Yemen: egypt: the requisite sites

We began our adventures through Egypt by embarking on a Nile Cruise (from Luxor to Aswan). And oh, the fannypack-toting tourists we would meet along the way.

Transportation from Cairo to Luxor was via a train ("First class! Five stars!" our travel agent promised us, and like good little tourist sheep we believed). While the cruise was lovely, the train was not. Apparently a nationalized rail system is not working so well for Egypt. Not only was the room filthy and the bathrooms unusable (which made the 14-hour ride rather painful), but there was a constant flow of train workers through our room the entire night asking for bribes. One employee barged into our room and when Nate gently lifted his can of beer in the air, more as a salute than anything else, the man snatched Nate's beer and downed in it one massive, burb-inducing gulp.

This is generally where we spent our time while on the boat. While the Egyptian government may not be able to run a train system, they sure do know how to make a great cheap beer!

The beer was great. I would not, however, recommend Egypt's nationalized liquors (brands include the like of "Johnny Wadi" packaged to resemble Johnny Walker, of course). We opted for a bottle of vodka, which (surprise!) smelled like vanilla and tasted like ouzo.

Giza

We generally felt like, as tourists in Egypt, we had a massive "sucker" sign written across our foreheads. Such as when we were essentially forced to take this picture by a very persistent and pushy camel entrepreneur (he literally grabbed my arm so hard it left a bruise in order to shove me in place).

After visiting the pyramids we had the great fortune to visit a rug "school" (our theory: if they call it a "school", the unpaid child laborers can more acceptably be labeled as "apprentices"). Here's Nate learning the finer secrets of weaving from a four year old.

Memphis Museum.

Our cruise package included a carriage ride to sites in Aswan. P-Cakes and I were not thrilled (the horses were all on the brink of starvation, and we felt horrible contributing to the system).

Nate and Eric, however, kinda dug the ride.
Our carriage-driver pulled over, snatched our camera and took this gem of a shot of the boys, and then of course demanded compensation for his extra efforts (and clearly they should have been rewarded...)

The Aswan Dam is not impressive (both as a tourist site, and for it's human and environmental costs, but that's for another blog).

Eric conquers Lake Nasser.

Valley of the Kings.

We went on my tours. And each tour included the exact same recaps of the exact same stories from Egyptian mythology (this is us listening to our guide in the Valley of the Kings in 100-degree heat). Apparently by day three we could no longer disguise our boredom.

Hatshepsut's Temple in the Valley of the Queens.
Also the site of the 1997 tourist massacre.

Karnak Temple

We felt like sheep, being herded from one temple to another, usually with a layover at a papyrus or alabaster "school" in between. Egypt really is a tourist machine.