The land of pharaohs and temples.

First of all, I must say that somehow I fucked up my digital camera's memmory card while downloading the pictures into the computer, so I have lost ALL the pictures from Egypt. I know, it sucks mean ass. So I will simply attatch some random googled pictures of the places I have been visiting. Such a shame :(

DAHAB

On April the 23th I was supossed to take a ferry boat from Aqaba (Jordan) across the Red Sea towards the Egyptian side. Well, the ferry was scheduled for 6pm, but the departure was delayed 5 hours for no aparent reasson. Then another 3 hours on the ferry. Then another 2 hours waiting for the border officers to give me the OK to go though. Then wait another 2 hours for the bus linking the ferry harbour to Dahab. Then another hour on the bus to Dahab. So, I arrived there at 7am after what'd been a sleepless, nightmare day.

Dahab is a small town in the Sinai peninsula. Actually, it's rather a hang out resort rather than a town. Basically, it's a bunch of large camps and tents spread along the shore for a kilometer or so. It somewhat carries a hippy'ish feeling all around: people couching about in the tents barely a meter off the sea, Bob Marley playing on the Hi-Fi, bars with such names as The Laughing Buddha, tropical juices served all day long, world-class reef diving, and overall a very laid back hang out ideal to spend a quite and relaxing hollidays.

In fact, I had already been in Dahab 8 years ago with my friends Thomas and Nicholas Zlotnik. I have noticed quite a change on Dahab during the two visits. Eight years ago it used to be backpackers's territory. You know, people on a very tight budget stopping by on their way to or from somewhere else. Right now, Dahab seems a tourist destination in itself. Still extremly affordable (you can dinner within-the-hour fresh grilled fish for 3 euros) and mainly visited by young people, but mostly as a alternative -and cheap- turistic resort rather than a hang-out cross point.

Dahab beach front line. As you can see, it's nothing but a number of carpeted tents that serve as tableless restaurants.

It's such a shame I lost all my pictures. I had one that resembled perfectly the spirit of Dahab: it was me lying on a couch half a metter from the water, with my feet up on huge cushion, reading a book and with a fresh lemonade by my side.

Anyway, I spent a week there because I felt that I needed a small brake from my previously fast-paced travelling scheme, so I decided to take it easy and chill out for a while. Which I sure did.

Like I said, the Red Sea is world-wide famous among divers for its remarkable coral reef. I took my life first fully-equipped dive (oxigen tanks, thermic suit, etc), and let me tell you that diving is not as easy as it looks at first glance: not only you have to deal with 3D spacial movement (as opossed to inland's 2D movement), but the preassure is a funky thing. You ought to constantly despressurize (spelling?) yourself by locking your nasal holes and blowing out, otherwise your ears pop just like when you fly on a plane. Also, constant breathing is essential, as if you hold your breath and shoot up towards the surface, the air within your langs expands and might cause serious internal body damage. I only went as low as 12 meters under the water, but I already felt the preassure's synthoms, and I doubt I would have been able to go lower than that without panicing. I know it might sound silly, but desorientation down there gets nasty, your beating pulse races up, and you forget the constant intake of oxigen via your mouth. Preassure lowers your air retention capacity, and it's very easy to panic, forget the theory, and try to gasp air from your nose while shooting up towards the surface above you. I got a nasty head ache while diving.

Other than those minor technical holdbacks, it sure is beautiful down there. Fishes display a range of colours that would put the rainbow on shame, and you see'em surfing about between the coral reef. Seriously beautiful stull. I am very glad I took that dive despite the headache gotten from the water preassure.

Gorgeous, ain't it?

Following my friend Nicholas Zlotnik's advice, I took a one day trip to the Blue Hole. The Blue Hole is a pit few kilometers away from Dahab with excellent snorkling facilities. Oh, great for dolphins sighting too!

Snorkling = Diving mask + breathing pipe + coral reef. Winning formula!

After the Blue Hole, I hiked my way up the coast for 7km and reached the bedouin camp of Ras Ab Galum. Ras Ab Galum is a "village" with only three components: tents, bedouins and camels. Travellers come here and spend the night in the quitest of quiteness, to enjoy a water-clear stars sighting feast at night, and overall to feel right in the middle of nowhere. I slept with a bedouin family, and dinned the second best fish soup I have ever tasted in my life (my grandma's is still better though).

Ras Ab Galum, where desert and ocean co-exist

These are the beduoin tents I was refering to. The village is formed up by 40 or 50 of them

After a week of exploring new limits of the concept "relaxation", I headed down to upper Egypt where most of the Ancient Egypt architectonic heritage takes place.

LUXOR

Luxor is settled nearby of the former capital of the Egyptian empire: Thebes. The height of Thebes peaked between 1500 and 1000 BC, with characters as famous as Akhenaton, Ramses II, Seti I or Nefertari. Ancient Egypt's managment board, you see?

There are two temples in Luxor: Luxor Temple and Karnak Temple. Luxor temple is right in the middle of town, while Karnak is 3 km away. In the old times, these two temples were supossed to be linked by a columned avenue. Must have been quite a sight.

The most impressive feature of Luxor Temple are the two gigantic statues of Ramses II guarding the main entrance. Such a pitty I lost all my pictures. I took quite a number of pictures of great beauty here.

Front end of Luxor Temple

Ramses II's twin statues greeting the visitors in. Such a nice fellow this Ramses II had been!

The day after I rented an old wreck of a bike to visit the Karnak temple. Well, in fact the Karnak temple is not a temple but rather a complex of obeliscs, sanctuaries, yards and buildings aimed to worship the Egyptian father of Gods, Amun. The reasson as of why Karnak grew so vast and rich in features is because every new pharaoh tried to outdo the previous one as far as temple contribution is concerned, so the complex expanded fatter and fatter with every new generation. The worst of them all was Ramses II, a megalomaniac freak who granted himself semi-deity status, and went on a self-dedicated colossus-erecting frenzy. So, in a way, Karnak was a sign of Amun's greatness and the pharaoh's too. The only one that broke that mold was Akhenaton, the Heretic King, who ejected Amun out the back door and put Ra, the sun-God, in office as the only true God, and thus stablishing the history's first monoteistic state.

The two features that impressed me the most were in first place the massive pillar yard, composed by over 130 huuuuge pillars in a grid-aline distribution, and second the fact that every single inch of the complex was carved out in gaerogliphics and drowings. And I mean every bloody inch of the whole complex. That's like filling up with tiny symbols the space of several football stadiums! Can you imagine the size of the man-force that overtook such herculean task?

A small frame from the pillar yard. Please note how the carvings cover absolutely every inch of the rock.

Unfortunately, I cannot say that I keep a pleassent memory of Luxor (and the whole Egypt -other than Dahab- as a matter of fact). And the very reasson are egyptians themselves. But why Hector, what's wrong man? well, I guess I could sum it all up in the following sentence: egyptians regard tourists as nothing but a walking dollar. Maybe not all egyptians of course, but certainly those related directly or indirectly with the turism industry, specially in Luxor, Aswan and downtown Cairo. I would not have any problem if they simply attempted to charge a bit extra over the bill to turists; I'd understand that. The problem is that they simply try to exploit them and abuse them to absurd limits, even missinforming the traveller if they can get a proffit off him. For example, in the Temple of Philae, after you have entered the site (and paid the official fee), you must cross a small river to reach the actual temple. Well, there was a guy with a small motor boat there who tried to charge us an extra 10 egyptian pounds for the ride through. When we complained, he said that was the official fee set by the gouvernament. It smelled fishy, so I said I was gonna call the turist police (a special force whose duty is to protect turists). Well, the guy shat his pants and put the price down threefold into its actual correct price. Another time, I was sitting down in the bus station waiting for the bus when this guy came up to me and said "Are you waiting the bus? if so I am sorry to inform you that the bus has broken down and won't be departuring in another two hours. You can alternatively grab a taxi". Well, funnily enough he was a taxi driver and would take me to my destination point for the "generous" amount of 10 euros. Of course I saw the scam coming, went to the bus station information desk, asked if there was any delay scheduled for today, and of course there wasn't. That guy had simply ill-informed me on porpous to net my 10 euros. Other locals continously aproach naive travellers engaging in a casual conversation, befriending them and offering themselves to help them out arraging whatever they need (the hotel, a tour ride, whatever). What the naive traveller won't ever suspect is that the "friendly" local has bumped up the prices 3 times, pocketing the difference while showing you his most charming smile. And so on, so on, so on. Day in and day out. What does this situation lead to? well, you end up not trusting absolutely any local at all, even those who might be rightfully trying to help you out, but since you've already been scammed twice in the last three of four days you don't want to risk it again. And, of course, you mood darkens with every mother fucker that aproaches to you smiling with the single goal in mind of "let's see how much can I get out of this nerd". Seriously, this shit can literally ruin your hollidays in Egypt as you become suspicious of every local you talk to, or every price being quoted to you, etc. Bad stuff.

I wish it was only me as the old moody fart that I am, but unfortunately 95% of the travellers I have met on Egypt have reported being scammed at least once, and been tried on daily basis, so their opinion towards egyptians in turisty areas wasn't any better than mine. We would all agree that there must be a national sport of some sort: grab the turist buck and run. The saddest thing is that they are not aware that by abusing travellers in such an obscene fashion will directly have a negative impact on the number of turists coming every year, and thus reducing down their primary source of income. No forethinking, just grab the turist buck and run.

All that say, I am afraid that I cannot and will not recommend Egypt to any of my friends as a hollidays destination. It's such a shame, cause this country sure has lots to see, but no temple is worth the sour taste in the month when you discovered you have been overcharged five times the ongoing price, or been deliberately given wrong info so some fucker could cash in extra money. No temple is worth that, and there are other wonderful countries out there that will be very happy to receive turists and legitimaly welcome them. Nop, like I said, I will not recommend Egypt to my friends.

Anyway, enough of my rumblings. The next day I took a donkey ride (yup, donkey ride) to visit the Kings' Valley and the Queen's Valley, where the tombs of many important characters of Ancient Egypts were dwelled. It's a vast extension of arid desert among montains and cliffs. Sometimes, it would get dead scary to ride the donkey with a 50 metters precipice 5 feet away. Nothing too remarkable to say about the tombs themselves; once you've seen one, you've seen all as they followed very similar patterns. The donkey ride itself, which lasted a whole morning, was... enrichening to put it somehow hehehe. I think riding animals is not my thing, as deep muscle pains in delicate areas of my body are terrible the day after. Heat was absolutely outragerous (40 celsius).

In the Kings' Valley, we found the rock-cut Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut (or Temple of chop sui as I'd re-branded it). Hatshepsut was a she actually, so I'm not sure what this temple was doing in the Kings' Valley in stead of the Queen's. Anyway, it was remarkably pretty and photogenic.

Temple of chop sui.... errrr Hatshepsut, damn it!

However, that donkey ride provided me with the chance to meet one of the most incredible couples I have met in a loooong time. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to Tom and D (I didn't get the spelling right down, but it sounded like "dee"). Anyway, they are an elder brittish couple who took an early retirement in their 50s, bought a small ship and decided to launch themselves sailing around the world, for as long as it took. Well, they are now in their 60s, and their journey around the world has taken so far eight years!! They are on the way back home already, and they hope to anchor in brittish waters sometime next fall. Can you believe that? travelling around the world in a small boat for 8 years! and in your 60s! Mind you, they are not stacked as they are travelling on a shoestring, and they don't mind to stop and work ocassionally in whatever destination they particulary enjoy: they stayed one year in New Zeland, another year in Thailand, another year in India, etc.

I think Tom and D embody the ultimate outcry of "it's never too late!". They were marvellous, youthful, willing to try every new experience the journey might grant them with. Once again, in their damn 60s!! I spent a wonderful time with those two. People really worth to make acquaintance with.

One day, when my hair turns grey and my belly rounds up over my waist line, I wish to be like Tom and D.

ASWAN

In the southern end of Egypt, almost by the frontier with Sudan, lies probably the most spectacular site in Egypt: The Temple of Abu Simbel. Aswan is just the nearest town (200 km away) used by travellers as a connection hub to visit Abu Simbel. Also, Aswan is reknown by its weekly camel market, where over 2000 camels are traded. Aswan itself has little to show, other than the very charming Elephantine and Botanic Islands, two tiny islands popping out in the middle of the Nile. Oh! and of course a bunch of street touts hassling the shit outta turists.

There in Aswan I took a short felucca trip up and down the Nile. Feluccas are small wind-locomotived (spelling?) boats that have been used by egyptians for millenias. The Nile is a beautiful river, with booming with intense colours at sunset. And nothing more relaxing than enjoying that sunset onboard.

Felucca-sailing the Nile at sunset. Me likes!

Unfortunately, my felucca captain pulled the country's trademark (abusing travellers) on me. We had agreed on the price for the ride in advance, and when it was finished I paid the amount due, but he wouldn't let me go, demanding a "turist tip". Basically, he wanted more money than what we had agreed before hand stating that, since I am a turist and he had done his job correctly, he deserved extra money in the form of a "tip". Turist tip... what kind of shit is that? you see what I mean when I said that about the abusing and exploting? So, we engaged in a heated up arguement till I finally told him to fuck off and walked away.

Anyway, the next morning at 4am I joined an organized tour across the desert heading towards Abu Simble. Abu Simble is a magnificient temple re-known for the 4 montruosly oversized statues of Ramses II (the megalomaniac freak, remember?) facing the Nile. Basically, it worked as a reminder to any oposing force that might be sailing up north the Nile from Africa into Egyptian territory of who were they messing with. Hehehe imagine a poor black fisherman in the 1200 BC bringing his small boat up the Nile and finding such an impossing four statues staring at him. He must have browned his underwear.

Inside, yet more massive statues of Ramses II (this guys had a self-fixation, I'm telling you) guard the corridor leading to the temple's womb.

Oh by the way, Abu Simbel Temple was rediscovered in 1813 by the swiss explorer Jean Louis Burckhardt, the same guy who had redicovered Petra -Jordan- one year earlier. According to his travel notes, only the head of one of the statues arose over the sand, otherwise this gem would have been lost for even under the ever-moving Sahara! This Jean Louis must have had an extraordinary life, discovering ancient sites or another age all around the middle east.

Also remarkable is the fact that the whole temple was recently disembled in pieces to be asembled back up again 60 metters away when the artificial Lake Nasser was being worked out.

Breath taking from the outside...

Breath taking from the inside!

CAIRO

I was not too sure about Cairo before coming here. I was fearing it being similar to other arab cities with their polution, noise, dirt, etc. Well, Cairo does have all that, but in a way it feels more civilized, closer to a european city, with wide avenues, lots of commerce, coffee shops, etc. Yup, I was sort of surprised finding myself liking central Cairo.

Cairo, the largest city in Africa, is a buzzing capital where 16 million of souls wake up every morning with the sunrise.

Cairo, cut across by the Nile, it's a large scale capital with all the bells and whistles you'd expect.

Unfortunately, the polution here is serious dense, and there's a constant "mist" or "fog" on top of this city. Note the back end of the sky and you'll see the dark grey fog that I am talking about

Of course, I also payed a visit to the arch famous Pyramids of Giza, the last of the ancient world's 7 wonders still remaining. I must say that the pyramids sort of dissappointed me for whatever reasson. They just don't look as imposing alive as on pictures. Dunno, they just didn't live up to the expectation. And surprisingly enough, I am not only travelled who felt the same. Oh well, so much for the myth!

Left to right: Pyramid of Mycerinus with its 3 small "daughters", the Pyramid of Chephren in the middle with it's limestone capping (once covered the whole structure) and, at the back-end, the Pyramid of Cheops, the largest of the set.

The Sphinx guarding the Pyramid of Chephren

Overall, I must acknowledge that I leave the country with a slight bitter taste about it, specially about the way travellers and turists are treated by some street sharks. I don't know, I just didn't enjoy Egypt as much as I did other arab countries during the last two months.

I spent a week here in Cairo. I had not intended to spend this long, but I had to decide and prepare the next leg of my trip. I was torn between Tanzania or India, being India the most feasible one as the rainy seasson is pouring right now on Tanzania making the roads muddy, dungerous and un-fuctionable from what I hear. I was just about to book my flying ticket to India when I gave it a second thought to the whole matter. The thing is that India is one of the most culture shocking countries in the globe for us westerners. It's a very contradictory, culturally dense, vast and sense-overwhelming society, and after having travelled two months around the Middle East (which got its own good share of culture shock too), I felt that I needed a more laidback and relaxed destination...

So, tomorrow I grab a flight to Bangkok -Thailand-. I will do the South East Asia trail (Thailand -> Cambodya -> Vietnman -> Laos -> Burma) during the following three months, and then by the end of the summer I will backtrack to India. This is the beauty of independent travel: you adjust your route as your feelings dictate, not as your planned schedule does. Despite the fact that I will arrive in the middle of the moonsoons seasson, I am really looking forward Thailand, I've heard wonders about the Land of the Smiles, as they call it.

Thailand, here I come babe!

-HECTOR-