The Accidental Tourist

When I was little, I wasn’t terribly cute and my awkward phase lasted way too long.  I didn’t have any Dittos jeans and my mom wouldn’t get me a pair of the early Nike shoes.  None of this was helped by the fact that I was a little bit chubby and really unhelpful in any sporting endeavor.  I was, of course, picked last for all teams. I sucked at dodge ball, kick ball, hopscotch and kick the can.  When I got older, I broadened my horizons and was terrible at volleyball and soccer, but boy did I make friends with a few of the school librarians over the years.

The psychological burden of inadequacy I carry from that period of my life has been reignited here in Luxor.  There’s nothing at all wrong with Luxor – it’s a lovely town.  Much smaller than Cairo – 24 million vs. 1 million.  It’s green and sits right on the Nile and the drivers engage in a much safer variation of reckless driving.  The situation down here is that we have been assigned a new guide for the remainder of our river travels and his name is Mossallamy.  Mossallamy has as much enthusiasm for his job as Mawra and looks a fair bit like a movie star.  Mossallamy has a serious command of all things historical.  His clear calling is that of university professor and every time we start walking around a site, I feel inadequate and terrible that he has to try to instruct me.  It seems akin to pairing me with Vincent Van Gogh for some art lessons.

I do grasp concepts eventually, though, and Mossallamy seems to have an unyielding conviction that I am not beyond salvation.  He took us to the Luxor Temple last night and walked us around the courtyard in the dark, with the columns illuminated by floor bulbs.  He told us the story of the discovery of the temple, built around 1400 BC and uncovered from under about 50 feet of dirt, starting in 1884.

Here are a couple of shots of the columns lit at night.  I cannot describe the sensation of walking amongst these structures in 2017 and feeling the weight of the ingenuity, engineering and stamina that allowed these sites to exist at all and remain now.

I was certain, after seeing the Luxor Temple site, that I had seen the highlight of my trip to Egypt, but then we were taken out to the Valley of the Kings.  I will describe our visit out there in a minute but please, let me first digress to the traffic signal investigation I have been pursuing.  One of the techniques I use with our assorted guides to avoid detection of my limitations is to try to veer the topics away from the 30(?) Egyptian dynasties.  Yesterday, I made Mossallamy stop and look at the wordage that scrolls across the tops of the red lights and he told me that it is giving notice that it is a red light photo camera intersection and if you run the red light, you will be mailed a ticket for the equivalent of $25.  This explanation enabled me to veer the conversation over onto a topic near and dear to my heart – traffic infraction law and DUI law, along with insurance requirements.  It appears that you can be jailed here in Egypt for being at fault for a traffic accident where someone is injured – I couldn’t tell if there would be a requirement that actual “reckless” driving be found.  And apparently you could serve a year or two in jail for this – which leads me (and you, I imagine) to wonder whether this acts as any deterrent whatsoever, given what I’ve seen driving around.

The pictures below are from the public square right outside the entrance to the Luxor Temple site.  They two buildings are side by side, basically and one needs no explanation, but the other was interesting to me because some very wealthy man built it only recently and positioned this grand home so that he can have a view directly on the Luxor site.

Anyways, on to the Valley of the Kings. This is the burial site for 62 pharaohs.  I’ve seen the National Geographic specials with the grave intonation voiceover about the discovery and impact of this site.  But I was not prepared for the in-person thrill it gave me.  I was teary here – when I admit this to you, I am not making it up – it is that overwhelming to approach the bright limestone mountainside it’s all carved into.  Again – not a single photo is allowed at the site so you’ll need to Google it – but you take this little open-air tram from the ticket entrance to the base of the tomb entrances.  Your ticket entitles you to choose 3 tunnels to enter, and Mossallamy directed us to his three favorites.  He’s not allowed to enter the actual tunnels with us, so he stood outside with some maps and pictures to help us make sense of what we were about to see.  And in we walked.  The tunnels are lined with paintings and hieroglyphics, many of them in nearly perfect shape despite being thousands of years old, showing depictions of lifestyle and worship beliefs and daily rituals.  Much of the original bright colors remain.

Above are just a couple of the buildings we drove by en route to the Valley of the Kings.  I tried to get more random pics but I somehow managed to make myself carsick leaning out the windows and, by the time we got back to the ship, I had to take some Dramamine and knock myself out for the rest of the afternoon.  So sorry – no good side of the road pics.

I had a friend who went to Egypt a year ago (hi Sharon!), who gave us the idea that a trip here would be a good idea. She returned with rave reviews but said that there were virtually no tourists anywhere.  We’re finding things to be a little bit different and it’s encouraging.  We are indeed running into crowds (albeit small ones) at the major sites down near Luxor.  Most of the tourism seems to be European, Japanese and Chinese.  But it’s a start.  All of the guides we’ve talked to have said that tourism started to pick up around October 2016.  No one call tell me why but the tour guides are very happy.  Many of them report that they’ve had little to no work for the past 6 years.  There’s few Americans at this point but a few more than last year.  Now is the time to come.

We just got back from a trip to Edfu Temple, which I will discuss the historical significance of (very) briefly below.  Equally interesting for me was that we got to travel there by horse and carriage.  When we looked out the window of our cabin this morning, there was a lone carriage out on the street, the most enterprising of souls, making sure he got work today.  Mossallamy says the unemployment rate for adult males is about 40%.  By the time we left the boat, there were dozens of these carriages lined up to take tourists to the Edfu Temple.  At the Edfu Temple, there were hundreds of them, transporting thousands of tourists.  Apparently all the boats running the Nile this week are full!!!!  Here’s a picture of the arrival area at Edfu Temple.
We rode in a similar one but ours was more special because, just moments after we left the boat we managed to get in a little carriage accident with another vehicle and our carts become locked together, resulting in an extremely entertaining situation.  They were able to detach the wheels but Ron was concerned about the integrity of the damaged wheel while I was unable to assess the resulting damage given the unclear and questionable  original state of repair.  Nonetheless, we rode on.  It is often a good thing to have to little time to assess the possible outcomes of some situations. Is there something to be gleaned from getting in two fender benders so far?  Here is a shot of the carriages stuck together:

As we rode through the town on the way to the temple, I was able to get a lot of good pictures.  Unfortunately,  I am having a hard time getting pictures  to load.   Here’s a few:

Mossallamy is as determined to stay on topic as I am to  stray  elsewhere.  En route to the temple  this morning, we passed a bread store with throngs of people standing outside.    It was the morning dispersal of bread to low income people.  Here this means you make under 2000 Egyptian pounds per month…about 100 US.  You would get 5 pitas per person. There are also monthly handouts of oil, sugar etc.

I’m having terrible tech trouble so I’ll leave it at this. Here’s Mossallamy teaching us to write in hieroglyphics.  I’m going to put this post out there…I know, Grace, you’re thinking it’s my shortcoming and not the server…and see if the internet gets better later on for a new one.