Trash, Litter

Last overall comment on Egypt trip (I'm finally done with getting my blog posts done--trip ended over two weeks ago!).

There have been a lot of stories about the problem with the very low cost plastic bags used in markets and small shops around the world. From our experience in Egypt, they really are a problem. Those plastic bags from shops are everywhere. Up against the pyramids, along fences, in parking lots, along the sidewalks in all the towns and cities, along the railroad to Alexandria, along the desert highway back from Alexandria, at Abu Simbel, in the Nile. Everywhere!

JFK's Terminal 4

What a rotten design for a new airport terminal.

First the good news. The customs and immigration area is very well designed. Lots of capacity. Easy to figure out where to go next. Great signs (but you really don't need the signs--it's obvious where to go).

When you leave customs, you need to find where to check in for your connecting flight. There are no visual clues. When you come out, all you see is the doors to the outside for ground transportation. A sign says "Connecting Flights" and points through a small door to the left. There are a series of airline desks with baggage check-in scales. We get in line for NWA/KLM. When we get to the desk, we're told, "No, this is not the right place. This is only for reporting lost or damaged luggage. You need to go upstairs to level 4."

We finally find the escalators (continuing through the "damaged baggage" room, out a door, we discover the back side of the escalators. We take them up one level (with our baggage in tow). Finally see a sign that says Level 2. Finally find the next flight of escalators (behind us). Repeat on level 3.

We get up to level 4. Rows and rows of airline check-in desks. There are 4 aisles and we are in the middle. No signs for which airline is which directiton. We get lucky and guess the right direction and find a set of NWA/KLM counters. We stand in line for 20 minutes. When we get to the desk we are told, "No, this these are the counters for the flight to Amsterdam. It says so on the electronic sign above me." We point out that there is NOTHING on the electronic sign. Response. "Oh, sorry. You need to go down to those counters."

We go there and, WOW, very short line, we're told we are in the right line and get checked in. Go to another line to turn in our baggage (the TSA baggage scanning machines are out in the middle of the area--they didn't make it so the airline can just put them on the conveyor behind the counter.)

We go downstairs to the central area where all the food places are. Check our flight on the board--it's on time. Check the security line--it's long so we decide to get in it. ten minute line to check your boarding pass--another 10 minute line to go through the scanners. We get to the concorse. Only two food places on the boarding side of security. One a cart with oriental food that looks like it has been in the steam table for hours. One with pre-wrapped sandwiches.

Our flight is listed for departure at 5:30 from the same gate as the Egypt Air flight to Cairo is listed for departure at 6:10. The Egypt Air plane is at the gate. Checking the web with my cell phone, our plane shows a delay--until 7:20. Monitors in terminal still say 5:30.

In short, whoever designed this terminal should be forced to fly through it on every trip he or she takes.

The Pyramides of Giza

Wow.

Ok, a little more detail.

First some perspective: The pharaohs in the 26th Dynasty (around 600 BC) wanted to recreate the traditions of the early pharaohs so they did some archeology at the Step Pyramid (built a few miles away and before the Giza pyramids. The Step Pyramid was already 2000 years old. The Step Pyramid was built as a series of steps. Smooth sided pyramids came later.

The Great Pyramid at Giza statistics:

• over 2 million blocks used to construct it
• built around 25ooBC
• when built, it was 485 feet high.
• tallest building in the world until the 19th century (that make it the tallest building on earth for over 40 centuries.)
• it and the second pyramid were faced with polished white limestone (you can still see some of it at the base) that reflected the sun. (The third pyramid at Giza was faced with red [pictures to come this afternoon] <span style="font-weight: bold;">Wow.</span> Ok, a little more detail. First some perspective: The pharaohs in the 26th Dynasty (around 600 BC) wanted to recreate the traditions of the early pharaohs so they did some archeology at the Step Pyramid (built a few miles away and before the Giza pyramids. The Step Pyramid was already 2000 years old. The Step Pyramid was built as a series of steps. Smooth sided pyramids came later. The Great Pyramid at Giza statistics: <ul><li>over 2 million blocks used to construct it</li><li>built around 25ooBC </li><li>when built, it was 485 feet high.</li><li>tallest building in the world until the 19th century (that make it the tallest building on earth for over 40 centuries.)</li><li>it and the second pyramid were faced with polished white limestone (you can still see some of it at the base) that reflected the sun. (The third pyramid at Giza was faced with red granite--from Aswan)</li><li>current theory is that it was built in about 20 years without using slaves.</li><li>the Giza plateau is an outcropping of bedrock.</li><li>the bedrock was leveled for construction (to within 1/2 inch over the 13 acre base</li><li>the four sides are 756 feet long, plus or minus 2 inches (note to my friend Dave the Surveyor--how does this compare with current surveying technology?) </li></ul>The Sphinx was carved out of bedrock. Either about 2500BC or earlier than 5000 BC depending on the theory. The typical annual Nile flood came within a few yards of it. s feet. The city of Cairo comes right up to the edge of the Giza plateau. (There is a building for lease about a block from the Sphinx.) We did go to the "Sound and Light Show" at Giza--Coordinated colored lights on the pyramids and sphinx and some "cheese, historically inaccurate" narration. ("Cheese, historically inaccurate" is a quote from a 16 year old who was on our tour with her parents. She was a real ancient Egypt expert and this comment about the Sound and Light Show seems very appropriate.) I think they did update it once a few years ago. It now includes outline images drawn by a green laser. But it was fun to attend. (James Bond fans will remember the opening fight sequence in <span style="font-style: italic;">The Spy Who Loved Me</span>--1977--Roger Moore as 007 appears to take place during the Sound and Light Show<span style="font-style: italic;">. </span>The actually fight was shot in Karnak temple in Luxor.)granite--from Aswan)
• current theory is that it was built in about 20 years without using slaves.
• the Giza plateau is an outcropping of bedrock.
• the bedrock was leveled for construction (to within 1/2 inch over the 13 acre base
• the four sides are 756 feet long, plus or minus 2 inches (note to my friend Dave the Surveyor--how does this compare with current surveying technology?)

Random thoughts:
The Sphinx was carved out of bedrock. Either about 2500BC or earlier than 5000 BC depending on the theory. The typical annual Nile flood came within a few yards of it.

The crowds going to the small area next the the sphinx are kind of intense.

The city of Cairo comes right up to the edge of the Giza plateau. (There is a building for lease about a block from the Sphinx.)

There is this odd building next to the Great Pyramid. The surprise is that it houses a "sun boat." The sun boat was for the pharaoh to use on his trip to heaven. It was found disassembled in a pit in the limestone next to the pyramid. They put it back together (it had marks on the boards identifying were they went (the equivalent of "insert tab a into slot b"). The only things new in the reconstruction are one oar and the ropes.

We did go to the "Sound and Light Show" at Giza--Coordinated colored lights on the pyramids and sphinx and some "cheese, historically inaccurate" narration. ("Cheese, historically inaccurate" is a quote from a 16 year old who was on our tour with her parents. She was a real ancient Egypt expert and this comment about the Sound and Light Show seems very appropriate.) I think they did update it once a few years ago. It now includes outline images drawn by a green laser. But it was fun to attend. (James Bond fans will remember the opening fight sequence in The Spy Who Loved Me--1977--Roger Moore as 007 appears to take place during the Sound and Light Show. The actually fight was shot in Karnak temple in Luxor.)

Valley of the Kings

The kings (Pharaohs) in Wast (Thebes/Luxor) around 1500 BC decided that publicizing their tombs and the riches in their tombs with large temples just made it easier for grave robbers. They decided to hide their tombs in undergound chambers in a desert valley on the west side of the Nile. (It didn't work).

The Valley of the Kings is breathtaking landscape. Totally barren desert--not one plant visible. Limestone outcropings and limestone gravel under foot (no, not sand). The valley was chosen because the ridge above it looks like a Pyramid.

Luxor/Thebes/Wast

Wast (Thebes to Greeks, Luxor now) was the center of the Middle and New kingdoms (2000 BC to about 600BC). Because it was the center of Egypt for so long, it has lots of history.

Karnak Temple is massive--built over a 1300 year period, over 100 acres. Lots of restoration has happened, lots is still going on.

Luxor temple: Contrary to the architecture of Las Vegas, the temple of Luxor has no pyramids. Had a chance to talk to an archialogist from Chicago House (Univeristy of Chicago) working on some restoration. He has been working on it for three years had has been able to see noticable deterioration of the temple over that short time. It is mainly caused by irrigation of sourounding farm land. This has raised the water table--the water is absorbed by the sandstone blocks that are the temple's main structure--the water causes deteriation to the carving. He said the good news is that a de-watering system has been installed at both Luxor and Karnak to lower the water table and this seems to be helping.

Another temple (on the west side of the river--Luxor is on the east bank) is Harshepsut. This temple (built around 14oo BC is very different than the others--a series of raising plazas with colonades. It looks more Greek than Egyptian but it was built around 1500 years before Alexander came to Egypt. It is actually patterned on a temple built around 2000 BC in the same area.

Archiological work on this temple is being done by the Polish-Egyptian Acrchaeological Mission-- The Egyptian government and Warsaw University. It seams that at every site, there is archaeology work being done. Always with the Egyption Department of Antiquities and a foreign partner.

It

River Traffic

There is virtually no industrial river traffic. Every once in a while we pass a small motorized barge. One hauling sugar cane plants, two carrying petroleum. No significant movement of agricultural goods. Ghada (our guide) says that the Nile isn't used for industrial shipping (she says because it is too slow). I'm guessing there are two more important reasons.

• There isn't that much bulk to ship. The arable land in the upper Nile is limited to a very narrow strip along the Nile (you can see the desert beyond while cruising down the Nile.
• Egypt had the first railroad in Africa and it runs along the Nile.

We go through a small lock going downstream--smaller than the smallest locks on the Mississippi.

Cruising the Nile

Don't expect to be the only ship cruising the Nile. This is a big part of the tourist business in Egypt. At Edfu, tour ships were docked three to five deep along the whole length of the wharf. (You disembark by going through the central lobby of the ship(s) between you and the warf. Each ship has between 50 and 200 passengers.

Our Guide/Tour

We decided to use the package tour method of seeing Egypt:

• We don't know the langage
• We were lazy--we didn't want to spend a few months learning Egypt history before going (we did read a couple books--but that was just skimming the surface)
• We've found that going to museums in places where English is not the primary language, you miss a lot unless you have a guide.
• We got a good deal on the tour
• We've gone on four other tours with this company (Lindblad) are have been very pleased.

For the 28 tourists on this trip, there are two guides--so each group is only 14 people. They do have really good guides. Ghada, the guide we've spent most of our time with, has studied Egyptology all her life. In fact, in the few minutes she had off one day on the cruise, she was reading a just published study on some recent research.

This type of tour must have been really hard to manage before cell phones. I think Ghada spends half her life on her cell phone make last minute changes, and checking on arraingments, changing meal times because we're running early or late.....

Edfu

Another day, another Temple. Edfu Temple is said to be the "best-preserved monument of the ancient world. It is another temple to Horus--the Falcon god. It was built in the New Kingdom (around 250 BC but covered with Nile silt and Sahara sand for almost 2000 years. It still has the stone roof on the temple so you get a great feeling for how it felt when it was built.

Like at all the tourist attractions, they site is set up so you exit through the tourist market (just like museums do it with gift shops). In Egypt it is a bunch of independent merchants, all selling tourist stuff. They each rent a stall.

Aswan, Granite, Temples

Aswan is the source of the granite used in all the ancient Egyptian temples. (It's about a two hour flight between Aswan and Cairo--which gives you an idea of the distance the large blocks were transported). We visited a quarry for pink granite--really beautiful stone. Ancient Egyptians started quarrying an obelisk and quit when they found flaws in the rock.

Quarrying was done by knocking small pieces of granite off to get a larger (or very large) block free. They also made holes and packed it with dry wood, then used water to make the wood expand.

Visited the Temple of Philae in Aswan--it was on an island that was partially flooded by the first (British) Aswan dam. It was moved to a higher Island.
Cruising down the Nile you notice a haze on the horizon. This seems to be a combination of blowing sand and pollution.On our way down the Nile (to the north), we stopped at Kom Obou--a temple dedicated to two gods--Haroeris and Sobek.

Stopped at security

When you are carrying six power supplies (for three cameras, two cell phones, an Ipod), an extension cord to plug them all in, a security cable and a network cable in the same bag you have all your sunscreen in, I guess you have to expect to have the baggage searched. Ours was the only bag that had a special had search in our group of 29 tourists at Luxor Airport. (I've noticed that the suitcase with all that stuff in tends to be searched by TSA about 50 % of the time.)

Facebook in Cairo

Picked up a copy of the Herald Tribune (NYT's global edition) at the hotel before leaving for Alexandria. In the second section (the local section for Egypt) two interesting articles:

• A new ancient tomb was found that is from the Old Kindom (thousands of years old)
• Dateline Cairo: A group of Arab bloggers is using Facebook to compose an open letter to Obama. Letter will go public on March 25. (Same article in Middle East Times)
  

Internet Access in Egypt

Interent access for tourists in Egypt can be summarized as expensive. The only exception was our first hotel in Cairo where I found an unsecured wifi that I could access from the hotel room.

The ship we cruised the Nile on for 4 days had access for about $11.00 for each 30 minutes. If the ship was moving the access was intermittent and rather slow. If the ship was docked, the access was rather slow but stable.

The Cairo hotel we stayed in when we were at the pyramids (it was less than a mile from the pyramids had wired Internet in the rooms. It cost about $ .90 per minute. It was a deal if you used a lot--only about $35 maximum for any one 24 hour period.

So, I'm getting my blog done at home.

Found out that only about 5% of Egyptians have Internet access of any kind (To help put this in persective, about 50% of the population live in rural areas.) I did see a couple Internet Cafes while we were driving.

Upper Nile (March 23)

The Cairo International Airport terminal for our charter flight to Abu Simbel and Aswan is chaotic. Lines start for security then turn in to a mass crowd all trying to get through. This terminal for domestic travel really needs to be expanded. We walk out and board a bus for a three minute ride to our plane.

Taking off over Cairo you can see the smog. We quickly get to the Eastern Desert. (Between Nile and the Red Sea). We are flying to the east of the Nile. We cross one paved road headed east—it must be one of the five roads that connect the upper Nile to the Red Sea. (The lower Nile is the delta—from slightly south of Cairo too the Mediterranean Sea. Everything else is the Upper Nile.) There is nothing down there. No plants. All sand and rock. There are some large canyons that are totally dry. It is hard to imagine water cutting them (Cairo gets rain about 6 days a yea (from the little rain we got in Alexandria, a day with rain seems to be defined as any day with even a trace of rain).

Flying over Lake Nasser lets you see how big the reservoir is behind the Aswan High Dam.

After about 2 hours we land at Abu Simbel; take a bus the 300 yards to the terminal; board a bus for the 10 minute ride to the Abu Simbel temple of Ramses II; balk down a hill; have our mouths drop open.
Abu Simbel
The temple is huge. The facade is over 100 feet high with four colossal statues of Ramses II. A little bit to the right is the temple Ramses II built to honor hiss favorite wife—Nefertari (which has more statues of Ramses than Nefertari). That is was built in the 13th century BCE is amazing. That the whole thing was moved to save it from flooding from the Aswan High Dam is also amazing. (If you look closely, you can see the saw cuts where the cut the temple into large blocks to move—but in most cases you have to look very closely.) One interesting addition was made when they moved it. There are very subtle slits in the ceiling next to the walls in some places—for fresh air that is forced in to reduce the humidity caused by all the tourists breathing and sweating.

Aswan
We fly to Aswan International Airport (about ½ hour). Get off the plane and onto a bus for a 500 foot ride to the terminal (I'm beginning to realize this is the system used at all Egypt airports.).

Aswan is no longer a small town—about 1 million population. Population growth is because of the Aswan High Dam. The dam provides ¼ of the electricity for Egypt and that cheap energy has resulted in a lot of industry around Aswan. Not much air pollution and very light traffic. It seems to have a much more laid back personality than Cairo.

More about the Bus ride back to Cairo (March 21)

We did have some excitement with the bus loosing power—could only get into 2nd gear. It took about an hour to fix at the 2nd mechanic. All of this (we were driving at a top speed of about 30 MPH for over an hour to get to a mechanic) took about 3 hours.

We did stop of a Coptic Christian monastery in the desert. It dated from the 4th century.

Bibliotheca Alexandria

The historic Bibliotheca Alexandria was founded in the 3rd century BCE. It was the largest library in the ancient world. (Any ships landing at Alexandria were required to turn over all scrolls to the librarians—a copy was made and given to the ship—the library kept the original.

The new Bibliotheca Alexandria was finished in 2002 with the help of a number of nations and UNESCO. It seems to be a great library building—designed to function as a library. It includes an antiquities museum, a science museum, a planetarium, and a small art museum—this seems to follow the functions of the ancient Bibliottheca Alexandria. (Now it's the only library with a Planetarium--hopefully we'll succeed in getting the Minnesota Planetarium added to the Minneapolis Central Library as planned.) It has a 2000-seat reading room on seven tiered levels, and space for 8 million hard copy volumes. (currently the collection is quite small-- 800 thousand volumes). It has the copy of the Internet Archive, lots of computer terminals and an instant publishing service.

It is not a “Free Public Library” like US libraries. Everyone needs to pay a fee to enter (Annual fee for Egyptians is about $12 per year (less for students, children and retired persons), about $65 per year for non-Egyptians.

Alexandria (March 19-20)

There really isn't a lot of History to see in Alexandria. Very little Greek and Roman is left. We did go into Roman catacombs and a Roman Amphitheater. The catacomes are a series of tunnels, shafts and rooms mined out of sandstone where Romans had been buried. The art carved into the walls was a strange mix of influences from ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman. In includes art of the mummification process--that gets it wrong.

The Alexandria National Museum includes sections on the Pharaohic periods (Old, Middle and New), the Coptic and the Muslim periods. A great, relatively small museum. It includes some of the treasures found off the coast near where the Ancient Alexandria Lighthouse was.

Alexandria is the second largest city in Egypt--about 2 million people. Traffic is not quite as bad as Cairo but still chaotic. It is a beautiful setting on the Mediterranean. It is the largest industrial port in Egypt (which we didn't see).

Had a chance to walk around the downtown shopping district. It is a series of small shops. We seem to at first be in the shoe section--shop after shop selling shoes. We then get into the cell phone section--again, shop after shop selling cell phones. Did pass two appliance stores--they have a much greater variety of colors for major appliances--bright red, blue and yellow are options. Otherwise, selection looks similar to US (except it seems to be on the smaller size end--no mammoth refrigerators, only apartment size clothes washers.

Nile Delta March 19-21

Train to Alexandria:
Mini van to the main Cairo railroad station. Busy place—even on a national holiday. All the trains look very worn on the outside. Inside of our train (first class) is in great shape.

Riding through Cairo on the train we notice all the buildings look worn on the outside. We're guessing the heat, sun and sand are hard on the exterior of things here. Lots of satellite dishes on every high rise. According to our guide, everyone in the building has their own

Train goes through the agricultural Nile delta. The agriculture seems to be all done by had and is very intense. Only walking paths (if any paths) between fields. All work seems to be done by hand. Land is very flat and only a couple feet above the level of the river. Large irrigation canal parallels the railroad for a while. Lots of small gas powered pumps getting water to the fields. Lots of small irrigation canals.
The train is nonstop to Alexandria. Has the right-of-way. Its speed seems to be faster than the autos on the 4 lane divided motorway that parallels it most of the way. We go a little slower through towns and when we get into Alexandria—sometimes slowing to a crawl in Alexandria. Two and a half hours to Alexandria (about 220 kilometers.)

Bus Back to Cairo:
On the bus ride back to Cairo, we took the desert road—a four lane divided highway. Agriculture here is by irrigation from wells. It isn't as intense as in the delta—the land just isn't as fertile. It is mainly sand. We actually see tractors--the work isn't done by hand here. Here the irrigation seems to be primarily by large moving sprinkler system (the kind you see in Western Minnesota and the other prairie states).

See our first pigeon houses. Silo like structures with lots of holes and a curved top. Used to raise pigeons for food.

Delta from the air (update):
It is clear when we leave Cairo for home. Flying over the delta we see a maze of irrigation canals. Very green landscape. It does look like about 10 percent of the delta is taken by small, medium and large towns/cities. According to our guide, one of the problems Egypt is facing is that the increasing urbanization of Egypt is taking very good farm land out of production.

Blogger in Egypt

Took a while to figure this out. When I went to my blogger website, the navigation at the top was all in Arabic. It took a while to figure out which link to click to log it. I don't read Arabic and since Arabic is read right to left, the links are in different places. Luckily, once I got to the dashboard, everything was in English.

Now having problems with the StarOffice "Send to Weblog" feature--freezing and crashing StarOffice.

Arriving in Cairo Wednesday, March 18

Got to Cairo after a 10 hour red-eye flight from JFK. Except for trying to sleep (Trying to sleep in economy class on a plane should be classified as torture.) , flying on Egypt Air was great: More space between rows of seats, comfortable seats, hot towels to refesh before breakfast, two real meals (they even served steamed fish that was not over cooked or cold) and a snack.Bus from plane to terminal for customs. Getting through customs was very fast.

The cab ride from the airport to our hotel in downtown Cairo was interesting. Bumper to bumper traffic. Very few traffic lights and the ones there were seemed to be ignored. On our side of the road, there were three stripped traffic lanes (no shoulder) but there were five lanes of traffic (lane stripes tend too be ignored. You have to be fearless to drive here.

We were going to send a few hours on our own exploring Cairo—decided to take a quick nap—woke up five hours later—no time for sight-seeing. I went out for a short walk along the Nile (hotel is on the Nile). A lot of permanently moored large boats turned into tourist restaurants.

It turns out that pedestrians have to be fearless also—in crossing the street. Pedestrians effectively do not have the right of way. You have to find a small gap in traffic and start crossing—a lane at a time—stopping between lanes if needed. At least drivers don't aim at pedestrians or speed up. So, at least it's better than NYC.