This morning….oh wait, let me back up. We got our luggage. We started to call and harass the airport starting at midnight and our bags were delivered to our room around 2am. Thank God! I will not even begin to go through the details of those two hours of, yes we have your bags, no they did not arrive on this flight, yes they will be here tomorrow, no you will get them in two days, hold the line a minute….you get the point.
2 am, got the bags, did a happy dance and were so giddy it was hard to go to bed. It was like Christmas morning, opening your gifts and having to go to bed- no fair. But we had a 5:30 am wake up call so that we could shower, eat breakfast and meet the group at 7:30am. We met our fellow travel mates and tour directors and got the skinny of the events of the next few days, somewhat overwhelming with all of the information- and yet again on very little sleep. But we managed and signed up for our extra excursions over the next week. Then Mohammad broke the really ugly news…tomorrow we had to wake up a 2am, have our bag out the door at 2:30 and leave the hotel at 3:30 am to make the first flight out of Cairo to Luxor. They explained how this was all going to work with getting our tickets, going to and through the airport and getting to our boat. I decided to take the direction one piece at a time. At this point, I know I am waking up at 2am- and that is all I need to know right now
Today we traveled to Memphis to a museum to see the big Ramses II statue (what is left of it) and also the alabaster sphinx (this is not the big one you see in movies). It was neat and there were many statues to see. This is where we got our first taste of Egyptian sales people. Egyptians will try to sell you anything and everything. If they have a rock in their pocket, you better believe that it is of historical significance and for 20 pounds it can be yours. Or another popular tourist trap that Brad fell into (giving him a break since he is a first time overseas traveler) is the…”let me take you picture”…followed by “I now receive a tip from you…” They see us walk through the metal detectors and we all look like dollar signs. I have found (from past experiences) that it is best to never look anybody directly in the eye and to be rather rude to them and walk away. That works about 75% of the time. The new one for me on this trip is the children begging for money. “1 dollar, 1 dollar miss, please 1 dollar”. It is so sad and I realize that this is the angle that they are using, but just driving around today you see how they all live here and it is beyond words. It truly is, you have to be here to imagine it- honestly.
Afterwards, we went to see the step pyramid in Sakkara. We learned a lot about how pyramids were constructed, the materials they were made of and the evolution of building methods. That was really quite fascinating and it was very interesting to hear. We then drove to a very special lunch location where the local guild told us they had very safe food to eat and a big variety of item to choose from…to our surprise it was a gas station supermarket. This probably is a good example of what I am talking about when it comes to the condition and level at which people live. But nonetheless, we picked up a turkey sandwich and removed all the potentially damaging items on it like lettuce and ate it- it was good actually. We then went to the great pyramids- these are the ones that you see on TV- and let me tell you, TV does not do these justice- they are enormous and amazing. But again you have the Egyptian sales people everywhere and now they have donkeys and camels. Imagine this, they offer you a free camel ride. Right? Wrong- it is free to get on the camel, they charge you to get off the camel. Our guide warned us in advance and said if we were interested in the camel ride, he would arrange it for us later. It started to get really hot outside..imagine that! It was about 94 degrees, dry heat, but still really hot. The bus we very cool and we were given bottled water to stay hydrated.
After the great pyramids, we went to the highest point so that we could get a picture of all three together- that was an amazing view. This was also our opportunity to ride a camel. I was hesitant because I was very irritated with the Egyptian people always trying to get money from me, but our guide set it up with a decent person that he had used before and so I did the camel ride. I was pretty scared- camels are a lot higher than horses and when they kneel down for you to get on them it is still high up and when they get to their feet I almost fell off of it…but going through the desert on a camel with pyramids in the background is priceless, it truly is. How many times in your life do you get to do that? Brad did not want ride a camel, so he took pictures of me and of the landscape. We have some GREAT pictures, national geographic will be calling Brad soon!
We then went to see the Sphinx, it was as I expected, but things always look bigger than you think when you travel to the major tourist sights. Reminds me of the first time I saw the Eiffel Tower- it was completely a WOW moment, today was a WOW day.
So just wanted to write a quick entry and post it to keep you updated as the next few days we will be cruising and probably unable to post. We are having a good time, it is very interesting here- SO DIFFERENT than life as we know it. So much to write about now, but hope to describe in later blogs.
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