Our six-day trip to Aswan, Luxor, and Hurghada was one of the most incredible experiences I have had in Egypt so far!
The trip was organized by the AFS program, so all 25 of the students on the NSLI-Y program traveled. It started with a 15-hour, overnight train ride from Cairo to Aswan, which was a long time to be sitting in one place, let alone try to get any sleep.
Day 1, Feb. 3: Aswan...We visited Philae, which is the ancient site of the cult of Isis, and the island houses a temple complex. We also took a quick trip to see the Unfinished Obelisk, which is supposedly the sister to the Lateran Obelisk which is now in Paris, and it would have been the biggest obelisk in the world, but it was never finished due to a flaw in the stone. Obelisks are carved out of one giant piece of stone, so if there is a problem with part of it, the obelisk cannot be finished. Later that afternoon, we took a beautiful, relaxing felucca ride on the Nile to the Aswan market. The Nile in southern Egypt is much more how I pictured it - open banks covered in long grass, trees, and lots of other unharmed greenery. The banks of the Nile in Cairo are covered in cement and is not nearly as beautiful as the natural scenery. We bargained our way through the Aswan market for a couple hours, which was a lot of fun. The shop owners were very amused by Arabic-speaking Americans, and we definitely got better deals on our purchases because of our language skills. I bought karkaday (dried hibiscus flowers) and peanuts, for which Aswan is famous, and Izzy and I bargained for a pair of scarves...we even managed to 'beat' the Egyptians in getting the cheapest prices for our purchases, which is an accomplishment because the shopkeepers literally have three different prices for their goods: the highest price for foreigners, the middle price for Arabic-speaking foreigners, and the lowest price for Egyptians.
It was quite an adventurous night, to say the least! We befriended one of the shopkeepers who was around our age, and he ended up walking around the market with us for about an hour, and helped us out a little without wanting anything in return, which was a lot of fun. We finally settled down in our cruise boat after the market, and headed down the Nile while watching "The Shawshank Redemption" (which I highly recommend), with some friends late into the night, and then we finally went to bed.
Day 2, Feb. 4: We woke up early to visit the Kom Ombo temple complex, another site of an ancient cult, and I gave a tour of the area to some of the other students using my Rough Guides guidebook. This became the routine for every other historical site we visited thereafter and is one of my fondest memories from the trip. It helped me learn the information better, and I'm glad that the other people enjoyed it, too. Rough Guides also showed us some neat things that we would not have normally seen by ourselves or with a real guide. Almost all of these ancient sites contained a temple complex dedicated to various gods, and made of huge stones covered with carved reliefs and hieroglyphics. They were all very different and completely amazing!
We hopped back on the boat to keep moving down the Nile, and we stopped later that day at Edfu, which was a cult site for the god Horus. The Rough Guides book really helped make sense of everything and explained a lot of detail to make each site more memorable, so I had fun trying to figure out the maps of each place and explain the background information and details to my friends...I felt like my mom giving one of her famous tours out of a guidebook, but I really enjoyed doing it!! At one point, I was pointing at a relief in the sanctuary of the temple and explaining what it was about, and then all of a sudden, a big French tour group that was in there turned around to look at the same relief around which we were all huddled. We all laughed, and then we backed away to let their guide have some room.
We had a gelabiyya party later that night on the boat, so we wore the traditional Egyptian outfits/dresses and danced to Egyptian music. Some of the Egyptian girls that came along as chaperones did some belly dancing for us, which was impressive.
Day 3, Feb. 5: We woke up today and went to the Valley of the Kings! We were only able to go into two of the tombs due to time constraints, but it was an amazing experience, and I couldn't actually believe that I was there after seeing so many History Channel shows on ancient Egypt and the Valley of the Kings. After that, most of the students went with one of the chaperones and climbed the mountain behind the Valley of the Kings and went down the other side to Hatshepsut's Temple. The view from the top of the sandy mountain was incredible...Hatshepsut's Temple was below us, and the Nile stretched out in front of us with its green banks paralleling both sides. The greenness stopped abruptly after a certain point, and everything else just stretched out into a never-ending desert. It was a reall dramatic site, to say the least, and unfortunately I did not have my camera because we weren't allowed to take it into the Valley of the Kings.
We descended the other side of the mountain and went to Hatshepsut's Temple which was very beautiful, especially the setting with the mountain in the background. It's still so hard to believe that all these sites were built over 3,000 years ago!
We spent some time in the Luxor market after dinner on the boat, but this time we were pretty exhausted, so we didn't get involved in much bargaining. Also, the market was incredibly touristy and the shopkeepers were even more aggressive than the ones in Khan il-Khalili...so much so that I didn't even want to glance towards their goods because they would immediately bombard us.
After the market, we visited Luxor Temple after dark, so all the lights were turned on, which was beautiful! After the tour we had some extra time, so we took some fun pictures and then ended up having a piggy-back race in a big open area of the court of Ramses II...definitely a memorable (and hilarious) experience.
There was a DJ party later that night on the boat, but most people didn't go because it had been an exhausting day. First, we watched a belly-dancer and then a whirling dervish perform, which was interesting, and after that the dance floor was open. A few of us danced around a little, and then went upstairs to watch another movie, but I fell asleep partway through.
..will post the second half soon, hopefully, and I also apologize that I can't upload the photos right now either.
