SJEDS Travels to Egypt

Hot as blue blazes. It’s one hundred degrees in the shade. You could fry an egg on the sidewalk. These sayings and more were running through my head during our visit to the Valley of the Kings. The Valley of the Kings is a scorching hot place where finding something green is about as easy as threading a needle in the dark. The ancient Egyptians chose this remote ravine to place the tombs of their dead pharaohs for several reasons.

• The remote location was designed as a deterrent to keep away tomb robbers.
• The location made the area easy to guard from the Theban plain.

So far 62 tombs have been found in the Valley of the Kings and Egyptologists believe there are more to be unearthed. This area is the site of the world’s most famous find, the tomb of King Tut. King Tut’s tomb was the only tomb to be found , completely undisturbed by tomb robbers.

Our entrance ticket gained us access to three tombs. To see King Tut’s tomb required an additional ticket. We were limited on time so we made a decision to not visit King Tut’s tomb. We had seen many of the artifacts from the excavation at the Cairo museum and knew the tomb itself was not very elaborate. King Tut had died young and unexpectedly so his tomb had not been fully decorated.

Getting down into the tombs was an experience of endurance. After climbing what seemed like a thousand stairs, going straight up the side of the mountain, we came to the entrance of the tomb of Ramses. After the exhausting climb we were greeted with another set of stairs, this time a vertical descent into the tomb. We knew it was not for the faint hearted, but seeing other tourists, including elderly ones, we knew we had to continue on. We didn’t want to be labeled “wimpy” Americans. Mrs. Tolisano remarked that she had not climbed such deep stairs since the Great Wall of China.

Entering the tomb we breathed in stale, dry air and felt intense heat. No, the tombs are not air-conditioned… Two of the tombs did have a small fan going in the inner chamber, which provided a miniscule amount of air movement. Once in the corridor, leading to the inner chamber, we knew it was worth facing the heat and stairs. The walls were elaboratly painted with hieroglyphic writing and drawings with intense and vibrant colors. The colors were always the same and included ochre, blue, black, and clay red. Here is a picture of the different colors that were found being used for the drawings. These colors can still be rubbed off of stones laying around in temple areas.

Small chambers branched off the main hallway as we headed to the main chamber. The ceilings were a deep blue with yellow stars painted on them, mimicking the night time sky. There was a strict “No photography or video taping” rule in the tombs, so we will have to show you the postcards when we return home.

Dear Mrs. Menger and Mrs. Tolisano,

Wasn’t the Temple of Hapshetsut simply incredible? I really liked this female pharaoh. Especially because she reigned in peace and her mission was to make contact with other cultures to share tools, food, animals and other resources. I would have loved to be a travel bear on her expedition. Would that not have been great?

Omar and I then followed our tour guide back into the air conditioned bus and we headed to the famous Valley of the Kings. My fur was getting hotter and hotter.We were “beary” hot, even Omar who is used to this intense heat. I felt so sorry for Omar and his family, since they could not eat or even drink a little water during the day because of the fasting for Ramadan. That must have been very hard, but they told me that it only makes them stronger.  We were in the middle of the desert, bare mountains on the left and right side of the valley. Omar and I rested for a little while in the shade, after we had climbed up a very steep staircase to then descend into a tomb which was deep in the mountain. It felt like a sauna inside and we were glad to be out in the “fresh” hot air.

We were so tired, that we just HAD to rest for a little while. I think I even closed my eyes for a few moments. Now I understand all the Egyptians that we have seen snoozing at the side of the road under a shady spot wherever we went.

Mrs. Menger and Mrs Tolisano,

I am so sorry, but this is too hot today to wait in the Valley of the Kings for you to catch up with us. I am going to follow Omar’s family back to where they live. They told me that they live in a beautiful beach town on the Red Sea in the Sinai peninsula. Omar has told me so much about the beaches and the famous Coral Reefs. See you in Sharm El Sheikh.

Miss you,

Jose

Mrs. Tolisano and I were eager to head out to the temple of the first female pharaoh in order to see if Jose and Omar would be there.

The air-conditioned bus ride to Deir-al-Bahri yielded views of rural life as farmers worked the land in the early morning to avoid the intense heat that would soon come.

As our trip moved us from the lush growth surrounding the Nile, we came to a desert plain. Touching the plain and providing an impressive back drop were limestone cliffs and mountains.

It is in one of these cliffs that the temple of Hatshepsut is situated. At first glance the temple looks almost like a modern building that has been built in the desert.

The temple’s original appearance must have been even more exotic as archaeologists know that the temple was vibrant with color, surrounded by exotic trees and plants, and the walkway leading to the temple was lined with small sphinxes. Without these adornments the temple is still impressive and beautiful and has weathered well the damage that it has endured through the years.

Nature has done its share, stripping away most of any color that adorned the temple. Vandalism occurred during ancient times as well as modern. When King Akhenaten, who reigned after Hatshepsut, came to power and decided that people would worship only one god, Atun, all references to other gods were erased from the temple. Early Christians used the temple as a monastery and defaced the carvings of the pagan gods and goddesses. Following Hatshepsut’s rule, her step-son, bitter that she had ruled, attempted to scratch out any references to her name. Yet the temple remains and is still amazing and beautiful.

Look at the view from Hatshepsut’s temple. Can you imagine how hot it is here? Mrs. Tolisano and I are keeping our eyes open for our little bear and camel. No luck so far. Can you spot them somewhere in the pictures?

Hatshepsut, with the help of the Amun priesthood, became one of Egypt’s first female rulers. Having a female ruler was very unusual. One of our guides told us that Egypt had only five female rulers during the Pharaonic time.

Can you name one other female ruler of Egypt?

Depictions of Hatshepsut appear a little strange. Many of her pictures depict her wearing a false beard, which was the tradition for pharaohs. Because she was one of the first female rulers no royal traditional clothing for women had been established. So she wore the traditional wear for a man. Hatshepsut ruled for 15 years during a time of peace.

She is remembered for the expedition to Punt she commissioned.

Punt is located in the modern day country of Somalia?

Can you find Somalia on a map? How close is Somalia to Egypt?

map by googlemaps.com

To get to Punt, Hatshepsut’s caravan had to haul boats over the desert to the Red Sea. Not only did this expedition bring back exotic items such as trees, giraffes, dogs, monkeys, myrrh trees, myrrh resin, ebony, ivory, and exotic wood, but more importantly it brought about an exchange of cultural ideas. Many diplomats returned from Punt to Egypt to share and learn. Reliefs on the temple wall depict scenes from this important expedition.

The Temple was simply amazing, although it was getting hotter by the minute. We looked and looked around, but no Jose in sight. Next stop was Valley of the Kings and Queens. Will we ever catch up with our travel bear.

After three nights and four days on the Nile, we have arrived in Luxor. We are starved for an Internet connection only to find out that our hotel here only offers “Dial-Up” in the room. That means we have to use a very slow telephone line to connect to the Internet.

We wanted to let all of you know that we are fine. We have not found Jose and Omar yet, but they have left us little notes along the way and we are expecting to catch up with them any moment now.

Stay tuned to all of the blog posts we are working on to catch you up on the wonderful time we had cruising down the Nile.

Lots of Greetings from

Mrs. Menger and me

Hello Mrs. Menger and Mrs. Tolisano

I saw you posted about what happened to you on the buggy ride in Edfou. I am sorry. Omar and I had a very nice and friendly man driving our buggy to the Edfou temple. I guess it is just like everywhere else in the world. There are nice and not so nice people. It does not matter which country they come from.

I wanted to send you some pictures from my new friend Declan who is from Australia and goes to 5th grade. He and his family are on a five week vacation. Declan impressed me so much with all that he knew about the different ancient Egyptian gods and he is really good in deciphering hieroglyphic writing on the temple walls.

How do you like my new outfit that I got at one local vendor. I did not have nearly as much trouble bargaining as Mrs. Menger did. Everyone just smiles when Omar and I walk around. So the vendor gave me a good price. In this photo you can see the mud bricks that were used to build many walls around the temple. Could you imagine a wall like this at our school in Jacksonville? With all the rain in Florida it would have turned into mud soup soon. Luckily it only rains once a year in Egypt, so the walls have survived thousands of years. Egyptians still use mud bricks today in the rural areas.

I felt so protected sitting in between the feet of this ancient god. Do you have any idea, which god this might be? Please let me know his name by writing a comment to this post.

What an exhausting morning we had in Edfou. Exhausting, not from the heat, not from getting up early, and not from the crowded tourists squeezing past and in front of you, but from the tiring task of tour guides, drivers, and street vendors asking constantly for money and tips.

We took a horse drawn carriage ride from the boat to the nearby Edfou Temple. After getting out, we realized that the only way to the temple was though a narrow walkway lined with street vendors. Any other way to get around from being swarmed by them was fenced off. It is impossible to walk through them without being yelled at to look at this and look at that. Once you show interest, it is impossible to leave the stand again without buying something. The vendor will try to sell the item to you at a high price and will get angry and mad, when you tell him that you are not interested in buying the item or paying such a high price. When you walk away, he will come after you and even throwing the merchandise into your hands or around your shoulders. Some of the vendors will even grab you to physically keep you from moving on to the next stand.

Although it might be fun at first to try to bargain with the vendors, it does get very tiring and normal browsing of the items is impossible.

On our way back we tried to find the horse carriage that had brought us to the Temple, but we unable to find the driver. Another driver pretty much coerced us into getting into his buggy. Since we did not have much time left until our ship was leaving, we had to get into the carriage. As soon as we were rolling, the driver informed us that he expected “baksheesh”. He was very loud during the ride and most of the time did not even look at where he was going, but instead was busier trying to explain to us how much money we should give him and that each one of us had to pay. In the end, he would not drive the buggy up to the boat, but wanted us to get out about 75 meters before the ship. When we gave him the amount of money, that our tour guide had suggested to pay for the ride, he became angry and was clearly not happy with us paying him in Egyptian Pounds instead of with American Dollars.

Mrs. Menger and I were glad, when we made it back into our cabin on the boat.
Watch a video clip from our buggy ride.

While the boat is waking slowly to life, I am enjoying once again the quiet deck. Looking out on the West side of the boat, there are about 30+ horse carriages lined up in front of the boat’s exit. They are waiting for the passengers to get off and take them on a tour to the Temple of Edfou. The carriages have occupied the entire street. Cars that are trying to pass through are honking an echoing horn. There seems to be some order in this chaos though. Every once in a while everyone starts shouting and arguing. Maybe some carriage skipped the line and positioned itself in a more favorable place. I can’t understand what they are saying, but the voices do sound angry.

One man is feeding his horse, while I hear other horses neighing towards the food. The state which these poor animals are in from our point of view is heart breaking. They are extremely thin and you can count each one of their ribs. Although it is still early and the morning and not that hot outside, I can’t prevent imagining how thirsty these horses must get in a few hours after being “beaten” through the streets carrying tourists. None of them seems to ever have seen a brush.

I know that I am seeing just an outsider’s glimpse, just a frozen moment in time of the lives of these people. Everyone is out to earn a living. I have the mind and cultural background of a “Westerner”, we grow up with the notion of animals, such as cats, dogs and horses being our pets and friends. We do not use them to work and earn money in order to feed our families. There is a different relationship with animals than what we are used to.

I am trying to find a way to talk myself into imaging that these horses might actually have a good life compared to other animals. They must be a prized possession and might even receive better treatment than some of the human members of the family, since they are their means to earn their living. If they do not line up early, early in the morning in front of the tourist boats with their horse carriages, they will not be able to buy food.

I can’t help thinking what it must be like to see hundreds of tourists stream out of the boats everyday with expensive cameras in their hand and dressed in shorts and T-shirts. We probably seem just as strange and “foreign” to them as they do to us.

It has been amazing how many languages and people from different countries have been surrounding us. Egypt is a country that attracts visitors from all over the world. Tour guides have told us that they are mainly coming from Russia and Spain, but we have seen so many different nationalities that we gave up counting all of them.

An incredible experience for me was listening and observing all the different nationalities and languages that were represented in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. It was fascinating to watch the (clearly Egyptian) tour guides walk around with different groups and each explaining the same thing, only in a different language. After hearing English, Spanish, German, French, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese, Italian, and Russian we gave up trying to identify the language.

The travel industry is quite big here in Egypt and tour guides need to learn several languages well. Once we started on our tour of Upper Egypt and later on boarded the cruise ship down the Nile, we joined a larger group of travelers. It is an amazing group of people from all over the world that are being thrown together in different groups. These groups are formed depending on what language you speak. So, people from Australia, England, United States and Canada are lumped together, while we saw other groups with members from Argentina, Bolivia, Spain, Chile, and Panama. It was interesting and fun for me to listen to our English speaking guide, then listen in on the lecture from the German tour guide next to us and hear additional information from the Spanish speaking group that was following our group around the area.

At our assigned dinner table on board of the cruise ship, we have an incredible diverse and language rich group: a wonderful British couple living in Geneva, Switzerland, another couple from Oslo, Norway and a recently married couple from Perth, Australia. When you throw these together with your two teachers from Birmingham/USA and Germany/Argentina, you get interesting dinner conversation.

Street vendors and their language abilities are another very surprising and interesting situation. All of them seem to know basic selling, bargaining, numbers and getting your attention vocabulary in ALL the languages. Even the young boys try to get your attention, by yelling “Hello”, “Hallo” or “Hola”, “Senora”, Miss, Lady, etc. When one does not respond to their calls, they usually switch the language and try another one. They are desperate to find out from which country you come from, so they can shift to that language to start bargaining with you. These vendors can make change in any money currency on the spot.

The receptionist at the Cruise boat called us aside as soon as we stepped on board. He had a message for us. Someone named Jose had called and wanted us to know that he was sorry that he missed us in Kom Ombo. He was heading to the famous temple of the first female Pharaoh close to Luxor. Could we meet there? In case we did not see each other there, he and Omar would head to the Valley of the Kings.

Mrs. Menger and I were feeling a little better now that we knew that Jose was OK. Not finding a note at Kom Ombo, did make us nervous. The man at the reception also handed us some pictures that had arrived via fax from Jose. It was funny to see Jose at the same spot that we just had left at the temple of Kom Ombo. We especially liked the photo of the mummified crocodile. Doesn’t it look real?

Our boat docked in Kom Ombo and pleasantly we did not have to board a tour bus, as the temple was only a short walk from the dock.

The Temple of Kom Ombo is a dual temple to Sobek, the crocodile god and Horus the Elder. Balance was important to the ancient Egyptians so there was one god representing evil, Sobek, and one god representing good, Horus. The ancient Egyptians feared the crocodile because of the danger it posed to life along the Nile. They created the crocodile god Sobek, in an effort to keep the crocodiles appeased and happy. Carvings of Sobek are easily recognized as he is represented with the head of a crocodile.

The carvings in the temple are in preserved quite well. We were surprised to see some areas where the original colors of the temple existed. The pyramids and temples were not originally stone colored, but were beautifully painted with vibrant colors.

The architect for the Temple of Kom Ombo also was a great surgeon. Careful examination of the reliefs show the different tools used for surgery and some people believe that parts of the temple were used as a hospital. A water source was needed so a large and deep well was built. In the well the height of the Nile could also be measured and the measurement used was called a nilometer. The ancient Egyptians were forced to become experts at predicting when the Nile would flood its banks so they knew when to move to higher ground. Watching the depth of the Nile was part of this process.

Mrs. Tolisano and I got very excited when our tour guide mentioned that we were going to see mummified crocodiles. We were sure that we would see Jose and Omar there. It was very disappointing when we did not see our little bear, nor the camel in the crocodile room. We looked around everywhere, but could not find them, nor a pink note that Jose has left us so far. We were starting to get a little worried when we had to head back to our cruise ship.