9th November Oasis Trip

 

After Ivy’s visit and the wedding we still had a few days spare so we had booked a desert tour with Priti, a friend from church. The mini bus picked us up from the apartment at 7 am Wednesday morning (it was 7:15 by the time we realised they had the wrong building number and let them know where we were). In we piled with our bags, camera and itinerary for the day

 Day 1: Cairo – Bahariya Oasis (350 Km)

· Pick up from you location in Cairo (airport/ station / hotel).

· Driver to Bahariya Oasis 350 kilometres (219 miles) ahead. Midway in the journey at 155 kilometres (97 miles) is a rest stop with a gas station and a cafeteria Twenty-two kilometres (14 miles) from the beginning of the road, the railway from Helwan joins the road and follows it all the way to reach Managim.(First Village of Bahariya oasis).Beyond Managim, the main road continues to Bawiti. At 316 kilometres (197 miles) the terrain changes once again as small conical hills begin to emerge.

· Arrival in Bawiti, we check in hotel and relax. Then we start tour of main attractions of the Oasis.

· First we go the see Museum of the Golden mummies where 10 of roman golden mummies in view selected from 10.000 intact roman burial chambers discovered in the 1990s.

· Not far from the Museum, we head to slightly south of the spring of the same name are four 26th-dynasty chapels that together form the Temple of Ain al-Muftella.

· Climb down to see the colored Tomb of Noble Bannitu with its fascinating decoration of Universal Day.

· Then we visit small, two-chamber temple is the only place in Egypt where Alexander the Great's effigy and cartouche have been found.

· We take the spring of cold water is used by both tourists and locals as a swimming hole. It is cool and refreshing on hot desert days.

· Climbing the Black Mountain known as English Mountain. As on summit are the ruins of a World War I lookout post, which was manned by Captain Williams, after whom the mountain is sometimes called.

· Visit Gebel el Dist Locals call it Magic Mountain because of the way the light plays on the texture and material of the mountain during the different hours of the day.

· Back to hotel. Dinner and overnight.

So this was our day! The midway stop was interesting

Overpriced food and smelly toilets meant we didn’t stay too long. The hotel was nice, a new place called the Sandrose. The water needed turning on in the rooms and there was a lead missing from the back of the TV that was quickly found as soon as they realised what we needed. 

Once we had put our bags away it was time to go to lunch, the local terrain meant we moved to a 4x4, and then back into the village to a seedy looking cafe full of Arab men smoking from shisha pipes and watching the latest Star Trek movie in English with Arabic subtitles on Panorama Action. The food was excellent, chicken and salad, pasta soup and green beans in a tomato sauce with the usual flatbread.  From here we went to the golden mummies (cira 330 bc). This is the building they were in!

 

Not very inspiring! The tombs were equally uninspiring in their locations but fascinating to go down into. Once again the no camera rule was in operation so only shots of the outside.

There was not a lot left of the 2 chamber temple either, the cartouche is actually in the Egyptian museum.

weight stones 1 kg, 1/2 kg

jug

money

desert praying mantis

lotus motif

Then onto the salt water spring where i took more photos!

From here we were driven to English Mountain to watch the sunset, then back to the hotel for dinner (another good meal of chicken) and sleep.

8th November A Busy Day

 

Ivy returned home today after a fruitless visit to the Grand Mall, the shop she wanted was shut! Geoff took her to the airport and waved her off while Maddy and I went to watch Neil and Melinda get married. We caught a bus from Maadi at 12 noon and arrived at Anafora about 90 minutes later. The place is a Christian retreat in the desert on the Alex road.

I took over 300 pictures, this is just a small sample, The place is very picturesque with rooms for the guests, a central kitchen where you can help your self to drinks, a library (no internet or TV), small pools to sit in and a Bedouin style eating room. The place is a working farm so there are animals to visit and the church holds a multi-lingual service every evening at 8pm. The reading for the wedding service was in 5 languages!

The church has 2 gift shops but only 1 was open while we were there so I bought Geoff a small pot.

This is inside the church, no shoes! Chairs for the less supple down the side. The congregational song was ‘Shine Jesus Shine’ with music through the laptop. Family members were watching through Skype (via a dongle), there was a group of Arabic singers, a lady with a harp, a French man with his guitar all of whom played individual pieces. Then a ride in the donkey carriage with the Egyptian girls following it clapping in time and chanting, all very different.

Dinner was BBQ chicken with Egyptian salads, then fruit salad and wedding cake. The cake was sponge, 2 layers of chocolate cake and one layer of plain sponge.

 

We left on the bus at about 7:30 pm and were back in Cairo for 9 in time to pack.

7th November Nile Dinner Cruise

 

To celebrate Geoff’s Birthday we booked a dinner cruise on the Nile on a boat called the Nile Maxim (Alison went on it when she stayed). Knowing Cairo traffic we left at 6pm to make sure we were there for 7:30pm. Walking to the Mall we found a taxi driver who knew where we going (the Marriot hotel on Zamaleck) and got us there by 6:40pm so we wandered across the road to the boat, which is run by the Marriot Hotel.

 

We were served straight away and advised to have a selection from the salad bar for our starter (included in the price) Maddy chose soup and Ivy had what was described as shrimp on the menu but looked like prawns to the rest of us. The set meal Alison had wasn’t available so we had to choose from the Al a carte menu instead.

As we waited to leave people drifted on board and started their dinner, there were some young children wandering around but they behaved (mostly). We had a mixed grill for our main course and a mixture of chocolate cake and cheese cake for desert. There seemed to be a fixed time to start serving desert so while we waited we wandered up and down the outside of the boat watching the lights of Cairo go past and the other smaller open boats with other parties on them enjoying the evening. Sitting inside their were 2 singers to listen to, who had a repertoire ranging from Abba to Arabic songs all supported by the now traditional karaoke backing track. They were followed by a whirling dervish whoes costume lit up in the dark   and a belly dancer who didn’t. She came on and danced 3 selections with costume changes in-between. While we waited for her there was Arabic drumming which was very good. 

When the bill arrived it was a scary amount! there was an entrance fee, an entertainment tax and a service charge all adding up to nearly £200! As a one off I suppose it was ok, I doubt we shall do it again.

7th November The Citadel

 

From the Khan we travelled to the Citadel where we looked at the Mosques, the view over Cairo and a look at the outside of the Military Museum. It was surprisingly crowded, lots of Egyptians had visited for the Eid to celebrate their past and take pictures on their phones. In the Mosques it was shoes off and cover your hair, there was a group of children in one that the attendant called the tourist police to remove, they were showing very little respect and hadn’t even taken their shoes off!

So we wandered, ate crisps and then headed back to Maadi. The first taxi offered to take us for 75 LE so we walked to the road and got one for 40LE instead. There are times when taxi drivers are a pain!

7th November Khan El Khalili

 

We were up and at them this morning. Geoff reached the grand old age of 42 today and only Maddison had a gift ready for him. Two gifts actually the latest X men DVD and an aeroplane fork. Ivy had brought a card there was just me with nothing to offer! Later this week I will go to the plant man and get an ebony and a rubber plant for the balcony. Then it was off to the market to be amused by the calls of the men and buy T-shirts for Ivy to take back with her we spent £50 on 10 T shirts and got 1 free.

6th November The Egyptian Museum

 

Today was sheep slaughtering day. We had 4 cows arrive by truck at about 8pm last night outside our flat and at least 1 of them spent the night bellowing and clomping around under our bedroom window all night. So not a lot of sleep was had by any of us. By 10 am this morning the noise had stopped and the cow was dead. Yes they did slaughter it here and there were a lot of extra cars outside as people visited out Bahwab to collect their portion. Last year we think the cow was there for 3 days, so not too long this year.

About 10:30 am we set off to the Egyptian Museum via taxi and metro. The metro was quite empty going there on the way back there were some hustlers trying to sell stuff but they were no trouble.

The museum is next to Tahrir square, where all the protests have been, and the burnt out headquarters of the NDP party.  

The museum does not allow cameras inside so all I have are phone images.

Not so good! We saw the Tutankhamun exhibition and the famous death mask and a whole load of sarcophagus’. The labelling is very poor hence the Egyptologists who wait at the ticket office and offer to give you tours of the place, but it was an OK place to visit. One piece of furniture had a herringbone pattern on it and a set of bandages on a mummy was in the iris folding pattern I have used to make cards with so I may use that in school sometime. We were home for 2:30 and rested ready for tomorrows trip. Ivy will need a holiday when we get back she has never been up and down so many stairs or walked so far!