Egypt Trip 2008

I had sent this email out when I returned from our trip to Egypt, but for those who didn't hear how fabulous the trip was, ENJOY! :)

So our trip to EGYPT was absolutely incredible! We were gone for 10 days and got to see all the major highlights from both ancient Egyptian and modern Egyptian societies! We started off at the Pyramids at Giza (the only remaining Ancient Wonder) - which was pretty awesome in itself because the city of Cairo/Giza is pretty big. So we had to drive about 10 minutes from our hotel through a very dense (and very dirty!) city. Then all of a sudden, the city-line just ENDS, and in front of you are massive 5,000 year old pyramids! It was pretty amazing to see! We spent a few hours there and even got to enter one of the pyramids (the middle one - because the main tomb is not in that great condition) to see what it was like inside! I felt sorry for the guys traveling with us because if they were any taller than ME they pretty much had to CRAWL through some of those hallways in the pyramid! But it was definitely worth it! Nothing was really inside other than an empty stone sarcophagus - tomb robbers got there long before we did and robbed the pyramid of it's riches. We got to take panoramic shots of the pyramids after exploring them up close which was also nice because we were surrounded on all sides by a huge city, and then right in the centre of all of that were these ancient structures - very cool! Getting to know the Sphinx up close and personal was next - as you can see from the pictures, I felt a little threatened by the sheer size of it! haha! It was definitely a great experience to see it up close as opposed to all those textbooks I teach from! Haha!

Our next stop was the ancient city of Alexandria – north of Cairo on the Mediterranean it is named after Alexander the Great (from Greece) who came in and conquered towards the end of Ancient Egypt’s Pharonic era. The city has a very different feeling from the other Egyptian cities that we visited – the buildings are distinctly different as they look more Greek than Egyptian. And the city itself is much cleaner than Cairo. One of the stops we made there was at the Citadel of Qaitbay – built where the Lighthouse of Alexandria (another Ancient Wonder – but obviously not still there) is thought to have been located. The citadel was really cool – like a mini-castle! Naturally, we spent quite a bit of time exploring it! We also stopped at some old mansions and bridges along the Mediterranean (I hadn’t been back to the "Med" since our trip to Greece!).

Our trip through Old Cairo was probably one of the most memorable stops for me – we went to the Egyptian Museum and saw all the treasures that had been found in King Tut Ankh Amun’s tomb when it was discovered in the 1920’s. When we got up to his display, the first thing we saw was the giant golden sarcophagus. This enormous box was over 9 feet tall and 11 feet wide and held 3 smaller sarcophagi as well as 3 coffins and King Tut’s mummy inside! The display was enormous and the amount of detailing that the ancient Egyptian’s put into their work was incredible – the entire outer and inner walls of the sarcophagi were completely covered with etchings – hieroglyphics, pictures of the pharaoh, spells… it was amazing to see. And then at the end of that hallway, in it’s own separate room surrounded by a heap of security, housed King Tut’s solid gold coffin and his Golden Funeral Death Mask!! That was probably the coolest moment of my life, standing there staring up at this solid gold mask that covered his entire head – again I was stunned by the detail that was placed on it. It’s definitely mind-numbing to have studied it and taught it, showing pictures of it from books and the internet, and then to be able to stand in front of it and see it for yourself… it was just incredible. I was speechless. And yes, I totally went into King Tut’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings (the only one of the group to do this because it cost extra). It was a lot smaller than some of the other tombs that we explored, but his mummy is on display there, so I just HAD to go! And really, what kind of history teacher would I be if I said I went to Egypt and DIDN’T go into King Tut’s tomb???

We also went to see the Hanging Church – an old Christian church that is built upon the foundations of an older church – thus it “hangs” about 11 feet off the ground above this old church. The inside looks very different from any church I’d seen before and was beautiful in its decoration. It was dedicated to the Virgin Mary and is thought to be along the journey that the holy family is said to have traveled after the crucifixion. From there we saw a Jewish synagogue – actually a part of the Hanging Church that was sold off because they couldn’t afford the taxes! – and the Islamic Mosque of Mohammed Ali which is said to have been designed by the same man who did the Blue Mosque in Istanbul – definitely looked very similar on the inside of the Mosque. Our tour guide gave us a mini lesson about the history of these three religions living in “harmony” among Egyptians over the years which was really interesting. There seems to be a lot more tolerance for differing religions there than there is in Istanbul!

Our Nile Cruise was really nice – and the weather was nice and sunny and HOT! We stopped in Aswan and north in Luxor along the way to visit some temples there (the Philae, Kom Ombo, Luxor, Edfu and the Karnak Temples). It’s amazing to see these still standing for the most part! Some of them have been reconstructed due to problems with erosion and vandalism done to these structures by various religious groups. Sadly, many of the “vandals” were Christians who came into Egypt and declared these ancient relics as “heretic” and destroyed many of the engravings. In the Luxor Temple photo you can actually SEE where the Christians had covered up the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and put their own religious depictions on the walls of the temple. It was definitely interesting to see how many different changes had taken place over the ages. Another example we saw was at the Luxor temple again – where the Islamic mosque was build overtop the ancient temple, without the architects ever knowing what lay beneath them! As the temple was mostly covered up by sand, they only discovered it while doing construction in the mosque above! The mosque is still in use, but the entrance has been changed so that it does not do any further damage to the ancient temple!

The culture in Egypt is both similar and different to that of Turkey. For example, we have to tip EVEYRONE in Egypt – you can’t even let a local take a picture of you or be IN your photos because they’ll ask for a tip! And they’re a bit pushier than Turks in the markets! But they sure know how to flatter! One man told Morgan that there “weren’t enough camels in the world” to equal my worth! Just in case he was thinking of trading me for some! Haha! The funny part is we were told not even to JOKE about that with the locals because apparently some people have made “deals” like that and they were expected by the locals to follow through! Lucky for me, no one could meet our demand for enough camels for the members of our group – “9 CAMELS???” *insert local shaking his head here* haha! And one thing that we found really interesting was the lack of complete buildings in the city – most of the buildings still have rebar sticking out the top of them and have staircases that lead up to nowhere – there aren’t any ROOFS on them! Our guide said this was because it makes it cheaper for people to rent them, but at the same time, it adds to the impression that the city is “dirty.” It’s odd…

Anyway, I’ve bored you enough with my rambling – long story short, the trip was AMAZING!! Definitely one of the best ones I’ve been on so far! I’ve only attached a FEW of the good photos from the trip… with our fancy new camera we took about 900 pictures - so these are just the highlights! I bought a bunch of souvenirs – statues and papyrus paintings – teaching resources and all that! Can’t wait until I actually get to TEACH ancient history again! (Too bad I didn’t have all this back in Feb when I was teaching Ancient Egypt at Gonzaga!) My goal is to one day take ancient Greek and Roman historical trips much like this Egyptian one!