My two weeks in Egypt. For those who give a sh*t.
Jul 20, 2010 16:56:32 GMT -5
Post by Prenten on Jul 20, 2010 16:56:32 GMT -5
So. Egypt. Where do I start? The horrible waiting at Pearson International Airport as Germany lost to Spain? Or the retardedly expensive food in Charles de Gaulle International. I think, I will spare you the painstaking drive to Toronto, the 9 hours of waiting in Airports, and just give you the details of my time IN Egypt....
So, we landed in Cairo, Egypt at 9:00PM local time. But guess what. I went and was a total dumb ass, and lost my $200 spectacles on the plane. Thank god they found them, after an hour of waiting. Anyways, we boarded our bus at 10:00PM. And we met the worlds BEST tour guide, Adel Hegazi, a Cairo native for 60 years. (This guy knew his sh*t. He'd been doing tours since he was 30) Anyways, he went through a little speech and cracked a joke that stuck in my head for the entire trip.
"Welcome to Egypt my friends. A country of ancient wonders. But now, we can see one of Egypt's modern wonders. Cairo traffic." I was too bloody tired to laugh at that point, but I smiled. Anyways, we got on the longest bridge in Cairo, heading for Giza. And let me say this. Adel was right. Traffic there is a wonder. And a nightmare. So, lets put it into perspective. For you Americans, take New York City traffic, and times it by 5. For you Canadians, take Toronto traffic and time it by TWENTY. Yes, that's right. Twenty. So, by the time we crossed the bridge, through Cairo, across the Nile, and into the city of Giza, it was 1:00AM. Yeah. We spent three hours trying to cross a city that was only 453 square kilometers. So, we reached our hotel. Or the closest our bus could get to our hotel. Then, we pulled over, got our luggage and trekked to the King Hotel. Let's just save you the unpleasantness and this: the King Hotel is the shittiest shithole ever. And excuse the cussing, but really, that is the only way you can describe a hotel that is a HALF star hotel. I mean, honestly. When a sink literally falls off the wall, you know there is something wrong. Well, we went to bed and got up the next morning. At 6:00AM. Five hours of sleep. Oh well. So, we hauled ass to the National Museum of Cairo. Okay. Great place. Amazing artifacts. But damn! They need central air! That place was hotter than hell. So, we spent, about 6 hours in there. Then, we dragged our sweaty, exhausted bodies out and back to the bus, where we enjoyed a cool ride to our lunch area, right near the pyramids. That was cool to see, the pyramids emerging out of the Giza smog. Gross, but very amazing. We ate lunch, hopped into our bus and drove to the Great Pyramid of Giza. Created by Khufu, or Cheops in Greek, it was astounding. 6000 years of history in it. So, we bought the tickets and went INTO the pyramid. And got all the way to...halfway up. Into the burial chamber. Oh god. That was thee most terrifying experience ever. The drop from halfway up, back to the entrance was.. huge. Anyways, I made it. Then I scrambled back down to the bus, and went to the second largest pyramid, of Khafre. And I climbed down inside that one too. That was cool. Not quite as scary, but still. I clambered back down to the entrance, and got onto the bus, and went to a place to view the three pyramids. Very cool. Anyways, we went to see the Sphinx. That was really cool too. And the nose was really missing! We didn't spend too much time there. After that, we went back to the *Shudders* King Hotel. Then, we got up early and climbed onto another plane to Luxor. Ick. Flying. But it was short, and we landed, checking out a couple temples and then we saw the creme-de-la-creme of Luxor. The Valley of Kings. We saw a whole bunch of tombs, Adel explained some history and as a bonus, my mother (who brought me) got busted for breaking a rule. Dumbass got caught taking pictures of the tombs. Poor Adel had to pay off the security guard to not take her phone. But we got it back, some people went to see King Tut's mummy. (We saw his treasure, which was more exciting than a mummy, they didn't even know was actually his) And we boarded our bus, and headed to the M/S Nile Jewel, to sail along the Nile River, south, to Kom Obo and Edfu. After a good two days of sailing, we docked in Edfu & Kom Obo. (With a couple temples in between. Those had a lot of history, but they were little boring.) At Edfu/ Kom Obo, and checked out a couple of temples, (one of which had a 6000 year old recipe for Viagra) and then we ventured to Queen Hatsheput temple. Very cool. We clambered back onto our ship for the last day of sailing, and experienced a very cool Nubian performance. (Nubian's being Egypt's African sect.) Then, we sailed to Aswan and dis-embarked into the amazing city of Aswan. We went to the Aswan Dam, experienced a Nubian village, climbed a massive sand dune (Although I only made it 3/4ths of the way up, before being forced down by the possibility of death) with Karen, making it to the top and winning two cool prizes, one of which should have been mine.. *Hacking cough* Then, we went a few feet back, and swam in one of the very few crystal clear areas of the Nile. (The rest being like Cairo, piled with 6 foot garbage heaps on each bank) We were there for about an hour, before I was attacked by an enraged fish. It was my own fault really. I came to close to a rock ledge, which was obviously it's home. So, we got out, before anybody was lucky enough to be attacked and boated back to our ship, where we spent one final night. The next day, we awoke and checked out of our ship, and flew to Abu Simbel, to see the twin temples of Ramses II and his wife Nefertari. Then we flew back, and boarded the Night Train. Which was old. Very old. And I assumed it couldn't be that bad. Oh, I was wrong. So very wrong. The food was... toxic. The attendants, rude. The train. So goddamn loud! I got four hours of sleep that night. I was quite irritable when we got off in Cairo. Anyways, we boarded a bus and went to Memphis, and Sakkara. Sakkara being the location of the worlds first pyramid, the Step Pyramid of Zoser. That was definitely cool. But then we ventured back to our wonderful, wonderful King Hotel in Giza, and suffe....slept there for one more night. That morning, we boarded our bus to Alexandria. That city was very cool. We saw a whole bunch of stuff there. The Roman-Greek theater, the Catacombs, the Pompey Pillar and the Montaza Gardens of King Faruk. Then we went to our utterly amazing resort/hotel. It was like... 8 stars.
Then we feel asleep. After eating like kings. And celebrating my birthday. We woke up, boarded our bus, did some sight seeing, and saw the most disgusting thing in Egypt. The Mediterranean Sea. I will have a picture later. So we literally sprinted back to our bus, to escape the encroaching garbage heaps and drove back to our hotel. We spent one more day there, drove back to the shi...King Hotel, suffered one more day there and then flew home. So here, I am. It was a lot of fun, but a definite eye opener.
So, we landed in Cairo, Egypt at 9:00PM local time. But guess what. I went and was a total dumb ass, and lost my $200 spectacles on the plane. Thank god they found them, after an hour of waiting. Anyways, we boarded our bus at 10:00PM. And we met the worlds BEST tour guide, Adel Hegazi, a Cairo native for 60 years. (This guy knew his sh*t. He'd been doing tours since he was 30) Anyways, he went through a little speech and cracked a joke that stuck in my head for the entire trip.
"Welcome to Egypt my friends. A country of ancient wonders. But now, we can see one of Egypt's modern wonders. Cairo traffic." I was too bloody tired to laugh at that point, but I smiled. Anyways, we got on the longest bridge in Cairo, heading for Giza. And let me say this. Adel was right. Traffic there is a wonder. And a nightmare. So, lets put it into perspective. For you Americans, take New York City traffic, and times it by 5. For you Canadians, take Toronto traffic and time it by TWENTY. Yes, that's right. Twenty. So, by the time we crossed the bridge, through Cairo, across the Nile, and into the city of Giza, it was 1:00AM. Yeah. We spent three hours trying to cross a city that was only 453 square kilometers. So, we reached our hotel. Or the closest our bus could get to our hotel. Then, we pulled over, got our luggage and trekked to the King Hotel. Let's just save you the unpleasantness and this: the King Hotel is the shittiest shithole ever. And excuse the cussing, but really, that is the only way you can describe a hotel that is a HALF star hotel. I mean, honestly. When a sink literally falls off the wall, you know there is something wrong. Well, we went to bed and got up the next morning. At 6:00AM. Five hours of sleep. Oh well. So, we hauled ass to the National Museum of Cairo. Okay. Great place. Amazing artifacts. But damn! They need central air! That place was hotter than hell. So, we spent, about 6 hours in there. Then, we dragged our sweaty, exhausted bodies out and back to the bus, where we enjoyed a cool ride to our lunch area, right near the pyramids. That was cool to see, the pyramids emerging out of the Giza smog. Gross, but very amazing. We ate lunch, hopped into our bus and drove to the Great Pyramid of Giza. Created by Khufu, or Cheops in Greek, it was astounding. 6000 years of history in it. So, we bought the tickets and went INTO the pyramid. And got all the way to...halfway up. Into the burial chamber. Oh god. That was thee most terrifying experience ever. The drop from halfway up, back to the entrance was.. huge. Anyways, I made it. Then I scrambled back down to the bus, and went to the second largest pyramid, of Khafre. And I climbed down inside that one too. That was cool. Not quite as scary, but still. I clambered back down to the entrance, and got onto the bus, and went to a place to view the three pyramids. Very cool. Anyways, we went to see the Sphinx. That was really cool too. And the nose was really missing! We didn't spend too much time there. After that, we went back to the *Shudders* King Hotel. Then, we got up early and climbed onto another plane to Luxor. Ick. Flying. But it was short, and we landed, checking out a couple temples and then we saw the creme-de-la-creme of Luxor. The Valley of Kings. We saw a whole bunch of tombs, Adel explained some history and as a bonus, my mother (who brought me) got busted for breaking a rule. Dumbass got caught taking pictures of the tombs. Poor Adel had to pay off the security guard to not take her phone. But we got it back, some people went to see King Tut's mummy. (We saw his treasure, which was more exciting than a mummy, they didn't even know was actually his) And we boarded our bus, and headed to the M/S Nile Jewel, to sail along the Nile River, south, to Kom Obo and Edfu. After a good two days of sailing, we docked in Edfu & Kom Obo. (With a couple temples in between. Those had a lot of history, but they were little boring.) At Edfu/ Kom Obo, and checked out a couple of temples, (one of which had a 6000 year old recipe for Viagra) and then we ventured to Queen Hatsheput temple. Very cool. We clambered back onto our ship for the last day of sailing, and experienced a very cool Nubian performance. (Nubian's being Egypt's African sect.) Then, we sailed to Aswan and dis-embarked into the amazing city of Aswan. We went to the Aswan Dam, experienced a Nubian village, climbed a massive sand dune (Although I only made it 3/4ths of the way up, before being forced down by the possibility of death) with Karen, making it to the top and winning two cool prizes, one of which should have been mine.. *Hacking cough* Then, we went a few feet back, and swam in one of the very few crystal clear areas of the Nile. (The rest being like Cairo, piled with 6 foot garbage heaps on each bank) We were there for about an hour, before I was attacked by an enraged fish. It was my own fault really. I came to close to a rock ledge, which was obviously it's home. So, we got out, before anybody was lucky enough to be attacked and boated back to our ship, where we spent one final night. The next day, we awoke and checked out of our ship, and flew to Abu Simbel, to see the twin temples of Ramses II and his wife Nefertari. Then we flew back, and boarded the Night Train. Which was old. Very old. And I assumed it couldn't be that bad. Oh, I was wrong. So very wrong. The food was... toxic. The attendants, rude. The train. So goddamn loud! I got four hours of sleep that night. I was quite irritable when we got off in Cairo. Anyways, we boarded a bus and went to Memphis, and Sakkara. Sakkara being the location of the worlds first pyramid, the Step Pyramid of Zoser. That was definitely cool. But then we ventured back to our wonderful, wonderful King Hotel in Giza, and suffe....slept there for one more night. That morning, we boarded our bus to Alexandria. That city was very cool. We saw a whole bunch of stuff there. The Roman-Greek theater, the Catacombs, the Pompey Pillar and the Montaza Gardens of King Faruk. Then we went to our utterly amazing resort/hotel. It was like... 8 stars.
Then we feel asleep. After eating like kings. And celebrating my birthday. We woke up, boarded our bus, did some sight seeing, and saw the most disgusting thing in Egypt. The Mediterranean Sea. I will have a picture later. So we literally sprinted back to our bus, to escape the encroaching garbage heaps and drove back to our hotel. We spent one more day there, drove back to the shi...King Hotel, suffered one more day there and then flew home. So here, I am. It was a lot of fun, but a definite eye opener.
Why did you all go to Egypt in the first place?
