Egypt

Bonjour,

It's another beautiful, clear and cool day in Rabat, Morocco. Not quite like Egypt...

We began with four days in Cairo, which is a very dirty but vibrant city of between 15 and 20 million people (no one knows for certain). We stayed right downtown and had a chance to get the vibe of the city and "go local" on the food (largely vegetarian food that was tasty and cheap -- we could spend less than $5 for dinner for four on things like Koshari, a mix of macroni, rice, tomato sauce, lentils and fried onions. Tommy gobbled it up (and that's saying something)).

The Cairo Museum was, as promised, amazing -- the treasures from King Tutankhamun's tomb alone are worth the admission and more. Although Bob thought it was a bit too macabre to visit, Anna, Tommy and I also checked out the collection of mummies of Pharaohs (you can still see their hair! their teeth! the similar facial structures of fathers/sons!).

The great pyramids in Giza were, of course, massive. We bought tickets to go inside, but I couldn't handle it after about 20 feet -- way too claustrophobic for me, although I was also feeding off the panic of some British tourists. Bob said that claustrophobic feeling got much worse another 100 yards in, especially when you thought about the millions of tons of stone above you, but that it was incredible. I wasn't going to make it.

Leaving the kids at our apartment, Bob and I also took the subway during rush hour to see some of the early Christian sites in Coptic Cairo. I chose to ride in the "women's car" -- a good choice given how people were pressed together. As in other places in Egypt, though, as soon as we got off the tourist track, Egyptian people were so kind: People were clearly looking out for us and helping us get off (no easy task).

While we liked Cairo (good galleries, some good shopping although not like Morocco), from the outset, we ran into hustlers/scam artists who tried to convince us that the Cairo Museum was closed and we should instead go with them to the government bazaar for the good prices (ha!). We've encountered hassles before in Morocco (without the dishonesty), but it was far, far worse in Egypt.

After Cairo, we flew to Aswan and stayed at this resort, which the kids completely loved (good pool, good ice cream).


We also sailed on a felucca on the Nile, which was wonderful.

Anna got a bit too cocky, though, and fell into the river.
Here's Anna floating down the crocodile-infested Nile.
Actually, we all jumped in the Nile and floated down the river (some of us for longer than others), holding on to a rope attached to the boat. In retrospect, we probably should have worn life jackets (the usual careful parenting by Kim and Bob). But although there are lots of man-eating crocs in the Nile, they aren't located in this area. Or so we were told.

While the setting of Aswan is beautiful (see below), we didn't like the city of itself. Too few tourists, too many (truly poor) people trying (too desperately) to make money from the tourists. Not a good mix.
To get to Luxor, we traveled by train, Bob-style (filthy, hot local train -- NOT the tourist train -- again, with genuinely good, regular Egyptian people, who wanted to help us in any way possible. Bob was in heaven, but the kids were pretty hot and miserable). From a hassle standpoint, Luxor was much better than Aswan. And the ruins were amazing.

The Temples at Luxor and Karnak were absolutely incredible. See very first photo above and photo below for a picture -- the little figure is Anna -- which don't do the ruins justice at all (no picture would capture these ruins, although we again ran into camera trouble).

Luxor had the best ruins we've seen anywhere in the world, and the temples were, to me, much more impressive than the pyramids.

We also rented bikes to visit the tombs on the west bank of the Nile, which felt great and meant that the taxi drivers and felucca operators mostly left us alone. On the bikes, we hit some of the less-visited tombs, which also meant no crowds. Between that and the biking, Anna and Tommy were much more into it than they had been at the pyramids. Me too.

Alas, too long again. Shorter posts to come, I promise.

A bientot,

Kim