Egypt Digest
So, it seems that we have come to the end of our travels in Egypt, and are about to move on for Nairobi, in Kenya. I am excited about going to the place the guidebook describes as “Nairobbery”, and about getting to the sea, but before I do it’s time to put Egypt to bed.
There’s one hell of a lot of history in Egypt, and it’s actually quite nice to get away from it every now and then. Whilst I’m sure that every tomb and monument has its own special place in Egypt’s cultural heritage, I can’t help but think that maybe the country would be a little easier if they had left the temples at Philae and Abu Simbel where they were and allowed the rising water behind the dam to cover them. Yeah, they’re great, but there’s only so many carved walls you can look at and still summon any feeling.
I perhaps wouldn’t feel so blase about them if they weren’t treated in such a manner by everyone else. Unlike England, anyone is free to touch anything they want, to rub their hands across c. 4,500 year old painted walls, and to finger anything they feel like in the Egyptian Museum. I’m sure you’ll have heard all about the way things are kept and displayed in there before, so I’ll add my own voice to that chorus. I have had to try very hard not to talk to people hanging off various bits of very precious stone. When I am rich, I will buy them a humidifier for that ancient wood just sat about in the open air in the uper galleries.
But the history is only one small part of it! Much more interesting are the people here. Most people speak some English, although whether they understand all of it I’m unsure. The word “hassle” has translated across badly, so that you can find your path blocked by someone shouting “No hassle! No hassle!” as he tries to force you into his tat shop by cutting off all routes away from it. Some shops have gone still further and called themselves “Hassle-Free Shop”, which is almost as appealing as the “Egypt Free Shop” we saw.
I’m pretty certain that the fact the our group is mostly female has not affected the hassle that much, for everyone on the streets seems swamped with offers of taxis, scarves, small toy dogs that do backflips, socks, tissues, furry Arabic writing or multi-packs of cigarettes. Still, I imagine the men do not get kissing noises quite so often, or find a bus driver claiming that you are now his wife and pulling you around by your arm to show everyone. Mummy didn’t like that bit.
If you’re not in direct contact with people shouting, Egypt is still a very noisy place wherever you go. Cars have two indicators, use their hazhard lights to indicate that they are going to do something very odd, and their horns to welcome every single person they come across in the street. Cairo is a city that never sleeps, and those horns never stop sounding. You get used to it after a while, so that only prolonged honking is worth any attention whatsoever.
Aswan and Luxor were much nicer; fewer people on the streets and less honking. Still, the noise was intense. Every tree seemed to be packed full of birds which shriek incessantly for no apparent reason. Along the Nile things get quiet during the day, but at dusk the verges erupt into tweeting and chirruping of birds and crickets, and some strange bird which screams goes off repeatedly at dawn. An aurally challenging place indeed.
The beautiful scenery is enough to distract attention from the carcophany, though. Most of Egypt is arid and dusty, with great clouds of dust blowing around the houses and through the streets of Cairo every other day or so. But then, once you’ve written off a section as dead quarry-like land, a sudden burst of lush green splashes across the landscape, where someone has been bothered to dig an irrigation ditch from the Nile. The banks of the river itself are wonderfully fresh and frondy all the way along, hiding the gritty desert just over the hilltop from view. It’s no wonder people go for cruises along it (and they do in droves; every port is packed full of cruise ships).
Once you’ve got the hang of numbers, and a phrasebook with the Arabic characters written in it, food becomes quite exciting. We’ve eaten a range of strange things whilst out here, from the ubiquitous felafel sandwiches (worth 20p in stirling) which have made up a mainstay of the diet to shakshouka, which is this sort of tomato-ey onion-y vegetable thing with a rubbery egg burnt to the top of it. There’s also kofta, which are delicious tubes of miscellaneous meat, but meat is rather expensive to eat very often. Everything here is spicy in the good way; not hot, but just aromatic and tasty. My favourite dish so far is koshary, which is a layer of pasta on a layer of rice on a layer of noodles, with some tomato paste on top.
So, what was best and worst? Worst first; the constant hassle and trouble when walking in the streets. We were all dressed very conservatively, but it was still interminable and very tiring. Ignoring them seems to be the only option. Other bad bits were the excessive cost of everything and the fact that the sun set so early. After a day of English summer heat, you don’t expect the sun to pop off at 17:30!
The best bit for me was the tomb of Thutmes III, in the Valley of the Kings. Unlike almost all of the other stuff we saw this did not have engraved walls, but merely painted ones. It’s one of the oldest tombs there, and so the hieroglyphics are very flowing and the people are just stick figures. We spent a long time in there copying what we saw (no photographs in any of the historical centres). The felluca ride was also really rather nice, and these last few days in Cairo when we have been able to organise our own time.
But it is nearly time for the plane! I should really go and snuggle back into the special pocket in Mummy’s bag. The rucksacks came back, which I probably forgot to mention, so here’s hoping they don’t disappear all over again! Until we next meet enjoy the photos, and I will see if I can get the titles to work in slideshow mode.
January 22, 2009 2:45 pm 
Subscribe