| 9/16/1999 | |
| A Day In Alexandria, or "Hey! You! Get off of my sphinx!" | |
| We slept in a bit this morning, which put us a bit behind. We scrambled through morning prep and breakfast and made it to the bus on time. We had a pleasant three hour drive through the desert to the ancient city of Alexandria. During the ride, I worked on this site a bit, and caught a number of interesting sights as we drove by. After passing through some sort of toll gate, we pulled over where our guide, Shahinaz, spoke with the police. Apparently, we are supposed to be escorted through the city by an armed party. The escort was waiting for more busses to arrive before leaving, but our guide convinced them to allow us to go and meet the escort at our first stop. The city itself was a maze of narrow streets, choked with traffic. You could tell that you were in an old, old place. Many of the buildings were dilapidated, but the people were exceedingly friendly. As we drove through the city, children and many adults smiled and waved to us. Our first stop was the Graeco-Roman Museum. Inside we were treated to a number of "newer" relics than those at the Egyptian Museum of Cairo. Mostly statues, or rather pieces of statues, of the last of the pharaohs, the early post-pharonic kings, and some Graeco-Roman emperors (hence the name, Graeco-Roman Museum, duh). It was not as cool as the Cairo museum, but it was neat never-the-less. Outside, once again, we were often harassed by merchants, but it wasn't nearly the fiasco as the Giza plateau. By the time we left the museum, our police escort had arrived. The one officer was a good friend of our guide. He rode his motorcycle ahead of our bus, directing traffic to get out of our way, instructing the guards that change the traffic lights (that's right, they're manually controlled) to green, to allow us unfettered passage through the city. He used his beacon and siren to clear traffic from our path. Ok, so it's impossible to have unfettered passage through Alexandria, but we had as close as you can get to it. The dude was great. Next we went to see Pompey's pillar. This is a bit of a misnomer, as the thing was named because it was believed that the top of the pillar contained the ash remains of the king. In reality, there is no connection between the leader and the pillar. At any rate, the pillar was impressive in and of itself. There were also a number of other relics on the same site. Mostly from the remains of the temple that once stood there. The highlight of this stop, and pretty much the day, was the "incident" that took place when we (ok, me, but I wasn't alone, dammit) were chastised for climbing aboard a headless sphinx, and laying on top of it in an effort to get a cool pic of ourselves as a sphinx. I, being the last to do so, was yelled at by some Egyptian national (who, ironically enough, was guilty of the same infraction just moments before). He proceeded to nark on us to one of the dudes in white (relic police). Meanwhile, we made good our escape. Next, we saw the catacombs. These were neat. I had never seen catacombs as extensive as these. Of course, we couldn't go through the whole complex, but we did get to see enough to get a good feel for the place. Basically, it was a large, underground maze of tunnels lined with body cubbies, compartment in which bodies were laid to rest. Of course, the bodies were no longer present (which leads you to wonder where they are...), but it was very cool never-the-less. Our next stop was lunch. Bummer, neither Chris nor myself can remember the name of the restaurant, but it was very good. It sat on the coast of the Mediteranean Sea. The view was spectacular. A stiff sea-breeze blew through my hair throughout the meal. We were treated to a pile of interesting rice, followed by (for me anyway) a chicken entree. Most had the specialty of the house, sea bass. Our one compodre requested non-breaded fish; the fool. He was treated to a whole fish. And I do mean, whole. It looked rather disgusting, but he braved his way through it. I didn't get any reports as to it's quality. Our last stop for the day was the citadel. This large stronghold was built on the former site of the Great Lighthouse. We couldn't go inside, but we did snap a few pics outside, and I sat on an abutment and contemplated the profoundness of the site. We were, of course, harassed by merchants trying to get us to buy miscellaneous cheesy souvenirs, but I was still taken by the moment. As we were leaving, the police escort could not get their car started. It was very amusing watching these formerly intimidating, heavily armed guards reduced to pushing their disabled car down the street in an effort to pop-start it, and escort us out of the city. They recruited a few of the merchants in the area to help get the thing going, but to no avail. We finally ended up leaving and heading out unescorted. As we drove through the city, we got to see a number of interesting sights. Most noteworthy of which was the new Great Library. While no one knows where the original library stood, the Egyptian government is constructing a new one on the Mediterranean coast. The structure is largely done, and it promises to be spectacular when finished. I was very pleased to see it. On the way back to Cairo, we made an unscheduled bathroom stop at some road-side oasis. This was a priceless opportunity to catch genuine rural life in Egypt. Apparently, tipping is not limited to tourist areas. We still had to pay 1 Egyptian Pound for the privilege of relieving ourselves. Unfortunately for Chris, the facilities were, shall we say, less than adequate. She opted to skip the squat-and-go stall, in lieu of one with a toilet (one native insisted on the squatting version). Happily, I can use any facility without actually making physical contact. Needless to say, we bolted for the sanitizer immediately upon our return to the bus. The evening was spent quietly typing this into the database, and munching on pre-packaged food (we have to get rid of the stuff somehow eh?) |
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