Looks like meat's back on the menu, boys!
Showing posts with label photos. Show all posts
Showing posts with label photos. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
A Typical New Vitality Day
That's Miss Orange Gina Felina enjoying the northwest corner of our bad garden. It's deceiving, and makes it look like the emphasis should be on garden and not on bad. I might add that contributing to the badness is her and Vivani's habit of pooping in any patch of open dirt.
That's Condiment Man waiting for me to sluice off the grime before we eat dinner. You can tell we're from Berkeley by the twelve varieties of tea in our cupboard and the eighty-three jars and bottles of condiments on hand. Around-the-world dining!
Dang. Raining again.Friday, May 02, 2008
Going to Egypt pt XII
An early-morning flight back to Cairo. The staff of the Hamees hands us breakfast boxes for the trip, we say our thanks and hand out our tips and drive off in the dark.
Amgat, our Egyptologist guide and our driver, Ali, are waiting for us as we exit the airport. We have to hurry, Amgat says, because he has secured us tickets to go inside the pyramid of Cheops. W00t!
No cameras inside, so you'll just have to go and see it for yourselves. Because we got there so early we practically had the place to ourselves. Awesome. I even had the space to slide down the long bannister leading from the King's Chamber to the Queen's Chamber on my arms.
No cameras inside the Egyptian Museum, so no pictures there, either. But it, too, was bitchin'. After the museum we went to a couple of bookstores Amgat thought we might like. I don't remember, as I was getting pretty tired by that point. Which is too bad, because this party of adventures really likes its books. Don and Amgat even get into a "my library is bigger than yours" boasting match.
I do remember the mad dash through traffic in the very large Midan Tahrir rotary to reach one of the bookstores. That woke me up! I thought Glenn was going to cry, and I'm a little surprised we didn't get splatted. But the traffic is so friendly! I saw someone on a motorbike hit a pedestrian—didn't knock him down, just bumped him good—and nobody got hostile or batted an eye, just went about their business.
That's me and Ali, our bestest driver ever. And he proved it, too, on our very long day in Alexandria. I think it was a 14-hour day for us, and after dropping us off at our hotel at the end of it Ali then had to drive home! But on the early-morning drive across the desert to Alexandria we were all perky and eager to be heading to the jewel of the ancient world. Most of which is no longer in existence, but we were gonna see what we can, and at least say, Hey we've been to Alex.
Throughout the two-plus hour drive, we passed dovecotes, some large, some small, incorporated onto roofs. Greg tried one for dinner one night. A lot of work for not much meat, was his opinion.
And then there were structures like this...I still don't know what it was, but if I saw this in Mexico I would've found out! Of course, Mexico has a more relaxed attitude toward the unexpected than the Egyptian tourist police.
One of the charming things about Alexandria is the Ptolemaic- and Roman-era artwork, a pastiche of Egyptian, Greek, and Roman iconography. Like this Set (?) beast dressed as a Roman.
There's a tiny entrance to a hidden room...quick! Where's Short Round? D'oh! She's holding the camera.
I could kick myself for not thinking of this at the time and making a movie of this, so we are stuck with a photo our the windshield of our tourvan. We are driving down one of Alex's narrow, crowded streets. The street is full of people, and a souk filling the sidewalk on our right. D'oh! Here comes one of Alexandria's charming streetcars—and we are driving on its tracks. So of course Ali nudges the wheel and we start driving on the sidewalk, slowly, as the souk vendors grab their tables and hustle out of our way. It was like being in the Bluesmobile as it drove through the mall in "Blues Brothers," but with a different soundtrack.
The tombs of Anfouchy, and the last photo I took in Egypt before boarding a plane the next day and flying home to San Francisco.
It's been a month and a half and I'm still sorting out in my head all that we saw. The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt is helping, as is going through all these photos. Sigh. Travel rocks.
I'm thinking about where I want to go next year. Maybe Iceland, or back to Oaxaca.
Amgat, our Egyptologist guide and our driver, Ali, are waiting for us as we exit the airport. We have to hurry, Amgat says, because he has secured us tickets to go inside the pyramid of Cheops. W00t!
No cameras inside, so you'll just have to go and see it for yourselves. Because we got there so early we practically had the place to ourselves. Awesome. I even had the space to slide down the long bannister leading from the King's Chamber to the Queen's Chamber on my arms.No cameras inside the Egyptian Museum, so no pictures there, either. But it, too, was bitchin'. After the museum we went to a couple of bookstores Amgat thought we might like. I don't remember, as I was getting pretty tired by that point. Which is too bad, because this party of adventures really likes its books. Don and Amgat even get into a "my library is bigger than yours" boasting match.
I do remember the mad dash through traffic in the very large Midan Tahrir rotary to reach one of the bookstores. That woke me up! I thought Glenn was going to cry, and I'm a little surprised we didn't get splatted. But the traffic is so friendly! I saw someone on a motorbike hit a pedestrian—didn't knock him down, just bumped him good—and nobody got hostile or batted an eye, just went about their business.
That's me and Ali, our bestest driver ever. And he proved it, too, on our very long day in Alexandria. I think it was a 14-hour day for us, and after dropping us off at our hotel at the end of it Ali then had to drive home! But on the early-morning drive across the desert to Alexandria we were all perky and eager to be heading to the jewel of the ancient world. Most of which is no longer in existence, but we were gonna see what we can, and at least say, Hey we've been to Alex.
Throughout the two-plus hour drive, we passed dovecotes, some large, some small, incorporated onto roofs. Greg tried one for dinner one night. A lot of work for not much meat, was his opinion.
And then there were structures like this...I still don't know what it was, but if I saw this in Mexico I would've found out! Of course, Mexico has a more relaxed attitude toward the unexpected than the Egyptian tourist police.
One of the charming things about Alexandria is the Ptolemaic- and Roman-era artwork, a pastiche of Egyptian, Greek, and Roman iconography. Like this Set (?) beast dressed as a Roman.
There's a tiny entrance to a hidden room...quick! Where's Short Round? D'oh! She's holding the camera.
I could kick myself for not thinking of this at the time and making a movie of this, so we are stuck with a photo our the windshield of our tourvan. We are driving down one of Alex's narrow, crowded streets. The street is full of people, and a souk filling the sidewalk on our right. D'oh! Here comes one of Alexandria's charming streetcars—and we are driving on its tracks. So of course Ali nudges the wheel and we start driving on the sidewalk, slowly, as the souk vendors grab their tables and hustle out of our way. It was like being in the Bluesmobile as it drove through the mall in "Blues Brothers," but with a different soundtrack.
The tombs of Anfouchy, and the last photo I took in Egypt before boarding a plane the next day and flying home to San Francisco.It's been a month and a half and I'm still sorting out in my head all that we saw. The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt is helping, as is going through all these photos. Sigh. Travel rocks.
I'm thinking about where I want to go next year. Maybe Iceland, or back to Oaxaca.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Going to Egypt pt XI
Just one of many particularly nice carvings in the temple complex on Philae.
Only in Egypt, land of monumental architecture, would this building be called a kiosk. That's the lake, just visible behind Trajan's Kiosk, and under the trees to the right was a little souk and refreshment area.
That, my friends, is a felucca, sitting just offshore where our motorboat will leave us to our camelling. The bluff behind the felucca is riddled with tombs. By landing at the Noble's Tombs, we took the long way 'round to the monastery, about half an hour or so of blissful desert riding.
Oh, yeah! That's Don, still in his hat, and our two police escorts, toting guns and pretty bored by the whole thing. But good-natured and chatty. You get on a camel while it's kneeling; when they stand up it's like being on a bucking horse.
Me and my camel shadow.
Greg's got the camera now: that's Don, me, and one of the guys who owns the camels we're riding. I didn't realize it at the time, but I had the rattiest-looking camel ever. I also noticed that the camels ridden by the owners were stylin', with geometric designs cut into the camel's hair. But tourists? We got the hoopdies.
And this is what we missed by taking the long way 'round: a freeway of camels ambling to the monastery and back. And this shot is after we'd started to string out a bit so the press wasn't as thick as it was leaving the monastery.Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Friday, April 11, 2008
Going to Egypt pt IX
After a long day at the Valley of the Kings, the Temple of Hatshepsut, Deir el-Bahari, and the Colossi of Memnon, we are lounging on the sun deck of the Hamees, our floating hotel for the next three days. It felt good to unpack, although while we're tied up we keep our curtains drawn, as the busy street running along the Nile is about even with our stateroom window.
On the top deck, the sun deck, we have a wading pool, a bar, a ping-pong table under a shade awning, and dozens of lounge chairs and little round tables. Most of the chairs are in direct sun—fine, I suppose, for the Europeans sprawled in their swimsuits. And they don't seem to be able to get enough of it. The Taiwanese group stakes out the ping-pong table. We resort to dragging chairs around to follow the shade and sipping karkadet and playing senet.
The reception area, some shops, a sometimes smoky bar, and most of the staterooms are in the middle two decks. The lowest deck is the restaurant. The meals are almost all buffet-style (and the one that wasn't was a set course). Come to think of it, all the meals we've had in Egypt have either been buffet or set-course. (When we return to Cairo and try to order off a menu in the hotel's restaurant we realize why this is: the language barrier was too great, and picture menus are apparently unknown in Egypt. It was not our best meal.)
Continental cuisine is the chef's strong suit, and everybody's happy with what's being offered, though we all avoid the fresh salad. And enough Egyptian foods are included in the spread so that I feel like I'm at least getting the tiniest taste of local food. So it's yougurt and cucumbers and tomatoes and falafel and foul for breakfast (for me; everyone else ate muesli or pancakes and eggs).
The cucumbers and tomatoes reappear at lunch and dinner, along with pasta, a couple of meat dishes like chicken thighs or carved turkey, a fish dish, overcooked (German-style?) vegetables, and a large and elaborate table of desserts. Good fucking Christ. Stuck on a boat that serves three buffet meals a day with all the dessert you can eat. I desperately stick to using small salad plates to slow my blimpage.
More language-barrier fun. A couple of times Chef served up a fish dish that was the whole fish, from which he would carve you out a chunk. The Taiwanese were very enthusiastic about this, but could not get Chef to understand that they really wanted the cheeks. I saw one battle of the wills where the woman kept pointing at the head of the fish, the Chef shake his head NO, offer her some side meat, and the woman in turn shaking her head NO and stomping off.
But I spent most of my onboard time on the sun deck, all covered up, playing games and sipping Saqqara beer, or standing at the rail and watching the countryside slide by, sometimes green and inviting, sometimes with the cliffs right down to the Nile with sand blowing into the water. Farmers, fisherman, birds, donkeys, cattle, camels, everyone going about their day while we chugged past in the heat of the day.
One afternoon the Hamees paused in her motoring, waiting our turn to go through the locks at Edfu, when we began to be bombarded with plastic bag-wrapped goods hurled up and over the railing and onto the sun deck. I got up from our senet game to peer down below: masses of rickety rowboats crowded among the floating hotels, and the men and women and children in the rowboats were heaving cheap tourist goods, rugs and shawls and shirts, up onto the boats to the tourists in hopes that they would in turn hurl money down into the rowboats. Nothing doing, pal! I picked up a few of the bags closest to our table and threw them into the drifting rowboats below. Direct hit! Score!
Mostly, though, we relaxed and ate and watched the world go by. We did stop one day and excurse to Kom Ombo, a fine ruin but notable in my mind as our hottest day in Egypt, about 104 or so. Hot enough that I started to droop by the end of our visit to Kom Ombo. Back to the boat for another Saqqara!
[Speaking of hot, it was so hot in Arcata today that I was down to a t-shirt and shorts while delivering mail. That's right! No hat, no second pair of socks, no capilene or hoodie. So how hot is that? 74 degrees—we were roasting.]
Folks out collecting the day's labor from a marsh alongside their village. At this point I was still playing around with my new camera, and you've already heard me say I'm not the world's greatest photographer, but the haze isn't because of me or a wonky color profile.
We heaved a big sigh of relief when we left ultra-polluted Cairo behind, but we ended up trading industrial exhaust for agricultural pollutants—everyone burns their garbage (when they're not dumping it in the Nile) and field stubble. The combination of hot, dry weather and the smell of fires kept the SoCal part of my brain on a constant state of alert. But we couldn't figure out why the air south of Luxor should be so hazy. Until we tasted grit in our mouths and realized the air was also full of sand blowing in off the desert—which you'd be able to see in this photo if the air weren't so polluted.
On the top deck, the sun deck, we have a wading pool, a bar, a ping-pong table under a shade awning, and dozens of lounge chairs and little round tables. Most of the chairs are in direct sun—fine, I suppose, for the Europeans sprawled in their swimsuits. And they don't seem to be able to get enough of it. The Taiwanese group stakes out the ping-pong table. We resort to dragging chairs around to follow the shade and sipping karkadet and playing senet.
The reception area, some shops, a sometimes smoky bar, and most of the staterooms are in the middle two decks. The lowest deck is the restaurant. The meals are almost all buffet-style (and the one that wasn't was a set course). Come to think of it, all the meals we've had in Egypt have either been buffet or set-course. (When we return to Cairo and try to order off a menu in the hotel's restaurant we realize why this is: the language barrier was too great, and picture menus are apparently unknown in Egypt. It was not our best meal.)
Continental cuisine is the chef's strong suit, and everybody's happy with what's being offered, though we all avoid the fresh salad. And enough Egyptian foods are included in the spread so that I feel like I'm at least getting the tiniest taste of local food. So it's yougurt and cucumbers and tomatoes and falafel and foul for breakfast (for me; everyone else ate muesli or pancakes and eggs).
The cucumbers and tomatoes reappear at lunch and dinner, along with pasta, a couple of meat dishes like chicken thighs or carved turkey, a fish dish, overcooked (German-style?) vegetables, and a large and elaborate table of desserts. Good fucking Christ. Stuck on a boat that serves three buffet meals a day with all the dessert you can eat. I desperately stick to using small salad plates to slow my blimpage.
More language-barrier fun. A couple of times Chef served up a fish dish that was the whole fish, from which he would carve you out a chunk. The Taiwanese were very enthusiastic about this, but could not get Chef to understand that they really wanted the cheeks. I saw one battle of the wills where the woman kept pointing at the head of the fish, the Chef shake his head NO, offer her some side meat, and the woman in turn shaking her head NO and stomping off.
But I spent most of my onboard time on the sun deck, all covered up, playing games and sipping Saqqara beer, or standing at the rail and watching the countryside slide by, sometimes green and inviting, sometimes with the cliffs right down to the Nile with sand blowing into the water. Farmers, fisherman, birds, donkeys, cattle, camels, everyone going about their day while we chugged past in the heat of the day.
One afternoon the Hamees paused in her motoring, waiting our turn to go through the locks at Edfu, when we began to be bombarded with plastic bag-wrapped goods hurled up and over the railing and onto the sun deck. I got up from our senet game to peer down below: masses of rickety rowboats crowded among the floating hotels, and the men and women and children in the rowboats were heaving cheap tourist goods, rugs and shawls and shirts, up onto the boats to the tourists in hopes that they would in turn hurl money down into the rowboats. Nothing doing, pal! I picked up a few of the bags closest to our table and threw them into the drifting rowboats below. Direct hit! Score!
Mostly, though, we relaxed and ate and watched the world go by. We did stop one day and excurse to Kom Ombo, a fine ruin but notable in my mind as our hottest day in Egypt, about 104 or so. Hot enough that I started to droop by the end of our visit to Kom Ombo. Back to the boat for another Saqqara!
[Speaking of hot, it was so hot in Arcata today that I was down to a t-shirt and shorts while delivering mail. That's right! No hat, no second pair of socks, no capilene or hoodie. So how hot is that? 74 degrees—we were roasting.]
Folks out collecting the day's labor from a marsh alongside their village. At this point I was still playing around with my new camera, and you've already heard me say I'm not the world's greatest photographer, but the haze isn't because of me or a wonky color profile.We heaved a big sigh of relief when we left ultra-polluted Cairo behind, but we ended up trading industrial exhaust for agricultural pollutants—everyone burns their garbage (when they're not dumping it in the Nile) and field stubble. The combination of hot, dry weather and the smell of fires kept the SoCal part of my brain on a constant state of alert. But we couldn't figure out why the air south of Luxor should be so hazy. Until we tasted grit in our mouths and realized the air was also full of sand blowing in off the desert—which you'd be able to see in this photo if the air weren't so polluted.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Going to Egypt pt VIII
It feels so good to be walking in the desert!
Even if it is a miniscule walk away from the hubbub, one crowded attraction to the next.
I'm chuckling to myself about our group's concern for my safety, about wanting me to take a guide.
Every ten feet or so Ahmad turns around and offers me a piece of his collection of tourist crap. Would I like a book of postcards? (He fans them out.) Cat statue? (Holds it to catch the light.) Scarab? No, no, and no. Do I need to take his hand? (He will treat me like his mother.) No, thank you. I am chugging along right behind him on the crushed limestone trail. I could find my way over this thing without my contacts or glasses. In the dark. There is absolutely nothing to obscure the path. Up, over, down.
We reach the top of the ridge, and I ask Ahmad about some tombs I can see cut into the rock. Ah, that's in the Valley of the Queens; I'll show you. So we make a little detour so I can look down at the tomb entrances and into what's less a valley and more a ravine. We make another little detour to get a good view back down into the Valley of the Kings. Nice. We make another quick detour and Ahmad pauses, bends down and starts flicking through the dusty rocks at this feet, comes up with two little fossil clamshells in his palm, hand them to me. Awesome. I take some more pictures and we start down the other side.
Ah, I see now. I ask Ahmad about the direction we're taking. He explains, we go this way and at the bottom I go to my village for tea. If we go that way—he points down the nose of the ridge, with its warty little guard outpost—if we go that way you have to go by yourself because I don't have a ticket for the Valley, he says. Okay, I say, let's go your way, so we start straight down the cliff face.
Birks aren't really good hiking shoes, so I quickly decide I'll do better without them, and follow Ahmad with them in my hand. He keeps looking back and offering a hand, but I insist I'm fine. Though I am not taking any pictures while scrambling.
Ahmad asks if one of the men in the group is my husband. Yes. Do I have kids? Three, and a grandson. Are you married, I ask Ahmad. He says he wants to get married, but he doesn't have the money. He's been working as a guide leading tourists over this ridge for about ten years. He took a break and worked for a man making alabaster statuettes, but the man was crooked and tried to cheat his workers, so Ahmad quit and went back to this. His entended family all does this. He hopes to save enough money to marry someday. Good luck on that, buddy.
We finish with the cliff portion of our tour and resume the looping ridge trail down toward his village. Ahmad asks if I have time for tea. Man, oh, man, I wish I did! But No, I say, I promised to meet my group and I don't want them to worry. Would the group have time to come by, he asks? I think of our schedule and sadly say, No.
When I stop to put my shoes back on, Ahmad hands me the pack of postcards. A gift, he says. I suspect he's stunned that a grandma just traipsed barefoot down this cliff. I expect he doesn't see too much of that.
I appreciate the Tourism Board's humor in posting these signs. I'm hoping they get the Kodak Picture Spot signs up soon.
Starting up the ridge. The shade pavillion is on the right, some tomb entrances (demarcated by low, buff-colored walls) on the left.
A little higher now, and delightfully empty. The tourists just below us on the trail didn't go any higher and by the time we got to the top of the ridge, Ahmad and I were the only ones in sight. Well, us and the tourist police kiosks dotting the ridgeline.
Ahmad in his galabeyyah and sneaks and blue acrylic scarf. We're just about to start down the cliff below the ridgeline in order to avoid those pesky tourist police and their insistence on tickets. Shoes off!
A flat bit before some more scrambling down.
Even if it is a miniscule walk away from the hubbub, one crowded attraction to the next.
I'm chuckling to myself about our group's concern for my safety, about wanting me to take a guide.
Every ten feet or so Ahmad turns around and offers me a piece of his collection of tourist crap. Would I like a book of postcards? (He fans them out.) Cat statue? (Holds it to catch the light.) Scarab? No, no, and no. Do I need to take his hand? (He will treat me like his mother.) No, thank you. I am chugging along right behind him on the crushed limestone trail. I could find my way over this thing without my contacts or glasses. In the dark. There is absolutely nothing to obscure the path. Up, over, down.
We reach the top of the ridge, and I ask Ahmad about some tombs I can see cut into the rock. Ah, that's in the Valley of the Queens; I'll show you. So we make a little detour so I can look down at the tomb entrances and into what's less a valley and more a ravine. We make another little detour to get a good view back down into the Valley of the Kings. Nice. We make another quick detour and Ahmad pauses, bends down and starts flicking through the dusty rocks at this feet, comes up with two little fossil clamshells in his palm, hand them to me. Awesome. I take some more pictures and we start down the other side.
Ah, I see now. I ask Ahmad about the direction we're taking. He explains, we go this way and at the bottom I go to my village for tea. If we go that way—he points down the nose of the ridge, with its warty little guard outpost—if we go that way you have to go by yourself because I don't have a ticket for the Valley, he says. Okay, I say, let's go your way, so we start straight down the cliff face.
Birks aren't really good hiking shoes, so I quickly decide I'll do better without them, and follow Ahmad with them in my hand. He keeps looking back and offering a hand, but I insist I'm fine. Though I am not taking any pictures while scrambling.
Ahmad asks if one of the men in the group is my husband. Yes. Do I have kids? Three, and a grandson. Are you married, I ask Ahmad. He says he wants to get married, but he doesn't have the money. He's been working as a guide leading tourists over this ridge for about ten years. He took a break and worked for a man making alabaster statuettes, but the man was crooked and tried to cheat his workers, so Ahmad quit and went back to this. His entended family all does this. He hopes to save enough money to marry someday. Good luck on that, buddy.
We finish with the cliff portion of our tour and resume the looping ridge trail down toward his village. Ahmad asks if I have time for tea. Man, oh, man, I wish I did! But No, I say, I promised to meet my group and I don't want them to worry. Would the group have time to come by, he asks? I think of our schedule and sadly say, No.
When I stop to put my shoes back on, Ahmad hands me the pack of postcards. A gift, he says. I suspect he's stunned that a grandma just traipsed barefoot down this cliff. I expect he doesn't see too much of that.
I appreciate the Tourism Board's humor in posting these signs. I'm hoping they get the Kodak Picture Spot signs up soon.
Starting up the ridge. The shade pavillion is on the right, some tomb entrances (demarcated by low, buff-colored walls) on the left.
A little higher now, and delightfully empty. The tourists just below us on the trail didn't go any higher and by the time we got to the top of the ridge, Ahmad and I were the only ones in sight. Well, us and the tourist police kiosks dotting the ridgeline.
Ahmad in his galabeyyah and sneaks and blue acrylic scarf. We're just about to start down the cliff below the ridgeline in order to avoid those pesky tourist police and their insistence on tickets. Shoes off!
A flat bit before some more scrambling down.Saturday, March 29, 2008
Going to Egypt pt VII
A(nother) big day today, our second in Luxor. We're off early to see the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens on the west bank of the Nile. Greg and I pack for the day's adventure before heading downstairs to the breakfast buffet.
The valley is bleak, and if it weren't for the small birds flitting among the rocks and shadows I could almost call it sterile. Our minivan driver parked in the large asphalt lot and our guide David hopped out to buy the tickets. We grabbed our hats, our water, and cameras and stepped out into the early-morning heat.
After years of watching sedentary tourists practically expire, the Egyptian government installed a Universal Studios-style tram to carry people the quarter-mile from the parking lot to the entrance to the valley. David hands us each two tickets, one for the tram and one for the Valley of the Kings itself. He explains that the valley ticket permits us access to up to three tombs in the valley, but that not all tombs are open, so we start strategizing what we want to see most while we put-put up the incline. Don consults his PDA.
We stand in the welcome shade of a rest area while we explain to David where we'll be and where we'll meet and when. I hand him a page I've ripped out of my guidebook, the one describing the walk up and over the ridge dividing the Valley of the Kings from the Valley of the Queens. Oh yes, he says, I've done this walk many times. It takes forty-five minutes.
At Don's suggestion, we head up the valley to the tomb of Tutmosis III. Most of the group eyes the lengthy staircases dubiously, but Don assures everybody it's worth it: the tomb is decorated in a singular style with passages from the Book of the Dead. We head up.
[I've got no pictures from inside the tombs. Photography is not allowed, David explained to us, not because of the flash but to keep people and their moist exhalations inside the tombs to a minimum. For the same reason guides can't accompany their groups inside.]
[But it was awesome!]
The second tomb we visited was more typical; so typical I don't remember whose it was. And I can't consult my notes because now I am completely out of pens. If I was to do this trip again, I would have brought two or three dozen pens with me: the tourist police, tomb "guards," kids selling tourist tat, they all badly want a pen. So now I have none, and no notes.
But somewhere along the way between Tutmosis III and the crowd around the entrance to King Tut's closet of a tomb, we have picked up a guide for the trails leading up and around the valley. For some odd reason this reassures the rest of our adventurer's party, that I will have a guide for this 45-minute walk. Fine, I agree, and explain to Ahmad, no group, just one, and that I will be back to meet him at this spot when we have finished tomb-crawling. Okay, he says, look for me! See! Blue scarf. Okay.
So I blow off the last of the tombs and make arrangements to meet everybody at the cafeteria at the Temple of Hatshepsut on the other side of the ridge. Take lots of pictures, says Don.
Ahmad and I take off like shots up the hillside.
The long, hot walk from the shaded rest area up the valley to the tombs. The guy with the bucket is working on/excavating one of the tombs. Beyond him, some tourists in shorts—guess they didn't get the memo on inappropriate attire.
One of the new and improved maps outside each of the tombs, courtesy of David Weeks' mapping project.
One of the staircases leading up to Thutmoses III's tomb. The whole thing was so very Indiana Jones (even the tram, if you think of it in a Disneyland attraction way): the cliffs, the narrow passageways, the prunish old men in native garb sitting on their heels...
I don't know what this is, just that I liked the look of it and it's near the spot where I agreed to meet Ahmad for our little stroll. I verified my own sense of direction with our guide David, who said, Take that trail up and over there, down and around, and we'll see you in 45 minutes.
I'm looking back down into the Valley of the Kings after walking uphill for just a few minutes. It felt like mid-80s temps, and the soil was nice and grippy under my Birks. The structure on the right is the shaded rest area; the buff-colored walls are tomb entrances.
The valley is bleak, and if it weren't for the small birds flitting among the rocks and shadows I could almost call it sterile. Our minivan driver parked in the large asphalt lot and our guide David hopped out to buy the tickets. We grabbed our hats, our water, and cameras and stepped out into the early-morning heat.
After years of watching sedentary tourists practically expire, the Egyptian government installed a Universal Studios-style tram to carry people the quarter-mile from the parking lot to the entrance to the valley. David hands us each two tickets, one for the tram and one for the Valley of the Kings itself. He explains that the valley ticket permits us access to up to three tombs in the valley, but that not all tombs are open, so we start strategizing what we want to see most while we put-put up the incline. Don consults his PDA.
We stand in the welcome shade of a rest area while we explain to David where we'll be and where we'll meet and when. I hand him a page I've ripped out of my guidebook, the one describing the walk up and over the ridge dividing the Valley of the Kings from the Valley of the Queens. Oh yes, he says, I've done this walk many times. It takes forty-five minutes.
At Don's suggestion, we head up the valley to the tomb of Tutmosis III. Most of the group eyes the lengthy staircases dubiously, but Don assures everybody it's worth it: the tomb is decorated in a singular style with passages from the Book of the Dead. We head up.
[I've got no pictures from inside the tombs. Photography is not allowed, David explained to us, not because of the flash but to keep people and their moist exhalations inside the tombs to a minimum. For the same reason guides can't accompany their groups inside.]
[But it was awesome!]
The second tomb we visited was more typical; so typical I don't remember whose it was. And I can't consult my notes because now I am completely out of pens. If I was to do this trip again, I would have brought two or three dozen pens with me: the tourist police, tomb "guards," kids selling tourist tat, they all badly want a pen. So now I have none, and no notes.
But somewhere along the way between Tutmosis III and the crowd around the entrance to King Tut's closet of a tomb, we have picked up a guide for the trails leading up and around the valley. For some odd reason this reassures the rest of our adventurer's party, that I will have a guide for this 45-minute walk. Fine, I agree, and explain to Ahmad, no group, just one, and that I will be back to meet him at this spot when we have finished tomb-crawling. Okay, he says, look for me! See! Blue scarf. Okay.
So I blow off the last of the tombs and make arrangements to meet everybody at the cafeteria at the Temple of Hatshepsut on the other side of the ridge. Take lots of pictures, says Don.
Ahmad and I take off like shots up the hillside.
The long, hot walk from the shaded rest area up the valley to the tombs. The guy with the bucket is working on/excavating one of the tombs. Beyond him, some tourists in shorts—guess they didn't get the memo on inappropriate attire.
One of the new and improved maps outside each of the tombs, courtesy of David Weeks' mapping project.
One of the staircases leading up to Thutmoses III's tomb. The whole thing was so very Indiana Jones (even the tram, if you think of it in a Disneyland attraction way): the cliffs, the narrow passageways, the prunish old men in native garb sitting on their heels...
I don't know what this is, just that I liked the look of it and it's near the spot where I agreed to meet Ahmad for our little stroll. I verified my own sense of direction with our guide David, who said, Take that trail up and over there, down and around, and we'll see you in 45 minutes.
I'm looking back down into the Valley of the Kings after walking uphill for just a few minutes. It felt like mid-80s temps, and the soil was nice and grippy under my Birks. The structure on the right is the shaded rest area; the buff-colored walls are tomb entrances.Going to Egypt pt VI
That's Don and Greg having passed through the courtyard and now entering the temple at Dendara. It's mid-afternoon and well into the 80s, so any shade is appreciated. We cannot convince Don to wear a hat.
A lovely image of Hathor, down in the storeroom/crypt/hole at Dendara. All of the gods images were lovely, and I wish the Khnum and Sekhmet had turned out, but I'm a lousy photographer.
Still down in the hole, which was full of celestial imagery, including this...what? Those are Hathor heads on the hemisphere, the two on the right in a celestial boat along with the sun disk.
Lots of Horus imagery, including this one with a, key? Wish I read hieroglyphics like Don does.
Oh, no! Someone left their donkey cart in a street-sweeping zone. Hope they don't get a ticket.
The main temple area is to the right, and the Nileometer is to the left. And that's David, our Luxor-born guide, wearing a sweater on this cool March day.
I like this artwork (and that's original pigment, folks). Usually it's just a plain winged solar disk decorating the arches, but this one depicts the scarab beetle, winged, clutching the sun in its legs.
The zodiac room at Dendara. Unlike most of the temple buildings, this room is on a human scale. Which made photographing the intricate ceiling difficult. So all you get is this shot of one of the skylights and a bit of the blue-and-yellow-painted ceiling.
Behind the main temple. Just a nice shot showing the dominant color of Egypt away from the Nile.Flotsam
While I struggle through too many trip photos, I have some random web links for you to explore if you are truly, truly bored:
Remember Gary Seven and Isis? They almost had their own show, and some other truly, truly bored folks came up with this almost-show's theme music;
Karnak temple as it looked 150 years ago, plus other old photos;
Finally, just something to think about.
Remember Gary Seven and Isis? They almost had their own show, and some other truly, truly bored folks came up with this almost-show's theme music;
Karnak temple as it looked 150 years ago, plus other old photos;
Finally, just something to think about.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Going to Egypt pt III
Saqqara, the necropolis of Memphis, the Colma to our San Francisco. We can see Djoser's famous step pyramid as we drive down the road.
Here's an excerpt on what Wikipedia has to say about the step pyramid:
Which is fine as we weren't allowed to take pictures inside, nor could we go in Djoser's pyramid. But we did get to do the duck walk through another, smaller pyramid, a real Egyptian tomb, and I'm sorry I don't remember if it was a queen or other nobility. That little taste got me to thinking, what would it have been like to open the passageway, clear it of rubble and sand, and descend down the steep, smooth, pitch-black passage into who-knew-what below? It would have been done by someone with bigger balls than I, my friends, that's for sure. I'm no claustrophobe (like Don), but I don't have the temperament for tomb-raiding.
More on Imhotep, that blue-collar wizard who, while not the first to build with stone, designed the first cut-stone building ever. Look around you and see the hand of Imhotep! His tomb, probably in Saqqara, has never been found. Did he invent papyrus scrolls? Maybe. Did he invent columned architecture? Maybe. He's credited as the founder of medicine in Egypt. His cult lasted into Ptolemaic times. Go Imhotep!
It's been a long day of ruin-exploring, and we're ready for dinner back at the hotel and a full night's sleep. D'oh! Scratch that last: we have to be at the airport for our flight to Luxor at 5am.
Sand is everywhere as we head toward Imhotep's innovative creation.
Amgad tries to get us to hurry so we can go in the tomb inside the crumbly mass on the right before the 4pm closing time. See anything green?
A gateway leading to a now-ruined temple. The roof, which was intentionally split by its designers, is covered with blue-painted stars.
Temple ruins, with the bent pyramid just visible in the background.
Tourist policeman on a camel, guarding the tour buses. He's got a camel goad in his hands and his Kalishnakov slung over his shoulder. Most of the locals are wearing sweaters because it's early spring, and a bit on the cool side with temps in the 80s.
Coming next: ancient Thebes, modern Luxor.
Here's an excerpt on what Wikipedia has to say about the step pyramid:
The step pyramid at Saqqara was designed by Imhotep for King Djoser (c.2667-2648 BC). It is the oldest complete hewn-stone building complex known in history. It is also the location of the newly opened (in 2006) Imhotep Museum.We get the rundown from Amgad: burials from the first few dynasties were in shaft tombs, then mustafas, then...hey! why not stack the mustafas? And now you have a step pyramid. It became all the rage. And you'd jockey to get your smaller pyramid or your mustafa built as close to the pharaohs as you could, to share in his glory. Only again, in the early dynasties, invocations to the dead within were entirely verbal, so these early pyramids are bare of text.
Which is fine as we weren't allowed to take pictures inside, nor could we go in Djoser's pyramid. But we did get to do the duck walk through another, smaller pyramid, a real Egyptian tomb, and I'm sorry I don't remember if it was a queen or other nobility. That little taste got me to thinking, what would it have been like to open the passageway, clear it of rubble and sand, and descend down the steep, smooth, pitch-black passage into who-knew-what below? It would have been done by someone with bigger balls than I, my friends, that's for sure. I'm no claustrophobe (like Don), but I don't have the temperament for tomb-raiding.
More on Imhotep, that blue-collar wizard who, while not the first to build with stone, designed the first cut-stone building ever. Look around you and see the hand of Imhotep! His tomb, probably in Saqqara, has never been found. Did he invent papyrus scrolls? Maybe. Did he invent columned architecture? Maybe. He's credited as the founder of medicine in Egypt. His cult lasted into Ptolemaic times. Go Imhotep!
It's been a long day of ruin-exploring, and we're ready for dinner back at the hotel and a full night's sleep. D'oh! Scratch that last: we have to be at the airport for our flight to Luxor at 5am.
Sand is everywhere as we head toward Imhotep's innovative creation.
Amgad tries to get us to hurry so we can go in the tomb inside the crumbly mass on the right before the 4pm closing time. See anything green?
A gateway leading to a now-ruined temple. The roof, which was intentionally split by its designers, is covered with blue-painted stars.
Temple ruins, with the bent pyramid just visible in the background.
Tourist policeman on a camel, guarding the tour buses. He's got a camel goad in his hands and his Kalishnakov slung over his shoulder. Most of the locals are wearing sweaters because it's early spring, and a bit on the cool side with temps in the 80s.
Coming next: ancient Thebes, modern Luxor.Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Going to Egypt pt II
What will Washington, DC, look like in five thousand years?
We've taken a short drive to Memphis, an ancient capital of Egypt. Enough of a drive outside Cairo for us to see how quickly the city ends and the hyper-green of Nileside cultivation begins.
We first meet Rameses II here. He'll be everywhere with us on our travels through Egypt. I like to imagine FDR instructing all those WPA crews to inscribe etchings and text describing Roosevelt's great presidency: his power, glory, and might; how he was favored by God; how his people benefitted from his special place so close to His right hand...on the side of buildings, bridges, and roads across the country. Not to mention Mt. Rushmore.
Anyway, Rameses II left a very fine statue of himself at Memphis.
Our guide, Amgad, has a masters degree in egyptology, which makes me wish even more that we'd brought our Mythos cards. C'mon! our little adventurers group of six has an egyptologist, a dilettante, a scientist, an occult shopkeeper, a writer, and, uh, me. How do I fit in?
Don, Amgad, Anna, Greg, and Glenn get oriented in Memphis.
There's not much to see really at Memphis, but our next stop, Saqqara, is a different matter.
We've taken a short drive to Memphis, an ancient capital of Egypt. Enough of a drive outside Cairo for us to see how quickly the city ends and the hyper-green of Nileside cultivation begins.
We first meet Rameses II here. He'll be everywhere with us on our travels through Egypt. I like to imagine FDR instructing all those WPA crews to inscribe etchings and text describing Roosevelt's great presidency: his power, glory, and might; how he was favored by God; how his people benefitted from his special place so close to His right hand...on the side of buildings, bridges, and roads across the country. Not to mention Mt. Rushmore.
Anyway, Rameses II left a very fine statue of himself at Memphis.
Our guide, Amgad, has a masters degree in egyptology, which makes me wish even more that we'd brought our Mythos cards. C'mon! our little adventurers group of six has an egyptologist, a dilettante, a scientist, an occult shopkeeper, a writer, and, uh, me. How do I fit in?
Don, Amgad, Anna, Greg, and Glenn get oriented in Memphis.There's not much to see really at Memphis, but our next stop, Saqqara, is a different matter.
Going to Egypt pt I
After two and a half days of traveling I am standing in the presence of the last surviving ancient wonder of the world, the pyramids at Giza. I ask Amgad, our guide, if they still impress him, who sees them all the time. He says he prefers the grandeur of the temples, and to wait; I'll see what he means. Fair enough.
He lets us alone to scramble around the enormous base, touching, taking photos, gawking. Egypt gave us no space to ramp up to her oriental alienness. It hit us in the face as soon as the airplane doors opened and we walked out of the plane and into a bus to drive us 200 yards across the tarmac and into the terminal. No queuing, no romance language, no familiar writing. Travel company representatives in suits met us and shepharded us through customs and into our sightseeing van, our driver sleepy but glad to be working. It was 2am Cairo time, the hour when everything comes together.
Seven hours later we're standing on the Giza plateau. The geography is stark: there is the sea, there is the city, there is the Nile, but mostly there is the desert and it is buff and sandy and omnipresent, even when I'm standing at the sea or in the city or floating on the Nile. It is inescapable and unavoidable, and will be propitiated.
But standing beside the enormity of the pyramids cuts my attention in two. See those two tiny figures on G-man's left shoulder? (You may have to look hard.) One sits on a camel, the other on the pyramid itself. Each of those blocks is chest-high on me, and I stand 1.78m.
We want to go inside, but our late 9am start to the day means we've missed out on the limited tickets for the day. Seeing our faces, and that we are truly interested in what we're seeing, Amgad promises to try for tickets when we return to Cairo in a week. We climb in our tour van and Ali drives us to Memphis.
He lets us alone to scramble around the enormous base, touching, taking photos, gawking. Egypt gave us no space to ramp up to her oriental alienness. It hit us in the face as soon as the airplane doors opened and we walked out of the plane and into a bus to drive us 200 yards across the tarmac and into the terminal. No queuing, no romance language, no familiar writing. Travel company representatives in suits met us and shepharded us through customs and into our sightseeing van, our driver sleepy but glad to be working. It was 2am Cairo time, the hour when everything comes together.
Seven hours later we're standing on the Giza plateau. The geography is stark: there is the sea, there is the city, there is the Nile, but mostly there is the desert and it is buff and sandy and omnipresent, even when I'm standing at the sea or in the city or floating on the Nile. It is inescapable and unavoidable, and will be propitiated.
But standing beside the enormity of the pyramids cuts my attention in two. See those two tiny figures on G-man's left shoulder? (You may have to look hard.) One sits on a camel, the other on the pyramid itself. Each of those blocks is chest-high on me, and I stand 1.78m.
We want to go inside, but our late 9am start to the day means we've missed out on the limited tickets for the day. Seeing our faces, and that we are truly interested in what we're seeing, Amgad promises to try for tickets when we return to Cairo in a week. We climb in our tour van and Ali drives us to Memphis.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
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