The Edfu temple yet some more

Upon my return there today, the guard who I had paid to get up to the roof was very happy to see me, and was telling me about the really nice views from the other side of the roof and suggesting that I could perhaps go up there as well lol. I wasn’t sure if it meant another climb up, or via the actual stairs this time though... so I decided to pass at least for now.There was one guide leading a group through the temple who was quite good. He spent about 10 minutes on the perfume room, and even gave descriptions of how some of the perfumes were made. Much better then the half assed guide that I had had the day before. I really should have gotten his name/number. The only problem was that he didn’t speak English very well, or so he said. He still spoke much better English then my guide had. According to the people in his group, he was also an archaeologist, so no wonder he did a better tour. I think it’s one guide who went to university just to get a good paying job, versus the other one who actually has a keen interest in the topic.My guide insists that no one needs more then a day at the Edfu temple, which obviously shows his lack of interest as well as knowledge about temples. There have been some groups over the years who spent months or years at that particular temple, going back daily. Apparently I am quite an anomaly here since no one ever spends more then a day in Edfu (2 at most), then they leave. No one ever goes to the Edfu temple more then once either apparently. While there is much to the temple, there isn’t all that much to do in Edfu really.... one can rent a bike, or take a horse drawn carriage around and go look at the town ruins, head over to El-Kab, and that is about it. Apparently there is also some street entertainment some nights near here. I didn’t get to see it, but I’m guessing it would be the stick dancing that seems ever popular in Egypt. Stick dancing is basically a PA out on the street, with several men doing a slightly intricate dance with large poles, dancing around and between them. It is interesting... for about 10 minutes.To get into the Edfu temple you have to walk for a few minutes past several booths of people selling stuff through this gated off area. However watching the locals I quickly learned that you can just hop over the short fence in one area and get right to the ticket booth. Needless to say this pisses off the overly persistent sellers. At least they all seem desperate enough that is I wanted another $2 t-shirt I could most likely acquire one. Usually by the time I get to the temple all of the little tiny shops/stalls are all closed though since most of the cruise ships and tour buses have already left for the day. There are some tour buses that come by an hour before closing to see the temple in the dark though. Edfu temple is just gorgeous after dark!

Thursday at Edfu temple

I took one of the horse drawn carriages down to the temple. It is only a 10 minute walk but they are hard to resist in the hot sun! However on the way back I chose to walk as it was much cooler then and the walk home was quite nice, and peaceful. Well that is peaceful accept for a couple of kids that saw me walking, and managed to run and go find a horse drawn carriage to try to talk me into riding LOL. They even offered me half of the usual fare. I just felt like walking though.The guards are all pretty amazed that I keep coming back everyday! For some reason everyone seems to think that the Edfu temple can be seen easily within a couple of hours. Obviously most people don’t take photos of every single scene and hieroglyphic they can *g*. Well that and most tourists are just that, tourists. They don’t see or care about the sacredness of the place and think it’s just a neat huge old building, so why would they need more then 2 hours? Apparently there isn’t a weekly discount though lol.I went into each of the room this time and did a small working in each one with the Deity of that room. It was quite an awesome experience, and the presences are strong here. Fortunately this temple out of all of them is the best for the guards leaving you alone to meditate or whatever you do. Some of the other temples they can get quite annoying! Again I went later in the day and had the entire building to myself most of the time. It was interesting to feel Horus’ presence strongly during the day. This time I also wandered around the outside of the entire temple, which is quite amazing. Basically 50 foot high engravings of Gods! There are also several displays around the temple grounds, such as pieces of the older version of the temple, pieces of other temples nearby, pieces of this temple that are in disrepair and so on. There are also a few random Roman statues, various altars and libation tables, and some wall blocks with various Deities on them, all displayed in various places on the temple grounds. I of course saw some interesting scenes and hieroglyphics that I had not seen before. Easy to miss I guess with a few million there. The good thing is that I seem to be able to understand the temple and hieroglyphics more and more each time I go. I’m also starting to understand the patterns of common designs and themes of the ancient Egyptian temples in general. Even with different Pharaohs, there are definitely some repeating scenes and hieroglyphics that you find in each temple, even the ones depicting the Pharaoh. Since the scenes are often the same or similar you definitely have to know how to tell which Pharaoh is which, or know ahead of time. Well of course you can always read his or her name above the image that is written in the cartouche. One interesting bit about the Edfu temple in general are the blank cartouches that you find around here and there. They made a few and left them blank so they could fill in the next King’s name, since they of course didn’t know who it would be yet. I think they would likely notice if I added my own name with a chisel and hammer though, darn.I went to sleep very early since I had to get up at 6am, and they damn prayers over the loudspeakers always wake me up at 3am. What in the hell are they thinking to have prayers over loudspeakers at 3am for? Apparently my guide isn’t Muslim as he says he has no problem sleeping through them and just puts a pillow over his head LOL.
El Kab and Edfu temple with a guide.... or 5Apparently in Egypt when you hire a private guide, you get a few bonus ones as well. There is the guide of course, as well as the driver. When I was in Aswan, the travel agent would also come along, as well as one other person sometimes (no idea what he was there for). Well in Edfu, my guide had his friend as our driver, who was driving a neat old beatup Peugo that had enough room for 9 people! Good thing too... my guide decided to bring a friend along as well. Then when we got to the sites, the local security person would hop in the car with us as well. When I went to the tombs there were 4 people with me, 2 security, my guide, and my guide’s friend.So the first stop at El Kab is the four tombs. These are the four tombs that are open, but I know there are more as I have maps showing far more of them. That is one annoying thing about Egypt, a lot of the more remote temples and tombs tend to be closed. We walked up several stairs to get to the tombs which were cut right into the rock which was pretty neat. The designs within the tombs were just beautiful!! A lot of the colour was still there as well. Unfortunately I wasn’t allowed to take any photos inside of the tombs. On one side of the wall you would have scenes from during the life of the Pharaoh, then on the other side of the wall you would have the scenes in the afterlife. The one side of the wall would depict the great exploits, of the Pharaoh as well as the basic things he did such as farming (some had great farms). In the afterlife you would see much food, many slaves performing all of the duties for the King etc.I had read the guide book, and a few websites about El Kab, and I somehow got the impression that we were going to have to be hiking four kilometres each way across the desert to see everything. Needless to say I was quite thrilled when I found out we could drive to all of the sites! I don’t mind hiking and all, but not when it’s this hot out! Next time I come to Egypt, I’m thinking November or January might be a more appropriate month, as it’s much cooler and I will enjoy the sites even more.We next went to a dual temple of Nekbet and Hathor. The guide got many pathetic points when he said he didn’t know which Deities this temple was to, and guessed Horus and Osiris (since there were images of the Pharaoh making offerings to these two Deities, one on each side of the wall. I did ask who the woman was that the Pharaoh was making offerings to, and the guide said “his wife”. Btw, El Kab is one of the more remote places to go to, and not many guides even know it exists, so I went easy on him. Now here is the interesting bit, he walked outside, and I didn’t see him look at any notes or anything, but he suddenly came back in saying it is a temple to Nekbet. Considering the signs I think the invisibles that were traveling with me helped him out a bit. I later read in the book that it is for both her and Hathor. The Hathor face on the top of the columns helped to confirm this. Well a remote and unknown location so I thought until I saw two tour buses pull up! Fortunately they didn’t go past the tombs. Next up we drove to an area of rock in the middle of the desert a bit off the road, where there were ancient hieroglyphics and pre-Dynasty animals etched into the rock there. We got some bonus fun of being able to climb around on the rocks.Then we went to the main temple area where there were two temples. The first temple was very tiny and was only one room, but was still quite nice. This temple was dedicated to Horus, and had several depictions of him on the walls (of course).The larger temple was dedicated to Nekbet and Horus, and was the nicest one of the lot, with stone stairs going up to it, and it was in pretty good condition. The wall colouring and engravings were just gorgeous and much of the design and colour on the roof was still there. This was also a one room temple, but it was quite a large room. Outside of the temple in what was the Hypostyle hall, were the remains of quite a few pillars. There were also Hathor designs around the top of the walls. All three of these temples were of course MUCH smaller then most of the temples were are used to in Egypt, but still pretty interesting in their own right. The guards of the area found and gave me a souvenir from the area, what looked to be a piece of a pottery vase.My guide said the tour was now done, so I asked what about the town of El Kab. It seems that tour guides in general, from the best to the worst will leave a lot of things out unless you specifically ask. For example, a trip to El Kab really wouldn’t be complete without seeing the old town and the temple ruins there. My guide in Cairo tried to leave out some smaller pyramids, my guide on Phillae island tried to leave out the birth house... and well you get the idea. So we went to the main “highway” and parked on the side of the road, crossed over 3 train tracks, and walked about a kilometre down a dusty dirt road. We were walking along the outer wall of the town of El Kab. Then we entered through the side entranceway along the path. I was told by the friend of my guide to watch out for snakes, so I rolled my pantlegs back down LOL. There are actual poisonous snakes in Egypt afterall. After going a ways I realized that in one section, what I thought were ruins were actually people’s houses, and people were still living in El Kab! They were living in the middle of nowhere right on the edge of the Nile in a really pretty old town protected by a huge mud brick wall. It seemed about 10 times as hot in El Kab as anywhere else in Egypt and the hike was hard. The hike wasn’t physically hard but with the heat and NO shade within miles it got tiring fast. Even my guides, who were in their 20’s looked a bit tired by the end of it.We finally reached the ruins of the temple, and boy do I mean ruins. There weren’t even any walls left. Just a few remnants of pillars, what is left of the alter (which I was so tired I sat on it) made of black granite (my guide thinks basalt and black granite are the same rock :P), and some other bits and pieces here and there. Apparently it isn’t known who this temple was dedicated to since there isn’t really anything to go by. The archaeologists never did figure it out, and just left it in ruins. My guide found a bit of a clue, an etched in image of a Deity on a piece of old pillar. He said he guessed it is Horus.... right up until I pointed out that the figure had a breast...There was a picture that looked to be of a Pharaoh on another pillar remnant, but that was about it. The guess is that the temple was to Nekbet since the entire area was/is hers. She’s the Goddess of the dessert and etc.My guide had been quite nice and gotten some water and a huge bag of Egyptian snacks that we all had as breakfast. Fortunately I got back to my hotel in time to still enjoy the huge breakfast the place is famous for. Egyptian junk food just wouldn’t have sufficed for the day. I still can’t believe the size of the breakfasts around here, they are huge. Most hotels just give you a few pieces of bread, a tiny package of butter and one of jam, and a little triangle of cheese. Terrible. Well as described above the breakfasts here consist of far more then that. They are also the most nutritional food I have found in all of Egypt which is a nice change! After eating the breakfasts I don’t tend to get hungry again until about 8pm, then either have a small snack or just skip dinner. Lunch is right out of the question after one of these breakfasts! Actually I often need a nap after one of them! The owner/manager of the hotel actually serves you himself, and I mean fully serves you! He has the food brought out, then stuffs your pita like bread full of each ingredient for you. When you are about half done the first one, he’s already started the second... and so on. I have never made it past 3 so far, and doubt anyone who has stayed here ever has! This is even after I only have one apple during the first course. I have never gotten as far as the extra bread and jam either. I have met two of the owner’s wives now, a few of his son’s and talked with one of his daughter’s on the phone. He definitely has the treat you like family attitude here! So much so that he made my guide show him his ID, which they wrote the name down, and also they insisted on going outside with me and copying down the license plate number of the car that I would be traveling in. Since I booked with a well known and government approved travel agency I seriously doubt there would have been any problems... but I have to say even if I had booked with a not so good one, I doubt there would have been any problems after all this. Now my guide asks me to meet him outside the hotel since the owner asks him too many questions about himself, as well as tries to get more information about me LOL. I don’t think the owner likes my guide though, since he has told me several times to not give him my money. Perhaps a bad impression, or perhaps my guide is too modern looking/acting.After wandering through the hot desert and enough food for 3 people, relaxing under the fan on high was definitely in order. Fortunately my guide and I had agreed on 5pm for the Edfu temple, which was late enough it wouldn’t be too hot out and was 4 hours after breakfast.I was expecting my guide to pick me up with a driver, however he was expecting we would walk. I was a bit tired from the morning, so I insisted we take a carriage. He made me pay for the transportation. Needless to say his tip at the end of the day wasn’t huge. The tour was alright. It was only about half an hour long, and he pointed out a few things, walked by most of the rooms (but most of the other guides there do as well), and only covered a few scenes. He was only going to show me the final scene of Horus conquering Set, until I asked him where it started and ended, so he showed me the whole thing, without much explanation, which is actually good since hearing the 10th guide tell me the story would have been getting old. He walked right by the sacred main room twice, so I asked him to stop and explain that one to me. Talking about the mini tour. I had booked El Kab and Kom al Ahmar, and was told Al Ahmar was closed, which pissed me right off since that was the main reason I booked with this company and paid so much. So a pathetic tour of Edfu to make up for it just wasn’t enough.There was one definite highlight though. I asked my guide if he could please ask the guards about me seeing the roof. He kept insisting that the roof was closed and that no one was allowed up there. I told him that with enough baksheesh yes they are, I have been to the roofs of other temples, and I have read about other people going to the Edfu roof. Finally I talked him into asking. It was going to cost $5 for the guy who told us it’s OK and pointed out the route, and another $5 for the police. This was more expensive then I expected, but I decided still worth it. The other stories I read about people going onto the roof, well they went through the locked gate by the guard opening it. Well either they no longer have the key, or the guard with the key was on break. So we were shown the way up to the roof by climbing up what seemed to be a slightly dangerous route along the temple bricks LOL. I found out later that my guide definitely did *not* enjoy this part of the tour! We were only allowed to go to certain parts of the roof though because other areas of it weren’t as solid and stable as would have been safe. I still did get a few photos though. Apparently we also had to not make it obvious at all that we were on the roof, but stay sort of low and not talk too loudly. It was still worth the trip I think. Perhaps it was a good thing that we went during a time where there was no one else in the temple and most of the guards seemed to be on break.Due to lack of anyone ever having change in Egypt, I bought 5 large bottles of water on my way back to the hotel. The hotel staff are so nice here, the main employee carried my water for me upstairs. He told me that he has been working here for 20 years now! He does do every beck and call of the owner, so I hope he gets paid well. Tomorrow it’s back to the Horus temple, with a pair of binoculars to see the higher up hieroglyphics and a different guidebook that goes into more detail then either of the other two books I have about the temple.

the horus temple in edfu

This is by far the largest temple I have seen so far! It is HUGE! It is about twice as tall as the rest, as well as longer and wider. It is even larger then the Phillae temple. The only problem with this particular temple is it is FULL of fucking tour groups! They fill up entire rooms and it’s difficult to get any photos while they are in there. It also makes it difficult to move around the temple. Fortunately there are rooms they just don’t go in (from what I can tell so far) so needless to say I will be choosing these for meditation. I walked to the temple at 7am when it wasn’t too hot yet, but only stayed about an hour and a half before the tour groups drove me nuts, then I took a horse drawn carriage (the popular transportation option in this area) back to my hotel. I returned to the Horus temple again later in the day, about 5pm. I decided I wanted to take a carriage there, but someone with a donkey cart offered me a ride for only `1LE (25cents US) and it looked like more fun then the horse drawn carriages so I went for it :). I gave him and extra dollar at the end since the horse drawn carriages seem to cost about 10LE if you don’t haggle too long. On the way back late at night the driver of the horse drawn carriage kept telling me he wanted sex, I about did everything but told him to “fuck off” since well I did want to make it as far as my hotel, and the police officer had me pay him up front. The driver “tried” to keep going past my hotel even though I pointed it out, so I screamed “stop” and well that got the attention of all of the locals, so he stopped. I must learn the word for “lecherous pervert” in Arabic. It’s fortunate that Egyptian men seem easily intimidated if you yell at them, well most, aside from the one that threatened to beat me up in Cairo, but I mean more in the small towns. I have no idea what shy and timid women do in this country.The visit to the temple was a million times better in the evening! There were barely any tour groups! I could actually walk around and see everything! I’m definitely not going in the morning again, but will wait until about 3-4pm I think. I was actually able to stand in front of the altar and shrine for half an hour alone which was quite awesome. I even noticed the statue definitely move at one point as I was walking by later! For a moment I thought a person nearby must have moved, but I was the only person in the entire area. The temple has an extremely strong presence of Horus when the tourists go home and the sun starts to go down. I saw 3 tour buses heading there for 7pm for the last hour of the temple being open though, so perhaps the presence wanes a bit during that time. The more quiet the temple gets, the stronger the presence of Horus and the other Gods. The temple actually felt quite eerie after the sun went down, especially in the back rooms. I couldn’t hear a sound anywhere, it was extremely peaceful, but oddly eerie in some areas. Eerie in a very peaceful manner that is. The temple actually got so completely quiet at one point, I couldn’t hear a single person, and hadn’t seen anyone for about 10 minutes, and thought they perhaps closed the temple and missed chasing everyone out. It would have been pretty neat to spend the entire night in the temple, but when I walked over to the main court I saw some other people, darn! lolAt the Edfu temple there are several rooms dedicated to other Deities, such as Hathor (obviously she would get one), Osiris, Min, Ius, Ra and Khonsu. In the temple there is the library (very small compared with the other rooms actually), a room of mourning, several rooms for offerings, a laboratory, the cloth and inventory room, a secondary sacred room, the main very inner chamber (which only the king and head priest were allowed to enter) which has the statue, the hall of joy, the hall of where Horus overcame Set, the purification passageways, and the birth hall. Outside of the temple there is also a birth house.There are two rooms that have stairs which lead to the roof of the temple. I would definitely like to go up to see the roof, but was a bit too tired this evening to do so. The gates to the roof are locked, but I’m sure it’s something that a little baksheesh couldn’t solve. I hear the views are just gorgeous from up there. Over the centuries when the temple was getting covered with more and more sand, at first people were living in the temple (the homeless, they made it their home), and they were living in the main part of it. Then when the sand got high enough, they started to live on the roof of the temple. Unfortunately much of the excavation project of removing the sand from the temple also involved moving centuries worth of garbage. I do have to say though, the centuries of sand covering the temple definitely did preserve it wonderfully! I have not seen any other temples in Egypt that are even nearly as nicely preserved. Most of the hieroglyphics and images are fully intact. This is pretty amazing considering that the hieroglyphics are carved as if they were embossed, so they would be easier to become damaged. The temple is extremely high; I would say about 15 feet high in many of the rooms, and about 30 feet high for the outer walls, front pieces, pillars and so on. This makes it difficult to photograph many of the wall designs unfortunately. I don’t think the temple staff would take too kindly to me bringing a step ladder so I can see them better :>. I did bring a pair of binoculars, which I will be using tomorrow to make a careful study of the uppermost hieroglyphics. I will also be going through the temple at a more relaxed pace with more meditation.

kom ombo and edfu

I checked out of my hotel far too early and met my driver outside the hotel. The convoy starts at 8am, so we had to leave early. It was a really pretty ride about an hour long through various tiny Egyptian villages. It’s always amusing to see carts full of vegetables and the farmer sitting on top going along beside the cars on the main “highway”. You also see people walking and leading bulls or other animals. Considering the driving in Egypt I’m surprised any of these people survive lol. The Kom Ombo temple is a dual temple of both Horus and Sobek. In ancient times people would make pilgrimages to this temple to say overnight for healing. Well they don’t allow people to sleep overnight in the temple (and I doubt I would have had enough baksheesh to make it work anyways, so I only stayed there for 5 hours. Everyone else only stays an hour, then catches the next convoy either to Edfu or Aswan out of town. So I was fortunate enough to get the entire temple to myself for at least 3 hours. Well myself and a few annoying guards that were asking if I was married and trying to be my self appointed guide in exchange for money. The one guard told me he had a couple of wives and five children to feed. I was tempted to tell him it’s not my fault he didn’t use a condom (he had already been pestering me for hours at this point).Unfortunately most of the temples in Egypt are jam packed door to door with an insane amount of tourists in tour groups. It can get very annoying and take away from the experience of the temple, so to be able to go when there is no one else inside the temple is very nice. I had the guide give me the standard tour of the temple at first, which took about an hour (at most), but fortunately he did a very good job of it. I have to say it is quite awesome to have someone show you around the hieroglyphics and pictures in the temples and explain what each is about. On your own you can sort of guess, but still they do provide extra tidbits and lore that you may have missed, and that is not in the guidebooks.This particular temple had the new kingdom pillar tops which were both papyrus and lotus flowers combined, instead of just one or the other (so new kingdom). The hieroglyphics in this temple were outees, in otherwords they had to carve out the rest of the wall so that just the letters were left! Needless to say this particular temple took a few hundred years to build. The top half of the temple is missing in large areas due to damage and an earthquake. Even the 2 altars area heavily damaged due to the earthquake, Sobek’s more so then Horus’. Unfortunately more of the outer wall on the Horus side is damaged then the Sobek side, so you don’t get to learn as much about the offerings that are to be given to Horus. One of the neatest bits of the temple is the calendar for an entire year, complete with which offerings to give Horus and Sobek on each day. Along the outer wall you actually see pictures of penises with drops of sperm coming off of them to represent prosperity and life. Apparently the ancient Egyptians weren’t prudes. Since Horus and Sobek didn’t necessarily get along, the temple is divided into two exactly equal halves, with Ma’at watching over it to make sure all is just and fair. The halfway point is carved into the outer wall. In this particular temple Sobek has Hathor as a wife instead of Horus (who usually does), and apparently Sobek stole Hathor from Horus, so no wonder they don’t get along. One part of the temple is the Hathor chapel, which comes complete with the mummies of three crocodiles! They are all in glass cases. The ancient Egyptians used to mummify animals quite often, and for obvious reasons if you look at the Sobek temple example. In the Cairo museum every animal imaginable has been mummified. With all of those people who have their favourite pet stuffed after it dies, you would think some would prefer mummification *g*.Going around the temple taking photos, and meditating was extremely fun and relaxing (accept the when the annoying guard was pestering me). I saw on the Horus side more often, and was able to meditate off and on there for about an hour with no tourists, not too much guard interference and a decent amount of shade. Since the roof was missing in most places, the sun was quite bright and hot in the temple. In the afternoon when the sun had moved over to the other side of the sky a bit, I was able to get photos of the hieroglyphics on the other side of some of the walls.There was also a nilometer in the temple that was quite deep, and still to this day gets a little water from the nile in it. The temple is overlooking the nile (as most are). There is a mamassi, or birth house near the temple as well. This is standard for many of the Horus temples, an area that is said to be where Isis gives birth to Horus, often complete with inscriptions showing the details.One of the famous parts of this particular temple is the part where they show the ancient medical instruments, including those for mummification, birthing, and other medical practices. Some books say that they are more likely to be ancient ritual instruments, and not medical ones afterall. It’s difficult to tell, but I’m not sure how things like scissors and forceps would be part of a set of ritual tools.Off to the left is the ruins of the old temple. As with many of the temples now standing in Egypt, a newer temple was usually built on top of, or beside an old one. This was generally because the old one would be in too much disrepair or mostly covered in sand. It sure makes me wonder what the even older temples looked like. The ruins were interesting, and had a different style of hieroglyphics on them then I am used to seeing in other sites. I’m glad they have a habit of keeping every piece, since what can be inscribed into the ruins can be just as interesting as what is inside the temple.After I left the temple I went for a juice at the local cafe, an outdoor cafe with straw and reed roofing and walls, which were quite pretty. Unfortunately the fresh squeezed mango juice was a bit old. I was so hot and tired from a full day in the temple that I forgot to ask the price before I drank it, so when asking the guy quoted me $5 US. I looked at him like he had to be crazy, and he laughed and said “OK 6LE (US $1.25)” Perhaps they try their best to get one over on tourists who don’t know how much fresh squeezed mango juice goes for in Egypt. Even $1.25 is a little more then the usual going rate of $1 LOL.We left with the afternoon convoy into Edfu, and I checked into my hotel. According to all of the guide books there is only one hotel in Edfu, and according to most travel agents there aren’t any. So I stayed at the one. I would call it perhaps a 1 or 2 star hotel! The room was clean enough, and large, but the bathroom was scary, mostly due to the building being so old. There weren’t any insects in the room, and it smelled fine, so I stayed. The hotel manager is quite nice, and brought a huge plate of various fruit and some tea when I checked in. However with the manager if he ever gets you to sit down, an entire hour is usually gone talking with him, while he tries to fill you up with more tea and more fruit.Fortunately the hotel was able to supply me with a converter plug for my converter plug, since they have the older style, and my plug was for the newer style. The people at the travel store assured me I wouldn’t need the older style. Apparently they had never stayed in Edfu! It is a small farming town afterall, and needless to say there aren’t any internet cafes about. The manager is an extremely friendly person, and quite well known for this. He introduced me to his 3rd wife, since the other two had colds at the time. I also met a few of the other people in his family. Apparently he has 3 wives and FIFTEEN children!! I made a joke about how he’s nearly catching up with Ramses II, but I think it was lost in the language barrier.Now this hotel is famous for the large breakfasts... so when I got back from the Horus temple the next morning, I was brought a huge plate of fruit. I ate quite a bit of fruit and was disappointed that that’s all that there was, and I ate quite a bit so I wouldn’t be hungry until lunch. Oops, apparently that was just the breakfast appetizer ROFL. The actual breakfast came afterwards. I don’t think I have ever eaten so much breakfast in my life! The owner also likes to encourage you to eat more and more (I’m surprised his guests can fit through the door when they leave!) There was an egg dish much like a plain omelette that came in a heated cast iron pot, lots of bread, a huge plate of Egyptian cheese (much like feta) a bunch of buns and jam), fuul (fava beans), a tomato and cucumber salad and I forgot what else since I was so stuffed I couldn’t finish my 3rd serving, no matter how much the manger insisted LOL. I’ll be surprised if I’m hungry in time for dinner! Details on the temple of Edfu will be in the next post.

the nubian museum

I went without a guide to the Nubian museum, and perhaps a guide might have helped, but then again guides and drivers tend to get expensive after a time, and they also don’t allow you to take several hours in the area (they get paid per trip), unless it’s pre-arranged and at an extra cost. I will have to purchase a book about the Nubian museum I think since there is so much information about pre-Dynasty Egypt as well as the old Kingdom in that museum. I walked from my hotel to the museum as I like walking and haggling with taxi drivers can get old after a time. It only took about 1/2 hour to walk there, along the nile which of course is a very pretty walk.In the museum my favourite part was the amulets and talismans displays of course :>. They had 3 cases of jewellery which also included the amulet and talismans. There were many to protect the heart, some for protection in general, and some to bring good luck. Alligator bits were used for one of the talismans, what looked like seeds for some others, and some with inscriptions in gold or semi precious stones as well. Much of what is in the Nubian museum looks more like pre-historic caveman type stuff then your standard Egyptian fare. I also quite loved the crowns, they were in silver, since silver was thought to be more precious then gold back then. I sure wish that was still the case! One of the crowns had eyes of Horus all over it, as well as giant cabochons of what looked to be either carnelian or garnet.There were pieces of rock with ancient hieroglyphics and cave art style drawings, pre-historic (as well as more modern) spear heads, knives as well as other weapons and tools. They also of course had many statues there including a GIANT one of Ramses II. It came as a bit of a surprise as I didn’t know that statue was there, and as soon as I walked into the museum and looked in that direction I was overwhelmed by a massive amount of energy and I would swear the statue was looking at me and grinning. I have seen a LOT of Ramses II statues in Egypt (he had many built to maintain his immortality) and I have to say out of all of them, this particular one had the most presence of Ramses II. This was a much older statue, and not carved in the same form as the newer (well newer as far as ancient Egypt goes) ones. This statue was likely more of a realistic depiction of a person, instead of the perfect image of the King style statues they made in the later periods.They also had a display of what Nubian life would have been like back then with some realistic dummies. From what I heard they even have real human hair to appear more realistic. When visiting the small Nubian village, I would say not all that much has changed accept now they have electricity in their small huts/houses, and there is a modern looking (well more modern) schoolhouse. The museum also had Nubian/Christian as well as Nubian Muslim displays for during the times that the Romans and then Muslims (forgot where they came from) took over. There were statues of the Nubian version of Horus and Osiris which were interesting.On the way back the driver of a horse drawn carriage came up and tried to talk me into a ride but quoted the most ridiculous price! ($10US) So then when a taxi driver came up I was much more interested and he agreed to my offer of $2. Well the carriage driver (and his 2 buddies) started yelling at the cabbie, and they all started yelling back and forth various insults in Arabic. One of the guys then grabbed the cabbies keys out of the car, and a fist fight nearly broke out. Apparently $2 is more money then I thought in Egypt. Of course at the end of it, as is standard for Egyptian cabbies, he tried to make up several stories of why I should pay him more then $10, so I slammed the door, called him a con artist and yelled at him (I really need to learn the words for “con artist” in Arabic lol). From what I can tell they always try to pull one over on you, and you just have to tell them off and walk away.Finally in the evening when walking back from my favourite restaurant in Aswan I found somewhere that sold incense charcoals, and a “store” next to it that sold frankincense (and copal), and likely myrrh as well. This was in the market. I’m thinking I likely paid more then has ever been paid for incense and charcoals in Egypt, even though I did talk them down to 1/3 of the price they quoted me.

More photos

I have uploaded quite a few more photos now, and somehow this blogger thing messed up the url last time and added a spare www that wasn't needed. I will be adding photos as time goes on, it's a bit of a slow process from internet cafes. http://myspace.com/scirlin

I don't need a fucking felucca!

Since my hotel is on the main street of town, on the water.... there are FAR too many felucca captains that try to sell me felucca rides. Some of them go so far as to follow you for a block telling you how good their boat is.... until you get adamant. They all wonder why I don’t want a felucca trip lol. I have already been on a felucca and it was fun, well that and I wouldn’t trust most of these guys alone on a boat! It’s starting towards low season here so I think they are getting desperate. I have to say the people with stalls out at Abu Simbel sure acted desperate, but their souvenirs cost more then here in Aswan so I didn’t buy anything. One person offered me a thin glossy book on the area, and I asked how much. He said 200LE which is about $40, I laughed at him. Either some tourists are really stupid and have too much money, or this guy was just guessing at a price. Some other people said 35LE for similar books later on.The trip out to Abu Simbel was interesting. Since it was an area at one point where tourists were shot or some such, you can only go there by police convoy if you are driving now. So we got into the minivan (now why me, my guide and the travel agent needed an entire van I’m not sure, but I didn’t see any cars in the convoy, and the long seats all to ourselves were perfect for sleeping) at 3:30am and lined up with a few other minivans and far too many tour buses. As we were sitting there on the side of the road in line I noticed that the famous graveyard of this town just so happened to be sitting across the street (what luck!) so I of course went over and took quite a few photos. I only got one with an orb though. When you see the photos from the graveyard keep in mind that the squiggles in the background are the city lights in the background in this case. There were some beautiful monuments and tombs in that graveyard, and they all looked so pretty under the lighting that they had over the graveyard.The trip out was really pretty, and I got to watch sunrise over the desert, since once you get out of the city in this area, it’s nothing but sand on either side for about 100 km. I slept during most of the 3 hour trip. The temples at Abu Simbel were 2 of the many that they took from an island on the nile (the area which is now lake Nasser) and put them at a new location. The taking the temples from the one place and putting them in the other was pretty much the same as they did with Phillae. The amazing bit is that you can’t see the seams. In the original location they were carved into the side of the mountain, but in this location, they made a mountain to put them into; easier then moving an entire mountain I guess. So the temples are the real bits (one giant jigsaw puzzle they had to put together) but the background is all concrete. It is done quite well, and you can’t tell it’s a fake mountain until you are told. It’s pretty neat that they are taking the temples of the old Gods piece by piece very carefully and transplanting them to new areas so that they can once again stand in all of their glory. Makes one wonder if the old Gods has annnnnnnyyything to do with this? *g*The first time around the two temples was awesome but was packed with tourists, accept for the two times that I started a meditation and quite ritual, it was odd the room I was in would suddenly clear out for the 10-15 minutes I took to do it, and when I was done, a person or two would wander in. I found this to be a bit like when you are doing a ritual in the woods, and just seconds after you finish other hikers come by, but generally never during the ritual.This temple was built by Ramses II, and was dedicated to himself and Ra-Harakte. Out front of the temple you see 4 GIANT statues, 2 of him, two of his wife Queen Nefereti, and then there is a small one between them of the God Horus. Ramses considered himself a God and insisted he be worshipped as a God by the Egyptians. Ramses II definitely has more statues in all of Egypt then any other King/Pharaoh, giant statues at that. Inside the temple were the most beautiful pillars with the lotus/papyri flower tops as is standard for ancient Egypt. They of course also had scenes of the various Gods. Inside the temple were also several store rooms which had beautiful scenes and hieroglyphics carved into the walls that still maintained their original colouring. Unfortunately you are not allowed to take photos inside of the temples here, so I only got some of one of the rooms since I ended up in there alone for quite some time later on.In the main sacred chamber there are 3 giant statues, of Ramses (of course), Nefereti and Ra-Harakte.

The second temple was dedicated to the Goddess Hathor, and was a bit smaller, but still quite interesting. It had much the same layout but with less rooms. The pillars in this temple had the standard Hathor pillars which have her head with the ears of the cow. I found time to do some meditation and so on in this temple as well. After getting some more water and relaxing for a few minutes I figured that the rest of the tourists were likely finished looking at the temples and were all at the cafe having lunch, so I went back. It was much nicer this time, as I had most of the rooms to myself and could properly relax and meditate and do a little ritual in each. I also went around the back of the temples and up some stairs to take photos of the back door, and the police promptly asked me to come back down, fortunately after I had made it to the door and gotten my photos. The grounds of the temple were also quite beautiful, being on the waterfront and all.During the ride back I got another much needed nap (3am wakeup calls come early!)
Today I went to a small island which had 5 temples on it. There was the joint Horus/Osirus/Isis temples, the Hathor temple, the temple to an obscure God of perfumes, the Ra-Harakte temple, and the temple to Ramses II (remember the bits above about him being a Deity and all.Out of all of the temples I have seen before these were some of the best preserved! The colouring on the walls in the Ra-Harakte temple was still quite vivid and mostly perfectly intact. You could also take photos, likely because the area only sees a handful of tourists per day, so the photography isn’t ruining the walls (much). I think this Ra-Harakte temple is my favourite temple I have seen so far. The Horus/Isis/Osirus temple had nearly perfectly intact hieroglyphics and images on the walls of the inner sanctuary, which I thought was interesting that it was the best preserved area of the entire quite huge temple. The shrine area was much larger then most, since it was dedicated to three different Deities instead of the standard just one. The temple to the obscure perfume Deity was quite a bit smaller, and not as much of the temple remained (or not as much was built in the first place it was difficult to tell. The sad bit was that the inner sanctuary area was unfinished and smelled quite nastily of bat guano etc. I wish I had brought some incense to burn as an offering. Either the hieroglyphics on this one weren’t carved as deeply in the first place, or didn’t survive as well as the other temples. The temple of Ramses II was interesting, as it is thought to be pre-Dynasty even, and the statues are done in quite a different manner. The carving definitely wasn’t as professional looking (perhaps lack of tools back then), and were of a completely different design. The interesting bit is that this statue of Ramses II had the most presence out of all of his statues, and believe me I have seen a lot of them so far! I definitely felt like I was being watched as I walked around his temple! I asked him why this statue in particular had the most presence.. and he said something about the lack of thousands of tourists every single day.The Hathor temple of course had the pretty columns with her face on them with cow ears as is standard for her temples. Not as much remains of this temple, but they did at least bring quite a bit of it back. The problem is that the water eroded the sandstone on these temples, and some of them crumbled a bit when they tried to move them. There is still only one known temple under lake Nasser, and that is the rest of the temple of Ramses II with his own statues, mentioned above. At the end of the tour with my guide, I asked about going onto the roof of the temple, and he set it up where I would pay the guard a little baksheesh for this privilege. It was pretty neat up there, but perhaps not worth the money I paid (I didn’t have any small bills), but fun anyways :), and I can think of it as contributing to the wages of low paid workers lol. You could see the entire small island from the top of the temple, which was about 1km wide as most.After this my guide waited in the shade of the Hathor temple, then later had tea with the guards, while I wandered around to the five temples on my own. Since this area doesn’t get many tourists, I was the only person there for the first hour, and there were only 2 other people there after that. This gave me as much time as I wanted and complete privacy in each of the temples. I quite enjoyed doing a ritual in each of them, and felt the presence of the Gods quite strongly. Near the time I was to meet my guide back at the main entrance I was early, so I sat in the sacred room of the main temple, which was very cool compared with the heat on the rest of the island and just relaxed chatting with the Gods.Another interesting display on the island are several large pieces of stone with pictureglyphs on them. Most of them contain etchings of giraffes and other animals which used to be indigenous of this region. This area of Egypt in particular was known as Nubia long ago, before it was taken over by Ramses II. It has much older surviving history then the rest of Egypt, before any of the Dynasties or Pharaohs. The monuments and artefacts are also well preserved.

For a three hour tour

I did the islands and boats tour today :>. There is a public ferry across that costs about a quarter, but apparently the travel agent is spoiling me rotten, and they hired a private boat to take me to all the locations (I guess that is a good thing since I handed him a small fortunate for my trip lol). First up was Phillae temple on Angolika island. The temple *used* to be on Phillae item, but the Europeans went and built a dam or two for agriculture (they wanted to grow cotton of all things) and thus the level of the Nile rose up quite a bit (and made a lake in the process which they called Lake Nasser. So as it ended up the temple of Phillae was completely submerged in water. Fortunately though, the UK footed the $15 million dollar bill to have the Isis temple moved over to a new island, brick by brick. Keep in mind these bricks are far from small!

First they walled it in with metal around the temple, then they scooped out the water, then they made numerous drawings, as well as numbered each and every brick so that they would put it back together correctly. It was basically a 250000 piece jigsaw puzzle of very enormous size! Good thing they have more technology then the ancient Egyptians or that project would have taken longer then the few years it did. There is still the odd brick laying around here and there not put into place yet it seems. Unfortunately they were a bit heavy to take back as a souvenir, and the guards would have likely noticed a brick larger then myself in my backpack anyways.
Nonetheless, the Phillae temple is amazing! One downer aspect is that when the Christians/Romans when they took over the area and used the temple as their church, they chiselled out the faces, bodies and other parts of many of the Deities. There is the odd equilateral cross here and there that they etched into the walls on top of the areas they chiselled out. They also added an altar which is still sitting there. Fortunately there are still many etchings of the Gods on the walls of the temple. There is a room for Osiris, one for Isis of course, as well as a birth house for where she gave birth to Horus apparently. I spent 3 hours at the temple all together, and I wish I had told my guide to leave me there alone longer.

Most of the rooms in the temple were just loaded with tourists. However fortunately not as many seemed to go to the birth house of Horus. At one point I had that entire room to myself for a good 20 minutes, so I was able to do a small ritual :). The presence of Isis and Horus was extremely strong there after I started.Outside of the main temple is a temple to Hathor, but unfortunately it is still under restoration and is currently closed to the public. I did still get some photos though. Also outside of the main temple is the boat house... the large structure in which they stored Isis’ giant boat that she rode. There were many nooks and crannies and dark rooms that I’m not quite sure what they were for. Some had hieroglyphics and some not. There was one that had a bunch of blocks from the Hathor temple (or so the guard sitting at the door told me). I went in and walked over the rocks. There was a smell of bat guano everywhere :P. I would have gone further, but I figured the policeman might follow me in and start asking if I’m married or not, so I just went in a little ways.Another policeman handed me a flower from a tree and told me what sort it was, then handed me some seeds so I could go grow my own at home.. then handed me some bits of a henna plant. So I have him a 25cent tip... I think he was demanding more money, but I’m not sure. Nonetheless I decided to not understand him if that is what he was after. I think he was trying to get $10 out of me ROFL.

Fortunately they ferried me back to near my hotel for lunch since the cafe on the island was probably quite expensive and not as good. I had just enough time to get to my hotel room, douse my head under the shower, go to the bathroom, and the travel agent phoned me to let me know he was downstairs. It was now off to Elephantine island to see a few temples, some ruins, a museum and a Nubian village.

I was taxied over in a motorboat to the island, and brought to the small village. I was then introduced to my first guide on Elephantine island, it was someone who was Nubian and knew a LOT about Nubian history, which was extremely interesting. We sat in a small but comfortable room while he gave me a half an hour talk on the history of Elephantine island and the Nubian people. They didn’t have mint tea (a standard in Egypt) so I was offered cinnamon tea by the host, and it was GOOD! Just have to love Egyptian hospitality (at times, see notes about perfume sellers to see the times it’s not as appreciated).

Apparently Nubian means place of gold, which was sacred (and handy for jewellery). The island was called Elephantine meaning sacred place (pretty much). In ancient Egyptian mythos it was said that this island was where everything was created, especially humans. First though Ra was created... well either he created himself, or the Benu (phoenix) bird dropped an egg off on that island that became Ra. The guide made some joke about the God or the egg coming first. The Nubian people were first Pagan, then Christian when the Coptics took over, and now 100% (according to the guide) Muslim when they took over. Seems Egypt got taken over regularly with a change or religion quite often.

He also went into the history of who invaded when and such, which was not of much interest to me. Apparently the Nubian people actually speak their own language, even though they are only a 5 minute ferry ride away from Aswan! It’s a pretty neat language, and I have to say, hearing them speak it, I kept expecting them to go into Cthulu/Necronomicon chants as it sounded so similar.

I was then led around the village by yet another guide (seems they trade off with whoever has the most expertise in any given area). Have I mentioned that the Egyptians are the rudest people in the world when it comes to cel phones? Anyways, partway through the tour my guide took a call and sat me down on a pretty outcropping of rock overlooking the ocean. I however got bored and wandered around... this was interesting and all, but soon landed me being flirted with my this Nubian guy in his 20’s. I told him I was married, then started talking about my kids. From what I recall he was still offering after that. My guide tried as well, but not as blatantly. Fortunately both were respectful about it and not pushy. So if any of you women out there want hot nights with young Nubian men, boy do I have an island for you!

The village looked pretty neat, most of the houses, buildings and the places they keep the animals were all made out of handmade bricks cemented together with some substance or another that resembled mud quite a bit. There were of course your standard buildings as well, but those seemed less common. There were many palm trees, a few farms and animals wandering around everywhere; mostly skinny little sheep and goats. They also have cows on that island, which are skinnier then any cow I have ever seen. Perhaps this is what they look like without hormones and steroids. I do have to say the meat is damn yummy over here! (nope not had camel yet)

Next up was the fun bit! I had been eyeing up the felucca boats that go along the Nile ever since I got here. I figured there would be a felucca involved in my tours somewhere, so I hadn’t booked one yet. I also asked the travel agent several times if I would be going by felucca to about every site lol. The felucca captian and the kid helping him did amazingly well with the little boat and the wind not being the most favourable. The first mate couldn’t have been more then 10 years old, but he managed to do most of the very hard work of sailing no problem. Definitely stronger then I am. We sailed down to the end of the island to the Nubian museum. I had to insist I didn’t want a guide as I didn’t want to end up shelling out any more cash for someone pointing to things and saying a word or two in broken English. There was a sign that said to check your cameras, either they didn’t care, or because I didn’t have exact change and paid extra to get in I went in with mine no problem. I was careful to take photos when the insistent self appointed guide wasn’t around to see me though.

The most lively piece was a head. It was a black head of a person, which looked quite a bit like a shrunken head but not as small. It was mummified apparently. While I was looking at the head, the owner of the head stood next to it mostly fully physically. I decided to not hang around too long as I have enough deeds to work with already! I couldn’t quite tell if he was friendly or not. Perhaps he was happy that this was the first person in a long time that could see him, or perhaps he was pissed off that he was sitting in this damn museum under glass. There was also jewellery, sarcophagi just doesn’t sound right), ancient axes, talismans and more. This museum had some very ancient pieces that dated back to before 3200 BC, since this area was one of the oldest, and the Nubian people have been around longer then most of the Egyptians.

I then wandered over to the ruins of the temples. I saw several temples, but I was really tired at this point and my feet were sore. Also, most of the hieroglyphics from the walls were destroyed and drawn in by archaeologists to make sense. It was still amazing to see though. My self appointed guide (who told me I needed a guide to get in, but at least his information was worth the $5) showed me the bathroom, as in ancient bathtub and showers! It was pretty neat. He also showed me the restaurant or kitchen area. Along with the more ancient temples, there were the remains of what must have been a few hundred brick houses that were owned and built by the Romans. This Nubian also asked if I was married, then explained how he had 2 wives and 4 children (even showed me the pics of the kids on his cel phone). One wife in Cairo, and one here in Aswan since his work is here in Aswan. He then told me he would like another wife, and asked why I only had one husband. Single women over this way to Egypt please... None of them were bad looking either.

For the last part of the tour, he brought me to the sacred ram cemetery. Rams were sacred to Knum (sp), so they would sacrifice them for Knum, then bury them in the sacred ram cemetery afterwards. Unfortunately it was closed to visitors, but I at least got some photos. The guide did try to kiss me on the way out when saying bye. Perhaps the selection of women on this island with a population of only about 5700 people is low when it comes to the selection of women.
Next up was the felucca trip around the entire island! Now that just rocked! The boat I was on could have used a little sewing on the sail, but it was in good condition and the captain was quite good at getting around, so all was good. The boat trip was a lot of fun, extremely relaxing and had the most beautiful views. There are so many little tiny islands on the Nile, and it would be so much fun to just camp on one of them for a night or two. I was dropped off at the dock of the fancy hotel across the street from mine, so quite easy to get back here.

That's it, I'm moving!

Cairo was alright, but a bit busy and annoying. The pyramids of course were nice and all, but the city did leave a little to be desired for me personally. It was too much like any other city, with a bit of Arabic flavour and far too much prayer over loudspeakers and blowhorns. I had spent 6 days in Cairo and that was plenty. Well at least the Cairo airport has excellent wifi! (unlike the hotels that claim to have it). Now Aswan on the otherhand is wonderful! I would just up and move here, but the invisibles keep insisting that I would get bored of it pretty quickly. I guess there isn’t really all that much to do here besides ride felucca boats down the nile, sit in floating restaurants on the nile, hang around the rooftop pool of the hotel, visit the local museum and a couple of temples and a few tombs.

Of course that is the nice part of Aswan, it is soooooooo relaxing here :). The pace is much slower then Cairo and the entire town just has this overly relaxed and mellow atmosphere about it. This is definitely the place to go to if you need to relax. The food is just awesome here as well! I had one of the best meals of my life here, the crab dinner, which consisted of 4 medium, a lot of bread, 2 dips, rice and a salad all for $7. I couldn’t finish it, even though I tried quite hard lol. I might splurge and get the $20 lobster dish at the same place before I leave. It is a well known fish restaurant that the locals love to eat at. It says Italian, but perhaps more Egyptian/Nubian/Italian. The souvineers cost less here then in Cairo as well, and bartering is easier... apparently all you have to do is walk away, and they chase you down the street to sell you the Egyptian cotton t-shirt with a papyri print you wanted for $2.

There is an internet cafe nearly across the street from my hotel which is very handy since the hotel’s internet access and wifi both leave a lot to be desired. There are also about 20 recommended restaurants within walking distance. If they keep serving me huge meals it might be good that the really yummy ones are about half a mile each way. It’s a nice walk though, it goes all the way through the souq, which is just full of brass, inalayed boxes, Deity statues, papyrus (well actually banana leaves), t-shirts, spices, jewellery, and so much more. The only bad part about Aswan so far are the million and one felucca captains that harass you to come take a cruise with them... 1 hour only $3. Personally I just stick with the felucca cruise that my guide has planned over to the island with the museum and temples, since I know that boat won’t sink, the captain won’t demand more money to take me back to shore, and he will also keep his hands to himself.

Another nicety of this town is the transportation, you can get anywhere in town (as it is a pretty small town) by horse drawn carriage. I don’t know the price yet, but I’m guessing about the same as taxis or less... so I’m guessing a dollar or 2 at most to get anywhere. Another mode of transportation are the various ferries that take you to the small and large islands around here. There is a ferry for each island, and even a restaurant on a very tiny island that has a free ferry to take you over to it for dinner. I hear the dinners are nothing special, but I’m sure it’s worth the $10 to go have dinner and enjoy Nubian entertainment a pretty little island.

The locals have this odd obsession with Canada dry (a type of pop), and when they ask where I’m from and I say Canada, they all say “Canada Dry”. I have told a few of them that “no one in Canada drinks that crap” LOL. They will do anything to get a conversation going in Aswan because most of them seem to either be your guide (for a fee of course), a felucca captain, or selling souvenirs. Well all of the locals can’t be in this category, but I’m thinking the ones that aren’t are the ones that don’t try to talk to you persistently. All of the guide books warn against men being rude and flirting too strongly... well I think they are too busy trying to sell their felucca trips or cheap sunglasses to worry about getting laid LOL.

I arrived at my Aswan hotel at night, and could sort of see the nile and realized I must have an amazing view of it. I awoke the next morning to the sound of horses going down the street (the horse drawn carriages, and the most awesome view of the nile! Even better is the view from the rooftop garden. The hotel isn’t the fanciest, but the views more then make up for it. It is sort of neat, here in Egypt, even the 3 star hotels have all marble flooring and granite countertops! That would be like walking into a motel 6 to find marble and granite everywhere. There marble staircases in all of the hotels are a nice touch as well. Any place that uses marble and granite more then wood just has to rock. The walls seem to be made of concrete I think? It is very nicely and tastefully done though. It looks perfect for carving hieroglyphics into *g*.

Athena's temple and tomb exercise program

Even with a driver that gets me to the “front door” of the pyramids and tombs, there is still quite a bit of walking, climbing and crawling involved, but this is half the fun. It is easy to keep going when there is another unexplored temple just down the way across the sand. The most recent monument I visited was the step pyramid of Zosar. It is a tiered pyramid, basically one large triangular stone on the bottom with 5 progressively smaller ones on top of that. With the design they basically stacked the entire family up. They wanted to bury each of the family, so they would just add a layer on top. Unfortunately the step pyramid is under construction, er I mean restoration presently so I wasn’t able to go into it. I just walked around the outside of it. Zosar had quite the complex, with the pyramid a funerary complex, a complete building as a walkway into the main area, a temple, and a giant open area.

I also visited the museum in Memphis. Memphis used to be the capitol of Egypt, and is now a very small town with not much other then a really yummy little restaurant under some palm trees, a fruit store, and of course the museum with many people selling tacky statues outside. The statue of Ramses II was HUUUGE! They had the main statue laying down (it had fallen over originally anyways), but it was at least 100 feet tall! In the entire area there are many statues of Ramses II, he seemed to be big on having a lot of statues made of himself. There are also some small (in comparison) ones to be found at the Egyptian museum in Cairo. In the same area is an old temple of Hathor that is in ruins, but unfortunately one cannot go into that area (or so my guide told me, I really have to check up on this).

If you ever come to Egypt, I recommend bringing a flashlight. I did bring one of course, but also forgot to put it into my pocket for one of the pyramid trips. So here I was, down into the tomb area of one of the pyramids, after crawling down a very loooooooooooong ramp, and crawling through and underneath stone, then up some stairs etc. when all of the lighting went out! Fortunately the tourists that were already heading back started yelling to their friends, who yelled to other tourists, and eventually word got back to the guy at the door outside and the lighting was fixed. You weren’t allowed to take photos in that particular tomb, or the pyramid in general, but I decided since I was alone in the tomb room and the lights were out anyways, I grabbed a few shots :>.There were several tomb/temple combination buildings that my guide took me to. They were all pretty cool, and had the walls just covered with engravings of the Gods, and many hieroglyphics. They all seemed to have an offering table or 3, a place for the favourite wife (if she didn’t have a tomb/temple of her own), a main section, a false door, and then the tomb room. Oftentimes the tombs were underneath the main complex as well. Unfortunately most of the tombs that are beneath the buildings are in disrepair, including the route down to them, so they are closed off to tourists. Actually there are a few sections here and there which are closed off to tourists, and I always get curious and wonder what is in those sections. I took a photo past a grill gate in one section and there was a nice large and clear orb in that photo.

The tombs/temples had many rooms, since all of the Pharaoh’s belongings were put there after his or her death for them to use in the afterlife. Considering the elaborate thrones, sometimes statues, canopic jar boxes, statues of people to help in the afterlife, and so forth, one needed quite a bit of room. The pyramids were thought at first to be the best place to place a body, for many reasons, including safety. However a dynasty or 2 later they found that the pyramids weren’t quite as secure as they thought and the tomb robbers were finding ways in (there was a lot of gold in there afterall). So they started building temple like buildings instead, or tombs underground, depending on preference. There was also a period of time that they didn’t believe it was the appearance or shape of the pyramid that mattered, but what was inside the pyramid... so you find a few laying around out there in the desert that look like someone dumped a gigantic pile of rocks into a heap and called it good. It is fun to climb up the side of one of these and go inside though.

A more detailed overview

This is the first time I've had some free time to go into more detail. Apologies if I am repeating myself, I can't remember what all I posted and what I haven't so far. I have a 2 hr wait at the Cairo airport for my trip to Aswan, and apparently this airport has excellent wifi, even in the domestic flight section! Egypt is funny that way, you get ancient pyramids and some places where the toilet is nothing more then a hole in the ground, but then you also get wifi, brand new clothes, and the latest electronics. I didn’t check to see if there was wifi at the pyramids, but I did notice my guides were talking on their cel phones just fine lol.

The hotel I’m staying at is quite nice, it’s a budget place, so it has marble flooring, air conditioning, my own toilet (if I only wanted to pay $2 per night I could have shared with other women), and the maid came in daily. The only downfall was the lack of toilet paper upon checkin. However I was prepared, as someone warned me about the tp shortage in Egypt. Fortunately the lack of tp was taken care of later. It really is a rare commodity in Egypt, people having to pay 25cents to get some outside of any public bathrooms. There also seems to be this odd shortage of anything to wipe your hands with after eating. Napkins are apparently a foreign concept in Egypt. Wiping your hands on your clothing doesn’t work well either if you are wearing light colours to keep off the sun!The clothing customs are downright... well religious here. The women are expected to keep their hair covered at all times, and very few seem to cheat. It is funny how the local women are just appalled at how the tourist women dress and have their hair out. I have decided to just wear a silk head scarf to get less harassment, and keep the sun off. I’ve seen some tourist women with hair completely down and short shorts on; they should have an interesting trip in Egypt I figure lol. Of course women are also not supposed to have bare legs (fuck that), and not bare arms, but one can sort of get away with short sleeved t-shirts. The shoulders are also not supposed to be bare. This is in Cairo, so I’m sure it’s extra strict in the smaller towns and villages. I have seen some of the woman cheat a bit and wear the head to toe outfit, but part of it being tight. I have yet to see an Egyptian women wear less then a tshirt and capris though. Many of the woman wear black head to toe, and some wear veils. Now that might work out just fine in the winter, but would be damn hot in the summer!

The food has been excellent and extremely low cost! Well it depends where you eat of course... there are sometimes two prices, one for the locals, and another special tourist price. I still seem to keep finding lunch and dinner for $3 or less though. I have yet to have a bad meal here which is good. I just look for the places that seem packed to the brim with a lineup, or go with the one the hotel or my driver suggests. Speaking of which, when my driver and I go out, he has been quite nice, and stops at all of the fresh squeezed mango juice stands for me. I have no idea what that crap in North America is, but the mango (mangu) juice in Egypt is amazing! It’s also a very good deal at only $5 per 1.5 litre water bottle filled up with it. My driver was quite sweet and just randomly showed up one morning with a huge bottle of it for me. Needless to say he got a large tip for that one :>.

The hotel is a bit odd, or more likely wanting extra income, and they are convinced that tourists cannot get anywhere alone and they always need a guide and/or driver! Personally I like to walk around, so I spent 2 of my days in Cairo just wandering for 4-5 hours. Definitely an interesting experience. The second day the wandering was greatly extended because I was hopelessly lost (I think I was circling my hotel and the museum and not knowing it lol). So I finally gave up and hailed a cab, so he drove me around lost for half an hour, which also included asking directions from people, trying to get interpreters and so on. One must have a good sense of humour to be in Egypt. He finally gave up, and I got out. I offered him a very low amount since I was nowhere near my hotel. He was quite mad, but fortunately the tourist police intervened and I got Egyptian price (the cabbie was extra pissed now) and they got me a new cab to the place that I could find my way back to the hotel from. It was a nice tour of Cairo at least LOL.

I have found that everyone that knows English in Egypt that tries to talk to you either is trying to be your guide for a fee, or they just so happen to own a perfume shop that they attempt to lure you into. Of course most of these perfume shops have fake essential oils. You would not believe how many people with perfume shops told me about how they traveled to Canada (or the US)... then they just so happened to show me their shop next. I only fell for this once. The first time when I did fall for it, the guy quoted one price, then another price if I got 2. Suddenly a bit later the price went up a lot, so I walked out saying he was a rippoff. I come to find out later that he lied about how early the Egyptian museum closed so he could lure me into his store.

Whenever you go shopping in Egypt, they always sit you down with a mint tea (or other drink of your choice). Then they proceed to show you what they have in their shop and talk you into something. I’m not all that patient and like to cut to the chase. I’m sure I pay a lot more then I should for this, but half an hour of haggling is just not my idea of fun :P. My guide brought me to one perfume shop that was government sanctioned, so the oils were actually real. I had to get some papyrus oil and some lotus oil. I think they would go over extremely well for Egyptian magics.

I was also taken to a government sanctioned papyrus institute where I was shown how papyrus is made. It’s pretty neat, they take off the skin of the stalk, then they slice strips. The strips are then put in water to soak for a week or few. When they are done soaking they are put into a press and flattened (a rock in the old days) then rolled out with a rolling pin to flatten them even further. They are then overlayed with each other to make the papyrus. They naturally stick to each other due to their high starch content. The funny thing is that the “papyrus” one finds in north America is not actually papyrus, but banana leaves! Real papyrus is MUCH thicker, and waterproof. I think a papyrus rain jacket would be quite nice :). Unfortunately most of the papyrus in Egypt is also fake. The real stuff is actually quite thick and sturdy. The papyrus institute was amazing, the paintings on the papyri were truly masterpieces, what you would expect to find in any art gallery. I was completely amazed at how well they were done. Again, nothing like you find here. However the prices were also a bit high. For a large poster sized one it was $500 (likely haggled down to $200-$250), but they are truly gorgeous.

The next shopping stop was a rug school in Sakkura. Apparently Saqqura (no nothing ever really does have a standard spelling in Egypt) is famous for their rug making and rug school. I was brought on the tour and shown how they knot the rugs. I was let try as well, and have photos, but the wifi here is not fast enough for photo uploads! The silk rugs were just gorgeous and sooo soft! I told them no thank you, I don’t want to buy any carpets, right up until he showed me a silk one with the weighing of the heart papyrus on it! So I left with one of the smaller carpets.

Aside from that I’m avoiding the souvenirs as most are very low quality, and I would rather spend my money on tours of remote temples. Also, haggling for inordinate amounts of time is getting old... fast! I did find out that when I paid $5 for a pair of sunglasses I was paying way too much, since my next pair was only $2 lol. For other souvenirs I have more blisters then I can count! There are the butt blisters from camel riding, the blisters all over my feet from the new sandals, and just a load of them for walking around for 5 hours per day.When my tours were booked, I thought they might be short 4-6 hour tours. Meanwhile I found out that they were an 11 hour and a 9 hour tour! Needless to say I was exhausted by the end of the day. The good part is that they were private tours with my own driver and guide. So I nixed the Christian temples and Mosques right away. I had seen enough in Morocco when I went, and when you’ve seen one monotheistic Deity’s church/mosque you have seen them all. Well OK perhaps not, the inlay is beautiful, but there were important tombs and pyramids that needed to be seen instead.

I have seen about 10 pyramids now, and crawled inside 2 of them. Pyramid crawling is quite a bit of exercise and wears one out quickly, so I chose not to go into all of them, just a couple of the more interesting ones. They do feel pretty neat inside, but I think the thousands of tourists per day does take away from it a bit. I was able to take photos inside one of the pyramids, but not the other. You aren’t supposed to take photos inside of them, but with the right backsheesh, well you can get away with a few more things. I think this country is run on backsheesh actually. Of course they always tell you that you haven’t given them enough, but that is a common tactic that is best ignored!

My first tour of the Egyptian museum was with a guide and only lasted an hour or two. She definitely told me some interesting facts that I did not know, and many relating to magical practice, which is quite handy. However she also did not cover even half of the museum, since one never could in that short of a time. So I went back on my own a few days later and spent 4-5 hours in the museum. I of course quickly saw the exhibits my guide had shown me, and remembered much of what she said, but I also found some new ones that I had not yet seen before! One of my favourites was this 20 foot tall statue of Horus :>. Across from the statue was the white crown of upper Egypt. I made a joke about his hat falling off, but I don’t think the guard got it. Unfortunately they were watching that statue like a hawk (pun intended), so I couldn’t get away with too much.

Speaking of Horus, there was another room where there was a Horus statue sitting in one of the sacred granite houses for statues, in every quarter. There were also hundreds of eyes of Horus in various places in the museum, including the ever so wonderful jewellery rooms. All this and a couple of stuffed, er I mean mummified falcons. There was also a Horus statue outside in the gardens (well it was sort of a garden, there was Egyptian lotus and papyri plant there. After hours of touring the museum I bought a much overpriced bottle of water ($1.60 can you believe it?!) and relaxed leaning up against the statue.

There was of course also statues of all of the kings/pharaohs, and many of them had an extremely strong presence! All of the famous pictures that I have seen of Egyptian statues, well they were all there! The one with the pharaoh with Horus on one side and Set on the other, was in a closed off under construction room. Fortunately it could clearly be seen from the door if one peeked around and took the back route through a few of the monuments. I’m sure if there was some backsheesh involved the workman may have let me in, but I was far too tired at this point that just seeing the statue from the door was good enough. Then there was also of course the famous statue of Khephre with Horus behind him in hawk form, made of granite, and very nicely done. The statues are much more awesome (and very huge) in person!

Another of my favourite sections was the main court where you walk along it, and there are about twenty 50 foot high statues of pharaohs all looking at you. The neat thing was that some of them definitely did look at you, and this room won out for seeing statues move or smile slightly.

I went into the animal mummification room, to see all various sorts of animals mummified. They had everything mummified, from crocodiles down to sand dollars. I can see why they mummified the sand dollars, since they had the same design on them as the stars on the ceiling of many of the temples and tombs. There were also many many sarcophagi in the museum, so many that I actually got tired of seeing sarcophagi, even if each and every one of them was very pretty. As everyone knows, the Egyptians put a LOT of work into their burials... everything from nicely hand painted red cedar various shaped boxes, to granite hand carved with thousands of hieroglyphics. There was even one set there which held the king and his organs (there was a canopic jar box involved which held all 4, which was covered over in 18K gold. Of course not just regular 18K gold, but gold that had various deities and hieroglyphics all over it. Then inside that box, was another box that had gold sheeting on the outside, then inside that another box, and so on. There were about 5 of the gold ones, then an alabaster one or two at the end, inlayed of course.

I also had to go see the royal mummy room, that would be a room with nothing but 10 old Pharaohs mummified. Here they thought they were spending all of eternity beneath their pyramid, or in their tomb, but now they are in glass cases, with their faces exposed at the Egyptian museum in Cairo. So much for a restful sleep. Some of them definitely did have a presence etc. about them. It was $20 to get into that room, and I thought you could buy a ticket inside the museum. I was far too tired to go back outside and buy the ticket but fortunately a guard looking to make a day’s wages in 5 minutes saved me the trip LOL. We just exchanged the cash around the back to Ramses III.

It really is a shame that photography is no longer allowed in the Egyptian museum, as there are so many pieces that I would love to have a photo of. There were people there who decided the new laws forbidding cameras would not slow them down, and they were just drawing the inscriptions that they saw upon the tombs, statues and so on. There was one person who was actually fully painting the design on one sarcophagus, complete with paint pallet of many colours just sitting on the ground there in front of the box. It seems they are pretty relaxed at the museum fortunately. You are allowed to touch all of the monuments accept for those which are behind glass. So I had a great time connecting with and getting a feel for many of the old kings and Deities. I also packed a lunch so that I would survive the entire day there without having to leave for lunch or water, and no one seemed to mind me sitting there amongst the Gods eating my Egyptian pizza.

The best part of the museum for me were the 3 jewellery rooms. They were amazing!! To actually see the gorgeous gold, lapis, carnelian, etc. jewellery that the pharaohs wore in ancient Egypt was amazing. That was a LOT of 18K gold! I would go broke just re-creating even one of the many pieces. Needless to say, they had no lack of jewellery in the afterlife. How they could wear all that and still walk is beyond me though, as much of it was pretty large and cumbersome. There were also talismans and amulets in the jewellery rooms as many of them were worn, as pendants, rings, bracelets and more. The most amazing bit is that they created each of these pieces without the help of a dremel.

One interesting tomb was the one where all of the hieroglyphics were outees instead of innies. Most hieroglyphics are carved into the stone. However with some tombs and statues, they are carved around! This would mean you would have to carve away the entire stone accept for the little bit that makes up the intricate hieroglyphics! When you look at the displays in the museum, you see literally millions of little (and some not so little) hieroglyphics perfectly carved into granite, alabaster an many other stones. There were very few statues that weren’t written on. I have tried to engrave hieroglyphics into gemstones and believe me, it is not as easy as it looks! Also, how they got them so deep is beyond me.

It is a shame that they took all of the nice statues and sarcophagi out of the original sites, but that is probably the only way to keep them from getting damaged and/or stolen. The tomb robbers already got away with a LOT of loot over the millennia, so it is all a lot safer in the museum now. The temple and tomb guardian statues at the Egyptian museum look a little annoyed by the thousands of visitors, but I guess at least what they are guarding is now quite safe under lock and key.

There was also a room full of papyrus, the fancy coloured sort that we are used to, but also the regular ol’ black and er tan sort that seemed to be much more common. It is truly amazing that the colour stayed so bright after all these years. There are also a few tomb and temple wall pieces that are now in the museum where the colour is fully intact! The original temple and tomb walls were carved into the stone, as were the hieroglyphics, then they were painted on with charcoal, ochre, malachite and azurite. Very pretty colouring.

There was a display of hundreds of little statues, they were the people who were to serve the king in the afterlife. Some sets contained 360 so that one could serve him or her each day of the year. Some Pharaohs would have their servants buried with them (they were killed for this) so they could serve them, but most would just have a set of statues. Also with the dead, the Egyptians in the old Kingdom would go to the tomb of their ancestors each day and leave out food and water offerings. Well eventually they would just paint food and water on the tomb walls to provide the nourishment for the deceased. I think the dead got a bum deal in this one. They were of course also buried with protective amulets, as well as their royal jewellery. Apparently they protected against magical dangers, but didn’t do so well against archaeologists.

A few (hundred) photos of Egypt

I am adding my photos of Egypt to myspace. http://myspace.com/scirlin/ since that is the only place I can seem to upload to without downloading something.

Athena