AUC and the South of Egypt

One thing I have learned from studying abroad is that the “studying abroad is an instant boost to the GPA” mantra definitely has its exceptions. Ironically, my “joke classes” of the semester are my two Arabic courses- the main reason I came over here to study. Creative Writing has been fairly easy I would say, but my Anthropology course and certainly my Egyptology course are certainly challenging.

Ha. Anyway.

Sunday was boring, ahem, routine. Class as per usual. Monday, I had an Egyptology exam which was just a sad affair. After, I got lunch then joined Clare and Max in the rare books section to do some research for a paper I have to do for Egyptology on the statues of Rahotep and Nofret, my favorite Ancient Egyptian couple. Mostly I just like to look at them, especially at Rahotep’s swarthy mustache. The staff who man the rare books section are very nice and helpful, sometimes almost to a fault. Every time one man saw me looking for a book, he ran over to help me find it. I, being the nerd that I am, was a little more familiar with the Dewey Decimal System and usually beat him to the book I needed, but his expertise came in handy when I had to photocopy some pages of French and German textbooks to get Max to translate later. My last two classes were canceled, and after listening to the dulcet tones of a snoring bus-mate for an hour, I was back on the island. I had dinner then later went to The Coffee Bean to do homework with Kirsten, which was much more trendy, expensive, and popular than I had remembered it from the second week of my Egyptian life.

Tuesday I went to Metro mart with Mary, then went to campus to work on a creative writing assignment with my classmate Lyndsay, who is the only student I know who has been hit by a car here in Egypt thus far. She was hit by a taxi and has to stay in a wheelchair for I think 9 weeks at least total. Kind of a light sentence as far as I can tell, given Cairean driving. When I got back to Zamalek, I went to the Indian restaurant with Kirsten (long overdue) and surprise, there was randomly a film crew there videotaping people eating. How odd! They came over and video taped us without saying a word, asking consent, having us sign a form, etc. We were both very awkward and kept laughing so they left us alone for the rest of the meal, to our mutual relief. On our way home there was a flower stand and we got a stem of flowers which had 7 flowers on it, just enough to give one to all of our girl friends who were here in Zamalek at the time.

Wednesday we watched a video in my Anthropology class titled: Weddings, Iranian Style (or maybe it was divorce). Anyway, it was quite interesting. The International Office threw us a thanksgiving lunch, which was really kind. Then later that night, we took off for Luxor.

We left on the 11:15 train, we were in second class and all the other people on the train were Egyptians, so once again we stuck out like sore thumbs. The train was freezing cold, we were all wearing pretty much every article of clothing we had. We did make friends with a family from Luxor however, and that was a great chance to use some Arabic. When we woke up the next morning, we eventually got to our destination and went straight to the hotel. We were greeted by our Australian hostess and went to Karnak Temple.

Karnak Temple

The Group

Obelisk

This was beautiful; I loved seeing all of the hieroglyphics and really wished I could read them. There were some remarkable statues and beautiful obelisks. When we got back to the hotel, our hostess arranged for us to have lunch on a felucca on the way to Banana Island. We had a picnic on the floor of the boat- bread, rice, potatoes, chicken, and garlicky mayonnaise sauce. We remembered it was Thanksgiving so we held hands and said a prayer.

Banana Island was fun, we took a small tour of the banana groves and then ate a bunch of them. Max picked one of the baby bananas and it became kind of a celebrity for the rest of the trip.

On our way back, our boat drivers (Ages 10 and 17) let us row the boat, which was lots of fun.

The group amidst the bananas

Mary and Casey Rowing the Felucca

Next, we went to Luxor Temple at night, it was all lit up and looked most mysterious.

It was fun to drift in and out of tour groups and listen to some of what they said before moving on to see other things in the temple complex.

Luxor Temple

Sema Tawy- symbol for the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt

We all were craving ice cream by the end of this, so we ventured into the souk (market) to see what we could find. Sure enough, there was ice cream! So we had that and wondered through the market looking at scarves, spices, trinkets, etc (I got a little something for my pal Amanda!). When we emerged, some of us wanted to go get a beer and Max and I wanted to see the Luxor Museum so we split up. The Luxor Museum was small but very well maintained and had some great artifacts. It blows my mind every time I see some well preserved cloth from so long ago.

The next day we tackled the west bank of Luxor, visiting Valley of the Kings, Hepshetsut’s Mortuary Temple, and the Valley of the Queens. This was great- there was a lot of painting preserved on the tomb walls in the Valleys of the Kings and Queens, and Hepshetsut’s temple is just magnificent. Probably my favorite mortuary temple J We also saw the Colossuses of Memnon, some random huge statues. Apparently, in antiquity, they used to whistle due to the wind blowing through some cracks in them. However, a Roman emperor had them restored and the whistling stopped.

Temple of Queen/King Hetshepsut

Colossuses of Memnon

Later that afternoon, we drove to Aswan, but we stopped at two temples along the way. The first temple was at Edfu, dedicated to the god Horus’s defeat over the god Seth, who had killed his father. This is the most well preserved Temple of Ancient Egypt, and it was just breathtaking. The other temple, at Kom Ombo, was cool too but we were all very tired by the time we got there so I didn’t enjoy it as much as I could have. There was a nilometer there, which is where the Ancient Egyptians would record the height of the nile annually and seasonally. Finally, we got in to our hotel, Memnon hotel.

Sunk Relief from Edfu

Kom Ombo

At 3 in the morning, we all met downstairs to take a 3 hour car ride to Abu Simbel, the place I had been most looking forward to seeing this whole trip. This was the most expensive site to see but it was well worth it. The four statues of Abu Simbel were just as amazing and impressive and I had hoped. They had been moved actually, to their present location, because of the creation of the Aswan Dam and the formation of Lake Nasser. UNESCO did the moving, and they did a great job. Our guide made up about 85% of the history that he told us, which was amusing.

Abu Simbel!

 When we got back to Aswan, we were all depressed about how much we had spent over the weekend. We had about 5 hours before our train so we wandered around the bank of the nile until some of our friends went back to the hotel. Clare, Ryne, Max and I managed to find a man who offered to taxi us over to Elephantine Island for free: his name was Mustafa. He was such a sweet, kind, genuine human being. We enjoyed exploring, scampering around the island, saying hello to people and getting tea at Baba Nool, an in-house “restaurant”. The only such place, I am quite sure, on the island.

Steering with Mustafa

When we got back to the mainland we got the train, went back to Cairo, and started the school week. It has mostly been filled with research, homework, and last night, an hour and a half theatrical storytelling of some independent thinkers form ancient Egypt: Amenhotep, Hetshepsut, and Cleopatra.  This was very fun, it was put on through the Egyptology Club and was at the downtown campus. We grabbed dinner at a famous Egyptian street food restaurant (Fel Fella) and went home.