ANCIENT EGYPT & NILE RIVER CRUISE

Just back from Egypt and if you think jet lag is bad following England, factor in two more hours time difference, several days of more than 100 degree heat and squalling kids being nursed under a burka on the trip home!

But it was an unbelievable experience...suggest going in February or March - it was, they said, hotter than usual for April.  Our Program Director/Guide was an Egyptologist - absolutely fabulous - has a real passion for the subject.  Muslim married to a Catholic blonde, blue eyed Brit...go figure.  Security everywhere, yet amazingly inobtrusive.  Had attractive young guys in suit and tie riding shot gun on our buses each day, packing not only just heat but an uzi, thank you very much.  One trailed usaround one of the famous markets one day as the vendors were like vultures on a carcass that particular day.  Not that anyone wouldn't know their role, compared to every other guy for a mile around (except in Cairo) in robes and headwear or jeans and grubby shirts!  It was like having our own Secret Service.

The pyramids and tombs were mind boggling...also the Church of the Holy Family where supposedly Mary, Joseph and Jesus hung out when they fled from Herod during the slaughter of the innocents....Luxor, Alexandria, Quena all wonderful places to visit....the mosque across the street from our ship in Luxor sounded the call to prayer at 4 each morning - imagine a radio turned up full blast next to your sleeping ear and the sound of a dying bull coming from it...I about jumped through the roof...Jim of course, slept right through it.  We were at the Spiritual Cairo optional tour sites on what I call Greek Easter Sunday....and in Egypt, it was Easter for the Coptic Christians, all part of the Eastern Orthodox group, I guess....so we weren't able to go into one church as services had started, but I saw the Bishop, their big kahunah, come out and get into his limo to get off to another service, I'm sure...but took his picture and talked my way past the guy guarding the coutyard entrance so I could take some fast photos of the incredible mosaics on the wall there....as I left, here came one of our suited guards looking for me, Amin had realized that I wasn't with the group and sent him scurrying to find me....they don't want the Yanks wandering off.

Saw my first whirling dervish during an onboard folkloric entertainment, which translates to music that hurts your ears and you sure couldn't have danced to it....yet at  another entertainment moment at a center in Quena, the dancers all grabbed some of us watching, including Jim and me and off we whirled...my miniscus repaired leg had been especially sore that day, same leg of the groin weakness cuz of needing that side's hip replaced....so when  I first got up I about pitched onto my face, but survived as the music ended before either of us had a heart attack.

Highlight for me was my first and last camel ride...was petrified but so proud of myself that I didn't fall off - I, of course, got the tallest one, or perhaps it was the highest saddle with a little stick to cling to, the only thing between me and sure death.  I would have kissed the ground upon getting off were it not for the camel dung that would not have matched my lipstick...and the fact that I was searching for the triplets I was sure I had just given birth to!!

Highlight #2 was both high and light....a hot air balloon ride that we left the ship at 5 a.m. for and started our ascent just as the sun was rising over the Valley of the Kings.  Unbelievable experience which I would do again in a NY minute.  The worst part was having to list our name and weight on a sheet that they passed around the boat that we crossed the Nile on to reach the  launching site...and it went from person to person - my own husband has no clue what I weigh, it's Top Secret and now a whole gaggle of people I barely know, know my biggest secret!!  (o:

The Cairo Museum was unbelievable..have never seen so many unprotected treasures in my life....things that would have the Metropolitan's security alarms going off were being leaned on by viewers.  Luxor has a lovely new museum, fabulous design and treasures there are well secured vis a vis light and temperature. 

Guess I'd have to add the sound and light show at the Temple of Karnak as another highlight...but in this case there was no light, literally...Jim and I were groping around in the dark, you couldn't see your hand in front of your face during the standing part of the program....but once the crowd started to move over uneven paving blocks and gravel, God sent somebody dressed like a robed Palestinian terrorist with a flashlight to guide us the rest of the way....sat near us during the actual seated sound and light part so he could guide us out.  Up to then it was literally the blind leading the blind.  It was visually stunning and surreal to be sitting in the middle of the site referred to as Thebes, which was considered very holy ground, everyone made pilgrimages to it.

Well, I could go on and on with more tales including the wheel chair group who got stranded in the freight elevator at the Cairo Airport as it was stuck between floors cuz the doors wouldn't close.  Jim's cane came in handy as the tallest person put the lightest person on his shoulders to reach up and push the doors together until it started moving again...in the meantime, I'd been left waiting for a wheel chair with no English speaking person within screaming distance, but Jim insisted that he had come with his wife and wasn't leaving without her, so they sent a rescue party searching for me.

Everything in Cairo seems broken....and there seems to be little infrastructure in place to see that anything gets fixed.  Traffic, for example, makes Rome's look orderly - amazingly few accidents.  Saw no traffic lights in Cairo, though I am sure there must be some, crossing the street is a challenge.  However, anything related to tourism seems to be high priority...we are their oil.  The Marriott Cairo where we stayed for five nights was converted from a palace built for visiting royals who came for the opening of the Suez Canal...gorgeous place, twin 20 story towers at each end of the property to accommodate guests, as well as a three story arced series of balconied rooms overlooking the lovely garden, where those in our group had rooms.  About 8 terrific restaurants in the hotel and great shops.  Auf Jewelers were busy making cartouches for several people and some serious bracelets and necklaces were purchased, but prices were fair and the quality superb.  Upon our return to Cairo for an overnight prior to early a.m. departures, the owner of Auf's took Liza Ockershauser and me out for a late lunch at a popular Egyptian restaurant where we were joined by his 14 year old son, whom we both invited to come visit us in the US.  That occasion and the home hosted dinner at the home of a retired police chief were wonderful chances to spend time with locals.

I will tell you this....if anyone had told me on Sept 12, 2001 that in 2009 I'd be eating Egyptian food at dinner aboard an Eygptian Nile River ship dressed in a traditional Galabeya/Egyptian caftan and beaded Nubian headpiece, I would have said they were smoking funny cigarettes!   But it was indeed a great Discovery!!

Off to start the day....

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