The Land of the Pharoahs

We returned to Nairobi after an amazing week on safari, and enjoyed a couple of days in relaxation and the luxury of Tim and Lisa’s place. We quickly settled in to our regular routine of relaxing on the porch, eating everyone’s delicious food and enjoying Kenyan hospitality. Right- Hovan, myself, Sherene, Chris and their daughter Amaya. Photo courtesy of Chris.)

On Friday we decided to head to the Maasai Market that happens once a week to check out all the artisan goods. We spent a good deal of time wandering through the space until I found some great ebony carvings. After purchasing them and a few other goods we had to haul everything down to the car, in doing so we realized just how heavy ebony is. When we had a chance to weigh it, it came in at 58 pounds worth of carvings. Thankfully the entire Rosslyn Academy seemed to pull together to help get them home for us since shipping would have run about $600+. (Left - Tim & Lisa's house)

We were also treated to a Christmas choral performance at the academy that was done really well. There were mixtures of hand bell performances, primary school children, secondary and even and adult choir. The performance was for Christmas and it reminded us of the upcoming season, maybe even making us a little homesick.

On Saturday we enjoyed a great day on campus and spent a lot of it playing with Max and Simon and Chris and Sherene. I spent the morning getting run ragged by a couple of young men, but I managed to hold my own in basketball, tennis, ping pong and water sports. Christine was instrumental in winning the water sports, but Max and Simon may disagree. (Right - Hovan getting whopped at ping pong).

That evening we went out on the town with Chris and Sherene and Tim and Lisa to enjoy a delicious Japanese meal. Japanese food is one of Christine and my favourites and this restaurant was particularly good. The restaurant belonged to one of the parents of Chris’s students and they treated us to a massive plate of complimentary salmon sushi and sashimi; the fish was melt in your mouth. The entire dinner was fabulous and I think we counted about 9 different meats through the meal. Everyone rolled out of the restaurant feeling stuffed and completely satisfied with the meal. (Left - The plate of sashimi).

After 2 fabulous weeks in Kenya it was time to move on, though it was very difficult given the warm treatment and wonderful time we had. Unfortunately our flight out was at 4:30 in the morning, so we had to get picked up at 1:30 to make the airport in time. Tim even got up to make sure the cab arrived and that we got off okay. Christine managed about 2 hours of sleep, while I decided to stay up until we were on the flight.

A short 5 hours after flying out and we arrived in the land of the Pharaoh’s. We were met at the airport by a driver and taken to a nice hotel that feels like it should be in the centre of the tourist section, but actually is in an area that is mostly locals.

After enjoying a rest day on Sunday in Cairo and doing a bit of wandering around the hotel, we spent Saturday hitting the tour circuit. Our expectation was that our tour would be in a large bus with hordes and hordes of people. As it turns out, we had a van all to ourselves and a tour guide for just the two of us.

Our first stop was the site of the old capital of Egypt at Memphis, which is just outside of Cairo. The site has a bunch of statues and artifacts that date back thousands of years and included several large statues of Ramses II, who is one of the most prolific in their long history. He is also most likely the biblical ruler at the time that Moses led the Jews from Egypt. (Right - Christine and a large statue of Ramses II).

Following this we visited the site of the most ancient pyramid in Egypt at Sakkara. This is the step based pyramid of King Zoser and is before they started building pyramids with flat surfaces. The pyramid is surrounded by temples, party sites and the home of other pyramids for family and other important people. This particular pyramid dates back to approximately 2700 BC, so that puts it at almost 5000 years old, amazing! (Left - The pyramids at Sakkara).

Our last stop of the day was the most famous of all the pyramids, the ones at Giza. There are 3 pyramids located here, belonging to a father, son and grandson. There are also a number of small pyramids around them for their mothers, wives and daughters. The biggest period belongs to the father and it was originally over 146 metres high and is known as the great pyramid. This one has over 2 million stones in it weighing from 3.5 to 19 tonnes, which is an incredible amount of weight. The sons pyramid is slightly smaller but placed on the apex of the hill, so it looks bigger. The grandson has the smallest of the three. All of these pyramids are in the middle of the city, with a small dessert on the backside and a KFC not more than a 5 minute walk down the hill. (Right - Christine and pyramid #2)

We visited the inside of one pyramid and walked down a deep shaft into the burial chamber of the pharaoh. It is a long way down and the shaft was small so I was bent way over and still scraping my back as we went down. After hiking out we traveled down to the base of the hill and right across from the KFC is the sphinx. This monument has a long and storied history and was believed to grant peoples dreams. One very disillusioned dreamer went and knocked the nose off the sphinx when things didn’t work out. Over the years it was buried up to it’s chin in sand until another pharaoh dreamed beneath it and then unearthed it once more. Later on when Napoleon was around, he decided to spirit off the broken nose. (Left - Hovan at the great pyramids).

Above - Christine at the great pyramids

Today we visited the Egyptian museum, and it is stuffed with some of the oldest most amazing artifacts around. The museum also holds almost a complete collection of King Tutankhamen. Apparently he was a short lived and somewhat useless king, but was made famous by the fact that his is one of (if not the only) tomb that was left intact without having most things stolen from it. The artifacts covered more than half of a huge floor and included chariots, massive boxes of gold, thrones, and the most famous sarcophagus and golden mask. My question is, if this is the amount of stuff that comes out of just one pyramid, what happened to the stuff from the hundreds and hundreds of others? We are talking about warehouses and warehouses worth of stuff, how could robbers and buyers hide that much stuff?

Following the museum we took a trip to the Citadel, which is where Saladin built defenses when Egypt was conquered by the Muslims. Inside the Citadel is the Alabaster Mosque, also known as the Mosque of Mohammed Ali. The mosque was built in the early 1800’s and is very large and ornate, but it is currently undergoing some cleaning in order to bring back some of the luster of it’s original sheen.

After the mosque we visited the Old Bazaar of Khan el Khalili where it is a maze of shops, stalls and merchants. They are pretty aggressive in their sales tactics, but we managed to navigate our way through it without getting cornered into buying anything we didn’t want, or anything at all for that matter.

After a tiring day we enjoyed getting some pizza delivery to the hotel and a quiet evening in. Tomorrow we are heading off to the coastal city of Alexandria to see the sights and enjoy the beautiful Mediterranean.

Best Wishes,

Christine and Hovan