The travels of Tim and Megan: Egypt - Part 1: Cairo to Aswan

Saturday

It was an early wake up call on Saturday morning, which was a sign of things to come as we set off for our 9 day tour of Egypt. A taxi picked us up at 3.15am and got us out to Heathrow for our 6am flight to Cairo via Rome. We arrived in Cairo around 3pm and we were met by the friendly On the Go tour representatives, as well as a couple of dozen fellow tour members, most of whom turned out to be Kiwis and Aussies living in London!

It was surprisingly easy to get through Cairo airport - very fast and efficient. We were all herded on to some mini buses and we headed through Cairo and out to the west bank, to the Oasis Hotel, not far from the famous Giza pyramids. The journey took around 45 minutes. There was loads of traffic and noise and it reminded us of a cross between Bangkok and Istanbul.

One of the On the Go tour staff, Saeed, was with us on the mini bus and pointed out a few things of interest as we passed through the city. Cairo is the capital of Egypt and it is one of the world's most densely populated cities, with 22 million inhabitants out of a total population of 70 million in Egypt. It was staggering to hear that Cairo has more than three times the population of London and around five times the population of the whole of New Zealand. We passed by the Cairo Central Railway Station and Saeed told us that each day around 3 million people pass through that railway station!

The Oasis Hotel was really nice - a 4-star hotel with a big swimming pool, restaurant, bar, shops and even a nightclub in the complex. We had quick showers and changed our British pounds into Egyptian pounds (which made us feel like drug lords, as we left the currency exchange office with thick wads of cash held together in rubber bands), and then we joined a bunch of fellow tour members and headed to a nearby restaurant for some Egyptian cuisine. We had a lot of pita bread with hummus and various dips/sauces followed by a plate of mixed grill meat with chips, potatoes, salads, some fresh fruit and of course some local ale. It was really good. Then we retreated to the hotel and slept like babies before the massive day to come!

Sunday

We had an early wake-up call on Sunday and enjoyed a quick breakfast before checking out of the hotel. At breakfast we met a couple from New Zealand (Steve and Carla) who are living in London and who are both lawyers (spooky) and who also happened to be in our group, Group C. We were on the bus by 8am for our intro talk from our group leader, Sobhy, before we set off for the Giza pyramids. It was fairly warm in Cairo, around 30-32 degrees, but thankfully our bus had air conditioning!

The first stop for the tour was the Giza pyramids - perhaps one of the most famous sights on the planet. We were amazed by the sheer size of the pyramids as we approached them in the bus. We really were speechless when we hopped off the bus and saw them close up.

The Great Pyramid of Giza (also called the Pyramid of Khufu) is the oldest and largest of the three pyramids in the Giza Necropolis, and is the only remaining member of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It is believed the pyramid was built as a tomb for Fourth Dynasty Egyptian King Khufu (Cheops in Greek) and constructed over a 20 year period concluding around 2560 BC, making it almost 4,600 years old. The Great Pyramid was the tallest man-made structure in the world for over 3,800 years. It is estimated to contain over two million blocks of stone weighing on average around 2.5 tonnes, with some stones at the bottom of the pyramid weighing around 15 tonnes. Despite its size, the precision is amazing - the greatest difference in length between the four 230m sides is only 4cm!

The pyramid complex at Giza is also home to the Pyramid of Khafre and the relatively modest-sized Pyramid of Menkaure, along with a number of smaller satellite edifices known as "Queen's pyramids" and the Great Sphinx.

We were allowed to climb on the bottom few rows (you can see from the photos below how massive the blocks are) and wander around the Great Pyramid, amongst throngs of tourists as well as locals selling souvenirs or offering rides on their camels. Then it was back in the bus and down the road a little to a lookout point where there are stunning views of all three pyramids from a distance.

It was here that we took the opportunity to have a camel ride! Two other couples from our group, Tim and Tania and Trevor and Melissa, joined us on the optional rides. It was so fun - Tim nearly got flipped off the front as his rowdy camel stood up - it was pretty hard to balance actually, as they are not the smoothest of movers. Megan's camel followed behind Tim's, which was a touch unfortunate as she had to deal with Tim's camel's exhaust fumes as well as the rocky ride. The ride lasted for around 10-15 minutes and with the stunning back-drop of the pyramids and the Sahara Desert, it was one of the highlights of the trip!

After our camel ride we headed to the Pyramid of Khafre, the second pyramid. The second pyramid is 15m shorter than the Great Pyramid, although it appears to be slightly taller by virtue of being built on higher ground. The summit of the second pyramid is the only area that retains the limestone casing that originally covered all three pyramids. Here, we actually went inside the pyramid. We had to queue for a long time as an old man had slipped on the steep passageway inside the pyramid and broken his leg. After he was retrieved by ambulance staff, we headed in.

It was a little disconcerting to see other tourists emerging dripping with sweat and puffing heavily, but we still went in. The passageway is dark, extremely narrow and steep. It is so small we were effectively crouching and waddling down like ducks - you can see how the man broke his leg. To make things worse it was very hot inside the pyramid and there is very little oxygen. It took us less than two minutes to get to the bottom of the first passageway, but in that short time, we had already noticed the heat and the lack of oxygen. A number of our tour group decided to stop there and turn back without making it all the way in to see the king's burial chamber. We both joined them, which was probably a good thing, as by the time we surfaced again, we were sweating and puffing ourselves - not a place for any sort of claustrophobic, that's for sure!

Our next stop was the Great Sphinx, which sits proudly in front of the second pyramid. The Great Sphinx is a statue of a reclining lion with a human head. It is the largest monolith statue in the world, standing at 73m long, 6m wide and 20m high. It is the oldest known monumental sculpture, believed to have been constructed around 2500 BC. The Sphinx's nose was lost sometime before the 15th century and it used to have a stylised beard (a symbol of royalty in ancient Egypt) but that fell off too and a piece of it is now held at the British Museum. The Great Sphinx was partially buried beneath sand for thousands of years.

After visiting the Great Sphinx, we had some lunch on the bus (another Egyptian specialty of noodles, rice, lentils and fried onions) and then visited a papyrus factory on the West Bank of Cairo, where we were given a demonstration on how ancient Egyptians used the papyrus plant to make a thick, strong form of paper, which they then painted and wrote on. It was very interesting. The factory also sold beautiful paintings and art work on papyrus.

After lunch we headed south-west of Cairo to Saqqara, one of the richest archaeological sites in Egypt. It was developed as the royal necropolis for the Old Kingdom capital of Memphis. As Memphis grew, so did this city of the dead, until it spanned 7km north to south. It was eventually abandoned and apart from Djoser's pyramid, it lay buried beneath sand for centuries. Saqqara contains a number of pyramids in various states - some have almost completely crumbled. However, the amazing Djoser step pyramid is still intact and is the oldest pyramid in Egypt, built in the 27th century BC. It was the prototype for the pyramids at Giza and all other pyramids that followed.

We enjoyed wandering around the area in front of Djoser's pyramid before retiring to a nearby tourist resort, where we chilled out for a couple of hours before our overnight train to Aswan. It had been a full-on day and it was great to sit down in the shade by the pool and sink a few cold beers with Steve and Carla.

Our train was due to depart around 8pm but it was slightly delayed - Egyptian time as our tour guide Sobhy told us! The train ride from Cairo to Aswan, in the south of Egypt, takes around 13 hours. Luckily we had upgraded to a sleeper train, fully equipped with fold down bunk beds in our own locked compartment. We were in the cabin next to Tim and Tania, an Australian couple living in London. So we ate our lovely train meal and chatted to them for a while before calling it a day. The gentle rocking of the train meant we were out like a light and got a solid 9 hours' sleep.

Monday

We arrived into sunny and hot Aswan around 10am on Monday. Aswan can get up over 50 degrees celsius in summer, so we were extremely grateful that it was still early spring time and just 42 degrees! Thankfully the heat in Egypt is very dry, rather than humid, so it is not quite as energy-sapping. Aswan was a nice city, a lot smaller and less crowded than Cairo. It is also more rural, so the locals tend to stick to traditional dress and tourists are encouraged to dress very conservatively - no tight revealing clothing, shoulders covered and no shorts for either gender!

We checked in to our cruise ship on arrival, despite the fact it was not leaving Aswan until Tuesday afternoon. The cruise ship was absolutely amazing; 5-star with all the bells and whistles. We were blown away. There was a sun deck on the top with a swimming pool, sun loungers and a bar. The boat had about four levels and the next level below the sun deck, which is where our room was, also had a lounge bar and a pool table. After checking out our rooms on the boat and having a shower, we had lunch in the restaurant. The food was unbelievable - every meal while we stayed on the boat was a buffet with the most amazing food - loads of carbs, all sorts of meat, salads, fresh fruit, great desserts, and all of it delicious.

In the afternoon, we had a trip to the High Dam of Aswan. Two dams straddle the River Nile at Aswan, the older Aswan Dam and the newer High Dam. These dams were constructed to prevent annual flooding, generate electricity and provide water for agriculture. Without impoundment, the River Nile would flood each year during summer, as waters from East Africa flowed down the river as they did in ancient times. These floods brought nutrients and minerals that made the soil around the Nile fertile and ideal for farming. As the population along the river grew, there came a need to control the flood waters to protect and support farmland and cotton fields. In a high-water year, the whole crop may be entirely wiped out, while in a low-water year there was widespread drought and famine.

The British constructed the Aswan Dam between 1889 and 1902. The High Dam was constructed in the 1960s after the first dam almost overflowed. The creation of the High Dam resulted in the largest man-made lake in the world, Lake Nasser. The lake is 550km long and 35km wide at its widest point.

When Lake Nasser was being created as a result of the construction of the High Dam, the anticipated rising waters behind the dam required major relocation projects that were carried out during the 1960s. There were 18 ancient temples in the area. Several important Nubian and Ancient Egyptian archaeological sites were dismantled block by block and moved to higher ground, most notably the Abu Simbel temple.

From the High Dam we took a short bus ride and a ferry crossing to the island of Agilika in the River Nile, to visit the Philae Temple. With the building of the High Dam (1960-70) the Philae Temple was relocated from Philae Island to the nearby island of Agilika. The UNESCO-led project took from 1972 to 1980 to complete, during which time Agilika was landscaped to look like Philae. Our boat dropped us at the southern end of the island and we walked past the oldest building on the island, the Kiosk of Nectanebo II, dating from the 4th century BC, to a long courtyard flanked by colonnades, which leads to the magnificent Temple of Isis, the main building in the Philae temple complex.

Built in the late Ptolemaic and early Roman periods, the temple combines ancient Egyptian and Graeco-Roman architecture. Ptolemy XII Neos Dionysos built the first pylon, which has scenes of him massacring his enemies watched by gods Isis, Horus and Hathor. It was very hot but we enjoyed looking through the temple and taking photos amongst the ruins around the outside of the temple. There were stunning views out across the Nile beyond the rubble and stones lying scattered about the island. After a cold drink in the shade, we headed back to the mainland and returned to Aswan.

We were dropped off in Aswan at the markets. We had been told that on the Tuesday night there would be an Egyptian themed dress-up party on our cruise ship, so Megan bought a blue Egyptian kaftan (top) and Tim bought a traditional Egyptian robe and a headdress for the occasion. We had a great time looking through the markets at the spices, scarves and robes, sheesha pipes and myriad of souvenirs, as well as trying to dodge the aggressive salesmen.

After another long day we retired to the cruise ship and had a few quiet drinks on the sundeck overlooking the Nile, before a magnificent dinner in the ship's restaurant. Then we were treated to some live entertainment in the lounge bar in the form of traditional Nubian dancers (Nubians are the people from the southern area of Egypt, bordering with Sudan). However, nobody was keen for too late a night, as we had a 2.45am wake-up call on Tuesday to look forward to.