More pictures here.
ISRAEL
I met my friend Jane at JFK as planned and we boarded our flight to Tel Aviv, surrounded by ultra-Orthodox families and young Chasidim., many from Brooklyn. It was like herding cats to try to get them all settled in their seats, but the cabin crew struggled on bravely and ultimately prevailed. One of the funnier pre-flight announcements involved a request to “respect the curtain dividing business class from economy.” A socio-economic mehitzah?
We landed in Israel right on time, retrieved our luggage, proceeded to the taxi line and set off to our hotel. When we arrived and checked into our rooms I realized that my backpack was still in the taxi! We had paid cash for the ride and so had no receipt. The hotel concierge, a very helpful gentleman named Norbert, made valiant efforts to trace down the taxi and driver, but to no avail. My bag, my camera, my iPad and various other items were not returned.
I spent about a day and a half beating myself up for my stupid carelessness, exacerbated by realizing that I had not activated location services the iPad that would have let me locate, lock and/or wipe it remotely. A tough lesson learned! Over the next few days I replaced items as I realized what I needed: a charger for my phone, a new camera, hair brush, deodorant, eye drops, a notebook for my journal, a bag to replace the backpack…not at all the souvenirs I had expected to bring home.
Once I had accepted that it was just stuff, Jane and I set about exploring Tel Aviv. Our hotel was about a block and a half from the Mediterranean and one of our first excursions was to the beach to dip toes and fingers into the sea. We found a nice health food restaurant near the hotel for dinner and managed to stay up until a reasonable bedtime, hoping to start the next day rested and refreshed.
Our first full day in involved a lot of walking to places mentioned in Jane’s guidebook and by my Tel Aviv friends, Bev and David. We noticed the large number of bike riders using the sidewalks alongside the pedestrians – nice to see them but tough to negotiate. I guess the residents figure out how to share the space without getting hit by or hitting each other.
We visited Ha’Carmel Market to ogle all the gorgeous fruits and vegetables and take some pictures of the displays, moved on to Ha’Tahana, a sort of South Street Seaport type place filled with pretty things to look at, enjoyed lunch at a café and then on to the the Nahalat Binyamin arts and crafts market where I found my Israeli owl. En route we passed a bookstore where I found a volume of love poetry by Yehuda Amichai – two quests filled on the first day! We had Friday night dinner at the hotel. The hotel’s electric door was locked for Shabbat and there were small votive candles available in the lobby for anyone who wished to light them.
Breakfast in the hotel was dairy and dinner was meat, a situation we found throughout our stay in Israel. Mostly that meant rather unexciting desserts – lots of gelatin-based concoctions that looked pretty but were basically tasteless. Breakfast choices invariably included lots of tomato and cucumber salad, herring and other smoked or salted fish, cheeses, shakshouka (an egg and tomato dish) along with more familiar eggs and cereal and delicious bread.
On Saturday we walked around the city to some as yet unexplored neighborhoods. Everything except pharmacies, supermarkets and cafes was closed and the streets were filled with people out enjoying their day off. We walked down Rothschild Boulevard to look at the Bauhaus architecture for which Tel Aviv is known. The buildings are elegant, but both of us were struck by the peeling paint, unrepainted graffiti and stray cats everywhere. Tel Aviv is a pretty cosmopolitan city and the shabbiness surprised me.
We came across an open art gallery with a small bookshop and a little café where we had a nice lunch and I found a second volume of poetry, a collection by Lea Goldberg. I was not familiar with her work, but when I mentioned her name to my friends they immediately recognized her. And since bein home I’ve dipped into her work and enjoyed it immensely.
We had, at this point, experienced an interesting phenomenon with our meals – three times in a row our check had come to 120 shekels. This time it was only 108, but Jane had ordered and then canceled a 12 shekel orange juice. I have no idea what that means, but it definitely struck us as significant in some unknown way.
That evening we walked north along the sea to meet my friend Yael for dinner. We had a nice evening talking and catching up – almost two and a half hours of sharing storied and news. This was my first experience of being in another country and knowing people who live there. It’s very interesting to get a “native” perspective on things from someone other than a tour guide.
The next day, Sunday, Bev and David picked us up at our hotel and first took us to a charming coffee place called Paul’s in Jaffa. It is one of their favorite places and seems to draw customers from all over the city. From there we went to Old Jaffa. The area had been run-down and crime infested, but has been cleaned up and turned into a home for artists. Jaffa is also a section where Arabs and Jews live in close and apparently peaceful proximity. We had seen very few women in traditional Muslim dress in other sections of Tel Aviv but this area seemed much more diverse.
The shops were lovely and in one I bought a challah cover embroidered with images of the seven species of food that are mentioned in the Torah and are traditionally associated with various holidays. I will have it framed and I am working on deciding where to hang it since my walls are already pretty well covered with art work, hangings, and so on. But I always find a place for the new ones. Lunch at a funky little falafel place was absolutely delicious!
At some point during the day Jane and I mentioned our plans to visit our high school classmate, Wendy, at Moshav Neve Ilan. It turned out that Bev and David had met her. Even more of a bizarre coincidence, it turned out that David’s cousin in California is Jane’s brother’s doctor! This definitely took Jewish Geography to a new level of play.
They dropped us off at the Rabin Museum where we saw an interesting display of Israel’s history, focusing in large part on the personal history and contributions of statesman and general Yitzhak Rabin, the prime minister who was assassinated in 1995. When we returned from the museum setoff to buy a camera since I was not finding my iPhone adequate. I bought a small Canon that turned out to be just fine for the duration of the trip, but I have replaced the lost Nikon and lens since returning home.
Monday was our last day in Tel Aviv. First we went to the police station so I could file a report on my missing bag. The police officer was helpful and sympathetic and even attempted to call the central police department lost and found but apparently that the person who answers the phone there was lost and was not found before we left the city.
Then we walked down to Bialik House, a lovely small museum celebrating the writer Chaim Bialik. Bialik is considered by many to be Israel’s national poet and was instrumental in developing modern Hebrew as the language of the country. Then it was back to our hotel to pack and prepare to meet our friend Wendy’s husband, David, for a drive to visit Moshav Neve Ilan in the Judean hills. Wendy and David were among the founding families of the moshav in the early 1970s. We shared a delicious homemade dinner and lots of reminiscences of our days at Brookline High School 50 years ago. We also heard wonderful stories about the early days of the moshav and the kibbutz that preceded it.
One story that stayed with me was about the early kibbutzniks – mostly French resistance fighters who had moved there after World War Two. When the kibbutz ran into financial difficulty a decision was made to save money by restricting the serving of wine at meals to Shabbat dinner. This did not sit well with the French! We also heard about the experience of living without electricity or other amenities while the homes were being constructed and connected to utilities. It was hard, but Wendy and David clearly felt the struggle was worth it.
The hotel at Neve Ilan is very comfortable and very reasonable. We each had a large room with a nice big bed with several huge pillows, roomy bathroom and a varied and satisfying breakfast buffet for the equivalent of $108 a night. A bargain!
The next morning Wendy took a couple of hours in the morning before going to her job as a translator at Yad Vashem to show us around the moshav and tell us a bit more of the history and also a bit about the community today. We stopped at a scenic overlook, named in memory of the only one of the moshav’s children to have died while in military service and climbed a hill to a point that was a lookout post during the War of Independence. We visited the market and the community room where services and meetings take place. It is decorated with wall hangings consisting of squares created by each family, depicting something they see as a highlight of their lives there. It is a really beautiful place and I can see why they are so happy there.
Wendy gave each of us a book called Three Dolls that she translated from memoirs recorded at Yad Vashem. The book recounts the experiences of three women who, as little girls, survived the Holocaust and managed to hold on to a beloved doll. The book is intended for us in classrooms and contains suggestions for class discussion and follow-up activities. It’s a little too graphic to share with the only children I’m close to, but maybe in a couple of more years when they are a little older I will pass it along to them. It is very beautifully written and illustrated and certainly gives a perspective on the H olocaust that no American student is likely to get in traditional history lessons.
Later on Tuesday we took a taxi from the moshav to our hotel in Jerusalem and prepared to meet the rest of the tour group. We arrived around noon and were able to check into our rooms and then set off to do a little exploring on our own before the others arrived. We found our way to Mamilla Mall, a pedestrian mall filled with high-end shops and cafes that opens out onto the walls of the Old City. We strolled around, enjoyed our first view of Jerusalem and had lunch, costing 120 shekels once again, at yet another lovely café.
After lunch we explored a bit more and found a beautiful little museum containing a reconstructed 17th century Italian synagogue. We even got to see two young women working on the restoration. It was very lovely and very interesting to see the work in progress.
My first impressions of Jerusalem and how it differs from Tel Aviv – definitely more Muslim women, some in very traditional robes and even full face veils, some with head coverings and very trendy clothing. We also saw a wide variety of clothing choices among the observant Jewish women, ranging from long skirts to knee length skirts with tights and boots, scarves, hats, wigs, and so on. This is definitely both a more diverse and more traditional city.
Finally, in the late afternoon, we met our group and our tour leader, Amnon. When I apologized for not having a name tag (lost in my missing backpack) Amnon immediately elicited a detailed description of the taxi and the driver and promised to get on the case to get my things returned. (A side note – two days after my return to New York I got an email from Amnon indicating that he is still on the case!) We had our orientation meeting and introduced ourselves. There were 22 in the group, lots of retired educators, a nice balance of couples and singles and one mother-daughter pair. They turned out to be a very congenial collection of travel companions.
Wednesday was our first official tour day and it was jam-packed! We visited the Mount of Olives, driving along Route One for part of the trip. Prior to the 1967 War the roadway didn’t exist, but had been a sort of no-man’s land between East and West Jerusalem. We spent some time at a scenic overlook getting a sense of the layout of the city and then walked down to Gethsemane and along the Via Dolorosa, passing nine or ten stations of the cross along the way, We also visited several small churches, some very lovely and some very simple. It was historically interesting to me to visit these places that figure so prominently in the New Testament.
The end of this walk brought us to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the site of Jesus’ tomb and the slab where his body was placed to be anointed and wrapped in preparation for burial. It was a madhouse of tourists and worshipers vying for a chance to see each important place close up. The slab is rubbed each morning with myrrh and myrtle and several people were on their knees rubbing their hands or handkerchiefs over the slab handkerchiefs that they held to their faces to inhale the scent. Upstairs is a shrine that marks the top of the Hill of Calvary. There is a small hole under the altar and the faithful put their hands into the hole to touch the hill. It must be an awesome experience for the visitors whose faith leads them to these places.
After lunch we visited the Israel Museum where we saw fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls and had time to explore other sections of the museum. There is an art wing, which I skipped, and a very interesting archeology wing and an equally interesting ethnology wing with exhibits describing Jewish life through the ages. There are some fascinating old prayer books, Torah ornaments, wedding clothes, Haggadahs and so on.
Thursday was another big day. we visited the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque. We were not able to enter either site, but we spent some time in the plaza and saw groups of men and women gathering to study Qur’an. That was followed by a visit to the Western Wall. Amnon explained that the wall is not, in fact, the wall of the Temple, but rather a retaining wall outside the Temple site. Since it was Thursday, there were several bar mitzvahs taking place, complete with parading celebrants accompanied by musicians, family groups dressed in their finest sharing plates of sweets and other refreshments and a general air of celebration. Several of us went to the Wall itself, men on their side and women on ours, to place our prayers in the cracks of the wall. On the women’s side there were several women, mostly older, seated right at the wall , praying and, in some cases, crying. I can only imagine what their prayers were.
Leaving the Wall, we walked through the most crowded market I have ever seen! It was fascinating, but worse than rush hour on the subway to get through. And after lunch we visited Yad Vashem. It was very, very moving, especially the sections dealing with children and the recordings of individual testimony. It was difficult to look at some of the images and more difficult to read the descriptions of what the images portrayed. It was also distressing to be reminded of the chances that the US had to save some of the victims of the Holocaust and how antisemitism at high levels of government caused this country to refuse to revise its immigration rules in order to allow refugees in.
Later we had a lecture by a Palestinian Arab, talking about the Palestinian people and their quest for independence and statehood. Some of our group members found his talk very interesting. I felt like I was being scolded and harangued. He made some points about Palestinian identity that were a bit unclear, talking about Christian Palestinians to present a picture of a diverse people, but then stating that 98% of Palestinians are Sunni Muslims. He also talked about the “zealots” in some of the Israeli settlements (I have to agree with that, in at least some cases), and characterized the security fence as a “land grab” since it does not enclose only the original mandated territory. He seemed insistent that Jerusalem must be the capital of a separate Palestinian state and conveniently neglected to mention the attack on Israel the day after it achieved statehood, the numerous attacks since then, Israel’s willingness to maintain Muslim and Christian sites, and other points that would have made for a balanced presentation. It left me feeling not very hopeful about a fair and peaceful resolution.
The highlight of the following day was our visit to Masada. I was nervous about the cable car ride up, but it wasn’t bad at all. There was one scary staircase – the kind that has no risers and we could see all the way down a very long way – but once we passed that it was fine. The site has been beautifully restored and the restorers delineated the division between original and restored with a black line. Without that I doubt if we would have been able to tell in most places. It was very dramatic to hear the story of the zealots who held off the Romans nearly 2,000 years ago and eventually killed themselves rather than surrender and be enslaved. I’m not sure I admire that decision. It seems to me that one can gain freedom from slavery but there’s no coming back from death. The site itself is quite large, with everything that Herod needed when he built the fortifications in about 35 BCE. Some of the wall paintings and tiled floors are still visible and one can see the bathhouses, homes, storage areas, synagogue and even the ramp that the Romans built when they were attacking.
It rained briefly during our visit and as we were leaving to go to lunch, we saw water rushing through the wadis and flowing over the road. It was pretty dramatic considering that the rain hadn’t been heavy at all. I can only imagine what would happen after a significant rainfall!
After lunch we visited Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. The museum houses replicas of the scrolls and a lot of interesting information about the early inhabitants of the area. One thing I found most interesting was the description of the calendar devised by one of the sects, setting various holidays to fall on the same day of the week every year. The explanation said that Yom Kippur was set to always fall on Friday. In our time Yom Kippur NEVER falls on Friday since it would then be forbidden to light Shabbat candles or to prepare meals for two days in a row and the calendar now is manipulated to prevent this from happening. After pondering this for a while I finally concluded that they meant for Yom Kippur to start on Friday evening. That still strikes me as odd since it means that the shofar can’t be blown until the end of the day. Nevertheless the museum was interesting and the view of the mountains and the caves where the scrolls were found was dramatic.
After dinner at our hotel in Kibbutz Nof GInosar we went into town to see a very delightful little sound and light show. On the bus Amnon tried to teach the group some Hebrew songs – Hava Nagilah, Heveinu Shalom Aleichem and Hine Ma’tovu. He and I sang and the rest tried their best. We all fell apart, however, over a song about the Sea of Galilee.
On Saturday we were delayed leaving the hotel because of a huge bicycle rally with riders from all over the world riding around the Sea of Galilee. We had to wait over an hour and a half before we were allowed onto the road. It was nice to see all the families and the various participants, some obviously very serious cyclers and some just out for a pleasant ride, but it cut into our schedule.
When we finally got going we drove to Nazareth, passing through Cana where Jesus performed his first miracle, turning water into wine at a wedding. At the risk of seeming irreverent, the high point of the drive for me was seeing the First Miracle Souvenir and Coffee Shop. We visited a number of sites mentioned in the New Testament and I have to admit that by now I was having some trouble keeping them all straight. One of the advantages of a tour like this is that you get to see a lot of important and interesting places. One of the disadvantages is that you visit so many places in a fairly short time that you begin to suffer information overload. At least that is my experience.
The big disappointment this day was our visit to Kibbutz Degania, 101 years since its founding the oldest kibbutz in Israel. Because of the bike rally delay we spent very little time there. We had lunch too late to meet anyone living on the kibbutz, had a quick tour of the museum and got a bit of the history, but had no chance to see anything else. I would have enjoyed a chance to see the school, to look around a little bit, to talk with some of the residents besides the man who showed us the museum. He did tell us one funny story about some small boys who convinced a little girl to sit on some eggs, warning her that she had to be very still and quiet. She stayed there for a very long time until her mother finally came looking for her. It turned out that one of the mean little boys was Moshe Dayan!
From there we went to Capernaum, the home of several of the apostles including Saint Peter. We got to walk down to the Sea of Galilee and some of the members of our group filled bottles with water from the sea. It’s always an exciting experience to literally touch places and things of historical significance, so I was happy to dip my hand into the sea.
The next morning we visited our final Israeli site, the Roman ruins at Bet She’an. The bathhouse, theater and other buildings are impressive. As always, I was impressed by what these ancient builders accomplished without any of the modern machines and technology we have today. They still managed to create beautiful structures that have lasted centuries.
JORDAN 
We drove from Bet She’an to the King Hussein border crossing and entered Jordan. It was a strange experience, unlike any other border crossing I have ever experienced. First we left the bust to go through the Israeli exit point where we could change any remaining shekels to Jordanian dinars and claim any VAT refunds. I discovered at this point that I had not been given the form needed to claim the VAT refund for my new camera. I hadn’t even thought to ask about it at the time and now, of course, it was too late. We got our exit stamps on our passports and then drove a short distance to the Jordanian side on a special border-crossing bus. Amnon was still with us to make sure we got on the same bus as our luggage.
On the Jordanian side we had to leave our suitcases outside while we went inside to go through passport control. This made us understandably nervous, so one of the men in our group volunteered to stand watch. Our Jordanian tour leader, Raed or Eddie, told us to line up at the windows inside but it turned out that groups had to go through together with their tour leader and there were a few groups ahead of us. We had a long wait and we were hungry and little cranky and not very confident in our new tour leader. After Amnon’s efficiency and take-control manner we felt a little insecure. Who was going to call out “Chop chop!” to get us together and moving along? Who was going to lead us in “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning” and “You Are My Sunshine” on the bus each day? Raed did not seem up to the task!
Finally it was our turn, we got our passports stamped and our pictures taken, reclaimed our luggage and went through scanners and boarded our new bus to begin the next leg of our journey.
Our first site in Jordan was Jerash, where we had an excellent lunch before visiting a Greco-Roman city destroyed in the 8th century C.E. It was similar in design to what we had seen in the morning at Bet She’an but somewhat more restored. Raed gave us a good introduction and then turned us loose to look around ourselves for a half hour. We all commented that Amnon would never have given us that kind of freedom! Then it was on to our one-night hotel in Amman – huge rooms and little balcony to look out over the city, and an excellent dinner in the hotel. After some fairly average meals in lsrael outside of Tel Aviv I had high hopes for the food in Jordan.
On Monday, our first full day in Jordan, we first stopped at the King Hussein Mospque. It is large, imposing and quite beautiful, but when I tried to enter the courtyard to take a picture I was shooed away,
We made several stops before heading south to Petra. First was the Amman Citadel with some interesting ruins, and a nice museum organized into eras with a small but well-displayed collection of artifacts. Then it was onto the Roman Amphitheater. The highlight of our visit there was one of our group, Larry, climbing to the very top tier to take a group picture from above. Then Mount Nebo, where Moses saw the Promised Land he was not allowed to enter. At Madaba we saw the Saint George Church that contains a fascinating mosaic map of all the sites visited by pilgrims. Mosaic work is typical of the area and we visited a mosaic workshop for a short demonstration of how the mosaics are created and a chance to buy some pieces. I was pleased to learn that a lot of physically handicapped workers are hired by the mosaic workshops since the work can be done sitting down. The pieces for sale were lovely, but nothing asked me to take it home.
We also had an amazing lunch in Madaba. Plate after plate of appetizers, hummus and salads were brought out, followed by a main course of chicken and lamb and finally a little sweet for dessert. It was nice to have food served instead of serving ourselves at a buffet and everything was delicious.
The drive to Petra took about three hours. We made one stop at a souvenir shop for a chance to use the restrooms and I found a stone owl to add to my collection.
Tuesday morning in Petra we got wake up calls for an early start. It was very weird. I picked up the receiver and the phone kept right on ringing. I put it back and the ringing continued. I picked it up again and pushed every button that seemed relevant, but it stopped when it was ready.
Then we had a full day to explore and experience Petra. The walk in is fairly long and it’s a while before you see anything of interest. Raed used the time to tell us a bit of the history, the Naboteans who built it threethousand years ago and to point out a few sculptures and other things of interest, including evidence of fossilized seaweed in the rock walls.
The first building you see is the Treasury, so called because it was thought to contain treasure, not because it actually did. It’s huge and imposing and intricately carved and decorated and in amazing condition considering its age. We saw several other astounding structures carved out of the rock face, but the treasury was the most magnificent.
We had a lot of free time after lunch to explore on our own. Our hotel was walking distance from the site so we could stay as long as we liked and get back to the hotel on our own. We revisited some of the areas we had seen on the way in. I bought a few souvenirs and headed for hotel rooms and a chance to put our feet up after a lot of walking and standing. I bought a CD that supposedly had some Bedouin music on it, but discovered when I got home that it was blank. Live and learn!
Wednesday was our last day in Jordan and our travel day to Egypt. We started with a quick stop at the spring that rose when Moses struck a rock with his staff, a visit to the Shubak Castle, a Crusader castle built in the 12th century C.E. and then on to the Dead Sea. There was a little confusion over the issue of renting towels and lockers – there was a deposit in addition to the rental fee and some of us didn’t have enough Jordanian money. We solved it all by sharing lockers and the personnel at the spa were cooperative about waiving the deposit for a couple of us.
The water is so filled with minerals that it impossible not to float. The bottom is alternately slimy and very rocky and a few people got scratches and abrasions from the rocks. That made it very hard to walk in. We figured out to just sit down and push out to deeper water using our hands on the bottom. The swim area is roped off, so we couldn’t go very far, but even in a few inches of water everyone was floating. Dead Sea mud is supposed to be very good for the skin and there was a large tub on the beach labeled “Free mud.” Several of us smeared it on our arms and legs and let it dry before washing it off in the sea. A few brave souls smeared it on their faces, but I didn’t want to get the water anywhere near my mouth or eyes. It did leave my skin feeling quite soft. There was a lot of giggling over the whole experience, reminiscent of a similar experience at the Blue Lagoon in Iceland, and it was really loads of fun. And none of us posed for the classic photo floating and reading a newspaper.
EGYPT
Then it was on to the airport for our flight to Cairo. It was the easiest international arrival I’ve experienced on a tour. We were met immediately after deplaning by a man who handed us our visa stickers to put into our passports. We’d been told that we’d have to purchase the visas ourselves on arrival for $15.00 that would be reimbursed. This was much simpler. Our Egyptologist, Waleed, met us as soon as we had claimed our luggage, gave us tags to put on our bags so they could be delivered to our rooms, walked everything through customs for us, handed out room keys on the bus and got us settled very quickly. My room was lovely and very comfortable but also very far away from the lobby and dining room. It seemed that I trekked through numerous corridors, making turn after turn, before finally arriving.
On Thursday we got our first glimpses of Cairo in daylight. I was struck by the amount of trash in the streets and canals, sometimes to the point of blocking the water. I was also struck by the number of farmers driving mules, water buffalo, herds of sheep or riding horses or horse-drawn wagons in the a very urban setting. The farms are close by and the farmers have to get to work. It’s pretty obvious that the city is neglected. We saw few if any police, and the ones we saw seemed to be hanging out rather than doing any actual policing. We saw a few attempts to shovel garbage into trucks, but it seemed like a hopeless task. The streets are filled with graffiti, some of it clearly left over from the revolution in February, and political banners everywhere. It seems as if everyone and his cousin is running for office.
We first visited the Ramses II Museum, notable for a huge statue of Ramses lying on its back in a central hall and many smaller statues displayed around the grounds. Then on to Hatshepsut’s Sphinx and then the Pyramids! It’s indescribable to be standing right in front of these ancient structures that everyone has seen in pictures, everyone has learned about in history classes, but now here they actually are in reality, in touching distance. They are huge and in amazingly good condition considering their age, like so many other things we saw. The pyramids are iconic and even if you are a bit jaded or blasé it’s hard not to be impressed.
Watching the visitors to the various sites and the people we passed in the street I was struck by the wide variation in Muslim dress among the women. We saw black robes with full face veils, colorful galabias and brightly colored headscarves and even a few women with hair uncovered, although not many. I also noticed what seemed to be a uniquely Egyptian style of wrapping headscarves, hard to describe but different from what I’d seen in Israel or Jordan. I also, for the first time, saw men with prayer bumps on their foreheads from prostrating themselves during prayers. I never noticed that in either Israel or Jordan.
We passed a few groups of young men during our drives from site to site who mouthed something at us as we passed. I have no idea what they were saying, but it definitely felt unfriendly. We had security with us, just as we’d had in Jordan, armed and watchful for the most part. We were told that it was standard procedure since the Luxor Massacre in1997 when 62 tourists were killed. I was happy to have them with us even though Waleed said the guns weren’t loaded and the guards wouldn’t know how to use them anyway.
Waleed made it very clear right from the start that he is not very optimistic about the future of Egypt unless the right people are elected. He has little respect for the military who are currently in charge and spoke frequently of the disintegration of services and order in the weeks following the revolution. He said he favors Mohammed El-Baradei, the former head of the International Atomic energy Commission. He seemed concerned about the possibility of a Muslim Brotherhood victory. Of course, since returning home we’ve seen that the Brotherhood and the even more conservative Salafists seem to be the winners.
Friday was a very early day. We left the hotel at 5:00 AM for a morning flight to Aswan and the start of our three-day riverboat cruise. The same man who had given us our visas was at the airport to facilitate this trip as well and we would see him again when we returned to Cairo and when we left for home. The flight was easy –a little over an hour. When we arrived our bags were tagged and collected for delivery to our cabins while we made three sightseeing stops.
First was the Aswan High Dam. It was technically impressive but I was most impressed to learn that it supplies all the electric power in the country. Then we visited the Philae Temple on an island in Lake Nasser. The temple was submerged, taken apart and moved rock by rock to its present location,
Waleed told us the story of how Osiris was dismembered by his brother Seth and explained that the ancient Egyptians sacrificed many things to their gods, but never fish. Supposedly the one part of Osiris’s body that was never recovered was his penis. A fish had eaten it.
The temple is beautiful and the carved figures and hieroglyphics are fantastic. the detail blew me away! The large figures have kneecaps and nipples, finger and toenails and visible and anatomically correct muscle and bone structure. Because the perspective is a little distorted I had always thought of the artwork as a bit primitive, but it is highly sophisticated. Sadly, some of the carvings have been defaced by Christians who used the building as a church. And we saw graffiti scratched into the walls with dates in the late 1700s and into the 1800s. We were to see more of that sort of damage in the days ahead.
Our final stop was the unfinished obelisk of Hatshepsut, the female king as she styled herself, who ruled Egypt 3500 years ago. The walk up looked like something that would make me very uncomfortable, so I returned to the bus and relaxed along with a couple of others who had decided to skip the visit. One of the other women who is also height-phobic told me it wasn’t that bad, but I didn’t mind missing it.
We finally got to the ship after 2:00, having had breakfast at 4:30 AM. Everyone was famished! We had a buffet lunch and settled into our cabins. My previous experience on riverboats, and even on theocean-going cruise ship to Iceland last year, involved small, compact cabins with narrow beds and very efficient storage space. The cabin on the Royal Viking was huge – bigger than my bedroom at home, with a king size bed, a table and chair, a floor to ceiling window on one full wall and a big bathroom with a real tub. The service was also luxurious. The first night my pillows and towels had been arranged to resemble a mummy laid out at the foot of the bed. The second night it was a swan in a heart-shaped “pond.” I decided I could definitely get used to this kind of treatment.
After dinner Waleed took us on a walk through the market to a duty-free shop where those who wished could buy wine to drink on the sun deck or in their cabins. The market was interesting as all markets are – a wide assortment of goods, people shopping, vendors trying to get everyone’s attention for their goods. The duty-free shop was also interesting. We walked up a flight of steps to a discreetly separated area to purchase alcohol. One of the men commented that it reminded him of buying pot in the US. When we left there was an engagement party coming out of a nearby building – a lovely bride in a pretty green dress, a handsome young man in a snazzy suit and a car covered with lights. We wished them well and then piled into some taxis that Waleed hailed and arranged prices for to return to the boat.
We had a lecture about Islam from Waleed who clearly harbors some ill-will toward Shi’ite Muslims. He used words like “weird” and “crazy” to describe their practices that differ from the Sunnis. But it was helpful to hear the history of the schism between the two groups following the death of Mohammed in 632. It’s so sad when religious differences create such violent disagreement among people whose basic beliefs are the same.
At dinner we celebrated the birthdays of two of our group, Bea and Ken. They were led to the front of the restaurant, brought into a circle to dance and be sung to by the dining room staff. We also got two nice birthday cakes for dessert.
In the morning I woke up a little early, opened my curtains and my big window, pulled over a chair and propped my feet up on the guard rail to watch Egypt drift by. Very, very cool experperience! After breakfast we visited the Kom Ombo Temple, a dual temple dedicated to Sobek, the crocodile headed god, and Horus the Younger. One wall of the temple contains fascinating depictions of surgical instruments and representations of women sitting on birthing stools.
When we returned to the boat my cabin wasn’t made up so I took my journal up to the sun deck to write for a while. A young woman approached me and explained that she is making a documentary about spiritual travel and travel to spiritual places. She assumed that if I was writing in a journal then I must be someone who sees deeper into the experience of travel. I told her that I wasn’t really affected spiritually by the things I’d seen, but she wanted to interview me for her film. We talked about why I travel, where I’ve been, what I look for when I travel and other topics, staying away from the very New Age topics I heard her discussing with others later. We exchanged contact information and she promised to let me know when and if the documentary was finished and being shown anywhere. Later she interviewed another woman in our group, Mary Lynne who is also a poet. She and I promised to go to Cannes or Sundance together when the film is winning prizes!
In the afternoon we took horse-drawn carriages to Edfu Temple, dedicated to Hathor, the goddess represented by a cow who personified love, beauty and motherhood, and her husband, Horus, the son of Isis. As we saw elsewhere, many of the carvings had been defaced, but some still remained intact. The detailed accuracy of the large figures and the intricacy of the hieroglyphics are amazing.
We learned a bit about the numbering system, base ten, and the calendar that consisted of ten day weeks, three week months and ten month years with five and a quarter extra days tacked on to bring the year to 365 and a quarter days, We also saw a frieze of carvings depicting Seth in the form of a hippo being tortured by Horus in revenge for Seth’s killing of Horus’s father, Osiris.
I continue to be amazed by the skill and artistry of the people who designed and built these temples and tombs so many centuries ago and by their sense of building for posterity.
Some of the vendors at these sites are pretty aggressive and more than a little annoying. I found that saying “La!” forcefully in Arabic was more effective than saying “no” in English when they got too pushy to ignore. At Edfu there was a very little girl, maybe five or six years old, begging for baksheesh. It is very disturbing to see these young kids begging or selling trinkets instead of being in school.
On Sunday we visited the Valley of the Kings. Unfortunately no photos are allowed, but it does make sense. For one thing, it gets the crowd through the tombs faster. For another, it protects the colors from damage caused by flash. Waleed led us to three tombs and saved King Tut’s for last. He said he wanted us to see the big spectacular ones first in order to fully realize that Tut’s tomb is pretty unimpressive. He died after only nine years as king and his tomb was quite small. It’s notable because it was the first to be discovered intact, but it’s really noting compared to the others we saw.
In each tomb we entered, walked more or less single file along a walkway to the end of a long corridor, saw rooms and niches off the each side, beautiful drawings and carvings, bright colors on the walls and ceiling (always stars on a blue ceiling) and then made a u-turn to continue along the other side of the corridor to exit. hey were really spectacular. As always, thinking about how old these tombs are was what really left me breathless.
After the Valley of the Kings we visited Hatshepsut’s temple. Her stepson tried to erase her from memory by defacing her carvings and statues, but many still remain. The story of Hatshepsut is clever. She assumed the throne as regent when her brother died. But rather than rule as regent or queen, she ruled as a king. She was a wise ruler, increasing Egypt’s trade with other countries, building many monuments and forging peace treaties. Waleed made the point repeatedly that Hatshepsut ruled as a king, not as a man.
In the afternoon we visited Karnak and Luxor. Both are astounding, but by then I was once again experiencing information overload. I couldn’t hold on to all the details about the things we saw except to see how beautiful they all are. Waleed did show us some interesting things. One was a wall recording items brought to the temple as offerings to the gods. It’s basically a spreadsheet in Egyptian mathematical notation. The rows and columns are subtotaled and totaled to show how many of each item was brought in. We also saw a carving showing treatment for erectile dysfunction, millennia before Viagra!
Mpnday morning we flew back to Cairo for our final couple of days in Egypt. This time we stayed at the Sofitel El-Gezirah, a very “poshy” hotel, as Amnon would have said. But first we visited the Citadel of Salah al-Din and a really beautiful mosque. This time we were allowed to come into the mosque and to take pictures. Our schedule said we were also slated to see the Hanging Church and the Ben Ezra Synagogue, but Waleed showed me that they were not on his itinerary. But at dinner he told me we’d be going there the next day along with a stop at a bookstore near the restaurant where we’d have lunch.
We returned to the hotel for a lecture on Islam by a woman who seems to have been one of Waleed’s professors. The talk was interesting, but our schedule said we’d be learning about the relationships between Islam, Christianity and Judaism and that is not what she discussed. Instead she talked about the Five Pillars of Islam (belief in Allah, prayer, charity, fasting and making pilgrimage to Mecca), the difference between what is written in the Qur’an and what is tradition (head covering according to her is voluntary not required and full face veils are a holdover from ancient pre-Islamic customs) and the definition of hallal which seems to cover many aspects of life besides food. She also offered to send copies of the Qur’an to anyone who wanted one and did, in fact, deliver them to the hotel the next day.
Tuesday was our final day. We first visited the Hanging Church, a famous Coptic church. Waleed had previously explained that Egyptian Christians are Orthodox and ”Coptic” is simply a name referring to the Orthodox churches of Egypt and not a separate sect of Orthodoxy. The church was built over the gatehouse of a Roman fortress and the nave is built over a passageway, seeming to hang unsupported over empty space. The church dates from the seventh century and, like most Orthodox churches I’ve seen, is quite beautifully decorated with icons.
Then we briefly visited the Church of Saint Sergius, site of the crypt in wihich Mary, Joseph and Jesus hid when they fled into Egypt to escape Herod’s killing of baby boys. And finally on to the Ben Ezra Synagogue. There are no Jews in Cairo. The Jews of Egypt were expelled by Nasser in 1956 and the few who remained or returned live in Alexandria. But the synagogue is well-maintained and when we were there a large group of what seemed to be high school age students were visiting with their teachers. The synagogue was originally a church but came to be a synagogue when the church couldn’t pay the taxes levied by the Muslim rulers in the late ninth century.
From there we went to the Cairo Museum for a three hour visit. The museum is filled with invaluable treasures dating back as far as four or five thousand years but it is in deplorable condition. Exhibits are unprotected from open windows blowing dust and sand all over everything and the guards are mostly inattentive. Waleed blames Doctor Hawass, the former Minister of State for Antiquities. Hawass has publicly blamed the lack of police to guard important sites and resigned, was reappointed and then resigned again. In any event, it is clear that no one is in charge now.
The items found in King Tut’s tomb make up a very special part of the collection. The gold and semi-precious stones are gorgeous. I was just as enchanted by the little servant figures placed in tombs to provide for the kings in the afterlife. But the lack of care in the museum made me sad. We were not allowed to take pictures, ostensibly to protect the artifacts but perhaps to prevent the conditions from becoming more widely publicized, although friends who traveled to Cairo years ago tell me that things were just as bad then..
Then it was on to lunch at a very nice restaurant where once again were treated to a variety of appetizer – many varieties of hummus, babaganoush, falafel made from fava beans, cucumbers in yogurt, shakshouka and then a main dish of lamb shishkebab and rice pudding for dessert. At least we were told it was rice pudding. It tasted like rice pudding, but there seemed to be no actual rice in it. And after lunch a quick walk to the bookstore where I found a volume of poetry by Mahmoud Darwish. He is actually Palestininan-Jordanian not Egyptian, but since we’d been in Jordan that was fine. I was glad some others bought books as well since this trip had been my request. I’d have been uncomfortable if the rest of the group thought it was a waste of time.
Our final afternoon featured an excursion to the Khan Il Khalili market. We were given stern instructions about how to handle the vendors, how to bargain, how to avoid being cheated and then off we went. Jane and I bought t-shirts from a charmer who called us “habibi” and offered hugs as an incentive for us to buy. We counter-offered with lower prices and no hugs!We also each bought a few other items, including for me a couple of CDs of Egyptian music. We met the rest of the group at the Al-Fishawy Coffee Shop where I saw the room in which Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz wrote The Cairo Trilogy and other works. I read his novels a few years ago and they have stayed with me. Visiting the place where he wrote them was wonderful.
And so, after a nice farewell dinner at our hotel, this adventure came to an end. I saw places and structures of great historical and religious significance; I saw beautiful works of art and interesting street scenes; I got a taste of a culture very different from any other I’ve experienced, learned a few words of Arabic and a few more words of Hebrew than I knew before; I lost some material things but gained some invaluable and precious memories, and all this in the company of congenial fellow travelers.
Next stop: India!!!
