230808 – Saint Katherine to the Red Sea
After a suitable sleep, we ran through our morning routine and left for a long day ahead. Breakfast was a buffet, Pancakes were on offer along with a chocolate fountain. The norm here has wild deviances, there have been a few breakfasts that have involved softdrink. I would murder for a real coffee.
Those of us who had previously suffered “Nasty-butt” stocked up on various medicines while a pharmacy was at had. I took advantage of the price to buy some Cipro at about 18EGP (about $3.50AU). I'm still blown away by the approach to medicine in this part of the world, you're just as likely to go to a pharmacist for a diagnosis as a doctor! “Here, use this” :p
We got to the Monastery of Saint Katherine and toured the grounds. Emam gave us a very brief rundown of the history and various points of significance. Saint Katherine Monastery is the longest active monastery in the region (or possibly the Middle East). It has been a religious centre since about the 6th centuary and there were monks and priests wandering around while we were there. It is quite a bit larger than the original grounds. It has the largest collection of historical religious texts, second only to the Vatican Library.
The legend is that Katherine was a roman nobel who was very well educated. She converted from Pagan to Christian, upon which the King sent a great many scholars (12 or 30, I can't remember) to argue with her and change her back to the state religion. Katherine converted all of the scholars to being Christian, which resulted in the King executing them. Katherine was sentenced to wheel torture and death, but when she touched the wheel with her finger it broke apart. Hence, she was beheaded. The legend continued that her body was transported by God to the top of Mount Saint Katherine (the highest mountain in the region) and was miraculously preserved. We went through the main chapel and saw what was meant to be the finger bone of Saint Katherine. It was impressively large, I thought it looked more like part of the elbow joint, Nick was undecided.
After the main chapel, we saw what legend said was the burning bush through which God spoke to Moses. The species only grows in this part of the world and Emam said something along the lines of “X-rays of it are lit up, but it will not burn”.
A couple of us went through the museum for 20EGP, there were a lot of impressive texts. Many of the books and artifacts are absolutely spectacular. There is the original letter from Napolean Bonapart, giving the monastery protection, as well as two facsiimilies of the letter written by the Prophet Mohammad saying the same.
There was also part of a copy of the “Sianaticus Codice”. Only 50 copies of this document were ever produced. One was “borrowed” by a european scholar under the guise of getting it published. Instead, the mongrel gave it as a gift to the Russian royalty. The monks have been asking for the stolen documents to be returned for the last few hundred years.
The pages that I saw were over 1,500 years old.
On the way out, we saw the Chapel of Skulls. This is where the bones of all of the monks who lived in the Monastery remain. There was an over-abundance of rude German tourists who ruined this part. They seemed to think that losing the war means that they can jump queues and push everyone around, jamming video cameras into places where it is not entirely appropriate and many of the younger women wearing atire that would be more suited to a strip-club.
I hope they got an eduring case of “Nasty-Butt” to take home with them. Selfish mongrels.
After toilets and stocking up on water and souveniers, we were back on the bus and heading for the Red Sea. There was no convoy for this part of the trip, but check points were extremely frequent. Also, we had a Tourism Policeman in a cheap suit with a machine-gun under his jacket and the various bulges that spoke of either a very poor diet or body armour. Emam told us at the end of the trip that he'd used his position to score a free trip with us, she was pretty cross that he'd imposed on the already cramped mini-van.
Arriving at the beach, we were greated with welcoming drinks and allocated a hut per person or couple. The grounds and scienery was spectacular. Pristine smooth sand (which they tend to every morning to remove foot-print), the main building had low tables and cushions everywhere, there was a pool table for those suitably inclined and the menu was reasonably varied while modestly priced. A pad was passed around for alcohol orders, with Fraser and Nick putting impressive numbers in each column.
Once the logistics and dumping of packs had been taken care of, we all settled in for some hard-core relaxing. Many people read or snoozed on the couches, a couple went for a walk or a paddle. At 430PM about 6 of us went snorkelling with the owner.
We had to walk about 300M down the coast and then out into the water about the same in order to skirt the reef. The water was incredibly shallow and was VERY warm for the top 6 inches no matter how deep it was below you. The only goggles and fins that would fit me were both damaged and difficult to work with but that was to be expected.
WOW
The aquatic life in this area is astounding. During the 30 minutes of snorkelling, we'd seen stone-fish as bit as a foot-ball. About 3-4 massive Lion Fish with their plumage flying through the water, swan through constellations of small blue fish that looked like Tetras. The coral was bright, multicoloured and prolific. I saw far too many sea urchins, spiny parapets fending off the breathing world. I hope the urchins were indigenous and not feasting on the coral, I've heard of the problems on the Great Barrier Reef...
With a yelp that being under water didn't dampen, tragedy struck. British Sarah had gotten a little too close to the coral and scraped her back and arm against the colourful aquatic resident. One of the american guys said they saw a portion break off, so it was definitely coral that caused the injury. Almost in tears with agony, Sarah refused to cut the swim short and go to shore, the guide took that at face value and we continued on for the last 10 minutes. Sarah was doing a good job at masking the pain as we all, much more cautiosly, paddled less than 6 inches above our new foe-with-vibrant-fronds until it was suitable to stand and walk the rest of the way in.
Back on shore, Sarah thought I was being a jerk when I said she should put vinegar on her wounds (or have someone pee on them). By now they had come up in hives and were bright red. She later conceded to have a warm to hot shower, but “almost scalding water” was out of the question.
This AMAZED me, Sarah had an Advanced Open Water SCUBA licence, Nick and Rachel both had Open Water SCUBA tickets.. but everyone looked confused at the idea of heat or acidity to treat the coral stings, which is what I'd been taught for aquatic injuries. I think I must have explained it about two or three times before Sarah went and had a shower, which she said helped dramatically.
The hives were still angry and red, Nick suggested an antihistame and pain killers. Sarah was still being strangely resistant, much of which would remain for the rest of the trip.
Dramas aside, we rest of the evening was pleasant enough. The drinks arrived and we all shared pizzas and beers. Fraser had started on his merry way to being drunk and I quizzed out Emam on some different aspects of local culture and customs. As usual, religious discussion was in the fore-front.
When the plates were cleared away and most of the bottles were half-empty, we all made our way back to our huts. A lot of the people shifted their mattresses outside to escape the heat, but one look at the size of the local cockroaches had me retreating under the mosquito net.
240808 – Red Sea
By the time I'd surfaced, Nick and Rachel had left for their SCUBA adventure up the coast, the breakfast menu was on its last legs and Sarah had started a follow up inspection of her coral injuries. She'd started dosing herself with anithistames and Aloe to try and settle it down, but it was still looking pretty nasty.
Breakfast and chilling out seemed to be the norm for what remained of the morning. Philosophical and ecconomic debate seemed to be order of the day. Lunch arrived with what remained of the drinks from last night, Nick and Rachels return also turned interest to another “drinks list”.
I would have liked to have gone snorkelling again today, but the lack of suitable equipment wieghed in with how comforable everyone felt after lunch and afternoon drinks. As the hours dwindled into twilight, the lights came on, tables came out and dinner became the topic of interest. Drinks stretched into the night.
When the generator was switched off, I slept out on a beach chair until the moon was as bright as daylight. Wandering back to my hut, the night was overly warm and sleep was quick to follow.
Friday, August 29, 2008
220808 - Mount Siani
220808 – Mount Siani
We rose and made the necessary preparations for the trip ahead. It was quite early and were provided with the standard packed breakfast. Scottish, Nick and Rachel had gone to watch the belly-dancing last night and got home at about 3AM.
The verdict had been “BellyDancing was pretty poor, the girls were very pretty though”. Whole families had been there, offering a very different view of the culture. All three of them felt it had been the first time that they had actually looked in on the culture, rather than watching from a tour-bus.
On the bus, we all tried to sleep. Emam provided some pointers about the history and current status of the area we were passing through. There were a great many check-points and I noticed a lot more Army and Police facilities (including a row of artillery about 2 kilometers back from the road). We stopped at the last service station before the Suze Canal for toilets and snacks, then passed beneath the water-way into Siani.
Over the next few hours, we saw the Canal at times. It eventually widened quite a bit. Often times the actual water was obsquered by the hieght of the sand. Seeing a Natural Gas tanker aparently “sailing through an ocean of sand” was quite... odd...
We arrived at our accomidation in Saint Katherine for a late lunch after checkin. We were all very tired and badly worn from the morning of travelling and minimal sleep. Everyone freshened up and ate, some people went for a walk or snoozed until it had cooled. We got onto a smaller bus and made our way to the Monistary about 430PM. Today we only walked past the outside of the fortifications, Emam promised us that tomorrow was the real tour.
This afternoon was dedicated to climbing Mount Siani.
There had been much discussing about this leg of the trip, everyone had no doubt that it would be the most athletic. Debbie had opted not to come, instead making use of the hotel facilities. Emmam and I both took camels, the rest of the group chose to walk.
Mount Siani is scaled by first taking a series of rocky and sandy pathways up about “2000 steps”, you are often doubling back at a higher level and there are multiple rest spots at distances just enough to be inconvient and then too frequent (the Bedouin seem to accumulate towards the top of the mountain). The majority of the canteens we passed were closed. As you pass from the Monastery up the first slope, there is a white chapel at the top of what appears to be an impossibly high and steep hill. While there is some significance for this building, I can't remember it and we don't pass nearby. The View over the monastery grounds starts to become reasonably impressive before disappearing behind the folds of the first mountain, the needle like trees standing watch between the fortifications and the nearby slopes. As we passed clockwise around the waist of the mountain now concealing the ancient building, the edge drops away quite steeply to the left. In the valley VERY far below and some kilometers away, we can see a number of local buildings and a large impressive structure that Emam tells me is a school.
Long before we lost sight of the Monastery, we had also lost sight of all but the last two members of our group. It appears that on mountain paths, human feet are faster than the “ship of the desert”. From the start, the camels had been complaining loudly and I'd had to swap from my particularly comfortable initial mount to a second and then a third that had a saddle with a great deal less padding. By half way, overlooking the school far below, I'd thought about just getting down and walking (the Benduoin guide had already had me dismount about 5 or 6 times to tighten the saddle), but Emam insisted that it would now be faster to just stay on our rides. By the end of this leg of the adventure, I would certainly be glad for not over exerting myself too early on.
Following the first “2000-2500 steps” (depending on who is telling the story), there is a pass through a crevace in the mountain that is preceeded by a steep climb. The pass saddles two mountains, we cross across this such that we exit with the mountain on our left and steep rockface dropping away to our right. Just before the pass there is a canteen, along with another one about 100M before where we said farwell to our disgruntled, humpy sources of transport. At the canteen directly before the pass, Emam took a seat and declared a rest with promises of following shortly “maybe”. From here I took another, final, brief look at the scenery that I'd been gazing across. The white chapel that had seemed so impossibly high was now atop its own little mountain, several kilometres away and at half our hieght.
Once through the pass and down a short track there is a small “village” of about half a dozen canteens. About 200M down the mountain side there was another monastery surounded by a wall with a handful of buildings, also flanked on the southern edge by tall needle like trees as sentinels. It was in the village that I now stood that marked the beginning of the 700 Steps. The steps were reputedly constructed by a solitary monk as a form of repentance, though I'm sure that they've seen a great deal of care and attention in more recent history considering how squared the first hundred were and the volume of concrete securing them.
The 700 steps vary from almost regularly shaped and distanced stairs to long stretching terraces of rock. Some are particularly high, others not so much, many of them treacherous. Though not the most comfortable of footware, my hiking boots would have saved me in ways that I will be very glad to never know. I'm not sure if the particular layout of the village is intended to mislead travellers, I later heard that the lead team of our group had actually gone down to the nearby monastery and had had to take a more difficult route up in order to avoid a complete double-back. I had actually walked the length of the little street and started looking for stairs before a local turned me around and got a boy to direct me. Looking back, there is very little doubt that there may be a ploy for tipping in this... none the less, I was back on the right track.
As the stairs stretched and doubled back, held steady and then jumped into a steep climb, I passed more than a few pilgrims on their way down. Encouragements of “only 10 more minutes”, “you are almost there” and the like offered as much revitalisation as the frequent rests atop particularly large rocks (which at times turned from “seat” into “next step”). There was no doubt, without the uncomfortable camel ride I would have never have made the ascent.
Finally, I made the last turn and the dash to the summit amid the cheers of the rest of the group. Sunset was about 10-15 minutes away. The view and the setting sun took away your breath as much as the altitude. At two and a half kilometres above sea level, that is no small statement.
There are two chapels at the summit of Mount Siani, the original chapel of Saint Katherine and the much larger and newer chapel. Both were locked. The older one is quite small from the outside, with a stairwell reaching underneath the building. The larger one is more along the lines of what you expect for a chapel. Out the front there was a fairly large, flat courtyard lined with a low wall to seperate it from the narrower stone terrace-platform below, in turn with its own low wall to keep back the immediate drop. The raised top of the wall was occupied by a handful of Bedouin and their opened suitcase stalls. On a tiny outcrop just below the original chapel, there was a particularly nasty out-house. All of the boys behaved as such, taking the opportunity to use the darkening mountainside as a latrine-to-remember.
Building these facilities would have been no mean feat, additionally I know very few priests in a fit state to perform Sunday mass atop this hand that reaches to the roof of the world. Looking across to Mount Saint Katherine, I can barely imagine the formal procession required to reach whatever stood at its summit. It is the highest point in Egypt and thankfully doesn't cheapen our current expidition by dwarfing us, it is simply “a little higher”. There is supposedly a chapel on top of that mountain too. Building any of these structures, let alone the stair in antiquity , is something beyond the imagination for such a remote region.
The glow of sunset left the mountain top with us, we had barely made it down a quarter of the steps before flashlights came out and the rate of decent decreased. Darkness had arrived as we walked into the lights of the little village, we passed on quietly through the mountainous crevace. By now the group had once again stretched out to those faster and more reckless at the front, us lame and crippled at the rear. Emam was waiting for us at the canteen where I had last seen her, having decided to remain well situated with snacks and drinks. Restocking on sugary snacks, chocolate and softdrink to try and invigorate tired legs, we tried to get the less functional torches in retreat party working. I ended out giving my backup light to John, who couldn't get the dead cells out of his torch. He and Emam motored off before we got to the next canteen, I hung back a little with Troy, Sarah and Aaron. We took turns in waiting for each other as we needed a rest. My knee held up admirably, but I was in no mood to stress it. Troy suffered on quietly the whole way down the mountain, his back would not have survived the camel ride up but the walk had punished him most cruely. By the next canteen, we had started to discuss just paying to stay there for the night.
By the time we had reached halfway, I was onto my second set of batteries and the torches Troy and Sarah had purchased that afternoon were almost dead. I passed my mini-mag onto Troy as he preferred to stay at the back (his back and ham-strings were torturing him by now) and I was doing quite well between pulsing his old light on and off, or sticking to the bright halo of Aarons torch.
We continued on with frequent breaks as time ticked by, starting to discuss if the others had already gotten the bus back to the hotel or if they were waiting for us. I was really starting to wish that I'd hung onto my spare light. As we passed beneath the white chapel that I'd seen on the way up, Sarah treated us by breaking into song. Opera singers in the mountains are ASTOUNDING. With needling by the others, I offered an off-key verse of “Hey Mister Tell-i-man, bring me a banana.. daylight come and me wanna go home..” cut short by coughing from the amount of dust I'd picked up on the trip.
We finally made the last turn around the apron-strings of the last mountain and the light of the monastery sprang into view. Still at the end of the valley, it was a bit of a walk away but at least home was in sight. This leg was particularly confusing as there were an abundance of lights at places all the way up and down each slope from the Bedouins and there were dozens of paths leading to the multiple climbs that visitors can do. A good half an hour later, we approached the end. The Bedouin guide who had left us behind met us about 300 metres out from the monestary, having seen our lights coming in. We were received with cheers by the rest of the group who had waited for us.
Walking on the gravel road down to the checkpoint at the enterance to the monestary valley, we exchanged stories and reclaimed loaned equipment. A short bus ride later, we were back at the hotel sitting in front of a buffet dinner that everyone was too tired, dehydrated or exhausted to make the most of. Forcing down several litres and a plate of food, I quietly retreated for a shower and as much sleep as I could get.
We rose and made the necessary preparations for the trip ahead. It was quite early and were provided with the standard packed breakfast. Scottish, Nick and Rachel had gone to watch the belly-dancing last night and got home at about 3AM.
The verdict had been “BellyDancing was pretty poor, the girls were very pretty though”. Whole families had been there, offering a very different view of the culture. All three of them felt it had been the first time that they had actually looked in on the culture, rather than watching from a tour-bus.
On the bus, we all tried to sleep. Emam provided some pointers about the history and current status of the area we were passing through. There were a great many check-points and I noticed a lot more Army and Police facilities (including a row of artillery about 2 kilometers back from the road). We stopped at the last service station before the Suze Canal for toilets and snacks, then passed beneath the water-way into Siani.
Over the next few hours, we saw the Canal at times. It eventually widened quite a bit. Often times the actual water was obsquered by the hieght of the sand. Seeing a Natural Gas tanker aparently “sailing through an ocean of sand” was quite... odd...
We arrived at our accomidation in Saint Katherine for a late lunch after checkin. We were all very tired and badly worn from the morning of travelling and minimal sleep. Everyone freshened up and ate, some people went for a walk or snoozed until it had cooled. We got onto a smaller bus and made our way to the Monistary about 430PM. Today we only walked past the outside of the fortifications, Emam promised us that tomorrow was the real tour.
This afternoon was dedicated to climbing Mount Siani.
There had been much discussing about this leg of the trip, everyone had no doubt that it would be the most athletic. Debbie had opted not to come, instead making use of the hotel facilities. Emmam and I both took camels, the rest of the group chose to walk.
Mount Siani is scaled by first taking a series of rocky and sandy pathways up about “2000 steps”, you are often doubling back at a higher level and there are multiple rest spots at distances just enough to be inconvient and then too frequent (the Bedouin seem to accumulate towards the top of the mountain). The majority of the canteens we passed were closed. As you pass from the Monastery up the first slope, there is a white chapel at the top of what appears to be an impossibly high and steep hill. While there is some significance for this building, I can't remember it and we don't pass nearby. The View over the monastery grounds starts to become reasonably impressive before disappearing behind the folds of the first mountain, the needle like trees standing watch between the fortifications and the nearby slopes. As we passed clockwise around the waist of the mountain now concealing the ancient building, the edge drops away quite steeply to the left. In the valley VERY far below and some kilometers away, we can see a number of local buildings and a large impressive structure that Emam tells me is a school.
Long before we lost sight of the Monastery, we had also lost sight of all but the last two members of our group. It appears that on mountain paths, human feet are faster than the “ship of the desert”. From the start, the camels had been complaining loudly and I'd had to swap from my particularly comfortable initial mount to a second and then a third that had a saddle with a great deal less padding. By half way, overlooking the school far below, I'd thought about just getting down and walking (the Benduoin guide had already had me dismount about 5 or 6 times to tighten the saddle), but Emam insisted that it would now be faster to just stay on our rides. By the end of this leg of the adventure, I would certainly be glad for not over exerting myself too early on.
Following the first “2000-2500 steps” (depending on who is telling the story), there is a pass through a crevace in the mountain that is preceeded by a steep climb. The pass saddles two mountains, we cross across this such that we exit with the mountain on our left and steep rockface dropping away to our right. Just before the pass there is a canteen, along with another one about 100M before where we said farwell to our disgruntled, humpy sources of transport. At the canteen directly before the pass, Emam took a seat and declared a rest with promises of following shortly “maybe”. From here I took another, final, brief look at the scenery that I'd been gazing across. The white chapel that had seemed so impossibly high was now atop its own little mountain, several kilometres away and at half our hieght.
Once through the pass and down a short track there is a small “village” of about half a dozen canteens. About 200M down the mountain side there was another monastery surounded by a wall with a handful of buildings, also flanked on the southern edge by tall needle like trees as sentinels. It was in the village that I now stood that marked the beginning of the 700 Steps. The steps were reputedly constructed by a solitary monk as a form of repentance, though I'm sure that they've seen a great deal of care and attention in more recent history considering how squared the first hundred were and the volume of concrete securing them.
The 700 steps vary from almost regularly shaped and distanced stairs to long stretching terraces of rock. Some are particularly high, others not so much, many of them treacherous. Though not the most comfortable of footware, my hiking boots would have saved me in ways that I will be very glad to never know. I'm not sure if the particular layout of the village is intended to mislead travellers, I later heard that the lead team of our group had actually gone down to the nearby monastery and had had to take a more difficult route up in order to avoid a complete double-back. I had actually walked the length of the little street and started looking for stairs before a local turned me around and got a boy to direct me. Looking back, there is very little doubt that there may be a ploy for tipping in this... none the less, I was back on the right track.
As the stairs stretched and doubled back, held steady and then jumped into a steep climb, I passed more than a few pilgrims on their way down. Encouragements of “only 10 more minutes”, “you are almost there” and the like offered as much revitalisation as the frequent rests atop particularly large rocks (which at times turned from “seat” into “next step”). There was no doubt, without the uncomfortable camel ride I would have never have made the ascent.
Finally, I made the last turn and the dash to the summit amid the cheers of the rest of the group. Sunset was about 10-15 minutes away. The view and the setting sun took away your breath as much as the altitude. At two and a half kilometres above sea level, that is no small statement.
There are two chapels at the summit of Mount Siani, the original chapel of Saint Katherine and the much larger and newer chapel. Both were locked. The older one is quite small from the outside, with a stairwell reaching underneath the building. The larger one is more along the lines of what you expect for a chapel. Out the front there was a fairly large, flat courtyard lined with a low wall to seperate it from the narrower stone terrace-platform below, in turn with its own low wall to keep back the immediate drop. The raised top of the wall was occupied by a handful of Bedouin and their opened suitcase stalls. On a tiny outcrop just below the original chapel, there was a particularly nasty out-house. All of the boys behaved as such, taking the opportunity to use the darkening mountainside as a latrine-to-remember.
Building these facilities would have been no mean feat, additionally I know very few priests in a fit state to perform Sunday mass atop this hand that reaches to the roof of the world. Looking across to Mount Saint Katherine, I can barely imagine the formal procession required to reach whatever stood at its summit. It is the highest point in Egypt and thankfully doesn't cheapen our current expidition by dwarfing us, it is simply “a little higher”. There is supposedly a chapel on top of that mountain too. Building any of these structures, let alone the stair in antiquity , is something beyond the imagination for such a remote region.
The glow of sunset left the mountain top with us, we had barely made it down a quarter of the steps before flashlights came out and the rate of decent decreased. Darkness had arrived as we walked into the lights of the little village, we passed on quietly through the mountainous crevace. By now the group had once again stretched out to those faster and more reckless at the front, us lame and crippled at the rear. Emam was waiting for us at the canteen where I had last seen her, having decided to remain well situated with snacks and drinks. Restocking on sugary snacks, chocolate and softdrink to try and invigorate tired legs, we tried to get the less functional torches in retreat party working. I ended out giving my backup light to John, who couldn't get the dead cells out of his torch. He and Emam motored off before we got to the next canteen, I hung back a little with Troy, Sarah and Aaron. We took turns in waiting for each other as we needed a rest. My knee held up admirably, but I was in no mood to stress it. Troy suffered on quietly the whole way down the mountain, his back would not have survived the camel ride up but the walk had punished him most cruely. By the next canteen, we had started to discuss just paying to stay there for the night.
By the time we had reached halfway, I was onto my second set of batteries and the torches Troy and Sarah had purchased that afternoon were almost dead. I passed my mini-mag onto Troy as he preferred to stay at the back (his back and ham-strings were torturing him by now) and I was doing quite well between pulsing his old light on and off, or sticking to the bright halo of Aarons torch.
We continued on with frequent breaks as time ticked by, starting to discuss if the others had already gotten the bus back to the hotel or if they were waiting for us. I was really starting to wish that I'd hung onto my spare light. As we passed beneath the white chapel that I'd seen on the way up, Sarah treated us by breaking into song. Opera singers in the mountains are ASTOUNDING. With needling by the others, I offered an off-key verse of “Hey Mister Tell-i-man, bring me a banana.. daylight come and me wanna go home..” cut short by coughing from the amount of dust I'd picked up on the trip.
We finally made the last turn around the apron-strings of the last mountain and the light of the monastery sprang into view. Still at the end of the valley, it was a bit of a walk away but at least home was in sight. This leg was particularly confusing as there were an abundance of lights at places all the way up and down each slope from the Bedouins and there were dozens of paths leading to the multiple climbs that visitors can do. A good half an hour later, we approached the end. The Bedouin guide who had left us behind met us about 300 metres out from the monestary, having seen our lights coming in. We were received with cheers by the rest of the group who had waited for us.
Walking on the gravel road down to the checkpoint at the enterance to the monestary valley, we exchanged stories and reclaimed loaned equipment. A short bus ride later, we were back at the hotel sitting in front of a buffet dinner that everyone was too tired, dehydrated or exhausted to make the most of. Forcing down several litres and a plate of food, I quietly retreated for a shower and as much sleep as I could get.
Monday, August 25, 2008
200808-210808 - Egypt - Luxor-Cairo
200808 – Luxor
This morning was an acceptable start, 7AM for most of us. Scottish went for a hot air balloon ride through the Valley of the Kings at 430AM. We had breakfast boxes on the bus with our local guide and picked up Fraser at the “Collosus” (a couple of “large” statues).
We arrived at the Enterance to Valley of the Kings. Considering the temperature, we decided not to do the extra tombs. I'm sure that they would be worth it, but it's just so oppressive in the valley. We did 3 tombs, which I'll need to double check the names of when I get home, and tried to dodgy the locals working on flogging their cheap merchandise.
The tombs that we did included the oldest one in the valley.
The first two corridors of this corridor where steep stairways that were very roughly cut, which was intentional to dissuade theives. These initial “dissuassions” became remarkably less polite by ending in a sudden drop into a 10m deep pit, designed to convince the more “persistent” of theives that they were wasting their time.
The artwork in this tomb was particularly simplistic, predominantly stick-figures that covered most of the interior surfaces. The burial chamber was a large room with 4 smaller side chambers. The sarcophagus was of modest size, probably not weighing much more than about 10 tons (I'll need to check that up as well).
Retreating from the heat and humidity of the tomb, the group moved onto the next two tombs (also particularly hot and humid). Much larger and more impressive, these two tombs were carved in the manner that we were used to from the other temples. Additionally, the scenes were painted.
3,000+ years old and the paint might have been put up less than a year or two ago. It is still quite vibrant and VERY well preserved. The level to which this site is still intact is hard to believe. Trying to wrap your head around the age of the place, of all of these places, is incredibly difficult to reconcile. I continually wish that I'd studied all of this much more before I left.
The rooms and chambers of these two tombs were awesome. The size and layout, with scenes and collumns, were mind blowing when you remembered that the builders only had water, fire, wood and copper tools. We weren't able to go to the end of the last tomb, because of damage to the last corridor. The other sarcophagii were at least twice the volume of the first one... I can only imagine the weight.
Having completed the Valley of the Kings, I would definitely like to come back here sometime. In winter when it is cooler. Any time that there were fewer tourists. Part of me does wish that I'd done the tour of the tombs of Tutankamen and Ramses VI. Considering the heat, humidity and number of tourists, I don't think that I could have put up with another two tombs without trying to trap a fat, loud american in the sarcophagus and knocking out the wooden chocks...
Back on the bus, we went for lunch at the house of our local guide. I'd been looking forward to this lunch, to see what life was like for locals and what they consider “home” to be.
To paint the picture, the side streets of these towns are predominantly dirt with a very liberal assortment of debris. This debris can range from plastic litter to corrugated iron and engine parts. The walls are usually very dark mudbrick that appears unfinished. These buildings appear to usually have a common continuous front wall for extended stretches of the street (though the one family may own all of the building owning that wall, I'm not sure), businesses are adjactent to homes but may have a roller-door rather than the sparce, dark, iron door that encloses a dwelling.
To be unfair, an Australian would look at the street and consider it “developing” or under-privaleged. If I hadn't driven past the townships of South Africa, I would have considered it almost “urbanised third world” (I'm being VERY unfair here).
Please keep in mind that this section of town would have been relatively oppulant, our guide has a very good job with a very good company. There appeared to be many businesses in the area and this was towards the middle of the town.
Inside the home, it was tidy and conservatively decorated. Our guide had his brother and his wife serve us lunch and his two children were playing nearby. The ground floor was made up of what appeared to be a kitchen and stairwell off to the side (I didn't get the chance to look through to the kitchen room), the main room was filled with LARGE couches that might have doubled as beds, a large low table for eating around and a standard high dining table to the back (assumedly for doing work from), there was a small bathroom to the rear of floor. It was a very pleasant house, but for some reason I'd imagined it to be palaces behind the dark mudbrick walls.
After lunch, our guide wrote all of our names in Arabic and in Heiroglyphs. He then went on to show us silver jewellery that we could have our names on. Being a little pricy, I avoided temptation.
Some of us went onto the Papyrus Museum, where it was meant to be authentic papyrus (rather than the banana leaves that they supposedly sell in the markets). The papyrus was a little more expensive than some of the members found later on, but it was of high quality and from a reputable company. In a spending mood, we took off to see “Mr Lovely” who was a friend of the guide.
Mr Lovely owns a company that sells authentic alabaster and carved stone. It was very interesting and I bought some very nice pieces that I felt I'd haggled a good price for.
Regardless, I'm SURE we were badly ripped off. At the same time, all of our purchase came with expanations of how each piece was made and how to prove them authentic.
We caught a ferry back to the east bank and wandered back to the hotel. Internet, shower, pool on the roof. End of a good day.
Emam took us deep into Luxor for dinner at a pizza place. The food was nice enough and there was free WiFi (resulting in many of us checking email and banking using my iPhone).
Back at the hotel, Fraser, Evie and I went to a nearby hotel that had a bar. A british pub underground with Aircon strong enough to assist in mummifying an elephant. IT WAS EXCELLENT. We had to catch the bus to the train station at 8PM, which was the only dissappointment. It would have been nice to kick it up at this bar, but it was not to be..
Much to our disgust (especially those of us that went to the bar) we had to wait at the trainstation for 2 hours before our train arrived.. 2 hours of stinking, sweaty heat, at extortionate station prices with every man in 50 metres staring at the girls in our party. For most of the people, they felt that this was the low point of the trip. With everyone tired and fed up, wilting from the heat, I think the Australians fared the best. If you took away the physical exertion, heat and humidity didn't feel that different to Perth on a bad day.
The train to Cairo was heavily airconditioned, but not sleeper compartments. The chairs were similar to what you would find in business class on a plane. The train car was a little too noisy, the egyptian mothers feeling that their children playing “screaming games” was appropriate for 11pm at night.
With a little effort, I drifted off to sleep and appeared to sleep through the worst of it. Many of my companions complained that the air con was too cold at parts and that they didn't sleep. I seemed to get off lightly.
210808 – Cairo
Getting back to the same hotel at about 9AM, most of us showered and got a couple of hours sleep. I met up with John, Aaron and Evie in the reception to go check out some parts of Cairo we'd missed the first time around.
Additionally, today was Evies birthday. Emam was organising a dinner for tonight.
While waiting for the others to show up, I called the bank and put through the dispute of claims on my withdrawals in Aswan.
20 minutes... ARGH
I officially hate phone-banking.
We got lunch at an overpriced local eatery (they had raised prices in the english menu, on the page opposite to the arabic prices..), out of protest, most of us didn't tip. Bad form, but we were unimpressed.
The train was interesting enough, reminding me a lot of the Paris network. We got off at Coptic Cairo and had a look around. We saw the chapel of the holy family and the Hanging Church, which was absolutely beautiful. Evie and I went to see the Coptic Museum, which had some impressive artwork and two pages of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
We had snacks and drinks at a nearby cafe, where Evie declared that it was her birthday and that we had to “stop being so negative” especially with our whining about the prices. Fair call :p
We stocked up on water and caught a taxi up to the citidel. This was a fortification built to protect against the crusaders and I believe was the place until the royal family was expelled. There are two mosques there, one ontop of the hill which is ABSOLUTELY ASTOUNDING. We had a quick look around the palace, including the throne room and bedroom.
We wandered past the Military museum, but didn't have the time to go in properly. Instead we just took very boyish photos of the different cannons, guns and catapults displayed in the courtyard, to Evies ultimate annoyance.
Taxi back to the hotel, we refreshed and went to dinner at an american restaurant. Hamburgers were a VERY welcome relief.
Emam even bought Evie a cake :D cream-spongue = AWESOME
Outside, Scottish gave the last 2 pieces of the cake to a beggar with a child. Emam seemed a little cranky about that and we all teased Fraser about being a softie.
Back at the hotel, there were more beers. Fraser, Nick and Rachel went off to belly-dancing while there was bed for the rest of us.
This morning was an acceptable start, 7AM for most of us. Scottish went for a hot air balloon ride through the Valley of the Kings at 430AM. We had breakfast boxes on the bus with our local guide and picked up Fraser at the “Collosus” (a couple of “large” statues).
We arrived at the Enterance to Valley of the Kings. Considering the temperature, we decided not to do the extra tombs. I'm sure that they would be worth it, but it's just so oppressive in the valley. We did 3 tombs, which I'll need to double check the names of when I get home, and tried to dodgy the locals working on flogging their cheap merchandise.
The tombs that we did included the oldest one in the valley.
The first two corridors of this corridor where steep stairways that were very roughly cut, which was intentional to dissuade theives. These initial “dissuassions” became remarkably less polite by ending in a sudden drop into a 10m deep pit, designed to convince the more “persistent” of theives that they were wasting their time.
The artwork in this tomb was particularly simplistic, predominantly stick-figures that covered most of the interior surfaces. The burial chamber was a large room with 4 smaller side chambers. The sarcophagus was of modest size, probably not weighing much more than about 10 tons (I'll need to check that up as well).
Retreating from the heat and humidity of the tomb, the group moved onto the next two tombs (also particularly hot and humid). Much larger and more impressive, these two tombs were carved in the manner that we were used to from the other temples. Additionally, the scenes were painted.
3,000+ years old and the paint might have been put up less than a year or two ago. It is still quite vibrant and VERY well preserved. The level to which this site is still intact is hard to believe. Trying to wrap your head around the age of the place, of all of these places, is incredibly difficult to reconcile. I continually wish that I'd studied all of this much more before I left.
The rooms and chambers of these two tombs were awesome. The size and layout, with scenes and collumns, were mind blowing when you remembered that the builders only had water, fire, wood and copper tools. We weren't able to go to the end of the last tomb, because of damage to the last corridor. The other sarcophagii were at least twice the volume of the first one... I can only imagine the weight.
Having completed the Valley of the Kings, I would definitely like to come back here sometime. In winter when it is cooler. Any time that there were fewer tourists. Part of me does wish that I'd done the tour of the tombs of Tutankamen and Ramses VI. Considering the heat, humidity and number of tourists, I don't think that I could have put up with another two tombs without trying to trap a fat, loud american in the sarcophagus and knocking out the wooden chocks...
Back on the bus, we went for lunch at the house of our local guide. I'd been looking forward to this lunch, to see what life was like for locals and what they consider “home” to be.
To paint the picture, the side streets of these towns are predominantly dirt with a very liberal assortment of debris. This debris can range from plastic litter to corrugated iron and engine parts. The walls are usually very dark mudbrick that appears unfinished. These buildings appear to usually have a common continuous front wall for extended stretches of the street (though the one family may own all of the building owning that wall, I'm not sure), businesses are adjactent to homes but may have a roller-door rather than the sparce, dark, iron door that encloses a dwelling.
To be unfair, an Australian would look at the street and consider it “developing” or under-privaleged. If I hadn't driven past the townships of South Africa, I would have considered it almost “urbanised third world” (I'm being VERY unfair here).
Please keep in mind that this section of town would have been relatively oppulant, our guide has a very good job with a very good company. There appeared to be many businesses in the area and this was towards the middle of the town.
Inside the home, it was tidy and conservatively decorated. Our guide had his brother and his wife serve us lunch and his two children were playing nearby. The ground floor was made up of what appeared to be a kitchen and stairwell off to the side (I didn't get the chance to look through to the kitchen room), the main room was filled with LARGE couches that might have doubled as beds, a large low table for eating around and a standard high dining table to the back (assumedly for doing work from), there was a small bathroom to the rear of floor. It was a very pleasant house, but for some reason I'd imagined it to be palaces behind the dark mudbrick walls.
After lunch, our guide wrote all of our names in Arabic and in Heiroglyphs. He then went on to show us silver jewellery that we could have our names on. Being a little pricy, I avoided temptation.
Some of us went onto the Papyrus Museum, where it was meant to be authentic papyrus (rather than the banana leaves that they supposedly sell in the markets). The papyrus was a little more expensive than some of the members found later on, but it was of high quality and from a reputable company. In a spending mood, we took off to see “Mr Lovely” who was a friend of the guide.
Mr Lovely owns a company that sells authentic alabaster and carved stone. It was very interesting and I bought some very nice pieces that I felt I'd haggled a good price for.
Regardless, I'm SURE we were badly ripped off. At the same time, all of our purchase came with expanations of how each piece was made and how to prove them authentic.
We caught a ferry back to the east bank and wandered back to the hotel. Internet, shower, pool on the roof. End of a good day.
Emam took us deep into Luxor for dinner at a pizza place. The food was nice enough and there was free WiFi (resulting in many of us checking email and banking using my iPhone).
Back at the hotel, Fraser, Evie and I went to a nearby hotel that had a bar. A british pub underground with Aircon strong enough to assist in mummifying an elephant. IT WAS EXCELLENT. We had to catch the bus to the train station at 8PM, which was the only dissappointment. It would have been nice to kick it up at this bar, but it was not to be..
Much to our disgust (especially those of us that went to the bar) we had to wait at the trainstation for 2 hours before our train arrived.. 2 hours of stinking, sweaty heat, at extortionate station prices with every man in 50 metres staring at the girls in our party. For most of the people, they felt that this was the low point of the trip. With everyone tired and fed up, wilting from the heat, I think the Australians fared the best. If you took away the physical exertion, heat and humidity didn't feel that different to Perth on a bad day.
The train to Cairo was heavily airconditioned, but not sleeper compartments. The chairs were similar to what you would find in business class on a plane. The train car was a little too noisy, the egyptian mothers feeling that their children playing “screaming games” was appropriate for 11pm at night.
With a little effort, I drifted off to sleep and appeared to sleep through the worst of it. Many of my companions complained that the air con was too cold at parts and that they didn't sleep. I seemed to get off lightly.
210808 – Cairo
Getting back to the same hotel at about 9AM, most of us showered and got a couple of hours sleep. I met up with John, Aaron and Evie in the reception to go check out some parts of Cairo we'd missed the first time around.
Additionally, today was Evies birthday. Emam was organising a dinner for tonight.
While waiting for the others to show up, I called the bank and put through the dispute of claims on my withdrawals in Aswan.
20 minutes... ARGH
I officially hate phone-banking.
We got lunch at an overpriced local eatery (they had raised prices in the english menu, on the page opposite to the arabic prices..), out of protest, most of us didn't tip. Bad form, but we were unimpressed.
The train was interesting enough, reminding me a lot of the Paris network. We got off at Coptic Cairo and had a look around. We saw the chapel of the holy family and the Hanging Church, which was absolutely beautiful. Evie and I went to see the Coptic Museum, which had some impressive artwork and two pages of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
We had snacks and drinks at a nearby cafe, where Evie declared that it was her birthday and that we had to “stop being so negative” especially with our whining about the prices. Fair call :p
We stocked up on water and caught a taxi up to the citidel. This was a fortification built to protect against the crusaders and I believe was the place until the royal family was expelled. There are two mosques there, one ontop of the hill which is ABSOLUTELY ASTOUNDING. We had a quick look around the palace, including the throne room and bedroom.
We wandered past the Military museum, but didn't have the time to go in properly. Instead we just took very boyish photos of the different cannons, guns and catapults displayed in the courtyard, to Evies ultimate annoyance.
Taxi back to the hotel, we refreshed and went to dinner at an american restaurant. Hamburgers were a VERY welcome relief.
Emam even bought Evie a cake :D cream-spongue = AWESOME
Outside, Scottish gave the last 2 pieces of the cake to a beggar with a child. Emam seemed a little cranky about that and we all teased Fraser about being a softie.
Back at the hotel, there were more beers. Fraser, Nick and Rachel went off to belly-dancing while there was bed for the rest of us.
180808-190808 - Egypt - Felucca
180808 – Egypt – Felucca
This morning started with quite a nice sleep in. After a breakfast of pancakes on the room we all checked out and walked down to the Nile with our packs.
Emam had arranged a very large Felucca called the “Bob Marley” with a large covered cushioned area. Being late to get onto the boat, I was stuck on the sunny side. Feeling quite smug that it was already 9-10AM and I would therefore be in the shade all afternoon, I hunkered down and started to bathe myself in sunscreen.
The boat departed.
WOW
I could seriously have done this for a couple of days.
The entire deck was covered with a cloth roof and padded with a giant matress. We joked about and dangled our feet in the water till lunch time (no crocodiles on this side of the high-dam). Lunch was vegetarian and provided for us by the crew, very tasty. Toilet stops were frequent enough and consisted of ducking behind a tree and digging a hole. We stopped to swim a couple of times in the cool Nile river, floating about in the strong currents before the mad-dash back to the boat to dry off before the next leg. The afternoon was spent laughing over the cross-word in a trashy celebrity mag and watching the amazing scenery float by.
One major win of the day was convincing Optus to enable Global Roaming on my phone, I was finally able to check my messages and felt much less guilty about phoning home.
We camped for the night alongside about 4-5 other feluccas on a small island in the middle of the river. The island was a little fragrant, but we assembled a toilet tent with seat and everything, so everybody was happy. Dinner was on the boat and then a camp-fire was setup for drumming and dancing by the local Nubians (mainly the crew from another boat). There were a couple of other tours, the GAP one looked like lots of young people. We found out the next morning that the lyrics the drummers had been singing had been profoundly and disgustingly lewd and degrading, which was the only thing to spoil the memory of the night.
I wandered off to bed early, after starring at an amazing full moon that looked different to the moon we see at home. Falling asleep, we heard Sarah singing opera in a most fantstic voice, applauded by the howling of every dog within a mile radius who seemed a little less appreciative of the fine-arts.
190808
We woke up with the sun this morning and broke camp. Breakfast consisted of hot drinks and pancakes, my preferance over the steady stream of boiled eggs.
We sailed for a little while and then the crew rowed us to shore, boarded a bus and took off to join the next convoy. We had decided to go to the temples at Edfu and Carnack for today, tonight we would stay at a hotel in Luxor.
The temple at Edfu was ASTOUNDING. It is incredibly well preserved and IN ITS ORIGINAL LOCATION. There is something truly epic about it. Being the second largest temple in Egypt, it was also very popular, swarming with tourists. I was still able to wander through a couple of sections in solitude and attached myself to some of the tours for explanations of the more interesting features.
Tourism Police where EVERYWHERE in Egypt. They are meant to be the first point of contact for tourists who are in trouble and can be found in number at any temple or tourist site and have road-blocks about every 20-70km on major roads, depending on the part of the country. Every hotel in every city seems to have at least one at the doorway. Security checks may vary from a single officer with a metal detector arch that is switched off, there may be a functional metal detector and bag-searchs or an x-ray machine. Some hotels have officers permenantly positioned outside in little concrete columns (think a concrete pipe that is standing upright and reaches to chest-hieght) or lounging behind a bullet-proof panel complete with little window of ballistic glass, mounting brackets for AK47s and the whole thing can roll about on wheels.
Road blocks vary from a boom gate to an obsticle course of concrete filled 44gallon drums, with stretches of “stinger” style tire chains lieing along side the road. The scary ones are more simple, with a little concrete pillbox about 20 feet off the ground (guard gets put up there and the ladder may or may not get taken away till the end of his shift) and a barrel poking out of a window, a boom-gate surrounded by concrete blocks and an armoured car tucked just out of site but lined up with the middle of the checkpoint.
Being highly visible and everywhere, the presence of the Tourism Police offers a great deal of comfort to the various tourists and undoubtably projects us from locals that would otherwise prey on travelers. Often taking advantage of the situation themselves, a suitable “tip” can open up doors and oportunities depending on location. Supposedly, “talking” to a Tourism Cop at Fille could get you a private tour of the upper floors of the temple (unfortunately, I was a little short of egyptian pounds to facilitate such a discussion on the day). At Edfu, a gentleman in a nice suite with a machine gun by his side took two of us through some of the more crowded areas of the temple and pointed out bits of artwork that the ore popular tours were not including. I'm not sure if the “undercover” Tourism Police are meant to be intentionally so conspicuous, they just appeared to be another level of security for the benefit of the tourists. At the least, so many police being so visible will most definitely remove almost all of the opportunities for travellers to get into any real trouble (unless you really went hunting for it).
Back on the bus and a couple of hours later, we arrived in Luxor. The ancient capital of Egypt has an impressive temple complex called Carnack. Here it stuck me more than ever, that we were wandering through what used to be the most excluded, sacred locations of ancient egypt. Taking photos of the holiest of holys, inner sanctums that only the Highest Priest in Egypt and the Pharro would have been allowed to set foot in. 3000 years ago, we would have been executed for even looking at these places.
The temple complex at Carnack is VERY large, housing 20,000 priests during its peak. Unfortunately, much of the temple has destroyed or lieing in ruin. There are still some impressive features like the hall of 134 columns, the Oblisk wieghing 300 tonnes, we all walked around the scarab statue 1, 3, 5 or 7 times dependiing on if we wanted health, wealth marriage or children.
Back at the hostel, many of us slept or did internet. Most of us went and swam in the pool on the roof :D For dinner, 6 of us broke form and went to a british run Indian restaurant for something OTHER than egyptian. Expensive and in small portions, IT WAS GLORIOUS!!! I'd dosed myself for the Nasty-Butt, which had gotten a real attitude following the last day of relief. Those of us with Nasty-Butts went to a nearby pharmacy to restock our supples. Here was a suprise... there are next to no prescriptions in Egypt. There was a sign behindthe counter advertising “WE SELL EVERYTHING OVER COUNTER ANY QUANTITY” and they weren't joking. I was offered everything from Viagra to Vallium at an average of $6AU a pack. Having got my tummy-tablets (and ONLY tummy-tablets), restocked water and supplies, we went back to the hotel.
This morning started with quite a nice sleep in. After a breakfast of pancakes on the room we all checked out and walked down to the Nile with our packs.
Emam had arranged a very large Felucca called the “Bob Marley” with a large covered cushioned area. Being late to get onto the boat, I was stuck on the sunny side. Feeling quite smug that it was already 9-10AM and I would therefore be in the shade all afternoon, I hunkered down and started to bathe myself in sunscreen.
The boat departed.
WOW
I could seriously have done this for a couple of days.
The entire deck was covered with a cloth roof and padded with a giant matress. We joked about and dangled our feet in the water till lunch time (no crocodiles on this side of the high-dam). Lunch was vegetarian and provided for us by the crew, very tasty. Toilet stops were frequent enough and consisted of ducking behind a tree and digging a hole. We stopped to swim a couple of times in the cool Nile river, floating about in the strong currents before the mad-dash back to the boat to dry off before the next leg. The afternoon was spent laughing over the cross-word in a trashy celebrity mag and watching the amazing scenery float by.
One major win of the day was convincing Optus to enable Global Roaming on my phone, I was finally able to check my messages and felt much less guilty about phoning home.
We camped for the night alongside about 4-5 other feluccas on a small island in the middle of the river. The island was a little fragrant, but we assembled a toilet tent with seat and everything, so everybody was happy. Dinner was on the boat and then a camp-fire was setup for drumming and dancing by the local Nubians (mainly the crew from another boat). There were a couple of other tours, the GAP one looked like lots of young people. We found out the next morning that the lyrics the drummers had been singing had been profoundly and disgustingly lewd and degrading, which was the only thing to spoil the memory of the night.
I wandered off to bed early, after starring at an amazing full moon that looked different to the moon we see at home. Falling asleep, we heard Sarah singing opera in a most fantstic voice, applauded by the howling of every dog within a mile radius who seemed a little less appreciative of the fine-arts.
190808
We woke up with the sun this morning and broke camp. Breakfast consisted of hot drinks and pancakes, my preferance over the steady stream of boiled eggs.
We sailed for a little while and then the crew rowed us to shore, boarded a bus and took off to join the next convoy. We had decided to go to the temples at Edfu and Carnack for today, tonight we would stay at a hotel in Luxor.
The temple at Edfu was ASTOUNDING. It is incredibly well preserved and IN ITS ORIGINAL LOCATION. There is something truly epic about it. Being the second largest temple in Egypt, it was also very popular, swarming with tourists. I was still able to wander through a couple of sections in solitude and attached myself to some of the tours for explanations of the more interesting features.
Tourism Police where EVERYWHERE in Egypt. They are meant to be the first point of contact for tourists who are in trouble and can be found in number at any temple or tourist site and have road-blocks about every 20-70km on major roads, depending on the part of the country. Every hotel in every city seems to have at least one at the doorway. Security checks may vary from a single officer with a metal detector arch that is switched off, there may be a functional metal detector and bag-searchs or an x-ray machine. Some hotels have officers permenantly positioned outside in little concrete columns (think a concrete pipe that is standing upright and reaches to chest-hieght) or lounging behind a bullet-proof panel complete with little window of ballistic glass, mounting brackets for AK47s and the whole thing can roll about on wheels.
Road blocks vary from a boom gate to an obsticle course of concrete filled 44gallon drums, with stretches of “stinger” style tire chains lieing along side the road. The scary ones are more simple, with a little concrete pillbox about 20 feet off the ground (guard gets put up there and the ladder may or may not get taken away till the end of his shift) and a barrel poking out of a window, a boom-gate surrounded by concrete blocks and an armoured car tucked just out of site but lined up with the middle of the checkpoint.
Being highly visible and everywhere, the presence of the Tourism Police offers a great deal of comfort to the various tourists and undoubtably projects us from locals that would otherwise prey on travelers. Often taking advantage of the situation themselves, a suitable “tip” can open up doors and oportunities depending on location. Supposedly, “talking” to a Tourism Cop at Fille could get you a private tour of the upper floors of the temple (unfortunately, I was a little short of egyptian pounds to facilitate such a discussion on the day). At Edfu, a gentleman in a nice suite with a machine gun by his side took two of us through some of the more crowded areas of the temple and pointed out bits of artwork that the ore popular tours were not including. I'm not sure if the “undercover” Tourism Police are meant to be intentionally so conspicuous, they just appeared to be another level of security for the benefit of the tourists. At the least, so many police being so visible will most definitely remove almost all of the opportunities for travellers to get into any real trouble (unless you really went hunting for it).
Back on the bus and a couple of hours later, we arrived in Luxor. The ancient capital of Egypt has an impressive temple complex called Carnack. Here it stuck me more than ever, that we were wandering through what used to be the most excluded, sacred locations of ancient egypt. Taking photos of the holiest of holys, inner sanctums that only the Highest Priest in Egypt and the Pharro would have been allowed to set foot in. 3000 years ago, we would have been executed for even looking at these places.
The temple complex at Carnack is VERY large, housing 20,000 priests during its peak. Unfortunately, much of the temple has destroyed or lieing in ruin. There are still some impressive features like the hall of 134 columns, the Oblisk wieghing 300 tonnes, we all walked around the scarab statue 1, 3, 5 or 7 times dependiing on if we wanted health, wealth marriage or children.
Back at the hostel, many of us slept or did internet. Most of us went and swam in the pool on the roof :D For dinner, 6 of us broke form and went to a british run Indian restaurant for something OTHER than egyptian. Expensive and in small portions, IT WAS GLORIOUS!!! I'd dosed myself for the Nasty-Butt, which had gotten a real attitude following the last day of relief. Those of us with Nasty-Butts went to a nearby pharmacy to restock our supples. Here was a suprise... there are next to no prescriptions in Egypt. There was a sign behindthe counter advertising “WE SELL EVERYTHING OVER COUNTER ANY QUANTITY” and they weren't joking. I was offered everything from Viagra to Vallium at an average of $6AU a pack. Having got my tummy-tablets (and ONLY tummy-tablets), restocked water and supplies, we went back to the hotel.
160808-170808 - Egypt - Aswan
160808-170808 – Egypt - Aswan
I got up fairly early and started to go for a bit of a wander around the train. Fraser (now also named Scottish, Foxy-pants and Fergison) had crawled into the compartment at around 1 or 2AM, minus a few bottles of rum, and was still in a state somewhere between “embalmed” and “zombie”.
I sat in with Troy and Sarah when the breakfast cart came around, chuckling at the little green faces that slowly started to appear (seems like the bottles of rum were well shared).
We got off of the train around 8ish and straight onto a bus for the hostel. Airconditioning and wifi made for a pleasant reception. After dumping our gear, we had a group meeting and decided to do the optional side trip to Abu Simbel, a famous temple 3 hours to the North, and the temple at Fille which was just near by. The bus convoy for these would leave very early the next morning.
We had a little free time, so I went through the markets to buy some kind of head cover (got an arab style scarf at a rip-off price) and got some sunscreen at the nearby pharmacy.
A couple of us in the group came to the agreement over the next few days, that Aswan is what we imagined Cairo to be like. Here you are woken by the call to prayer, the traffic is MUCH lighter and the cars are in much better condition. The markets are more spacious and the vendors are somewhat more polite. Unfortunately, the range andd quality of fruit is somewhat less than in Cairo, but such compromises are acceptable.
For the rest of today, we went on a boat ride up the nile while a local guide explained the ancient and recent history of the region. The various islands and monuments, tombs on hilltops and the Old Cataract Hotel where Agethar Christie wrote Death on the Nile. We had a delicious lunch provided by the boat operator along with the most fantastic fresh mango juice. Because it was still the middle of the day, we chilled out at a riverside Nubian cafe. Paddling in the Nile and sipping iced-drinks, I think we all would have been happy to chill there for a few days :p
Once it had cooled a bit, we were back in the boat and went to the suitable stop for a camel ride.
Camels are certainly a disgruntled and complaining breed of creature, groaning and bellowing any and every time that they think they might be listened to. In all, I kind of enjoyed the camel ride. The locals had done my scarf up like Lawrence of Arabia along with John and Troy (got a couple of “wise men” photos). We rode about 15minutes out into the desert and took photos of the Monastary of Saint Simon (I think, might have been Samuel). If I'd had time this trip, I would have liked to have toured the old and new monastary.
Camel ride finished, we got the boat back and had dinner on one of the floating river-side restaraunt, taking photos of the felucca's floating through the sunset.
170808
This morning was a 3AM start, we were in the bus waiting at the convoy rendezvous point till nearly 430 and somewhat cranky before the 20 or so busses took off.
The rode to Abu Simbel was long and tiring, it was a minivan barely big enough for all of us and my nasty-butt was only just behaving itself considering how much imodium I'd taken.
Finally we arrived at the final resting place of the temple,
My cards had not been working for the last 24hours for some reason, so I was borrowing money off of Fraser for most of the day today. As a group we decided not to get a guide and just wandered through.
The temple at Abu Simbel originally lay in the middle of no-where, carved into the side of a mountain. The building of the great-dam and the associated flooding was more extensive that originally expected, so the temple had to be transplanted about 400 yards away and somewhat higher in order to prevent it having a watery grave of its own.
$40 million and several years later, the temple was assembled like a giant lego set on the hilltop where it now sits.
The temples are quite large an impressive, but something seems to have been lost in the moving. Much of the temple is impressively well preserved... but...
Anyways, it was worth the trip. Plenty of photos and exploring later, we were back on the bus. During the wait, I called the bank to find out what was going on with my card. A little success, but I was told they couldn't take all steps necessary as it was still a Sunday.
A long trip later, we were back near Aswan. We jumped into another motor boat and went to Fille. These temples had also been transplanted to escape the rising water. With a heavy roman and greek influence, this island was much more conducive with “exploring” rather than “touring” and nearly deserted, rather than over-crowded.
Back at the hostel, we had another group meeting to arrange the felucca for tomorrow. A couple of group members also growled at Emam for the cost of the Abu Simbel tour, some of the other people in the hostel had done the same as us and more for less than half the cost, on a much larger bus. A couple of the people wouldn't let it go and I felt quite bad for Emam, she'd been doing a great job for us but all 2 of these people could do was whine and complain..
Anyways, off to dinner on the water again and a couple of drinks later, everyone had chilled out a bit and decided it was time to have an early night.
The ATM finally worked today, so it was a good day :) I'm not the only one who had been having card troubles, so it appears to be the Egyptian network rather than an account problem.
I got up fairly early and started to go for a bit of a wander around the train. Fraser (now also named Scottish, Foxy-pants and Fergison) had crawled into the compartment at around 1 or 2AM, minus a few bottles of rum, and was still in a state somewhere between “embalmed” and “zombie”.
I sat in with Troy and Sarah when the breakfast cart came around, chuckling at the little green faces that slowly started to appear (seems like the bottles of rum were well shared).
We got off of the train around 8ish and straight onto a bus for the hostel. Airconditioning and wifi made for a pleasant reception. After dumping our gear, we had a group meeting and decided to do the optional side trip to Abu Simbel, a famous temple 3 hours to the North, and the temple at Fille which was just near by. The bus convoy for these would leave very early the next morning.
We had a little free time, so I went through the markets to buy some kind of head cover (got an arab style scarf at a rip-off price) and got some sunscreen at the nearby pharmacy.
A couple of us in the group came to the agreement over the next few days, that Aswan is what we imagined Cairo to be like. Here you are woken by the call to prayer, the traffic is MUCH lighter and the cars are in much better condition. The markets are more spacious and the vendors are somewhat more polite. Unfortunately, the range andd quality of fruit is somewhat less than in Cairo, but such compromises are acceptable.
For the rest of today, we went on a boat ride up the nile while a local guide explained the ancient and recent history of the region. The various islands and monuments, tombs on hilltops and the Old Cataract Hotel where Agethar Christie wrote Death on the Nile. We had a delicious lunch provided by the boat operator along with the most fantastic fresh mango juice. Because it was still the middle of the day, we chilled out at a riverside Nubian cafe. Paddling in the Nile and sipping iced-drinks, I think we all would have been happy to chill there for a few days :p
Once it had cooled a bit, we were back in the boat and went to the suitable stop for a camel ride.
Camels are certainly a disgruntled and complaining breed of creature, groaning and bellowing any and every time that they think they might be listened to. In all, I kind of enjoyed the camel ride. The locals had done my scarf up like Lawrence of Arabia along with John and Troy (got a couple of “wise men” photos). We rode about 15minutes out into the desert and took photos of the Monastary of Saint Simon (I think, might have been Samuel). If I'd had time this trip, I would have liked to have toured the old and new monastary.
Camel ride finished, we got the boat back and had dinner on one of the floating river-side restaraunt, taking photos of the felucca's floating through the sunset.
170808
This morning was a 3AM start, we were in the bus waiting at the convoy rendezvous point till nearly 430 and somewhat cranky before the 20 or so busses took off.
The rode to Abu Simbel was long and tiring, it was a minivan barely big enough for all of us and my nasty-butt was only just behaving itself considering how much imodium I'd taken.
Finally we arrived at the final resting place of the temple,
My cards had not been working for the last 24hours for some reason, so I was borrowing money off of Fraser for most of the day today. As a group we decided not to get a guide and just wandered through.
The temple at Abu Simbel originally lay in the middle of no-where, carved into the side of a mountain. The building of the great-dam and the associated flooding was more extensive that originally expected, so the temple had to be transplanted about 400 yards away and somewhat higher in order to prevent it having a watery grave of its own.
$40 million and several years later, the temple was assembled like a giant lego set on the hilltop where it now sits.
The temples are quite large an impressive, but something seems to have been lost in the moving. Much of the temple is impressively well preserved... but...
Anyways, it was worth the trip. Plenty of photos and exploring later, we were back on the bus. During the wait, I called the bank to find out what was going on with my card. A little success, but I was told they couldn't take all steps necessary as it was still a Sunday.
A long trip later, we were back near Aswan. We jumped into another motor boat and went to Fille. These temples had also been transplanted to escape the rising water. With a heavy roman and greek influence, this island was much more conducive with “exploring” rather than “touring” and nearly deserted, rather than over-crowded.
Back at the hostel, we had another group meeting to arrange the felucca for tomorrow. A couple of group members also growled at Emam for the cost of the Abu Simbel tour, some of the other people in the hostel had done the same as us and more for less than half the cost, on a much larger bus. A couple of the people wouldn't let it go and I felt quite bad for Emam, she'd been doing a great job for us but all 2 of these people could do was whine and complain..
Anyways, off to dinner on the water again and a couple of drinks later, everyone had chilled out a bit and decided it was time to have an early night.
The ATM finally worked today, so it was a good day :) I'm not the only one who had been having card troubles, so it appears to be the Egyptian network rather than an account problem.
140808-150808 - Egypt - Cairo
After a long sleep in, I repacked and did emails over breakfast on the top floor of the hotel. Breakfast here seems to be boiled eggs and assorted eggs as standard.
The notice board in the lobby said the initial meeting would be at 2pm. I noticed that some of the other intrepid people had started to check in, so grabbed two of them and cruised up to where I'd had dinner the night before for lunch.
Erin and John where to guys from America. They'd studied at UCLA together and just flown in from Greece after a heavy night. They came across as pretty easy going and would be fun for the adventures to come.
Back at the hotel, I met my new room mate, Fraser Fox. Fraser is a scottish guy with an awesome sense of humour. He'd just had a series of rotten connecting flights but had already been suitable fed and watered.
The majority of the rest of the travellers were in the lobby by the time we got down there. 4 Aussies in total, a girl from the UK to join our Scottish colleague and 4 Americans. We relocated to the roof-restaurant for the briefing by Emam, our tour leader.
I've already mentioned Fraser, Erin and John. Debbie is an older American lady who works as a translater for deaf people. Well meaning and adventurous, she is also somewhat expressive in conversation. Evy is a young american girl who is turning 20 when we all get back to Cairo. Troy and Sarah are from Australia, Troy worked in logistics and Sarah is an opera singer, they are both really nice and fun to hang out with. Nick is a doctor from RPA who just finished PGY2, unfortunately this quickly blew my cover of “I'm an engineer” quite rapidly, but it'll be good to have someone qualified on the tour. Nick's girlfriend, Rachel, is from the UK. Two people hadn't arrived yet.
Emam is a muslim girl who had graduated from Archaeology and lived in Alexandria. She is extremely pleasant and quite easy going. She confidently and compitently outlined how the trip would operate and what were the main decisions we would have to make at various legs of the trip.
We briefly ran through everyones names (mercifully, no tacky ice-breakers or name-games) and handed up photocopies of passports, insurance and our “Local Payment” money.
Meeting done, we met with our local guide and caught taxis to a Mosque deeper into Cairo.
The mosque was a fasinating experience, hieghtened by having two women lead us and explain the various requirements and aspects of the building. We placed our shoes in the care of two older gentlemen, the girls in the group put on a head-cover and long-sleeves or hired what could only be described as a cross between a full body dress and a nightie. We proceeded into the building and sat in a quiet corner while our guides talked us through the basics of Islam. A bit of a wander later, along with photos of the more impressive architecture, we paid the required tips and collected our shoes.
Outside the mosque, we regrouped and crossed the street to the markets. After a brief orientation (ATMs over there, market enterance over here...) we occupied a couple of tables in a cafe and had egyptian pancakes.
Egyptian pancakes are very difficult to describe. The come in sweet or savoury, with toppings and fillings ranging from bananas to minced meat. I was recommended the pancake with sugar, which turned out to be icing sugar. The pancake itself is an odd type of pastry that is halfway between crepe and the inside of a crossaunt. They're quite tasty (once you remove half of the icing sugar). I also tried some of the sausage pancake that one of the guides couldn't finish, the savoury pancakes could make quite a meal.
Refreshed and renewed, we went back to the enterance of the markets and got let loose. A couple of us forged ahead, being assaulted from every angle with cries of “Hello! Welcome! Come into my shop!”, vendors stepping directly in front of us and youngsters gently tugging at your shirt to try and direct you towards the family business. While quite excciting to begin with, it rapidly became tiresome with EVERYONE trying to sell you something. The group seemed to decide en-mass not to buy anything right now, instead planning to pick up souvenirs when we got back to Cairo rather than lugging them the whole way up Egypt and back. After having a look around the cramped markets for about an hour, myself and the older American Lady emerged and sought out cold drinks and toilets. We were lucky enough to run into Troy and Sarah, two of the other Australians.
We caught taxis back to the hotel shortly after and met with Emam to go for dinner and the orientation walk. Dinner was at Gad, a fastfood chain with table service. The inside looked like a burger joint and served middle-eastern food. Compared where we went to lunch, the food was over-priced, no where near as nice, hot and cramped.. ah well, thems the breaks :p
One of our missing companions had joined us by this evening. Sarah is a Brit who had been working as a child-psych in Sydney. Wicked sense of humour and perpetually humming a tune, her and Fraser almost seemed to have choriographed jokes and pranks. No one knew of the final missing member, Rhiana.
The night ended with Emam taking us to a nearby street cafe for mint tea and sheesha. She explained how and why Cairo comes alive at night, as soon as it is cool enough to come outside for socialising and shoppoing. The tea was a lipton bag, same as home.
Sheesha is a mix of tobacco, mollasses and a flavour. Apple seems to be the most common. Sheesha is NOT hasheesh, which is “whacky tabaccy” and illegal here.
The sheesa is placed in the top of the Hookah, under a layer of aluminium foil. The foil is perforated with a long thin needle and a couple of hot coals. By drawing on the end on the long hose, smoke is pulled down through the hookah and bubbles through water at the bottom. We were told not to actually inhale, the point of it is to merely taste the smoke. It seems to be very popular here, with almost every other table at the cafe having 2 or more hookahs. Can't say it's really my thing, but worth trying (seems to be gaining popularity in Australia and America).
150808
The next morning was a reasonable start. Got up about 8, had the standard breakfast and the like.. Tried turkish coffee this morning, which was quite nice until I hit the sludge at the bottom and realised I should have been stirring it between sips :p
Then it was onto the bus to go to the pyramids.
I have only one thing to say about the pyramids. BIG.
I have MANY things I could say about the locals... none of them pleasant.. Seeing as my mum will probably read this, such things will remain unsaid.
The pyramids were Big to the point of surreal. We stopped halfway there to take photos by the side of the freeway. When you're actually underneath the great man-made mountains, you get a neck-ache trying to see the top. For most of us, it just didn't sink in. It felt more like a movie set.
Most of us got tickets to go down into the depths of the second pyramid (the tickets for the great pyramid had already sold out). It was awefully sweaty work, despite airconditioning. The main burial chamber was fairly large. I would have loved to have been able to wander through the side chambers, but they were all blocked off.
Once outside, we all seperated and dodged the locals to take photos. I got Rachel to take a photo of my biting the top off of the second pyramid, both of us ignoring the local who had started with “You are lucky man, your wife very beautiful..” and was probably planning on buying her.
Novelty photo taken, Rachel went back to the bus and I went to see the Pharo's Boat. Next to the Great Pyramid and in air conditioned comfort, the boat was quite interesting to see. It is fully assembled and floats suspended from the ceiling. It too is rather large.
Back on the bus, we drove up to the Panorama. The best location for getting photos of the pyramids, this area is an absolute tourist trap. Locals expect money for EVERYTHING and are very willing to tell whatever lies are required to get it. Two people in our group tried to get scammed into camel rides. Locals would wait until the last moment, jump into your photo and then demand payment. One local slided up next to a couple of us for “photo.. no money..”. Several snaps later, he held out a hand and was furious when we only tipped him 2 pounds, pointing at our money belts saying “more more..”
I can now see why there are tourism police everywhere.. with machine guns and assault rifles.
Back on the bus, we went to the sphynx and got suitably camera-happy. In a way, the Sphynx was more impressive, it just seemed more “real” or more believable. The pyramids were just like a hill or a mountain.
Lunch was at a local place, Fallafel and kebabs.
Once lunch had settled, we took off around the Egyptian Museum. Unfortunately, we were all close to exhaustion and the lack of real air conditioning made it very difficult to concentrate. The “nasty-butt” (as I'd come to call it) was continuing to deteriorate, so statues and ancient works of art were interrupted by regular visits to the toilet. After the tour of the major exhibits, Emam left us for free time. Most of us hoped in a monster sized taxi and retreated to the hotel for air-con, showers and beers in the foyer.
After a while, Sarah and I took off for the food markets near where we had Sheesha the night before. Sarah seemed to befriend every kid in the market as we haggled for fruit for the train (Sarah is a vegitarian). We found a bottle shop nearby and bought some beer as well, then stocked up on water on the way back. Once back at the hotel with plenty of time to spare, Fraser and the American boys took one look at the beer and decided they needed rum. I escorted them back to the bottle shops at a mad pace, we only had about 10 minutes to do it in before the bus left for the train station! Fraser got 4 bottles of Egyptian Rhummo (read: “Nasty Rum”) for about $20 Australian. There was a mad dash back for the bus, which turned into a bit of a wait.
The train station turned into another wait, seems the timetables in Egypt are “fluid”. Once it arrived, we were all suitably impressed. Each compartment took 2 people in bunk beds, there was a waiter for each car that provided food, drinks and arranged the bedding (we were told in advance to tip him well at the end of the trip). Fraser and I hjad a compartment with a door connecting to Sarah and Evy's. Once people had eaten, we piled into the two compartments for drinks and philosophical debate. After dinner, drinks and a biblical lecture by Nick, the majority of us wandered down to the “club car” for the belly-dancing competition. This mostly consisted of the male bar-tender teaching individuals a couple of moves (which also were typically male). Most of the dancing was on table-tops and could only really be described like staring at “rhythmic train-wrecks”, you know it's not whole-some but you just can't look away.
By this point, the nasty-butt was quite nasty. So I took off for an early night.
The notice board in the lobby said the initial meeting would be at 2pm. I noticed that some of the other intrepid people had started to check in, so grabbed two of them and cruised up to where I'd had dinner the night before for lunch.
Erin and John where to guys from America. They'd studied at UCLA together and just flown in from Greece after a heavy night. They came across as pretty easy going and would be fun for the adventures to come.
Back at the hotel, I met my new room mate, Fraser Fox. Fraser is a scottish guy with an awesome sense of humour. He'd just had a series of rotten connecting flights but had already been suitable fed and watered.
The majority of the rest of the travellers were in the lobby by the time we got down there. 4 Aussies in total, a girl from the UK to join our Scottish colleague and 4 Americans. We relocated to the roof-restaurant for the briefing by Emam, our tour leader.
I've already mentioned Fraser, Erin and John. Debbie is an older American lady who works as a translater for deaf people. Well meaning and adventurous, she is also somewhat expressive in conversation. Evy is a young american girl who is turning 20 when we all get back to Cairo. Troy and Sarah are from Australia, Troy worked in logistics and Sarah is an opera singer, they are both really nice and fun to hang out with. Nick is a doctor from RPA who just finished PGY2, unfortunately this quickly blew my cover of “I'm an engineer” quite rapidly, but it'll be good to have someone qualified on the tour. Nick's girlfriend, Rachel, is from the UK. Two people hadn't arrived yet.
Emam is a muslim girl who had graduated from Archaeology and lived in Alexandria. She is extremely pleasant and quite easy going. She confidently and compitently outlined how the trip would operate and what were the main decisions we would have to make at various legs of the trip.
We briefly ran through everyones names (mercifully, no tacky ice-breakers or name-games) and handed up photocopies of passports, insurance and our “Local Payment” money.
Meeting done, we met with our local guide and caught taxis to a Mosque deeper into Cairo.
The mosque was a fasinating experience, hieghtened by having two women lead us and explain the various requirements and aspects of the building. We placed our shoes in the care of two older gentlemen, the girls in the group put on a head-cover and long-sleeves or hired what could only be described as a cross between a full body dress and a nightie. We proceeded into the building and sat in a quiet corner while our guides talked us through the basics of Islam. A bit of a wander later, along with photos of the more impressive architecture, we paid the required tips and collected our shoes.
Outside the mosque, we regrouped and crossed the street to the markets. After a brief orientation (ATMs over there, market enterance over here...) we occupied a couple of tables in a cafe and had egyptian pancakes.
Egyptian pancakes are very difficult to describe. The come in sweet or savoury, with toppings and fillings ranging from bananas to minced meat. I was recommended the pancake with sugar, which turned out to be icing sugar. The pancake itself is an odd type of pastry that is halfway between crepe and the inside of a crossaunt. They're quite tasty (once you remove half of the icing sugar). I also tried some of the sausage pancake that one of the guides couldn't finish, the savoury pancakes could make quite a meal.
Refreshed and renewed, we went back to the enterance of the markets and got let loose. A couple of us forged ahead, being assaulted from every angle with cries of “Hello! Welcome! Come into my shop!”, vendors stepping directly in front of us and youngsters gently tugging at your shirt to try and direct you towards the family business. While quite excciting to begin with, it rapidly became tiresome with EVERYONE trying to sell you something. The group seemed to decide en-mass not to buy anything right now, instead planning to pick up souvenirs when we got back to Cairo rather than lugging them the whole way up Egypt and back. After having a look around the cramped markets for about an hour, myself and the older American Lady emerged and sought out cold drinks and toilets. We were lucky enough to run into Troy and Sarah, two of the other Australians.
We caught taxis back to the hotel shortly after and met with Emam to go for dinner and the orientation walk. Dinner was at Gad, a fastfood chain with table service. The inside looked like a burger joint and served middle-eastern food. Compared where we went to lunch, the food was over-priced, no where near as nice, hot and cramped.. ah well, thems the breaks :p
One of our missing companions had joined us by this evening. Sarah is a Brit who had been working as a child-psych in Sydney. Wicked sense of humour and perpetually humming a tune, her and Fraser almost seemed to have choriographed jokes and pranks. No one knew of the final missing member, Rhiana.
The night ended with Emam taking us to a nearby street cafe for mint tea and sheesha. She explained how and why Cairo comes alive at night, as soon as it is cool enough to come outside for socialising and shoppoing. The tea was a lipton bag, same as home.
Sheesha is a mix of tobacco, mollasses and a flavour. Apple seems to be the most common. Sheesha is NOT hasheesh, which is “whacky tabaccy” and illegal here.
The sheesa is placed in the top of the Hookah, under a layer of aluminium foil. The foil is perforated with a long thin needle and a couple of hot coals. By drawing on the end on the long hose, smoke is pulled down through the hookah and bubbles through water at the bottom. We were told not to actually inhale, the point of it is to merely taste the smoke. It seems to be very popular here, with almost every other table at the cafe having 2 or more hookahs. Can't say it's really my thing, but worth trying (seems to be gaining popularity in Australia and America).
150808
The next morning was a reasonable start. Got up about 8, had the standard breakfast and the like.. Tried turkish coffee this morning, which was quite nice until I hit the sludge at the bottom and realised I should have been stirring it between sips :p
Then it was onto the bus to go to the pyramids.
I have only one thing to say about the pyramids. BIG.
I have MANY things I could say about the locals... none of them pleasant.. Seeing as my mum will probably read this, such things will remain unsaid.
The pyramids were Big to the point of surreal. We stopped halfway there to take photos by the side of the freeway. When you're actually underneath the great man-made mountains, you get a neck-ache trying to see the top. For most of us, it just didn't sink in. It felt more like a movie set.
Most of us got tickets to go down into the depths of the second pyramid (the tickets for the great pyramid had already sold out). It was awefully sweaty work, despite airconditioning. The main burial chamber was fairly large. I would have loved to have been able to wander through the side chambers, but they were all blocked off.
Once outside, we all seperated and dodged the locals to take photos. I got Rachel to take a photo of my biting the top off of the second pyramid, both of us ignoring the local who had started with “You are lucky man, your wife very beautiful..” and was probably planning on buying her.
Novelty photo taken, Rachel went back to the bus and I went to see the Pharo's Boat. Next to the Great Pyramid and in air conditioned comfort, the boat was quite interesting to see. It is fully assembled and floats suspended from the ceiling. It too is rather large.
Back on the bus, we drove up to the Panorama. The best location for getting photos of the pyramids, this area is an absolute tourist trap. Locals expect money for EVERYTHING and are very willing to tell whatever lies are required to get it. Two people in our group tried to get scammed into camel rides. Locals would wait until the last moment, jump into your photo and then demand payment. One local slided up next to a couple of us for “photo.. no money..”. Several snaps later, he held out a hand and was furious when we only tipped him 2 pounds, pointing at our money belts saying “more more..”
I can now see why there are tourism police everywhere.. with machine guns and assault rifles.
Back on the bus, we went to the sphynx and got suitably camera-happy. In a way, the Sphynx was more impressive, it just seemed more “real” or more believable. The pyramids were just like a hill or a mountain.
Lunch was at a local place, Fallafel and kebabs.
Once lunch had settled, we took off around the Egyptian Museum. Unfortunately, we were all close to exhaustion and the lack of real air conditioning made it very difficult to concentrate. The “nasty-butt” (as I'd come to call it) was continuing to deteriorate, so statues and ancient works of art were interrupted by regular visits to the toilet. After the tour of the major exhibits, Emam left us for free time. Most of us hoped in a monster sized taxi and retreated to the hotel for air-con, showers and beers in the foyer.
After a while, Sarah and I took off for the food markets near where we had Sheesha the night before. Sarah seemed to befriend every kid in the market as we haggled for fruit for the train (Sarah is a vegitarian). We found a bottle shop nearby and bought some beer as well, then stocked up on water on the way back. Once back at the hotel with plenty of time to spare, Fraser and the American boys took one look at the beer and decided they needed rum. I escorted them back to the bottle shops at a mad pace, we only had about 10 minutes to do it in before the bus left for the train station! Fraser got 4 bottles of Egyptian Rhummo (read: “Nasty Rum”) for about $20 Australian. There was a mad dash back for the bus, which turned into a bit of a wait.
The train station turned into another wait, seems the timetables in Egypt are “fluid”. Once it arrived, we were all suitably impressed. Each compartment took 2 people in bunk beds, there was a waiter for each car that provided food, drinks and arranged the bedding (we were told in advance to tip him well at the end of the trip). Fraser and I hjad a compartment with a door connecting to Sarah and Evy's. Once people had eaten, we piled into the two compartments for drinks and philosophical debate. After dinner, drinks and a biblical lecture by Nick, the majority of us wandered down to the “club car” for the belly-dancing competition. This mostly consisted of the male bar-tender teaching individuals a couple of moves (which also were typically male). Most of the dancing was on table-tops and could only really be described like staring at “rhythmic train-wrecks”, you know it's not whole-some but you just can't look away.
By this point, the nasty-butt was quite nasty. So I took off for an early night.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
140808 - Cairo
So I arrived into Cairo after a convuluted series of connections.
Lunch in Johannesburg Airport after checking my luggage through to Cairo, flew out at 2pm. Sat next to an American Missionary in the emergency isle (Etheopian Airways has EXCELLENT emergency isle legroom). Got into Addis Ababa (Etheopia) at 2040 and had to rush through to my connection.
I think I took a wrong turn, because I had to go through Security again. The line was really long and there were 3 other flights using the same enterance. Eventually a lady came out and said “Cairo and Beruit”. I assumed that was me and sure enough, my half-hour security wait was cut short :) This was the first checkpoint where they actually looked insinde of any of my gear. I got the rush treatment from there on in, keeping a hold of my passport from enthusiastic officials was a bit of a challenge :p
The Flight to Kartoum was absolutely packed, my neighbours didn't know how to keep their elbows to themselves. We did get fed on this connection though.
The connection to Cairo was only half full, so I jumped back into the emergency isle... luxury
Landed in Cairo at about 0250 local time. Spent about half an hour getting Egyptian pounds out, buying Visas and getting US dollars for my tour. Getting my passport stamped took forever, by which the tourism officials had spotted me. From here on it was the royal treatment. I was escorted past customs and out to the “tour car” parking lot. Shuffled into a VERY nice car with an english speaking driver and then the car ride from hell to the hotel. I figured I was getting ripped-off, but by this point it was worth the extra few dollars.
Driving here is what I'd been told it would be like in South Africa. Tail-gating is more a standard of measurement than a potential offence, speed limits on suburban streets were a mix between “inspired by the old Australian Open-Limit” and seeing how far the pedal could be pushed down. Merging was like watching 2-ton ballet.
Horns here seem to be more a method of expressing one-self than an alarm for warning others against impending doom. Beeping is sometimes when there is nothing else nearby, not beeping when you almost get rammed. The car horn appears to be used in day to day life as a form of street poetry, with a complex system of communicating happiness, greetings, displeasure, “I'm about to merge” and “here is an opening for you”. It is a voice of the people in their motorised palaces, and they clear their throat at every opportunity.
In the simplest of terms, the Egyptian car horn is a replacement for the Australian indicator light (which they do not use) and so much more. Waking in the morning is sometimes to the beautiful Muslim “Call to Prayer” from nearby towers. More often it is to the harsh blaring of the ocean of horns boiling in the streets, screaming out praise to their petrolium overlords and humanity at large. It is a sound ubiquitous to the city, like the heartbeat or drawing of breath.
Racing through the streets with a driver who appeared to possess Jedi-like reflexes, I saw glimpses of Egypt. This truly is a city that never sleeps. Vendors had street stalls open with people milling around, there were food vendors open everywhere. Guys had wares laid out on blankets on the pavement. At this time of night, it looked like Perth or Fremantle on a quiet weekend morning.
Having arrived at my hotel in what was probably record time (in the whole 20minutes at 80-120km/h, I don't think we'd been stationary more than once.. despite traffic lights), the driver demanded a tip. I know I was probably overcharged for the trip, but I figured the experience was worth it. 100EGP plus 5EGP tip (about $21USD in total, about $5 more than what the travel info had advised was fair) was cheap for a ride with what could only be described as a champion rally driver. Super-Car rides are $50 a lap in Perth, I got the “escape and evade” slalem through Cairo at half that price :D
Inside the Hotel Capsis, the clerk said that I was very early but could check in at 6AM if I liked. I was welcome to use their massive couches and bar until then if I liked.
Big bottle of water and making sure that all of my gear was locked up, I was snoozing on the couch until the lights came on.
I got a double room with a window view of the street and a cold shower. The room was nice enough and seemed to have the essentials. I sat up for a little while, soaking in the sounds through the open window..
At 2PM I got ready for the day. I went hunting for food and water and hopefully internet. The lady who was on the counter now was a lot less helpful, or nice, than the gentleman this morning. I got bad directions to find an internet cafe and eventually came back to the hotel after a vendor wouldn't sell me water.
A short lesson on the differences between egytpian bank notes (I'd been trying to use a 0.50EGP note, thinking it was a 50), I was back on the road to victory. I wandered around for a while and resorted going to a nearby service-station for water and local pizza (hey, they have the prices marked.. best to get a price-benchmark before trying to haggle!).
By the time I got back to the hotel, there was a new clerk who was worth his weight in gold. I got directions to the shopping districts, he drew on my map and informed me that the hotel had ADSL wireless at $2USD an hour. WOW!
Emails to Isabelle and Justine to sort out France, Emma and Josh to sort out Spain, Jenny to tell her how much I missed her and posted my South Africa blog.
By the time I'd finished chatting to the clerk, it was about 8PM and still light outside. The clerk assured me that it was very safe in this part of town, so I dumped my gear upstairs and ventured out for dinner.
The one thing that hit me about the next few hours is how much I wish I had someone to travel with and share these experiences with. It was probably the culture shock that I noticed over the next hour or so, the fear that I always feel when I get into a new city. I don't know anyone here, I don't speak the language, I'll probably get ripped off. I'd better stick to the main street, is anyone following me.. wait here and see if that kid keeps walking or has he marked me. Travelling with other people does sometimes cause you to focus on them rather than monitoring your surroundings, but it also offers another set of eyes and a person to feel brave around. Travelling as I am makes me feel more adventureous, but it'd be nice to have people to laugh some of this stuff off with :p
I walked along Ramses St (where the hotel is) until I found the road that is the shopping district. I don't think that I'd gone as far as the clerk had told me to, but I didn't want to push too far into unknown territory. Trying to dress and walk like a local and putting on the “Officer Face” that my mates use was hopefully making me less of a target, but I was still sticking out badly (and a good half-foot taller than anyone around me).
Regardless of if it was the shopping district or not, it was PACKED. I walked along both sides of the roads and some of the side roads for a good hour or two. After overcoming the initial shock, I started peering down the side-streets and into the court-yards. Where in most cities you have a open mall-like enterance leading to a series of shops, these are more like a small opening in the wall that opens out after about 20m of tight alley-way. I figured I wouldn't risk getting lost and stuck to the main street, if I'd been travelling with Emma and Josh or someone like Jenny, I would have liked to have explored these places.
I walked past some packed shops selling food, some of them I didn't like the look of and at one I was simply ignored. I finally overcame my fear and asked one man if he spoke english and could I please have one of “those”. A quick “yes, please take 6 inside” I'd paid the cashier (who padded an extra 0.50) and was on my way with a VERY tasty roll stuffed with seasoned kebab meat and some kind of sour-cream and herb dressing. Feeling braver now and partially fed, I stopped at another store that seemed quite popular, surrounded by people in the street eating a kind of layered and mixed fruit dessert from beer mugs.
Emmulating the locals I vaguely pointed at one of the mugs and passed the cashier a note. In return I got a small token and a heap of change back, the token I gave to the man making the dessert and tried to take a mug.
“No..” and frantic waving of hands, he directed me to take a large one. ~AWESOME~
Dinner successful and back at the hotel, I repacked my bag twice to try and make some more space. I went to bed promising that I would stitch up the things that need repairing in the morning...
Today I got up at about 9AM and pottered around the room for a bit, the gentle baying of car-horns offering a soundtrack to my time-wasting. I wandered up a floor to the restaurant and pondered my situation. I'd like to try and get a phone card to call home today and need to get ready for the tour that starts at 1PM.
The breakfast supplied by the hotel was 2 boiled eggs, 2 small rolls, 2 small pita, jam and coffee. Fullfilling its purpose, I'll have to investigate lunch before joining the tour. Hopefully the activity and the light meals will help me get in shape for the rest of the adventure to come..
Lunch in Johannesburg Airport after checking my luggage through to Cairo, flew out at 2pm. Sat next to an American Missionary in the emergency isle (Etheopian Airways has EXCELLENT emergency isle legroom). Got into Addis Ababa (Etheopia) at 2040 and had to rush through to my connection.
I think I took a wrong turn, because I had to go through Security again. The line was really long and there were 3 other flights using the same enterance. Eventually a lady came out and said “Cairo and Beruit”. I assumed that was me and sure enough, my half-hour security wait was cut short :) This was the first checkpoint where they actually looked insinde of any of my gear. I got the rush treatment from there on in, keeping a hold of my passport from enthusiastic officials was a bit of a challenge :p
The Flight to Kartoum was absolutely packed, my neighbours didn't know how to keep their elbows to themselves. We did get fed on this connection though.
The connection to Cairo was only half full, so I jumped back into the emergency isle... luxury
Landed in Cairo at about 0250 local time. Spent about half an hour getting Egyptian pounds out, buying Visas and getting US dollars for my tour. Getting my passport stamped took forever, by which the tourism officials had spotted me. From here on it was the royal treatment. I was escorted past customs and out to the “tour car” parking lot. Shuffled into a VERY nice car with an english speaking driver and then the car ride from hell to the hotel. I figured I was getting ripped-off, but by this point it was worth the extra few dollars.
Driving here is what I'd been told it would be like in South Africa. Tail-gating is more a standard of measurement than a potential offence, speed limits on suburban streets were a mix between “inspired by the old Australian Open-Limit” and seeing how far the pedal could be pushed down. Merging was like watching 2-ton ballet.
Horns here seem to be more a method of expressing one-self than an alarm for warning others against impending doom. Beeping is sometimes when there is nothing else nearby, not beeping when you almost get rammed. The car horn appears to be used in day to day life as a form of street poetry, with a complex system of communicating happiness, greetings, displeasure, “I'm about to merge” and “here is an opening for you”. It is a voice of the people in their motorised palaces, and they clear their throat at every opportunity.
In the simplest of terms, the Egyptian car horn is a replacement for the Australian indicator light (which they do not use) and so much more. Waking in the morning is sometimes to the beautiful Muslim “Call to Prayer” from nearby towers. More often it is to the harsh blaring of the ocean of horns boiling in the streets, screaming out praise to their petrolium overlords and humanity at large. It is a sound ubiquitous to the city, like the heartbeat or drawing of breath.
Racing through the streets with a driver who appeared to possess Jedi-like reflexes, I saw glimpses of Egypt. This truly is a city that never sleeps. Vendors had street stalls open with people milling around, there were food vendors open everywhere. Guys had wares laid out on blankets on the pavement. At this time of night, it looked like Perth or Fremantle on a quiet weekend morning.
Having arrived at my hotel in what was probably record time (in the whole 20minutes at 80-120km/h, I don't think we'd been stationary more than once.. despite traffic lights), the driver demanded a tip. I know I was probably overcharged for the trip, but I figured the experience was worth it. 100EGP plus 5EGP tip (about $21USD in total, about $5 more than what the travel info had advised was fair) was cheap for a ride with what could only be described as a champion rally driver. Super-Car rides are $50 a lap in Perth, I got the “escape and evade” slalem through Cairo at half that price :D
Inside the Hotel Capsis, the clerk said that I was very early but could check in at 6AM if I liked. I was welcome to use their massive couches and bar until then if I liked.
Big bottle of water and making sure that all of my gear was locked up, I was snoozing on the couch until the lights came on.
I got a double room with a window view of the street and a cold shower. The room was nice enough and seemed to have the essentials. I sat up for a little while, soaking in the sounds through the open window..
At 2PM I got ready for the day. I went hunting for food and water and hopefully internet. The lady who was on the counter now was a lot less helpful, or nice, than the gentleman this morning. I got bad directions to find an internet cafe and eventually came back to the hotel after a vendor wouldn't sell me water.
A short lesson on the differences between egytpian bank notes (I'd been trying to use a 0.50EGP note, thinking it was a 50), I was back on the road to victory. I wandered around for a while and resorted going to a nearby service-station for water and local pizza (hey, they have the prices marked.. best to get a price-benchmark before trying to haggle!).
By the time I got back to the hotel, there was a new clerk who was worth his weight in gold. I got directions to the shopping districts, he drew on my map and informed me that the hotel had ADSL wireless at $2USD an hour. WOW!
Emails to Isabelle and Justine to sort out France, Emma and Josh to sort out Spain, Jenny to tell her how much I missed her and posted my South Africa blog.
By the time I'd finished chatting to the clerk, it was about 8PM and still light outside. The clerk assured me that it was very safe in this part of town, so I dumped my gear upstairs and ventured out for dinner.
The one thing that hit me about the next few hours is how much I wish I had someone to travel with and share these experiences with. It was probably the culture shock that I noticed over the next hour or so, the fear that I always feel when I get into a new city. I don't know anyone here, I don't speak the language, I'll probably get ripped off. I'd better stick to the main street, is anyone following me.. wait here and see if that kid keeps walking or has he marked me. Travelling with other people does sometimes cause you to focus on them rather than monitoring your surroundings, but it also offers another set of eyes and a person to feel brave around. Travelling as I am makes me feel more adventureous, but it'd be nice to have people to laugh some of this stuff off with :p
I walked along Ramses St (where the hotel is) until I found the road that is the shopping district. I don't think that I'd gone as far as the clerk had told me to, but I didn't want to push too far into unknown territory. Trying to dress and walk like a local and putting on the “Officer Face” that my mates use was hopefully making me less of a target, but I was still sticking out badly (and a good half-foot taller than anyone around me).
Regardless of if it was the shopping district or not, it was PACKED. I walked along both sides of the roads and some of the side roads for a good hour or two. After overcoming the initial shock, I started peering down the side-streets and into the court-yards. Where in most cities you have a open mall-like enterance leading to a series of shops, these are more like a small opening in the wall that opens out after about 20m of tight alley-way. I figured I wouldn't risk getting lost and stuck to the main street, if I'd been travelling with Emma and Josh or someone like Jenny, I would have liked to have explored these places.
I walked past some packed shops selling food, some of them I didn't like the look of and at one I was simply ignored. I finally overcame my fear and asked one man if he spoke english and could I please have one of “those”. A quick “yes, please take 6 inside” I'd paid the cashier (who padded an extra 0.50) and was on my way with a VERY tasty roll stuffed with seasoned kebab meat and some kind of sour-cream and herb dressing. Feeling braver now and partially fed, I stopped at another store that seemed quite popular, surrounded by people in the street eating a kind of layered and mixed fruit dessert from beer mugs.
Emmulating the locals I vaguely pointed at one of the mugs and passed the cashier a note. In return I got a small token and a heap of change back, the token I gave to the man making the dessert and tried to take a mug.
“No..” and frantic waving of hands, he directed me to take a large one. ~AWESOME~
Dinner successful and back at the hotel, I repacked my bag twice to try and make some more space. I went to bed promising that I would stitch up the things that need repairing in the morning...
Today I got up at about 9AM and pottered around the room for a bit, the gentle baying of car-horns offering a soundtrack to my time-wasting. I wandered up a floor to the restaurant and pondered my situation. I'd like to try and get a phone card to call home today and need to get ready for the tour that starts at 1PM.
The breakfast supplied by the hotel was 2 boiled eggs, 2 small rolls, 2 small pita, jam and coffee. Fullfilling its purpose, I'll have to investigate lunch before joining the tour. Hopefully the activity and the light meals will help me get in shape for the rest of the adventure to come..
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
080808-20808 - South Africa
so, this is a bit of a back-dated blog.. (currently in Cairo)
The flight over was the same as usual.. try and sleep, cheap food, so on. though, this time I couldn't get good and drunk. Instead I had to take aspirin every few hours and drink lots of water. It did mean that I talked to a bunch of people though, I got a good run down on safety and such by a nice lady called Shawn from Jo-burg.
Snazzy picked me up from the airport and we went for dinner. WOW everything is cheap in Australian dollars!!! Mazzy and I had 2 drinks each, entre and mains (MUH-HAS-IVE mains) for about R280 (about $30AU) at a fairly swanky restaurant. Even with tips it was cheap (you have to tip everywhere).
Monash SA is pretty nice. Rooms are fairly spartan, but quite standard for collage. I can see why Snazzy wants to get her own place.
Security is everywhere, it's just a way of life. At home we lock the door at night, there they have a fence. Driving wasn't ANYWHERE near as bad as I expected.
Next morning, we went to the Cradle of Mankind. Cools caves with an underground lake. We then went to the next place over that had an "underground boat ride". Hoping it to be a boat ride through a cave-lake, it was actually an educational theme-park. It did have some very cool fossils though.
That night we went and saw "African Footprint", a Bollywood style interpretive dance of the history of South Africa.
On the Sunday we went out to Pilansberg National Park, about 180km from Monash. Priscilla and Lisa came along. It was VERY cool, we spotted Zebra, Giraffe, Rhino, Wilderbeast, Buffalo, Hippo, Warthog (not as ugly as you'd think, the girls thought they were cute :p ) and heaps of birds. No big cats though :(
We drove past some townships on the way up, there is a lot of work to do in Africa yet... towns of corrugated iron opposite construction sites for FIFA 2010.
I'd definitely like to do Suweto on my next visit.
The trip back was a crack-up of really bad jokes. Lisa does the most awesome Afrikans accent! Had a simple dinner when we got home.
On Monday Snazzy, Lisa and I went to the local Lion and Rhino Park after hitting the shops with Lisa. Stocked up on clothes and some other essentials.
The Lion and Rhino park is much more "enclosed". Got some good photos of Zebra, a heap of different "bucky-thingy" animals (wildebeast, Springbock, etc), Rhinos and so on. We went through the Wild Dog enclosure (one of them started to try to steal Lisa's numberplate...) and the big cats. Great photos of Lions, Cheetah, white lions.
The highlight was the baby-animal creche. Not what we have at home.. the only baby-lambs here would be for dinner :)
Got some photos of tigers so close I could have touched them. Cheetah that was pacing with us on the other side of the fence, purring. Leopards lounging in some trees...
AND BABY LIONS!!! we got to play with them, rough-house with them, tease them with squishy toys.. lots of photos :D
One of them was hugging my leg, licking it... which was funny till I realised how rough its tongue is, that its claws were getting sharper... and that now there is a lion out there that has my scent, and will forever pine for my flesh.
~AWESOME~
Had dinner that night with Marianne's Boss, Simon, his charming wife and AWESOME kids. Lots of wine and a most excellent dinner.
Hung out with Snazzy on Tuesday morning before getting the Uni transport to the Airport. Had tea with her colleagues while she was giving a tutorial. Collin and Kim had some excellent ideas for involving the uni in local and national development. David talked a heap about Jo-burg, the area Marianne wants to move to. Stocked up on trinkets at the airport, which was a heap cheaper than the other gift shops I'd seen.
In summary, I think I like South Africa more than Marianne does :p it will be very hard to top this stage of the trip.. It is just that awesome.
I definitely want to come back here in the future. Yes, safety and security is something that you must always be conscious of, always take hand of and NEVER assume someone else will pick up the slack. You can never go ANYWHERE unless you know how you will get home. That said, it is not that different from Perth. Outside of Jo-Burg, it may as well be the Australian bush.
If I had the opportunity, I'd very much like to study at Monash SA. I have been *THAT* impressed.
Mum and Dad HAVE GOT TO have a holiday here. The weather, people, animals, everything. You could have the most OUTRAGEOUS holiday of your life for 2 weeks and not spend more than $5000. It has been EXCELLENT.
The flight over was the same as usual.. try and sleep, cheap food, so on. though, this time I couldn't get good and drunk. Instead I had to take aspirin every few hours and drink lots of water. It did mean that I talked to a bunch of people though, I got a good run down on safety and such by a nice lady called Shawn from Jo-burg.
Snazzy picked me up from the airport and we went for dinner. WOW everything is cheap in Australian dollars!!! Mazzy and I had 2 drinks each, entre and mains (MUH-HAS-IVE mains) for about R280 (about $30AU) at a fairly swanky restaurant. Even with tips it was cheap (you have to tip everywhere).
Monash SA is pretty nice. Rooms are fairly spartan, but quite standard for collage. I can see why Snazzy wants to get her own place.
Security is everywhere, it's just a way of life. At home we lock the door at night, there they have a fence. Driving wasn't ANYWHERE near as bad as I expected.
Next morning, we went to the Cradle of Mankind. Cools caves with an underground lake. We then went to the next place over that had an "underground boat ride". Hoping it to be a boat ride through a cave-lake, it was actually an educational theme-park. It did have some very cool fossils though.
That night we went and saw "African Footprint", a Bollywood style interpretive dance of the history of South Africa.
On the Sunday we went out to Pilansberg National Park, about 180km from Monash. Priscilla and Lisa came along. It was VERY cool, we spotted Zebra, Giraffe, Rhino, Wilderbeast, Buffalo, Hippo, Warthog (not as ugly as you'd think, the girls thought they were cute :p ) and heaps of birds. No big cats though :(
We drove past some townships on the way up, there is a lot of work to do in Africa yet... towns of corrugated iron opposite construction sites for FIFA 2010.
I'd definitely like to do Suweto on my next visit.
The trip back was a crack-up of really bad jokes. Lisa does the most awesome Afrikans accent! Had a simple dinner when we got home.
On Monday Snazzy, Lisa and I went to the local Lion and Rhino Park after hitting the shops with Lisa. Stocked up on clothes and some other essentials.
The Lion and Rhino park is much more "enclosed". Got some good photos of Zebra, a heap of different "bucky-thingy" animals (wildebeast, Springbock, etc), Rhinos and so on. We went through the Wild Dog enclosure (one of them started to try to steal Lisa's numberplate...) and the big cats. Great photos of Lions, Cheetah, white lions.
The highlight was the baby-animal creche. Not what we have at home.. the only baby-lambs here would be for dinner :)
Got some photos of tigers so close I could have touched them. Cheetah that was pacing with us on the other side of the fence, purring. Leopards lounging in some trees...
AND BABY LIONS!!! we got to play with them, rough-house with them, tease them with squishy toys.. lots of photos :D
One of them was hugging my leg, licking it... which was funny till I realised how rough its tongue is, that its claws were getting sharper... and that now there is a lion out there that has my scent, and will forever pine for my flesh.
~AWESOME~
Had dinner that night with Marianne's Boss, Simon, his charming wife and AWESOME kids. Lots of wine and a most excellent dinner.
Hung out with Snazzy on Tuesday morning before getting the Uni transport to the Airport. Had tea with her colleagues while she was giving a tutorial. Collin and Kim had some excellent ideas for involving the uni in local and national development. David talked a heap about Jo-burg, the area Marianne wants to move to. Stocked up on trinkets at the airport, which was a heap cheaper than the other gift shops I'd seen.
In summary, I think I like South Africa more than Marianne does :p it will be very hard to top this stage of the trip.. It is just that awesome.
I definitely want to come back here in the future. Yes, safety and security is something that you must always be conscious of, always take hand of and NEVER assume someone else will pick up the slack. You can never go ANYWHERE unless you know how you will get home. That said, it is not that different from Perth. Outside of Jo-Burg, it may as well be the Australian bush.
If I had the opportunity, I'd very much like to study at Monash SA. I have been *THAT* impressed.
Mum and Dad HAVE GOT TO have a holiday here. The weather, people, animals, everything. You could have the most OUTRAGEOUS holiday of your life for 2 weeks and not spend more than $5000. It has been EXCELLENT.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
T-2 Days 8 Hours
Had my going away party on the weekend, which was pretty nice :) Mum, Dad and I went to Clancy's early on to chill out for a while and have a late lunch. Irena also came along early which was really sweet, it was good to catch up with her for a bit. I'll miss hanging out with her when she moves to Melbourne. People showed up pretty consistently up until about 8PM. Neil, Zoe, her friend, Chris (Army mate), Dave and I all cruised back to Neils and watched movies/beer till late. All in all it was a good night and an ~awesome~ hangover the next day :p
Since then, WOW.. what a bastard of a week...
Finishing up at work.. I'm not sure if I'm some kind of closet misogynist or something, but now I appear to have inadvertently pissed-off a second girl at work. I really give up. I'm doing my best to complete my last few duties to the highest level possible, but frankly I'm fed up. They've taken some very deliberate and underhanded steps to undermine any loyalty I had for them. It's ironic seeing as how much I enjoyed working there to begin with, now it's just boiled down to not wanting to go Jack on my work mates.
Speaking of Jack..
Pretty dark at my Army mates, only one showed up at my going away party on Saturday and only one other actually seemed guilty for not showing. Guilty, FOR PLAYING BLOODY XBOX!!! Pretty disappointing, none of the bastards even bought me a beer tonight seeing as it was my last parade for the year (I also only just dodged getting discharged.. long story.. long disappointing story..)
Talk about a shitty day.
The RSM, the Major and my Captain were all *above excellent* though, the staff at my unit are absolutely top-notch and have been remarkably supportive considering how much I must have let them down this year. They really are.. inspirational. I want to be *that* kind of leader, *that* kind of mate.
On a good note, the Surgeon and my Physio are really happy with my progress. I just need to be careful while I'm away. My travel insurance still won't cover my knee though, even though there's no legitimate reason why my knee is uninsurable.. bastards.. If I had the time, I'd call them up and grill just why a pencil-pusher thinks I'm such a horribly bad risk.
Still, I'm *SURE* I'll get my passport back tomorrow, along with my new phone and that my last paycheck will arrive without hassle. I sold Marianne's car today for the amount that she wanted (small victory, considering the man-hours that have gone into selling it), so that is at least a win for her.
Only two more days, it'll be fine.. just need to keep my eye on the prize. Just these last few little hurdles.
Considering the COPIOUS AMOUNTS OF CRAP that this year has presented, there is NOTHING that can go "that badly wrong" now. I've successfully navigate some pretty daunting challenges, even in a manner which I consider to be above reproach. I've done GOOD, DAMMIT!!!
Now I just need to get my gear in order, to get on that plane.. Get off the ground, and it'll all be fine.
Since then, WOW.. what a bastard of a week...
Finishing up at work.. I'm not sure if I'm some kind of closet misogynist or something, but now I appear to have inadvertently pissed-off a second girl at work. I really give up. I'm doing my best to complete my last few duties to the highest level possible, but frankly I'm fed up. They've taken some very deliberate and underhanded steps to undermine any loyalty I had for them. It's ironic seeing as how much I enjoyed working there to begin with, now it's just boiled down to not wanting to go Jack on my work mates.
Speaking of Jack..
Pretty dark at my Army mates, only one showed up at my going away party on Saturday and only one other actually seemed guilty for not showing. Guilty, FOR PLAYING BLOODY XBOX!!! Pretty disappointing, none of the bastards even bought me a beer tonight seeing as it was my last parade for the year (I also only just dodged getting discharged.. long story.. long disappointing story..)
Talk about a shitty day.
The RSM, the Major and my Captain were all *above excellent* though, the staff at my unit are absolutely top-notch and have been remarkably supportive considering how much I must have let them down this year. They really are.. inspirational. I want to be *that* kind of leader, *that* kind of mate.
On a good note, the Surgeon and my Physio are really happy with my progress. I just need to be careful while I'm away. My travel insurance still won't cover my knee though, even though there's no legitimate reason why my knee is uninsurable.. bastards.. If I had the time, I'd call them up and grill just why a pencil-pusher thinks I'm such a horribly bad risk.
Still, I'm *SURE* I'll get my passport back tomorrow, along with my new phone and that my last paycheck will arrive without hassle. I sold Marianne's car today for the amount that she wanted (small victory, considering the man-hours that have gone into selling it), so that is at least a win for her.
Only two more days, it'll be fine.. just need to keep my eye on the prize. Just these last few little hurdles.
Considering the COPIOUS AMOUNTS OF CRAP that this year has presented, there is NOTHING that can go "that badly wrong" now. I've successfully navigate some pretty daunting challenges, even in a manner which I consider to be above reproach. I've done GOOD, DAMMIT!!!
Now I just need to get my gear in order, to get on that plane.. Get off the ground, and it'll all be fine.
Friday, August 1, 2008
T -6 Days 8 hours
Tax return has proven most delicious :D Now I have my spending money.
Waiting for Passport to arrive, waiting for new phone to come in on Monday, waiting to get on the plane...
Had tea with Olga tonight (RAMUS mentor) and got to see her lovely new house. She gave me a bit of a pep-talk about how important this year will be for helping me to realise my true passion for medicine. It was nice for someone to see it as that straight away, rather than grilling me for "slacking off".
Olga also gave me the lecture about "travel health" :p I suppose I had to get it from someone. She did raise a valid point about DVT for the AUS-S.Africa flight.
Found out very recently that Tom won't be travelling at all this year.
That was epically bad news, especially considering how much he slaved his guts out to earn enough. It *DOES* mean that he'll be able to afford a MOST EXCELLENT elective next year, but it is yet another kick-while-he's-down.
Tom, you've tackled the challenges of this year with tact, grace and dignity. I hope you take away enough experiences from this year to be "worth it". I feel for you, brother! I'll toast many drinks in your name during my absence.
I found out this morning that the awesome VIP tickets to Birds of Tokyo are for *THE SAME DAMN TIME AS MY GOING AWAY PARTY* :( also, the friend who wanted to come along to the gig is now in quaranteen for having the plague or whatever. If anyone would like the tickets, just let me know. It sounds like a good gig!
I thought about pushing back my party till 7pm, but figure that ample beer and food that is of the fishy variety would suit me better. Plus, getting the revised plan out to everyone would just mess everyone around :p
I think that work now truly appreciates that *I AM LEAVING* :p I'm trying to bring someone in on each of my duties, and hope to have much of them squared away before I leave. Regardless, I'm taking half-days for Monday and Tuesday. I can stick around for all of Wednesday if they want me to, but that is all. The critical stuff has someone on-board. The other stuff has a fair degree of documentation.. I'm sure that they will be able to deal :p
So, now I just need to pack my clothes, tidy the unit up and mothball the delicate stuff. Redirect my mail and ship a heap of stuff to my parents.
Ironically, packing is probably going to be the least intensive job but certainly the longest. I'm now looking on taking profoundly fewer clothes than I thought possible.. still too much other miscellaneous crap like cooking stuff and my little tool-pack. I'll just have to lay it all out and be merciless...
well, off to see Wanted tonight.
ciao
Waiting for Passport to arrive, waiting for new phone to come in on Monday, waiting to get on the plane...
Had tea with Olga tonight (RAMUS mentor) and got to see her lovely new house. She gave me a bit of a pep-talk about how important this year will be for helping me to realise my true passion for medicine. It was nice for someone to see it as that straight away, rather than grilling me for "slacking off".
Olga also gave me the lecture about "travel health" :p I suppose I had to get it from someone. She did raise a valid point about DVT for the AUS-S.Africa flight.
Found out very recently that Tom won't be travelling at all this year.
That was epically bad news, especially considering how much he slaved his guts out to earn enough. It *DOES* mean that he'll be able to afford a MOST EXCELLENT elective next year, but it is yet another kick-while-he's-down.
Tom, you've tackled the challenges of this year with tact, grace and dignity. I hope you take away enough experiences from this year to be "worth it". I feel for you, brother! I'll toast many drinks in your name during my absence.
I found out this morning that the awesome VIP tickets to Birds of Tokyo are for *THE SAME DAMN TIME AS MY GOING AWAY PARTY* :( also, the friend who wanted to come along to the gig is now in quaranteen for having the plague or whatever. If anyone would like the tickets, just let me know. It sounds like a good gig!
I thought about pushing back my party till 7pm, but figure that ample beer and food that is of the fishy variety would suit me better. Plus, getting the revised plan out to everyone would just mess everyone around :p
I think that work now truly appreciates that *I AM LEAVING* :p I'm trying to bring someone in on each of my duties, and hope to have much of them squared away before I leave. Regardless, I'm taking half-days for Monday and Tuesday. I can stick around for all of Wednesday if they want me to, but that is all. The critical stuff has someone on-board. The other stuff has a fair degree of documentation.. I'm sure that they will be able to deal :p
So, now I just need to pack my clothes, tidy the unit up and mothball the delicate stuff. Redirect my mail and ship a heap of stuff to my parents.
Ironically, packing is probably going to be the least intensive job but certainly the longest. I'm now looking on taking profoundly fewer clothes than I thought possible.. still too much other miscellaneous crap like cooking stuff and my little tool-pack. I'll just have to lay it all out and be merciless...
well, off to see Wanted tonight.
ciao
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