Egyptian Vacation

I’m sitting in the Cairo airport in the middle of the night waiting for my early morning flight to Casablanca before returning to Burkina Faso. The last two weeks have been spent touring ancient sites, relaxing on the Nile River and Red and Mediterranean Sea and catching up with my parents after nine months apart. It’s been a wonderful break for me—my first vacation since joining the Peace Corps. I left behind rainy season in Burkina Faso—wet, muddy, humid--for hot and dry Egypt and found the weather not too bad compared to everyone else’s complaints about the awful heat. I guess surviving hot season has changed me. I also am not at all used to air conditioning and froze in the hotels and whenever traveling!

My parents and I visited pretty much all of the big sights in Egypt and travelled through the cities of Cairo, Aswan, Luxor, Dahab, and Alexandria by car, overnight train, and two nights on a felucca (traditional sailboat on the Nile). Our visit in Cairo began with a trip to the Egyptian Museum, a huge building in the middle of the city with an enormous collection of artifacts. We then visited the three great pyramids of Giza which I was amazed to see are really in the middle of the huge metropolis of Cairo/Giza. You can be surrounded by high-rise buildings and see the pyramids rising between them. I’d always assumed they were in the middle of the desert so were amazed to realize how close they were to what some argue is the second-largest city in the world. We also visited the Sphinx nearby. Just outside Cairo we went to Saqqara where there is a step pyramid that’s almost 5000 years old!

After traveling by overnight train to Aswan we visited the High Dam and Lake Nasser, a source of energy for all of Egypt and several neighboring countries. We also saw Philae Temple, an amazing monument that was moved by UNESCO after sitting underwater following the rising of the Nile because of the new dam. Other temples visited included Kom Ombo, Edfu, Karnak, Luxor, and Queen Hachepsut’s. We spent two days and nights floating on a felucca on the Nile River from Aswan moving north. We had a chance to swim in the Nile as well here. After visiting the source of the Nile in Uganda and rafting this section of the river, it was exciting to see the same waters thousands of miles away. After our felucca trip, we visited the Valley of the Kings which was amazingly intact as where many of the temples we saw. The hieroglyph carvings were incredible and even more so were that colors were still visible thousands of years later.

We then travelled to Sinai including passing through a long tunnel under the Suez Canal. We spent several days relaxing in the small, laid-back town of Dahab and enjoyed snorkeling and swimming in the Red Sea and a camel ride along the shore.

Of course my mom and I found opportunities to shop a bit throughout the trip including the huge Khan al Khalili market in Cairo and numerous tourist stands at every sight. I feel like I have travelled quite a bit but have never found vendors to hassle nearly as much as they do in Egypt. I love to barter and try to get a good deal on souvenirs but actually found many vendors to be extremely obnoxious as they tried to attract some business. I guess this is probably because they have so many more tourists going through than Burkina Faso or some of the other places I’ve been!

I loved seeing so many ancient sites, eating great Egyptian and International food, swimming, and lots of relaxing but most of all I appreciated this opportunity to spend time with my parents. Since coming to Burkina, we have been able to talk every few weeks, e-mail when I go to Ouaga, and text pretty frequently but it’s not the same as sitting together and talking. We were able to catch up on a lot that has happened since last fall and I felt like I could better explain my life in Burkina. They also brought me lots of exciting American goodies that will be so nice back in village and my laptop so I can get online at the PC transit house in Ouaga.