So, I had mentioned that the wife and I had lunch in Cairo the other day. We were finishing a week of vacation there, with the kids, at one of those all-inclusive resorts. It was a good week.
If you’re reading this and not seeing photos, you need to go to the site (click here) to see them.
I’ll spare you a lot of the details of the trip — you can read all about it, here. She does a much better job at describing these things than I ever could. And besides, she got first dibs on all of the good photos, too. I can share some more photos, and some observations.
So, some observations.
In Egypt, “all inclusive” does not mean all inclusive. It does in Turkey, and in Mallorca — just not in Egypt. Food is included — but some meals are extra (the fancy ones). Drinks are included — just not all kinds of drinks (fresh juices, for example, and foreign booze). Activities are included — just not all of them, like miniature golf. This was just annoying. I felt like I was being nickel and dimed to death.
Hurghada exists as a resort town. There’s really nothing else there. Our resort was actually four hotels — one on the beach, and three more across the street. It seemed to cater to Germans and Russians, and we were very likely the only Americans there. Which was good. We saw a few instances of blatant discrimination while we were there — favoring the German guests over the Russian ones — and we also ran into a whole range of responses to people finding out we are Americans — and Americans not living in America. That being said, though, I still favor going to resorts that are not populated with Americans.
Our number one activity was swimming. #2 was riding the slides. #3 was probably reading — and that’s a #3 for all of us, to include the kids, which we found to be very cool. Katja had fun stuff from school to read, and Zavi had a Star Wars book and another book about dragons. K and I are both knee deep into Jared Diamond stuff, and I finished off a book on the Caucasus and Imam Shamil.
And, I should confess that our hotel cracked me up. One of the places we visited daily was the Viking Bar — because that’s where the free bottles of cold water were. And on, Lordy — do they know how to decorate!
There was another painting on the other side of the entry doors, and it, too, was bad, just not as bad.
Unlike other years, we all seemed to pick up bumps and bruises on this trip. Mainly, it was slide-related stuff, hitting a patch of dry slide with dry skin, etc. I did manage to do this, though.
What is that? Yeah, that’s my foot. Sliced it open on the coral one day.
That is about the worst place to get a cut. Barefoot was better, but in shoes it always hits. I also managed to infect a finger — nail broke on the slide on the first day or so. The mass swimming, though, helped soak it enough so that I could go in and trim it.
All in all, it was a great week.
Luxor
We did made a side trip for a day, to go to Luxor to see the sights. It was a looooong day, indeed. Bus left early and did not come back until late. All of us were wiped out by it all, but it was well worth it.
Kristin mentioned in her description of our trip that we had escorts for our bus trip. Uh, yeah. About that. 10 years ago, there was an attack on western tourists. It’s called the Luxor Massacre. There have been other attacks since then (and more, elsewhere) — just not where we were going. Still, though, not the type of thing you bring up in conversation with your family, if you think it’s currently safe. So, yeah — escorts for the buses.
As for Luxor, it was awesome. In addition to bring cameras, I brought along my handy Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS, and put together a Google Earth file (here) of our trip. I went in and added notes for things, and found some great additional stuff from the Google Earth forums. The Valley of the Kings overlays are great — it’s easier to see how the tombs we saw (Ramses III, IV, and VII) sit compared to the others.
The temple at Karnak was awesome. It was breathtaking. I could go there for a week and take photos. Easily. OK, maybe not easily — it was like a convection oven there.
The hieroglyphics were just amazing. Look at the differences between the ones above and the ones below:
One humorous note about our trip to the Valley of the Kings. When we entered the Valley, we took a shuttle bus up to the inner sanctum area — another control point. I had my camera out, and sure as sh*t, the guard starts to explain to me (in broken English) and to the guide that I cannot bring my camera in. No video allowed. My camera does both. Shoot, these days, everyone’s cameras (and cell phones, and MP3 players, and so on) do both.
Nope, not me. Can’t bring mine in. We had some good laughs, and looking back, it was OK — no photography was allowed in the tombs themselves, anyway, so I missed little. But still, it was strange and funny.
Our guide had a great story for us, about Hatshepsut, basically laying out the argument for her having been a lesbian (not that there’s anything wrong with that). He made a pretty good case, and it changes some my view of ancient Egypt, along the same lines as the historical notes from the series ROME. It’d be interesting, today, to see an effort to eradicate a western leader from all historical references!
And I did not know that, at some point, the Egyptians had moved the remains of their kings and queens, for safekeeping. It’s worth reading this.
So, yeah. All in all, it was a great trip. Very, very cool.
This entry was first published here.
October 14th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
[...] and I could have found a way to take the car to Egypt with us, I would have. Valley of the Kings? Swimming in the Red Sea? Never in a million years would I have [...]