Hottest place on EARTH!!!!

When I stepped off the plane yesterday in Nairobi I experienced a huge temperature differential, it was 65 degree in Nairobi and I was coming from 121.5 in one of the towns in Egypt. My point is, it was bloody hot in Egypt. More hot that I have ever been and probably more hot than I will ever be.

Ten of us left for Egypt last Monday. It was a five hour flight (not going to lie, the homesick part of my brain saw those five hours as five hours closer to Europe, which is five hours closer to home). We landed in Cairo and begin exploring the city right away. Cairo is a shockingly developed city, maybe only in comparison to the city I am in now. From my hotel balcony, we could see two of the three pyramids, so of course we took cheesy pictures on the balcony to prove it.

The following day we spent totally in Cairo. We went to the pyramids, which are huge, each block is roughly five feet tall. The first one is the largest and then they get smaller. It is so weird to stand looking at them and to also be able to see a city of 30,000,000 people. We were able to go into the second one, crawling bent at the waist at a 90 degree angle up and down this corridor until we reached the burial chamber. It was pretty cool to be in the center of a pyramid but the air was hot and stagnant and there really wasn't anything inside the room as grave robbers looted it thousands of years ago. We rode camels from the second pyramid to the third, which was an experience riding a camel in the desert. After lunch in the shade, not much hotter than the sun, we went to the sphinx. The sphinx is right next to the pyramids but depressingly a lot smaller than I would have though, or maybe the pyramids are bigger than I thought. Regardless, somewhere, I was wrong about dimensions. You can't go inside the sphinx or get very close to it because they are restoring it, but we were close enough to see the lack of nose and that it really does have the body of a lion. We then went to the Egyptian Museum, where the mummy of Queen Hetshepsuit was recently discovered, but we didn't get to see but they are working on it. We did, however, get to see the treasure of King Tut. Most every tomb in Egypt was looted, either because they stuck a giant sign that a tomb with lots of goodies was located there (pyramids) or dumb luck as was the case in the Valley of the Kings, where the tombs were moved after they figured out that giant pyramids call attentions to things. Tut's tomb was built next this other Pharaoh's tomb and when grave robbers dug to find the other guy's stuff, they dumped all the dirt onto what would become the entry to King Tut's tomb, so no one found it until less than 100 years ago, still in tack. Everything from the tomb was moved to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The stuff from his tomb takes up an entire floor of the Museum. The head piece that is so famous is beautiful, the amount of work that was put into it, and everything else, for a king only to rule for less than 10 years is amazing.

After this hot tiring day, we had a 2am wake up call to make a 5am flight down to Aswan, a town near the border of Sudan that sits right on the Nile. We began touring what would become one of many temples that sit along the Nile. It was surreal to actually be standing under, touching and walking around in something that was build in 300bc or older. New England's concept of old is 1600's (thanks mom for the history lesson), and we think stuff in Europe from the Middle Ages is old. This stuff was REALLY old. The hieroglyphics stood up really well over time, but apparently the walls of these temples were colors and all the pictures had colors, so the artifacts outside, like the temples, have been subjected to elements and lack color.

After our first temple, we boarded our Cruise ship, which would be our home for three nights. The ship wasn't large, has 70 cabins, so roughly 140 people when full, and there are 300 of these boats registered to cruise the Nile. That is a lot of tourists. The boat was nothing less than spectacular. It was like a miniature Titanic in terms of grandeur. When they turned our rooms down at night, they made our fresh towels into different creatures, I think the most amusing was a friend had her towels turned into a person, wearing her husbands shorts and sunglasses, reading their Egypt guide book that was turned to the page of our next stop. The food was endless. The second most amazing part was the pool on the top deck, which we used a fair bit. Despite the heat and spending the rest of the day in the sun, we still spent more time in the sun in the pool. The best part of cruising the Nile. We started in Aswan and cruised slowly for two days to Luxor. It was amazing watching the desert role by. I have never seen desert before, so it was so interesting to see the affect of the Nile on the desert. There would be 100 meters of green, lush area and then it would just stop and be nothing. The Nile is huge, maybe the Hudson River at its widest, maybe bigger. And in some places, in between little islands in it, very clear.

When we got to Luxor, we toured three tombs in the Valley of the Kings. It was 110.5 in the sun at 9am, I would hate to know what it was later in the day. The Valley of the Kings is just that, a valley in between two sandstone walls, filled with sand and holes in the ground of tombs they have found so far. We went into three tombs, we didn't go into King's Tuts because everything is in the museum, he died suddenly so the tomb paintings aren't finished and you don't even get to see the mummy because he was buried with a lead coffin. The three we went into gave us a glimpse of what the temples may have looked like covered in paint. Since the elements haven't touched them the color is still there on 90% of the pictures. It was really stunning. The colors are so vibrant and help tell a story, which after a few days of learning about hieroglyphics, we could begin to pull out images we recognized and a little bit of what was happening.

We visited three more temples in Luxor, one with an onlooking McDonalds (possibly the best view of any McDonalds in the world, save the one in Rome, which I am told could compete with this one). Then we grudgingly left Luxor on a red eye back to Cairo.

Our final day in Cairo was spent looking at the different religions and their holy centers. 98% of Egypt is Muslim and Cairo alone has something like 10,000 mosques. We went into the largest one, a monument for an important holy figure. As I understand it, women and nonmuslims are usually not allowed in Mosques, but this is a bit of a tourist stop, so it is allowed, but we still followed religious protocol, such as removing our shoes and covering our heads. It was amazing inside. The ceiling was covered in small candle holders which illuminated the room. The art and the small details were just amazing. Plus, you step outside and there is a perfect view of all of Cairo. Then we visited two coptic churches, 2% of Egypt is Christian, but believe that the religion formed in Egypt because the Virgin Mary and Jesus fled to Egypt at some point, I don't really understand it. The churches are really nondescript on the outside but inside it was like stepping back in time. The people are so pious and believe so strongly, the church looked like something from times long ago. Our last religious stop was a synagogue. There are 1,000,000 jews in Egypt and the temple was even more nondescript on the outside, you wouldn't have known there was anything there apart from the armed guard and metal detectors. It was very small and hot inside but beautiful inside. Hebrew writings everywhere and even a Torah at the alter from an earlier service.

We were all really bummed to leave Egypt, we had such a good time and even worse, we were on a red eye that didn't leave Cairo until 12:30am Monday morning. A little surprise was sprung on us, due to the travel agent failing to tell us, when we got on the plane. Our flight was going to Nairobi via Khartoum. Don't know where Khartoum is? Neither did we, until the pilot told us. We had a lay over in The Sudan. Yup, I spent an hour in the Sudan. It shocked me that everyone on the plane but us got off the plane in The Sudan. I honestly have no clue what is in the Sudan. One guy was a super Sudan snob, asking her why would she go to a nasty place like Kenya, the sudan is so much better. Weird!! But, aside from the hilarity of spending an hour in the sudan at 4am, we got home and all quickly got back in bed and slept well into the afternoon. I just got up for class this morning and could honestly continue sleeping.

I have two weeks left of the program, a week in Zanzibar and will be home three weeks from this Wednesday. Time has flown but I am really itching to get home, get back to something that makes sense. Africa is so trying and it takes a lot of effort to be here and I am ready to have my normal life back, at least until the next time!