Trekking Through Egypt and Jordon

I think the title says it all. We spent 2 horrific hours on a Nile dinner crusie, looping between 2 bridges countless times.  I felt like I was having a bad flashback aboard the Spirit of Washington, stuck between the 14th street  bridge and the Key bridge….

Yay! A free day! What shall we do??? Lay by the pool? Work out at the gym? Relax? Well, why not try it all and then some…!

After a little toying with the idea of splitting up and me going to Old Cairo and Coptic Cairo, we all decided that maybe we should try and catch a earlier flight out of Cairo to Sharm El Sheikh and go to an Egypt Air office conveniently located in a very inconvenient part of town, Heliopolis. We hired a cab driver (this is where the driving part comes in….) who was a very nice older gentleman who agreed to help us get to the Egypt Air office, back to Old Cairo (completely on the other side of town) and then back to the hotel…

So: Very nice old man + Very crappy traffic in Cairo + Nobody really knowing where to go = Very stressful day…

*note: the guide book reads something to the fact that there are a couple of hand signals, nobody uses their lights, everybody honks and other than that, there are no rules for driving in Cairo… We also learned that there is not car insurance and a car accident generally consists of the two people yelling for a bit and then both driving away.

Please, have no fear! We are all fine and the accident was just a little sideswipe on a side street, absolutely no injuries, just a lot of fun stressful moments in Cairo and a little mild yelling and scoffing… So after the minor crunch the taxi driver found the Egypt Airlines office in the suburb of the city… That was a total bust so we had a coffee at Starbucks… in Cairo… (P.S. we were really trying to get a souvenir for a friend, but since they didn’t have them there we had coffee instead.)

So, after that and a multitude of apologies from our cab driver we headed to Coptic Cairo… I believe at least 77 gray hairs were born on that trip… A few near misses, barreling down a poor market road, people dashing across the road (yes, this is normal on the streets of Cairo…)

Anyway, arrival at Coptic Cairo: Beautiful buildings! No guide to overload us with history, and a few shops with no overbearing (yes pushy, but not overbearing) vendors. Some pictures, a few souvenirs under the belt and back in the taxi where it wasn’t so stressful this time because traffic was backed up and what should have been about a 10 minute car ride became about an hour ride in the car…

I believe it is needless to say that if one of us ever visits Cairo again (which is highly doubtful), we will probably not be taking any excursions by taxi… Also, as you can imagine, there was no working out and no time for pool relaxation..

P.S. Appoligies or minor typos and lack of revisions, only 5 minutes and 49 seconds left on the internet card… 48… 47…

Hello, it is me, Sean once again. Since I kinda rambled a little about day number 1 (dy-nasty numero uno) and since we are already finishing day number 5, I am going to try and sum up day 2 fairly quickly…

While I admit that history is invaluable, I think that we can all agree that sometimes it is simply more enjoyable to drink in the sights and learn what we want to at our own pace… well as you probably guessed, that wasn’t the case for this day.

Hanny, told us more and more about all of the different dynasties of Egypt and the parts where somebody invaded and conquered Egypt and then proceeded to quiz us on what we had learned as the driver wove in between cars on the road (did I mention the traffic yet?… Well you will get a better picture of that in day number three…)

We did manage to see the step pyramid which came in dynasty number 3 that lead to the creations of the 3 main pyramids of dynasty number 4 (either by humans or aliens—this is still being lightly debated among us…) as well as some other mud stone tombs built in the earlier dynasties and a pyramid from dynasty number 5 where they had started to steer away from the colossal structures and began to focus more on writing with hieroglyphics.

While this was amazing and I am sure you will see some pictures soon (unfortunately the computer here won’t allow me to upload pictures due to security risks…) I must note that pictures were prohibited in the smaller pyramids unless you pay the older gentleman that hangs out inside… Not the only corrupt part of Egypt I am afraid to say…

Anyway, after seeing all of that, the city of Memphis where many of the Pharos lived, across the river Nile from the Pyramids, we also visited the Citadel which was the mosque of Mohammad Ali (not the boxer)… Beautiful structure along with a whole lot of history for already history stressed brains… Finally we talked our guide into taking us to the big bazaar in Cairo where everyone hoped to get some shopping done for themselves and souvenirs for those taking care of pets at home… This was not nearly as simple as it seemed…

We entered the crowded bazaar where at first glance it appeared to be cheap trinkets and cheesy souvenirs. This was probably true, but we couldn’t even manage to get a closer look because all of the vendors were doing their best to get us into their stores and strike a deal without us seeing the other vendors, who were selling pretty much the exact same things… As you might guess, it didn’t take us too long before we threw in the towel and returned to the hotel for the night.

And scene…

So the trip has begun and what a trip it is! We were met at the Cairo airport, and have been taken good care of by our guide Hanny (pronounced “Honey” or as Sue calls him… Jaimie… It is probably good to mention that all of us have resorted to speaking Spanish at some point or another… When in doubt, speak another language and maybe they still won’t understand a word you are saying, but you don’t feel quite as ignorant, just foolish… Anyway, Hanny has told us more about the history of Egypt in the last few days than we ever have known, or will probably every quite piece together… So far we retained bits and pieces about the 30 dy-nasties, 3 kingdoms, 4 weaknesses, 108 pyramids, Sakara (beer) and Sakkara (graveyards)… (*note: Please do not site this as a source for any of the specific numbers above as there very well may be108 dy-nasties, 3 pyramids, 4 kingdoms and 3 weaknesses)… However, the one thing that I, Sean Finnegan, am sure of is that the local beer is Sakara and it is DELICIOUS! So, now that everyone knows we are safe and fairly sane after 4 days of the trip I am happy to share some of the highlights…

Dy-nasty Numero Uno (FYI: Dy-nasty is the exact pronunciation of our tour guide):

A bit groggy, but not terribly jet lagged, due to the wonderful world of pharmaceuticals, we awoke early on Sunday morning to enjoy our wonderful breakfast buffet included in the amazingly comfortable room at the Conrad Hilton of Cairo. The only immediate hiccup is that Amy has found that a shoe of hers is missing and it is assumed that the TSA may have forgotten to replace it after searching her bag… I on the other hand have been feeling my back pocket for my wallet approximately every hour and gasping only to re-remind myself that I didn’t bring that along this trip and everything I need is safely in my under the shirt pouch…

Our “Lovely” guide Hanny picked us up from the hotel at 8am to take us to see the Pyramids! We saw the three major pyramids of Giza from the 4^th Dynasty. It was great and one heck of a check-off for the bucket list!! We got an extremely in depth explanation of the dynasties and the entire history of Egypt that I believe we all felt as though our heads might explode upon the utterance of a single additional word. Then we got to enter the second of the three major pyramids and to our amazement they weren’t built to live in. entering through about a 3.5×3.5 foot shaft that descended approximately 150 feet into the pyramid into two separate chambers. There wasn’t a whole lot to see down there except the empty tomb (or “tom” as Hanny would say), but it was still a great adventure to enter a structure that is thousands of years old… There were many camels, donkeys, horses, locals, and of course, tourists about the pyramids and we got some great shots. Some should be attached below and more will come soon.

After this we saw the great Sphinx! It was a treat in and of itself and there were yet again a number of locals selling things as well as tourists both avoiding and buying them (we mostly avoided this day). After our tour guide took some humorous pictures of us fake kissing the Sphinx a very imaginative little girl told us you we could pose so that it would appear that the sphinx was kissing other parts of our anatomy… (I think you can figure this one out on your own…)

After the sphinx we stopped at a state run Egyptian oil shop where we were served Turkish coffee and given the opportunity to smell the oils that “go into most major fragrances around the world.” Whether this was true or not, they all smelled lovely and we all purchased something… (Turkish coffee is also DELICIOUS, and apparently loosens up your wallet…)

After that shopping excursion we had lunch on a boat docked on the shores of the Nile. It was quite a good lunch and went off without any hitches; however, Amy’s camera lens was unfortunately knocked into the river by one of the wait staff while trying to show us things… Never fear, he and about 3 other employees worked tirelessly to retrieve the lens from the river. This drew quite the crowd after a few minutes and finally, an older gentleman who appeared to maybe be a maintenance man for the boat jumped into the river to retrieve it! Whew! Disaster avoided!!!

We also visited a less appealing Egyptian cotton store that was attempting to sell Items that I think we can get on the streets of DC for about half the price. Needless to say we did not purchase anything there… (They were also obviously not serving Turkish coffee…).

We finished out the day to a visit to the Cairo Museum where thousands of artifacts from tombs are displayed out in the open or under glass cases with very little security. It was fascinating to see all of the beautiful artwork, but also alarming when we were instructed by our guide to clime onto part of the frame of one glass case so that we could see inside the box… go figure, it’s Egypt.

Anyway, that night we retired back to our hotel after one heck of a long trip around Cairo and through the driving mess that they call traffic, fortunately we had a great driver and a good sized van… After we devoured the free buffet at the happy hour in the Executive lounge area we really had only a little energy left for an evening glass of wine and to discover that Amy’s shoe was in her suit case all along…  

Well, I think that is all that I have for dy-nasty, number one. I am sure there is much more to the story, but please tune in later for dy-nasty number 2 and more!!!

After months of anticipation, our departure date for Egypt is finally here. The only thing that could possibly stop us now is a volcano whose name I can’t pronounce and whose country I never plan to visit.  Its nature at it’s best, but is its best enough to stop the Sue, Kristie, Amy, Sean brigade from treking through Europe and on to Cairo?  I think not! But I guess we’ll find out.

Its late and I still haven’t finished packing. But all else is done. The house is clean, the 17-page Charlie Survival Guide I wrote for the house sitters is sitting on the kitchen counter waiting to be mocked by all who read it. I know, I know… i probably could have fit all his instructions in 5 pages but I like to be detailed.. Really, really detailed… its overkill really but I’m glad I did it. I’d worry about the little guy if I didn’t.

I’m heading off to bed. Here is our flight schedule for tomorrow. I hope you check in from time to time to see how we are doing. I’ll try and blog whenever we have decent internet access. Until then…

Friday, May 14, 2010
Washington to Cairo (via London)

Dulles Intl (IAD) to London Heathrow (LHR) /Flight UA 918
Departure (IAD): May 14, 6:03 PM EDT (evening)
Arrival (LHR): May 15, 6:20 AM BST (morning)

Saturday, May 15, 2010
London to Cairo

Flight: Bmi # 771
Departure (LHR): May 15, 9:15 AM BST (morning)
Arrival (CAI): May 15, 4:10 PM EEST (afternoon)