Jenyfer Matthews

We stayed the night at a hotel near Lake Qaroun, a large salt water lake. The salt content of this lake is higher than that of the Mediterranean.

Fishermen on Lake Qaroun at sunrise.

The location of the hotel was lovely, as you can see. Though it looked pretty good on the outside, the hotel was a dump. Our room was unusually large - it was apartment sized and we all had our own beds which I wasn’t expecting. We couldn’t enjoy it however because the room was so disgusting. The walls were crumbling and speckled with bug splats, the tub had dried up mouse turds in it, and one bathroom was missing a window pane which allowed swarms of mosquitoes to join us. The housekeeping couldn’t be bothered to tend to any of those problems, yet they left fresh bougainvillea blossoms on our pillows!

As an aside, having had experiences like this before in Egypt, I have a list of things I bring with me when I travel:

Flip flops
Wash cloth
baby wipes
hand sanitizer gel
bar of soap
mosquito repellent (not that they paid any attention this time!)

I may have to add sheets / sleeping bag to this list! Needless to say, none of us slept much at all.

On the second morning we headed out to Wadi Rayan where we were supposed to go and visit an open air museum where there are some 400 fossilized whale bones preserved from millions of years ago. It was in fact the main purpose of the trip.

This is as far as we were allowed to go. There was some mix-up between the bus company and the tour organizer and argue though she did, she was unable to convince them to drive our buses down the gravel road to get to the site. The drivers were concerned they would get stuck and disappointing as it was to miss the fossils I can’t really say I blame them.

The road the buses refused to travel…

While our tour organizer argued, we wandered in the sand near the bus and picked up fossilized sea shells.

So, instead of whale bones, we visited the waterfalls of Wadi Rayyan. They are formed by the overflow of Lake Qaroun flowing down into lower areas, forming two more smaller salt lakes. They aren’t particularly impressive until you realize that they are some of the only waterfalls in Egypt, period.



Close enough to Cairo for a day trip, this is a big picnic spot for Egyptians - and they certainly seem to be enjoying themselves!

The people in the countryside wear much more colorful scarves than the city





The last place we visited was this Greco-Roman temple, with the remains of the city of Dionysias








My son claimed he liked this last site best of all because we were able to climb on to the roof - though perhaps it was the danger of falling through the open pits into rooms below that thrilled him most. That or the bat we saw.

All in all, it was a good trip. We returned to Cairo on Friday evening, tired, mosquito bitten, and dirty. But there is nothing like a night in a crappy hotel to make you appreciate the comforts of home.

We spent our holiday traveling this year visiting an area of Egypt known as the Fayoum. I’m no expert on Egyptian history, but in a nutshell the Fayoum region is a desert depression into which the overflow of the yearly Nile Valley flooding used to flow. Due to this, the area is incredibly fertile. But it wasn’t until the Greco-Roman occupation of Egypt that reservoirs and canals were built to bring the waters of the Nile to the area on a controlled and regular basis, allowing people to farm there year round, at which time the area, though geographically small, became a very important area of Egypt.

Our first stop were the remains of a village called Karanis, on the edge of the Fayoum region. This was an agricultural village populated by ordinary people. Not much remains of the village because their homes were built of mud brick which has eroded over time.

(click any image to enlarge)

The remains of a mud brick wall in the village. The holes in the wall were where the palm log flooring fitted to make multiple story buildings.






The ruins of the village with the lush greenery of the Fayoum valley in the distance





It wasn’t all mud brick - this simply adorned temple still stands.





The primary god worshiped in this area was Sobek, the crocodile god. There were niches in this temple into which mummified crocodiles would have been placed.



The Pyramid at Hawara, built by Amenemhet III during the time of the Middle Kingdom. It doesn’t look like much now because the outer layer of limestone has been removed over time, exposing the much less durable mud brick structure below. But it is an impressive number of mud bricks! And apparently this pyramid has one of the most complicated internal passage systems, built in an attempt to thwart tomb robbers. Shortly after this period, pharaohs abandoned pyramids in favor of the tombs in the Valley of the Kings down in Luxor.






The entrance to the pyramid. There wasn’t much to see - the water table has risen so you could only go a few yards in before the floor of the tunnel was covered in water. It probably wouldn’t have stopped Indian Jones but the caretakers stopped us!



One of the many policeman that guarded us at the various sites we visited over the two day trip, a necessary precaution.



The decor at the rest stop where we ate lunch was certainly interesting!



Farmland



Pyramid at Lahun, built by King Senwosret II



One of several openings leading to the tombs of the princesses



This pyramid survived somewhat better than the previous pyramid because of the way in which is was built, incorporating the stone of the hillside in conjunction with the mud bricks.

Stay tuned, more pictures tomorrow…

There are so many things to see in and around Luxor that unless you have a lot of time to explore, it can be hard to fit them all in. On our third day, we opted to arrange for a guided tour that included the colossi of Memnon, the Valley of the Queens, the Valley of the Kings, and the funerary temple of Hatshepsut.

Our first stop was at the colossi of Memnon. They are large. It might just be me but they remind me a little of the stormtroopers from Starwars. Or maybe it’s the other way round!

This guy had pigeons nesting in his cracks

Villagers working in the field right next to the colossi. It’s astonishingly lush between the Nile and where the Valley of the Kings starts.

Unfortunately Nefartari’s tomb, the most magnificent of them, was not open when we visited. Also unfortunately, there is a no photo rule inside the tombs. You’ll just have to take my word for it that the ones we saw, the tombs of Amunherkhepshep and his mother, were wonderful.

We went next to the funerary temple of Hatshepsut, the mother-in-law of Tuthmosis III, who ruled Egypt as a pharoah for 20 years. The temple was vandalized by a number of other pharoahs, including Thuthmosis III who removed all the images of Hatshepsut he could find. This temple was also the site of the 1997 Luxor Massacre.

The still visible painted reliefs, with stars on the ceiling

King Tut’s tomb is open but requires a separate (and expensive) entrance ticket. Because he was so young when he died, his tomb is rather small and simple by comparison to the others and all of his impressive treasure has been removed to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Steps leading down into Ramses I tomb

Once again, no photos inside. I bought a package of lovely oversized postcards to make up for it.

Howard Carter’s house, on a hill near the entrance of the Valley of the Kings.

Each of the dark openings on the hillside is a tomb in the Valley of the Nobles. We could have spent our entire stay looking at tombs and still not seen them all!

A ferry boat for local people, loading up on the west bank of the Nile.

Valley of the Kings as seen from the water

We spent the rest of the day lounging next to the pool at our hotel. It was no hardship!

As you might imagine, the kid’s pool was a huge hit with the children!

Don’t forget to stop by over the weekend. Chris Power will be here talking about whether it’s better to write a story for a market or write a story for yourself. See you!

We fully intended on getting up and out early on our second day. The heat of the day was enervating - hovering close to 110F by midday. It was closer to midmorning by the time we got ourselves organized to go out, but we didn’t let it stop us. We were determined to see the Temple of Karnak.

It wasn’t an easy outing. We took the shuttle boat from our hotel into town, intending to then take a taxi. I only thought the taxi drivers in Cairo were obnoxious. I *almost* had to admire the relentlessness with which we were pursued by taxi drivers and horse drawn carriages - I say almost because it reached a point where their aggressive haggling was scaring the children. Why didn’t we just take a taxi as intended? Because for a time every driver we encountered was asking 3x the normal rate for the ride. We did eventually find a more reasonable driver but only after having walked about 1/3 of the way ourselves.

The entrance to the Temple of Karnak is lined with rams headed sphinxes. And you know I took more pictures!! It’s just amazing to think that these were each individually made.

I love the small people figures below the beards.

I was lucky to get so many nice pictures that make it look as if we had the place to ourselves - in fact, this is what it looked like in the hypostyle hall - the heat did not deter anyone!

There are 134 massive columns in the hypostyle hall, each heavily decorated with hyroglyphics. This was once roofed and also ornately painted. It’s hard to imagine when it’s already so lovely as it is.

And here is a bit of modern graffiti - added only the day before our visit. I’ll never understand what moves people to deface ancient ruins…

The sacred lake.

A lovely stairway to a now vanished area of the temple complex

A tranquil temple near the rear of the complex where you can still see the remains of paint on the columns and roof. It took us a while to get back this far so we had it mostly to ourselves.

The end of the temple complex - but apparently not the end of the temple. According to our Lonely Planet guide book, this temple was once connected to the Temple of Luxor by a 3km avenue lined with sphinxes - most of which lies beneath the modern city of Luxor. Imagine what that must have looked like! I really could have taken pictures of sphinxes all day!

Alas, we did not get to see the sound and light show in the evening. Perhaps the next time we are in Luxor.

Tomorrow: Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens, and the Funerary Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir al-Bahri plus bonus pictures from along the Nile.

My husband isn’t a big fan of flying so even though we could have traveled to Luxor in an hour by plane, we opted to take the sleeper train - in spite of the fact that it was more expensive. I don’t mind flying but the train appealed in an Agatha Christie sort of way so I agreed.

It was an adventure, I’ll give it that. The beds were comfortable enough but I got very little sleep. If it wasn’t the children waking up and fussing, the train itself kept slamming on the brakes and stopping. We arrived in Luxor at 7am, two hours later than scheduled, unrefreshed. But we were there.

It was hot, even at that early hour. But it wasn’t going to get any cooler as the day progressed, so after checking in at our hotel, we grabbed our hats and some water and headed out to the Temple of Luxor.

(Click on any of the images to view them larger)

There is an avenue of sphinxes to the left as you enter - I suppose it was the original entrance to the temple. For some reason, the sphinxes on one side were much better preserved than the others. Maybe they were buried? I could have taken pictures of sphinxes all day. I love that their faces are all different.

A statue as you enter the temple. The scale of everything was huge!

My son is an orange speck in the distance.

As if the size and scale of this wasn’t impressive enough, imagine that all of the hieroglyphs used to be painted and many of the columns and statues were plated in gold and silver.

The Romans left their mark too. At one point, when they were rulers of Egypt, they used the Temple of Luxor as a fortress and treasury. They plastered over the hieroglyphs and painted their own images there. And amazingly, some of them are still visible.

It wasn’t just pharaohs and Romans who made contributions to the temple.
Here we have some ancient graffiti.

We spent about an hour exploring in the temple before we ran out of water and energy and took ourselves off to lunch and back to the hotel for an afternoon of relaxation.

Tomorrow: Temple of Karnak.

It’s been heating up over the last week and yesterday was a scorcher, with a hot dry wind out of the desert. How hot was it? My daughter has a fluffy white teddy bear that had turned gray from the general everyday grime of life in Cairo. I washed it last night and set it out on the drying rack outside.

Two hours later it was bone dry and fluffy again. Definitely good drying weather - if you like the crispy look.

I am going to be spending the day packing, preparing for our weekend trip to Luxor. It’s going to be even hotter there - up near 110F most days / 70sF at night. Our plan is to go out early in the morning and see one site, then return to the hotel and spend the afternoon in and around the swimming pool. Evening site seeing will also be an option - if we feel like it. Frankly, I’m ready for a little leisure.

I won’t be around, but don’t forget to stop by over the weekend. Heather Hiestand will be here talking about her book Two on the Hunt. Leave a comment for Heather and you could win a pdf copy of her book One Juror Down.

Have a great weekend!

First things first - thank you to everyone who stopped by this weekend and left a comment for Shelley. Congratulations to Cathy who won a PDF copy of Shelley’s book Playing to Win. Drop me an email and I’ll get that out to you.

I just looked at the calendar this morning and seriously, where has April gone?? I’ve hardly got my mind around what month it actually is and it’s almost over! I think the problem is that the kids have been out of school more than in school. I counted - they’ve only had 14 days of school this month! The first week was western Easter holidays / spring break and now we’re coming up on eastern orthodox Easter holidays and an Egyptian holiday called Sham al Nessim, which marks the beginning of spring. The children will be off school until May 4th.

Since my husband is also on spring break, we’ve scheduled a family trip to Luxor and the Valley of the Kings over the upcoming weekend, which for us will begin with an overnight train ride Wednesday night. The kids will miss one day of school this week, Thursday. Normally, I’m not the sort who schedules activities that require them to miss school, but I unwittingly did myself a good turn here. They are having book week at school this week, culminating in a costume day on Thursday where they have to dress up like a character from a book. They will miss costume day, which as upsetting as it is for them, is quite a relief to me. Outside of Halloween, I really hate coming up with costumes for school. I’m a prolific quilter but costume design? Not so much.

As you might expect, I haven’t made a huge amount of progress on my WIP. There’s always tomorrow (or May) right?

First a little information about Siwa:

The oasis of Siwa is more than the gateway to the Great Sand Sea. This once sleepy frontier town, less than 50 kilometers from the border of Libya, has a rich cultural history. Siwa is home to Egypt’s only native Berber population as well as the famed Temple of the Oracle. Alexander the Great traveled here and obtained the confirmation he sought: the priests of the Oracle addressed him as deity and established his right to rule Egypt. Famous for its olives and dates, Siwa was once an important stop on the Caravan Route. But to protect the oasis from hostile invaders the Siwans built the Fortress of Shali in the 12th century and for hundreds of years no one went in. And while Siwa first appeared on an Egyptian map in the 26th dynasty, it was likely settled long before that. Flints found in the area suggest that Siwa was inhabited during the Paleolithic and Neolithic eras when the barren desert was a lush savannah.

We left Cairo for the Siwa Oasis, located in north central Egypt, bright and early on Thursday morning. This was a tour organized by the university where my husband works so there were about 50 of us on a huge bus, driving time two days. There are worse ways to travel in Egypt, believe me!

I took my first picture of the trip at a rest stop about an 1 1/2 hours outside of Cairo. (Note: clicking on any picture will make it larger)

I love taking pictures of goofy signs and how on earth could I resist the irony of this one - of a coffee with a name like this in such a conservative country? Sole Agent of Latin Lover in Egypt, indeed!

Our first real stop was at the Al Alamein War Memorial. I am no WWII history buff but apparently Al Alamein was the site of a huge battle in which the allies were able to defeat the Germans, ending German hopes of occupying Egypt, controlling access to the Suez Canal and gaining access to Middle East oil fields. An important turning point in the war in North Africa.

For a while I read the headstones, the names and ages of the soldiers killed, the inscriptions added by the family they left behind, but I soon had to stop. It was incredibly poignant to see the number of headstones - so many young men, life ended too soon, interred in this remote and dusty foreign place so far from home, some unidentified. The number of headstones here represents those they actually found - there were apparently tens of thousands killed whose bodies were never recovered.

We then drove a few more hours to Marsa Matrouh, a city on the North Coast, arriving late afternoon. Our hotel sat on the edge of the Mediterranean. It was almost impossible to look away from the vivid aquas and blues of the water there - and equally impossible to capture the colors with my camera at that time of the day. I suspect we’ll go back at some point, just to spend the weekend on the beach. The children did not get their fill of beach time during our short stay there.

Stay tuned…tomorrow I will post more pictures taken in and around the Siwa area….