travelswithalice

February 26, 2007

Karnak

Our guidebooks suggest that we do our buying outside of Cairo; that everything is cheaper in the provincial capitals like Aswan and Luxor. Not so. I found very limited buying opportunities in Aswan.

In Luxor, do not even bother with the much hyped and spruced up Souk. Shops stock mostly kitsch and vendors are insufferably brash and pushy. We couldn't wait to get out of there. We jumped into the first available taxi and set off for the temple at Karnak.

A lot of the original coloring remains in many of Karnak's columns, beams, and sanctuary walls. Hypostyle columns are exceptionally thick, stand very close together, and are topped by a variety of different capitals.

Apart from this, there are precious few unique features to distinguish Karnak from other temples.

By this point in our tour, the vocabulary of hypostyle halls, pylons, sanctuaries, and colossi has become predictable. So while the previous evening's encounter with Luxor had put me back on temple chasing mode, Karnak failed to sustain my enthusiasm.

This must be the height of disrespect coming from a layman. But that's just the point. For non-Egyptologists like me, there had to be a temple saturation point.

The constant theme of egomaniacal excess began to grate. I came away feeling frustrated by the pointlessness of all this futile effort to live forever.

OZYMANDIAS

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

-Percy Bysshe Shelley

Labels: Egypt, Hypostyle, OZYMANDIAS, Souk

posted by Alice Dimalanta Jones # February 26, 2007

February 25, 2007

Luxor

After the laid back elegance of Aswan, we found Luxor lacking in charm. Our hotel didn't help any.

When a hotel chooses a name like Winter Palace, it must realize that expectations are bound to go sky high. Reality hit us hard. We realized we hadn't booked the fabled Old Winter Palace but we didn't expect the adjoining New Winter Palace to be the dump it turned out to be.

We were too tired to care. We ignored the narrow corridors, the tacky doors, the cheap furniture, and the squeeze-in bathroom with the stained toilet bowl. We didn't feel up to bothering with the riverside balcony with the filthy chairs either, so we dutifully took to our bed and went to sleep.

In the morning though when the shower drain refused to do its job, we packed up and moved to the hotel's Pavilion Wing, to a spacious, attractively furnished room with a bright, clean, well-appointed bathroom. Though still not up to the standards of the Old Winter Palace's high ceilings, tasteful English interiors, and worshipful celebration of the colonial lifestyle, this was a step-up from the dreadful New Winter Palace.

Our world began to smile again. The moral of the story: do the research! "Riverview"and "new" are not always a good thing.

The decision to stay indoors in the daytime was not a difficult one to make. Luxor's hot and arid climate, even in winter, made a temple crawl an impossibility. Besides, it takes an enormous amount of patience, as well as guts, to brave the unrelenting swarm of vendors and touts that rush up and latch on to you the moment you set foot outside your hotel.

The Luxor Museum offered a delightful alternative. An impressive museum not only because of the superiority of its contents but also because of its design savvy, it demonstrates the benefits to be had from successful, sustainable tourism.

A gallery showcasing recent archaeological finds features stepped platforms that invite the viewer to walk right up to and all around each display, providing an opportunity to inspect the all-important markings at the backs of statues and stelae.

There were few visitors to the temple before dark. It didn't look like much from the street, in the harsh glare of the unforgiving Egyptian sun. But as the sun went down, the oppressive heat lifted and the temple was transformed. Like a worldly and wise woman of a certain age, Luxor has mastered the art of strategic lighting.

When we finally ventured out to the temple in the cool of the evening, we remembered what we came here for. There is a point to Luxor but it's difficult to find before sunset.

Labels: Egypt, hotels, temples

posted by Alice Dimalanta Jones # February 25, 2007

February 24, 2007

Sailing into the Sunset in a Felucca

SAILING INTO THE SUNSET IN A FELUCCA

As Stuart steered, Captain Saif got busy with the housekeeping. He spread out colorful freshly laundered mats and pillows for me to lie on, brought out a book on birds of the Nile for me to read, then laid a wool blanket over my feet. He lit incense sticks to perfume the air, then made tea.

The Nile is central to the lives of the locals. They love and respect it. They bathe themselves and their animals in it. They also drink it.This last we discovered belatedly as we sipped the delicious tea that the good captain had made on a tiny tin stove, with fresh herbs and a bottle of mineral water. A bottle he later refilled by reaching over the side and dipping it into the river. He then took a swig from it. Stuart and I quickly and quietly set down our tea cups.

Pushed gently by a cool breeze, we tacked along the languorous curves of the Nile at its most picturesque setting. Keenly aware of the photo op that our felucca provided us, we hammed it up for camera-wielding tourists on board the steamers parked three-deep along the Corniche.

I guess the plan was to sail with the wind, watch the sunset, then circle back on the current. But the current failed us and we had to be towed back, first by a passing ferry loaded with local tourists on their way home from family picnics on Kitchener's Island and then by a fishing boat.

On the homestretch, Captain Saif deployed the oars and rowed straight up to home base at the lovely Old Cataract Hotel. Stuart and I climbed out of our felucca, onto the hotel landing, and into the welcoming arms, as it were, of the hotel bartender.

I had a martini. Cleopatra herself couldn't have felt more content with her lot.

Labels: Egypt, felucca, hotels, Kitchener's Island, Nile, Old Cataract Hotel

posted by Alice Dimalanta Jones # February 24, 2007

February 23, 2007

The Old Cataract Hotel in Aswan

ASWAN

The Nile meanders along, loitering dreamily around rocky outcrops and green islets on its southern stretch near the border to Sudan, before it gets rudely interrupted by the High Dam. At the point of the first cataract (cataracts are shallow rocky sections), the Nile is at its most beautiful. And nestled among palm groves and lush tropical flora, wedged between granite cliffs and desert, lies the city of Aswan.

From Abu Simbel, our heads heavy from lack of sleep and swimming with images of Rameses and Nefertari, we arrived at the Old Cataract Hotel at noon. We headed straight to lunch at the hotel's breezy, sun-drenched terrace perched above the palm fringed river littered with pretty sailboats. In the distance, the brooding Aga Khan Mausoleum rises serenely from the desert.

Lunch stretched into late afternoon and I got dangerously close to ordering another slice of the seriously addictive date cake. Stuart had very wisely gone exploring and he waved triumphantly to me from the jagged ruins of Elephantine Island across the river from where I sat glued to my wicker chair.

As feluccas started massing towards sunset viewpoints on the river, I resolved to be on board one myself for sunset the next day.

posted by Alice Dimalanta Jones # February 23, 2007

February 22, 2007

Abu Simbel

ABU SIMBEL

Day 3, sunrise at Abu Simbel. Well, almost. We took the 4 a.m. flight to Luxor, then on to Abu Simbel where airline buses ferried us to the temple site. As we disembarked, we saw that the first wave of pilgrims was already leaving.

I envied them; they had watched the sunrise from a magnificent temple dedicated to the sun. My heroic effort at an early start, after a tumultuous night in sleepless Cairo, seemed wasted.

That was before I saw the temples.

No postcard, no magazine spread, no TV documentary could have prepared me for the awesome presence of the monuments or for the fine draftsmanship of the murals.

Although images of the rock-hewn seated statues of Rameses are familiar to most us, the amazing discovery for me was that the real treasure lies hidden behind the portals that all but disappear beside these colossi.

It was so worth the early morning call.

Labels: Egypt, temples

posted by Alice Dimalanta Jones # February 22, 2007

February 21, 2007

At Khan-el-Khalili

Day 2 was devoted to the chaotic streets of modern-day Cairo and the medieval labyrinth that is the fabled Khan-el-Khalili, Cairo's bazaar complex. It is said to have inspired the market setting for Scheherazade’s tales.

It was a quick and easy ride on the metro and we emerged a few meters from a public park which turned out to be not too public after all. You have to pay to get in.

Crossing a pedestrian overpass, we surveyed the busy street below. If I blotted out the cars, I could imagine I had gone back in time, in a land known to me only in books and movies.

The call to prayer boomed out from loudspeakers at a nearby mosque. The sound seemed to seep all around me as the prayer was taken up by people close by. Soon the hypnotic murmuring swelled as more and more people took up the chanting.

I noticed that we were the only foreigners around and I wondered why. We were thrilled to discover that we were in the local shopping area, not on the tourist belt.

I like the people here: very gentle, kind, and genuinely hospitable. Very good looking too. They happily give directions, help read our maps and give shopping tips- where to go and how much to pay.

Too soon we found ourselves in the heart of the tourist mecca when we stopped for lunch at the atmospheric Khalili Café dedicated to beloved Egyptian writer, the late Naguib Mahfouz.

Then off to do an important shopping errand: belly dancing gear for my sister Annette’s dance class.

Stuart quickly located the place suggested by our guidebook. And then it was three or four hours (difficult to tell; could have been a thousand and one) of wandering up and down four floors of Arabian nights material.

Beaded gilt collars and headdresses channeled Cleopatra and Nefertiti. Sparkly net veils, floaty scarves, gypsy dresses and genie pants, all encrusted in crystal beads, sequins, and coins. There were tambourines and tiny copper cymbals; thousands of jingly silver and copper coins jangled on chain belts, bracelets, arm bands, and anklets.

It’s difficult to tell what the locals really think of all this. Conversations with hotel staff and shopkeepers suggest an ambivalence in their regard for the once notorious- but now hugely popular, even trendy- art of belly dancing. An aura of disrepute still surrounds it like so many floaty scarves and jingly veils; which is probably why today’s celebrated belly dancers are mostly foreigners.

Navigating the maze of medieval alleys that make up the Khan can be daunting, not to mention the stress of haggling if one is not so inclined. I had the luxury of having my own personal buyer/guide.

We had bought a shop's entire stock of white bedlinen, so the linen man was a willing conscript as my point man in the Khan.

He showed me how to pick the really good dates and taught me to soak them overnight in milk to soften them and to keep the resulting flavored milk for drinking. He showed me some nasty looking dried lemons, black with age, excellent for cooking with rice. He led me to a tiny shop in a back alley, no tourists in sight, for saffron and vanilla pods- the really good stuff. He explained the nature, flavor, and in some cases, miraculous powers of the contents of the ancient wood barrels and hessian sacks stacked all around us.

We turned a corner and immediately found ourselves swimming in a pool of delicious scents. Flowers and spices and musk were the usual suspects. Plus several others I couldn't identify. We were on Perfume Alley.

All in all, an intoxicating day.

Labels: belly dancing, Egypt, Khan-el-Khalili, linen

posted by Alice Dimalanta Jones # February 21, 2007

February 20, 2007

EGYPT

Okay, so the Nile Hilton doesn’t have free wi-fi access in the lobby. Never mind, we’re getting free cappuccino and doughnuts while waiting for our room. A riverside room. That should be nice.

It’s nearly eight o’clock, Monday morning. We landed in Cairo at six thirty and were whizzed through immigrations and customs by the hotel rep who met us right off the plane- our bags had come out in no time at all. The taxi ride to the hotel took about 45 minutes including a brief stop at the petrol station.

My first view of Cairo. The major impression is of dust. Most vehicles seem caked in mud and loosely covered in dust. Buildings are the color of dust.

That riverside room was a bad idea.

Of New York it's often said that the city never sleeps. That's a really good thing because there you can find something to do or eat any time, day or night.

Well, on the drive from the airport, our driver proudly declared that Cairo never sleeps. I soon discovered that to be not a good thing.

On the eve of our 4 a.m flight to Luxor, I realized that Cairo doesn't let anybody sleep! From the street, from the river, from the boats and the restaurants, there were traffic noises, loud voices, and hysterical music throughout the night.

Desperate for just a few moments of sleep- I didn't want to doze off in the temple at Abu Simbel, I contrived to sleep with my right ear jammed tight into my pillow. The other ear was securely plugged by my left index finger. It wasn't the most comfortable position but it worked.

I'm getting ahead of myself though; that's not until day 3.

Back to day 1. First stop was the Cairo Museum to get the lay of the land of the pharaohs. The death mask of Tutankhamun and the incredibly beautiful bust of Nefertiti are reason enough to secure the museum top billing in the fiercely competitive arena of collected antiquities.

After lunch, the pyramids at Giza. My face and hands smarted from the cold wind and I just got chased by a camel, but as I stood at the foot of that awesome remnant of ancient civilization, I was on top of the world.

Labels: Cairo, Egypt, Giza, museum, pyramids

posted by Alice Dimalanta Jones # February 20, 2007