Do you know why people do the “walk like an Egyptian” dance? It’s not because Egyptians actually dance(d) like that. Seriously. It’s because of how they are portrayed in temple carvings and tomb paintings. The Egyptians lived their lives waiting for the next one and depictions of ancient Egyptians always show them in motion, walking towards the afterlife. Hence the bent arms. Interesting, right?
I’m back from Egypt and I think Jenny and I brought ehs un back with us because it’s a glorious sunny day in London and has been since I’ve been back. It’s very hard to motivate myself to plan for school, but it must be done. Too bad I can’t be on vacation forever. But instead o doing my school work I’m going to procrastinate a bit and write a post about my amazing trip to Egypt. We were gone for 9 days and did and saw SO much. I’m absolutely exhausted after all the early wake ups, overnight trains, and blazing heat. It’s almost like I need a vacation to recover from my vacation! But honestly I feel so fortunate to have traveled and seen everything that I did. To give you a play by play of each day from sunrise to midnight would take hours and pages, so i think I’ll just give a general overview of what the trip was like and a few specific stories and highlights.
We traveled with On the Go tours and there were about 30 people on our trip. Jenny and I were the only Americans — everyone else was from South Africa, Australia, England or New Zeland. I think I was the youngest person on the trip but the majority of the travelers were in their late 20s I’d say. We basically spent all of our time together. We traveled from temple to temple on a big coach bus where we got colorful explanations and updates from our tourguide, Sheriff. His catchphrase was, “Ladies and Gentlemen, get ready, get excited! This is the time you have been waiting for all of your lives! We’re visiting XXX” and so on and so forth. Sheriff was hysterical — full of stories and quirks. He did his best to keep us engaged and entertained all the time. even if it meant acting out scenes carved on temple walls or repeating 3/4 of everything he said.
We spent 3 nights in hotels and the other nights on overnight trains (Jenny and I did not pay the upgrade from seater to sleeper train, which I would reconsider next time). We also spent two nights aboard a felucca sailing boat going down the Nile. About half the group went on a cruise ship and the other half was split into two groups and put on different sailboats.
I’d break down my trip into 3 top moments.
1) Visiting the Pyramids on the first day.
2) Sailing along the Nile on our Felucca sailboat and our nighttime bonfire along the banks.
3) Visiting the Egyptian museum in Cairo on our last day.
One of the most magical moments was seeing the pyramids at night on our way from the airport to our hotel outside Cairo on the first night. For some reason I expected them to be in a remote area but they are surprisingly close to the airport and you can see them from the highway!
Visiting the pyramids the next morning was awe-inspiring. It’s absolutely amazing to see something so 1) old and 2) huge. It’s something that everyone says and thinks, but you really can’t grasp just what an extraordinary feat it was until you’re standing right in front of the pyramids They are absolutely enormous and built from large large blocks of stone. I thought that the facade was going to be very smooth but the stones are actually quite roughly cut, although uniform in size. Jenny and I had a great time taking pictures in front of the first pyramid, trying many many times to get the jump shot timed correctly. 
After walking around the first pyramid by ourselves we got back on the bus and drove to a panoramic viewpoint where we could see all three pyramids. We also tried some funny optical illusion shots there, hoping to touch the top of both pyramids with our fingers, make up the sides with our arms or look like we were holding up on of them up with our palms. It was definitely more difficult than it looked and took a lot of patience and detailed instruction (move your left arm to the right one inch, now don a bit. wait no that’s wrong. Try again. Fkatten out your hand,” etc.
It seems that I’ve become much more claustrophobic as I get older. We had the opportunity to go INSIDE on of the temples. We crawled through a 1.5 meter high tunnel to the direct center. We were litearlly standing in THE MIDDLE OF THE PYRAMIDS IN EGYPT> What an incredible experience, however terrifying.
Throughout the whole trip I had a really hard time wrapping my head around what 3,500 years ago means. I know that everything I;ve seen in Egypt is very very old, but understanding just what that means or how long ago it was is quite difficult for me. I’m also really eager to buy a book and learn more about everything I’ve seen, since Sheriff’s explanations weren’t always the easiest to follow (although he did teach us some sweet belly dancing moves such as, “The Snake,” “Attraction,” and “Seduction.”)
Out trip down the Nile was wonderful, sailing from Aswan to Luxor. I forgot how much I love being on the water, and also how much happier I am in sunshine. it’s just hard to be in a bad mood when the weather is nice! A felucca is a traditional wooden sail boat that has two sails. But it’s quite flat and best described as a barge with sails. It’s got a small small deck area in the back and then just a 7X12 foot platform that’s covered in a cushion where the passengers sit (ours was a very nice 80s floral). There were 10 people (minus the three captains) on our boat, which was distinguishable from the others only by its myriad Bob Marley flags. Our captina was named Fuzzy Wuzzy and he seriously rocked his dreadlocks Wehonestly didn’t do much for those two days on the boat. Luckily it was covered with another sheet about 4 feet above our heads, which protected us from the sun. It was definitely HOT. But so nice to relax and read, or stick my feet off the side of the boat into the cool water. I didn’t sleep all that well, or all that much, since the sun woke me up very early more by its ferocious heat rather than the bright light. But we got to stop and go swimming, drink some local beer and just listen to music (on a very ghetto tape player). It was so peaceful.
On our second night we stopped on the banks of the Nile and had an evening bonfire. Alas, there were no s’mores, which was very sad. I’ll have to make up for it this summer. But we built a huge fire and the captains all got out their drums and tambourines and we danced around the fire to the Noubian music. It was one of those moments when all other worries go flying out the window and you just enjoy the omment you’re in. So perfect and bissful.
An early start on the second to last day allowed us to avoid some of the fierce midday heat as we ventured to the tomb strewn Valley of the Kings. There was an optional hot air excursion over Thebes, but it was a bit pricey for my budget so I’ll have to go next time! Highlights of the day included the Colossi of Memnon, a massive pair of statues that stand silent against the backdrop of history, the Valleys of the Kings and the awesome ramped and colonnaded Temple of Queen Hatshepsut, fondly nicknamed “Queen Hot Chicken Soup” by Sheriff.
The Valley of the Kings is studded with often highly decorated tombs, constructed to once house the regal sarcophagi enclosed mummies of the mighty pharaohs awaiting passage into the after-life. In the afternoon we visited the colossal Temple of Karnak, with a stone-columned Hypostle Hall. It was all, as everything else on the trip was, amazing. But the heat was really really brutal in Luxor. Even though we woke up early it was miserably hot by 9 am. So imagine our exhaustion by the time the end of the visits rolled around. Luckily we got to enjoy a good peaceful night’s sleep on the….train back to Cairo! I’m getting tired just thinking about it again! It was a whirlwind to say the least.
We woke up very early again when our train arrived at the station in Cairo and spent the last day at the Egyptian Museum, which was another one of my favorite parts of the trip. Famed for the treasures of King Tutankhamen and his famous solid gold funerary mask., the Egyptian museum is unlike any other I’ve ever been to. It houses so many extraordinary pieces of art and historically valuable artifacts, but they’re all just clumped together and are unprotected. There is very litlte wall text, and some of it is written by hand on pieces of lined notebook paper! Craziness! Very different from all the museums in Europe and in the States. But I’ve now seen the first wall painting EVER< King Tut’s treasures, which are so flashy that I was almost blinded by the sheer amount of gold everywhere. The mask and solid gold coffins inlayed with stone were my favorites by far. You’re not permitted to take photos inside the museum though, so you’ll have to go visit for yourself.
Well, that’s all about I have time and energy for. I hopeyou’ve enjoyed reading about my trip and that I’ve been able to describe what I saw well enough to give you a good picture of what the trip was like . I’m back in London after a 1 am flight from Cairo and through Paris (I confused 13:10 and 1:10 and didn’t realize until the day of my flgith!). It seems that spring has hit us over here and I really hope it stays this way. I’m missing those spring days in the Berkshires right now where it flinally gets nice enough to run outside in a t shirt and shorts, and also our BBQs and evenings on the roof of my Goff’s apartment. Hopefully London will provide an equally fun and memorable springtime as Williams did last year. I miss you all!
