Egypt - Culture and Lifestyle

In between all the visits to temples, tombs and other ancient sites, we were taken to various businesses that are synonymous with Egyptian culture and were able to experience some basic Egyptian traditions and basic lifestyles.

Alabaster – a calcium carbonate stone that has been valued for centuries for its beauty and versatility, particularly in sculpture, architecture and funerary objects.  Too heavy to carry around with us over the next 2 months but definitely makes a lovely piece of homeware.

Jewellery – huge amount of gold and silver jewelry on sale everywhere and everyone wants you to buy it!  Rosie managed to get a couple of pairs of sterling silver earrings after a bit of bargaining.

Papyrus – versatile material made from the pith of the Cyperus papyrus plant, used for writing, and everyday objects.  It was crucial for recording history, literature and religious texts.

Perfume and oils – in other words aromatherapy which has been used for thousands of years during ancient Egyptian civilization.  We were treated to many examples of different oils, their smells and healing powers.  It was hard to know which ones to get with all our aches and pains!

Herbs and Spices – every known herb, spice, seed and variations of tea grown in Egypt was introduced to us and their benefits explained.  Apparently if they have an ailment, they don’t go to the doctor, they use some concoction of locally grown herb, spice or tea.

Other things that we have noticed in our couple of weeks in Egypt…

Roads and Driving – I have already mentioned the craziness of the drivers and the little regard for any road rules.  There are no stop or give way signs.  There is the occasional traffic light but no pedestrian crossings.  If you want to cross the road, you just walk out and casually walk across to the other side of the road with an arrogance of  ‘I dare you to run me over!’  In saying that, we didn’t see any crashes or people getting run over.

Transportation – if you don’t want to navigate the crazy driving either in a car or on a motorbike, there is a metro system in Cairo that a huge amount of people use (we didn’t), taxis, Uber, Didi etc, some rickety public bus and/or tram plus a cheap shuttle van service.  If you want to use this, just stand on the side of the road and hail it down as there are no bus or taxi stands/signs.  There will only be about 20 people in the 12 seater van! 

Housing – when we first arrived in Cairo, we thought that there were a lot of unfinished houses.  We were right, they are unfinished, but it is on purpose.  A family would buy a house and as the family grew, they would build on top to accommodate extended families so it would be like a floor each for individual families. Eg: mum and dad on the bottom, next floor their son and his family, next floor the next son and his family etc etc.

Food – we have tried all sorts of local cuisine.  There is a huge variety of types of bread, and they have that with all their meals along with Baba ghanoush (like hummus but made out of eggplant) and tahini. A lot of seafood with the most delicious piece of sea bass from the Red Sea, eaten in Cairo.  There is a lot of grilled meat served in a variety of ways eg: sizzling koftas.

The most delicious meat dish was kebab halal, slow cooked lamb in an onion gravy served in a clay pot. Pastries for dessert along with plenty of fresh fruit, especially mango, guava, strawberry and watermelon.  These fruits can also be freshly squeezed into a delicious drink.

Religion – predominantly Muslim, with Islam as the state religion.  There are mosques everywhere and at prayer time, you will hear the wail over very loudspeakers giving them time to get to the mosque to pray.

Hasslers – are everywhere, all ages.  Every tourist spot will have local people trying to sell you their merchandise, but we had word that it isn’t very good quality ie:  Temu most likely!  As much as we wanted to support their local economy, no room in the suitcase for unnecessary knickknacks!  They even tried to capture our attention whilst the cruise ship was passing through the lock on the River Nile.  It was a part of our trip that we didn’t enjoy, constantly being hassled to buy their cheap products. Rosie did manage to negotiate a good price for some bracelets.

Tipping – a huge part of Egyptian culture.  Part of our tour package included a tipping kitty that the tour guide would give to them, so we didn’t have to worry about finding smaller notes to dish out.  We were pleased it was done this way as we were not used to the tipping way, nor how much to give them.  We had it explained to us that it is the money from tipping that supplements their low wage and makes the cost of living more comfortable.  Just like in New Zealand, the cost of living has affected Egypt as well.

Weather - I don’t think we saw a cloud in the sky.  Just blue sky the whole time and hot temperatures that ranged from 28 to 48 degrees the more we travelled into the desert.  I think the best way to describe the heat is me being roasted in the oven on fanbake.  The wind really picked up in Aswan so imagine being in an oven, the heat been blown around, that’s what it was like.  You definitely needed sunglasses on as you could feel your eyeballs shriveling up!

Hospitality – the Egyptians couldn’t do enough for us.  No matter where we went the service was 10/10 but was at a cost with the tipping which was worth not having to carry our heavy bags!

Security – we are quite early in the trip, but I have now lost count of how many metal detectors I have been in.  Every temple and every hotel has one along with the bomb detection dog that checks out all the vehicles that enter onto hotel properties.  There is police, with guns, everywhere as the Egyptians are very conscious of keeping tourists safe in today’s climate.

Egypt, we can now tick you off.  Definitely a country worth visiting due to its ancient history and unique culture which we learnt a lot thanks to our awesome tour guide, Ahmed, who had an extensive knowledge of Egyptology.

Egypt - Cruise on the River Nile

One of the must dos of our mammoth trip was to take a cruise on the River Nile.  Fortunately, our Egyptian tour package included that.  Leaving from Luxor we sailed for a couple of days at a leisurely pace towards Aswan, in the south of Egypt.  We docked a couple of times at Esna, Edfu and Kom Ombo before the final destination.

As it is quiet season for tourism in Egypt there are only 7-10 other people on the boat, so it actually feels like we have a super yacht to ourselves, and we believe there are more staff on board than guests!  We are getting special treatment, sometimes it is over the top and then other times we can’t find anyone!

We frequently made visits to the pool mainly to cool down as the temperature has reached the high 40s at some parts of the day.  The further south we travelled, the hotter it gets, and you can see from the clip, the locals like to go cruising on the Nile as well.

We have also been fed very well.  For each meal breakfast, lunch and dinner, there are about 5 courses.  If Rosie and Grant aren’t careful, they will end up being as round as I am!

Guess what we looked at whilst we were docked?  You guessed it, temples.  The thing is that they are quite varied, and all have a different story.  The Kom Ombo one is divided into two parts – one dedicated to Sobek (who had a crocodile head) and one to Horus the Elder (falcon).  Depending on what you believed in would be what entrance you would use.

Another key feature of this temple is the Crocodile Museum where there were several mummified crocodiles, all in remembrance of the God Sobek.

We made the decision to make the 3 hour trek through the desert (in an air conditioned van) to where we saw where the greatest operation to salvage the Abu Simbel temples took place.  These two temples were threatened with being permanently submerged after the rising waters of Lake Nasser in 1960.  After many years of painstaking manual work, the Abu Simbel temples were officially reopened in 1968.  Wow, those monuments are remarkable of Rameses II.

The last temple of our Egyptian tour was of another one that was saved from being submerged in water when they made the Aswan Dam.  Philae Temple is one dedicated to Isis, one of the most significant figures of ancient Egyptian religion.  Based on the Island of Philae, there are many chambers, most of them decorated during the reign of Ptolemy II, whose name is the earliest attested with this temple.  There is also quite a Graeco-Roman flavour about the architecture, and you can see some Christianity symbols featuring on the walls.

And so ends our Egyptian tour bar the 13 hour, overnight train ride back to Cairo which is where I am writing this current blog.   The tour guide asked us what we liked and disliked about Egyptian culture.  Will share our answers in the next post.

Egypt - Temples and Tombs

It was great getting a more in-depth insight into Egyptology before venturing further afield to Luxor where there are many temples and other historical sites to visit.

One of the more adventurous forms of transportation would be the overnight train from Cairo to Luxor.  

In a cabin about 1.5m x 1.5m all three of us, plus suitcases fitted in for the night.  Poor
Grant, it just wasn’t long enough for him to stretch out!

We arrived in Luxor (built of the site of the ancient Egyptian city of Thebes) early in the morning then travelled about 1 ½ hours to the Temple of Hathor in Dendera, through some desert roads.  When I say desert roads, it was quite a new motorway!

On this site a few temples have been built on top of each other with the current one built 54 BC.  In there are 24 columns and the ceiling depicts many astronomical scenes and celestial constellations on both sides of the axis.  There are also six worship rooms.  The hieroglyphics on the walls were amazing to look at and with the help of our tour guide, we were able to understand some of the stories they tell.

Later that evening, we were taken to the Luxor Temple and what a magnificent sight at night.  It is one of the best preserved and links to the Karnak Temple by a 3km avenue of sphinxes, with the last 500m still under excavation.  Amenhotep III started building the Luxor Temple 1390-1352BC, finished by Ramesses II, which is why he features a lot, and several other notable kings and queens helped with the design and building of the sphinx avenue.

The Karnak Temple, east bank of River Nile north of Luxor, is the largest manmade temple in the world and represents the combined achievement of many generations of ancient builders, Rameses II and Rameses III to name a couple. There are a remarkable columns, some of them destroyed over the years, but the highlight for us was Queen Hatshepsut’s tallest and heaviest obelisk which was made in Aswan.  How on earth did they a) make it so smooth out of one piece of stone; b) transport it the 300km to Luxor and c) erect it?  See below for some more info on this remarkable woman!

The Valley of the Kings was an incredible place to visit.  We arrived early in the morning (to escape the heat) to see three separate tombs – Rameses IV, Merenptah and Rameses III but you can see from the map that there are many other tombs that have been discovered, and they are still finding more every day.  Instead of building pyramids for the tombs they realized it was better to go underground, which reduced the risk of their tombs being robbed.

We didn’t go into the tomb of Tutankhamen, as we saw most of his treasures at the museum, but the reason why it didn’t get discovered until 1922 was because it was underneath Rameses VI’s tomb.

It was then on to see the awe-inspiring memorial house to Queen Hatshepsut, a ruler for 15 years 1473-1458BC.  She was regarded as one of the great Queens and had a reputation for having a great business brain.  The Egyptian economy was healthy when she was in charge.  

Here is one of her original statues

and I was a bit afraid when I was put up on one of the sacrificial altars!!

Now cruising on the River Nile which is relaxing and peaceful as only 7 guests on board.  Probably more staff on board than passengers but that is great as we are getting waited on very well.

This isn't our boat but a similar one.