Egypt - Pyramids at Giza
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The Great Pyramid Cheops, Giza
Next stop: Giza plateau, the pyramids and the Sphinx, one of the pyramids being the last wonder of the ancient world that can be seen !! Here our guide insisted more about the aggressiveness of the locals, not to try to discuss with them, otherwise they'll try to sell us anything and they will not give up until they will succeed. I don't think I'll ever be able to find the proper words to describe the feelings you try when you have in front of you the pyramids. When you think that they were built by human beings so long ago ! And now it seems they are part of the nature ! To use words like impressive, imposing is insignificant ! They are the Pyramids ! What I can say is that from now on I'll always have in front of my eyes their imposing image !
Sphinx, Giza
Marwa explained to us that they still hope to find somewhere, in some tomb of an architect, the plans of how they were calculated and built. Regarding the pyramid of Cheops, they still use an entrance made by the first thieves that entered in the pyramid. They couldn't find the rooms, the normal way to the tomb... even now. With all our modern technology, the possibilities of scanning, apparently it hadn't been found ! And I think I said
everything by saying this!
Pyramid at Giza
To touch the desert, to see it in front of you, as much as you are able to see only desert ... It's really impressive. You feel you are so insignificant ! And the Sphinx, like a guardian of the pyramids and the desert ! We were there for 1 hour. Meantime I went once in the bus, were we had air conditioning, because at a moment I had the impression that I can't breath, I don't have enough air, so hot and humid it was ! And you were constantly sweating, dehydrating you almost instantly. I drunk nearly 2 litres of water in less then 10 minutes !
Sahara Desert, Giza
If you looked at the horizon you couldn't see the images clear, only like through a veil. You could see Cairo through a dust veil, nothing clear, a desert dust, not like our dust, we are used to. I was breathing like I was running for kilometres ! The sun was going towards sunset, so you had wonderful images with the sun behind the pyramids. Of course that both of us wanted to ride a camel. It's completely different from riding a horse. First, when I was up and the camel started to move I had the impression that I'll fall over. But I learned very quickly that the best way is to move
your body in the rhythm of the movements of the camel. And it's excellent ! I wished I could ride like that all the day, across the desert !!!! Riding a camel is like rocking.
The next stop and the last was at a kind of Government Bazaar, were they were expecting us and they made an interesting presentation of papyrus manufacturing, from the papyrus plant. Here we made some shopping of little souvenirs and a papyrus painted with Cleopatra, and my name, which is Cleopatra and Simon's name, translated into hieroglyphs ! And we received a certificate that shows that the papyrus is genuine.
Because the group that was in our bus was formed by English people, everything went according to the initial plan, without delays or other incidents. Of course ! So that at around 5 o'clock in the afternoon we were in the bus returning to Port Said. We crossed Cairo again, this time harder than in the morning. The traffic was more busy. At a moment we stopped and waited for all the buses to come, to form again the entire convoy, the 7 buses. It was already very late, the departure of the ship was at 7 o'clock in the evening. It was clear that it will be impossible to arrive in Port Said in time for that. So the little truck of the army went in front of us, used the sirens, trying to make the driving easier. But even like that it was very difficult. Now, that it started to get dark, you couldn't see the misery so much, so everything looked better ! I was curious to see if at that time there were women on the streets. But it was quite crowded, a lot of women with children, I suppose because it started to become cooler and it was nicer to be outside.
We succeeded to arrive in port after 10 o'clock ! We passed the "border" without any checking, just showing that we had a passport (not looking in it) and without any "please". At this moment we have only the visa for entering Egypt, no exit ! We went to our cabin to wash and change for dinner and went quickly to the restaurant. Around 11.30 the ship was already out of the Egyptian port.
Of course that after dinner I went to sleep almost immediately. Simon tried to look at the pictures we made before going to bed.
20.10.2010
Simon woke me up around 8.30 to go for breakfast. I don't think I would have woken to soon....
At breakfast we spoke about our impressions of Egypt with the other 2 couples. On the table were envelopes for each couple on which was written "gratuities", meaning tips, if we wanted to do that
for those who have served us during the trip. Same in the cabin, it was an envelope. We put in both some money. I gave 1 Euro to the one who took our luggage for customs in Lemesos, Cyprus, when we arrived there. I really felt like in the movies !
The arrival in Cyprus was for 10, but because of the previous night delay, we arrived around 12.30.
After breakfast, we changed, I packed and then we went on decks to watch the sea till arriving.
I don't think I'd be bored on a sea cruise for more days. It is so relaxing to sit and watch the sea. And the air is so nice. I could feel the salt in the air ! We went around, walking on decks. We found some tools for a game on a deck: on the deck were drawn some squares with numbers, some wooden wheels, like pucks, some wooden thick sticks with pallet as a head, they looked like shovels. The game was like this: you had to push the pucks with the shovels in such a way to succeed to send them in those squares to collect as many points (the numbers in the squares) as possible. We had fun playing that. Of course, the others were watching us and after we left they started to play ! Until then nobody was interested in that game ! We had a laugh. Then we were sitting in some chairs talking about previous day. A never-to-be-forgotten experience. It's worth to live for something like that !
We arrived in Lemesos. We said goodbye to the 2 couples, the crew. Somebody from the agency welcomed us and helped us find the bus that took us back to Paphos. I asked the permission and received it to sit near the driver, in front. I was very pleased because like that I was able
to make nice pictures. And the driver was a good one. I felt very OK during the journey. We arrived in Paphos around 2 o'clock. We went straight to the renting cars agency and this time we had a Nissan primera. Simon was much more pleased with it than with ford. We drove to our hotel, the receptionist received us very nicely, asked how was the trip and if it is a problem that she changed the room. This time it was at the main floor, near the swimming pool. Super, I was very pleased !
The sky was cloudy, was windy and it rained a little bit, some drops here and there. But very hot.
We didn't want to go anywhere. We sat outside the room, where we had a table and some chairs.
We talked about what we saw, about how it is in Egypt, we looked at the pictures. I felt so peaceful, it was so good!
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