Vol 75 Michele Day 7

We awoke on our first day in Luxor, Egypt to a rythmic, metalic, clanging coming from the street. It was these guys- propane salesman. They bang on the cylinders to let peolpe in the neighborhood know they are there.


These photos were taken from our hotel window. As you can see, Egypt is a poor country. Most of the city looks like this- run down. The areas around the high end hotels are slightly better but not much.

Breakfast on the roof terrace was included in the price of the room. This was definitely the nicest area of the hotel.

My coffee-snob sister refused to drink the "coffee" they brought her. I tried pointing out that when it comes out of a little packet like that it really is the freshest instant coffee possible. I have no idea what was in our water glasses. It was slightly frothy, slightly salty, slightly sweet and slightly limey. Neither altogether pleasant nor unpleasant. The white rectangle is cheese.

Next they brought crepes and toast with butter and jam and a small fruit salad in yogurt.

We checked out of the hotel after sending an email to our Couchsurfing host explaining our phone problem. We assumed that we would be able to meet-up with him eventually, at least by email if we were still unable to sort out the phone number thing.


We hit the streets with our little, wheeled, carry-on suitcases and headed towards a central location. We stumbled upon a street market where vendors were selling all sorts of things off donkey carts or, as in most cases, right off the street itself.

Onions and greens.

Oranges, apples, bananas, strawberries and dates.

Garlic.

I don't know why we don't just hang meat on the street in North America?

I love this photo.

These are loufa gourd sponges.

People were somewhat bundled up. Though it was sunny, there was a chill in the air. Which is why I had Amira encourage Michele to bring a light jacket. We started and ended each day wearing our jackets.

Potatoes.

Live pigeons. Roasted, stuffed or grilled pigeon is on many menus.

Fish.

Lemons.

This is a spice shop. Most of those baskets in front are full of karkaday (hibiscus tea). We quickly learned that hibiscus tea is a very popular beverage in Egypt. While browsing in any kind of store, the shopkeeper will offer either black tea, hibiscus tea or soda. I've found this shopkeeper hospitality in so many countries now and it's really nice. Why don't we do it at home?

After shooting a billion photos in out first half hour we decided to have a cup of tea at this cafe.



While we drank our tea, my phone announced I had a text message. It was our host, Alaa! And now that I had his correct number I discovered that I could send text messages from my phone; I just couldn't make calls. He came to the cafe and escorted us back to his place, which turned out to be about 2 blocks from our hotel.

This was a bit of a strange Couchsurf. Alla and his wife owned 2 apartments in their building and they gave us our own apartment. Which was nice on the one hand as it was very private but we hardly ever saw them so it more more like we had scored a free hotel than a couchsurfing host.



That first day he was great to us though, as he had some time free from work. He oriented us to the neighborhood and the city and gave us maps. Then he invited us to come see a villa he had recently built with a partner to use as a tourist rental. You know me and invitations.....

We walked to the banks of the Nile river to wait for a small, local ferry to take us to the West Bank. Luxor is divided by the Nile. The East Bank is the modern section where most people live. The West Bank is where most of the archaeological sites are.

While waiting for the ferry I got playing with the zoom on my new camera. I bought the top of the line Canon compact. It is distinctly less compact than most digital cameras because it has a 12X zoom. So I wanted to see if it was worth the money I'd spent on it and the extra bulk i was going to have to lug around. The photo above was taken with no zoom.

This photo was taken with about 10x zoom.

And this one was taken with the full 12x zoom. It shows the villa Alaa was taking us to.

So, yah, I liked my new zoom.

This sheep was hanging out where we were waiting for the ferry.

Yup, this little boat turned out to be the ferry.

People take their bikes on board.


This piece of abandoned furniture was on the dock when we landed.

We walked a pretty path along the shore.

Where we encountered this funny little donkey who looked for all the world like it's daddy had been an English Sheep Dog.

The villa was very impressive indeed. I'm trying to remember if it had 6 bedrooms or more. I'm pretty sure it slept 12 comfortably. And it is affordably priced. I think it was about $1000 US per week so if you had 10 people, that's only $100 bucks to rent a killer place.

One of the sitting rooms.

The dining room.

The stairwell.

View of the Nile.

View of the adjoining farmland. Historically, the Nile would flood it's banks every year, bringing a new layer of silt each time so this is some of the best farmland in the world.

The houseboy (what do you call a male housemaid?) brought the three of us tea on the beautiful rooftop terrace.


The above photos are all views from the roof.

Showing off my zoom again. Without......

............with.

I hadn't expected Egypt to be so gorgeous. We left the villa and walked into the village near it. We were the only tourists there.




Next Alaa hired a truck-taxi to take us towards the archaeological sites. He told us where we should go the next day, showed us where to buy tickets, where to rent bikes and what we should expect to pay. Very helpful.

We took the larger ferry back to the East Bank

While waiting for the boat I introduced Michele to an Arabic specialty, kannafa, a sweet which has custard and tons on tiny rice noodles.It's yummier than it sounds.


View of the East Bank in the late afternoon sun.

As we headed back towards his place Alaa said he'd like to buy us dinner to apologize for giving me the wrong phone number. He asked what we'd like and I said kushari. It's an Egyptian specialty. I'd had it in Oman (and so had Michele at one of the festivals) but I wanted to try it in Egypt. Granted, it looks gross, but believe me, it's yummy. The base is rice, broken spaghetti and macaroni. It's topped with chick peas, lentils and caramelized onions. The tomato sauce you pour over it is rich and a little spicy. I LOVE kushari.

They also made falafel, which is different in Egypt. It's made with fava beans instead of chick peas. And it's yummy.

Alaa left us to wander around the city. On our way back to the apartment we stopped at a bakery to try some more Egyptian sweets. Puddles quite liked them.


By the way, the jasmine has started blooming here in Muscat. The whole city smells wonderful!