Ancient meets Modern: Egypt 2004

2004 was a busy year.  I spent time in London and Mexico, amongst other places, and it represented the final months of my first marriage.  Ania was very busy, too, as usual, so we decided to treat ourselves to a good holiday.  The previous year we had been to Malta for a couple of weeks, and while we were there tried scuba diving.  Due to my total and irrational fear of water more than about 4 foot deep (a legacy from nearly drowning three times in varying circumstances when I was a kid) I flunked the course.....but Ania carried on regardless and qualified for her PADI Open Water licence.  She did brilliantly.

Anyway, this year we decided to go a bit further afield, but somewhere that she could maybe have another crack at diving.  After much debate and number crunching we settled on Egypt, partly because a friend of ours had been there a couple of times and recommended it highly.  Ania has a friend who works for a travel agency, and through her we got a very good deal, a couple of weeks in a resort hotel in Hurghada, on the Red Sea.  I'd never heard of the place, although I'd seen the name on destination boards at a couple of airports and always wondered where it was.  A guy I was at that time working with (in Zurich this time) was a keen diver and gave me more information: he had been there several times and thoroughly recommended it - in his opinion it had some of the best dive sites in the world.  We were taking Ania's mum with us for a week, but for some reason (I can't remember for the life of me what it was) she was travelling down a couple of days after us, so we were settling us in to the best room we could find, and then picking her up from the airport and bringing her with us to the hotel.

So on an overcast early October day we headed off.

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The flight from Warsaw took the best part of 4 hours, on a charter partner of LOT, the national carrier. It was comfortable enough, though lacking in-flight entertainment, so we slept a bit and drunk a bit and read magazines and books, and tried hard not to be too bored.  We crossed the Egyptian coast at Alexandria, and shortly after, following the Nile, passed Cairo and the pilot pointed out the pyramids....try as I might I couldn't make them out at all (I needed new glasses, I supposed).   Shortly after, we came down and landed at Hurghada airport.

Although the town is on the Red Sea coast, it was a very dusty and arid place, on the edge of the desert, and stepping off the plane into the dry heat came as a shock to the system.  We had deliberately not worn thick clothes, although as it was cold in Warsaw when we left we could certainly have done with a fleece or jacket of some kind, but even the tee shirt I wore under a thin sweater, and jeans, were way too hot.  It set the tone for the whole trip - the daytime temperature never fell below 30, and at night it was balmy high 20s.  Very nice....  The airport was pretty grubby and primitive (at least for a popular tourist destination) and its duty free area was actually a bloody great Beduoin style tent outside the main terminal building (though it had a very good selection of products at excellent value prices).   Security was surprisingly lax, considering this was only a few years after 9/11 and the war in Iraq was proceeding not too far away, not to mention the usual Israeli - Arab tensions a hundred kilomteres or so across the Red Sea on the Sinai Peninsula.  Another Egyptian resort, Sharm - el Sheik, was relatively close to the Israeli border and had been targetted more than once in the recent past (and would be again in the near future).  But we weren't too concerned: the sun was shining, we'd had a couple of beers on the flight and wanted to get to the hotel for a few more.

Outside we found our travel company rep, and had the first real surprise of the holiday....our hotel had been changed without notice.  We had booked specifically for a hotel in the centre of Hurghada that our friend had stayed at a couple of times and highly recommended.  I can't remember what it was called then but Google Maps now shows it under the name of the Sand Beach Hotel.  It was central, had a selection of pools and bars and a private beach, and seemed ideal.  We had now been placed in a sister hotel, now shown on Google as the Hotel Sea Star Beau Rivage (when we were there, from memory, it was only called the Sea Star).  It was on the northern edge of town, and the rep assured us it was it was nearly as good - a bit smaller, but with two pools, divided by a bar, and again a private beach.  We had little option but to accept it, but made the point that if it wasn't suitable we expected some compensation or a move......there were a dozen of us in the same predicament.  The bus ride from the airport took an hour, dropping off at other hotels on the way, and our hotel was the last on the route.

In the event, we were very happy.  The Sea Star was very pleasant, the room comfortable and with a dual aspect pool and beach view, and the beach itself, though small, was reserved for guests only and had plenty of sun loungers under palm-topped sun umbrellas.  There were two pools, a shallow splash pool for kids, that led into a bigger and deeper adult pool, the two separated as promised by a small but cheap bar.  Behind the hotel were a couple of volleyball courts....not that I ever used them.  There was no nightclub or disco on site (no bad thing, frankly) but every night in the main bar area an Egyptian guy played muzack on an electric organ, accompanying his buxom wife who sang like a banshee.  It reminded me of the old Alas Smith and Jones comedy characters (and they weren't much better)......but for all that were quite fun.

When mamcia arrived, we planned our trips.  As she was only with us for a week, we decided to do two day trips - Luxor and the Valley of Kings one day, and Cairo for the Museum of Antiquity and Pyramids on another.  They both meant early starts and late returns, but we were happy with that, on the basis that travelling to Egypt and not seeing those wonders of the ancient world would be criminal.  For the second week, Ania and I booked a half day Quad Bike Desert Safari that looked like fun, and as we had chosen three expensive options the tour operator threw in a freebie as a reward - a half day diving trip in the Red Sea. All in all we were happy with our expeditions, and they left plenty of beach time as well.  It looked like it would be good holiday.

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To take the easy bit first: the beach was excellent.  It was small, powdery sand, and as I've already said well furnished with loungers and unbrellas, grouped a sensible distance apart and right down to the water's edge.  There was of course a bit of a battle to get the best pitch every day, and we didn't always win (as there were Germans staying in the hotel too) but by and large we always managed to get a decent pitch.  The sea itself was fantastic: it was flat calm all the time, with hardly a hint of a tide, crystal clear and so warm it was like stepping into a bath.  It shelved very gently so that I could happily wade a hundred yards offshore and still only be waist deep - it suited me down to the ground.  Even at this depth and proximity to the shore there was a fabulous array of the most beautiful and colourful fish I've ever seen, inside or outside of an aquarium.  They were unafraid of humans, and we often swam or snorkelled through shoals of them.  One day someone told us we could feed them, so we took some bread down with us and stood in the water holding it out under the surface....within seconds we were in the middle of a huge whirling cloud of multi-coloured creatures who were squabbling to get first bite.... quite literally: they were swimming up to the bread and tearing chunks of  it out of our hands.  It was brilliant, and we did it most days after that.

The pools were pretty good too, although we rarely used them: both of us prefer the sea to a chlorine filled pool.  A couple of times a day there was a water gymnastics session that we joined in once, just for fun: we had met a honeymoon couple, and the wife had the hots for the guy who ran the class (I have no idea whether her new husband realized this or not....).  Frankly I felt a bit of an idiot doing stride jumps and running on the spot in 4 feet of water, and I don't think it was doing me any good in any case.  I gave it up after I inadvertantly took part in a swimming race.....  Now I'm a weak swimmer (my fears stop me going to a pool more than a couple of times a year) so entering a race was the last thing on my mind as I stood with everyone else on the edge of the pool while the coach explained there would be a race, first one across to the other side wins a free beer and burger at the bar (or some such crap prize).  He started the ready steady go bit and I tried to turn to slip away but there were too many people behind me.  I have no idea who it was but someone gave me a shove in the back and I found myself diving headlong into about 6 foot of water.... I swam like mad, basically desperate to get across to the nearest pool edge to grab hold of something solid before I drowned....and to my complete and utter surprise found myself coming second in the race (beaten by the new husband).

I didn't use the pool after that.

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So that was the Modern.  The hotel was very much a product of the late 20th century tourist boom, all modern conveniences, good food and drink at reasonable prices.  So to the Ancient.

Luxor was our first trip.  The coach picked us up at the frankly unGodly hour (at least for vacation time) of 6 a.m. and we drove to a car park a couple of miles out of town where we joined a convoy of maybe twenty other coaches and a police escort.  I had heard some years previously that this is normal practice in Egypt: one armed jeep at the front and another at the rear of the column, full speed ahead and stop for no-one.  A colleague of mine had been part of a similar excursion once a few years before, and passing through a village somewhere the lead jeep had knocked someone off a motor cycle: the entire column had ploughed on and left him for dead in the middle of the road.  This is being security conscious, Egyptian style.

The drive to Luxor was maybe 4 1/2 hours (nearly 300 kms), through a featureless desert.  It was tedious in the extreme.  We slept fitfully, and stared out at the occasional tatty and unkown village, typically sitting beside an oasis or nearly dried up river, its occupants struggling to make ends meet with still primitive agriculture.  Tourism clearly hadn't reached these parts yet.   But Luxor was different: a tourist resort on the banks of the Nile, still tatty looking (like everywhere in the Middle East it seems, most of the buildings look as though they're half finished or in need of repair) but clearly more prosperous looking.  At its centre, on the banks of the Nile, is the Temple of Karnak.  It's part of complex of ruined temples, chapels and other buildings dating from around 1300 BC, and is quite spectacular.  We wandered around for an hour two, as part of a guided tour (it was in Polish, so Ania provided a commentary), taking loads of photos.  At one point was a single pillar, maybe 20 feet tall, surrounded by people walking around in both directions.  Ania had a brief conversation with the tour guide, then dragged me into the throng.  We walked around the pillar seven times clockwise, then turned and did seven laps anti-clockwise, then left the parade.  Then Ania explained to me: tradition states that couples who complete this procession will have their fertility guaranteed by the gods, and have healthy children.  I didn't really believe it, but within three months of getting back to Warsaw Ania fell pregnant with Kuba......after a couple of years unsuccesful.  Coincidence?  Probably.....but you never know.

After that, we went back to the coach, trying to avoid the crowds of kids and street traders trying to sell us crappy souvenirs (or in many cases just demanding money) and headed off to the Valley of Kings.  This is a few miles from Luxor and on the opposite (eastern) bank of the Nile from Karnak.  It is a long narrow valley between two hills (that are now basically massive sand dunes, free of all vegetation) that houses a dozen or so tombs, the most famous being that of King Tutenkhamoun, the richest ever discovered in Egypt so far.  Our excursion tickets gave us entrance to these, ecxept for King Tut's.....that was an extra 100 Egyptian pounds (in today's money about GBP11) each, and there was a long queue for it already.  Now the Valley is incredibly hot, apparently one of the hottest spots in the entire country, and on this day the temperature was a good 40, maybe more....way too much to contemplate standing in line for an hour or so, so we decided to give Tut a miss and look at some of the others.  In the end we looked at three of the smaller tombs, and they were fascinating: hieroglyphs covered the walls of the burial chambers, still clearly visible after these thousands of years, and there were many artifacts - pots, coins, gold bracelets and other jewellery, chariots - on display, all sealed behind glass screens for security and well lit.  And they were so cool, after the furnace heat of the valley.  We overstayed our visit, and had to run to catch the little diesel road train that ferried us back to the coach park, and were the last to board our coach for the return trip.

We had one more stop on the way back, a couple of miles up the road.  Here was a small workshop and store making and selling various souvenirs of the area, including some beautifully carved ebony pharoh heads and similar ornaments.  We bought a lovely carving of Cleopatra (apparently) that now adorns one of the shelves at home and gathers dust.

So Luxor was a good trip.  Although a long, hot and tiring day, it was well worthwhile and gave a great impression of what an extraordinary civilization Egypt was, thousands of years ago, before the land became a desert.

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We had a couple of days to ourselves, spent chilling out on the beach, swimming and working on our tans, and then took our second trip, to Cairo and the Pyramids.  Now that is a long haul.....around 450km and over 6 hours.  As usual we were part of a convoy, and it was another early start, nearer 5 a.m., and the drive even more tedious than to Luxor.   It was uneventful, and we only had something to see when we hit Cairo.

From the outskirts of the city into the centre, where is situated the Museum of Antiquities, was one long traffic jam, and our journey slowed to a snail's pace.  The Museum itself is housed in a big and rambling colonial style building, set in well maintained gardens.  We had a relatively short time allowed to explore it, because we still had to cross the city to Giza where the Pyramids are, and then travel all the way back again, and it was really sufficient only to give us a flavour for what is there.  We felt a bit rushed as we went from gallery to gallery, and after a while I found the exhibits, impressive as they undoubtedly are, merging into one continuous stream of old stuff with nothing to really set one display apart from the others.  I'm sure, had we spent longer there it would have been much more enjoyable, and we would have appreciated it all a lot more.
But the Pyramids were calling, so off we went again......

Giza is a western suburb of Cairo, and is no longer a separate town or village: it merges into the city itself.  And that was my first disappointment.  In "Indiana Jones - Raiders of the Lost Ark", there is an action sequence situated at the Great Pyramid, and it appears as though the site is in open desert (with enough space for Nazi freighter planes to land and take off with their plundered Egyptian treasures).  It may well have been like that in the 1940s, when the film is set, but now......well, let's put it this way.  Imagine Cairo is London.  Giza is Wimbledon and the Pyramids the All England Tennis Club.  In other words, these marvellous and ancient buildings, for all their splendour and quite wonderful construction, are in the suburbs of a modern city.  Where I had expected desert, at the foot of the Great Pyramid of Cheops, is now a massive tarmaced coach and car park.  At the entrance to this car park, literally in the shadow of the Pyramids,  are apartment blocks and shopping arcades - buy your coffee and bread and washing up liquid here, and look at these four thousand year old wonders while you pay.  Walk a quarter of a mile or so, down a nicely fenced off path, and you get to the Sphinx......across the road from which is a nice selection of cafes and coffee shops, souvenir shops and grocery stores. 

As you take your pictures (which of course you can't help doing, because despite their new surroundings the Pyramids and the Sphinx are quite extraordinary) you have to be very careful in your framing to avoid getting an unwanted washing line or coach or neon Sony sign in the background.   We took our pictures, carefully of course, especially the obligatory trick one where you can stand in a particular place and pucker up and it looks for all the world as if you're giving the Sphinx a kiss, and avoided going for a camel ride around the site (good fun I'm sure, but ridiculously expensive), and marvelled at the Pyramids and tried to figure out just how they had been built with the tools then available (stone axes and hammers, rollers not wheels, and undoubtedly thousands upon thousands of workers - were they slaves or volunteers?).  And then we got back on the coach for the long journey home.

And you know what?  Six years later, I still feel totally disappointed by the Pyramids.  Not the buildings themselves, but the situation.......it just isn't how you imagine it.  A car park and apartment blocks and coffee shops just destroys the magic that should be there....for me at least.

But I'm glad I went all the same.

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A couple of days later, Ania's mum went home, so we were left to our own devices. 

So our third excursion was a half day Quad Bike Safari, and it was undoubtedly the highlight of the entire vacation.  It started with the obligatory bus ride to an out of town location, the usual car park in the middle of nowhere, but this time we didn't join a convoy of similar vehicles with a police excort.  Instead, together with another 30 or so other folk, we were all kitted out in Arafat scarves to cover our faces (especially nose and mouth) and where necessary sunglasses for the eyes.  We were then given a brief lesson in how to handle a quad bike - basically very simple: the machines had been adapted with an automatic gearbox that had 2 settings, forward and reverse, and a twist-grip throttle like a motorbike.  Then off we went, in a long snaking line out into the open desert, two people to a machine.  We spent about an hour roaring away at maybe 40kph, accompanied by three or four guides, one of whom doubled up as a cameraman so we got a dvd of the trip and it was terrific fun.  This was desert track, with no markings that I could see, so it was a completely unfinished surface, spraying up thick clouds of dust and sand and gravel (we were glad of the terrorist scarves and shades!), and the occasional larger stone that had Ania, who was driving with me on the pillion, swerving hurriedly. 

Eventually we came to a Beduoin village somewhere in the desert, and there we stopped for refreshments.  There were fruit juices, bottles of water, beer and a local drink that looked like wine but tasted like vinegar, and a good selection of local pastries, both sweet and savoury, rice and fresh fruit.  We ate sprawled out on the ground in a big tent, cool after the ride in the hot afternoon sunshine: no-one was wearing shorts or t-shirts as we had been advised when we booked to wear jeans, long sleeved shirts and strong footwear.  After the madcap ride to the encampment we could see why!  After the meal we were treated to some  traditional songs and music and dance by the villagers (we were told their sole source of income was their assistance and participation in these daily shows), in which we too participated - it was great fun.  Then we were led on foot out of the village and climbed a rocky escarpment, about 150 feet high, up a winding and slippery path.  At the top we could see across a small valley that may once have been a riverbed, and opposite was a similar hill that was topped like a saddle, with two peaks either side of a small flat space.  We settled down there for maybe an hour and watched the most spectacular desert sunset, as the sun sank down between those two peaks.  It's one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen, and we all sat in silence for perhaps 10 minutes after darkness fell.

Then we slid down to the village, mounted up, this time with me driving and Ania clinging on for dear life behind, and headed off in a headlighted procession into the pitch dark desert.  We took it slower, but not by much, and in the black night it was an even more exhilerating journey than the outbound one had been.  About half way we had a mishap: the guy in front of me went a little too close to the side of the track and kicked up a mass of sand and gravel, as well as a couple of bigger stones that rolled down onto the track right under my wheels.  I couldn't avoid it: my front left wheel kicked one of them up, there was an almighty clang, and my engine stopped dead.  We were close to the end of the column fortunately, and the couple of bikes behind us avoided collision easily enough, but disappeared into the darkness while we sat helplessly watching them.  But the last bike was that of the cameraman, and he swung back to see what our problem was.....as well he did: neither of us fancied a night alone in the desert miles from anywhere.  We were unable to re-start the bike, so we left it there on the trail, both piled on the back of his quad and headed off at speed after the rest of the column.  I assume the bike was recovered and repaired the next day - the guy told us not to worry, it was something that happened regularly and added to the adventure.

All in all, it was a terrific trip, and one that I'd love to repeat sometime....only without the crash!

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And so the freebie - our dive boat trip. 

We left from one of the many quays in the centre of Hurghada, and were part of a party of about thirty.  It was another scorching day, and we headed off into the Red Sea for about twenty or so minutes.  The sea was a little choppy that day, and I'd had a few beers the night before and felt decidedly rough.  Ania was also a little under the weather and in the event didn't join the dive.  When we hove too on the open sea, for the only time in my life I was seasick.  We were standing at the rail, watching as our fellower travellers hit the water, and the boat was pitching and rolling with the motions of both the seaswell and the divers jumping off board, and it was hot......I felt dizzy, and weak, clutched the rail, leaned over and deposited the contents of my stomach in the water, again and again.....  Within seconds, a multitide of fish converged on the cloud of puke and began feeding off it.  The divers and photographers thought this was quite wonderful, and appealed to me for a repeat performance....I was happy to oblige.

I spent the rest of the trip sitting in whatever shade I could find, feeling as bad as I've ever felt in my life and fighting the whole time to keep what was left of the bile in my stomach down.  On the way back, I needed the toilet, and while taking a leak, farted.....and followed through.  God, what a day this was turning out to be!!!  We docked, and I spent the next half an hour in a hot taxi back to the hotel, stinking and woozy.  When we got back I spent the rest of the day sitting on the toilet......  To this day, I have no idea what brought it on: I had eaten the same as everyone else the night before and had been the only one ill, but I'm sure it must have been some kind of stomach bug rather than a simple case of too much heat and seasickness.

So our freebie, that we had been so looking forward to, was a total disaster.

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We didn't see a huge amount of Hurghada, as the hotel was on the northern edge of town a decent walk from the centre where all the clubs and shopping were.  We ventured in a few times, though, usually in the evenings when the sun was down and the temperature had dropped off a few degrees to make walking less of a chore.  It was an interesting place.  All along the seafront was a collection of hotels and guest houses to suit all tastes and budgets, from big rambling affairs like ours, with multple bars, pools, private beaches and imposing entrances, to small back street establishments clearly catering for the back packers.  In the evenings there many coffee shops and bars open where we could relax and have a go at the aromatic hubble-bubble pipes.  Somewhere I have a lovely picture of me puffing away, my head wreathed in clouds of smoke, looking for all the world like the Caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland.

We went shopping one evening in a bazaar, to get some t-shirts to take home for our nephews and Ania's brothers.  There was a good selection and we spent a half hour going through them and selected maybe 10 shirts, along with a couple of beach towels and some other odds and sods.  Then Ania decided to try her negotiating skills, as our friend who had recommended the place to us had said all the shopkeepers loved to haggle.  We were there for a further hour, the shopkeeper even gave us coffee and pastries, but Ania (and probably the shopkeeper too) had a wonderful time arguing back and forth. 

"I can't accept that," he said once, "I have 2 wives and 6 children to support." 

Another time, after nearly an hour had passed, Ania looked at the guy innocently and said "Please, my husband is getting angry, he will beat me if I pay more than that...."..

I joined in the fun then, glared angrily at both of them and told them loudly to sort it out now or we'd be leaving without buying anything, I was fed up wasting my evening, etc etc..... 

"You see?" she said, and opened her eyes innocently and imploringly wide.  That did it.....five minutes later we were on the street with two bags full of shopping that Ania had managed to secure a 60% discount on (and I really don't think they had been that overpriced in the first place!).

The taxis were a nightmare.  They were invariably Toyota mimibuses, cruising around the streets with one guy driving and sounding the horn constantly, and his mate leaning out of the passenger door window shouting for trade. 

"Taxi! Taxi! You want taxi....very cheap....we take you!  Hey mister!" 

We used them a few times, as they were indeed very cheap, and it was always a bit of an adventure....in theory the ride from downtown to the hotel should be no more than about 10 minutes, but we never once went the direct route, nor the same route twice.  We stopped constantly to pick up more passengers, or drop people off at their hotels, so the journey always took a minimum of half an hour and often longer.   The quality of driving was questionable at best, bloody awful at worst.   The guys always drove, traffic permitting, too fast, and always with no headlights, even in pitch dark in the early hours.  I asked one guy (who clearly imagined he was Micahel Schumacher or someone) to please turn the lights on.  Turning round in his seat, with a huge grin on his face (still driving madly down a darkened road), he said::  "Don't worry......Allah is with us!" 

"He might be with you," I thought, "but is he with the rest of us?"

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All in all, it was a really good vacation, one of the best I've ever had, and as of now the last one without children.  I love our kids deeply and with a passion, and wouldn't change them for the world, but there is no getting away from it - you have more freedom on holiday as a couple.  Our excursions to Luxor and Cairo, and our brilliant Quad Bike Safari would have been impossible with them, so as I will be going on for 70 before they are old enough to join in and appreciate stuff like that, for me it was like a last hurrah.....and my memories of it are probably better and clearer for that.

In two weeks you can never see enough of any place to get more than a flavour, and this was true of Egypt, a land of contrasts between the Ancient and Modern that is perhaps more noticeable there than anywhere else.  We saw wealth side by side with grinding poverty,  sparkling new and luxurious hotel complexes close to breeze-block and corrugated tin shanties, luxury Mercedes passing ox-drawn carts.  It was a fascinating place, with so much to do and see, and we loved it. 

One day I'm sure we'll go back for another look.