Trying to describe Tanzania would be like trying to describe how to breathe. It is easier to show you. Following are pictures from Part One of our safari:
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Jordan: When we first landed in Jordan, our first impression was how clean the city was compared to Cairo. New buildings were being built, highways were excellent, no trash on the ground. However, once we were in Jordan for a day, we started to catch the underlying feeling that accompanied all the cleanliness. Jordanians will brag that they are the “most free” of the middle eastern countries. Their definition of freedom was quite different from ours. There were cameras everywhere including traffic cameras that would immediately send a ticket to your cell phone, security checks at all hotels and our hotel was “dry” (you can imagine how well that went over with the Americans and Europeans!) The religious groups supposedly “all got along” but special security was hired on major Christian holidays to “avoid issues”. I am guessing that if your neighbors are Iraq, Syria and Yemen, you’ll trade personal freedoms for the illusion of security. As a female, I felt a little piece of myself hacked away each day. I am not used to people not listening to me when I talk and I definitely do not want to be put into the second class citizen line. It was a tough few days for me. The upside was that the sites were really cool.
Our first day, we went to the city of Jerash and the Dead Sea. Jerash was one of Hadrian’s events (of course!) and it was reminiscent of Italian ruins with columns, hippodrome, forums and amphitheaters. It was not crowded so we enjoyed strolling along the promenade and soaking in the history. After Jerash, we drove over to the Dead Sea passing by security checkpoints with pictures of men with guns shooting at each other. Quite the comfort. After surviving the drive, our guide directed us to the changing rooms and then we headed into the sea. It was very difficult to stand upright as the salt water was so buoyant that it kept tipping us over. Swimming was not an option so you just had to float. I also gave myself a mud treatment and we felt very refreshed! The next day, our driver picked us up early for the 3 hour drive to Petra. Petra was a city that was so hidden, it was not discovered by outsiders until the mid 1800s. The man who “discovered” it had to live with the Bedouins for three years to gain their trust so they would show him into the city. As we drove through the countryside, we could not spot Petra at all. It was that well hidden. As you approach, you enter a huge cavern that meanders through the mountain. The only indication of human life were the hundreds of tomb caves that were cut into the rocks. Then, after about one mile, you turn a corner and suddenly, a huge structure carved into the cavern wall appears. It was the Treasury. The facade was featured in Indiana Jones and the Final Crusade as the place where the Holy Grail was kept. Pictures cannot do it justice. We then wandered on down the street where several more buildings were carved including tombs and churches. Most of the site’s purpose was still unknown and since it was a UNESCO site, no more excavations could be done without going through a permit nightmare. Petra was definitely a highlight of our trip and well worth the six hour round trip drive. I was not sad to leave Jordan and I must say that I do not foresee myself returning to a middle eastern country anytime soon. I did not like the way I felt when I was in Jordan so things would have to seriously progress for me to return. On to the main reason for this leg of the journey….the safari!! Lion King here we come! Ratings for Jordan: Overall: 6 Points of interest: 10 Ease of communication: n/a; only our tour guide spoke to us and not often Ease of transportation: 7 (terrible traffic in Amman) Friendly people: 8 for tourist people; n/a for others because no major interactions Food: 6 Cost of living: Food was cheap; housing reportedly was cheap; “sin” items were very expensive Weather: 10 Bill’s favorite thing: Petra; Least favorite: Dry hotel Sally’s favorite thing: Petra; Least favorite: second class citizen status Egypt Part 2: Nile Cruise. After our extremely early morning flight, we landed in Aswan and met our new driver who took us over to our river cruise boat the Esmerelda. Our boat was lovely and the cabins were huge with a king sized bed, a sitting area and a desk. On the Nile, there are 350 cruise boats. Since there is only a certain amount of docking space, the boats line up down the dock and tie off. Then, another line of boats lines up behind the first line and ties onto the first line of boats. And so on and so on. Therefore, if your boat is last on the depth chart, you walk off the dock into boat number one, cross through the lobby and enter boat number two, cross through that lobby and continue until you get onto your boat. Quite the unique system but the uncontrolled chaos seemed to work. The first hour, we explored the boat which had a pool and sundeck area, a restaurant and a lounge. We met a few of the people who were going to be on our tour group with us and then we met our guide, Mohommad Sultan. Everyone in Egypt was either named Mohommad or Achmed. And I mean everyone. I think we only met two guys the entire time that had different names. We called our guide Sultan and he called us “my Sultans” or “my dears” the whole time which was cute. Our first outing was to the unfinished obelisk. Sultan told us about how they made obelisks and moved them by using flood waters to float them down the Nile to their destination. The unfinished one cracked during construction so it just remained in the quarry. Evidently, Cleopatra was very disappointed because there was only unfinished obelisk under her reign! Next, we saw the Big Dam which was built to control the flood waters so that there was better irrigation for the crops. Behind the dam, they created the largest man made lake in the world called Nassir Lake. Prior to the dam, crocodiles were all in the Nile and on average, 4 out of every 10 deaths in Egypt was due to a crocodile attack. Once they built the dam, they trapped all the crocodiles in the lake so the river was safe. Needless to say, the locals don’t swim in the lake! Finally, we hopped on a small boat and headed to the temple of Philae. When they built the dam, the temple was going to be buried under the lake. So, they moved the temple. Sounds simple when you say it but considering there were 43000 pieces that had to be disassembled, moved 500 yards away and then reassembled exactly, it was a great undertaking! The next morning, a few of us headed over to the Nubian village. The boat ride to the village was amazing and there were lots of migrating birds and we even had to maneuver up some rapids which was fun. The Nubians are a tribe of people who have the custom of the women painting their houses every three months with bright colors. We looked forward to seeing some color since the entire trip in Egypt had been brown on brown on beige. The village had evidently fallen on hard times because only a few of the houses were painted. The rest of the village was a lot of Chinese trinkets being sold on the street and lots of trash. The Nubians only marry within their culture so over the years, the bloodline has been muddied. Many of the people had deformed extremities or were Little People. Our guide said they will not change their ways so it was sad to see a culture that was going to be gone in a couple of more generations. The craziest part of the visit was their pet crocodiles. They kept them in the house for luck. One was about 6 feet long! Not very lucky, I think! After the village, we returned to the ship to get ready to set sail. We were late leaving because with all the boats tied together, the captains were at the mercy of the boats that were on the outer tie. The sail on the Nile was an easy one but because we were late leaving, we did not make it to Kom Ombo temple until after dark. Luckily, the temple was just across from the dock. Unfortunately, all 50 to 60 boats stop there at the same time so the temple was packed full of people. It was not a very enjoyable experience but we survived. When we got back on the boat, we were given the times to visit the Edfu temple the next morning. Wake up call was at 5am. Seriously? Not the relaxing cruise I had pictured in my mind! Edfu temple was basically a duplicate of the Philae Temple so when 5am rolled around, we voted to sleep in and skip Edfu. We were very glad we did because our group said it was even more crowded than Kom Ombo so it was miserable. At 9am, the boat readied for sail in order to make the lock by 12:00pm. The boats leaving was much like the temple visit. Total chaos. Boats were everywhere, horns were blasting, two boats next to us came within inches of crashing into each other. We found out that the boats go through the lock two at a time and it was first come, first serve so the captains were determined folks. We were close to last leaving. Once we got to the lock, we had to anchor and wait our turn. Two hours later, we were ready to pass. Then, the lock gate broke so the lock would not drain water (we had to drop the boat 8 meters to continue down the river thus we needed the lock). Finally, a very nimble worker crawled out onto the gate, shimmied under it with a wrench in one hand and his cell phone gripped tightly between his teeth and managed to get the gate unstuck. By this time, it was 3:30pm so we knew we were not going to make Luxor by the 4:30 goal. Since we could not do any touring of the Luxor sites this day, we did a horse drawn carriage ride through the city of Luxor. The term ‘tour’ was stretching it because we passed by: the bus station, the hospital, the church, the mosque, the shopping area, the ‘rich’ houses, the ‘ladies shopping street’ and the market. All the ships must sell the same tour packages because there were tons of carriages everywhere. At one point, I felt like the Queen because all the little girls would smile and wave and they would get so excited when I waved back. Gotta love little girls! The next morning, we prepared ourselves for another pre-sunrise wake up call. However, this day was easy to hop out of bed because it was Valley of the Kings day! Our first stop was the Temple of Hapshepsut, the first female pharaoh in Egypt. It was quite the saga on how she took the throne that had espionage, murders and trickery. She summoned the High Priest who declared he had turned her into a male so she could rule and whatever the High Priest said was law. Turns out she was one of the best rulers because they lived in peace with no wars and prospered. Until her half brother grew up and had her killed. Tough times! After her temple, we drove into the Valley of the Kings. If you did not know what you were looking for, you would assume it was just a valley….which was the idea. The pharaohs got tired of their tombs being robbed so they began to hide them. They have only excavated a small portion of the tombs that are in the valley. We had a ticket that allowed us to go into three tombs. Sultan pointed out the three “most colorful” tombs that were “the best ones”. We made our way into the first tomb which had amazing mosaics on the walls. The tombs are empty (of course!) but the mosaics were in amazing shape. The selfie brigade drove us nuts as usual but we survived. The second tomb was the most colorful and was very deep. When Bill and I made our way to the last recommended tomb, the line was very long and we were quite done with people so we set off to find a different tomb to visit. We happened upon a small one that had no one in line. The ticket man took our ticket and said, “Wait, you have only one tomb left on your ticket. Are you sure you want THIS one?” When we said yes, he was the most joy filled man I have seen in a long time! I am guessing he sits at that tomb all day, every day and has no visitors. He followed us through the tomb and with his very limited English, he gave us a tour. He even let me stand up on one of the restricted areas to get a picture of the sarcophagus! We decided we enjoyed his tomb the most. After the Valley, we headed to Luxor Temples and Karnak. To try and describe the size of these temples would be impossible so I will let the pictures do the talking. The entire day was like a dream. Overall, the people in Egypt seemed to tolerate the tourists. In addition to the joyful tomb keeper, the other most joyful man in Egypt was our room porter on the ship. Every night, he would make a surprise towel creation in the room. He would wait until we returned to the room and he would follow us down the hallway to our room like a puppy. He would clap and say, “See what happened in your room! Someone has come!” We would throw open the door and whatever greeted us, we would laugh and cheer which made him the happiest man on earth. As you can see from the pictures, he was quite talented! It was on the second day aboard the ship that we noticed there were only male employees. No females anywhere. We did see some females working in the shops in Luxor but overall, the males were dominant. While the vendors in Cairo were a bit obnoxious, they could not compare to the vendors in Luxor. They would shove things in our faces, follow you incessantly and get louder and louder. At one point, there was a woman behind us that was being accosted so roughly that I asked Bill to intervene. He did so and after he threw the wares back at the vendors, they finally backed away and let the woman pass. It was a scary moment but I was happy Bill had helped her since she was alone. I do not recommend travel through Egypt without a personal guide or a tour group, especially for a single woman. It’s just not safe. I would describe the entire vibe of Egypt as “Frenzied”. That word sums it up best. From Luxor, we flew back to Cairo to catch our flight to Jordan the next day. The only hiccup was that our tour booking manager forgot to inform the driver that we were all on an earlier flight so we had to wait at the airport for an hour. Luckily, our Jordan flight was at a reasonable time (because I had booked the flight) so we slept in and enjoyed a quiet morning. Jordan was a unique experience so I’ll get that blog done as soon as possible! I will do my best to get pics uploaded! They are amazing but our internet is currently not amazing! Ratings for Nile Cruise section of tour: Overall: 9 Points of interest: 10 Ease of communication: 8 Ease of transportation: 10 with driver and captain; it would be 0 without a driver Friendly people: 8 for tourist people; 0 for vendors Food: 6 Cost of living: n/a due to tour we could not judge for ourselves Weather: 9 Bill’s favorite thing: Luxor Temple and Karnack; Least favorite: vendors Sally’s favorite thing: Temple of Philae and Valley of the Kings; Least favorite: early wake up calls Egypt Part 1: Cairo. We landed in Cairo and easily found our tour guide at the airport. Thank goodness! He shuffled us quickly through immigration and into the car. Then, we headed for our hotel which was an hour away from the airport. Along the way, we saw extremely poor living conditions and buildings that should not still be standing. When they cut the freeway, they literally chopped off the back of apartment buildings and just left them standing. It looked like a war zone. We can’t really think of a nice word to call Cairo so we have been going with sh**hole. Along the way, there was a huge cemetery that dated back thousands of years. You know how much I love to explore cemeteries but I would not have entered this cemetery for a million dollars. There were people living in the cemetery and they called it the “City of the Dead”. There was also a “Garbage City” where the people who lived there collected all the garbage in Cairo and took it back to their ‘city’. Then, the women and children would sort through the garbage and recycle it. I think those two areas pretty much sum up the whole of Cairo. So, exploring on our own was not really an option because the city did not make you want to explore any further than necessary. Our hotel was luckily in a newer area of development called “Dreamland” (don’t let the name fool you). Upon entering the hotel, we had to go through a metal detector and put our bags through xray. Little did we know at the time that every place we went in all of Egypt, we would have to go through the same security. The metal detector salesman must live in a mansion. The airport had three different security checkpoints so you can imagine the nightmare of three TSA events every time we flew! Our first morning, we were headed to the pyramids! Every time we pack up to leave, we go through the checklist for the day. This day, we had: Fluids. Check. Snacks. Check. Hat. Check. Dead woman’s ashes. Check! Wait! What? My ex mother-in-law died last year. She loved all things Egyptian. My daughter asked me to spread some of her grandmother’s ashes at the pyramids so I had been carrying a small baggie of ashes around with me since August. Today was the day! When we arrived at the pyramids, we headed through the security check and my camera bag got pulled. The security woman said my camera lens was not approved so I needed another ticket. Our guide argued with her. I told him I would leave it in the car. The security woman said no. At that point, the guide pulled out some money and paid the bribe she wanted and she put it in her pocket. I can’t imagine how much money the guides must spend on bribes each day but it must be a lot. Walking up to the pyramids, you can’t imagine how big they are! To think that man built them thousands of years ago was hard to comprehend. We were allowed to climb up a few of the lower levels and walk across to the entrance. We did not go into the pyramid because the guide said there was nothing to see and it was not worth the extra money. As we walked on the pyramid, I spread the ashes on one of the stones and felt that Jackie would have been happy with the resting place. Around the main pyramids are other smaller pyramids and burial sites that belonged the family members of the pharaoh and the nobles. The other graves belonged to the workers who had died while building the pyramids. Bill and I had both been taught that slaves built the pyramids. However, in 2017, a set of ancient manuscripts had been discovered that clearly showed payment to the builders of the pyramids including wages, food and housing. The guide also explained that only very important people were allowed to be buried near the Pharaoh so no way slaves would have been given such an honor. After the pyramids, we made our way to the sphinx. I had always been told that the sphinx would be a disappointment because it was smaller than I would expect. I am not sure whose definition of ‘small’ included the sphinx but they are crazy! The sphinx was awesome and I think it was my favorite part of the day. On the way out of the pyramids, we dodged the camel rides and their poo piles and drove to an area of the city called the Coptic Christian area. We wanted to visit the Hanging Church which was a church built on top of two towers of a fortress. We then walked through a crypt where Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus hid from King Herod. Can’t find that in the United States! We finished the day with a trip to the Citadel which was a large fort with a couple of cool mosques and then to the Egyptian Museum to see some mummies. Of course, most of the Egyptian treasures are in the British Museum. Our guide said, “Oh, the British would have taken the pyramids, too….but they were too heavy!” For a very late lunch, we went to a tourist restaurant but we were pleasantly surprised with the food. The restaurant boasted an incredible view of the city but there was so much haze, we could not see anything. The guide said it was the Saharan dust which we found humorous since it is Saharan dust that saves us each year during hurricane season but was driving our sinuses nuts in Cairo. The most hilarious piece of information we received while in Cairo was that world leaders were flocking to the city which housed the City of the Dead, Garbage City and so much haze you could not see the city in broad daylight for the COP27 summit….the summit is a climate change summit….I’ll let you find the irony for yourself! For the tour flights within Egypt, I was not in charge of booking the flights. The flights were included in the tour so they were handled by the tour agency. Our guide announced that our flight was “a bit early” so they would pick us up at 3:30am to which I responded, “I think not!” The tour supervisor called me and we negotiated a 4:30am pickup which did not make me happy but at least it was an hour more sleep. So, not so bright but very early, we flew into Aswan to begin our Nile river cruise. Stay tuned for the next blog to get the details on the “relaxing” cruise! Ratings for Cairo: Overall: 4 Points of interest: 7 Ease of communication: 8 Ease of transportation: 10 with driver; it would be 0 without a driver Friendly people: 3 Food: 5 Cost of living: n/a due to tour we could not judge for ourselves Weather: 9 Bill’s favorite thing: insights from our guide about the Arab Spring events since he was there; the Pyramids Sally’s favorite thing: the Sphinx and surviving Cairo |
AuthorSally Miller Archives
May 2024
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