Posted in 1995, Archaeology, Egypt, Luxor on August 20, 2007 | No Comments »
I am always more aware of the day of winter solstice than I am of Christmas itself. The solstice for me is a time of change and rebirth, new beginnings. In England midwinter is a dark time when day is barely distinguishable from the long protracted night, but also a time of hope. In Egypt, [...]
Posted in 1995, Archaeology, Egypt on August 19, 2007 | No Comments »
Another early start this morning as my friend and I had arranged with Sharif the taxi driver to take us to the Temple of Hathor at Dendera, one of the most extensive temple complexes to survive from the Ptolemaic Period. Sharif had already collected his brother who was about to be conscripted into the army [...]
Posted in 1995, Egypt, Local Customs, Luxor on August 19, 2007 | No Comments »
In the evening my friend and I were invited to a wedding by Moses, a self-proclaimed ‘Egyptologist’ we had met and chatted with a few times. We both jumped at the opportunity of meeting more locals and seeing some real Egyptian life and customs. The event was not at all what we expected. It was [...]
Posted in 1995, Archaeology, Egypt, Luxor on August 18, 2007 | No Comments »
This morning there were a group of musicians playing outside our hotel. They wore colourful galabeyas and turbans and played a variety of instruments including several types of drum and tabla and a rababa. The rababa is a curious instrument consisting of half a coconut shell covered in goatskin (traditionally) with a long vertical pole [...]
Posted in 1995, Egypt, Luxor on August 16, 2007 | No Comments »
On my 11th day in Egypt I woke at dawn and went out onto the hotel balcony to listen to the call to prayer and to watch the sun rise on the mountains of the West Bank. The jagged line of hills was bathed in a soft warm rosy glow - the sun-god Re building [...]
Posted in 1995, Cairo, Egypt, Luxor on August 16, 2007 | No Comments »
We had spent only two full days in Cairo, but it felt like much longer. I still wasn’t sure if I liked the city but it certainly had been an important part of the ‘Egyptian Experience’, as our package was called. On the surface, to the casual tourist who is ferried about in coaches and [...]
Posted in 1995, Archaeology, Egypt on August 14, 2007 | No Comments »
The high point of the day for me was our next stop, the Step Pyramid at Saqqara. Saqqara is the location of the principal necropolis of ancient Memphis, dating from the time of the foundation of the city. The site covers an area of 900 hectares, crowded with burials which span almost the whole period [...]
Posted in 1995, Archaeology, Cairo, Egypt on August 14, 2007 | No Comments »
Memphis is the Greek name for the what was then the administrative capital of ancient Egypt, which dates right back as far as the Early Dynastic Period. The origin of the city’s foundation is credited to the mythical first king, Menes, who is said to have united Upper and Lower Egypt for the first time [...]
Posted in 1995, Cairo, Egypt on August 14, 2007 | No Comments »
On our second day in Cairo we arranged for a taxi to take us on a tour of the monuments at Giza and Saqqara. The day was bright and clear – the smog mysteriously disappearing as we travelled westwards away from the city. The driver, whose name was Hassan, took us first to Giza, famous [...]
Posted in 1995, Cairo, Egypt on August 14, 2007 | No Comments »
The traffic in Cairo was truly terrifying. The roads are clogged with all kinds of transport. Coaches and microbuses, taxis and private cars vie for every centimetre of tarmac with donkey-carts and bicycles. Every vehicle was so covered in dents and scratches that I was amazed the roads were not littered with accident victims as [...]
Posted in 1995, Egypt on August 13, 2007 | No Comments »
Next day my friends and I had decided to take one of the hotel’s city tours, it was an easy-option to get a feel for Cairo. We began the day at the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square, a vast ornate Victorian edifice, with galleries, high ceilings and dusty rooms full of wonderful treasures dating to [...]
Posted in 1995, Egypt, Nile Cruise on August 13, 2007 | No Comments »
Friday morning. A whole week had gone by and we had arrived at the last day on our cruise boat. By yesterday, three of my five friends and many more from our boat had come down with an attack of ’Pharaoh’s Revenge’ - a very unpleasant tummy bug which many people seem to suffer from [...]
Posted in 1995, Archaeology, Egypt, Nile Cruise on August 13, 2007 | No Comments »
Sometime during the night we docked at Edfu, though I didn’t know it until I woke next morning. After breakfast we sailed on towards Esna, arriving at 11.00am. The air was cold with mist and cloud covering the sun and Salah told me that Esna is considered the coldest place in Egypt because the agricultural [...]
Posted in 1995, Egypt, Nile Cruise on August 13, 2007 | No Comments »
After a short walk along the Corniche and lunch on the cruise boat we were once more steaming down the river, this time going north, back towards Kom Ombo. Another lazy afternoon watching the fascinating life on the river banks. Every now and then I saw groups of black-clad women at the water’s edge balancing [...]
Posted in 1995, Aswan, Egypt, Nile Cruise on August 12, 2007 | No Comments »
My sixth day began with another of those clear mornings when the air is very fresh, even though there had apparently been no rain for several years and all the trees and flowering plants along the Corniche were shrouded in a thick mantle of dust. A large felucca had been hired to take us sailing [...]
Su's detailed descriptions and photographs of Egyptian Monuments
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