Tut Speaks: Cairo, Luxor, Alexandria

Egypt was another breath-taking journey, mostly into the past this time, as we roamed through old cities, temples, graves, valleys, ancient bazaars, and aging kingdoms, dodging the vendors who have developed their tackling skills to the max. Still, we loved (the ancient if not the present) Egypt, even the three night, four day trip we took through Cairo and to Luxor, with very early morning wake up calls and trips to the Giza Pyramids.

I (Tom)write this after our magnificent visit to Istanbul, Turkey, with an evening arrival to Dubrovnik tonight. I look back on our days in Egypt and realize it was a hard country for me to like, though much of the country is stunningly beautiful and deeply historic, especially if you like deserts, pharaohs and sand. Images from one of Mafouz’s novels wander in and out of my brain, especially this line from the novel I’m now finishing, The Beginning and the End, the story of one poor family from the Cairo neighborhood surrounding the Khan, where Dianne and I often wandered: “How curious that Egypt unmercifully devours its own offspring! Yet they say we are a contented people. Oh God, this is the height of human misery! Nay, it is the height of human misery to be miserable and contented.” While the Nobelist Moufouz wrote this at the end of the 1940s, I wonder if some of it is still true today. The people, friendly and poor. The vendors saying "no hassle" while they bodily pull you into their shops--"Just look, it's free to look" or the more humorous "how can I take your money today?!"


Cairo is a badly polluted and heavily militaristic city in a country of more than 80 million people. It is said that there are 500, 000 police in Cairo alone, though trips to the Pyramids, located in Giza outside of Cairo, help to forget that fact. The Great Pyramid of Cheops, constructed on 2.5 million stone blocks and rising 450 feet from the sand, is stunning, to say the least, and Dianne even got a camel ride in the bargain. Tom and I are now writing this together and I have to say that despite it being a tourist kitsch--I loved my camel ride--just a bit bumpier and much higher than riding a horse. But those of you who read Amelia Peabody mysteries would be right at home here. The animals in Egypt all looked overworked, underfed and undermedicated. And so, Ameilia tending to the donkies and camels in the novels is very realistic--it still needs to be done--and what I never realized before is that she uses REAL historical figures in her mysteries, such as Howard Carter and Maspero. It's pretty sad when the only way I knew bits of Egyptian lore (aside from museum instruction) was from these campy novels! Tom also watched a dramatic though wee bit kitchy light show on the Giza Pyramids.

We spent two nights at a very nice hotel in Cairo before a flight to Luxor, originally called Thebes, which from 2100 to 750 BCE was the seat of power and glory for its temples, especially the one at Karnac. The Valley of the Kings there revealed Tut’s grave to us, and those of several other pharaohs, and we saw a display of Tut’s treasures in the Luxor Museum that is everything its reputation suggests. The temple at Luxor though small was awesome and very romantic as we saw it at night. It is dramatically lit each night and we also saw it by full moon. The temple(s) at Karnac rivaled the Acropolis for me (D), It was gigantic and it had enormous columns crowned with lotus and papyrus capitals and original paintings left on some of the lintels.

And while Tom enjoyed the Cairo Museum, I was blown away by the very small sections we got to see--especially the King Tut room. Although many items are on tour in the US and Europe, there were still enormous numbers of items that showed the wealth and power of this very young, very minor King. We also saw his tomb with one mummy case and his mummy's resting place and pictures of Howard Carter discovering the tomb with all of these pieces piled on one another in a tinier room in the tomb--but oh, the jewelry, the gilded and carved palequins, the carved tiger beds and royal crowns and the jewel encrusted canopic jars, the alabaster perfume flasks, the ivory carved lion unguent containers,the gold death mask and his gilded throne! My favorite piece, though, was a small wooden bust, carved and painted of Tut when he was younger. Now if only we could transport the WHOLE collection to a special exhibit for our museum. Then we'd really have an unrivaled Ancient Art tour!

Other images of Cairo that I (Tom) won’t soon forget: Thousands of unfinished houses with roofs cluttered with construction material and rebar, due to the fact that several years ago taxes were raised at the height of a construction boom and "unfinished" buildings don't have to pay as much so they are purposefully left unfinished. Mubarek has been President for 25 years and the Islamic Muslim Brotherhood is predicted to take over congress in the next election, something that one of our most esteemed faculty Prof. Don Heinz thinks might be a very good thing (while many fear the Brotherhood, and an Islamic state…one of the possible downsides is that it would bring a very strict rule against kissing in the street); Egypt is the only Arab country to have made peace with Israel; in Epypt you cannot take a picture without the subject demanding money, unless the subject is a camel; we spent more than an hour trying to wrest ourselves from the clutches of a perfume shop owner, whose brother had given us directions to the large Khan Khalili Bazaar. After giving directions, the brother took us forcibly by the arm and walked us 4 blocks to the perfume shop, where we were sat down, showed pictures of fighter Mohammad Ali drinking tea with the shop owner, followed by being served tea and a hard sell for perfume. We resisted and left abruptly 30 minutes later.

But that was in Cairo--and out in the country near Luxor and Thebes the living was at least "prettier" or more picturesque for tourists. (I doubt if the poor merchants and farm laborers or country people) had it better--probably much worse but we were sheltered in a hotel in Luxor that was more like a resort with its own shopping and restaurants and bars and pool and boat rides. Our room had a balcony covered in bouginvilla and facing the Nile. It was lovely and so we only saw mostly the way very rich Egyptians lived here. (I'm not complaining, mind you, but we were certainly more tourists than "travellers" at these sites. We did, however, come away from the country with sand in our shoes and grit in our teeth. We did like ancient Egypt, but I'm not sure we will return.