Curse of the Pharaohs (Day 6)

First thing in the morning we boarded a feluka in Aswan. The plan was to get down the Nile with an occasional stop.

Our first stop was in a Nubian village. It was much needed, because the effects of the Curse of the Pharaohs were just kicking in.

It was a simple village, with colorful walls around the houses. We were invited into one of those to have tea. It is a habit in Egypt to offer a glass of tea to a guest. Usually one can choose among a few different ones: karkade, mint, black or black with fresh mint. Low quality black tea blend is the most common. They all come with a load of sugar.
I usually have my tea without sugar, so I had to adapt to the Egyptian way.

The Nubian house we were visiting also had a large yard enclosed inside a wall. On the sandy floor there was a half made feluka sail.
In one of the yard's corners stood a toilet. I am not exaggerating when I say that our party of 13 visited it more then 15 times in half an hour. I think you can figure it out yourself.
No, it wasn't that pretty and yes, it was the good old Pharaoh's curse. The tea after our camel ride the day before was definitely the thing to blame. Oh well, what could we do - when it's there you just have to live with it for a few days. It just meant we had to start taking anti diarrhea pills and everywhere we went, toilet paper went with us. I didn't go so far to try to use the local water hose way of cleaning myself.


This didn't stop us from tasting more interesting local dishes and drinks. On one of our next stops it was time for some freshly prepared local food by our Nubian crew. We had aish (local flat bread), vegetables (cucumbers and tomatoes), feta-like salty cheese and bean kofta (fried green-bean balls).


I took a few photos of those dishes - you should have no trouble guessing which is which.

We followed our guide's example and stuffed the bread with different combinations of those dishes. It was a simple yet very delicious lunch.


There was even a large amount of watermelon for desert. I flushed it all down with a cold beer. Ahhhh... it felt good. It is not always easy to get hold of a beer in Islamic countries, so we took every opportunity we could.

Later in the afternoon we were about to meet the Nile from up close and personal. But more about that in my next post.

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Greatest health hazard in Egypt... (Day 5)

...is not eating local food and drinking tap water. It is not falling into the Nile. And not all those big bad terrorists (who are supposedly strolling around) either.
In my opinion the greatest threat to one's health when traveling around Egypt is driving in a protected convoy!


Some of you might think:

What could go wrong? They are protected to be safe, right?

Wrong! These convoys are a laugh by my opinion.
Every driver tries to overtake the one in front of him. And for what? To get to the finish line first? Not really. There's an army truck in front and it is a matter of minutes being the second or eighty-seventh.
Repeatedly overtaking buses in front of ours at full throttle, ignoring traffic in the opposite direction, seemed like the best idea ever. To our driver, that is.

However, if you are a tourist in Egypt you can only travel between cities in convoys. This was the government's answer to some terrorist related incidents some years ago. If anything now they have an easier job then before - more damage can be done with one blow. That's my opinion.
We had to join one of these convoys at two in the morning to get to Abu Simbel. We arrived there just after sunrise.


The most amazing thing about Abu Simbel is the fact they have moved it peace by peace from another place, which is now underwater. The water level rose after the Aswan high dam was built. This created the largest artificial lake in the World - Lake Nasser.

A funny thing is that they made a mistake in the process of moving it.
Originally it was designed in a way that twice a year at sunrise sun has shined on two of the three statues situated in the deepest chamber of the temple. It was supposed to happen on the birthday of Ramses II (February 20th) and also on the day of his coronation (October 20th).
Well since they moved the temple this doesn't happen on the same day anymore. Due to a minor miscalculation it occurs one day later. It is simply unthinkable that around 1200 BC they could calculate something like that, and today we still couldn't do it properly.

After taking a bunch of photos we continued to The high Sad el-Ali-Dam (high Aswan Dam) which was built between 1960 and 1971. Today it provides electricity for the whole country and there is still some left for export to neighboring countries.

Next on our schedule was the island temple at Philae. This one was constructed over a three-century period, by the Greek Ptolemaic dynasty, and completed by the Roman emperors. It was moved many times because of the rising Nile after the eruption of the dams.

Soon it was time for our convoy to head back to Aswan. From there we went across the Nile on one of many felukas (a feluka is an Egyptian wooden boat with a large sail). On the other bank we went off a boat and onto a ship - a desert ship.


For those of you who don't know it yet, desert ship is another name for a camel.

The camel ride took almost a whole hour. Camel guides directed us to a Nubian village, where we had a glass of tea and a snack.


We didn't know it at the time, but that's where the Curse of the Pharaohs fell upon us...

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Night train to Aswan (Day 4)

If you want to get from Cairo to Aswan one of the easiest ways is to catch a night train. You simply buy a ticket, get on the train in the evening, get a comfortable chair, fall asleep and wake up in Aswan eight hours later.

Well that's in theory. In reality it took around 15 hours and a new locomotive to get to our destination. Well we got used to that kind of stuff at this point.


When the train stopped on a occasional train station, I tried to take a photo or two through the train window. I had quite a hard time doing that - those windows haven't been washed for a while.

As our guide wisely pointed out:

All you need to know about the way things work in the Middle-East can be represented with three letters - IBM

No, not the company, but the acronym - I.B.M.

Letter I stands for Insha'Allah - If Allah wills. People finish their promises pretty often with these words. This means that if something doesn't happen, well it wasn't meant to happen in the first place.
Letter B stands for Bokra - Tomorrow. When someone promises something will happen bokra, he usually doesn't literally mean tomorrow, but sometime in the near future.
Letter M stands for Malesh - Never mind. When Allah doesn't will and Bokra never comes, then instead of upsetting yourself you can say Malesh and forget about it.

When you accept these things, everything is much more enjoyable in Egypt. The same was with our train - Allah's plan was a bit different from our schedule, but we eventually got to Aswan, thought to ourselves: "Malesh" and were moving on.


First we settled in a hotel. This one was much better compared to the one in Cairo. We could even enjoy a beautiful view of the Nile from our balcony.

Then we went on a round walk around the city center. The walk also included a bazaar. It didn't take us long to notice the lack of rubbish laying around. That's compared to Cairo of course.


Hunger was slowly getting to us and our guide took us to a local pizza place. Not Italian kind of pizza, but its Egyptian version. It was delicious!


After that it was time to catch some sleep. Our schedule continued at 2AM the next day. Yup, that's right - at two in the morning we were moving on.

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Zabbaleen - People of the rubbish (Day 3)

This is the second part of Day 3 of our Egyptian Adventure. You can read about the first part in the previous post.

When we left the Mosque of Mohammed Ali our next stop was Rubbish city. But we knew nothing about it at that moment.

Our bus dropped us at a suspiciously looking part of the city. There was a strange smell in the air, but we got used to that by then. We just thought: "We're in Cairo after all, this is something normal."


With every step, we went deeper into a strange suburb. Soon garbage of all sorts was literally piled all around us. People were going through those heaps of all sorts of stuff with a strange enthusiasm and an occasional pig was rummaging around for something eatable.
Children were playing around and looking curiously at 12 strange Slovenians. They were quite cute and some of them just wanted to say hello or introduce themself to a strange foreigner. No one asked for baksheesh.
We got used by then to be approached by people asking for baksheesh in return for some strange favor they just came up with or even just like that.


After we got through this part of the city we went uphill. Steep rocky slopes were carved with various biblical motives. We made a stop at an interesting church which was carved into the side of a hill. Our guide decided it was time for an explanation.

He explained to us a few things about the place we had just seen. First of all, those people we had seen were mostly Christians (Muslims have no need for pigs). People we had seen live there by their own choice. Sorting rubbish is what Zabbaleen (people of the rubbish in Arabic) do for a living. And they earn enough to fall into Egyptian middle class. Ground floors of their houses are used for sorting rubbish. Upper floors however are mostly well furnished. The backyards also serve as parking places for fancy cars (Mercedes, Mitsubishi or BMW is not a strange sight in those streets).
On our way back to the bus, we looked at the same things as before through a totally different pair of glasses.

Did you know that two million Egyptians live in family tombs? The bus dropped us in front of one such tomb. Our guide has even arranged for us to take a look inside. The family didn't seem to mind. They got a nice amount of Egyptian Pounds afterwards to make us feel welcome. After fifteen minutes or so we moved on.

We were slowly starting to feel hungry and a meal followed. We stopped at a local place for a meal of kushary. It is made of Egyptian lentils, rice and macaroni casserole. Served with tomato sauce and some other extra spicy sauce.


It didn't look too promising but surprisingly it was very tasty. I think most of us liked it. One portion of kushary plus half a liter bottle of water costs approximately 1/4 of a Euro. I think two such portions should be enough to take you through the day. 1/2 of a Euro to provide food for a day is a bargain by my standards.

An afternoon walk through the streets of Islamic Cairo was really picturesque. It was a shame we were in a bit of a hurry and there wasn't enough time for some serious photography. Even that couldn't spoil a couple of nice photos.
In the old days big, stone wells were built throughout the city for everyone to have access to fresh drinking water. Nowadays, small plastic water wells (the orange thing on the photo below) can be seen in the middle of busy streets.


When the night fell we had a walk through Khan el Khalili Bazaar. This was one heck of a haggling experience. It felt like we were thrown to the lions.
When time it was time to leave we were already eating those lions. Well we weren't, but it felt like that. I guess in the end we were still not buying stuff at local prices, but maybe sometimes we came close.


After leaving the Bazaar behind, we went to the train station where we caught a night train to Aswan.

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Goodbye to cockroach roommates (Day 3)

This was one busy day, so I decided to divide it into two posts. Here is the first part.

Our second morning in Cairo started with our luggage being loaded onto the bus waiting in front of the Cosmopolitan hotel. The hotel staff who tried to arrange the luggage loading, failed the simple task completely. After half an hour watching two luggage boys walking up and down the hotel hall and waiting for who knows what, we loaded the stuff ourselves. That was not a problem at all, but a part of the deal at the hotel was also luggage transport to and from our rooms. So our guide wanted it to happen. It was the first real taste of Egyptian (non)efficiency.

During the wait I also observed a light bulb changing procedure on the lobby chandelier. It took 4 people, 3 of which were just standing around philosophizing. I must say the show was quite amusing.

After that we left the worst hotel of our trip behind (along with our little cockroach roommates). And it had 3 stars like all of the further ones. This tells you all you need to know about Egyptian standards.


Most of our day was spent at the Egyptian museum, which houses more than 120.000 relics and antiquities. It is well worth spending at least half a day at this place. Things you don't see in empty pyramid tombs are mostly on display here (along with the famous golden death mask of Tutankhamun).
Roughly one quarter of the museum (half of the first floor) comprises relics from the tomb of Tutankhamun. He is believed to be one of the least significant pharaohs, but his treasure is still unbelievable. One can't even imagine what amount of riches had to accompany the most important of the pharaohs on the journey into the afterlife. Those were all stolen by grave robbers.
You can't take almost anything inside. They even take away your camera - so no photos from inside the museum.


Our next destination was Mosque of Mohammed Ali. A huge fortified building, which took 18 years to build (1830-48). For me this was the first mosque I have seen from the inside. I liked its simple, yet beautiful decoration.


In the central courtyard it houses a chintzy clock. A gift from King Louis-Philippe of France in thanks for the Pharaonic obelisk that adorns the Place de la Concorde in Paris. It has never worked (supposedly it was damaged during transport). What a scam!

Next we were up for a surprise. It wasn't even announced in our trip plan, but it sure was interesting...

Cairo Vacations

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Day of the pyramids (Day 2)

Our first whole day in Egypt began by visiting some of the most magnificent buildings in the world. The number one reason for so many tourists coming to Egypt every year - the pyramids.

It was still early in the morning when I woke up and went to check the hotel room balcony view. Well, nothing to brag about, but here it is...

From the center of Cairo (locals call it Al Qahirah) we drove through the suburbs and visited Saqqara. Djoser's step pyramid is one of the oldest pyramids, built by the famous pharaoh's chief architect Imhotep.


Our next stop was at Giza. It is the most famous and at the same time also the most touristy place in Egypt. Little of the ancient romantic spirit is left in that place today. Some time ago one could climb each one of the pyramids and enjoy a romantic sunrise breakfast at the top. Loads of tourists have put this to an end and nowadays one is greeted by a walk-through x-ray, rope with signs forbidding close contact with the pyramids and a bunch of annoying locals trying to sell some "genuine first class souvenirs". Those were really annoying and with many tricks up their sleeves.
For instance, if you don't want to buy a T-shirt they go like: "OK, you don't have to pay. I give it to you for free. Consider it a gift from your Egyptian friend." I smelt something fishy and didn't want to play along. Some other people weren't so lucky. After a while (by a pure coincidence) their new friend found them again and inquired about a gift in return. Of course they had nothing convenient of them and had to settle for a money gift. Of course giving an already accepted present back was out of the question - what kind of a friend would do that? ;)


Regardless of all that the Great pyramid of Khufu (also known as Cheops) is still a magnificent sight. They say it could be put over St. Peter's basilica in Rome and cover it completely.

Next to the pharaohs' pyramids also stand smaller queens' pyramids. I was allowed to climb one of those. In the distance expanding city of Cairo could be seen. They say it is getting closer every day.

After a couple hours of trying to shake off the annoying locals, we went on to see the Sphinx.


Because of the non-proportional head it is nowadays believed that in the old days it has carried a head of lion. Many years after it was built, one of the pharaohs has supposedly ordered carving a head resembling his own image.


In the evening a walk through central Cairo followed. In one of the many street cafes I have tried my first sheesha (water pipe). I liked it a lot so it was not my last one.

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Flight to Egypt (Day 1)

The whole thing started at Ljubljana airport, where we caught our afternoon flight via Istanbul (Turkey) to Cairo.

On the first photo is our last glance at Slovenia for 15 days. Alps can be seen in the background.

After a couple of hours we landed in Istanbul.
I usually try not to buy things at airports. I didn't do it this time either.
My two companions (my girlfriend and her sister) on the other hand could not resist the temptation. They just had to sit down at one of many cafes and order something.


You can see from the photo what exactly it was. I'm sure you would never guess the sum on the bill. Well, what is your best guess?
5 Euros? Wrong!
10 Euros maybe? Wrong again!
It was 42 Euros! 42 Euros for a cup of coffee, a Red Bull and a bottle of juice!

Later on, I have learned that Istanbul airport is supposed to be the most expensive airport in Europe! No shit!

We still haven't fully forgotten about all that, when around midnight we landed in Cairo and went to our Hotel. Sleep was the only thing on my mind. I don't know why, but airports always tire me out completely.

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Egyptian uverture

I have been quite busy for the last couple of weeks. As you have probably noticed it didn't have anything to do with this blog - no posts for a while.
I will try hard to be good and post more often from now on.

I have decided to do a series of posts on my Egyptian adventure. I'll try to do at least one post for each one of the 15 days.

Here is a simple map of the trip. As you can see, we were on the move most of the time.

Some people thought I was crazy to even think about going to Egypt in August. It is the hottest time of year. It's not at all unusual for the temperatures to rise to 50 degrees Celsius and over during that time of year. So we were not really sure how will we be able to cope with all that heat.

Well, all went well in the end and we are not a bit sorry we went there in off-season.

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Travel checklist for Egypt

Those of you (both of my readers) who may have had your doubts about me still being alive don't need to hold your breath anymore. I came back in one piece and yes it was fantastic!

Before departure I promised to post a checklist of all the stuff I took with me to Egypt. Well finally here it is.

Below you can take a look at my detailed travel checklist for the 15 day Egyptian adventure.

Egyptian Adventure Checklist

Item	Quantity	Packed
Passport & copy	1	Y
Cash (EUR)	300	Y
Bank cards	2	Y
GSM & charger	1	Y
Digital camera & charger	1	Y
Extra memory cards (CF,xD)	2	Y
USB cable	1	N
Tripod	1	Y
Sunglasses	1	Y
Lonely Planet Guide	1	Y
Literature (book,mags)	2	N
Pen & paper	1	Y
Bottle of schnapps	0,5 L	Y
Schnapps flask	1	Y
Battery lamp	1	Y
Ear plugs	1	Y
Bags (for sand protection)	1	Y
Diving mask & snorkel	1	Y
Swimming glasses	1	Y
Swiss army knife	1	Y
Sleeping bag	1	Y
Toilet bag (toothbrush, etc. )	1	Y
Sunscreen	1	Y
Sun burn relief	1	Y
Diarrhea pills	1	Y
Stomach pills	1	Y
Pain killers	1	Y
Plasters (pack)	1	Y
Elastic bandage	1	Y
Disinfection moist tissues	1	Y
Condoms (pack)	1	Y
Laundry soap	1	Y
Toilet paper	2	Y
Lip gloss (protective)	1	Y
Trekking shoes	1	Y
Teva sandals	1	Y
Flip-flops	1	Y
Towel small	1	Y
Towel bathing	1	Y
Bathing suit	1	Y
Baseball cap	1	Y
Backpack (30 L)	1	Y
Long sleeve shirt	2	Y
Long trousers (zipoff)	1	Y
T-shirts	10	Y
Short pants	4	Y
Socks	5	Y
Underpants	7	Y
Food & drinks for the road	n	Y

If you think there is something missing, please do post it in a comment.

I was also thinking about taking an electricity adapter, but I have discovered that I don't need one.

Here is a cool page where you can check electricity and socket types for every country in the World: http://users.pandora.be/worldstandards/electricity.htm.

Very useful!

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Leaving for Egypt

I'll be away for two weeks - so no harassment from me for a while. We're going to Egypt! How cool (or should I say HOT) is that?

We are going with an agency. It is not really my first choice but at least it is not supposed to be a really touristy one. Anyway that's what I am hoping for.

Expect a hot and sandy photo report when we get back. I'm sure we'll have a blast and lots to share!

I wanted to include my detailed travel checklist for the 15 day Egyptian adventure, but due some technical difficulties you will have to wait for that untill we get back.

Enjoy yourself - I know I will!

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I hit the Jackpot

Or to be more precise - the Jackpot hit me!

Let me explain a bit of background first...
My girlfriend's sister has been working for the same company for ten years now. As it happens, this year has also been fifteen years since the founding of the company. So for the occasion the Big Boss decided to be generous. For the most loyal employees this meant a 4.000 EUR bonus in a form of a voucher at one of the local travel agencies. Hooray for the Big Boss!

After sharing this news with my girlfriend, her sister has decided to invite both of us on a holiday. We tried to persuade her that this is far too much and that she should let at least one of us pay for himself. She wouldn't hear anything of the sort. To be honest, we didn't try too hard. But who could blame us, right?

So as it seems, Egypt will be our destination for two weeks this August. Can you believe it? I still can't. And we didn't even buy a lottery ticket!

You can expect some really cool photos of pyramids and lots of sand in two months time. I can hardly wait!

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