The two faces of a poor rich country
Here is finally part two of my travel story about Egypt.
One day, we went on a sightseeing trip. Leaving our hotel at 5:30 a.m., we should be travelling the whole day. We stopped at Safaga to pick up a few other tourists - and a police officer armed with an MP. This guy was with us the whole day, he did not speak with anybody, he always tried to stay in the background, he was just there...
Ibrahim, our guide that day, told us that it is mandatory that each bus with tourists is accompanied by a police officer.
Including a little stop for a coffee break, we drove through the desert for more than two hours till we got to the Nile's green belt near Qena. All of a sudden we were surrounded by palm trees, green fields of sugarcane, and while we were almost alone on the desert road towards Qena, traffic suddenly got extreme. Egyptian traffic is weird, the most important thing to a car seems to be the horn. Our bus driver kept honking endlessly while there were people, carriages with horses and donkeys, even stray dogs, crossing the streets wildly and obviously not following any kind of system or rules.
Being in our protected hotel area far away from any kind of city and in the middle of the desert, we hadn't seen much before starting that tour. What we now suddenly realized was that Egypt is a Third World country. While Qena is a pretty rich and clean city, we saw extreme poverty on our way from there to Luxor. People in Upper Egypt are farmers, making their living on cultivation of sugarcane. Most of them are illiterate, due to not having the chance to go to school. There is actually compulsory education in Egypt, but in Upper Egypt, kids work on the families' fields from the age of six instead of going to school.
What we saw made me very sad. For example, the Nile's water is lead into the region with canals. Those canals are not only used to water the sugarcane fields, they serve as dumping ground, sewers, and still people bathe and wash themselves in that filthy waters and even are fishing there (hard to believe that fish can survive in these waters). Many of the people there are sick - which is no wonder at all.
Finally arriving at Luxor, we got surprised by how much the city is mixed with the ancient monuments. There are excavation sites where archaeologists just could not continue to dig into the soil due to apartment buildings standing right on top of the ancient leftovers.
Our first sightseeing stop was at the Temple of Karnak, located right in the middle of Luxor, and being one of the world's largest temple areas. The area is huge, with huge walls, columns, obelisks. It was very impressive. We were stunned by the sheer size of the monuments there.
the walls you see in this picture are about 25 to 30 m high
even after thousands of years, you can still see the colorful ceiling paintings
the obelisk of Hatshepsut - it is 31 meters high!
After stopping by at a Papyrus gallery (our tour had pretty much of a promotional trip, unfortunately) and at a hotel at the river Nile for lunch, we were brought to the river's opposite bank with a small motorboat which seemed to be used typically by the locals.
in the background you see the hills where the valley of the kings and other monumental areas are located
we saw dozens of ships like that to the right of this picture towed to the banks of the river - due to current political situations (e.g. between Egypt and Russia) and to general fear of terrorism, most of the cruise ships are out of service because no tourists are there
Our next stop was at the Valley of the Kings, the famous site where pharaos were buried for centuries. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures there.
With our entrance ticket, we were allowed to visit three tombs. My partner and I, however, saw only two of them - due to temperatures of about 42 degrees Celcius, it was extremely exhausting to wander around the valley.
We first visited the tomb of Rameses VII - and were overwhelmed. The tomb is about 3400 years old and you can still see absolutely stunning paintings everywhere. About 70% of the paintings are still in their original state and the colors are so well-preserved, you could think the Ancient Egyptians painted the tomb yesterday.
The second tomb we saw was that of pharao Merentap - and again we were speechless. The tomb is 160 meters long, carved into the rock are several chambers and you still find a huge granite sarcophagus there. It must weigh several tons, unbelivable what the Ancient Egypts made there.
If you ever get to Egypt, you must see the Valley of the Kings. The tombs are stunning.
Our last sightseeing stop was at the Temple of Hatshepsut. It is again a very impressive and huge monument. Some parts of the Temple are very well preserved - although there have been attempts to rule out the Queen Hatshepsut from history.
While walking around the temple area, there were Egyptians everywhere trying to lead us around, showing us places and spots to take pictures of, etc. Some of them tried to take our cameras to take pictures of us - and of course be rewarded for that with tips. We had experienced this all day. Everywhere we got out of the bus, we were surrounded by people immediately.
Leaving the boat that brought us over the river Nile, there were children trying to sell us crap. While I felt sorry for them, I also was annoyed by how agressively they tried to sell their things.
Egypt is a low-wage country, people earn about 150 € (about 170 USD) per month. So, it is common throughout the country to tip people. We were basically prepared to give away tips and had a few dollars with us - however, we were not really prepared how annoying and agressive people would be. They were not physically agressive, but everywhere we got out of our bus, we felt like they would hunt us down. From the bus to the entrances of the monuments, we were basically running, heads down, not looking at anybody or speaking with anyone.
At the end of the day, I was so annoyed, that I did not see all of Hatshepsut's temple, which is an absolute pity. I was standing at the first terrace, thinking of a way to get to the second one to take a few pictures, when I saw a local waving at me. "Oh no, not again" was all I could think and so I turned away and returned to the entrance where our bus was waiting.
On our way back to the hotel, sky had already turned pitchblack, I was very thoughtful. Extremely tired and thoughtful. Staring into the sky (I have never seen as many stars as in the Egyptian desert, it was breathtaking) I reflected on the day and what I had seen.
Egypt is definitely an interesting country. The green strips of land near the Nile are beautiful, the monuments are stunning and there are wonderful spots at the Red Sea. You can have very luxurious holidays there. However, it is a Third World country after all with massive problems and extreme poverty and lack of education in whole regions.
I am happy to have seen the Valley of the Kings, this is a real dream come true - but, I'd never do this again, I guess. It is extremely stressful and exhausting to flee from the people begging for your money. I've had my fill of that at the Temple of Hatshepsut and I am still sad and annoyed about this even long after I have returned home.
At the moment, I do not know if I'd like to return to Egypt. It hurt me a lot to see how Egyptians treat their cultural heritage (I saw buildings right on top of tombs that were thousands of years old near the Valley of the Kings), how the environment is exploited for tourism and so on. Most of the hotels close to the Red Sea use the ocean as sewer, there is no protection of environment and animals at all. Animals are treated horribly there. I saw many things that still bring tears to my eyes. Horses being nothing more but skeletons forced to carry around people and load all day in extreme heat, without any water or food, it was terrifying and shocking. There are sick stray dogs and cats everywhere, if you approach them, you see how horrified they are of people - the only contact to humans they have is that they are beaten and abused.
It might be true that tourism brings money into the country - but I doubt that people in Upper Egypt have much of that money that is spent in the hotels. For now, I have the feeling that visiting Egypt is basically participating in the destruction and exploitation of the environment. It was shocking to see what tourists do to the environment - I am still very sad about people acting as if there was no tomorrow and they don't spend one single thought on what we are leaving to coming generations.
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Cheers,
Ines
