EGYPTIAN VOYAGE

I've been to Egypt!! Wait, let me try that again: I've been to Egypt. Yep, feels just as good without the exclamation marks. When I was 12 years old, studying ancient history for the first time, I decided unequivocally that I wanted to be an archaeologist when I grew up. The thrills! The adventure! The crumbly old stuff!  

Ten years later, when I finally met an archaeologist, he shattered my illusions by describing the tedium of a life spent cataloguing and examining tiny fragments of pottery indoors, instead of Indiana Jones-style adventures below shifting dunes in a foreign desert. Fast forward another eight years, and I'm standing in a valley on the west bank of the Nile, walking up a sandy  track in unbelievable heat, about to enter the Valley of the Kings. I was drawn back to the Indiana Jones imaginings of my 12 year-old self,  excited and awe-struck.

Sometimes, tourist sites don't look anything like you imagine. The Mona Lisa is much smaller than you expect, turn your back on (the Canadian) Niagara Falls and you're facing a tacky, gaudy kitsch-land of neon signs, amusements and slot machines, the Great Wall of China is.....actually that really is pretty Great. Anyway, the Valley of the Kings looked EXACTLY as I wanted it to. A few sand dunes, with tiny openings peeking out below, leading down to  the dusty tombs of Pharaohs who walked the earth thousands of years ago.

Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. So how did I get here? It was all because of my mum. Mum was coming to visit my sister and I in London, and because sis couldn't get enough leave to cover the whole trip, I suggested that mum and I head somewhere else for a week or two first. This was my mum's first trip to Europe, so I was thinking she'd choose France, or Italy, maybe even Greece if she was feeling a little adventurous. But no, mum wanted to go to Egypt. It had been barely a month since a bomb exploded in Khan-el-Khalili, Cairo's most famous (or at least most touristy) souk, so the idea of taking my mum on a holiday there made me just a wee bit nervous.

Anyway, she couldn't be dissuaded (and to be honest I didn't actually try that hard - why would I?) so we made plans for a 9-day cruise and tour package. It was outrageously expensive and luxurious, but I used the fact that my mum was accompanying me to justify the extravagance and thus keep my backpacker credentials intact. We ended up travelling right in the middle of an Egyptian summer, so with 40 degree-plus temperatures, every little luxury was appreciated.

The week went something like this:

Day One - We're in Egypt!

After an overnight stopover in Zurich, we arrived in Cairo and were instantly bombarded by the heat and noise of this big, bustling city. A night at the Ramses Hilton helped cushion the blow somewhat.

Day Two - Sightseeing in Cairo

We spent some time in the Egyptian Museum and also went out to the Pyramids. (The real ones! Wow!) My first glimpse of the pyramids as we approached on a minibus was marvellous. Oh how I marvelled. People who tell you, "it's ruined now, man, because there's a KFC right beside the Sphinx, man, and you should have seen it 20 years ago" are just being grumpy old spoil-sports. The KFC is a good hundred metres away, and it's still easy to get a sense of isolation, mystery and wonder as you face the sphinx and see the pyramids rising up behind it. Plus, when you're done, it's a really short walk to get a Zinger and Chips.

Day Three - On to Aswan

An early start today, as we had to catch a flight to Aswan. Once we landed, some minions magicked our bags away and we set off  to see the High Dam. I'd already started to think that forking out for 5-star luxury now and again wasn't so bad after all.

In making the dam, they had to flood several ancient temples and Nubian villages. After taking snaps of Lake Nasser (on the high side) and Lake Aswan (on the low side), and daydreaming about what those abandoned villages and temples would look like under the waters below, we caught a boat across to visit Philae Temple. It too would have been lost to the waters of the High Dam, were it not for the French. They chopped it into 450,000 pieces, then relocated and rebuilt it on another island just metres away from its original home to save it from being flooded. Maybe they're not so bad after all.

Day Four - Cruising along the Nile

My first ever cruise. Lounging under an umbrella on a sundeck, sweating under 3 inches of sunscreen, a hot breeze washing over me, watching sand dunes and palm trees slip past as we glided through the swirling water of the Nile. It was thrilling. I wanted to pinch myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming. It all felt so exotic, helped in no small part by the fact I was reading Agatha Christie's Death on the Nile at the same time (thanks mum!).

We went on-shore to see a couple of temples during the day (Kom-Ombo and Edfu), but it was so excruciatingly hot that I can't say I absorbed much information. All I remember is that they were both dedicated to Horus and one of them had something with a crocodile god. Whatever. I may not have learned anything, but I took lots of photos so it totally counts, ok?

Day Five - Luxor

Could this trip possibly get any more exotic? We were now at Luxor, formerly Thebes. To me, even saying the word "Luxor" conjures up images of 18th century aristocrats tripping to the continent to escape the damp English weather.

We went to see Luxor temple, one of the best-preserved in all of Egypt. Our tour guide was an Egyptologist, and while it was interesting to learn about the history of the temple, by now I was really 'over' the whole tour-group experience. As an independent traveller, I'd never been on an organised tour of this length before, and by now was tired of 6am starts and being herded around like schoolchildren. Still, it wasn't too much of a hardship. I found sanctuary in hanging out in our air-conditioned cabin or on the sundeck, reading and chatting with my mum.

Day Six - The Valley of the Kings

I (almost) shed a small tear as we said goodbye to our luxury, air-conditioned cruise ship and hit the road again. Day Six was when we went to the Valley of the Kings and I had my Indiana Jones moment. It really was marvellous. It was also DAMN hot that day.  By now I had taken to wearing a sarong over my head and shoulders every time I stepped out from under the shade. We visited some more temples (one dedicated to Hatshepsut, the only female pharaoh, and also Karnak Temple) then took an Egypt Air flight back to Cairo.

Day Seven - On the road again

No rest for the wicked (or my mum) so we were up early YET AGAIN for the drive to Alexandria. Six days of pre-dawn awakenings, combined with daytime temperatures hot enough to boil the sweat off my brow, had by now almost drained me of the will to live. Anyone who's seen me even slightly sleep deprived will be shuddering at the image of how I must have been after 7 days of it. After all, the effects of sleep deprivation are cumulative*. We stopped in to look at some Coptic Christian monasteries on the way to Alexandria, but it just wasn't floating my boat. The head monk-dude showed us a tomb that he claimed was the final resting place of John the Baptist. When he shared this amazing, unbelievable, and unsupported-by-factual-evidence revelation, the Americans on our tour all gasped in awe and pulled out their cameras. Americans are weird.

Day Eight - Alexandria

Suddenly, on the second last day of the tour, I got my second wind.  I remember standing on the balcony of our hotel room in Alexandria, overlooking the sparkling blue Mediterranean sea, with a cool breeze on my face, tripping out on the awesomeness of life. I love those moments.

In addition to staying at a hotel that is best described by the word 'opulent', we climbed down some damp, smelly catacombs, saw Pompey's Pillar on the site of what was once Cleopatra's temple, visited a Roman amphitheatre, and wandered around Alexandria Museum. I really like Alexandria. It even has trams. I like trams.

Day Nine - The end

Oh to leave Egypt was so sad, it had been a really great trip. Mum and I had become quite fond of the oldies, I mean, other people, on our tour, and had perhaps grown a little too accustomed to soft beds and buffet breakfasts. Especially as the next phase of mum's visit involved my sister and I hauling her on a very budget trip around England, Wales and Scotland. The most comfortable night's sleep mum would have during the next few weeks would be the night we stayed at an old dairy in Liverpool.

Apart from that, the adventures to come would include sleeping in a car in the fields beside Stonehenge, pitching a tent under an overpass near Edinburgh to escape the relentless rain, and slipping into an appallingly chav-tastic Scottish campsite/trailer park after midnight only to sneak out again in the early hours before getting caught.

Goodbye five-star luxury, hellooooo Britain...


* That single sentence is the one and only thing I remember from my first-year Psychology textbook. I try to quote it as often as possible. It makes me feel wise and learned.