Walk Like Egyptian

Alas we hit EGYPT! Porting in Alexandria, I woke up early to meet in the deck 5 dining room for my first real SAS trip. As 120 of us piled into the starboard side of the dining room, professors began to call out names and distribute passports. After what might have been the most inefficient process of handing out passports, we got on our busses and headed for Cairo! Little did we know, the bus we picked was to be our group throughout the entire trip. With none of my friends joining me on my trip, I was excited to meet new people. I really lucked out with the bus I got on because there were no “SASholes,” otherwise known as pompous, shallow voyagers. Our tour guide, Mohammad soon after named us “Crocodiles” which proved to be annoying by the end of the trip. After an hour drive, we had a delicious lunch at a hotel and then headed for the pyramids! I can not describe the overwhelming excitement you experience when you see this great wonder of the world. I honestly never truly thought I would be standing arms length from the Pyramids of Giza, but I was and I was in the moment! When we first got off of our bus we were surrounded by Egyptian men trying to sell us head coverings, papyrus, and cat statues. It was the most harassed I had been so far and I almost punched a few people. They would just put things on your head, and grab you by the arm, it was not pleasant. They would also say, “no charge”, give you something (even if you refused) and then ask you for money. Even when my friend Benjamin and I got pictures taken by a guard, he asked us for money. Luckily, we hadn’t hit an ATM so there was nothing we could do. Once we outran the beggars and camel owners, we were able to really take in the greatness of the pyramids. Once we had taken far too many pictures, we headed for our hotel. It was by far the nicest place I have stayed at on this voyage. It was just below Ritz Carlton status. My roommate and I got along, especially after we discovered our mutual love for Dave Matthews and Chelsea Handler. That night, we went back to the pyramids for the sound and light show. As cool as this sounds, it was not what I would have picked out to do. It should have been called, “creepy history lesson with laser beam show.” Exhausted, we headed back to the hotel.

A few hours later, we woke up to our 3:30 a.m. wake up call, got breakfast in boxes, and went to the airport for our flight to Luxor. By 9:00 a.m. we were visiting the Valley of the Kings. The Valley of the Kings is a huge excavation site where the tombs of Ramses II, Tutankhamen, and other famous pharaohs can be found. The tombs were insanely cool. The hieroglyphics on the walls were so well preserved and still held their original color. I was stoked for our next stop, the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut! The first time I learned of Egyptian history was when I played “Where in Time is Carmen SanDiego?” One level shows Queen Hatshepsut in front of her temple and you have to help her do a bunch of stuff so that she will help you find Carmen SanDiego. It was really surreal for me to see the temple I had first seen on a computer screen 10 year prior. As  if that isn’t enough, Queen Hatshepsut rocked! She was the first, and only woman pharaoh of Egypt. Next we went and saw the Colossi of Memnon (two giant statues of pharaohs) that was awesome. Finally we ate lunch at our hotel and had about an hour to rest. We then went to Karnak and Luxor temples. They were both filled with history and just too cool. We then had the rest of the night to recoup at our hotel before our 6:30 a.m. wake up call.

Once we arrived in Aswan, we immediately hopped on a bus and visited Philae Temple and the High Dam. On our way, most of the bus napped, and then was woken up to the sound of Mohammed saying “Crocodiles! Wake up crocodiles!” The High Dam was quite disappointing as I was expecting it to be like the Hoover Dam… lets just say, it was bout 1/16 the size of the Hoover Dam. Also, I forgot to mention that before we got off our bus at each site, Mohammed would say “Crocodiles, ready? ATTACK!” Its kind of fun. Anyways, we then headed to our hotel which was on an island in the middle of the Nile… SO COOL! Subsequent to our lunch, we had a Felucca ride down the Nile! It was awesome! The Nubian people who owned the Felucca had us up dancing to and singing traditional Nubian songs. I have video of the epicness. That night, we went to the bazaar by horse drawn carriage. I got saffron, presents, and postcards. On the way back, the carriage driver let me drive. It was both exciting and scary. I didn’t realize how fast the horses were going until I got up front. I mean, I thought they were trotting, it was a full on canter. Exhausted yet again, I immediately went to sleep when we got back to the hotel.

After a 7:00 a.m. wakeup call, we headed to the airport again for our flight to Abu Simble. Abu Simble is a huge temple that was actually carved out of a mountain. When it was discovered, it was completely submerged in water and the entire mountain had to be moved. How do you move a mountain? I do not know. The flight was well worth it even though it was incredibly hot, hotter than Luxor (where it was about 125 degrees F). Abu Simble is only 15 km from Sudan, so needless to say, we were about as far down as we could get in Egypt. After visiting the temple, we hopped back on a plane to Aswan where we had free time to rest at the hotel. The best experience yet happened after dinner. We had the option to pay $15 to got to a Nubian village. I, of course, quickly agreed! Let me first explain about Nubians. Nubians are a group of people who have their own language, culture, and no formal papers. To the government, they don’t actually exist and there are upwards of 200,000 of them. This means they do not have any form of health care options within Egypt, nor do rules really apply to them. They do, however, have their own form of government and are self-sufficient. Following our incredible boat ride down Nile, we got to the village. Going to the village was a lot more like being in stereotypical Africa as opposed to Egypt. The buildings were brightly colored and they had tons of camels. When we first arrived, we had a lesson in Arabic by one of the professors of the village. We then went to a home where they welcomed us with some of the most delicious tea I have ever had. They also served us bread with three different dipping sauces, one sweet, one salty, and the other an in-between… delicious! After eating and drinking, we were able to hold the typical Nubian pet… a real crocodile! It was really weird feeling, like somewhere between a dog and a snake. We then got henna tattoos by one of the girls who lived in the house. When we left, it was night time. The boat we came on had a roof, so we all decided to climb on top and star gaze while we rode on the Nile back to our hotel. I can honestly not describe how incredible that experience was. It was one of those moments that is both indescribable and impossible to capture with any type of media. When we arrived back at our hotel, we went to our last dinner in Egypt. There was a show of cultural dance and music and I was pulled up three times to dance in front of the whole restaurant. AWESOME!

The next morning we went back to the airport for our final flight to Cairo and visited the Egyptian Archeological Museum. Even though I tend to hate museums, this one was pretty cool. It had all of King Tutankhamen’s jewelry, coffin, and possessions. Reluctantly, we drove back to Alexandria, got on the ship, and set sail to Morocco.