Straight out of the airport it began, the harassment because we were women. “Taxi for 500, yes ladies nice ride for you..” Lewd gesture included. As the sun rose Amber and I scrambled over to the far end of the parking lot walking towards the white vans that act as buses. “Giza Giza Giza” a man screamed out the door of one such van as it flew past us. Grabbing Amber I propelled her into the moving bus, I jumped in after. We were taking on Giza first.
While I galloped Amber climbed into Khufu, the largest Pyramid. She said the shaft downwards was at at least a nine-percent grade and was cery narrow. Amber now wants to be an Egyptologist.
The pyramids are fenced off from the city and tourists are generally contained in buses. We did not have a bus, instead we climbed the fence with our guide Muhumund and followed him to his home to meet his wife and three children. There we drank hot chai and ate an array of spiced foods vegetables and meats that Amber insisted “tasted like Egypt”. Sitting on woven mats on the floor of a collapsing brick building we learned words in Arabic, for hello, Marhaba, thank you, shukran, etc. As she cooked Mocara, Muhumund’s wife took off her head scarf. I felt honored to see her bare head and to see get to speak with her in her home. The brief afternoon we spent with her was the last time we saw someone (who was not a tourist,) without a headscarf for the rest of our time in Egypt. My sarong acted as my turban for the duration of my trip after leaving their house.
Muhumund paraded us around his little village Kaifia while everyone called greetings to him and then to us. The children darted forewords to touch our clothing and windblown hair. They were fascinated by my nose ring. It was called beautiful and tugged at many times. Although we declined smoking churras with the village men, we drank Egyptian Whiskey and sat just off the main street with the village men all pulled up near us on mismatched chairs. Time was our own here, there was no sense of urgency as the trash stagnated in the clogged ditch behind us. I loved the familiarity of the villagers with one another. All of the children playing together in the street. The women balancing huge cabbages on their heads, carrying jars of water from the one water-spicket. The amount of trash was alarming. When we finished our water bottles Muhumund took them and threw them onto the ground. I watched women dump piles of trash out their doors onto main street, dead cats, boxes, plastic bags, plastic and glass bottles clogged the small rivers and overran the earth along sidewalks and roadsides. Donkey drawn wooden carts plodded over trash along the roads as taxis- cars literally pieced together with wood, and stolen parts from other vehicles-whizzed past. There is an entire language of horn honking in Egypt, especially from the white taxi buses (old BMW Buses)HONK: “I’m passing on the left” (no one has blinkers), “your beautiful”, “move out of the way”, “I’m cool”, “do you need a ride?”…. The list goes on, it is a country-wide language.
We hopped an overnight train to Luxor. Although it was meant to be a tourist train we could not afford the luxury car and instead sat together in a seat near the crowded back of the train. Militia men marched up and down the car all evening. It was a restless night for both of us. Upon arrival we traveled to see the Luxor temples, and Karnak Temple. Amber and I walked down the path of Sphinxes awed by the detail of each. Recently archeologists have discovered a linking path between Luxor and Karnak. The digging for this will begin soon. Achmed, a man who looked like a Mafia member (and can only be an Egyptian native, as no one else could wear jeans and a leather jacket in such heat) is devastated by this, as it means his house (of his family) which lies in the middle of the two temples will soon be destroyed. We saw the Papyrus hall, where the column tops explain the roof: closed topped papyrus columns mean there was a roof. Blooming, open papyrus columns mean there never was a roof. Remnants of wet-plastered Christian murals, placed over Egyptian cartushes still remained in many places. We looked at huge holes which had been cut into the temple buildings by Alexander the Great’s soldiers, when they used the temple as the horse stable. We looked at bat blood which had been ritually spattered over the sacrifice stones at the center of the temples for years as modern Egyptians continue the worship of ancient times…
Across the Nile, on Luxor’s West Bank we climbed into 3 tombs of the 60 in the Valley of the Kings (Specifically Ramses II, Ramses IX and Seti I). Amber also went into King Tut’s tomb, which cost 100 LE (Egyptian Pounds)extra. We haggled with a taxi diver and eventually arrived at Hatshepsut’s Temple a frighteningly massive structure secured in the nook of Saharan cliffs. I use the word ‘frighteningly’ because for the majority of time we were at Hatshepsut’s Temple we kept thinking of the tourist massacre that happened there not too long ago. The valley of the temple is immensely wide, open and expansive. There would be no where to go if the guards, who were patrolling the hills above us decided to open fire. We saw the Valley of Queens next, I believe our conversation in that place when something like this:
Me: Why are queens portrayed as kneeling women with beards? While the men get to stand and have crowns?
Amber: I’m hot
Me:Why are there no female guards here? Or even female workers for that matter?
Amber: Okay, seriously I’m hot.
me:Why do all these men keep trying to cover my hair for me? I do not want to cover my head!
Amber: Dude, it’s so hot.
Most of the tombs have been badly raided. Faces are missing from the majority of the hieroglyphic images and today you can only see holes in the ground to suggest where sarcophagus’s once laid. It was still amazing to walk down into long tunnels, out of the sun, and think of the history and the art all created for the Pharaoh’s journey into the god world. I found thinking of the deaths of servants during all of this (the ones who were buried alive with the pharaohs). But that was me being morbid I suppose.
The Egyptian President was visiting while we were on the West Bank so we could not take a Felucca (sail boat) across the Nile. However, we did walk a narrow plank onto a motor boat and spend some time on the cool water. The papyrus growing on the riverbank, the lilies and the abundant flowers were beautiful. The green was very shocking after the yellow, white, orange and brown of the desert.
I loved the neon lights on the mosques everywhere, the constant calling of prayers; All day prayers flew through the air, saturating the dry air with chanting. I find I am jealous of their ability to stay connected with god so easily. It is a wonderful thing to have faith in prayer. I was impressed that each house had a satellite dish. It was a sea of satellites and wires on the rooftops. ‘Kitties’ and wild dogs roamed the streets in packs. Palm trees sprung up at odd angle around holes in the generally non-existent sidewalk.
In one bazaar I ended up buying packets of indigo,dried Egyptian hibiscus (for tea along) with some frankincense, musk and chamomile.-I bought the spices that i thought smelled the most like Egypt.- Amber bought red, leather Egyptian house slippers and a Neferetiti bracelet.
We are both much better at haggling now, and we got fairly good prices for everything we bought. We are also much braver in concern with many things: running into moving traffic, running along side trains and hopping on, hanging out the side door of buses while they fly down highways, riding camels, and being defiant in the face of dominate men…
The hassling was the impressive and the most abrasive thing about Egypt. – Other than Cairo’s air quality (air so thick in smog that you could not see the building 20 feet away from you).-I got proposed to 12 times, after that I stopped counting. Being unmarried is just unacceptable for a young woman. People would ask me: Christian or Muslim? There is no other choice. When I would reply “neither” I would immediately find myself in the arms of a man who was worried for my soul, offering to take care of me and to teach me to be a Good Arabic Wife. I heard the words “you are beautiful” so many times I began to equate it with those silly comments people said like: “welcome to our country! Welcome to Alaska!”…
Also, I now know I want to go to the Middle East and India. I love the vibrancy of life, the openness of the emotions, the fact that it is popular to always have indi music blasting from your cell phone. I love the way two men greet each other (hand clasp and then two kisses on the cheek), the way everyone walks, not with the American strut, but a walk of purpose as if they know their place in the world and are secure in it. I find it fascinated and lovely the way that people take the time- at least 5 times a day-to find Allah. I love how they are instantly and so easily transported to Allah when they pray.
intrepid trekking 