The Delta

Back in Cairo. SO much to say about the past two days, so I'll see what I can squish in. Which is to say, what I can remember. :-P

We left early on Tuesday and drove to the Eastern Delta (North East of Cairo.) Our first site was Tell el-Maskhuta, a Late Period site. When we arrived a bunch of people from the nearby village were walking by. The women covered their faces and everyone just stared and stared at us. The site itself was less than inspiring, but it was amazing how much ancient pottery was scattered about. Ancient bits of pots are in this country like dust. :-P

We then checked out the Ismailia Museum, which was pretty fabulous. They don't have a huge collection, and I'll have to admit that the best part was the descriptions of things. Because mostly, the English, she was not good, yes? My personal favorite: the depiction of some god or king or something from the "Geek Period" (as opposed to the better known "Greek Period") Kaz actually cried, he laughed so hard. :-P

Then it was off to the actual town of Ismailia to get settled for the night. Only, it was 3pm, so we didn't really settle. The girls dumped the boys in George's Bar (according to Jeff, the American... we'll call him an archaeologist for now, who came with us, George's is the best bar in Egypt) and ran off for a girl's night. Which is to say, we hit up the scarf shop, and wandered the town. The people here could not take their eyes off of us. Ismailia doesn't get a lot of tourism, and it's very obvious.

Had dinner at the Nefertiti Restaurant (ok, they must get a few tourists now and then) with Kenny, Sandra, Steffie and Cathelijn, which was really rather delicious. Then we got some ice cream. The flavors were all written in Arabic, so I translated for everyone. I then ordered in Arabic, and the guy scooping said, in Arabic, that I speak very well. Of course, I had to laugh, because a) I had used up most of what I know, and b) all I said was "one chocolate and one vanilla, please." And the Arabic word for chocolate is shokolata, and vanilla is vanilya. :-P

We finally met up as a group and wandered the streets of Ismailia. While nothing in comparison to Cairo, Ismailia's a pretty happenin' town. All the young people hit the streets, cruising and shopping. The girls get all decked out in their most together and sparkly outfits, hijabs piled high in very complicated patterns with tons of color. Very stylish. The picture of today was inspired by their creations. Poor imitation though it may be.

Kaz, Sandra, Brenda, Quentin and I went to a cafe and had some tea and mint lemonade. And then, bedtime. I stayed in a room with Cathelijn and Steffie, and Cathelijn and I stayed up later than we should have chatting. Because the next morning our alarms went off bright and early at 6:30. Bleh.

Breakfast was... traditional. For Egypt. Sorta. The waiter brought out a nice bowl of foul (pronounced: fool) for everyone. Now, it was 7 in the morning, none of us had slept long enough, and there was an overzealous donkey in the middle of the night, which woke most of us up, and we had all stumbled, blinking, into the dining room, ready for hot coffee or tea and some nice toast and jam. And then... foul. A bowl of lukewarm and rather tasteless brown beans swimming in olive oil. Good morning. Bleh.

Breakfast was redeemed a bit when the waiter brought out bread, and eventually an omelette and some hot caffeinated drinks.

And we were off again. And the education began.

The actual planned sites, while very interesting and educational, were really nothing in comparison to just driving through the countryside. We drove along water (I'm not sure if it was a canal or a branch of the Nile) and dotted along the shore were families, all washing their clothes and their dishes in the water. This would have been fine, except that the shores were littered with junk. Well, littered doesn't begin to describe it, really. Covered in, layered under, dripping with. There was even a dead donkey at one spot.

And the villagers all marveled at us. I think most of them hadn't seen Europeans before. We would pass through a town and all eyes were upon us. The women and girls often smiled at us, and the children always went wild. Most everyone waved. A lot of people yelled the typical yells of "Welcome to Eshipt!" "Welcome"

You always hear people say things like "Deep down, everyone is just alike" but I had quite frankly expected to have to search a bit harder to find similarities, connections. I'm quite the hippy dippy, love-one-another type, so I guess I had just assumed that my conviction that humans were all basically just humans was based on some hippy dippy, esoteric, sure DNA is the same sort of idealism. But so far, I've really noticed that people are just people. Not so deep down. Language, culture, religion. These things go deep, but... not really that deep, it seems.

Ok, down to business. Tell el-Dab'a. Very cool site, and our first real experience so far with a well excavated site. Oh, man, the site house alone is worth visiting. Siigh. And we got to meet Manfred Bietak, however briefly. Got to see the current excavations, the newest finds (one, a "tablet" (it was a tiiiiiny hunk of stone, but definitely had cuneiform writing) was found only a week ago!) and the fragments of the Minoan fresco found there. Very cool. Of course, since it's still undergoing excavation, I could only post a few, rather boring photos on Facebook that don't show anything. Nothing of the real stuff going on. Pity.

Then we drove towards the next site. And got lost. So we really got to see a LOT of small towns, and staring villagers. Haha.

Next stop: Tanis. (Which, according to Indiana Jones, was where the Arc of the Covenant was buried.)

Tanis was hands down the coolest thing I've seen so far. Call me a romantic, or an Egyptomaniac, or what you will, but OH MAN. The site looks like it's in the middle of an endless desert. Great blocks of granite are strewn around, obelisks have fallen over, broken. Hieroglyphs are everywhere. Depictions of the gods, too, half obscured, broken. Even a few statues, huge and crumbling, lie in various states of decay. Here a headless body lying on its back, there a face, here nothing but a crown. It looks like some Lovecraftian dream scape, sun bleached and deeply, horribly, terrifyingly ancient. So ancient it almost hurts.

Of course, the stuff all comes from Rameses II, and the site is mostly Late Period stuff, so hum, not so ancient as to be painful, but pretty old anyway, I guess. :-P

The police told us not to take pictures, but Jeff, our resident American, didn't hear them, and they didn't stop him. So yeah, lots of pictures. And we all got to run around the ruins, climb through some tombs, descend dark staircases. The royal tombs at Tanis, we were told, should have been just as famous as King Tut. They too were found entirely intact, stuffed with silver and awesomeness. Silver at that time, we were told, was more precious than gold. Unfortunately for this royal necropolis, WWII started up, so no one really had any spare enthusiasm. Pity.

Sadly, we only had an hour there. I could have spent the rest of the day there, walking slowly amidst the crumbling past, the wind like warm sand around me. Siiiiighhhh. Oh well, I got my hands dirty, and scrambled into my very first tomb, so I'm thrilled. :-)

Also, going back to the bus, the guards asked me, in Egyptian, if I was Egyptian. Which, as you can guess, was also thrilling.

And then it was back to Cairo. Though, yes, well, it took some time. First of all, we had to wait for our police escort. He was praying. :-P Now, I was a bit nervous when I heard we were getting an escort. But it's not really for our protection. They say it is, but the real purpose they serve is to help us get through traffic. The roads are pretty awful, and very narrow, and when you drive through a town, it can get a bit sticky. But the police just sound their siren, and everyone lets us through.

Though, of course, the police escort made the locals THAT much more curious, and us THAT much more interesting.

And it was two hours back to Cairo. And another two to three hours to get through Cairo traffic. We discussed at length which annoying song to sing to get on Kaz's nerves (he has explicitly forbidden us to sing in the bus.) I broke out into a rather moving rendition of "Burning Love" but he was asleep and didn't seem to notice. "If You're Happy And You Know It (Clap Your Hands)" finally did the trick. I talked to Jeff a bit about life in Cairo, and the ins and outs of Egyptian society.

When we finally arrived on Zamalek, Steffie, Kaz, and Sandra and I went to Pottery Cafe for some food, and then to bed.

Which gets me caught up to today. And it won't take long.

I spent almost all of today in the Pottery cafe. Free wifi, so I uploaded Facebook pictures. Unfortunately, the nice, quick, easy, Java deal doesn't appear to work in Africa, so I had to upload only 5 pictures at a time. Which took FOREVER. So I drank some tea, and worked on my journal. Kaz joined me for lunch, and we had some coffee. Finally, I headed home, and worked some more on my journal while Kaz and Sandra went to a lecture. But it was cancelled, so I soon got a call from those two plus Belgians. To meet at Pottery cafe for dinner.

The waiters all waved when I came in.

After dinner we brought the Belgians home with us, and drank tea and listened to the party boat. And that concludes my updates for the past few days. Thank you, please come again.