Jakey Jake

Next night I caught the train to aswan , where there was a dam and some more ruins to see. This time the hotel was shit, the city was shit, the dam was shit, the people were shit and to top it off they did that annoying muslim thing where all the mosques in the area thought they would blast their prayer sessions over the city at ungodly hours. Bastards. We had to get up at 4 to catch a bus to Abu Simbel, which I had been told was THE highlight of Egypt . What a disappointment. Sorry to all those who liked it, sure it was kind of kewl the four large carvings of the kings, but the entire site had been moved there, and really it was just two big tunnels. Mmmmm anyway.. that afternoon we went back to aswan and my aunty called me to tell me that our family paint factory was burnt down. A bit of a shock, but considering no one was hurt and factories can be rebuilt, I was over it pretty quickly. That night I caught the night train back to cairo before I was to head off to south America on my way back home for a brief stop over. I was so happy to get the hell out of Egypt . Its basically a big dump with people who are friendly because they want something. Its not as bad as India , but it gets a fair way to being close.

That night I caught the train to luxor where I met a pretty kewl aussie bloke who had been traveling for ages as well. We spent the night playing Chinese chequers and he completely kicked my butt. That day we went to see some old temple, I cant recal the name, but for me it was the highlight of the Egyptian ruins. After that we went to luxor temple, where you can see where the Christians took refuge and actually created the first church and you can actually see a painting of the last supper over the ancient hyroglyphs. The next day we went to the valley of the kings and the valley of the queens. The valley of the kings is where the later kings were all buried instead of in pyramids as it clearly alerted grave diggers as to where the goodies were. Anyway I felt that they were kind of overrated. And by this stage I was utterly sick of the attitude of the Egyptians, it was the national pastime to ripoff or molest tourists.

Well I arrived at cairo airport, where I stupidly organized a tour with a guy who was grabbing people as they got off the airplane. Needless to say it was far more expensive than what I wanted to spend and way more than I could have done it on my own. But I figured that I had limited time to go and see everything so if I got it all organized then I wouldn’t have to contend with all the hassle of doing it myself. Well it turned out ok, I stayed in some ok hotels, had my own private taxis and private tour guides, but considering the amount I paid I didn’t tip anyone, and the Egyptians attitude was pretty shit and sly anyway so stuff tipping. First few nights I spent in cairo, I met a local and hung out with him for a bit and we went and got some food and smoked on a hooka, the tobacco was actually pretty good, then he showed me some bars but I didn’t really want to stick around as I felt like they were pretty dodgy people, friendly but always after your buck. Anyway the first day I was picked up and the guide was awesome, he knew everything, he was actually a guide at the cairo museum. We went out to the first pyramid which is much more square than the others but still very impressive, its difficult to imagine that 5000 years ago these were made, when most other cultures had nothing. After this we went to the pyramids at giza and the sphinx. I have to say I was mighty impressed, the sheer size of the structures is breathtaking, and to imagine that they were once completely smooth and covered in gold. The sphinx was actually much smaller than I had imagined but still impressive nonetheless. The next day we went to the cairo museum where you can see quite a few ancient artifacts including mummies and a collection of goods that was discovered in tutenkhamens tomb. Including his sarcophagus, 111kgs of pure gold and of course the ultra famous mask 11kgs of solid gold and precious gems. This was followed by a tour of the city which included the church where jesus, mary and joseph hung out to escape persecution from the romans, it was really strange to see the room where jesus grew up. Lastly we came to the giant mosque, I cant recall exactly who that one was for but it had a great view of cairo , the dirty city that it is.