Pharaonic symbols

Garry and I flew into Cairo on November 27. We'd literally flown directly from South America to Egypt, stopping briefly in Spain to change aircraft. It was a long and arduous flight - even in business class. Our arrival began with a minor disaster as our bags hadn't followed us from Argentina. I suspect that an incredibly tight and confusing transfer in Madrid didn't serve us well.

We'd booked a direct flight from Buenos Aires to Barcelona, with a brief transit stop in Madrid. Or at least, that's what we thought. Upon arrival in Madrid, we discovered that the transit wasn't as straightforward as you'd assume. First, our flight actually changed aircraft. Then, even more confusing, the transfer aircraft was parked at a gate in a completely different terminal. Finally, despite all these changes, the onward flight to Barcelona was listed under the same flight number. 

We ultimately had to work all this out ourselves after disembarking in Madrid, while totally jet-lagged. The Iberian cabin crew gave us absolutely no instructions before landing, and nobody said anything as we left the airbridge. I doubt we were the only passengers continuing on to Barcelona. In all my years, I've never experienced such a confusing, counterintuitive transit under a single flight number.

Needless to say, missing luggage was hardly the news we wanted to hear at 2:00am in the Cairo airport baggage hall. However, things eventually ended well. Our tour guide, Shona, did an incredible job tracking down our luggage and having it safely delivered to our cruise boat in Luxor, four days later.

Shona was simply delightful. As a lively, independent, intelligent, outdoor-oriented Yorkshire woman, she did a magnificent job bringing the Middle East to life. She had a cheeky side that made the occasional dull moment quickly pass, and regularly went beyond the call of duty, genuinely caring for the needs of others on the tour. She even came to see us in London a few months after we arrived in the UK.

Shona knows her stuff. She made our Lonely Planet guide next to useless. Of course, we never admitted this. Instead, we constantly threatened to check our guidebook before acting on her 'local knowledge' recommendations. She soon had an effective solution to this threat, simply banning guidebooks from regular briefing sessions.

Cairo is a wild city. It's noisy, dirty, chaotic, and filled with endless odours. The traffic is predictably chaotic and random. The tourist touts are everywhere and keen to empty your wallets. It would be fair to say that it wasn't our favourite city on our world tour. Fortunately, the rest of Egypt was far better and at times, exceeded all expectations. Lots of countries claim to be unique, but few really are. Egypt is.

Our first day in Cairo was spent visiting Egypt’s most iconic attractions. We started with the Pyramids and the Sphinx before visiting the equally famous Egyptian Museum, where King Tutankhamen's golden treasures are on display. We had a local guide share the highlights in each location. However, Shona also gave us a little free time to do our own thing, with plenty of inspiring recommendations to consider. More about that in a future post.

The Pyramids are everything you'd expect them to be. They're big, bold and magnificent. At times, we had to metaphorically pinch ourselves to believe we were really there. However, the spectacle came with an inevitable caveat. In every tourism brochure, the pyramids are always soaring skyward, serene and alone. Sadly, our time exploring the last remaining Wonder of the Ancient World didn't leave the same impression. 

What the brochures don't reveal is that the Giza plateau is filled with persistent touts, dodgy tourist police on the make, and locals keen to become your well-paid 'guide'. It was almost impossible to pause, reflect and absorb the historic atmosphere with these relentless distractions. However, in fairness, some kids just wanted us to take their photo for fun, as Garry discovered in the photo above.

Some in our group paid extra for a camel ride across the Giza plateau. The ridge from which riders set off is one of Cairo’s most iconic scenes. It's the spot where all six pyramids sit in close proximity from an observer's viewpoint. Another once-in-a-lifetime photo opportunity. Garry and I decided to give the camels a miss. We’ve ridden plenty of them over the years. Instead, we used our free time to climb into the Pyramid of Khafre and view the burial chamber hidden deep within it.

Without a doubt, it was a mind-blowing experience. The steep passageway and narrow stairs descending into the interior aren’t for the faint-hearted or those who fear confined spaces. One section involved a final 35-metre climb up a narrow passageway. Fortunately, it was lined with a steep wooden ramp studded with slats for a more secure footing. However, you still had to carefully shimmy past descending tourists as you climbed. The passageway photo above was pulled from the web.  In the heat of the moment, we never thought to take our own, but I can say, hand-on-my-heart, that I've been inside a 4500-year-old pyramid.

One thing certainly surprised us about the pyramids. We could walk up to the very base of these magnificent structures without restrictions, other than “don’t climb them”. As you can see from the images above, we literally stood on granite slabs at the base of the Great Pyramid of Giza, the largest and oldest pyramid on the plateau. It doesn’t get much better than that. Curiously, we couldn’t get as close to the Sphinx. It was roped off from free-ranging visitors.

The Sphinx wasn't quite what we'd expected. Tourism posters always show it standing in splendid isolation, or with an elegant pyramid hovering in the background. The reality is quite different.  The Sphinx stands at the base of a sloping 495-metre causeway leading to the Pyramid of Khafre. On either side of this ramp lie the ruins of several temples, a workers' village and an industrial complex. The overall visual impact is nothing like the serene and empty desert commonly depicted.  It's more like an abandoned worksite with its accompanying construction clutter left in place.

We were equally surprised to discover how close the Pyramids are to the city of Cairo. We literally drove past the last suburb, and there they were, right in front of us. One moment you’re in a suburban street, the next you’re following a fence line with open desert and towering pyramids beyond. The first image above was taken from our tour bus on the way to our next stop, the ageing Egyptian Museum. 

The Egyptian Museum is an imposing, collonaded building sitting downtown by the Nile River. I've pulled the image above from the web to illustrate this post (thank you, Spencer Davis). Apparently, a new museum on the Giza plateau is in the early stages of planning. The museum's most treasured artefact is undoubtedly Tutankhamen’s burial mask. It's truly spectacular. Photos barely do it justice. It is a genuinely stunning work of art. 

Unfortunately, cameras are forbidden in the museum, so we couldn't photograph it. A few days later, in the Valley of Kings, we were lucky enough to visit the original Tutankhamen tomb. Here we saw his comparatively humble mummy and stone sarcophagus. Never judge a book by its cover!

Speaking of sarcophagi, there are plenty on display at the museum, along with mummies in various states of unwrapping. The museum has two main floors: the ground floor and the first floor. On the ground floor is a collection of large-scale works in stone, including sarcophagi, statues, reliefs, and architectural elements. These are arranged chronologically in a clockwise fashion, from the pre-dynastic to the Greco-Roman period. Thankfully, a local guide walked us through the highlights.

  

However, jet lag and our late-night arrival finally took their toll during our guided tour. I literally fell asleep on my feet in the midst of the sarcophagus hall. Our local guide was less than amused as I stumbled across the floor, interrupting her mid-sentence. Let's just say the glance she shot me had "the look of death".  I was suitably embarrassed. 

Garry and I went searching for emergency clothing and toiletries after returning to our hotel. Thanks to our missing luggage, we literally had nothing more than the shirts on our backs and a spare we'd sensibly packed for the flight. To make matters worse, we were scheduled to catch an overnight train later that evening. In desperation, we wandered around our hotel’s neighbourhood seeking out a few souvenir t-shirts and a toothbrush. 

However, all we could find were restaurants and dusty stores offering random goods like frypans and buckets. We resigned ourselves to a nightly ritual of washing socks and underwear in a hand basin. That is, until we stumbled upon an isolated, brightly lit store in a nearby residential area. Much to our surprise, it sold little more than socks, hosiery, undershirts, and underwear. Crisis averted. We’d at least have clean underwear until our luggage showed up.

After our whirlwind day in Cairo, we caught a sleeper train to Luxor. These trains are a reasonably civil affair, with comfortable fold-down beds and fresh linen. Garry and I were able to get a reasonable night's sleep. The complimentary dinner was an unremarkable combination of bread, rice, and other unidentifiable starches. We reached Luxor shortly before dawn, ready for another dose of pharaonic symbols. 

Follow our next adventure here.