Egyptian Aventures Part III

I know you all have been on the edge of you seats waiting to see what happens next!  Well I am sorry this took so long, I have actual school work to do now...its horrible.  Anyway here it is:

 Day three in Egypt began with an early morning hot air balloon ride.  We were promised to be in the air to witness sunrise but our balloon was not slotted to go up at that time so we watched the sun rise over the Nile from the ground.  We all climbed into our balloon's basket and began to ascend into the wild blue yonder. I would say there were about 20 people in our basket along with the captain and his co-captain.  The basket was divided into five sections.  A center section for the captain and four other sections, two on either side of the center area. I was in a section with a mother and father and their two girls.  This family had taken the year and was traveling all around the world. 

The view of Luxor from the air was so incredible.  When in a hot air balloon it is an odd combination of the cold air from the altitude and early morning climate mixed with the blazing heat that comes off the flame that keeps the balloon afloat.  Anyway from the air we passed over sugar cane fields, Hatshepsut's temple and Howard Carter's old house where he lived while excavating the Valley of the Kings. A bold line defines the green irrigated land and the dry desert land. The captain could control most things except where we landed.  He can raise the balloon up and down and can rotate the basket but he cannot, for lack of a better word, drive the balloon in a specific direction. 

After landing and returning to the Nefertiti we planned on eating really quick, packing up our belongings and heading out on our tour of the Valley of the Kings.  I ate a quick breakfast, packed up my room, checked out and waited patiently  for the rest of the group to join me.  After waiting a while I decided that I was thirsty and wanted to grab something to drink before we headed out.  I walked to the main street to find all the shops were closed.  I had forgotten it was Eid! When I walked back toward the hotel I noticed the street was oddly wet.  I looked just a few feet ahead of me and saw a dead cow that had been sacrificed for the Eid celebrations. 

DO NOT READ THE NEXT PARAGRAPH IF YOU DON’T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT THE COW- some is graphic.

(Note: This is a very special religious and cultural activity. Please do not pass judgments toward the story I am about to tell.  It is more than likely how most of our meat is produced.)

 As I was watching the cow a man walked up to me wearing a traditional white gown that had blood splatters on it.  He boastfully told me that he was the one that killed the cow. He described it as putting up a fight but he eventually got it down.  The cow had been decapitated and as I looked close at the head, which was laying upside down, I could still see the muscles in the neck twitching which means I had barely missed the slaughter. Someone has been designated to skin the cow and remove all the bones.  He basically just cut off the hide of the animal with a kitchen knife type utensil and then chopped off the legs with a hatchet.  From there he began cutting into the meat to remove the bones. As I stood there a little boy decided that he wanted to come over and stand with me.  As he was walking to the curb he tripped and fell into the bloody water grabbing my leg to help himself up.  After his trip he stood right next to me and grabbed my hand.  We stood together watching the preparation of the cow. While all of this was happening a young man was mopping up the street which at this point was covered in water, blood and excrement from the cow.  I found this whole situation very interesting and was happy that the family shared this celebratory time with me.

IT IS SAFE TO READ NOW

Finally my friends met me after about 45 minutes waiting and enjoying learning about the traditions of Eid in Cairo.  We loaded up our Mickey Mouse van (the ceiling of the van had Mickey Mouse fabric on it. Along with the six of us were three teachers from Canada which were teaching in Cairo and a man from China named Tom.  We headed toward the Valley of the Kings.  To hit the highlights one of my friends almost got kicked out because he was taking pictures in the tomb which is prohibited.  He has to pay five dollars to the guard to let him off the hook.  The other highlight was going to King Tut's tomb. Yes I went into the famous boy king's tomb.  It was a small one but as you descend down the ramp on your left is the actual mummy of King Tutankhamun and on the right is one of his coffins and one of this sarcophagus.

From the Valley of the Kings we went to the Hatshepsut temple (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortuary_Temple_of_Hatshepsut). Our guide was not very helpful and I didn’t really understand the significance of it so I didn’t enjoy it that much plus it was really hot.  I also got stopped a few times and asked to take pictures with some random tourists. Our guide made one last stop, on the way back to the hotel, at these giant statues which were in Ancient times were believed to whisper to each other.  It was not in fact the statues whispering to each other but rather the wind blowing through the cracks making the noise of jumbled whispers.

We asked our driver to, instead of taking us to the hotel to take us to the Temple of Karnak.  Our new friend Tom joined us.  Karnak was really cool but there is not much to say about it other than it extends in every direction for as far as you can see.  There is this one area that has columns upon columns upon columns.  It was so cool because there were so many.  One guide we over heard said that all the columns used to be painted but a king one time wanted to wash the temple so he allowed the flood gates of the Nile.  While he may have gotten some of the grime out of the temple unfortunately he also removed all the color off the lower parts of the temple.  When we finally left the temple we were exhausted and Tom was being silly and started walking backward out the gate.  We as a group of course had to join.  Im sure the seven of us were quite entertaining for the locals to observe.

NOTE:  Tom was a really cool guy.  He was from China and worked in investments mostly in Chinese technology businesses. His family lived in like New Zealand I believe.  He was in Egypt for some kind of race.  Basically he runs a whole marathon every day for seven days across the desert.  This was his second one, the first in China, the next in South America and the final one in Antarctica.  He has also done the Ironman…twice.

It was nearing dinner time and we needed to get some food.  We all loaded up into a bus and headed back to the hotel where we had dinner.  Tom once again joined us along with our three friends from Canada and two other girls from CIEE who just happened to be in the same hotel that night.  It was quite a fun time. 

Our waiter asked us what our travel plans were for the evening and we informed him that we were taking the overnight sleeper train to Cairo.  He immediately began to panic and told us that we needed to get to the train station as soon as possible because we were already late.  He brought the hotel's driver to meet us out front as we paid for dinner.  The driver not only took us to the beautiful station but also took us right to our platform.

It wasn’t long before the train pulled up and we were headed toward Cairo.  I think we were the most giddy people in the country when we saw the accommodations we had for the trip.  After not having a seat on our last train ride this was a five star hotel.  This train had THREE seats per cabin, two beds and a sink.  We also were served breakfast and dinner by our own personal cabin boy/man (Im not really sure what the official term was).

Since there were six of us and two to a room we had three rooms.  Two of the rooms were connected by a door that locked, much like some hotel rooms.  Me and the other girl were in one room and two of our boys were in a room that connected to ours.  Our cabin boy informed us that his boss knew we were two girls and four boys and to be sure that we closed and locked the door between our two rooms before we went to sleep.  While we had every intention to do this we were all a little surprised that we were told to do so in such a direct way. Very unlike home.

Dinner was served (beef, rice, potatoes and cake) and we stayed up a bit talking but we were all so exhausted we quickly fell asleep, but first we made sure to close and lock our door that joined the two rooms.

That was the end of day three.

Stay tuned for the final installment where I recount my time in Cairo.  It is sure to be exciting!