Ancient sites and sand
Camels Everyone expects to see camels in Egypt, and see them you do, just about everywhere. While the humble donkey is the preferred beast of burden for most people, there are still camels being used to haul loads to market (often pretty huge loads!) and most of the guards at the remote sites ride them. […]
Read MoreAfterlife The Egyptians saw death not as a final ending, but as a beginning to a long, glorious afterlife (especialy for the king!). It was a part of life — not a life after death, as so many believe, but instead a continuation fo the current life in another place. Their beliefs fostered the creation […]
Read MorePyramids While pyramids exist all over the world, the spectular monuments in Egypt capture the imagination and represent the whole of Egyptian history. Pyarmids evolved throughout the course of Egyptian history from small mound-like mastabas that morphs into the stepped pyramid in the third Dynasty adn then to various forms of the true pyarmid in […]
Read MoreCoffee Begone, watery brew from Starbucks…Turkish coffee will kick you into the middle of next week. Any cup of coffee that doesn’ tleave a brown sludge in the cup is wimpy. Our guide said that he could “read the grounds” and tell our fortune from the dregs left in the cup. While I might be […]
Read MoreToilets It’s really bizarre, but one of the most common questions we got from people when we got back was , “did they have toilets?”. Strange. I guess people have heard that the bathroom options in Egypt can be…daunting. FIrst off, don’t worry. Egypt has quite modern plumbing. Nearly every place we visited had a […]
Read MoreTourist Police A common sight anywhere there are tourists are the Tourist Police. This group is designed specifically to monitor the tourist areas, deal with any issues, and protect the tourists as they roam around. They are especially common around Giza and the Valley of the Kings (the biggest tourist draws). Our guide told us […]
Read MoreTombs Tombs for Egyptian Pharaohs have changed through the history of Egypt. Early kings were buried in simple mastaba tombs: bench-like mudbrick structures with a simple burial chamber and storage chambers. The mastaba tomb slowly morphed into a larger, more impressive monuments: the pyramids. At first, stepped pyramids (Djoser and Semerkhet), which looked like a […]
Read MoreDealing with the Airport It’s really strange, but one of the most anxious moments for me in traveling is that first few minutes in the airport, trying to figure out where you are supposed to go, what you do, who to ask, etc. I don’t get nervous out and about in a new city, but […]
Read MoreAmarna Everyone knows King Tut — fewer know of his predecessor, the “heretic” king Akhenaten who abandoned the worship of the Egyptian gods to begin what may be the first monotheistic religion in history: worship of the Aten, the sun disk. Most of us remember Akhenaten from the weirdly-shaped style of art from th eperiod […]
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