Aswan's High Dam

Next we headed to the High Dam completed in 1971 with the aid of the Soviets after the U.S. and Britain backed out in 1958 in an effort to marginalize the then-President Nasser. The monument is to the friendship between the Egyptian and Russian peoples. The inside is absolutely stunning with with elevators that used to go to the top, but are now forbidden since a Belgian tourist fell several years ago. The other shot is of me with the high water dammed behind me.

The Unfinished Obelisk

Wednesday, we arose early - 5:30 a.m. - and headed to the Unfinished Obelisk. This was an obelisk that was to be made, as they all were, out of a single piece of granite. It would have been the largest obelisk at over 41 meters (the largest is just over 39) and was commissioned by queen Hatshepsut, but it unfortunately cracked during the removal process, so it was never finished. The first thing we noticed upon arriving at the site, however, was not the quarry itself, but the numerous stray dogs living there. The other two photos are of 1) our new friends, Robert and Jean, standing above the obelisk to give you a sense of scale, and 2) a view of the obelisk still lying in its quarry bed.

Computer Problems -- AAACCCKKKK!!!

Hello, friends. It's been a tough couple of days as far as trying to blog is concerned. (Or should I say a tough 10 days?) Yesterday we were so busy seeing sites and finishing our tour arrangements that I was too tired to head out into Luxor to the Internet Cafe to blog at 10:30 p.m. Then today we arrive back in Cairo and my laptop's monitor is not working -- so I can blog here in the hotel business center, but all my photos have been downloaded into my non-functioning computer, so I cannot engage you with any shots of my adventures. I will arrive home in the States tomorrow and backtrack my blog then, I promise. Meanwhile, dear reader, hold fast in anticipation...

The Botanical Gardens

After Abu Simbel, we headed to our cruise ship, the lovely Lotus, where we had lunch. Then we headed out to "sea" again on a felucca boat ride to the Botanical Gardens. It was sweltering hot and there was no breeze, so our felucca was actually pulled along by a motor boat. The Botanical Gardens are on Kitchener Island, one of the 11 islands plus the mainland that make up Aswan. From the Botanical Gardens, you can look directly across the river to the hotel in which we had stayed the night before (note the tall structure behind Muzz). On the way, a couple of Nubian boys paddled up to our felucca using pieces of cardboard, hung onto the sides of the boat and sang us songs like "Frere Jacques" and "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" until we rustled up a little baksheesh and sent them happily on their way. The gardens were beautiful, but the signs were all in Arabic, so we didn't really know what we were looking at. I do, however, share a sign with you that you can figure out even without any Arabic in your lectionary :).

Abu Simbel

We crossed the river again to get on the bus, go across the small dam built by the British and head back to the airport where we caught a puddle-jumper to Abu Simbel. I got this shot of Grace coming down the steps off the plane, which she was very enamored of, because she looks like a famous movie star :). In reality, all flights end this way - even at Cairo International Airport, you leave the plane on the steps and take a bus to the terminal.

We then took another bus up to the dual temples built by Ramses II in the 13th century B.C.E., one for himself and the other for his wife, Neferteri. You see the famous statues here which face Sudan intentially to intimidate his Nubian neighbors from any thought of invading. It was excrutiatingly hot and a very long walk from the bus to the temples and back again, but oh, so worth it.

Flying to Aswan

After I left the seminary, I headed for the airport where I met up with my tour group. We set out on a plane that was supposed to leave at 5:45 p.m., but was on "Egyptian time" :), so it was later than that. Then we landed in Luxor - an unexpected and to the best of our knowledge unscheduled stop, which added another hour to the trip. So it was quite late before we arrived in Aswan. Then we had to take a bus from the airport to a boat across the Nile to the hotel, which you see well lit behind Grace in the picture. The good news is that when we got there, we had the best meal we've had since we've been in Egypt. It really was quite marvelous. Then we all too quickly went to bed, to sleep, to awake at 6:00 a.m. and load out by 6:30 to head to another plane to Abu Simbel.

Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo

The rest of my group went to the Egyptian Museum - I went to ETSC. (When I planned this excursion, we had a free 1/2 day in Cairo; when I got to Egypt that had changed, but I didn't want to miss the opportunity to meet my Presbyterian brothers and sisters here.) I was greeted warmly by the entire staff and got an amazing tour of the Seminary, which has 200 students from several countries as well as Egypt. I met a students from Sudan and Iraq and was told there is one from Korea.

It was such a pleasure to meet these folks. Here's a shot of me with the President, Rev. Dr. Atef Gendy, who was simply delightful. I was blessed to meet such faithful people striving to provide an authentic Christian witness in a predominantly Muslim country. This is not without challenges, but I have found Egyptians - Christians and Muslims - to be willing and able to share their views openly, which is a plus.

I spent quite a while with Wageeh Mikhail who is the Missional Theologian working on developing a center to promote Interfaith Relations. He is an Egyptian national who spent five years in the States before returning to work in Egypt. An articulate and interesting man, Wageeh was very clear about the challenges and blessings that exist in his society.

I'm sorry that I missed the Egyptian Museum, but I had a wonderful time and want to thank Dr. Atef and Wageeh and Rev. Dusty and Mariam and Rami (he's in the photo in the chapel and gave me the tour of the facility) for their hospitality!

Computer Up and Running Again

Well, it's been tough the last couple of days getting computer accessibility - but here we are, yippee! This has been a wonderful adventure and I'll show you more of it in a minute, but first of all, you need to know, IT IS HOT HERE! Today it was 46 degrees Celsius - I just went and looked up the conversion and it's 115 degrees Fahrenheit! This has been very tough on Muzz and Grace, both of whom spent most of today in bed - Muzz made it to the first stop this morning, but was toast by the afternoon. Grace got a sty (sp?) in her eye and was not up to heading out at 6:30 a.m. to beat the heat. She got up and had dinner with us, which I was happy about. Mohammed, our tour guide, told us that Egypt has just skipped spring this year and gone straight into summer. I was told the same thing by Mariam on Monday - speaking of Miriam, check out the next post.

Our Final Stop for the Day: Memphis

...and no, I don't mean Tennessee. This was where a 15 meter tall statue of Ramses is displayed, but it is lying on its side with the bottom of its legs missing. There were originally two, so the one that has survived intact has very recently been moved to Alexandria to stand at the front of the new museum. Also onsite were another statue of Ramses and a smaller Sphinx with Pharoah Hatshepsut's head - this one is really interesting because Hatshepsut was a woman who insisted on being known as Pharoah and led as a man, including wearing the ceremonial headdress and beard in religious ceremonies and being buried in the Valley of Kings, not the Valley of Queens - a way early feminist!

The Step Pyramid

Next we went to Sakkara where we saw the first pyramid ever built. It was built for Pharoah Zoser in the 12th century B.C.E. and designed by the architect Imhotep (who was badly maligned as an evil priest in The Mummy, a movie starring Brendan Fraser). He also planned a whole complex which included a pyramid for Zoser's wife, the queen, an embalming temple and a beautiful entry hall open to the sky and the Sun God Ra. An interesting aside: we've seen numerous dogs in the various archeological sites, that don't seem to have owners, although this puppy was being fed saltines and given water by a local boy in the temple.

Lunch

...which may not sound like a fascinating topic, but I had to share the bread baked in an outdoor oven. We walked over to watch the women baking the pita bread, which came out of the oven puffy and warm. They gave us a couple of hot, fresh pieces, one of which I was happy to see Grace gobble up as she had not been feeling too well this morning and it was the first thing that she ate all day. (And she had a couple more at lunch - or should I say in lieu of lunch. :)

Papyrus Factory

We went to a papyrus factory - a place where papyrus is made. We were shown the basics: the papyrus water lily stem is stripped of its outer skin, then cut into thin strips. The strips are pressed with a rolling pin to squeeze out all the water. They are laid alongside one another slightly overlapping, then a second layer is laid atop the first one at a 90 degree angle. The two layers are pressed together with a vise (or in ancient times between two heavy stones) until the pressure makes them bind into being an incredibly strong paper. Even after the papyrus gets wet, it does not fall apart. After that the pages can be written on, painted on, decorated in a variety of ways.

After the demonstration of the making of papyrus, we were offered an opportunity to purchase paintings on them. I must confess, I bought a gorgeous painting on papyrus that I look forward to having hang over my living room couch - a long-lasting memory of an already wonderful trip!

The Sphinkus :)

..was not as small as everyone who's ever been here has told me that it is - indeed it is quite impressive still. Our guide told us that one of Napeoleon's soldiers accidentally shot off its beard and nose. The Sphinx actually has the head of Pharoah Cheops and the body of a lion. This is far from the only Sphinx in Egypt, just the most famous one. It seems that to have a statue built of oneself with the body of lion symbolized strength and power.

The Other Two Pyramids

Next we drove a short way to between the other two pyramids built by Cheops' son and grandson. The white cap on the top of the one pyramid is actually a limestone coating that was scraped off (it used to cover all three pyramids). This occurred as well as the looting of the stones from the top of the Cheops' pyramid when the Muslims came into Egypt in the late 7th century. There seem to have been duel motivations: 1) the limestone had carvings all over it that were viewed as against their religion as images and 2) they needed the materials to build their own homes. The stones themselves are not indigenous to the area, but were cut 500 miles south in Aswan and then brought in some unknown manner (up the Nile, perhaps?) to Cairo. The final photo is - believe it or not - Anwar Sadat's summer home. (Obviously not any longer, since he was assassinated in 1981.) While it looks pretty hideous to my American eyes, it afforded him an "in-your-face" view of all three pyramids, and after what's more important than Location, Location, Location?

The Pyramid of Cheops

We met early this morning after breakfast in order to avoid the heat of the day and the crowds and headed for the Pyramids of Giza. The first stop was the Pyramid of Cheops, the largest of the three with over 1,300,000 stones, each weighing 2 1/2 tons. Note the size of the stones by the size of Grace standing next to them. One of the best parts of the morning was riding a camel. I had talked Muzz into doing it (I didn't need to talk Grace into it) - but it came as a surprise to me when I ended up on one too. We had a great ride in the morning breeze before heading to the other two pyramids and the Sphinx.

A Trip to Felfela's

For dinner, Mother and I decided to walk to the take-away joint, Felfela's, for falafel and fuul. After a meeting regarding our tour schedule, Grace was fading, so she went back to room to rest. Meanwhile, Muzz and I discovered that two women out walking alone after dark in Cairo is a rather interesting proposition. With the exception of two women and their children (also heading to Felfela's), we were the only women on the street. We had men beg us to enter their stores, take their taxis, buy their goods, whistle at us, catcall, shout and follow us. One offered to take us to "see the Sphinkus" (yes, pronounced just that way) for $2. We were a little unsure about which direction to walk and tried to ask directions, but no one was speaking English, only Arabic. Finally, I asked a policeman and he couldn't speak English either, but about 2-3 blocks further on, we met another policement, who asked, "You are looking for Felfela's?" We were surprised he knew and then he introduced us to his "dispatcher" who was walking with him out of uniform, but with a radio. They took us on as their protectorate and walked us to the takeaway counter, waited for us there and walked us about 1/2-way back to the hotel, until we were in a well-lighted area again. It was an adventure!

Muzz said she was glad she had the experience, but she wouldn't do it again, and I have to admit that I was glad Grace had stayed back at the hotel. All's well that ends well, though, because the falafels and fuul were yummy and the rice pudding worth the walk.

A Welcome Drink

After taking our bags to the room, we gathered at the bar for a welcome drink. It was a delightful concoction of mango, guava and strawberry juices layered in an enticing way. And yes, we did have an amazing view of the pyramids from where we sat. :)

The Mena House Oberoi

We traveled to the hotel, which is simply gorgeous. I've never seen such ceilings and marble and fresh flowers and the VIEW. Jimmy Carter stayed here this past week while he was in Egypt meeting with leaders from Hamas, which gives you an idea of the caliber of the accommodations. Here's a shot of Grace standing in front of the hotel and the view from our room's balcony.

The Trip from JFK

We left NY JFK yesterday a little bit late - the flight was supposed to take off at 6:30 p.m. and we didn't leave until 7:30 p.m., but it was safe; all was well, if a little lengthy. I remembered such a short time ago when I took my first ten hour flight and how painful it was. This one was a bit better for me because I knew what to expect, but it was a little tough on Grace and Mother. Here's a couple of photos - of our arrival in Cairo and our exit from the plane onto the tarmac where we were driven to the terminal via bus.

Cairo, Here I Come

It's hard to believe what a travelin' person I am, but it's almost time to head East again. This time I'm going to Egypt for 10 days with my mother and daughter. A pleasure trip (literally part of it "a pleasure cruise"), but I will also hopefully be meeting with some Presbyterians at the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo and possibly with a friend of friend's parents who are Muslim and live in Alexandra. Once again, opportunities about to broaden my horizons, and I am soooo grateful for them. More later...