Tuesday we flew from Luxor back to Cairo. Originally we'd planned to take a train for that leg too, but it is much longer, about 9 hours, so we changed our minds. I'd previously taken advantage of having internet access while in South Korea to book the flight from Luxor to Cairo so we didn't need to take the train.
Egypt from the planeSwitzerland from the plane
Wednesday we had our flight from Cairo to Zurich, Switzerland. The full heatwave hit Cairo and it was 114F when we left. It was a pleasant 61F in Zurich. I think Yanmei was happy to be out of Egypt. As the plane started descend to Zurich, she looked out the window and announced she likes here more. We were still at 25,000 feet. 🙂 Our flight was late so we didn't see much of Zurich today, we'll explore tomorrow
This concludes the planned parts of our trip. We have no further flights booked, although we'll need to book the flight to Canada soon before it gets too expensive. We're considering skipping Iceland now. Yanmei's Schengen visa is good for 41 days, and that includes Iceland, so if we don't go there we have more time in mainland Europe. We have Eurail passes for traveling around Europe by train. Now we are hoping to just float around, if we like a place, stay longer, if not move on.
Thursday we decided to take a half day tour to Dashour, which has the bent pyramid and red pyramid. These are the pyramids of Cheops' father. This time we booked the tour through the travel agency in the hotel. Dashour is a little more remote, so we got to drive outside Cairo and through some smaller villages and farmland. Before we got out of the city I got a good picture of typical Cairo, garbage, dust and unfinished buildings with satellite dishes.
Nile basin farmland. Palm trees are date trees.
Soon we got to the red pyramid, so named because it was built with red limestone, although the color is not very distinct now.
Red pyramid
We had the place to ourselves. Here is a picture of our tour car in the parking area.
We chose to go inside the red pyramid. We didn't go inside the great pyramid because we figured it would be too crowded and difficult. I'm not very claustrophobic, but being stuck in a hot narrow, passage with other people blocking your way isn't my idea of fun. Here we'd have the whole tomb to ourselves.
There were no pictures allowed inside, but I'm starting to learn how Egypt works, so I bribed the guard. Then I could take pictures and he even took some of us together. The entrance is about halfway up the side (where the wood steps and platform are), then you climb down a steep narrow passageway to the three burial chambers.
Climbing down the entranceInside the first chamberLooking up to the ceiling Ceiling on the burial chamber In the tunnel to the third chamberThird burial chamberClimbing back up
After that we went to the bent pyramid, which is visible in the distance from the red pyramid. The bent pyramid is called that because it was built too steep initially, and the architect realized it might collapse so the angle was changed halfway through. The pharaoh didn't like the result so he had the red pyramid built to replace it.
Queen's smaller pyramid next to bent pyramidRed pyramid visible in the distance
It actually wasn't that bad walking for a short while through the desert to look at these pyramids, the temperature was low 90s and there was a breeze. It is supposed to get up to the hundred and teens over the next several days.
For dinner we booked a Nile cruise. Unfortunately it didn't really live up to the billing. It was a buffet and the guests descended like locusts and all the food was gone after about 20 minutes. Meanwhile we did move away from the dock but other than that we barely moved. Row boats were passing us. Eventually after the meal was finished we started moving some more. There was also a belly dancing performance. Yanmei was pretty shocked. Not at the belly dancer, but at the reaction of the crowd, which seemed like mostly locals. The supposedly conservative, religious people were handing their babies to the belly dancer for photo ops. 🙂
For the second day we had the same driver and guide. The plan for the day was to go to the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities, then visit some historic sites around Cairo.
My first impression of Cairo yesterday when we arrived was it was dirty. There is dust everywhere, but I expected that from the desert. There is also garbage eveywhere, except for a few tourist areas. Some times the garbage is on fire.
Relatively clean street in Cairo
The other thing I noticed driving around is how many unfinished buildings there are. There are hundreds of unfinished brick towers. They are being lived in because you can see laundry hanging to dry and satellite dishes on the top floor, next to the rebar structure for the next level. The guide said it is to save on tax.
Spice section in the supermarket
Before we went to the museum I asked to stop at a convenience store for some water. I figured we could bring our own water so we wouldn't get ripped off for drinks at lunch again. We ended up going to a local supermarket, which was interesting. Mainly similar to most grocery stores, but the spice section was definitely something new to me.
We got to the museum and there was a lot of security, including sandbagged machine gun nests and APCs. I asked the guide what that was about and he said this is where some of the demonstrations happened during the unrest a few years ago. Not at the museum itself, but in the large square adjacent to it, which is what the soldiers were guarding.
Anyway the museums most famous pieces are the treasures and sarcophagi of King Tutenkhamen. I do remember seeing some of these treasures a long time ago when they were on display in Toronto, but I had to look up when that was. It was over 35 years ago, when I was 8. I think I can appreciate them a bit more now. There were no pictures allowed in the museum, but Yanmei snuck a couple with some Egyptian women she met. We were in the animal mummy section, which was pretty empty.
Unfortunately the museum is pretty disorganized and there are a lot of pieces without labels or descriptions. The guide said they are building a new and improved museum where they will fix these problems.
After the museum we went to see some historic religious sites. One of the great things about Egypt is how much history there is. Not just pyramids and pharaohs, but Greek, Roman and other civilizations too. We went to old Cairo.
The first place we went is a church built on the place where Joseph, Mary and Jesus are supposed to have stayed after they fled to Egypt. We weren't supposed to take pictures, but I took a few anyway when no one was around.
After that we went to see a synagogue at the site where baby Moses was supposedly found on the Nile. They were more strict about the no photo policy and watched us the whole time. You can google Ben Ezra synagogue for pictures.
After that we went to the oldest mosque in Egypt. Pictures were allowed in the mosque. Yanmei was allowed in but she had to wear a robe to cover herself up.
Yanmei and our guide approaching the mosqueInterior courtyard
After that we returned to the hotel. Jet lag was catching up to us. I lied down for a nap and didn't wake up until midnight.
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