Land of Magic and Mystery Part 1

Here is the first half of my memoir about Egypt

When I decided to write about Egypt, I was struggling to collect memories from fifteen years ago, so it was challenging. Fortunately, I found my travel journal from that trip, and Crista remembers much different things than I do, so she was a big help filling in things I was vague about in my journal. Once I started writing all the memories started flooding back. This is the first half of the trip, I haven’t written the second half yet.

Land of Magic and Mystery Part 1

April, 2008

 

Hey Sean, I typed, I’ve got big news, we need to talk.

Hey, he replied, I’ve got big news too.

 Ring Ring.

‘Guess what…’ I gushed, ‘I’m going to EGYPT!’

There was a few moments of shocked silence. ‘…I’M going to Egypt!’ Sean beamed.

 Woah. He paid $10000, and said it was worth every penny. He got luxury hotels, air-conditioned busses, and ancient secret rituals in the sacred chamber beneath the Sphinx. His travelling companions included artists like Alex Grey, Allison Grey, and Starhawk (I couldn’t remember her name and called her Starcookie). I paid $1600, and it was definitely worth every penny. I got Bedouin guides, felluca rides, burned hides and waterslides. My travelling companions included my incredible, ginger-haired friend Crista, and Ivan. Crista and I made a great team. She had aloe moisturiser and nail clippers, and I had antibiotics, polysporin and band-aids. Together, we were like a functioning society, with clipped nails, soft skin and uninfected wounds. Ivan and society don’t make a good team at all. How could I possibly describe Ivan? Think of a mole on two legs, with a long, skinny neck and a bobblehead. Then give that bobblehead thick glasses, squinty eyes and spindly arms. To sum him up in three words, it would be: insecure, entitled, abrasive. I knew him from a safe distance in high school, as he also stunk like warm garbage, due to never showering. Sometimes I miss those innocent days when his lingering aroma also held a stink of mystery. The theme he followed over the trip was to find the person in our group with the worst grasp on English, then talk continuously to that person until they either burst in to tears or ran away. I originally tried to downplay his role in this story, as no one should be subjected to two weeks in his inescapable, smelly proximity, but can you really talk about a monsoon without talking about the earthquake? At that point I hardly knew Crista, beyond one mutual friend, chatting a handful of times, and my 19th birthday, which I’m sure she remembers better than I. Why she invited me makes about as much sense as why she invited Ivan, but we did our best given the circumstances. 

 There are some important things to remember about Egypt. 1) People have inhabited the banks of the Nile continuously for somewhere between 7000 - 20000 years. The Nile is so polluted, the tap water is poison, so you MUST drink bottled water exclusively. This leaves you two paths- My path, to buy 10 1L bottles of water at the corner store next to the hostel for £5  (50 cents) a bottle, and haul them around all day in my backpack. Ivan’s path, to drink tap water, regret it, bring 1 bottle of water from the hostel, then be stuck at ancient monuments in inconvenient locations paying £50 a bottle, then complain for the rest of the day about how much you paid for water. Crista chose my path, and sometimes I carried her water.  2) Bring a good first aid kit, because you will be spending a lot of time either at or travelling to ancient monuments in inconvenient locations. The day we went to Abu Simbel, the bus left Aswan at 3:30 AM, we got a couple hours at the site before it grew unbearably hot, and we were back in time for a late dinner. 3) Food poisoning is so common in Egypt, some visitors consider it a given; I was not one of those. I did my research, and found out about this stuff called Flagyl that is praised as the ultimate preventative for food poisoning. Over the course of our two weeks, I would say we travelled with about twenty different people for differing lengths, from a few hours to a few days. Every single person got food poisoning… except me. There were a few meals I considered  questionable,  and every time was proven right when I took Flagyl, Crista got food poisoning, then I held her hair back hours later, while she puked her guts out. I was very open about how great this Flagyl stuff was,  I offered it to everybody, but for some reason, no one took me up on it, and all suffered the consequences. 4) If you only visit three cities, it should be Cairo (Formerly Heliopolis) , Aswan and Luxor (formerly Thebes, probably the most famous city of the ancient world). Every area we stayed in each had a local pizza place, and they were all great. It’s not just a tourist thing locals love it too, but I’m not sure how they feel about pineapples on pizza. 5) There’s this funny thing called Baksheesh- it’s like a tip, except you’re expected to provide it in exchange for pretty much everything. It kind of makes sense when you’re talking about a driver that was with you all day, it’s another thing when the ‘tourist police’ with an assault rifle is yelling at you in Arabic while you try to use an ATM, then expects baksheesh for his ‘help’. What’s crazy, according to our Bedouin pyramid guide, is that basically everybody is paid so poorly, baksheesh is an essential part of the economy. At least, it was until everyone started rioting and overthrew the corrupt government, about a year after we got back. Unfortunately, the military overthrew THAT government a few years after, and ever since they are stuck with an even more oppressive regime.

Upon landing, we departed with nothing but an Expedia booking and the address of our hostel. I was rocking a shiny, newly-released contraption known as an iPod Touch. No piece of technology has changed my life quite so drastically. Being able to listen to music for days on end without running out of batteries, being able to look at a MAP any time I was connected to the internet, even sending an email from anywhere with wifi. What a world! Part of me was overwhelmed by the bustling crowds, unfamiliar smells and stifling heat, another part of me felt like it was finally home.  As our cab pulled out of the airport, we passed a giant Fairmont Hotels sign, which piqued my interest, since I had just finished my grad trip for the Concierge Services: Guests Relations Specialist program at Fanshawe College. They took us to the Fairmont Royal York in Toronto, where a Concierge Grad informed us  of a promotion allowing employees to book rooms for their ‘friends and family’ at a special rate, and they got a fantastic bonus of $20 per booking. I emailed her as soon as we got to the hostel.

 That first hostel was great. The room was comfortable, it had a really nice view, and they set us up on a ten-day tour to Aswan, Luxor, Abu Simbel and the surrounding temples.  On our first night in Cairo, Crista and I went for a walk downtown. We were the only tourists, but that didn’t feel weird, as everyone was super friendly even if they didn’t speak English. Fortunately I had explained the concept of baksheesh to Crista, so we were prepared with small bills for the many times we got lost. There were feral cats everywhere, and their history with humans had left their share of scars. Too bad the reverence for cats didn’t maintain its prominence in modern Cairo. I took to carrying cat treats with me, but most were too afraid to take them, at least while I was watching.

Any book that addresses the topic of Egyptian Magic is likely to have a few things in common. It’s a well-established fact that magic and religion were so closely intertwined they weren’t perceived as separate things. The same religion was practiced continuously for at least 3500 years. It’s hard to give a good estimate, because that religion was already firmly established when Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt were unified under King Menes around 2925 B.C.E. and continued until the Roman Emperor Justinian I closed the Temple of Isis on the Island of Philae in 553 B.C.E

The Old Kingdom was a very special place, because up until that point there had been very little contact with its neighbours, the desert being a very effective detriment to explorers and invaders. Everybody worked for the Pharaoh, because he was literally believed to be a god. When the nile flooded, most of the population were conscripted to plant crops. When the planting was done, there were public monuments to build. Every Egyptian citizen was also expected to spend part of the year working in a Temple as a priest, whose responsibilities included learning to sing the sacred songs, and dance the sacred dances of their Temple. What do you think a civilization would be like where everybody was musically literate? What sort of chain gang do you think you could form if you had  40000 workers singing together?

The Pyramids. The hostel set us up with our driver, Mustafa. When he picked us up, he was cheerful and energetic. When we got to the Step Pyramid of Djoser (2700 B.C.E.), he was still cheerful and energetic. Djoser was the founder of the Old Kingdom, and first Pharoah of the Third Dynasty, the last Egyptian Pharaoh perishing in 342 B.C.E. This was THE first monument ever built out of stone, and now is a vaguely pyramid-shaped heap of rocks. Archaeologists would have you believe the whole Egyptian civilization mysteriously leapt from the abyss of ancient history fully formed around this time, then built all the most extraordinary structures of the ancient world over the next two hundred years. Ancient Egyptian king lists give a history of roughly 20 000 years. They didn’t even have a professional army prior to the 12th dynasty, around 1900 B.C.E. Clearly they had better things to think about, like building pyramids.

Mustafa was still cheerful as he drove us to the Pyramids of Sneferu, first Pharaoh of the fourth dynasty (2613-2589 B.C.E.). Sneferu built lots of pyramids, but two of particular note. The Bent Pyramid is the result of Sneferu building at too steep an angle, and changing angles part way up to avoid collapse. The Red Pyramid is what followed after he started over from scratch. It  was the first truly smooth-sided pyramid. Mustafa cheerfully told us we could climb inside, but he may not have been the best judge. It was dark, dank, and treacherous, with lots of climbing.   When Mustafa blew a tire on the way to the plains of Giza, he cheerfully told us to relax and enjoy the view of the Pyramids, which Crista and I gladly did. Ivan ‘offered to help’, then loomed behind him doing absolutely nothing beyond talking about bullshit, while Mustafa jacked up his car, removed a tire and put on a spare. When the maintenance was complete, Mustafa didn’t look so cheerful anymore.

 Giza was incredible. Mustafa handed us off to some Bedouins, who took us out to the pyramids on camels. Watching a camel run is one of the most awkward things I have ever seen an animal do, and riding one while it’s happening is expectedly unpleasant, but man was it worth it. We can thank Sneferu’s children for this trio of incredible objects. The biggest pyramid was built by Sneferu’s son, Khufu from 2589-2566 B.C.E. In their original form this was impossible, as they were covered in smooth, polished limestone that sparkled in the sun. Sadly, many of the casing stones were loosened after an earthquake in 1303 B.C.E., then stolen for later building projects . I asked if I could climb on it and our guide nonchalantly told me he couldn’t care less. About a third of the way up, the view was incredible, with the entire city of Cairo spreading behind a buffer of slums to the east. Khufu’s son Khafre built his pyramid around 2570 B.C.E, and though it’s smaller than Khufu’s, he built it at a higher elevation so it looks bigger. Insecure much? Khafre’s son Menkaure built the smallest of the three around 2510 B.C.E. All the big pyramids are surrounded by smaller pyramids, which are surrounded by tombs. Why so many tombs? You may ask. According to  Bernard Bromage in his book ‘The Occult Arts of Ancient Egypt, ‘Here the pharaoh presided for ever over the destinies of his people, his spirit ever ready to counsel and protect. And not only the pharaoh, but the whole army of his children and relatives, the nobles and learned mean of his court’ (30)’, which in layman’s terms means, everybody who worked on each pyramid was killed, after its completion. And we still don’t know how they built them. This was the day I first started to consider something that was proven many times on this journey- Magic is a real thing, and the nature of magic is not harnessing external forces, but embracing internal ones. It took immersion in a wasteland absolutely steeped in magic to realise this.

Our trial complete, Mustafa returned us to our hostel, and we each paid him the agreed-upon sum of £200 , which was about $20. As expected, he nonchalantly mentioned some baksheesh would really help him feed his family. Crista and I each had an extra £300 ready, and wished we could afford to give him more, as he had certainly earned it, and we told him so. Then there’s Ivan. 

‘I’m sorry, my friend,’ he whined, ‘ I am just a simple student and cannot afford anything else.’ Crista and I stood in stunned amazement. Is it really possible for someone to be so shitty, so entitled, so oblivious to the challenges of living in a third world country? It is, and his name is Ivan. 

‘You do realise,’ I hissed, as Mustafa drove away, ‘that your PLANE TICKET cost as much as he’s going to make in a year.’

Ivan threw up his arms like I had affronted the honour of his ancestors. ‘That’s why I can’t afford a tip!’

‘Why are you travelling if you just admitted you can’t afford to travel?’

After that, things with Ivan got even less friendly.

 I’m not saying every felucca in the world is a piece of garbage, but you should definitely see what you’re agreeing to before you decide to spend the better part of three days on one. If you value your privacy, this journey is not for you. If something irks you about having to shit in the already disgusting waters of the Nile, or you expect something other than rice and tomato sauce  cooked on a camping stove, with raw vegetables poisoned by Nile water for your meals, take a bus, or a plane, heck even a camel. There haven’t been many moments in my life that can top arriving in Aswan, to a hotel (not hostel!) and find clean sheets, toilets that flush, and a shower with water pressure. It was almost indescribable after three days on an 8-person sailboat with 12 people. When I spotted the Pizza Hut logo at the top of one of the few tall buildings in the downtown core, I believe I wept. It tasted exactly like every other Pepperoni Lover’s Pizza I have ever eaten. It was amazing.

Philae Temple. In the 1960’s, Egypt built the Aswan High Dam, which currently provides Egypt most of its power. The resulting creation of Lake Nasser was going to submerge a number of significant historical sites, so with the help of the UNESCO Nubia Campaign, they took apart the entire island of Philae piece by painstaking piece, and rebuilt it on an island at a higher elevation, close to Luxor. I believe there were around 20 sites around Egypt that were moved and reconstructed, including Abu Simbel, which was on our itinerary for the next day. The first temple built at Philae was around  670 B.C.E, during the 25th dynasty, and was expanded by the 26th and 30th dynasties, then again by the Ptolemaic pharaohs of Roman origin, around 116 B.C.E. Its official use continued until at least 553 C.E, and was the last place the ancient Egyptian religion was practiced. That’s over 1000 years of different ethnic groups using and expanding the same complex to worship the same entity, whether they called that thing Mut, Hathor, or Isis. 

If you visit their temples now, all you’d see is bare rock walls covered in hieroglyphs, stone statues, and columns supporting nothing. In the Old Kingdom, the columns supported flat stone roofs, and kept their sacred chambers in absolute darkness. Only the high priest was allowed to enter. All the walls were painted white, and the hieroglyphs were coloured with metallic paint. The hieroglyphs recorded their history and their mythology, still available for those with the eyes to read them. To them, it was not mythology, it was hymns. Every day, as the sacred songs were sung and the sacred dances were danced, the statues of their gods would be paraded from the sacred chamber through the Temple grounds, shaded from the brutal sun. The air was filled with the music of drums, harps and cymbals. You could pray to the statue and leave an offering, or give the offering to a priest, to pray on your behalf. Then you would return to the land of the desert, under the gaze of the all-powerful sun god Ra, with no music but the tools of your trade and the sound of your voice.

 We joined a guided group whom I ditched immediately, and set off on my own to explore the original Temple of Isis. The limestone walls and ceiling are completely covered in hieroglyphs, still striking even after 2000 years, and several centuries of being submerged every year when the Nile flooded. It was completely silent, and so peaceful. I heard a quiet squeaking, then watched two tiny lizards scamper out of a little hole in the wall and chase each other around, before disappearing back where they had come. Every stone I touched felt charged with energy, but when I reached the altar of Isis, it was a whole different story. The giant block of pink granite seemed to glow with all the intensity of over a thousand years of prayers and desires. I could have stayed there for hours, and left feeling like I had lightning bursting from my fingertips.

 In his desire to ‘live like the locals,’ Ivan spent the day annoying a bunch of felluca drivers, who he said were very nice once they stopped trying to sell him a ride. They didn’t speak a word of English, which was probably why he wasn’t found floating face-down in the Nile.

That evening I told Ivan that Crista and I were planning on spending a few nights at the Fairmont at the end of the trip, and invited him, even though I knew we would both want to drown him in one of their multiple pools before the end of our stay. He told us that before he spent money on anything, he would consider every possible use of that money, and he had better things to spend money on. The next day he bought an Egyptian watermelon that made him sick, and a bunch of picture frames that cost more than a night at the Fairmont.