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19 April 2001 - Day 7 - Edfu I rolled around in bed Thursday morning thinking, "How on Earth could I possibly have gotten so sick?" I had done everything all the travel advisories about visiting 3rd World countries tell you to do in order to avoid becoming sick, like not eating local cuisine from street food carts, not drinking tapwater or unbottled water, and washing yourself thoroughly every time you touch anything in the restrooms, but still I had been struck down hard by something bad. "Maybe it was that sneezing camel back in Giza? Or perhaps our Egyptian Museum tourguide Hebba ejected something infectious into the air when she was barfing all over the place in the car back in Cairo? Could it have something to do with climbing in and out of the hot and humid pyramids where hundreds of other people were breathing and coughing all day long? What about that uncarbonated bottle of water I bought from an old woman in front of The Great Pyramid of Cheops. Might it not have been clean water? Was it possible that she was selling tapwater in bottles that had been sealed second hand? And what about Aungela, why hadn't she fallen ill? The only difference I could account for - aside from having totally different immune systems - is that she was eating a strictly vegetarian diet whereas I was consuming the meats served us by our hotels. |
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So to everyone who was on the boat with me those two days: thanks for all your help! :-) |
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Despite being sick as a dog though, I still had to remind myself that I was on vacation, and a somewhat pricey vacation at that, which meant that I couldn't let myself waste away in bed all day long and that I had the ancient treasures of southern Egypt to see! We woke up somewhat early on the 19th since we had to be at our destination by 8 a.m. so we were off the ship by 7:30 a.m. and back on land before we knew it in our next port o' call, the city of Edfu.
And now, as per usual, a little information from my All of Egypt book. |
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Edfu Edfu's main claim to fame in Egyptian history is that in this otherwise unimportant small town there is the best preserved temple in the whole of Egypt. The ancient capital of the 2nd nome of Upper Egypt, it was called Apollinopolis Magna by the Greeks. The temple, which is dedicated to Horus, was built during the Ptolemaic period on top of an older temple dating from the time of Tutmose III. Because of its imposing dimensions it is considered the most important temple after Karnak (in Luxor). It is 137 meters long and the front is 79 meters wide. It has a pylon 36 meters high. On guard at the entrance to the temple are two very beautiful black granite statues depicting Horus in the form of a falcon. The name of the god in fact derives from the word "hr" which means hawk. Behind the two statues stand the external walls of the temple together with massive figures of Horus and Hathor. The wide grooves on either side of the doorway once housed the flag masts from which fluttered their standards. Inside the sanctuary, still in a perfect state of preservation, is a very beautiful tabernacle carved from a single block of grey granite and which stands about 4 meters high. The inscriptions tell us that it was constructed under Nectanebus II (360 B.C.). Before entering the temple it is interesting to look at the "mammisi" constructed under Evergete II. In the Coptic language "mammisi" means "the place of childbirth" and refers to the spot where symbolically Horus is reborn every day. It is for this reason that it has become sacred to those in child-birth and to all women who want to have a child. |
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Left: self taken picture of me trying to admire the amazing history of the Temple of Edfu as I sat down for a little rest on its front steps and wishing I didn't feel like rolling over and dying in the dirt. Enough of my boohoo'ing already! ;-} Back to the story! We left The Nile Dream by 7:30 and right in front of the ship, up a set of riverbank stairs, was this mad traffic jam of horsedrawn 4-person covered carts being driven by hooping and hollering Egyptian men trying to round up tourist after tourist to take them out to the Temple of Edfu in the only form of transport in town. That's right - not only wasn't this town in the 21st century, it wasn't even in the 2nd millennium! Cars? Who needs cars when you've got a trusty old horse and a rusty old rickety riksha! Our adept tourguide Osama managed to step out into the transportation anarchy and commandeered three carts for the 12 of us and had us riding out to the inland temple in no time. Aungela and I were riding with Vanina and Diego (aren't those the coolest names ever!) who had their very nice professional camera out and were shooting pictures left and right. I, however, was somehow spacing out the whole time and was only cognizant enough to think about snapping the one single solitary image of the whole wild Edfu street scene below. It's too bad actually because the sight of approximately one billion horsedrawn carts bumping and crashing into one another as they made their way to and from the Temple of Edfu was actually quite entertaining to tell you the truth. (And what's the deal with those two trucks parked in the picture after I just got done saying that there weren't any cars downtown??? They must be apparitions!!!)
Below: two cool, albethey somewhat dark, images from inside the Temple of Edfu. I ended up printing out a high-resolution color laser copy of the image below right, hitherto titled Ray of Light, which now hangs nicely on my wall here in Saudi Arabia. :-)
The following two pictures below turned out quite nicely as well, I think!
Above left: this picture may look like I was just walking around minding my own business when suddenly I stumbled upon a traditionally dressed southern Egyptian who kindly volunteered to be the subject of this rather cool shot. No no no. Egypt doesn't quite work like that. Yes, I was just walking around minding my own business, and yes, I did stumble upon this traditionally dressed man, but when I lifted my camera to take his picture, the sly little devil suddenly shifted to the left of the doorway and I was left with nothing but an empty hallway focused in the cross-hairs of my camera's viewfinder. "Um, hello?" I uttered as I leaned forward and saw the man's knee sticking out from behind the wall. Just then he poked his head around the doorway and said, "You give 10 pound tip, you take picture. OK?" "Well, I suppose even traditionally dressed Egyptian men need to make an honest living too somehow," I thought to myself as I gladly handed over the $2.50 baksheesh. So with his white eastern Sahara Desert turban balancing perfectly upon his head, he scampered back into the doorway and smiled coyly as I snapped his picture. Below right: picture numero dos for my 10 pound investment. It's not as good as the original, but still interesting. Below left: a zoom-in from the above right picture of everyone in the group listening intently to Osama as he explains the significance and architectural style of the beautiful temple columns rising up around us.
Above: rearview shot of the Temple of Edfu. Not too unimpressive for being over 2,300 years old, eh! After walking around the temple for some time and getting the historical low-down on the place from Osama, we headed off toward the riksha passenger-pickup point and hopped aboard another bumpy and entertaining ride back to The Nile Dream. Once we arrived at the cruise ship we disembarked our little personal transport device, tipped the driver, then walked back down the steps of the riverbank to the boat where lunch was being prepared for us. I ended up skipping this meal as well since nothing I was eating was staying in me for long anyways, so instead I just returned to my cabin and got a few more hours of sleep. Humorously enough though, when we walked into our room (below) Aungela and I were greeted by these two cute little swan/cobra towel creations resting daftly on Aungela's bed that had been handfolded by our friendly Indian cabin attendant. Isn't that ingenious!?
But the origami madness didn't stop there! The next morning when Aungela returned to our room from another morning out sightseeing she was absolutely SHOCKED to find the following monster towering upon her bed! This beast was definitely worth a nice fat extra tip for our room assistant! See below!
We tried reverse-engineering the towel monsters and blanket beast actually, to figure out how the man rolled them together, but once we started fiddling around with them they unravelled all over the floor and we were left with nothing but two white towels and a furry blanket sprawled all over the place! (The white bar at the bottom of the picture is an artifact from me photographing with my digital camera what was actually a paper picture, i.e. a picture of a picture. Aungela's camera started acting up halfway through the trip so she used my film-based camera for some of her pictures, and so this is actually one of her shots. Cute, eh!) By the afternoon I was starting to feel quite a bit healthier so I hopped in the shower, cleaned myself up, and went up to the covered deck on the fourth floor of The Nile Dream and sat around with Aungela as the ship departed from Edfu and set sail on the eight-hour trip up to Luxor. Along the way we had a wonderfully relaxing trip down the Nile, as you shall see on the next page!
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Whatever
the reason, the evening and morning of the 18th and 19th were a true
low point for me. Aside from simply feeling like I had one foot in
the grave, I felt bad that I was perpetually stuck either in bed or
in the restroom and that Aungela had to go about doing her own thing
without me - even though we had come on this trip with each other to
have fun together. Aungela was wonderful at taking care of me
in my sickened state though, getting me water and food whenever I
woke up (which couldn't keep in me for long), and she did everything
she could in every way imaginable to help me get well again, but
still, I just felt really bad about the whole situation. I mean, what
horrible timing! There we were cruising down the Nile river as the
sun shined brilliantly outside and I was stuck in bed. And the rest
of the tour-group was really nice too, offering stomach medicine and
aspirin and made it clear that if I needed anything just to
let them know and they'd take care of it. I thought it was really
nice of them and very thoughtful, especially since we had only just
met the day before! Yes, nice people still abound in this world!
