| 9/18/1999 | |
| Luxor and Karnak, or "Nice tip cowboy" | |
| Chrissie was feeling better this morning, but not quite 100%. wE STARTED (damn caps lock) out with breakfast at the hotel restaurant, then on to the bus for out tour of Karnak temple. On the bus, I found out that the waiter from the previous night was furious that I had stiffed him. Apparently the waiter that I had paid took my money and kept it for himself, creating the illusion that I had stiffed the restaurant. Oh well. I gave LE20 for a LE15 drink; I did my part. The temple at Karnak was freakin' amazing. The place was huge. The pillars were about 60-70 feet high, and it took 18 people, hand-in-hand, to surround it. I burned off about three or four rolls of film in the place. It was great. Of course, were constantly barraged by dudes trying get us to take pictures of them, showing us what they considered to be good shots (one guy actually did show me three priceless shots), and, of course, the occasional "hey Joe, you want see tomb discovered last week?". Naturally, all for a price. We also found out why most of the stores and such are only open at night; it's hot. It's damn hot. I would like to use the "hotter than a snake's ass" simile, but that just doesn't describe how hot it was. Trust me, it was fuckin' hot. The bus took us from the temple complex to what Shahinaz referred to as "the department store". Obviously she had never seen Sears, because the store had two departments: jewelry and cheap souvenirs. We started at the cheap souvenir department and bought the obligatory T-shirt with a custom cartouche. Then it was on to the jewelry department. Chris, in typical female fashion, bolted for the gold, whilst I perused the silver department. I found the ankh that I had never been able to find anywhere in the US. I haggled the guy down to $5; not bad for real silver eh? In the middle of our negotiations, Chris got my attention from across the room. She wanted me to come over and see something. Of course, I couldn't abandon my deal in progress, so I motioned for her to come over to me. By the time she got there, I had closed the deal and was packing my stuff into my pocket. I could tell by the look on Chris' face that I was in trouble. She said that she had found this great necklace, and that she had haggled him down to $1100. No friends, that's not a typo. That's one thousand one hundred dollars. I about had a stroke. She also said that Shahinaz was going to haggle him down further (I was hoping $1000 further). Aghast, I said OK. I don't know why I swallowed the fly, I guess I'll die. But Chris was very happy, to say the least. Interestingly, her physical condition improved dramatically with the application of a little gold. That necklace had better buy a lot of back-rubs. From the shop we went to our hotel boat, cruise ship thing. From the outside it looked pretty average, but it was very elegant inside. Our room was larger than I had expected, and very luxurious. Not quite the Movenpick, but what do you want for something afloat? We moved our stuff into our room, and went to lunch. Following lunch we napped or a while then went up on deck for some solar lounging. There we ran into Alicia. She was about medium rare. The pool was more like a bucket than a pool, and was pretty grungy. We hung out up there until it was time to go to Luxor temple. Luxor temple was much like Karnak, but on a slightly smaller scale. This end of the Avenue of the Sphinxes was in better shape and longer. As usual I was yelled at by one of the tourist police dudes for climbing up to get the perfect shot down the avenue. No I wasn't climbing a monument, they were just concerned for my safety ;). We went back to the hotel boat for dinner, but before going aboard, Mike wanted to take a look at some of the local shops. We strolled along the a street right out of an Indiana Jones movie, taking pit-stops in one or two of the shops. We stumbled across a stoneware shop. The shopkeeper was very friendly (as were all of the merchants), but didn't like to haggle. Apparently he had been wronged by a tour guide in a previous life, because he was constantly ranting about the kick-backs that they received from the vendors to whom they take their tour groups. This came as no surprise to me, but at any rate, Mike was checking out every piece in the store. The merchant was apparently getting impatient with Mike's constant barrage of questions, as he gave me a green alabaster statue of Anubis for a song, and threw in two scarab beetles just because I didn't screw around too much. Mike was a bit upset about the difference in pricing structures, but still came out of the store with some treasures. On our way back to the ship, we happened upon a drink vendor who was selling soft drinks and bottled water for about a quarter of what they were extorting from us on the boat or bus. Needless to say we scarfed some of that right up. We finally headed back to the ship for dinner, following which we went to the bazaar. One rather embarrassing incident took place whilst we waited to debark the ship for the bazaar. As you depart the ship, a porter gives you a little plastic card to identify you as a genuine passenger when you arrive back later. I suppose we all look alike to Egyptians. At any rate, there was some confusion as we were preparing to depart, and the porter had prematurely handed one of these passes to a member of our group. He then asked for it back, and the person jokingly responded "What are you, an Indian giver?" Of course, the Egyptian dude had no idea what an Indian giver was, and got this very confused look on his face. I was extremely embarrassed, and very relieved when he didn't ask her to explain her racial slur. The bazaar was, shall we say, interesting. There were literally hundreds of vendors all over the place. And when they see pale skin, they see dollar signs. We spent basically our whole time in one shop, looking at Galabiyyas. These are those cotton, one-piece robe like things that the locals wear. The salesman was cool, and the haggling got pretty hot. We walked out with two of the things, with a head-piece all for LE 140 (~$40). From the shop we met up with the rest of our group, and went to the cafe. The cafe was very entertaining. We sat down, and ordered sheesha. This is a large water-pipe, filled with one variety of tobacco or another (nope, sorry, no ha-sheesha ;)). They come in different flavors, different fruits and spices. I'm not really sure what flavor we ended up with, because our guide ordered a variety for our group. We tried a number of different flavors. I have to get one of these things. Talk about zoom-a-zoom zoom! Chris got kinda goofy, as did Alicia. Mike and I just kinda kicked back and relaxed, as best as two ADD kids can. It was most enjoyable. Following the cafe we returned to the ship, for we must rise early in the morning. |
|
| View Photos For This Date | |
| Return To Travel Log |
| << Previous Date | Next Date >> |