Domestic November

For the month of November, I bumped back to domestic flying. I did so with the intention of getting a great line with a long Tampa layover on the 26th or even getting a line that had the whole day of the 26th off. HOWEVER, in the rush to put my bids in, I selected line 164, when I really wanted line 165. Well, bid awards come out and I get my first choice, 164, which was a line I did not even want.

But hey, I can do anything for a month, so I tried to focus on the positive. I had some great longer layovers in places I had not been in a while, so that would be fun. I had a longer Denver layover, where I get to see my friend Wendy. I think the last time I saw her I was in the 8th grade. I got to visit my favorite steakhouse in Mexico City, el Fogoncito. And I got to have a 30 hour layover in Charlotte when I got to visit with my friend Tina, a pal from college.

We lay over in downtown Charlotte, right in the area where she works. We met up for a nice lunch and then that evening, we went with her boyfriend and some other friends to watch the Charlotte Checkers play. When she emailed me originally and told me we were going to a Checkers game, I thought she was talking about a checkers game. A little interweb research and I learned it was minor league hockey.

The Checkers won 7 to 1 that evening against the #1 ranked South Carolina Stingrays. Quite an upset.

As we were leaving the area, I got my picture taken with one of the ice dancers.... they are called Check Mates.

Next month it is back to International flying. Mostly turnarounds to Belize, along with a Paris trip over Christmas.

Philae Temple

After our tour of the Aswan dam, we made our way to Philae Temple. Philae is where the god Osiris was rumored to have been buried, so it was a revered holy site for both Egpytians as well as Nubians from the South.

We made our way to the ruins by boat.

The temple is thought to have been constructed between 282-145BC. Southern Egpyt has a large Nubian population, people who ethnically trace their heritage back from the Sudan and deeper into Africa. The Nubian culture is still present to this day, and for the most part, remains largely separate and distinct. As a result, there are numerous Nubian monuments present at Philae Temple.

The entrance of the temple originally housed two huge obelisks, but like many others, they now sit outside the country, with one in at the Louvre in Paris and one in Florence, Italy.

Like other temples, early Christians would later use it as centers for worship. This site is unique because it still houses one of the original Christian altars.

The site of temple actually sits at a different location because the construction of the Aswan dam flooded the original site.

At the southern end of the ruins is a smaller temple dedicated to Isis, who was Osiris' wife and the mother of Horace.

After we left Philae Temple, we made our way back to the center of town to sail a felucca around Elephantine Island.

It was very relaxing to sail along the Nile in one of these traditional boats. No engines or exhaust. We just rode along on the power of the wind.

Our trip was now over and it was time to head back to Cairo. We bid our farewells to Oli and Yvetta, the young couple in our tour and retrieved our luggage from the boat. After a short flight from Aswan back to Cairo, we headed to our hotel for a few hours of resting and cleaning up before our all night flight to Paris. Our flight home to Dallas was delayed a bit and even though it has twenty open seats, it was weight restricted and we were the only three standby travelers to get on the flight.

Aswan High Dam

After leaving Kom Ombo, we sailed overnight to Aswan, the last point on our tour. That final night, our boat had a big Galabeya party. Most of the guests had purchased inexpensive costumes during the cruise for the big party. Within our little group, Stu was the only participant however. He looked very regal in his $6 Galabeya. Who wouldn't want to be part of his harem?

When we awoke the next morning, we were in Aswan. Before meeting up with Ahmed, our tour guide, we got packed up and checked out of our cabins. The first stop on our day of sightseeing was the Aswan Dam.

There are actually two dams here. The low dam, which was built in 1902 and the high dam which was built in 1970. Prior to the dams, the Nile would flood every year. In ancient times, it was an important part of the planting season, as the flood would bring sediments and nutrients that would make the soil ideal for planting. However, as the populations grew and the agricultural industry got more complex, the floods began to have detrimental effects, posing great risks to human life or to high priced cotton fields.

The high dam was actually built around an era of international tension. The original low dam was proving inadequate. The leader at the time, Gamal Abdel Nasser, had just taken control of Egypt in a 1954 revolution. He was trying to portray himself as an Arab nationalist, not just Egyptian. He was dealing with lots of conflict from Iraq and Jordan at this time as well. The US saw him as an ally to prevent communism from entering the Middle East and agreed to help fund the damn in exchange for Nasser helping resolve Arab-Israeli conflict. Nasser didn't like being pushed around by Israel and so when he asked for weapons help from the US, he was granted his request, but only if the US could supervise the training, which he did not like. Nasser threatened to go to the Soviet Union for help instead. The US thought this was a bluff, so they withdrew their offer to fund the dam and supply weapons. Thinking that Egypt would come back under new terms, they were rather shocked when the Soviet Union offered to fund the dam's construction.

The dam is 3830 meters long, 980 meters wide. 11,000 cubic meters of water pass thru the dam every second.

The dam is hydro electric, so it generates about half of Egypt's electricity production. Most smaller villages in the country received electricity for the first time as a result of the dam. The dam has 12 generators with an output of 2.1 gigawatts of electricity.

Lake Nasser is 550km long and 35km at it's widest. From the dam it extends all the way back to the Sudan border. The artificial lake started filling in 1964 and reached capacity in 1976. As a result, some 60,000 people were displaced and countless antiquities sites had to be rescued and removed before they were lost to the rising water.

The dam has been both good and bad for Egypt. It has controlled very devastating floods that used to kill scores of people and ruin whole seasons of crops. Because the water can be controlled, there is no longer a problem with drought seasons either. However, land erosion due to lack of new sediments is a growing problem, as is the use of chemical fertilizers. Prior to the dams, the flooding would deposit rich sediment into the soil. Now that this doesn't happen, the use of chemical fertilizers has been introduced to support agriculture. These chemicals now flow down the Nile and empty into the Mediterranean Sea. The dam is also causing the salinity of the Mediterranean to rise as the water logged soils at Lake Nasser are causing salt to rise to the surface. Scientists have now traced that salt as far as the Atlantic Ocean, where the Mediterranean empties at Gibraltar.

Sunset on the Nile

Maybe one of the best pictures I took on the holiday...

Kom Ombo

After we sailed from Edfu, we made our way south to Kom Ombo to visit yet another Egyptian temple. The temple of Kom Ombo is unique because it is the only temple in the kingdom that is dedicated to two separate gods. As a result, it was built with two of everything, one for each respective god.

One side was dedicated to Sobek, who was the god of fertility, and took the shape of a crocodile. The other side was dedicated to Horus, the falcon god. Everything in the original construction was symmetrical. The temple was used as a hospital and funerary as well. Adjacent to the temple is the crocodile museum, where some of the three hundred mummified crocodiles can be seen on display.

Much of the original temple was destroyed from various earthquakes and floods. Some stone was even removed to construct other temples. Early Copts (Coptic Christians, which represent the largest Christian denomination in Egypt to this day) used the temple as a church and they destroyed some of the original statues and structures.

We made our way back to the boat, only to find that the boat we had to pass thru to get to ours had raised its plank. Marty was convinced we were stranded forever, but we had to wait about a half hour until a crewman from our boat found us and told us how to get back to our boat.

I tried to do a little shopping at one of the souvenir stalls, but the shopkeeper wanted $25 for two magnets that I found. He eventually came down to $2, but I was so mad at the haggling and the fact that they tried to take advantage of the tourists, I was too pissed to buy anything. We did get a nice group shot with Oli and Yvetta, our new friends who were travelling in our group.

Edfu

We arrived at Edfu on our fourth morning. Edfu is known for being the location of the Temple of Horus, which was built sometime between 237BC and 57BC, into the reign of Cleopatra VII (the famous one).

Of all the temples in Egypt, it is one of the best preserved. It is also the second largest temple, after Karnak (see earlier entry).

The temple is dedicated to Horus, who is the falcon god of ancient Egypt.

The inscriptions on the walls at the temple are very important because of the glimpse they provide about Egyptian language, myths and religion as it was absorbed into the Roman Empire (the beginning of the end so to speak).

Our tour guide Ahmed also told us about Horus and his epic battle with Set. Horus's mother was Isis, and her husband Osirus, Horus' father, was murdered by his brother Set and cut up into a bunch of little pieces and put in a box. Horus is known for avenging that death, although the battle took places thru several Dynasties.

At one point, Horus even ripped off one of Set's testicles. The story get's pretty deviant, regarding sex stuff, which is not appropriate for my family friendly blog. We'll just say that "junk" was flying everywhere. So anyway, the story goes that the gods were getting tired of this and so they proposed a boat race, with the winner being declared the ruler of Egypt. The rule was that the boats had to be made of stone, but Horus made his of wood to look like it was made of stone. So they have the boat race, Horus wins, yadda yadda yadda, and Set steps down as ruler.

This myth is important because it shows how Lower and Upper Egypt were united as one kingdom. The most famous part of Horus is his eye. The "eye of Horus" is said to provide strength and protection to Egyptian rulers.

When we got back to the boat, there was a cobra on my bed, compliments of housekeeping. Just like in Death on the Nile.

Esna Lock

When we approached the town of Esna, we had to wait our turn and pass thru their lock system. There are actually two locks at the bridge. The first one was built in 1906 and the second one was added in the late 90s. We enter the lock two boats at a time, the canal doors close, the water level is raised 6 meters, the front doors open, and we make our way south. Easy enough.

A State of De-Nile

Our third day aboard the luxurious Miss Egypt was spent sailing up the Nile. We left Luxor in the late morning, docked briefly to bring on a bunch of rowdy Italian tourists, and continued south.

It was a relaxing day. I spent the morning sitting in my cabin watching the shoreline and writing in my journal.

The locals don't seem to mind the pollution from the river. We were told to not even have our skin come in contact with the water, lest we contract schistosomiasis, and have the runs for the rest our lives.

The highlight of the day was passing thru the Esna lock. As we approached the lock and took our turn to pass, dozens of locals in row boats pulled up and started throwing souvenirs at us at the top deck. I guess they used the honor system because you would yell at them back and forth until you agreed on a price, and then you took the contents out of the bag and put the money inside the bag, tied it up, and threw it overboard for them to collect.

Stu bought a galabeya, a popular style of clothing worn by locals, from one of the boat people for the equivalent of 6 dollars.

Step Thru, Foot First, Stay on Your Feet, Jump into the Nile

My non airline friends will not understand the title of this entry (a play on the evacuation commands we shout in emergencies), but Stu and Marty and I decided this was an appropriate title for Stu after his accident.

After our day of West Bank sightseeing, we decided we would head to the Old Winter Palace for a few drinks. It is one of the oldest hotels in Luxor, built in 1886, and Marty had fond memories from there when she visited 27 years ago.

Our boat was docked next to others so we had to pass thru various boats to make it ashore. As we were leaving our boat, Stu misjudged his next step between two boats and came down hard on his ankle, spraining it and almost ending up in the Nile.

Being the trooper that he is, he demanded that we still continue with our trek down to the Old Winter Palace. I don't think the pain at set in yet. We made the 2km walk down to the hotel. At first they were not going to let me in, because my attire was too casual, but we bribed the bellman and he let us go in and have a look around. The grounds were very beautiful, with lots of gardens and fountains.

We sat at the rooftop bar facing the street and the Nile and had a few cocktails before we made our way back to the boat.

By now, Stu was really starting to limp and was feeling the discomfort. Once we got back to the room, his ankle had swollen to twice it's size.

Luckily, our next day was a complete day of sailing so we were not going to have any major walking planned, so we had some time to decide if we were going to have to amputate or not.

The West Bank

Our second day in Luxor was spent on the West Bank of the Nile. Our first stop was the Valley of the Kings (where you cannot bring a camera, so I have no photos to show). For 500 years, from the 15th to the 11th century BC, this was the primary burial grounds for the Pharaohs. The valley contains 63 known tombs and chambers, with the last one being discovered last year. It is most famous for the King Tut burial chamber, which was found mostly intact with all it's contents (now on display at the Egyptian Museum.

Our next stop was Deir el-Bahri, a temple dedicated primarily to Queen Hatshepsut. It was built by Senemut, who many now think was her lover (!). It is the closet Ancient Egyptians ever came to classical architecture.

From there we made our way to the Colossi of Memnon, which are two statues of Pharaoh Amenhotep III, which have been standing for 3400 years. Their original purpose was to stand as an entrance to Amenhotep's huge temple, but today, these are the only part of that left standing. Archaeologists estimate the original temple might have covered 35 acres before it was lost to time and the elements.

The statues stand about 60 feet tall and weigh about 700 tons each. The two statues were heavily damaged in an earthquake in 27BC, and one statue was reported to "sing" in the early mornings afterwards. It became a very popular site in the Roman world and people from all over the empire would travel here to see if they could hear singing. The name Memnon, or "ruler of dawn" was given to the statues as a result, for the legendary morning singing.

Karnak and Luxor

After we checked in at the boat, we had some time to unpack and relax. Directly following lunch we met up with our personal tour guide Ahmed. He would be with us for the next few days as we sailed (up) the Nile.

Our first stop was the Temple of Karnak. Built around 1350BC, it is dedicated to Amen, the Egyptian Sun god. We would quickly learn that Egyptians had gods for everything and trying to keep track of them would prove to be very confusing.

Karnak is the largest ancient religious site in the world and accordingly is the second most visited site in Egypt after the Pyramids in Giza. The complex consists of four main parts, but only the section dedicated to Amen-Re (the sun god) is open to the public.

What makes Karnak unique is that it was used my multiple Pharaohs. Most rulers wanted to have their buildings and structures for themselves only, but Karnak was used by over 30 dynasties, starting in the Middle Kingdom and stretching to the end of Ancient Egypt. Every Pharaoh during this time added something to the temple grounds.

The most famous part of Karnak temple is the Hypostyle Hall, which is 50,000 square meters and is comprised of over 134 massive stone columns.

Our next stop was Luxor Temple, a few km south of Karnak. This temple was also built to honor Amen-Re, as well as his wife Mut and Chons, the moon god. The entrance is the home of one of the Egpytian obelisks (we learned that most obelisks have been "given" away to other countries).

The obelisks are made of red granite which had to be quarried in Aswan, and then floated up the river to Luxor during the yearly flood.

One of the unique features of Luxor Temple is that it is the only site that also houses both a Mosque and a Church. Early Christians built a church at the back of the temple and then Muslims built a mosque on top of ruins (which is still in use today).

Luxor Temple also has a statue of King Tut and his wife, one of the more famous statues at the site. It was too dark at this point to get a photo, but the illuminated pillars did come out ok.

We wrapped up our day with a couple of Stella beers on the boat before making our way to dinner.