WALA LANG
We hadn’t been together for going on three years now and so my family thought we needed revenge travel. We’re in diaspora, living in Spain, the US, Singapore, Makati, and QC with different work and school schedules so it took several months of Zoom discussions before a decision was reached: Egypt it is.
I was there for a couple of days before any of them was born and none of them had been there. With a history going back 5,000 years, there was plenty to see and experience, and history and culture to learn particularly for the kids in the group (ages 11 and 12).
LORE OF THE SPHINX Cheops pyramid from Cairo’s Marriot Mena Hotel (photo by Mario T. Zinampan)
Resourceful Amy, who lives in the US and was baptized Emily by the group, scoured the internet and found Irene Tafoya, a travel agent in Las Vegas and a total Egypt expert. She knew must-sees, hotels to stay, what plane, boat, and van to book (there were 12 of us arriving and leaving on different days and at different times with a total of 26 pieces of check-in and handcarried luggage), where to eat and celebrate (apart from Christmas and New Year, four of us had birthdays at about the same time), plus info that only the experienced could give—how much to tip and for what, dealing with street vendors, water quality, need for polio and Covid-19 shots, health insurance, etc., etc.
Thanks to all the planning, airport logistics officer Moheb Nassef, and a Tourist Police escort, we all made it promptly and safely to the Ritz Carlton in Cairo and in rooms overlooking the Nile.
First on the agenda were the pyramids in Giza. Our guide Marc Ghattas kept a running patter on Egypt’s history, belief systems (ancient Egyptian, Greco-Roman, Coptic Christian, Islam), and archaeology along the way.
the sphinx and the pyramids in Giza (photo by Irene Zinampan)
The more athletic climbed up and inside the Great Pyramid of Giza built almost 3,000 years ago as the tomb of Pharaoh Khufu or Cheops. Inside the pyramid, down and up narrow and low passageways, the healthy types reached the pharaoh’s tomb chamber. Then off to the Light and Sound viewpoint facing the sphinx with the pyramids in the background. Then followed a visit to the older step pyramid in Sakkara built for Pharaoh Djoser about 2650 BCE. Pharaohs’ tombs were originally underground, marked by a temple (Mastaba), but pharaohs decided on something different, a monumental structure approached on an enormous colonnaded courtyard. The Cairo citadel and its two grand mosques high up on a hill were next.
The long delayed Grand Egyptian Museum regretfully remains delayed but the old museum continues to present the panorama of Egyptian civilization, one of the world’s oldest. Some Tutankhamen treasures are still there, as are mummies of a high priest and his wife in their enormous stone coffins, and thousands upon thousands of material heritage items. A visit to Memphis rounded off the day, where some archaeological finds were in an open area.
Still with our guide Marc, the group took an hour and a half flight to Luxor to see the great temples of Karnak and Luxor, so huge that one could easily believe they were built by giants. Erected thousands of years ago and subjected to earthquakes, sandstorms, wars, vandalism, neglect, changing religions and rulers, the great temples were gradually buried and the town of Luxor grew on top of the ruins. The authorities demolished houses and buildings to bring back to light and restore the temples. A 2.7-kilometer-long and 250-foot-wide processional way lined with sphinxes and ram-headed statues linked the two temples. Sand and debris were hauled away and restoration began in 2002 to uncover and restore the processional way. A spectacular event inaugurated the completed work in November 2021.
Across the Nile in the desolate Valley of the Kings are tombs of pharaohs tunneled into the rock. It turned out that pyramids were not safe from robbers tempted by the gold and treasures meant to accompany pharaohs in the afterlife and so royal tombs began to be built into the mountainsides. Some of the dozens of tombs are open, including that of Rameses IV that consists of a long passage with hieroglyphs and figures on walls and ceiling, leading to tomb and treasure chambers. By the valley entrance is the magnificent funerary temple of Pharaoh Hatshepsut, a great female pharaoh, impressively built against a high cliff.
Rameses II at Abu Simbel
It was in Luxor that the group boarded the MS Nebu for the upriver cruise to Aswan, located by the Aswan Dam that created Lake Nasser, the world’s largest man-made Lake.
Nile cruising is not your ordinary boat ride. To begin with, the Nile is wide and deep, averaging eight to 11 meters deep and 2.8 kilometers wide in some places. The MS Nebu and other cruise vessels have more than three dozen hotel-type cabins, restaurant, bar, gym, social hall where passengers greeted 2023 and gyrated at an Arabian Nights party, and a roof deck over the entire ship with a large swimming pool.
From Luxor, the ship traveled two days and nights to the Esna, where a dam’s water lock brought the river to a higher level. The ship then proceeded to Kom Ombo, with twin temples dedicated to a god with a crocodile head and another with a hawk’s. Further on is Philae, an island on the Nile where a beautiful temple to Isis would have been submerged with the dam’s construction. The temple was disassembled and reassembled high up on another island, where it stands as if nothing happened.
Above the high dam on the banks of Lake Nasser is the majestic Abu Simbel built into solid rock, its facade with four colossal statues of a seated Rameses II, 20 meters high. It was built to commemorate Egypt’s victory over the Hittites, a group in the area of today’s Turkey, and to intimidate the Nubians, who were potential enemies. Everything was sawn out of the cliff, brought up above the new water level and reconstructed against an artificial hill.
An overnight stay at the Sofitel Legend Old Cataract hotel, built in 1899 for elite British tourists by Thomas Cook Travel, capped the Nile River cruise. The atmospheric hotel has a fabulous view of the Nile. It has hosted royalty and the rich and famous. Parts of the Agatha Christie novel and film Death on the Nile were set and shot here.
An Egypt Air flight, all 250 seats filled with foreign tourists brought us back to Cairo.
We are tourism amateurs compared with Egypt.
LORE OF THE SPHINX Cheops pyramid from Cairo’s Marriot Mena Hotel (photo by Mario T. Zinampan)
Resourceful Amy, who lives in the US and was baptized Emily by the group, scoured the internet and found Irene Tafoya, a travel agent in Las Vegas and a total Egypt expert. She knew must-sees, hotels to stay, what plane, boat, and van to book (there were 12 of us arriving and leaving on different days and at different times with a total of 26 pieces of check-in and handcarried luggage), where to eat and celebrate (apart from Christmas and New Year, four of us had birthdays at about the same time), plus info that only the experienced could give—how much to tip and for what, dealing with street vendors, water quality, need for polio and Covid-19 shots, health insurance, etc., etc.
Thanks to all the planning, airport logistics officer Moheb Nassef, and a Tourist Police escort, we all made it promptly and safely to the Ritz Carlton in Cairo and in rooms overlooking the Nile.
First on the agenda were the pyramids in Giza. Our guide Marc Ghattas kept a running patter on Egypt’s history, belief systems (ancient Egyptian, Greco-Roman, Coptic Christian, Islam), and archaeology along the way.
the sphinx and the pyramids in Giza (photo by Irene Zinampan)
The more athletic climbed up and inside the Great Pyramid of Giza built almost 3,000 years ago as the tomb of Pharaoh Khufu or Cheops. Inside the pyramid, down and up narrow and low passageways, the healthy types reached the pharaoh’s tomb chamber. Then off to the Light and Sound viewpoint facing the sphinx with the pyramids in the background. Then followed a visit to the older step pyramid in Sakkara built for Pharaoh Djoser about 2650 BCE. Pharaohs’ tombs were originally underground, marked by a temple (Mastaba), but pharaohs decided on something different, a monumental structure approached on an enormous colonnaded courtyard. The Cairo citadel and its two grand mosques high up on a hill were next.
The long delayed Grand Egyptian Museum regretfully remains delayed but the old museum continues to present the panorama of Egyptian civilization, one of the world’s oldest. Some Tutankhamen treasures are still there, as are mummies of a high priest and his wife in their enormous stone coffins, and thousands upon thousands of material heritage items. A visit to Memphis rounded off the day, where some archaeological finds were in an open area.
Still with our guide Marc, the group took an hour and a half flight to Luxor to see the great temples of Karnak and Luxor, so huge that one could easily believe they were built by giants. Erected thousands of years ago and subjected to earthquakes, sandstorms, wars, vandalism, neglect, changing religions and rulers, the great temples were gradually buried and the town of Luxor grew on top of the ruins. The authorities demolished houses and buildings to bring back to light and restore the temples. A 2.7-kilometer-long and 250-foot-wide processional way lined with sphinxes and ram-headed statues linked the two temples. Sand and debris were hauled away and restoration began in 2002 to uncover and restore the processional way. A spectacular event inaugurated the completed work in November 2021.
Across the Nile in the desolate Valley of the Kings are tombs of pharaohs tunneled into the rock. It turned out that pyramids were not safe from robbers tempted by the gold and treasures meant to accompany pharaohs in the afterlife and so royal tombs began to be built into the mountainsides. Some of the dozens of tombs are open, including that of Rameses IV that consists of a long passage with hieroglyphs and figures on walls and ceiling, leading to tomb and treasure chambers. By the valley entrance is the magnificent funerary temple of Pharaoh Hatshepsut, a great female pharaoh, impressively built against a high cliff.
Rameses II at Abu Simbel
It was in Luxor that the group boarded the MS Nebu for the upriver cruise to Aswan, located by the Aswan Dam that created Lake Nasser, the world’s largest man-made Lake.
Nile cruising is not your ordinary boat ride. To begin with, the Nile is wide and deep, averaging eight to 11 meters deep and 2.8 kilometers wide in some places. The MS Nebu and other cruise vessels have more than three dozen hotel-type cabins, restaurant, bar, gym, social hall where passengers greeted 2023 and gyrated at an Arabian Nights party, and a roof deck over the entire ship with a large swimming pool.
From Luxor, the ship traveled two days and nights to the Esna, where a dam’s water lock brought the river to a higher level. The ship then proceeded to Kom Ombo, with twin temples dedicated to a god with a crocodile head and another with a hawk’s. Further on is Philae, an island on the Nile where a beautiful temple to Isis would have been submerged with the dam’s construction. The temple was disassembled and reassembled high up on another island, where it stands as if nothing happened.
Above the high dam on the banks of Lake Nasser is the majestic Abu Simbel built into solid rock, its facade with four colossal statues of a seated Rameses II, 20 meters high. It was built to commemorate Egypt’s victory over the Hittites, a group in the area of today’s Turkey, and to intimidate the Nubians, who were potential enemies. Everything was sawn out of the cliff, brought up above the new water level and reconstructed against an artificial hill.
An overnight stay at the Sofitel Legend Old Cataract hotel, built in 1899 for elite British tourists by Thomas Cook Travel, capped the Nile River cruise. The atmospheric hotel has a fabulous view of the Nile. It has hosted royalty and the rich and famous. Parts of the Agatha Christie novel and film Death on the Nile were set and shot here.
An Egypt Air flight, all 250 seats filled with foreign tourists brought us back to Cairo.
We are tourism amateurs compared with Egypt.