I woke up at about 6:30 this morning and decided to hit the Executive Lounge for breakfast this morning. It was quite a spread. I had a small bowl of bran cereal with milk and a whole fig. From a steam table, I got a sort of pancake that was very thin and folded in quarters. I also got a hard-boiled egg but it was so fresh that it didn’t peel worth a darn and I kind of made a mess of it. Next to that was another container that had a type of cheese and 3 smaller plates that had some sort of paste or dip attractively arranged. I took a piece of cheese and a small dab of each of the pastes. The cheese tasted like a fresh cheese, and it squeaked against my teeth like fresh cheese curd does but it was a squarish slice. I have no idea what the pastes were made of or for. I tasted them all but didn’t care for any of them.
I went back to see what was at the other stations. There was one that had a selection of sliced cheeses and meats, one with breads and pastries and one with fruit. I had some watermelon, kiwi fruit and a small pastry that had little pieces of various fruits on top of it.
Shima picked me up at 9:00 and we headed out. We stopped at a supermarket on the way to pick up water and snacks. The supermarket was a small one, she said, but it had an impressive selection and stock of items. Some items were familiar; like V05 shampoo which Shaimaa pointed out as being so much cheaper in the US. In the fruit and vegetable section, I recognized all the items, although some of them were not typical in a store at home...like fresh figs and dates. There were also a lot of cantaloupe and watermelon, which Shima said were very cheap as they were locally produced (I’d seen many donkey carts rolling through the city piled with them so I could easily believe that!), and one lonely pineapple that Shima said was very expensive.
We checked out and then sat in her car for a bit drinking the pineapple sodas that she recommended we get (since they’d get hot if we didn’t) and eating Snickers bars (since they’d melt if we didn’t).
While we were sitting there watching the typical Cairo day unfold for the small street where we were parked. There was a cluster of men across the street, under an overhang milling about. I asked Shima what they were doing and she said it was a “snack garage” and pretty much looked like someone was selling bottled water and other things out of their garage.
On a ledge directly across the street from me, I noticed a light-colored cat lounging on a ledge. It looked so Egyptian…like the statues you see of associated with the Pharaohs of the cat-god Bastet! It was very long and lithe with big ears and a very short coat. Yesterday, Sahid told me Egyptians consider cats to be lucky…especially black ones.
Around 10, we headed out to the Pharaonic Village. Shima said that the village is kind of like the Living History Farms in Des Moines that she saw when she was there. Except that a big piece of the Village is viewed by boat. I was sort of having trouble imagining how that would work but figured it would all become clear shortly.
We had about 15 minutes until the boat left so we wandered in the gift shop for a bit. In the display of papyrus art, there were a number of examples of Arabic calligraphy…verses from the Koran. I had Shima tell me what they said…not a translation, just a general idea. There was one I especially liked about when facing difficulties, be patient. Shima said that things here were very expensive and I could find any of these things much cheaper at the bazaar tomorrow.
When it was time for the boat, we went outside and they directed us to the English boat…it was a smaller one off to the side as there weren’t that many English-speaking people there right then. It ended up being Shima, me, a woman from California and two men with her…one from Ghana and one who was, I think, her Egyptian guide.
The boat crossed this branch of the Nile toward the Village island and the recorded tour started. As we motored around the island, there were various statues to illustrate the various people and events in Egyptian history that the recording described.
Around the back side of the island were people acting out various scenes of farming with a wooden plow, making reed boats, pigeon raising (which the ancient Egyptians raised for food), pottery- and glass-making, etc.
At the end of the boat ride, we got out for a walking tour of displays and were met by our island guide. He was a fairly young man named Ahmed and was very friendly and engaging.
He guided us through various displays of a temple, a rich man’s house, poor man’s house, etc. There were opportunities everywhere to buy a sort of pastry as made by the baker at that display, or to put on various Egyptian costumes and have your picture taken, or buy one of the magic pots that were displayed at the potter’s. The woman from California wanted to have pictures taken and Shima needed to sit down so we went outside and sat at a table in the snack bar/restaurant to have a cold drink while they were doing that.
Shima is 4 months pregnant. She found out about it while she was in the US in June/July. Then, she was really morning-sick. Now, she’s not having so much trouble with morning sickness but her feet and legs are swelling and it’s hard for her to walk a lot. That’s why she was taking me to the Village instead of, say, the Pyramids yesterday. She thought the boat ride would mean less walking. And it certainly has been less walking than yesterday but still, she needed to sit down. She’d been taking about every opportunity to sit during the walking part of the tour, but it wasn’t always possible.
After the break, we walked through a demonstration of glass blowing, leather working, copper work, and various other Egyptian hand crafts. I bought a few of the glass perfume bottles (3 at $4 each) and paid with one of my Egyptian bills. I wanted change in small bills, as I’d been feeling bad about not being able to tip the bathroom attendants in places (they always seem so drawn and hungry-looking…older women or small children), but the cashier didn’t want to give me change that way. Shima had a whole wad of small bills and made change for me. So now my pockets are stuffed with one and half-pound bills.
When we left the Village, it was about 2:00 and we went to Shima’s home to pick up her husband, Tarek. From there, we drove to a restaurant Tawek picked out where we could have traditional Egyptian food. Shima had told me earlier that it was a eat-with-your-hands type of place and asked if that was ok for me. I said, “Sure!” If it’s traditional Egyptian, I’m all in!
We found the place eventually. I’ve come to the conclusion that you cannot drive directly to anywhere in Cairo. The way the streets work (such as it is) requires that you double back a lot…you have to go down a street past where you want to go, then pull a U-ey around the median and go back.
And, while there are occasionally stop lights, for the most part they don’t function and, when they do, they are completely and utterly ignored. There are traffic police, but even they sometimes don’t function. We passed one intersection where the traffic cop was sitting asleep in his little shack as the traffic was whizzing by. There was another intersection…sort of a round-about…where the car ahead of ours slipped the traffic cop some baksheesh through the window and the cop changed the traffic flow to let our way go.
Anyway, the restaurant was a small place…maybe 10 tables. Tawek ordered for us and I went to wash my hands. Food here is served in common plates. On the other tables, I saw a platter piled with a yellow rice and on top of that were half-chickens or pieces of meat. The men (no other women were in the restaurant) were taking a handful of rice and squeezing it to make it stick together, then putting it in their mouths. The pieces of meat were picked apart by hand or gnawed directly. There were also some smaller bowls of a red sauce and a slightly larger bowl of a salad.
When our food came, we had individual plates of rice and meat with a couple of the sauce bowls and a common salad plate. I had chicken and Shima and Tarek had lamb, plus one extra lamb plate to share.
The rice was flavored with some seasoning…a type of curry, I think, plus bay leaf and some other thing that looked like an orange or lemon seed except that it was not hard. Those last two were picked out and set aside with the bones and fat. The chicken (called mandi chicken) was very tasty, as was the lamb. The red sauce was exactly like a fresh salsa except that it didn’t have any cilantro in it and it was more of a puree than chopped…just tomato, onion, and a bit of hot pepper. The salad was a dark lettuce, ripe tomatoes, and cucumber; all cut into small pieces.
It’s an exceedingly messy process to eat. No napkins are provided (Shima brought a package of tissues in with her, which seemed odd at the time, but now I get it!). As you eat the meat, the fat gets all over your hands. We put some of the tissues on the table to hold the inedible parts. And if you wipe your hands with the tissues, a lot of times the tissue falls apart and sticks to your hands.
They did give us spoons, which we used for the salsa and to eat our rice. It’s also accepted practice to eat the salad communally from the same bowl with our eating spoons. Very poor form in the U.S. but when in Egypt…
After the meal I was stuffed. We’d eaten all the meat and most of the salad but still had a plate of rice left. Since we weren’t going to be anywhere with a fridge anytime soon, we just left it.
As we left the restaurant, Shima announced that it was time for dessert. I really didn’t want any more to eat but they were being so gracious… There was a place right next door to the restaurant that served a traditional dessert made with rice, milk, sugar, nuts, etc. She got 3 for us and we went back to the car to eat in air conditioning.
I opened mine. It was in an oval plastic bowl. One half was sprinkled with chopped nuts, the other half with shredded coconut and there was a white stripe down the middle that looked like a piping of whipped cream but was more dense than that. It was cool, fairly light as desserts go, and very tasty.
We headed toward the Cairo Tower for a view of the city and surrounding area. However, when we got there, it was closed for restoration or repair. As we slowed down near the entrance to see what was up, a woman in a car behind us plowed into the back of our car. Tawek got out and a crowd of people gathered. I decided that I’d best stay in the car as there was absolutely nothing that could be gained by my getting out and involved. Shima stayed in the car for a bit too, but then she got out. While her door was open, I heard the other woman talking very loudly, rapidly and angrily. Eventually, Tarek and Shima got back in the car and I heard Shima muttering under her breath that the woman was crazy.
However, we all proceeded on our way afterward as if nothing had happened. It was a minor fender-bender in Cairo terms and not worth much notice.
With the high-up city view not possible, we went to a café along the Nile have cold drinks and hang out. They took me to the Grand Café, which did have a lovely view of the Nile and many comfortable places to sit.
We ordered sodas and sat, talking. We talked about anything and everything and watched the river roll by and the boats out on it. There were a lot of people there smoking tobacco in hookahs. They were probably 2 and a half or 3 feet tall…glass water containers at the bottom, metal ventilated tops to hold the tobacco and coals, and pastel tubes with mouthpieces that the smokers drew on.
There was a guy at a table near ours. He was just reading and smoking. The attendants would stop by periodically to take away the ash and provide fresh coals. I watched the thing work as he exhaled huge billows of smoke but I couldn’t quite get my head around the actual mechanics of it.
I asked Tarek about it (since he’s a mechanical engineer) and he tried to explain but his English wasn’t quite up to it. So I pulled out my little notebook and asked him to draw a picture. Then it was much clearer! I asked him to sign it so that after he was rich and famous it would be very valuable. We all laughed and he signed and dated it.
We sat there until the sun started to go down and it was time to leave to catch the Sound & Light show at the Sphinx. I wanted a picture of us in front of the Nile first so we paid then went down along the edge and I took some great pictures with some sailboats and the setting sun over the Nile in the background.
We headed toward the Sphinx by way of many detours. I think I’ve mentioned that driving around Cairo is not a straight-forward operation. And Tarek and Shima weren’t really sure how to get there from where we were. We could easily see the Pyramids and head in that direction but since you can’t just go that way with all the double-backs, that doesn’t help much. We stopped to ask pedestrians for directions many times and they were all very helpful…helpful to the point of providing directions, even if they didn’t have a clue.
We made and the show was already started but not by much. The outdoor theatre had rows and rows of chairs facing the Sphinx and the pyramids. The story of the ancient kings, the pyramids and history was told as seen by the Sphinx. It was all accompanied by very dramatic music, voice over, and laser light projections. It was quite the spectacle.
By the time it was over, it had been a very long day and it was after 11 by the time I got to the hotel. We said our goodbyes outside the hotel as they dropped me off and I went to my room to shower and crash.
06 August 2007
Aug 3 – Pyramids, Sphinx, Citadel
Sherif called my room at around 8:00 and I met him down in the lobby.
We got in his car and headed toward Giza, stopping first at a gas station to get gas (1.3 Egyptian pounds per liter, or $.94 per gallon) and drinks as he said it would be hot at the pyramids and would be lunch time before we’d get something else. I had my water bottle with me but that’s only half a liter and I’d likely need more than that. I tried to buy the drinks but Sherif wouldn’t let me.
We continued to Giza through mostly empty streets. Sherif commented that the traffic in Cairo is much different than the traffic in Des Moines and that, normally, the streets would be packed with crazy driving and horns honking like I saw on my way to the hotel yesterday. But since it’s Friday (the equivalent of Sunday back home), there was very little traffic.
In fact, as we drove down what looked to be a fairly major street, there were a number of donkey carts and horse-drawn vehicles mixed in with the traffic. Sherif said that they were limited to side streets by law but since it was Friday there wasn’t much, if any, enforcement of it.
We crossed the Nile River (twice…it branches a number of times through town creating several islands) and then pulled over to wait for our tour guide. Sherif’s brother’s friend (Sahid) got in and we continued our way toward the pyramids. Sahid is a tour guide by trade and knows a lot about Cairo and its contents. He started with the history of the area as we continued our approach to the Giza plateau.
When we got to the gate there were some buses and cars and a lot of horse-drawn carriages. The car had to have a security inspection before it could enter the grounds so Sherif stayed with the car for that while Sahid and I walked through the people-security area. Sherif parked the car while Sahid told me more about the pyramids…both the “official story” that he’s required to tell the tourists and the “real story” that he knows plus some “scholars say” stories thrown in just for balance.
Sherif joins us and we head to the base of the largest pyramid at Giza, Cheops. There is a shaft that you can enter and actually go inside. Sherif and I went inside while Sahid stayed outside with our bags and cameras since cameras are forbidden inside.
The entrance to the shaft is fairly narrow and level, however it soon becomes a steep upward climb. The passage floor has been covered with planks that have metal bars mounted crosswise on them…I’m guessing the angle is greater than 45 degrees. There are handrails and it’s narrow…when meeting people going the other direction, you kind of have to sidle past each other. There isn’t much room height-wise, either. You have to climb the first section of it bent over. It wasn’t so bad for me but Sherif is well over 6 feet tall…the top of my head comes about to the top of his shoulder…so he really had to bend over.
There’s brief level stretch and then another steep upward climb, but at least this one has plenty of head room as the ceiling is probably 20-30 feet up. At the top of this longer climb is the actual passage to the burial chamber. This passage is maybe 3 and a half feet high so you really have to crouch. Luckily, it’s not overlong. Once you get into the chamber, it’s a large open space…maybe 18 to 20 feet wide and high and probably twice that long. At the far end is the stone tomb that contained the sarcophagus. The tomb and walls are granite. The granite slabs over the top of the chamber span the width of it without seams. That’s a huge chunk of rock!
There are no carvings, paintings or decorations in this chamber…just smooth granite surfaces. There are a couple of dehumidifiers installed in the corners behind the tomb and a security camera higher up at one end. There are lights in the shaft and tomb room, enough so that you can see, but none of it is brightly lit. It lends an appropriate air of mystery to the space.
It was kind of a strange feeling to touch the stone tomb and think of the people long, long ago who made it as well as the person who occupied it after death. Or to touch the joints in the stone walls and wonder at the craftsmanship that let them make such smooth surfaces and tight, mortarless joints with the tools available millennia ago. And how the heck did they get those huge granite slabs in place on top of the chamber?? Or even up there in the first place?
On the way up, I’d noticed a moaning hum or buzz inside the passageway. Sherif and I discussed it and decided that it had to be air ventilating through the passages. Inside the chamber, there were some openings in the walls that were covered with metal grates (obviously not vintage Cheops…) that were drawing air, which tended to support our theory.
The chamber we visited was not that of Cheops. His chamber was down toward the bottom of the pyramid, but there isn’t tourist access to that part. The chamber we saw was that of his mother.
Going back down the shaft was easier on the long slope. If you were daring enough and no one was trying to come up, you could let gravity do a lot of the work and sort of “pole” your way down the handrails, since they were close enough to each other to make that work. That didn’t work at the lower section of the shaft, though. That’s where there wasn’t head room. I just kind of crouched down and crept. Sherif alternated going forwards and backwards but for someone of his height, there just wasn’t a good way to do it.
Back out in the heat and sun of the desert, we met up with Sahid and headed over to the other tombs. These were not pyramids, just tombs. And because Sahid is an official guide, he got us into some tomb rooms that are not generally open to the public. This was one of those cases where some baksheesh was involved. I saw Sahid slipping a guy some money as we walked back to where the tomb areas were.
One of the tombs had a small cavity in the floor just inside the entrance. Sahid moved the stone slabs aside to reveal a human skull. It was found in the tomb but no one knows who it might be. It wasn’t part of the tomb occupant (that would have been mummified in the sarcophagus)…it might have been a tomb raider or worker. No one knows.
These tombs, in contrast with the one inside Cheops, had carvings and inscriptions on the walls and in some places you could see remnants of the paint that had once been there. Sahid explained the meaning of the images and hieroglyphs. We saw a lot of the same images in many of the tombs…the sacrifices, the weighing of the soul, Anubis guarding the entrance, etc.
We also saw where the solar boat was found and the museum that now houses it. The solar boat looks like it was entombed, much as the kings had been. The entire boat was build without nails or caulking. The planks were lashed together with ropes in such a way that it didn’t leak. Or that’s the theory. Sahid thinks it was never actually meant to float…that it was a symbolic provision for the king in his afterlife. Either way, it was a full-sized boat with 12 oars and a 2-room cabin mid-ship.
In one of the temp and humidity controlled display cases, there were a couple samples of the actual rope knotting found with the boat. I think they were the oarlocks… Sahid marveled at how the knots were tied, and it was a wonder. But I was amazed at the rope itself. It was made from grass, yet thick and smooth and strong enough to hold the boat together.
After that, we got in the car and drove to a spot where you could get a picture of all 3 of the big pyramids together. It was packed with people and tour buses and vendors hawking cheap souvenirs. Also people selling camel/horse or horse-drawn carriage rides. When we first arrived, Sahid asked if I wanted to ride a camel and I wasn’t all that keen on the idea so didn’t. But Sahid said that the ride vendors tended to pester the tourists unmercifully and whatever the price for the ride, it usually required some baksheesh to get you down off the camel afterward or back to the starting point for the horse or carriage rides. Which dovetailed nicely with what I’d been reading about it…
Then we drove down to the Sphinx area. It’s all cordoned off so you can’t actually get near it but your Giza Plateau ticket gives you access to all the pyramid and tomb areas as well as a place from which to view the Sphinx. The Sphinx area was also packed with people and tour buses. Being a little later in the day on a weekend, I think had a lot to do with that. There were a lot more people than when we first got there. There was one bottleneck to the viewing area that was just insane. Everyone has to go through this one small doorway to get to/from the viewing area and there were probably many, many hundreds of people trying to do just that. Sahid navigates crowds like Egyptians drive so he kind of plowed a path through the people and I followed along in his wake. Sherif wasn’t so willing to plow through. Sahid said he’d been out of the country too much and had forgotten how to be Egyptian.
After the Sphinx, Sahid took us to a perfumery where they showed us how they make the essential and pure oils. Also exquisite glass and crystal work. They plied us with complimentary beverages and then demoed some of their unique scent blends for perfume or medicinal uses. I kind of felt trapped into buying something so I got a small bottle of perfume and when I picked out a blown bottle to go with it, he tossed it in for “free.” For pure perfume oil, I’m confident it was a good price (216 pounds for 100 ml plus the blown glass bottle…about $38) and the bottle is a work of art. But it’s probably more than I’ll use in a lifetime. Ah, well. Perfume oil was on my list of things to get…I just hadn’t planned on spending that much for it.
Then we went to a papyrus institute where a woman demonstrated how real papyrus is made. That was fascinating! And, of course, they had many examples of papyrus artwork for sale (also on my list of things to get) so I got a small scarab beetle piece for 40 pounds (a little over $7).
By then it was around 2:00 and since I’d never had breakfast, I was getting hungry. They asked what I wanted to eat and I said, “Egyptian food!” They took me to this place called the Country Side. It was a cool place to be, even leaving aside the wonderful food…very old, made of stone and beams with a wonderful old-world, yet comfortable atmosphere. We decided to sit inside and I asked Sherif to order whatever for me.
The waiter brought a half-dozen small dishes with a basket of bread and Sahid said this was the appetizer. It looked like a whole meal to me! The bread was kind of naan like and we’d seen women baking it in ovens where we entered the grounds. They take patties of dough and coat it in bran then put them into a wood-fired oven. The dishes were fairly Greek-like, I thought…one was rice and seasonings and suchlike wrapped in grape leaves, there was dish that had meatballs and French fries on it, one with small pickle spears and 3 dishes of dipping sauces…one made with eggplant and spices, one from sesame and garlic, and one that was a yogurt gyro sauce. Then Sahid talked with the waiter and he brought a couple more dishes; one with a sort of pickled beet and one he called kimchee but it wasn’t at all like the kimchee I know…it was basically cabbage and grated carrot with a vinegar sauce…not the least bit hot and fiery.
Sahid said that Greek and Egyptian culture blended a long time ago, which helped explain why I thought most of the traditional Egyptian food on the table was Greek instead.
Then the main course came…half a roasted chicken for each of us. We’d seen the chickens rotisserie-ing by where the women were baking bread and they smelled wonderful. The taste lived up to the smell! Sahid said that they raise the chickens themselves, out back.
All that food for the 3 of us plus water/pop/fake beer to drink came to 177 pounds (about $32). What a feast!
After lunch, we went to the Citadel. It was getting close to closing time so we didn’t spend a lot of time there. We did go into several of the mosques and heard a lot about the history of the place.
As we were walking back to the car, Sherif said that was the end of the planned touring for the day but if I wasn’t tired, we could go walk around downtown and take a sail on the Nile. A sail on the Nile sounded wonderful but I was about dead on my feet after having not slept well the night before and spent the whole day out in the sun and heat. I thanked him but said I’d just go back to the hotel.
My plan was to stay awake until 10 or so. Maybe that way I could sleep through the night. However, once I got back and had a shower and some water to drink, I just couldn’t keep my eyes open so I set the alarm to let me sleep 30 minutes then got up and puttered and ‘putered.
I’d purchased an hour of internet time last night but only used about 10 minutes of it to post a blog and check mail, thinking that I’d use the rest of it over the next couple days until I get to the office. However, I discovered that the hour you buy is only good for an hour from the time you purchase it. So all those minutes I ‘saved’ yesterday to use later, are *poof* gone. Argh!
Tomorrow sounds like a long day coming: a visit to the pharaonic village (kind of like the Living History Farms in Des Moines, only Egyptian), something else I’ve forgotten, and the ‘sound and light’ show at the Giza plateau in the evening. Shaimaa is picking me up at 9:00.
We got in his car and headed toward Giza, stopping first at a gas station to get gas (1.3 Egyptian pounds per liter, or $.94 per gallon) and drinks as he said it would be hot at the pyramids and would be lunch time before we’d get something else. I had my water bottle with me but that’s only half a liter and I’d likely need more than that. I tried to buy the drinks but Sherif wouldn’t let me.
We continued to Giza through mostly empty streets. Sherif commented that the traffic in Cairo is much different than the traffic in Des Moines and that, normally, the streets would be packed with crazy driving and horns honking like I saw on my way to the hotel yesterday. But since it’s Friday (the equivalent of Sunday back home), there was very little traffic.
In fact, as we drove down what looked to be a fairly major street, there were a number of donkey carts and horse-drawn vehicles mixed in with the traffic. Sherif said that they were limited to side streets by law but since it was Friday there wasn’t much, if any, enforcement of it.
We crossed the Nile River (twice…it branches a number of times through town creating several islands) and then pulled over to wait for our tour guide. Sherif’s brother’s friend (Sahid) got in and we continued our way toward the pyramids. Sahid is a tour guide by trade and knows a lot about Cairo and its contents. He started with the history of the area as we continued our approach to the Giza plateau.
When we got to the gate there were some buses and cars and a lot of horse-drawn carriages. The car had to have a security inspection before it could enter the grounds so Sherif stayed with the car for that while Sahid and I walked through the people-security area. Sherif parked the car while Sahid told me more about the pyramids…both the “official story” that he’s required to tell the tourists and the “real story” that he knows plus some “scholars say” stories thrown in just for balance.
Sherif joins us and we head to the base of the largest pyramid at Giza, Cheops. There is a shaft that you can enter and actually go inside. Sherif and I went inside while Sahid stayed outside with our bags and cameras since cameras are forbidden inside.
The entrance to the shaft is fairly narrow and level, however it soon becomes a steep upward climb. The passage floor has been covered with planks that have metal bars mounted crosswise on them…I’m guessing the angle is greater than 45 degrees. There are handrails and it’s narrow…when meeting people going the other direction, you kind of have to sidle past each other. There isn’t much room height-wise, either. You have to climb the first section of it bent over. It wasn’t so bad for me but Sherif is well over 6 feet tall…the top of my head comes about to the top of his shoulder…so he really had to bend over.
There’s brief level stretch and then another steep upward climb, but at least this one has plenty of head room as the ceiling is probably 20-30 feet up. At the top of this longer climb is the actual passage to the burial chamber. This passage is maybe 3 and a half feet high so you really have to crouch. Luckily, it’s not overlong. Once you get into the chamber, it’s a large open space…maybe 18 to 20 feet wide and high and probably twice that long. At the far end is the stone tomb that contained the sarcophagus. The tomb and walls are granite. The granite slabs over the top of the chamber span the width of it without seams. That’s a huge chunk of rock!
There are no carvings, paintings or decorations in this chamber…just smooth granite surfaces. There are a couple of dehumidifiers installed in the corners behind the tomb and a security camera higher up at one end. There are lights in the shaft and tomb room, enough so that you can see, but none of it is brightly lit. It lends an appropriate air of mystery to the space.
It was kind of a strange feeling to touch the stone tomb and think of the people long, long ago who made it as well as the person who occupied it after death. Or to touch the joints in the stone walls and wonder at the craftsmanship that let them make such smooth surfaces and tight, mortarless joints with the tools available millennia ago. And how the heck did they get those huge granite slabs in place on top of the chamber?? Or even up there in the first place?
On the way up, I’d noticed a moaning hum or buzz inside the passageway. Sherif and I discussed it and decided that it had to be air ventilating through the passages. Inside the chamber, there were some openings in the walls that were covered with metal grates (obviously not vintage Cheops…) that were drawing air, which tended to support our theory.
The chamber we visited was not that of Cheops. His chamber was down toward the bottom of the pyramid, but there isn’t tourist access to that part. The chamber we saw was that of his mother.
Going back down the shaft was easier on the long slope. If you were daring enough and no one was trying to come up, you could let gravity do a lot of the work and sort of “pole” your way down the handrails, since they were close enough to each other to make that work. That didn’t work at the lower section of the shaft, though. That’s where there wasn’t head room. I just kind of crouched down and crept. Sherif alternated going forwards and backwards but for someone of his height, there just wasn’t a good way to do it.
Back out in the heat and sun of the desert, we met up with Sahid and headed over to the other tombs. These were not pyramids, just tombs. And because Sahid is an official guide, he got us into some tomb rooms that are not generally open to the public. This was one of those cases where some baksheesh was involved. I saw Sahid slipping a guy some money as we walked back to where the tomb areas were.
One of the tombs had a small cavity in the floor just inside the entrance. Sahid moved the stone slabs aside to reveal a human skull. It was found in the tomb but no one knows who it might be. It wasn’t part of the tomb occupant (that would have been mummified in the sarcophagus)…it might have been a tomb raider or worker. No one knows.
These tombs, in contrast with the one inside Cheops, had carvings and inscriptions on the walls and in some places you could see remnants of the paint that had once been there. Sahid explained the meaning of the images and hieroglyphs. We saw a lot of the same images in many of the tombs…the sacrifices, the weighing of the soul, Anubis guarding the entrance, etc.
We also saw where the solar boat was found and the museum that now houses it. The solar boat looks like it was entombed, much as the kings had been. The entire boat was build without nails or caulking. The planks were lashed together with ropes in such a way that it didn’t leak. Or that’s the theory. Sahid thinks it was never actually meant to float…that it was a symbolic provision for the king in his afterlife. Either way, it was a full-sized boat with 12 oars and a 2-room cabin mid-ship.
In one of the temp and humidity controlled display cases, there were a couple samples of the actual rope knotting found with the boat. I think they were the oarlocks… Sahid marveled at how the knots were tied, and it was a wonder. But I was amazed at the rope itself. It was made from grass, yet thick and smooth and strong enough to hold the boat together.
After that, we got in the car and drove to a spot where you could get a picture of all 3 of the big pyramids together. It was packed with people and tour buses and vendors hawking cheap souvenirs. Also people selling camel/horse or horse-drawn carriage rides. When we first arrived, Sahid asked if I wanted to ride a camel and I wasn’t all that keen on the idea so didn’t. But Sahid said that the ride vendors tended to pester the tourists unmercifully and whatever the price for the ride, it usually required some baksheesh to get you down off the camel afterward or back to the starting point for the horse or carriage rides. Which dovetailed nicely with what I’d been reading about it…
Then we drove down to the Sphinx area. It’s all cordoned off so you can’t actually get near it but your Giza Plateau ticket gives you access to all the pyramid and tomb areas as well as a place from which to view the Sphinx. The Sphinx area was also packed with people and tour buses. Being a little later in the day on a weekend, I think had a lot to do with that. There were a lot more people than when we first got there. There was one bottleneck to the viewing area that was just insane. Everyone has to go through this one small doorway to get to/from the viewing area and there were probably many, many hundreds of people trying to do just that. Sahid navigates crowds like Egyptians drive so he kind of plowed a path through the people and I followed along in his wake. Sherif wasn’t so willing to plow through. Sahid said he’d been out of the country too much and had forgotten how to be Egyptian.
After the Sphinx, Sahid took us to a perfumery where they showed us how they make the essential and pure oils. Also exquisite glass and crystal work. They plied us with complimentary beverages and then demoed some of their unique scent blends for perfume or medicinal uses. I kind of felt trapped into buying something so I got a small bottle of perfume and when I picked out a blown bottle to go with it, he tossed it in for “free.” For pure perfume oil, I’m confident it was a good price (216 pounds for 100 ml plus the blown glass bottle…about $38) and the bottle is a work of art. But it’s probably more than I’ll use in a lifetime. Ah, well. Perfume oil was on my list of things to get…I just hadn’t planned on spending that much for it.
Then we went to a papyrus institute where a woman demonstrated how real papyrus is made. That was fascinating! And, of course, they had many examples of papyrus artwork for sale (also on my list of things to get) so I got a small scarab beetle piece for 40 pounds (a little over $7).
By then it was around 2:00 and since I’d never had breakfast, I was getting hungry. They asked what I wanted to eat and I said, “Egyptian food!” They took me to this place called the Country Side. It was a cool place to be, even leaving aside the wonderful food…very old, made of stone and beams with a wonderful old-world, yet comfortable atmosphere. We decided to sit inside and I asked Sherif to order whatever for me.
The waiter brought a half-dozen small dishes with a basket of bread and Sahid said this was the appetizer. It looked like a whole meal to me! The bread was kind of naan like and we’d seen women baking it in ovens where we entered the grounds. They take patties of dough and coat it in bran then put them into a wood-fired oven. The dishes were fairly Greek-like, I thought…one was rice and seasonings and suchlike wrapped in grape leaves, there was dish that had meatballs and French fries on it, one with small pickle spears and 3 dishes of dipping sauces…one made with eggplant and spices, one from sesame and garlic, and one that was a yogurt gyro sauce. Then Sahid talked with the waiter and he brought a couple more dishes; one with a sort of pickled beet and one he called kimchee but it wasn’t at all like the kimchee I know…it was basically cabbage and grated carrot with a vinegar sauce…not the least bit hot and fiery.
Sahid said that Greek and Egyptian culture blended a long time ago, which helped explain why I thought most of the traditional Egyptian food on the table was Greek instead.
Then the main course came…half a roasted chicken for each of us. We’d seen the chickens rotisserie-ing by where the women were baking bread and they smelled wonderful. The taste lived up to the smell! Sahid said that they raise the chickens themselves, out back.
All that food for the 3 of us plus water/pop/fake beer to drink came to 177 pounds (about $32). What a feast!
After lunch, we went to the Citadel. It was getting close to closing time so we didn’t spend a lot of time there. We did go into several of the mosques and heard a lot about the history of the place.
As we were walking back to the car, Sherif said that was the end of the planned touring for the day but if I wasn’t tired, we could go walk around downtown and take a sail on the Nile. A sail on the Nile sounded wonderful but I was about dead on my feet after having not slept well the night before and spent the whole day out in the sun and heat. I thanked him but said I’d just go back to the hotel.
My plan was to stay awake until 10 or so. Maybe that way I could sleep through the night. However, once I got back and had a shower and some water to drink, I just couldn’t keep my eyes open so I set the alarm to let me sleep 30 minutes then got up and puttered and ‘putered.
I’d purchased an hour of internet time last night but only used about 10 minutes of it to post a blog and check mail, thinking that I’d use the rest of it over the next couple days until I get to the office. However, I discovered that the hour you buy is only good for an hour from the time you purchase it. So all those minutes I ‘saved’ yesterday to use later, are *poof* gone. Argh!
Tomorrow sounds like a long day coming: a visit to the pharaonic village (kind of like the Living History Farms in Des Moines, only Egyptian), something else I’ve forgotten, and the ‘sound and light’ show at the Giza plateau in the evening. Shaimaa is picking me up at 9:00.
02 August 2007
August 3, I think...
El Banna got me checked in. I didn’t check in downstairs in the main lobby. We went upstairs to the Executive Wing…part of a deal Pioneer has with the hotel. Apparently, everyone who comes on company business stays at this hotel with the executive treatment. Basically, that means checking in and out at the executive lounge on the 6th floor. The lounge also has free continental breakfast in the morning, afternoon “tea”, and early evening happy hour.
Once I’m all signed in and taken care of, El Banna takes off and I head to my room. I unpack, get organized in the room, call Alan to let him know I made it. Next thing I know it’s 10:30 and I’m really tired.
I must have gone to sleep fairly readily but I woke up around 2:30. I laid awake for a while. Maybe I drifted off again eventually but I think I was still awake around 4:30 when I heard this rhythmic thumping from the room next door. I’m guessing their headboard was on the same wall as mine.
I laid awake a while longer and decided I just wasn’t going to get back to sleep so I got up and puttered on the computer for a bit. The hotel has Wi-Fi so I could charge some access to my room to post this…it’s 60 pounds per hour (a little over $10)….
By now, it’s 6:30am. The continental breakfast in the Executive Lounge is open. I should move about and do some stretches or exercise or something. I’m so stiff and sore from all the travel inactivity.
Once I’m all signed in and taken care of, El Banna takes off and I head to my room. I unpack, get organized in the room, call Alan to let him know I made it. Next thing I know it’s 10:30 and I’m really tired.
I must have gone to sleep fairly readily but I woke up around 2:30. I laid awake for a while. Maybe I drifted off again eventually but I think I was still awake around 4:30 when I heard this rhythmic thumping from the room next door. I’m guessing their headboard was on the same wall as mine.
I laid awake a while longer and decided I just wasn’t going to get back to sleep so I got up and puttered on the computer for a bit. The hotel has Wi-Fi so I could charge some access to my room to post this…it’s 60 pounds per hour (a little over $10)….
By now, it’s 6:30am. The continental breakfast in the Executive Lounge is open. I should move about and do some stretches or exercise or something. I’m so stiff and sore from all the travel inactivity.
August 2: Frankfurt to Cairo
The flight to Frankfurt was mostly without incident. After the first meal, I managed to sleep some until turbulence over Iceland woke me. Actually, I have no idea if it was Iceland…I just know it was somewhere in the middle of the trip. It was of short duration and I went back to sleep afterward.
However there was a bit of an incident just prior to landing. The fasten seatbelts sign had come on and we were approaching Frankfurt. They were showing a video about the Frankfurt airport processes…where passport control and baggage claim are located, how to navigate the airport, etc. And it occurred to me that I should collect my travel documents before getting off the plane, just to be prepared.
That’s when I couldn’t find my passport.
I knew I’d put it in the pocket of my pants after getting on the plane but it wasn’t there now. I double-checked all my pockets, the book I’d been reading, my carry-on bag (even though I hadn’t opened or even touched it the entire flight), the seat under me... It was nowhere to be found. The only thing I could think of was that it had fallen out of my pocket while I was sleeping and it was inside the workings of the seat.
The seat I had was a sort of business-class type plane seat…like a recliner, only motorized. I had no idea how to get inside the workings of it. The flight attendants were bustling about, preparing for landing, and I caught the attention of one as she went by. I explained that my passport was missing and I think it’s inside the seat.
She digs around the cushion (much as I already had) and, even though the seatbelt light is on, I get out of the seat so she can peel back the bottom cushion and check there. No go.
She goes to get a flashlight and a couple other attendants congregate to see to see what’s going on. Conversation flashes in German. The next thing I know there are about 5 flight attendants and the guy in the seat next to me crawling around on the floor with the flashlight trying to see if it’s in there and where.
At one point, the guy looks up at me and asks, “Is it a blue one?” and I say yes. He says, “It’s in there.” They fish around some more and eventually get it out. One of the flight attendants says, “One hundred dollars.” and everyone laughs but if I’d had it in cash right then, I’d have gladly paid! Instead, I thanked them all and got strapped in for landing.
I can’t even imagine what might have happened if I hadn’t looked for the passport until I’d gotten off the plane.
At Frankfurt, I started heading to my gate. En route, I heard an announcement about all passengers on the flight to Cairo needing to be in the boarding area. I checked my (Alan’s) watch and it looked like I had 45 minutes or so yet. But I didn’t really have any idea how far I was from the gate.
I checked a monitor to make sure the gate assignment hadn’t changed since I checked in (yesterday in Des Moines). It took me a minute to find the flight info. The flights were not listed alphabetically, as they are in the US. They’re listed by departure time. So I had to look at my ticket to see when I was supposed to depart to find the flight. Even if the flights had been alphabetical, I’d have had to hunt for the flight. Cairo was spelled with a K instead of a C.
The Cairo flight was completely uneventful. They served a meal and I wasn’t particularly hungry…I felt I had done nothing but eat since I left home…but I ate anyway since it was going to be 7:30 before I touched down in Cairo and it was easier to eat then than deal with finding food later. Besides, it was about 5pm that I had the dog in Chicago, after 9 when they served the first meal on the trans-Atlantic flight, 6 or so hours later that they served breakfast before landing and 3 or 4 hours after that that I had this meal.
So, let’s see that’s 5pm Wednesday to 7:30pm Thursday…26 hours, let’s call it…minus the 8 hour time change…that’s 4 meals in 18 hours…no snacks. Heck if I know whether it’s actually time to eat or not.
At the Cairo airport, I had no trouble finding my escort. There were a half dozen or so guys standing at the end of the jetway with signs showing various people’s names. But since they were all written in Arabic, I figured they couldn’t be for me.
Further on, there were dozens of guys lined up with name-bearing placards. I easily found the one that said “Mr Sue Hotovec” in big block letters. The guy welcomed me, shook my hand and apologized for the “Mr” on the sign. He just wrote the name he was given.
Hey, it’s not the first time I’ve been called “Mr. And I’ve many times been befuddled by foreign names, myself.
We headed toward immigration. He asked if I had bags to collect (I didn’t) and if I had my visa already (I did). Near immigration, he headed off to the side and asked me for my passport. Then he had me wait while he took my passport to a window and talked to the people on the other side of the glass. I couldn’t see who he was talking to, but there were a number of other people like him at the window and a number of other people like me, standing off to the side.
When he finished at the window he gestured to me to follow him and we went down this narrow aisle beside/behind the immigration lines. There were checkpoints along the way where he was obviously known to the people and he showed my passport and kept moving. I just followed him. The long, snaking immigration lines were just the other side of the low wall but I was skirting around them. It was like line-jumping, only perfectly legit.
He led me outside the airport and asked me to wait while he looked further up the line of cars and buses for my contact. He asked me if I knew Mohamed El Banna and I said I’d spoken with him on the phone but had never actually met him…so I wouldn’t recognize him by sight.
In just a minute or two a man comes up to us, calling my name. We make introductions and the disembodied voice on the phone has become incarnate. He’s tall and thin and not as dark and “Egyptian looking” as the other Egyptians I’ve met. But he’s very gracious and friendly and apologizes many times that he wasn’t there when I arrived. Both the guy who led me through the airport and El Banna were kind of thrown off by the fact that I didn’t have any checked luggage to wait for…I got through the process sooner than expected.
We took a shuttle to the parking lot where El Banna’s car is.
On the shuttle with us were several people I’m guessing were Arabian. The men were wearing long white robes and the same red-and-white head covering that Arafat always wore. There was also a woman in a full, black burkah…draped head to toe with only her glasses showing outside the black cloth.
Pretty much everyone else on the shuttle was wearing typical western style clothing. I had the only white face and was one of very few women. I noticed a couple of the people nearby, men, were looking at me while trying not to be obvious about it. Kind of like I was looking at the woman in the burkah, trying not to be obvious or rude about it.
We get to the parking lot and El Banna leads me to his car, parked away from the shuttle stop. As we walk, he talks about the schedule he’s prepared for my touring over the next few days and the training schedule for the following week. He wants me to feel comfortable and says that the Egyptian people are very friendly and I will always have someone from the office with me…to pick me up at the hotel, show me around, take me too/from the office.
While we’re talking and walking, I notice that practically every car in the lot has at least one caved-in side with scrapes running the full length of the car. Not just a few…almost every single one. When we get to El Banna’s car, it’s not caved in; it’s fairly new-looking.
We leave the parking lot and toward my hotel, still talking and planning the coming week. As we pull out into traffic, I understand why all the cars are caved in. The road may be marked for 2 lanes but, apparently, that’s just a suggestion. Cars squeeze into and out of lanes, missing other cars by, quite literally, an inch or two. If you want to change lanes, you don’t wait for an opening…you make one.
We arrive without incident at the Hotel Heliopolis…my home away from home for the next week-and-a-bit.
However there was a bit of an incident just prior to landing. The fasten seatbelts sign had come on and we were approaching Frankfurt. They were showing a video about the Frankfurt airport processes…where passport control and baggage claim are located, how to navigate the airport, etc. And it occurred to me that I should collect my travel documents before getting off the plane, just to be prepared.
That’s when I couldn’t find my passport.
I knew I’d put it in the pocket of my pants after getting on the plane but it wasn’t there now. I double-checked all my pockets, the book I’d been reading, my carry-on bag (even though I hadn’t opened or even touched it the entire flight), the seat under me... It was nowhere to be found. The only thing I could think of was that it had fallen out of my pocket while I was sleeping and it was inside the workings of the seat.
The seat I had was a sort of business-class type plane seat…like a recliner, only motorized. I had no idea how to get inside the workings of it. The flight attendants were bustling about, preparing for landing, and I caught the attention of one as she went by. I explained that my passport was missing and I think it’s inside the seat.
She digs around the cushion (much as I already had) and, even though the seatbelt light is on, I get out of the seat so she can peel back the bottom cushion and check there. No go.
She goes to get a flashlight and a couple other attendants congregate to see to see what’s going on. Conversation flashes in German. The next thing I know there are about 5 flight attendants and the guy in the seat next to me crawling around on the floor with the flashlight trying to see if it’s in there and where.
At one point, the guy looks up at me and asks, “Is it a blue one?” and I say yes. He says, “It’s in there.” They fish around some more and eventually get it out. One of the flight attendants says, “One hundred dollars.” and everyone laughs but if I’d had it in cash right then, I’d have gladly paid! Instead, I thanked them all and got strapped in for landing.
I can’t even imagine what might have happened if I hadn’t looked for the passport until I’d gotten off the plane.
At Frankfurt, I started heading to my gate. En route, I heard an announcement about all passengers on the flight to Cairo needing to be in the boarding area. I checked my (Alan’s) watch and it looked like I had 45 minutes or so yet. But I didn’t really have any idea how far I was from the gate.
I checked a monitor to make sure the gate assignment hadn’t changed since I checked in (yesterday in Des Moines). It took me a minute to find the flight info. The flights were not listed alphabetically, as they are in the US. They’re listed by departure time. So I had to look at my ticket to see when I was supposed to depart to find the flight. Even if the flights had been alphabetical, I’d have had to hunt for the flight. Cairo was spelled with a K instead of a C.
The Cairo flight was completely uneventful. They served a meal and I wasn’t particularly hungry…I felt I had done nothing but eat since I left home…but I ate anyway since it was going to be 7:30 before I touched down in Cairo and it was easier to eat then than deal with finding food later. Besides, it was about 5pm that I had the dog in Chicago, after 9 when they served the first meal on the trans-Atlantic flight, 6 or so hours later that they served breakfast before landing and 3 or 4 hours after that that I had this meal.
So, let’s see that’s 5pm Wednesday to 7:30pm Thursday…26 hours, let’s call it…minus the 8 hour time change…that’s 4 meals in 18 hours…no snacks. Heck if I know whether it’s actually time to eat or not.
At the Cairo airport, I had no trouble finding my escort. There were a half dozen or so guys standing at the end of the jetway with signs showing various people’s names. But since they were all written in Arabic, I figured they couldn’t be for me.
Further on, there were dozens of guys lined up with name-bearing placards. I easily found the one that said “Mr Sue Hotovec” in big block letters. The guy welcomed me, shook my hand and apologized for the “Mr” on the sign. He just wrote the name he was given.
Hey, it’s not the first time I’ve been called “Mr. And I’ve many times been befuddled by foreign names, myself.
We headed toward immigration. He asked if I had bags to collect (I didn’t) and if I had my visa already (I did). Near immigration, he headed off to the side and asked me for my passport. Then he had me wait while he took my passport to a window and talked to the people on the other side of the glass. I couldn’t see who he was talking to, but there were a number of other people like him at the window and a number of other people like me, standing off to the side.
When he finished at the window he gestured to me to follow him and we went down this narrow aisle beside/behind the immigration lines. There were checkpoints along the way where he was obviously known to the people and he showed my passport and kept moving. I just followed him. The long, snaking immigration lines were just the other side of the low wall but I was skirting around them. It was like line-jumping, only perfectly legit.
He led me outside the airport and asked me to wait while he looked further up the line of cars and buses for my contact. He asked me if I knew Mohamed El Banna and I said I’d spoken with him on the phone but had never actually met him…so I wouldn’t recognize him by sight.
In just a minute or two a man comes up to us, calling my name. We make introductions and the disembodied voice on the phone has become incarnate. He’s tall and thin and not as dark and “Egyptian looking” as the other Egyptians I’ve met. But he’s very gracious and friendly and apologizes many times that he wasn’t there when I arrived. Both the guy who led me through the airport and El Banna were kind of thrown off by the fact that I didn’t have any checked luggage to wait for…I got through the process sooner than expected.
We took a shuttle to the parking lot where El Banna’s car is.
On the shuttle with us were several people I’m guessing were Arabian. The men were wearing long white robes and the same red-and-white head covering that Arafat always wore. There was also a woman in a full, black burkah…draped head to toe with only her glasses showing outside the black cloth.
Pretty much everyone else on the shuttle was wearing typical western style clothing. I had the only white face and was one of very few women. I noticed a couple of the people nearby, men, were looking at me while trying not to be obvious about it. Kind of like I was looking at the woman in the burkah, trying not to be obvious or rude about it.
We get to the parking lot and El Banna leads me to his car, parked away from the shuttle stop. As we walk, he talks about the schedule he’s prepared for my touring over the next few days and the training schedule for the following week. He wants me to feel comfortable and says that the Egyptian people are very friendly and I will always have someone from the office with me…to pick me up at the hotel, show me around, take me too/from the office.
While we’re talking and walking, I notice that practically every car in the lot has at least one caved-in side with scrapes running the full length of the car. Not just a few…almost every single one. When we get to El Banna’s car, it’s not caved in; it’s fairly new-looking.
We leave the parking lot and toward my hotel, still talking and planning the coming week. As we pull out into traffic, I understand why all the cars are caved in. The road may be marked for 2 lanes but, apparently, that’s just a suggestion. Cars squeeze into and out of lanes, missing other cars by, quite literally, an inch or two. If you want to change lanes, you don’t wait for an opening…you make one.
We arrive without incident at the Hotel Heliopolis…my home away from home for the next week-and-a-bit.
August 1: Des Moines to Frankfurt
Alan took me to the airport and I had no trouble or delays getting my tickets. There was no line at the ticket counter and I got through easily.
As we were walking toward the security gate, I suddenly realized that I hadn’t worn or packed a watch. Most airports have time displays everywhere but not having a watch would make it tough to keep track of the in-flight time and flight schedules.
I was going to pick up a cheap watch somewhere along the way, but Alan took off his watch and gave it to me for the trip. I didn’t really want to take his watch, since that would leave him without one, too. But he insisted and, in a sort of sentimental, newly-engaged sort of way, I liked the idea of having his watch for the trip.
So I put it on, we said our goodbyes, and I headed through security.
At the gate, I filled the water bottle I brought. Travel tip #1: always carry a water bottle (empty) to the airport. The air on planes is always so dry and flight attendants give you a little cup but then generally can’t get back all that often. I always like to have some with me. Corollary to tip #1, a regular cheap plastic water bottle or pop bottle will work but I prefer something with a wide mouth (easier to fill from airport water fountains), a carabiner (to clip it to something so you don’t have to hang onto it), and a spout of some sort that allows drinking without having to unscrew the lid.
I staked out a seat at the gate and started reading. It always tough, deciding what book(s) to bring on a trip and how many. Yesterday, I sorted through my pile of books-waiting-to-be-read and finally decided on 2…one for the trip there and one for the trip back.
I started with Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood. It’s a fictionalized telling of Grace Marks, a woman who was accused in the killing of a man and a woman in 1840’s Canada when she was barely 16. At the time the story takes place, she’s been in a penitentiary for 15 years. She was originally sentenced to be hanged but the sentence was commuted because of her youth and the fact that she had no memory of the actual events. It was a quite sensational and well-known case at the time but I had never heard of it.
The story mostly surrounds a doctor who is not so concerned with whether she is guilty or innocent as he is in her amnesia. As with so many “based on actual events” tales, I’m not sure where the known facts end and the speculation begins. But it’s classic Margaret Atwood; well written and a good read.
When boarding starts, I slip the book into one of the leg pockets on my cargo pants and the water bottle into the other. Travel tip #2: Cargo pants! Back when they were more “in” it was easier to find them and I picked up this pair of cotton-blend pants on a clearance rack somewhere. When I got them, I had no idea how wonderful they’d be for travel. These have gotten rather worn but I’ve not been able to find another pair that fit and work so well for me.
I can find cargo pants but they’re generally nylon rather than cotton. Nylon is quick-dry, extremely durable, and doesn’t wrinkle so much as cotton but it’s neither warm in cool weather nor cool in warm weather. Especially headed to Egypt where I could expect temps at or above 100 degrees, cotton is the only way to go.
Cargo pants are great for traveling because you can put all kinds of stuff in the pockets where they’re kept at hand but you don’t have to hang onto a bag or hold them or retrieve a carry on to get to them. I like the kind of pockets that have button or snap flaps to help keep smaller items corralled.
The trip to Cairo went fairly uneventfully.
In Chicago I indulged in my traditional flying-through-Chicago custom. When in Chicago, you have to have a Chicago Dog…the all-beef hot dog on a poppy-seed bun with onions, ketchup, mustard, pickle spear, that day-glow green pickle relish and a jalapeno pepper. It’s been a long time since I had one. It wasn’t as good as I remembered it…
As we were walking toward the security gate, I suddenly realized that I hadn’t worn or packed a watch. Most airports have time displays everywhere but not having a watch would make it tough to keep track of the in-flight time and flight schedules.
I was going to pick up a cheap watch somewhere along the way, but Alan took off his watch and gave it to me for the trip. I didn’t really want to take his watch, since that would leave him without one, too. But he insisted and, in a sort of sentimental, newly-engaged sort of way, I liked the idea of having his watch for the trip.
So I put it on, we said our goodbyes, and I headed through security.
At the gate, I filled the water bottle I brought. Travel tip #1: always carry a water bottle (empty) to the airport. The air on planes is always so dry and flight attendants give you a little cup but then generally can’t get back all that often. I always like to have some with me. Corollary to tip #1, a regular cheap plastic water bottle or pop bottle will work but I prefer something with a wide mouth (easier to fill from airport water fountains), a carabiner (to clip it to something so you don’t have to hang onto it), and a spout of some sort that allows drinking without having to unscrew the lid.
I staked out a seat at the gate and started reading. It always tough, deciding what book(s) to bring on a trip and how many. Yesterday, I sorted through my pile of books-waiting-to-be-read and finally decided on 2…one for the trip there and one for the trip back.
I started with Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood. It’s a fictionalized telling of Grace Marks, a woman who was accused in the killing of a man and a woman in 1840’s Canada when she was barely 16. At the time the story takes place, she’s been in a penitentiary for 15 years. She was originally sentenced to be hanged but the sentence was commuted because of her youth and the fact that she had no memory of the actual events. It was a quite sensational and well-known case at the time but I had never heard of it.
The story mostly surrounds a doctor who is not so concerned with whether she is guilty or innocent as he is in her amnesia. As with so many “based on actual events” tales, I’m not sure where the known facts end and the speculation begins. But it’s classic Margaret Atwood; well written and a good read.
When boarding starts, I slip the book into one of the leg pockets on my cargo pants and the water bottle into the other. Travel tip #2: Cargo pants! Back when they were more “in” it was easier to find them and I picked up this pair of cotton-blend pants on a clearance rack somewhere. When I got them, I had no idea how wonderful they’d be for travel. These have gotten rather worn but I’ve not been able to find another pair that fit and work so well for me.
I can find cargo pants but they’re generally nylon rather than cotton. Nylon is quick-dry, extremely durable, and doesn’t wrinkle so much as cotton but it’s neither warm in cool weather nor cool in warm weather. Especially headed to Egypt where I could expect temps at or above 100 degrees, cotton is the only way to go.
Cargo pants are great for traveling because you can put all kinds of stuff in the pockets where they’re kept at hand but you don’t have to hang onto a bag or hold them or retrieve a carry on to get to them. I like the kind of pockets that have button or snap flaps to help keep smaller items corralled.
The trip to Cairo went fairly uneventfully.
In Chicago I indulged in my traditional flying-through-Chicago custom. When in Chicago, you have to have a Chicago Dog…the all-beef hot dog on a poppy-seed bun with onions, ketchup, mustard, pickle spear, that day-glow green pickle relish and a jalapeno pepper. It’s been a long time since I had one. It wasn’t as good as I remembered it…
27 July 2007
EG "Presearch": How's the weather?
With just a few days to go before I leave, I decided to check out the weather. The forecast for here in the Des Moines area for the coming week is: daytime highs in the mid- to upper-80s with nightime lows in the mid- to upper-60s...Fahrenheit, of course...with partly couldy to mostly sunny skies. Right now (early morning) the temperature is 73, the heat index is 73 and the wind chill is 73; the relative humidity is about 64%; and the UV index for today is 8 (very high).
In Cairo, by contrast, the high for today (it's mid-afternoon there now) is 106 with a heat index of 113 and a wind chill of 106. I'm sorry, but talking about a "wind chill" in the triple digits just seems so very wrong... The relative humidity is 37% and the UV index is 11 (extreme). Nothing but clear and sunny skies as far as the forecast can see.
This is all actuallly much better than it was a month or so ago. When Shaimaa and Sherif (two of the students who will be in my classes in Cairo) were here, Shaimaa said the temp in Cairo was around 50 (Celsius, obviously...about 122 Fahrenheit). She said it would be cooler by the time I got there. Looks like she was right!
Although, thinking of 106 degrees as a "cooling trend" will take some getting used to...
In Cairo, by contrast, the high for today (it's mid-afternoon there now) is 106 with a heat index of 113 and a wind chill of 106. I'm sorry, but talking about a "wind chill" in the triple digits just seems so very wrong... The relative humidity is 37% and the UV index is 11 (extreme). Nothing but clear and sunny skies as far as the forecast can see.
This is all actuallly much better than it was a month or so ago. When Shaimaa and Sherif (two of the students who will be in my classes in Cairo) were here, Shaimaa said the temp in Cairo was around 50 (Celsius, obviously...about 122 Fahrenheit). She said it would be cooler by the time I got there. Looks like she was right!
Although, thinking of 106 degrees as a "cooling trend" will take some getting used to...
24 July 2007
EG “Presearch”: Random Word Bits
One thing has struck me as I’m looking into things Egyptian…
While English is in the habit of borrowing liberally (some would say excessively…) from other languages, there don’t seem to be a lot of words that we’ve borrowed from Arabic. Or, at least that are recognizable as Arabic words.
Part of the issue is that Arabic has borrowed from some of the same places that English has and sometimes other places borrowed Arabic words that we then borrowed. So when I Googled “English words borrowed from Arabic”, I was really surprised at the results.
A number of science/math words are credited as being Arabic in origin: chemistry, algebra, algorithm, amalgam. And, some surprising (to me) plant and animal words: albacore, albatross, apricot, candy, coffee, cotton, gazelle, giraffe, gerbil, jasmine, lemon, lime, lilac, loofah, sugar, saffron, safflower.
The only Arabic/English word that I could think of before I went looking for them was one that I never found listed: baksheesh. Maybe that’s because it isn’t commonly used as an English word…it’s a word used in its native sense to cover a concept that no English quite matches. Like “kismet” (also a word of Arabic extraction…) or “gesundheit” (from German).
In any case, baksheesh, when used in English is usually meant to imply bribery, extortion or graft…ranging from something just slightly seedy to something completely unscrupulous. In Arabic (and Egyptian practice), it seems to be more like institutionalized tipping.
From what I’ve read, there are 3 different types of baksheesh.
One is a type of charity…money, alms or support given to the poor. It’s a basic tenet of Islam, kind of like the Christian idea “Give alms of thy goods, and never turn thy face from any poor man; and then the face of the Lord shall not be turned away from thee.” Since Islam, Christianity and Judaism all share some of the same roots, this isn’t surprising. Although, in Islam it seems more of a commandment and in Christianity it’s merely strongly encouraged.
A second type is more or less like our concept of ‘tipping’ for services rendered. Here, if the person who cut your hair did a good job, you show appreciation by giving him a little something extra; if the waitress was friendly and efficient beyond simply getting your food in front of you, she gets a bigger tip. There, it sounds like if someone opens the door for you, picks up your bag, pushes the button for your elevator, hands you a square of toilet paper when you enter a public bathroom, etc…you’re expected to give them a little something. Very little…a pound here, a pound there, a pound over and over and over everywhere. I imagine it would begin to feel like thousands of mosquitoes all taking their tiny drop of blood. Enough of them could drain a body.
I read one blog entry that suggested taking cigarettes or cheapie ball point pens to give out as tips. It’s an interesting idea, if it’s actually true. If it’s worth more in baksheesh than I would have paid for it in the U.S., it might be a good trade.
One Egyptian pound, right now, is worth about 18 cents (US).
I saw a 10-pack of pens at the store yesterday (“back to school” sale time) for 50 cents. I have no idea what the least-expensive pack of cigarettes would cost, or how many is in a pack, but between the two, I’d think the pens (at 5 cents each) would have to be the cheaper for me to buy here. But maybe the cigarettes would be “worth more” there in baksheesh...
The third kind of baksheesh is probably where it gets its reputation in English…it’s money paid for ‘the granting of favors’. Want to know a really good spot to view the Sphinx from? Want the lights turned on in the museum you just paid to enter? Want a spoon to eat your soup with? Want the camel to take you BACK to where you got on it?
A bit of baksheesh can make it happen.
While English is in the habit of borrowing liberally (some would say excessively…) from other languages, there don’t seem to be a lot of words that we’ve borrowed from Arabic. Or, at least that are recognizable as Arabic words.
Part of the issue is that Arabic has borrowed from some of the same places that English has and sometimes other places borrowed Arabic words that we then borrowed. So when I Googled “English words borrowed from Arabic”, I was really surprised at the results.
A number of science/math words are credited as being Arabic in origin: chemistry, algebra, algorithm, amalgam. And, some surprising (to me) plant and animal words: albacore, albatross, apricot, candy, coffee, cotton, gazelle, giraffe, gerbil, jasmine, lemon, lime, lilac, loofah, sugar, saffron, safflower.
The only Arabic/English word that I could think of before I went looking for them was one that I never found listed: baksheesh. Maybe that’s because it isn’t commonly used as an English word…it’s a word used in its native sense to cover a concept that no English quite matches. Like “kismet” (also a word of Arabic extraction…) or “gesundheit” (from German).
In any case, baksheesh, when used in English is usually meant to imply bribery, extortion or graft…ranging from something just slightly seedy to something completely unscrupulous. In Arabic (and Egyptian practice), it seems to be more like institutionalized tipping.
From what I’ve read, there are 3 different types of baksheesh.
One is a type of charity…money, alms or support given to the poor. It’s a basic tenet of Islam, kind of like the Christian idea “Give alms of thy goods, and never turn thy face from any poor man; and then the face of the Lord shall not be turned away from thee.” Since Islam, Christianity and Judaism all share some of the same roots, this isn’t surprising. Although, in Islam it seems more of a commandment and in Christianity it’s merely strongly encouraged.
A second type is more or less like our concept of ‘tipping’ for services rendered. Here, if the person who cut your hair did a good job, you show appreciation by giving him a little something extra; if the waitress was friendly and efficient beyond simply getting your food in front of you, she gets a bigger tip. There, it sounds like if someone opens the door for you, picks up your bag, pushes the button for your elevator, hands you a square of toilet paper when you enter a public bathroom, etc…you’re expected to give them a little something. Very little…a pound here, a pound there, a pound over and over and over everywhere. I imagine it would begin to feel like thousands of mosquitoes all taking their tiny drop of blood. Enough of them could drain a body.
I read one blog entry that suggested taking cigarettes or cheapie ball point pens to give out as tips. It’s an interesting idea, if it’s actually true. If it’s worth more in baksheesh than I would have paid for it in the U.S., it might be a good trade.
One Egyptian pound, right now, is worth about 18 cents (US).
I saw a 10-pack of pens at the store yesterday (“back to school” sale time) for 50 cents. I have no idea what the least-expensive pack of cigarettes would cost, or how many is in a pack, but between the two, I’d think the pens (at 5 cents each) would have to be the cheaper for me to buy here. But maybe the cigarettes would be “worth more” there in baksheesh...
The third kind of baksheesh is probably where it gets its reputation in English…it’s money paid for ‘the granting of favors’. Want to know a really good spot to view the Sphinx from? Want the lights turned on in the museum you just paid to enter? Want a spoon to eat your soup with? Want the camel to take you BACK to where you got on it?
A bit of baksheesh can make it happen.
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