Where I'll be going

Since it's been taking me so long to catch up with all that has happened in the last coule of months, I thought I might start interspacing what I'm doing NOW in here on occasion. Here's where I'll be going:

25 Feb (Mon) Travel Dakhla-Aswan; Orientation; night in Aswan.

26 Feb (Tue) Philae, Kalabsha, Coptic Cathedral; night in Aswan.

27 Feb (Wed) Nubia Museum, Elephantine, St. Simeon; night in Aswan.

28 Feb (Thu) To Luxor; Kom Ombo, Edfu; In Luxor: Luxor Museum; night in

Luxor.

29 Feb (Fri) Luxor Temple; afternoon for options; night in Luxor.

1 Mar (Sat) Medinet Habu, Deir el-Medina, Colossi, VOK; night in Luxor.

2 Mar (Sun) To Abydos; Dendera, Abydos; night in Sohag.

3 Mar (Mon) To Asyut; White & Red Monasteries, Athribis; night in Asyut.

4 Mar (Tue) To Minya; Hermopolis, Tuna el-Gebel, Bani Hasan; night in Minya.

5 Mar (Wed) To Cairo; Tenis/Akoris, Gabal al-Tayr; night in Cairo.

7 Mar (Fri) Saqqara and Giza

8 Mar (Sat) Old Cairo: Babylon, Coptic churches, Mosque of ‘Amr

9 Mar (Sun) Islamic Cairo 1: Gayer-Anderson, Ibn Tulun, Sultan Hasan, Citadel

11 Mar (Tue) Islamic Cairo 2: Bayn al-Qasrayn, Bab Zuwayla, etc.

14 Mar (Fri) Field trip: Fayyum: Tebtunis, Narmouthis

16 Mar (Sun) Field trip: Monastery of St. Antony

18 Mar (Tue) Study day; seminar on Alexandria

19 Mar (Wed) To Alexandria; Kom el-Shugafa, Serapeum, Qayt Bay fort

20 Mar (Thu) Kom el-Dikka (with Grzegorz Majcherek), National Museum

21 Mar (Fri) Marina el-Alamein, Taposiris

22 Mar (Sat) Abu Mina, Marea

23 Mar (Sun) Library Museum, Mustafa Pasha & Chatby tombs; to Cairo

Living in the Oasis

Accommodations here are different than any of us has experienced in the past. Mudbrick architecture makes a lot of sense out here, but it has its ups and downs. Essentially it is built by making bricks out of mud and straw, letting them dry, and then stacking them by the thousands. The walls are nice and thick, which both insulates and gives a lot of privacy to the rooms. The ceilings are supported by rough-hewn beams (I believe of palm in most places) with a layer of thin palm strips bundled together to form a platform over them. This is then covered with more mud to make a solid roof, and coated with a more sandy med plaster for appearance. Not all of the rooms have hard floors, though most of the dirt floors are covered by reed mats or camel-hair rugs. The dirt floors led to some adjustment, especially for the one room that lacked carpeting (the showers and bathrooms stalls are all tiled to prevent us inhabitants from destroying the house when we bathe). This is all a fairly easy adjustment , though learning to take 3 minute showers every day is a bit rough (water is scarce in the Oasis, and wells are being driven deeper and deeper to tap water sources that once sprang out on the surface) especially when you’re covered in dirt from a sandstorm. One has to be careful with the mudbrick benches built into the building, as we learned after breaking off chunks of them. The secret is to cover it with a rug before sitting, or keep your weight well away from the edge. Fortunately, repairing the house is simple-slop more mud on it and let it dry. I was leery about setting up my dart board in the common room, but I was assured that the craters left by missed darts (and I do mean craters, the wall is now a moonscape) will simply be covered over once we all leave.

This all works great, keeping the house cool during the day, warm at night, and making a startlingly quiet and comfortable home. Unless it rains. (more on that later)

The nearest town is Mut, the somewhat capital of the Oasis. It’s about a 20 minute bike ride to get to the main drag, but the bikes they bought for the program started falling apart on our first trip. This was our first experience with Egyptian quality-assurance, which is noticeable by its absence. By the end of our first 2-hour visit our 3 bikes had:

1 loose handlebar (my bad)

3 broken pedals (1 by me)

3 broken seats

1 broken handlebar (which the staff tried to tie together with string

Mut is quite a town, more on it soon.

The author at rest, waiting for that good Egyptian tea.

Twin-turbo.

More puppies, just because.

Iron-rich rocks.

Country roads...

At the first rest stop on the road to the Oasis.

Closest glimpse I've had of the pyramids.

The first mosque I visited.

Khanel-Khalili, shadier side.

Converted factory, now a market.

Cairo skyline. Can't escape Coca-Cola.

The niche where they stick foreigners.

Cairo street corner. The impression that the traffic is all going in incompatible directions is accurate.

Cairo To Dakhleh

I’ve been really remiss with this blog, so forgive me if my memory is a bit hazy as I try to fill in over a month of craziness.

Summing up Cairo: Smoggy, sandy, bright but faded colors everywhere. We ascended into a labyrinthine building to fill out visa extension request, and then had the rest of the day to explore while our handlers worked with the creaking Egyptian bureaucracy for us. We tried to get to the Cairo museum, but the crowds outside made us put it off. Instead we dodged some traffic and walked across the Nile somewhat aimlessly. We noted numerous statues of men in fezzes striking benevolent poses, and turned down somewhere close to 50 offers of boat rides. The view of the Nile was less than spectacular thanks to the obscuring haze of smog from the insane amount of Cairo drivers, so we had to rely on the wow factor of standing over such a famous river to sustain the tourist magic. On our way back over the bridge we got the classic tourist ambush.

As we stepped onto the bridge a man just happened to appear walking the same direction, asking for the time. Supposedly he had studied art in Montana and wanted to practice his English. We let him lead us to his “sister’s art show” which turned out to be a store selling typical tourist merchandise. We were treated to our first real Egyptian tea (with the tea unbagged in the bottom of the glass) while he showed us papyrus paintings he had done himself (the sister never materialized) as well as various other arts and crafts that he was apparently a master of. When he realized that we weren’t buying, the lights of the store were shut off and we were told that we were free to “stay and finish our tea”, while he held open the door. We took the hint. Apparently another group of my friends got caught in the same scam, but were given more of a hard sell by the guy who supposedly had done all the artwork (which explains the desire to clear us out of the store so quickly). Big family.

We went to the shell of an old factory that was now a market, which was the most intense working of the olfactory gland that I’ve had on this trip. What sticks out in my mind most about the market was the cats wandering the stalls. Half of the were pregnant; I think that may be the first time I’ve ever seen a pregnant cat wandering around in my entire life. Just one of those little things about living in a first-world nation that you normally don’t even think of.

Adam, a fellow student distinguished by his uncanny resemblance to every mummy portrait painted in the Valley of the Golden Mummies, went with me on a shopping expedition to Khanel-Khalili, the major shopping district of Cairo. We were completely unsuccessful in our object (to find cheap Indiana Jones-style leather satchels), but had quite a tour. We were approached in the standard manner, this time by a “law student” who then had to “study” and passed us off to his dad. His dad then took us through a labyrinth of streets to just about everywhere BUT a shop that sold leather bags. Of course he took us to friends who would probably give him a cut of any sales, but he seemed to know everyone in the city. We saw everything: camel-hair rugs you could pass a pen through without leaving a hole, camel-bone chess sets (which Adam bought out of guilt), imitation western clothes and shoes, pots, goats, donkeys, paintings, were offered self-portraits, papyrus scrolls, lamps, etc. But the closest we came to leather goods was a purse shop. I felt we came out well in the deal, however, as we had a friendly and cheerful tour guide through the area who asked for nothing more than a 10 pound “donation” to a mosque we stopped into. For another “donation” we were taken to the roof of another mosque and watched an incredible sunset over the skyline of Cairo. Well worth the investment. On our way home, we also discovered that there was another section of the market on the other side of the main street that was the true tourist trap. We had been in the seedier part of the market all along.

We then had an early rise, and a 14+ hour drive to the Oasis we would call home for the next two months. The trip went by quickly, with frequent stops at points of interest on the highway ; arches of rock cut by the wind or mounds of blackened rocks so rich in iron that they were fragmented like stacks of knives and throwing-stars. Before too long, we were at our field house. It was massive two story fortress, with a heavy wooden door. It was built out of mud.