hotel that we discovered what a misadventure we were having. I had left our camera in the taxi!

Now normally, the Olympus camera that I use for blogging, taking family snaps etc... has a nice long strap. The strap is always around my neck if the camera is in use. This winter we sprang for the underwater housing produced by Olympus for our model of digital camera. You can see from the previous blog entry that I can get fair results from the camera at moderate depths. But to get the digital camera into the underwater housing you have to unbuckle the strap. See where I am going with this?

We had been using the camera that afternoon in its new underwater housing. After diving we wanted to show each other and other divers the photographs we had taken so took the camera out of its underwater housing. In the cab, the housing was in my backpack and the camera was in my lap. I must have set it next to me when getting in or out of this taxi and forgotten it. I felt just awful. When it dawned on me what had happened I had the biggest heart-sink moment in years. I have become attached to this camera in my day to day bloggy life. Not only that, we had this really expensive underwater housing that was only good for the model of camera that we now no longer have.

I called the dive centre right away, thinking that perhaps this taxi driver was well known and could be contacted to see if the camera is still in the back of his taxi. No luck. It was gone. We were already putting the snappy housing up for auction on e-bay in our minds.

The following day after our now camera free dives we went to go speak to some of the other taxi drivers in this makeshift taxi rank. One of the drivers who had taken a shine to young George the day before remembered whose taxi we had employed and knew the driver. He phoned the driver right away. The driver had not seen the camera. Never mind it was worth a try. Before we left we said to the guy who had phoned his pal our taxi driver that there was now a reward of £50 British pounds or 500 Egyptian pounds for the return of the camera. Loud protestations were next. The taxi driver was a good Muslim and wouldn't keep a camera that wasn't his! We tried to explain that we weren't accusing anybody of keeping our lost camera we just wanted to make it worth it to them to look a little harder. You know, check under the seats an extra time.

I want to say at this point I'm starting to feel pretty bad. Not only was there the misunderstanding about the fare yesterday that could have been our fault for not making things crystal clear before we stepped into the taxi, but now it seems as though we are accusing these hard working drivers of theft. We go back to our hotel after the second day in Egypt feeling just a little worse about the situation.

The next morning as we come down to the hotel reception the desk clerk says that there is a message for us. Our camera has been discovered and the driver has left his number! We are overjoyed. All those great pictures from the beginning of our holiday will be saved and I won't have to learn how to use a new camera. The underwater housing can stay in our possession too . .. This is great!

The hotel clerk speaks to the taxi driver and says that he will be at the hotel at 11:00 am to return our camera to us.

Fair is fair, I get 500 Egyptian pounds and I go out to the front of the hotel, standing by the armed hotel security guard and wait for this nice taxi driver. The driver shows up very promptly and after first checking that I wasn't kidding about the reward shows me our camera that has been carefully wrapped in tissues and placed in the glove compartment of his taxi. I am quite relieved to get the camera back and happily hand over his reward.

The camera back in our possession, I start to walk back to the hotel. The driver then asks me to give him 200 more Egyptian pounds to reimburse him for his drive out to the hotel. Hmmm. I tell him that I don't have my handbag (which I really don't have with me) and I have no more money. He asks that perhaps I could reimburse him tomorrow at the dive centre if I am going to be there at the normal time. I am rapidly starting to think that this guy is one big chancer. I nod some sort of half agreement as I check to see that the memory card and batteries are in the camera and get back to the hotel.

I meet Henry in the lobby of the hotel, holding the long lost camera in my hand. It is when we start to show somebody our dive photos from our first day that get a little surprise.

This is a photo of a mosque under construction in Sharm el Sheikh. We didn't take this picture. This is a picture of somebody's denim clad lap. We all think it is far too hot for jeans. Who's lap might this be?
Here is a picture of some Egyptian person that we don't know. Hmmm
Wait a minute! I recognise this person in the yellow shirt. It is the taxi driver in whose taxi I left our camera. The same guy who found our camera after a reward was offered.

As these photos were taken in the late afternoon, he had obviously found our camera right away and started snapping. There are some small digital video clips too. Nothing interesting. Just somebody fiddling with buttons that they don't understand. My feeling bad about the fare misunderstanding of the first day and my guilt at almost accusing him of theft by offering a reward has vanished. I almost can't wait for him to ask me for more money tomorrow. Little chancer.

It turns out that taxi drivers in Sharm El Sheik have been known to charge new holiday makers, easily spotted by their whiter than white northern skin, well over the odds for first rides from the airport and for taxis to the hotel after first nights out. One poor couple from Huntington, North Yorkshire paid 500 Egyptian pounds for their first ride to the hotel when a 25 pound ride is what is listed (private cars are more).

Henry and I got savvy very quickly. If a taxi driver doesn't want to take us to our hotel for 20 Egyptian pounds, there will be another taxi driver that will and they know it. We didn't even have to haggle, just turn around and start walking towards another driver and they snapped in line.

Please know that during our stay we met many very very nice drivers and we tipped very generously whenever we had good and friendly service, with or without air conditioning. This joker (pictured above) was merely an exception.

*The second driver that had phoned the joker on our behalf also came looking for a reward just for making the call - jeeze louise! Talk about taking your eyes out and coming back later for the sockets!