An acquaintance and I decided to book a guided tour to Egypt. I've never used a tour agency before, as I generally prefer to go it on my own or with friends. That way we can explore off the beaten path and see things that a tour doesn't include. Of course I want to see the touristy things, but I also want to find street food vendors that serve questionable dishes. For Egypt, however, the things that I would want to see are so spread apart from each other (Cairo and Aswan would require either an additional flight between them or a 14 hour drive) and what I had read about Egypt gave me the impression that it would be difficult to navigate on my own for a few reasons. Also, the tour package we used was clearly much more cost-effective than anything that I would have been able to arrange on my own.
The great part was that it was inexpensive for what we were getting. The not-so-great part was that I was visiting Egypt in the middle of the summer. I am from the Nordic Wastes of Massachusetts, USA, and was going to enter the Scorched Lands of Egyptian Summer.
I teach high school maths, including geometry, for a living. This involves teaching 10th graders how to determine volumes and surface areas of things like prisms, cylinders, cones, and pyramids. Apparently Egypt is pretty well known for some geometric structures, and in Giza I got to see three structures that looked very much like some of the models that I use in the classroom. These ones, however, were a little bit bigger than my models, and struck me as impractical for use in a geometry class. We also got to see a big statue of a lion with a human head, or maybe it was a human with a lion's body.
They pyramids and sphinx at Giza were, of course, awesome.
Our tour group consisted of me, my travel partner, and a British family consisting of a couple and their 4 children (all in their late teens). Of the 8 of us, I was the only one who wanted to enter the Pyramid of Khufu. Turns out that the British couple had both been to Egypt several times before, so they had been there done that. I had been warned that it would be hot and stuffy inside, but how could I visit Egypt and not enter a pyramid? So yes, it was hot and stuffy inside, and there was quite a line of people going in and out of a cramped tunnel that led to the King's Chamber. The entrance into the chamber was a square opening that seemed to be a little over 1 meter square. After a quick look around the King's Chamber, I then turned back to exit the pyramid. The temperature outside was about 98F/37C, and it felt wonderfully cool after being inside the pyramid. After the pyramids and sphinx, we were shuttled to Cairo to visit the Egyptian Museum, where we spent most of that day. Tons of sarcophogi, mummified remains, and various other artifacts that had not been taken to the British Museum. This included some of the artifacts from Tutenkhamen's tomb, and the sarcophagus of Akhenaten. Akhenaten's face was defaced and his cartouche was destroyed - the ultimate post-mortem "screw you."
After returning to the hotel, I decided to go for a walk to explore on my own. Seeing me preparing to cross a busy road, a kind Egyptian man approached and explained to me the correct method of crossing the streets; he held my hand and instructed me to move when he does. Crossing the streets in Cairo and Giza is taking your life in your own hands. Traffic lanes and signs have no meaning. We crossed the street the same way you would in Frogger, running in spurts and occasionally standing between two cars as they pass to either side of you until you reach the other side of the road. I expected him to request baksheesh, but after crossing he promptly turned around and went back. On the return trip, I got to apply my newly learned skills on my own, and I survived.
That was the first two days of a week in Egypt.
The rest of the trip involved visiting sites including The Valley of Kings, the ancient city of Thebes, the Colossi of Memnon, Horus’s temple of Edfu, and several other temples. There were also a few days of cruising along the Nile, stopping daily to disembark and explore temples and other sites. We traveled to the temple of Isis at the Isle of Philae by felucca boat. The temple of Rameses at Abu Simbel was amazing; seeing the statues in pictures is one thing, but looking up at them in person is just awesome. If hieroglyphs were to be believed, Ramses II was responsible for everything Egypt. You see, if something was accredited to a prior pharaoh, Ramses had that pharoah's name defaced and his own name superimposed over it. He took credit for everything, even things that occurred before he was born. The British man with us, Steve, referred to Ramses II as the ancient Egyptian version of Trump.
After returning to Cairo near the end of the trip, we visited the citadel of Saladin and the Blue Mosque.
On the second to last day, I went exploring to try to find something like street food. I did find a roadside hole-in-the-wall restaurant. It was yummy, and as the man working there spoke some English, we hung out talking for about an hour.
At the temple of Hatshepsut, I asked Steve to film me bear crawling backwards up the ramp ascending the temple so that I could show it off to my kung fu brothers back home. This attracted a lot of attention from onlookers; fortunately, I am an attention whore. Everyone else returned to the bus before I did as I wanted to explore more. When I did return to the bus, my travel partner informed me that the family was very impressed with the bear crawl and had dubbed me "Kung fu Korric." It was one of those moments in which I looked way more badass than I really am.
For most of trip the temperatures were around 102F/38C, which wasn't nearly as uncomfortable as I thought it would be. One excursion mid-trip that was less grand, but really enjoyable to me, was when we were driven a couple of hours through a barren desert that was reminiscent of Tatooine. Along the way, we stopped by a coffee shop that was in the middle of nowhere, and it was just really cool being at this rest area in the middle of nowhere.
A notable thing in Egypt is baksheesh. Tipping is extremely common in Egypt. Whenever anything is done for you, a tip is expected. This is baksheesh. If an Egyptian offers to take a picture for you and you accept, baksheesh is expected and requested. Haggling is a big part of shopping in Egypt. After I purchased some things from one merchant, that merchant asked if he could take a picture of him with me. He took the picture, and I then jokingly said, "Baksheesh?" He laughed and gave me a one Egyptian pound coin (this was the equivalent of about 4 cents USD).
The flight back to North America was over 10 hours. I had never watched The Last of Us. I played both of the games, which were amazing, so I spent the 10 hour flight watching the entire season of the show.
