Egypt, as you probably know from elementary school, is dominated by the Nile. This means that there is an even more than normally well-developed tourist trail. There are just only so many places you could go, and most of them are somewhere along the Nile. So we left Cairo and went down to Aswan, which is about as far south as you can get.

Cairo Recap

Val gave a pretty basic recap of Cairo, but it’s such an interesting place it requires a little more. I’ll just highlight my favorite parts.

The traffic in Cairo is insane. There are very few rules. No rules even. And what’s bad for pedestrians is that there are no crosswalks. There are one or two in the downtown area, but cars don’t stop even when you have the right of way. This makes crossing the street tricky in some places. And it’s not like you can just avoid the busiest crossings. Unless you want to be held hostage by the traffic, stuck in one area of the city, you have to find a way across.

The easiest way to do it at first is to find some Egyptians about to cross the street and just stick to them like glue. This takes a leap of faith, because in order to cross the street without waiting twenty minutes for a miraculous break in the traffic, you have to do things that most of us are taught from a young age to never, ever do. Like step into oncoming traffic. Crossing is kind of like frogger. You rarely get a clean shot all the way across the five or six lanes; you must cross one lane at a time, waiting in between lanes for your next chance. It sounds crazy. It is crazy. Fortunately you get used to it, and it gets easier, but I can’t imagine doing it all the time.

Episode 5 does a pretty good job of showing the touristy stuff we did while we were in Cairo. Hanging out in Islamic Cairo was a lot of fun, something I didn’t get to do very much during my two previous visits to the city. Wandering around and finding hidden treasures among the old, dilapidated buildings is lots of fun and rewarding.

Aswan, Jewel of the Nile

Most people head south from Cairo, all the way down the Nile to Aswan. There’s an overnight train and it’s fairly cheap, taking about 14 hours. It’s here in this relatively calm (by Egyptian standards) city that the Nile is at its most picturesque and beautiful. There are only a few main streets, almost all of which run parallel to the Nile. The main drag is along the corniche, lined with floating restaurants and big Nile cruisers. Feluccas ply the waters, and everything is fairly relaxing.

The only annoying part about Aswan are all of the felucca touts, always trying to get you into one of their boats while you’re walking along the corniche. There’s an island in the middle of the Nile at Aswan called Elephantine Island. There is a temple complex there with ruins from every period of Egypt’s history, as well as lots of prehistoric finds. We took a ferry across and walked along the island, through a Nubian village, and did some exploring.

The main reason people come to Aswan though, except to sit by the Nile in a cafe and watch its placid waters, is to visit Abu Simbel. It’s a massive temple complex built by Ramses the II, a great warrior Pharaoh. Val’s pictures will do better justice than my description, but it’s a very impressive site. It was saved by UNESCO, because it would have been flooded under Lake Nasser as a result of the Aswan Dam. They actually cut the temple up and moved it to another location 9 kilometers away. The main attraction there are four colossal statues of Ramses the II that would have once looked out over the Nile as it flowed into Egypt from Sudan, a striking sign to all entering the Pharaoh’s lands that he was very powerful and mighty.

Observations of Modern Egypt

Traveling around Egypt is not always easy. The traffic is chaotic, touts and hustlers are everywhere. Being a foreigner usually means that most people interacting with you see you as walking dollar signs. Taxis aren’t run on meters, so when you get in you are just supposed to know how much it should cost. Since foreigners usually don’t, taxi drivers try to extract a ridiculous fare. If you don’t know any better, you pay it. Even if you do know better, they still sometimes act angry and start yelling, demanding more money. This is very annoying.

Then there is the backsheesh. It means tip in Arabic, and is a fundamental aspect of daily life in Egypt. Everyone gives backsheesh for opening doors, parking cars, finding things for you, getting something done. Tourists are huge targets for backsheesh at every tourist attraction. Tourist Police, armed with AK-47s, will try to show you something off the beaten track, then ask you for money. It’s tough to say no when they are holding a kalashnikov. Or there are just old men who hang around the tombs and temples, and will try to just start leading you on a tour, even though you don’t want one. And they are hardly Egyptologists; often they just point to the obvious. “Fish,” while pointing to an obvious hieroglyphic of a fish. “Bird” at a bird, etc. This happens in museums, temples, tombs. It can be very annoying trying to get them all to leave you alone.

And then there’s the issue of buying tickets at the train station. There is no line, only a window with one guy at it and anywhere between five and twenty Egyptians crowded around, trying to push money at him. When we try to buy tickets, obviously this makes it difficult. We like lines, order, organization. But if you wait for your turn you’ll be there forever. So you have to try to push in, and when it is obviously your turn, someone will just stick their hand in the window with money and start talking to the guy. We’ve been lucky and the guy at the counter usually recognizes that we’ve been waiting, but still, very frustrating.

When you finish dealing with it all, it’s hilarious, but at the time it can be irritating. A taxi driver will quote you at 20 Egyptian pounds, when you know a local would pay 3. Or when you buy water, they tell you five, and you have to bargain them down. It’s just all part of traveling in Egypt, but it’s worth it.

Next Stop, Luxor

Tomorrow morning we’re taking a train to Luxor. It’s brimming with artifacts, temples, and tombs from ancient Egypt. There’s actually too much stuff there - if you saw it all, you’d suffer an information overload. But it’s most famous for the Valley of the Kings and Queens and a few temples, like Karnak, Luxor, and the Temple of Hatsepshut. So we’ll see the big sights and then move on to the desert portion of our travels.