Goodbye, Egypt

It's taken me over a month, but I have come to the final post about Egypt.



From Luxor, we took the sleeper train back to Cairo, our Egyptian "home base." I have included this video clip of Luxor that I quite like - our leisurely horse-drawn buggy ride through the city at night. I particularly like the background noise: the clip-clop noise of the horse's hooves and the Call to Prayer filling the city for the last time this day. For visual appreciation, we have the colorful strings of lights for Ramadan and the ancient columns of the Temple of Luxor in the midst of a modern Egyptian city.

We had scheduled in four days in Cairo before returning to Riyadh, so we decided to do two cheap nights in our trusty hostel followed by two "splurge" nights in a hotel with a view of the pyramids. Here is Misha in the hostel, taking advantage of the built-in pets.




And Sebastian looking good in just a bandaid!


We spent one entire day in the City Stars Mall. After so much running around in the hot sun, it was nice to be indoors with everything in one place. We even went to a movie - something we could never do in Saudi Arabia. We thoroughly enjoyed Toy Story 3, and in 3-D no less!


City Stars is a massive mall, the second largest in the Middle East after Dubai Mall (which is double the size). After shopping in Riyadh, I thought for sure Saudi Arabia had the biggest malls in the world, but I guess monstrous malls exist everywhere! The Middle East definitely knows how to do malls.


We hit the rides and the toddler play place, which was perfect for Sebby.


And we enjoyed a simple lunch at Subway. This sub is a plastic display model!


We also took advantage of a face-painting station. The face artist whipped out this Batman in about five minutes.


Here is our pyramid-view hotel, complete with a bathtub, carpet, AC, room service, and a rooftop cafe. (At $70 a night, we thought it wasn't a bad deal.)
Sebby enjoys his juice on the roof.


Josh enjoys the scenery.


The kids on the roof, "sharing" a juice box.


We all appreciated the bath tub. "OK Mom, I'm ready to get out!"


And we enjoyed the covered outdoor pool.

Due to a couple mix-ups, we missed our flight back to Riyadh. Twice. In our defense, the first time was because of the Ramadan time change. Everything moved back an hour for Ramadan, so even though our ticket said 12:00, the flight left at 11:00. How were we supposed to know that? We missed the next flight due to a visa mix-up. We didn't realize that our entry visa for KSA was the faded, unofficial-looking print-out tucked away in one of our suitcases until after we were glumly on our way to another hotel for the night with the headache of figuring out what to do next. But once we realized that we in fact DID have an entry visa and located it, the airline office helped us change our tickets cheaply and we got to enjoy two more days in Cairo. This time, we found a cheap, comfortable hotel right across from the famous restaurant Felfela, which is recommended in all the tourist books. And with good reason. The food was so fabulous we ate there about six times in two days. Humus, beans, lentil soup, eggs with tomatoes and meat, falafel, lamb, cappuccino, ice cream - we sampled it all!



Digging in to our feast at Felfela.


The view from our hotel balcony gives an accurate picture of the night life of Cairo. The city never sleeps.

Bird's Eye View

We treated ourselves to our first-ever hot-air balloon ride to finish off our vacation in Egypt. Though we had originally planned to do it with Bud and Ashley, Sebastian's trip to the hospital meant that we had to postpone the air ride until after they had gone. But, we enjoyed it enough for everyone (except the part about waking up at 4 a.m.).




After our insanely early wake-up call, we quickly got ready and piled into the bus, which took us to a ferry. While drinking tea on the fairy, the balloon staff expressed surprise that no one had told us that children were not normally allowed in the balloons. We also expressed our surprise since the company we had lined it up with knew perfectly well we had kids. We had expressly asked about taking them. Anyway, in the end, all four of us went up in the balloon, with a few extra staff members to assist with landing. (The landing is the only issue with kids, since sometimes the balloon basket tips over.)


Once we had reached the west bank, we watched the sun come up while a dozen or so balloons were being prepared. Misha watched with anticipation.


Almost ready!


Up we went! Misha's initial enthusiasm was considerably dampened by the noise and the heat of the torch used to give the balloon more altitude. However, once we started coming down toward the end of the trip, he got very excited to see the land below us.


The stark contrast was very clear between the sandy desert and the green bank spoiled by the waters of the Nile. We were also excited to see several sites from the air that we had previously seen on the ground, such as Habu Temple pictured here.

Habu Temple again, with Hatshepsut's Temple carved into the mountain rock behind.


And the Colossi of Memnon, their size no less impressive from the air.


The barren desert on one side of us ...


and banana trees on the other.


Floating down over open-roofed houses.


Josh enjoys the view.


Heads in the clouds.


As we came lower and lower to the ground, Misha got more and more excited. Our basket brushed the tops of palm trees and eventually the tops of the long grass as we came in for the landing.


The view was amazing, but it felt VERY strange to be a tourist in a hot air balloon spying down into the homes of poor farmers who in turn look up at you. I'm sure we all were very much aware of the difference in our economic situations.



The landing was a success. Sebastian, who had had no qualms about the ride at all, had fallen asleep and slept right through the landing.


On the ground once again.


The Valley of the Kings

Our last site to see was the famous Valley of the Kings, the final resting place of over 60 pharoahs. We went right after the balloon ride, which meant it was still very early in the morning, but it was already quite hot in the Valley. Our entry ticket allowed us access to three tombs, so we descended the long staircases and ramps of three pharaohs (Ramses III, IV, and IX, if I remember correctly). I have to say I liked the temples more, but the best part of the tombs was how well-preserved the hieroglyphs are. They are beautifully and brightly colored, safe from sun and erosion. Though the treasures and sarcophagi had been looted long ago (and those that weren't have been moved to museums), it was interesting to see the tombs. Unfortunately, photography was not allowed. So disappointing!! This link gives you a good feel for what the valley looks like, but it just doesn't do justice to the relentless sun. :) This photo shows the hieroglyphs and images on the walls of King Tut's tomb in the Valley.

Built to the Scale of the Gods

Karnak Temple in Luxor is the largest ancient religious site in the world. As we wandered through the massive temple, we marveled at the towering columns and felt that it must be true what they say: that Karnak was built not to the scale of men but to the scale of the gods.




Bud and Ashley, dwarfed among the massive pillars, explore the Hypostyle Hall in the Precinct of Amun Re. This hall features 134 columns arranged in 16 rows. The columns are 10 meters tall, except for those in the center rows which reach a height of 21 meters and a diameter of 3 meters!



Karnak was first started by Pharaoh Ramses II around 1390 BC, and it was continually added to by some 30 pharaohs up until the Ptolemaic Dynasty, about 300 BC or even later. This long span explains why Karnak has such a diversity of structures and deities worshiped.


The guard gives an idea of how big these statues are.




Josh and the obelisk.


Karnak's famous Corridor of Ram-Headed Sphinxes actually leads to the other temple in Luxor, Luxor Temple, right in the middle of the city a few kilometers away. The corridor was eventually buried by the modern city of Luxor which was built on top. Now, the government is in the process of removing the buildings to reveal and restore the sphinxes underneath.


Josh behind the sphinxes.


Hieroglyphic boxers??





Ah, beautiful pillars.


Stunning statues.


Amazing architecture.


Josh and Bud in front.

Our first visit to Karnak was actually at night, when we attended the touristy "light and sound" show. Though on the cheesy side, it was actually really fun to see a temple in darkness. It felt much more mysterious, thus far closer to how one might expect the original ambiance of the temple to feel - infused with ritual and religion. Our tour group passed through various chambers of the temple while viewing images of the gods projected on the temple walls and listening to the history. We walked all the way through the temple and out to the sacred lake, accompanied by sound effects of hammering and chiseling, as if ancient workers were hard at work expanding the site.

Most temple precincts had sacred lakes, but as expected, Karnak has the largest that we know of. The rectangular lake, dug by Tuthmosis III, was probably used for ritual purifications and other temple needs. The lake is surrounded by stones with stairways descending into the water. Surrounding the lake are housing areas for the priests. The lake was also home to the sacred geese of Amun.


Karnak was beautiful at night. But, due to the difficulty of getting good photos, Josh, Bud, and Ashley returned in the heat of the day later on to "burn up some film."

It was great having Bud and Ashley with us as we saw such amazing sites; we only regretted that they couldn't have stayed longer. As it was, we felt so busy with traveling and seeing sites that we barely had enough time to just hang out. On top of that, Sebastian got hurt and required us to rearrange some of our travel plans. Way back in Cairo, Sebastian had fallen out of his stroller onto the hard museum floor, which resulted in the left side of his face swelling up the following night. We dedicated the better part of a day tracking down a doctor and a dentist that was open during Ramadan, and we were reassured that anti-inflammatory medicine and precautionary antibiotics would be all that Sebby needed. However, while in Luxor, Sebby's swelling had become concentrated in just two areas that were turning yellow, and as reluctant as we were to test the Egyptian health care system any further, we knew we had to take him back to the doctor. We didn't expect to be told that Sebby would need to have his abscesses surgically drained under general anesthesia. If you're hoping that it sounds worse that it was, unfortunately it was at least as bad as it sounds. Though the facilities could have been better, our surgeon was wonderful and the Luxor International Hospital was amazingly affordable. Sebby came back from his surgery already awake, and after a nap on my chest, he was as rambunctious as ever, chasing balloons and gurgling like his usual happy self. Thank goodness!

In the end, it worked out so nicely having Bud and Ashley around so that we could take turns seeing the sites. This saved the kids from being out too much in the heat and it gave Sebby lots of down time to stay in the hotel and recover. Because we did less in Luxor than we had planned on, Josh and I decided to stay a few more days there, and we said goodbye to Bud and Ashley before putting them on a flight back to Cairo to catch their plane to America.

Even with all the unplanned stress, we did still manage to have a bit of time to relax and have fun in Luxor:

We found this great restaurant called "King Dude's" with cute, colorful hieroglyphics carved on the walls. The truly amazing part about this restaurant was that it served both pork products and alcohol (to foreigners only). Since the south is far more touristy than Cairo, it was actually easier to find restaurants that were open in Luxor. We enjoyed King Dude's hospitality more than once, particularly their bacon, ham-and-pineapple pizza, and mixed drinks. Unlike in Saudi Arabia, pork and alcohol are perfectly legal in Egypt -- just rare.


Misha at King Dude's.


After a night and a day in the hospital, Sebby and I were welcomed back "home" to our hotel. Sebby was back to eating and drinking with gusto, chasing Misha all over the hotel, and ripping off his bandages left and right. Good grief!


We also took advantage of our hotel's rooftop swimming pool!


And we enjoyed buggy rides around the city as a romantic alternative to taxis.