Friday, April 20, 2012

Spring Break 2

So after a nice rest in Qena we took the early morning train down further south to one of the southernmost cities in Egypt called Aswan. Aswan is a great place all the cities further south are much calmer than the craziness that is Cairo. Aswan however is really not as much of an open air museum as Luxor is it still has tons of history to it but mostly a stop for the temple of Abu Simbel and a great place to see the Nile since it is actually clean (well cleaner compared to Cairo) down in Aswan. The hostel again was very close to the train station in the middle of the market but it was a great place we planned to go to Abu Simbel the following day but the bus left at 4 in the morning to arrive at the temple close to 8. That however was later in the mean time we decide to get on a faluka (a single sail boat) and just enjoy the sunset on the Nile.






The next day we took the early bus and arrived at Abu Simbel where Ramses the 2nd decided the best way to show how important he was, was by making four massive statues of himself to cover his tomb. Which i do think did the job very well. Apparently the only name of a pharaoh still known before the finding of the Rosetta stone and the translation of egyptian hieroglyphics was the name Ramses the 2nd. So he accomplished what he wanted was remembered and his mummy is now in the Egyptian museum. Although im sure he did not want for his body to be on display but hopefully he does not mind now it has been almost 3000 years so maybe he does not care so much anymore. One cool thing during the trip to Abu Simbel was the fact that the other 5 people on the bus to the temple were actually in fact egyptoligts from no where else other than Poland. So i got to practice my polish with Piotr and the rest of the Egyptologists and thankfully they gave us some great information about all the sites we ended up visiting that day.



Piotr accidentaly hit record instead of taking a photo.




Later that day we decided to meet back up with the captain of our Feluka from the day before and he managed to procure us some very special fish made in egypt for Easter. I am not exactly sure what it is called but apparently its never cooked but just placed with spices and salt underground for a couple of weeks. The salt and peppers cure the fish and well since im still here today the fish was edible. I dont think i would eat it again it was so incredibly salty but it was an interesting experience.




Aswan was a great place to visit and im glad we enjoyed our time there. But we still had the long train ride back to Cairo filled with even more awkward meetings and stressful times.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Spring Break

So its been a while since i posted but to be fair nothing truly interesting happened until spring break and while on spring break i most definitely did not have internet access. I will most likely split up my Spring break trip into  two or three separate posts since it was pretty great fun time.

So Thursday the 5th we decided to celebrate my friend Ramsha's birthday at a restaraunt in Cairo it was great Indian food which is one thing she said she really missed from home so we ate had a good time and a great view of the city and then relaxed at a friends apartment for the rest of the night until we fell asleep only to get up at 5 to catch a cab then the metro to the train station in Cairo. I have to say the first part of the journey was not too difficult we got on the train and from all the contradictory stories i heard about how bad/good the train would be i was suprised that it really is not that bad. We sat down paid for our ticket then enjoyed the 10 hour train ride to the South of egypt the city of Luxor ahead of us. One thing i do have to have to complain about was the guy selling his, i think is was bread and cheese, because he seemed so unhappy and he walked from car to car just yelling the same repetitive set of words. 

However the view of the Egyptian country side towards the Nile was still very beautiful. So surprisingly green but the other side of the train was nothing but desert and mountains.


The first day in Luxor we were met by our hostel manager actually at the train station and he had no problem taking us to the hotel only a block or two away it seems that because of the revolution most of the tourist business has died relatively and so he treated us as best as he possibly could. We wandered the temples late at night since the 10 hours train ride took us all day and we arrived at sunset. We rested and then visited Luxor temple and Karnak in the morning.



Later that day we took a train an hour north to a small city an hour north of Luxor called Qena. Ryan managed to meet a great guy mahmoud just completely over the internet although he did not tell us that at the time so we wandered into this town met mahmoud and his friend ahmed and were brought to his university thinking that we would just have a casual talk with his English club. we then were ushered into this large auditorium put in-front of a small crowd with microphones and a small panel. Quite ridiculous but it was still a a great time. Mahmoud invited us to have koshary at his home and then we relaxed the rest of the day meeting people from Qena. It was a great time and so many great people. (Also a lot of Ahemds i think i met 5 Ahmeds that day.

Mahmoud Ahmed Ryan Grace Ramsha Nate and I in front of a fountain in Qena.