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Ancient Egypt: Edfu and Dendera Temples, Cleopatra, Coptic Cairo, and HOME
Life sure has a way of zipping along, doesn’t it? Blink and you’ll miss it. We’re about to embark on “The Cruise to Nowhere” (next post) so I’m going to quickly ‘finish’ Egypt, just for now, so I can say to myself it’s finished – love that sense of accomplishment! (There’s so much more, of course, as usual). EDFU AND THE CONFOUNDING HIPPOS: EVIL MUST BE DEFEATED – AGAIN! Our last two temple visits make for the end of our Nile River journey, as well as the end of over 3000 years of ancient Egyptian civilization. These temples were built by the Ptolemies, the last great dynasty to rule Egypt,…
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Ancient Egypt: The Bus Wins! Who Knew? More Temples and Padre the Ham
Have you ever been tourist-tired? You know, that point of exhaustion where you’re this close to grumping at someone who doesn’t deserve it (Padre) and you just have to STOP? Squinting into the sun and sticky hot, I headed back to the bus ahead of everyone else to cool off in its calm, air-conditioned silence. But first, I snapped one last photo before climbing aboard. I didn’t intend that pic to be of the Gate 1 tour bus at all, but of the glowing pyramids off in the distance. The bus’s bulk served to block a direct sun glare, and despite my jet-lag I marveled at the fact that I…
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Ancient Egypt: Nile River Cruise, Crocodile Mummies, and Which Way Is UP?
I’ve had Egypt at the tippy top of my travel bucket list for most of my adult life, as anyone who reads my blog knows by now. Sorry about that; I tend to repeat myself when I’m excited about, well, anything, from windstorms to Wordle. So now that my dream came true, what have I learned? Ah, so much. Was it worth it, even as Omicron emerged to threaten us all again? YES. Was Egypt as grand as I thought it would be, after all these years of anticipation? YES. Was what I loved most about Egypt, what I thought I’d love most about Egypt? Now that’s complicated. That last…
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Ancient Egypt: Mummy Adventures in the Land of the Dead, and a Mystery
If I need to get Padre’s attention, all I have to do is say ‘The Land of the Dead’ and he perks right up. That’s because he’s been intrigued with all things funerary since his early years, when he worked in a local funeral home to afford college. He dealt with caskets, bodies, the works – and considered a funeral career before veering off into ministry and chaplainship. He spent his career years serving the elderly, where his calming presence was much appreciated by those facing end-of-life issues. Which is all of us, eventually, of course. I mean, no one gets out of here alive, right? The Egyptians were much…
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Ancient Egypt: All Aboard the Queen of Hansa, Two Temple Visits, and a Surprise!
Which one of the sunbathers lounging on the ship’s upper deck might be a devious murderer, I wondered, as I relaxed in the warm Nile River sun? Is it the mysterious man in the Biden shades, who never says a word? He could be Simon Doyle, the cad who ditched his fiancé to marry the rich socialite. Or is it the woman with the upswept beehive in a flowery flowing tunic, carrying herself with a regal air? Maybe she’s the romance novelist with a secret personal problem. Or is it the pudgy man in professor glasses and safari hat, a dead ringer for an Italian archaeologist with a criminal past…
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Ancient Egypt: A Bustling Cairo Market, and the Blonde’s Take on Veils and Hair
A woman peered at me through the eye slit in her black veil: What must she think of this older American woman with a head of bright blonde platinum hair? As we strolled down al-Muizz Street, one of the oldest streets in modern-day Cairo, every woman I saw – our group excepted – wore a hijab, or veil, over her hair. Only a few ladies wore what the lady peering at me wore: the full black niqab covering her whole face, a billowing black robe, and gloves, but they all had scarves on. I spotted a wisp of bangs peeking out of a hijab here or there, but hair? Totally covered. So…
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Ancient Egypt: Mummies On the Move and Museums In Transition
Many Egyptian wanna-be visitors wonder: Should we wait until the spectacular, state-of-the-art Grand Egyptian Museum finally opens, or is Egypt worth visiting now, when the current showcase for Egypt’s treasures, Cairo’s Egyptian Museum of Antiquities, is half-empty? Advice after our visit to the old museum: GO NOW. It’s true that the dusty place is packing up with movers bustling about, doing what movers do. We saw stone panels saran-wrapped and stacked in hallways, piles of taped-up boxes filled with ancient art, smudgy glass cases empty and unlocked, their former treasures removed. But this museum, even half empty, has oodles of wonders, and two hours to see it all? Not near enough time, because…
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Ancient Egypt: Claustrophobic Pyramids, Hissing Camels, and the Gauntlet of Touts
It’s 4:45 am. A monotone Gregorian chant spills into the early morning silence of our Nile River boat cabin, where I sit by the balcony window, tapping at the laptop. Yet this chant, similar to a song on my Amazon relaxation playlist, is not Gregorian. As morning approaches over the River Nile, it’s the Muslim call to prayer. Many Egyptian Muslim men sport a darkened indent on their foreheads, in fact, from pressing their heads to the floor five times a day. Devout Muslim women pray five times a day as well, but the ladies suffer repetitive stress issues in their ankles from the prayer position they assume, according to…
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Cairo Here We Come! But First, The Late Show With Stephen Colbert and a Platinum Blonde Surprise
The last time I flew through JFK I was with my 80-year old Dad, not Padre, returning from Landstuhl, Germany, where we visited my brother, who’d been called up for National Guard duty during the Iraq War after 9/11. Dad’s long gone but I chuckled when JFK’s luggage carousel sparked a memory of me snapping at the old guy to ‘leave the bags alone and let the girl do it’ due to his bad back. He was a young 80, always up for an adventure, and didn’t let the inevitable creep of medical infirmities slow him down for a few more years yet. He did relent, though, and let the…
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ANCIENT EGYPT: Hapshetsut Still Reigns Supreme at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art
Remember that famous photo from King Tut’s tomb, when Howard Carter saw the glint of gold and “wonderful things” as he peeked through a small hole in 1922? Carter’s candle flame almost went out as gaseous air escaped from Tut’s underground burial site. Until Carter peered in with his candle, whoever sealed up this door was the last to see inside Tut’s tomb, more than 3000 years ago. What happened to all that stuff? And what about all those other ‘wonderful’ things the tomb robbers and archeologists carted off, centuries ago? Egypt’s excavated tombs stand mostly empty today, and next week we’ll view their painted walls, stone sarcophagi, and a mummy…
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ANCIENT EGYPT: Arabic, Airports, APPS, and the Big Apple
Almost there! We’re getting close to T-minus liftoff for our first international trip since the world abruptly shut down in 2020. Ok we did sneak across the border to visit our close friend Canada for a few days, but…Canada. International Lite for Seattle types, although we did have the sticks-in-noses PCR tests in order to cross the Maine-Canada border. So not Casual Canada any more these days. And our rusty travel prep skills still work! So far we’ve learned that: GOOGLE TRANSLATE HELPS US SHOW RESPECT We taught ourselves to say ‘Do you speak English, please?” in Arabic, with the help of Google Translate. تتكلم الانجليزية من فضل Also how to…
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ANCIENT EGYPT: We’re Baaack, and Ready to Raid (visit) some Tombs!
It’s finally time to dust off the passports and dig out the money belts, because we are headed overseas soon, to visit EGYPT. Now if you’re curious as to how important an Egypt trip is to our travel goals, just read this old post, one of my first. (Travel: Well, Why Not?) Third time’s the charm, we hope, since two prior trips have been cancelled because, well, you know. Strange times to be travelling, so we’re putting ourselves in the care of our old friend, Gate 1 Travel, who shepherded us through Thailand a few years back. We chose the Thailand trip because 1) Gate 1’s prices are easy on the travel…
