Visiting the Stone of the Old Kingdom
My pal T. bought me a 2008 edition of Lonely Planet: Egypt. It must be mentioned that I am having trouble finding a 2008 copy at Amazon.com. T. put down the American version. The Japanese ones she’s used to have more color photographs. But there is also lonelyplanet.com/egypt with some very pretty videos.
Anyway, T., her generosity, marks the beginning of my deliberate attempt to travel the “real world” for my personal education, a part of my conscious efforts of self-improvement and staying in shape. My assumption today is that this is the beginning of years and years of world travel. These are the planned locations:
- Egypt, for the stones of the Old Kingdom
- Ethiopia, for the churches carved in stone
- Kenya and/or Zimbabwe to get closer to the sources of the Nile and all humanityBut let me not get too greedy and return to this Egypt thing. First of all, Egypt has three seasons I should be concerned about and there are three known ways to get there and meet my very Black needs.
According to my reading of Lonely Planet, Egypt has cold winter nights (as low as 2°C), a windy season that blows a fine powder over everything—even the most tightly closed house, and then there’s the hot summer. The Ashra and Meriri educational tour is offered for July 2009 (the hot summer)—and this tour is one of three ways I intend to approach this country. Here are the other two:
- I take the Runoko Rashidi tour. His 2008 “Splendors of the Nile” tour was held during winter. No news posted for 2009.
- I arrange everything myself, like some backpacking college kid, trying to act like a seasoned, funky Egyptologist. I’ll probably end up doing this… famous last words…The latter option is relatively easy when all I intend to do is land in Cairo, go the Egyptian Museum and see the pyramids—and the “Sphinx”—in Giza. But umm… well, there is this Black thing you know… This essentially means it is my responsibility to travel at least 28 kilometers south of Cairo to the place now called Saqqara (Sakkara). This is Day 4 on the Kwesi itinerary—and on the old 2008 Rashidi itinerary.
Once you are travelling south of Cairo, I get the impression that you will really know you are in a vast desert, snuggling next to riverside farmland and villages. This helps explain to me why Runoko Rashidi would take a cruise along the Nile to keep his tourists as comfortable as possible. But the Kwesi’s travel extensively into the lands of ancient Nubia—perhaps this explains why they depend heavily on bus travel and EgyptAir. It is possible that the Lonely Planet information on EgyptAir is out of date:
Humorously (or perhaps terrifyingly) dubbed ‘Egypt Scare’ or ‘Insh’allah Air’ by jaded travelers the world over, EgyptAir’s service isn’t particularly good, and its fleet is in serious need of an upgrade, unless of course, you’re a fan of rapidly ageing Russian planes.
Just a glance at the Wikipedia.org article on EgyptAir shows me brand-new Boeing aircraft. What’s going on here? Well, I’m reading reviews at reviewcentre.com, airlinequality.com and epinions.com…