I will dedicate this post to the cruise, and then continue from there because it was quite a trip.
The Nile cruise started off in a typical Egyptian fashion. Our flight from Cairo to Luxor was at 5:20AM, but because there were students from both campuses going, they scheduled a bus leaving from Zamalek (my campus) at 2:00AM. The bus went to New Campus to pick up the students there and then continued onto the airport, which is, in a way (a very liberal way) on the way to the airport. Needless to say, transportation took longer than expected and the 60-70 of us arrived to the airport around 4:45AM. We had missed our boarding time, needed to be "checked in as a group" (which I think is something that only occurs in Egyptian airports) and then minimally if at all scanned at security before we boarded our flights. (I was on the 5:20AM flight. There was another flight at 5:25AM and another at 6:45AM. Although all the planes were large, it was apparently not possible to book all of us on the same flight). Of course, I was on the flight that lost power immediately before take-off. Thank goodness I was seated in the back of the plane and did not, when this happened, witness the pilot run from the cock-pit wildly waving his arms in a "what is going on" manner. Power eventually came back on and an announcement was made that there was a problem loading baggage, so we would be delayed. Because I was so tired (we decided it wasn't worth sleeping before leaving at 2:00AM), I just took this to be the truth. The rest of the 40 minute flight was fine and we were in Luxor (after the 5:25AM flight had landed ahead of us) about a half hour before the 6:45AM flight landed. When it did, we were taken by bus to our cruise ship, the MS Miss World. This is where Day One really started to get interesting.
We were seated in a lounge on the ship for about an hour. Most of us wanted to either eat or sleep, or some combination of the two and we were waiting for instructions about how to do this when we were informed at around 9:15AM that we were beginning our tour of Luxor at 9:30AM. With our guide, Muhammad English-speaking tour guide #1 (as he introduced himself) we toured the Tombs of Ramses IV, VII, and IX, the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut (the only female pharaoh), a local market, and the Statues of Mennon. All were interesting, particularly the Temple, but being outside in 100+ degree desert heat having not eaten, drank, or slept was probably not the greatest planning. In any case, we arrived back to the ship at 3:30PM, had a nice buffet lunch, spent some time sleeping on deck by the on-board pool, and then had dinner at 8:00PM.
We were docked all night, and left from Luxor the next afternoon. From Luxor we sailed to Kom Ombo, where we toured temples the next day. From there, we sailed to Esna, where we passed a lock. That was very interesting actually. We then went onto Edfu, where we again toured temples. Upon arriving in Edfu, we went into the town for a bit because it was Eid El-Fitr (or the holiday at the end of Ramadan). There were huge parties in the streets, and it was an interesting sight. It definitely was different than Cairo though. There were not any women in the streets and there were comments made by the men that would not have been made in Cairo, especially not Zamalek. It actually made me appreciate how advanced Cairo is in that respect. After touring Edfu, we sailed to Aswan. We spent the next morning touring a temple, which was on a small island, so we had to take a boat to it, and then visiting the High Dam, which was huge and also interesting.
For our flight home, we made it to the airport with a little more time to spare. Unfortunately, the hour flight from Aswan was a bit more nerve-wrecking because I was seated in the emergency exit row next to the boy from the cruise who had been hospitalized earlier that morning with food poisoning. All thing considered, I was very glad when the plane touched down in Cairo, though I experienced first hand the truth to the statement, "flying is safer than driving" when our cab from the airport got into an accident-not a big one, there was no stopping or exchanging of information-but there was definite contact between the cars, which is more rare than one would think considering the traffic and traffic patterns, or lack there-of, in Cairo.
In an case, we made it back to the dormitory. We had about 6 hours to unpack and re-pack for our next trip. So we threw in some laundry and ran some errands before boarding a bus at midnight for Dahab, a coastal city in the Sinai. If all went according to plan, we should have been in Dahab by the next morning, the morning of September 23, and so would begin our ten day tour of the Middle East, which I will write about in great detail in the next few entries. (As you read these entries, it might be helpful to keep in mind that, despite what I am describing, I am now safe and sound back in Cairo)!
No comments:
Post a Comment