Weeks 17-19: Greece, Turkey & Egypt in 17 Days - My Biggest Adventure Yet

It's so good to be back.  I admit I'm kinda addicted to traveling and I booked this trip many months ago, last January to be exact.  This was the first time since I started my teaching career that I could travel in low season.  My ultimate goal was to see Greece and Egypt (because I'm into ancient civilizations) plus somewhere in Asia to make it a three continent tour, and scratch two new continents off my list.  I've traveled with Trafalgar Tours to Italy and England and I was quite pleased so I went with them again for this trip.  I couldn't find one tour to fit my needs so I booked two separate tours back to back:  Ancient Lands and Egyptian Experience.  Ancient Lands is 9 days and Egyptian Experience is 10 (both including travel time).  This was indeed the most interesting and eye-opening experience I've ever had.  This trip involved 8 flights, 2 cruise ships, an overnight train, countless buses, donkey, camel, horse and buggy, felucca, hot air balloon, and several boat taxis.  As you can imagine, I have many many photos and videos to upload, edit, etc. so this blog entry will be a work in progress for quite a while.  Please bear with me.

Ancient Lands:  Athens, 4 Night Greek Islands Cruise & 1/2 day in Turkey

ATHENS & SOUNION

I had a connecting flight in Vienna to Athens but all went well.  The hotel I stayed at in Athens is called Zafolia.  It was decent but my bed was very hard (I called it lead bed), and during the night I might as well have been smoking a carton of cigarettes because of the smoke that was somehow being funneled in.  It seems like everyone in Greece smokes.  Yuck!  I took these photos of the view from the rooftop.

I have to admit that Athens wasn't what I thought it would be.  I guess I figured it would be similar to Rome but it's really nothing like Rome.  Athens is big and busy and filled with graffiti.  There are many unleashed dogs and feral cats which means plenty of animal waste.  You have to watch where you walk and there's an often smell of urine.  I had a chance to try some authentic Greek food at a local place near the hotel.  It was cheap and similar to Greek food I've had here with the exception of the salad and taziki which were both better.  It's important to note that there were more fries with this meal but I ate some.

After a day at leisure in Athens we had a guided tour provided by Trafalgar.  It included the following sights:  Royal Palace, Temple of Zeus, Hadrian's Arch, the Agora where Socrates taught, Parthenon on the Acropolis, and the Olympic Stadium.  We opted for an excursion outside of Athens to Sounion to see the Temple of Poseidon.  The drive along the Aegean coastline was very pretty with many beaches and coves. 



LOUIS CRISTAL CRUISE

The 4 night cruise began the next day out of the port of Piraeus with Louis Cruises (Louis Cristal).  Our room was an inner cabin so we had no windows, only a curtain that covered the wall.  Our cabin stunk and the shower stunk even worse.  You can't drink the tap water and they charge you for bottled water.  Breakfast, lunch, and dinner were pretty good but you were always seated at a table with strangers and that got very aggravating after a while.  The weather the entire week was unseasonably warm and the sea was kind to us for the majority of the time.  There was one night when it was quite rocky and nauseating.  It took several days after the leaving the ship to feel like you weren't still in motion.

MYKONOS

The first day we sailed to Mykonos and arrived in time for sunset.  Our Trafalgar Tour Director used to live there so she offered to give us a walking tour.  There's really not much to see or do in Mykonos in a few hours.  Apparently it becomes a party mecca during the summer.  We walked throughout the narrow streets and white-washed buildings taking pictures of the sunset along the beach. 

TURKEY:  KUSADASI

That night we sailed towards Turkey where we arrived early the next morning in Kusadasi.  I opted for an excursion to ancient Ephesus.  "Ephesus was an ancient Greek city, and later a major Roman city, on the west coast of Asia Minor, near present-day Izmir Province, Turkey."  (dictionary.com) 
We walked about a mile through the ruins.  My favourite part about this place was being permitted to enter the big stadium that held over 20,000 people.  Unfortunately, there were many stray cats and dogs in the ancient city just like in Athens and Mykonos.  I didn't get to buy a handmade carpet (they start at $200 and that's the size of a place mat), but I did pig out on an assortment of Turkish Delight which was quite heavenly.  There was no chance for me to shop for memorabilia because the merchants at the market are very aggressive and will hassle you until you buy something.  It was very annoying and left a bad taste in my mouth.  It's very unfortunate because they would get more business if they chilled out and allowed people to walk in and look. 

Does this look familiar?  It's where the men would sit and relieve themselves.  Apparently they used a sponge on a stick as toilet paper.  I can't look at sponges the same.

PATMOS

After spending the morning in Turkey, we set sail for Patmos.  I bought an excursion (St. John's Monastery and Grotto of the Apocalypse) to go to the cave where the Book of Revelation was written by St. John the Apostle.  There's a lot of walking and climbing in Greece because of the countless hills/mountains.  If you're not in decent shape you wouldn't be able to really see everything it has to offer.  Patmos is different from Mykonos because it's quite religious.  I liked it a bit better than Mykonos.  At least I wasn't bored.

RHODES

We sailed throughout the night and reached Rhodes by morning.  I opted for another excursion to see Rhodes and Lindos combined, to explore a medieval Old Town and visit Lindos, which features an acropolis with beautiful coastal views.  We took a bus to St. Paul's Bay which is quite stunning.  There's a medieval fortress at the top of a giant hill that you must hike up to reach, or you can take a donkey ride instead.  We were cautioned about taking the donkey because they are very smelly.  I simply paid a couple of bucks to sit on one for an amusing picture.  At the top of the site you can see the Temple of Athena. 

Afterwards, I saw a pottery demonstration done ol' school with a foot wheel. 

Then I saw something really strange.  They had this place called the "Fish Doctor" where you place your feet in a fish tank and little fish nibble the dead skin off your feet.  I asked this guy in the photo how it felt and he said it was kind of ticklish.  The cost?  10 euros for 10 min.  No, I didn't do it.  My feet are not food.

CRETE

During the night we sailed to the city of Heraklion on the island of Crete.  No excursion for me this morning.  I decided to explore the city the old fashioned way, on my own.  Crete is a big island and the part I saw was just the city.  We walked along the shoreline past the Venetian Fort which looks like a medieval castle, to the Natural History Museum where I accidentally got trapped inside a washroom stall.  Don't ask me how it happened but thank God I finally got out.  Then we walked to Kallergon Square where have the Greek version of a Dollarama called "Everything For A Euro".  I had the most delicious iced vanilla coffee in Heraklion.  I think they put vanilla ice cream in it because it was very creamy and rich but not overly sweet.  I've never had anything like it.  It was the highlight of Crete for me. 

SANTORINI

By late afternoon we had sailed to Santorini which is a very interesting and pretty place.  This is where you have probably seen the most common pictures highlighting Greece's blue roofed churches.  Since there is no place for the cruise ships to dock, we had to take tender boats to shore.  The water was rough that day so it made the journey a bit rocky.  Santorini is like a mountain top with villages scattered throughout.  We went on an optional excursion to the Oia Village way way up on top.  I have great respect for the bus drivers there because we had to make about 9 "s" turns up a very steep mountain with no railings to get to the village.  Interestingly, the tour guide pointed out a home that is owned by Brad and Angelina.  It didn't look like anybody was home.  This island was in my opinion the most beautiful.  I'm not sure I'd want to spend a week there or anything because there's not a whole lot to do and I would feel quite isolated, but we took tons of pictures and enjoyed the sunset. 

After Santorini we sailed back to Piraeus over night to end our cruise.  They pretty much kick you out at 7am.  Right after the cruise we had another excursion to Delphi which is about 3 hours north of Athens.

DELPHI

We drove for what felt like ever to get to Delphi which is way up in the mountains.  Did you know that it actually snows in Greece?  This part of Greece has mountains so high that they get snow each winter and even have two ski resorts.  The highlights of this archaeological site included:  the Delphi Museum, Temple of Apollo, Oracle of Delphi, auditorium/theatre, and stadium for the chariot races.

ATHENS

After a full day at Delphi I spent my final night in Greece back at the Zafolia hotel in Athens.  I really enjoyed my trip to Greece, especially the islands and Turkey.  It was a great experience.


Egyptian Experience:  Cairo, Aswan, 3 Night Nile Cruise, Luxor

People keep asking me what it was like in Egypt and I try to explain it as best as I can, but words can't really describe that place.  It's important to note that the media really blows things out of proportion or simply gives inaccurate or misleading information to sell news.  Not once in Greece or Egypt did I see any demonstrations or violence, or even crime for that matter.  Although I certainly would not suggest that any women travel to Egypt alone outside of a tour group.  The merchants are very aggressive, like Turkey, and you can't really avoid them if you go to any of the tourist spots.  As a group like we were, you stick together and walk past them avoiding eye contact, ignoring, or continuously repeating, "No thank you" in a polite but firm manner.  The hassles from the merchants was a daily thing and made it impossible to look around or shop.  I'm serious when I say that if you show ANY interest in their stuff you will not get rid of them until you buy it.  And, you have to barter for everything.  They'll tell you a price to get you interested and then they'll change the price.  Now you're into it with them for 5-15 min. of your life that you'll never get back.  Another annoyance for me is the tipping.  They expect to be tipped for EVERYTHING, especially at washrooms where you may or may not receive toilet paper, it may or may not be clean, and it may or may not have soap.  You definitely need to change some money into their Egyptian pounds (approx. $1 US = 6 Egyptian pounds) for the tipping.  There's so much to share about my time in Egypt. 

CAIRO

I had a short flight, 2 hours, from Athens to Cairo.  We were met at the Cairo airport by a Trafalgar rep. who helped us get through passport control, etc.  The hotel, Oasis Pyramid - Cairo, is quite far from the airport and traffic was insane!  I've never seen anything like traffic in Cairo.  They pretty much have no rules or laws so it's a free for all.  Let's say the road is designed for 3 lanes of northbound traffic.  Well they will fit 5 lanes or as many as they can without touching vehicles.  Everyone is honking their horns to try and avoid an accident.  Motorcyclists with no helmets will carry as many passengers as will fit.  I once saw a family of 4 on a bike!  And they have vehicles that aren't even cars or motorcycles.  Throughout the week I saw other interesting things on the road in traffic as well such as horses, donkeys, camels, herds of sheep, herds of goats, herds of cows.  At one point I saw a dead horse on the side of the road.  A dead horse!  I'm still in awe over the traffic.  And then there's the garbage problem too.  I made some brief videos to show you.

After checking into the hotel we decided to have dinner and try some authentic Egyptian cuisine.  How about some salad and stuffed pigeons? 

The salad was OK but smothered in Thousand Island dressing.  The pigeons tasted like the dark meat of a chicken but had little meat to offer at all.  A breast of pigeon meat is the length of your pinkie finger.  The rice actually tasted like chicken fried rice, or should I say pigeon fried rice? 

The next morning we met our Trafalgar Tour Director, Hany, who looks more European than Egyptian, and set off for the pyramids.  First we saw the step pyramids (oldest of all the Egyptian pyramids), then Ramses II statue, and Alabaster Sphinx.

BTW, the guy on the right in yellow is Hany. 

This is what a market might look like outside of a tourist site.  This poor woman with the hat doesn't know what she's about to walk into.

For lunch we had an opportunity to try an authentic Middle Eastern shawarma.  I had a chicken shawarma and loved it.  To be honest, I enjoyed it much more than the shawarmas they serve here.  It was really cheap too.  There's much less meat and veggies in it (but less is sometimes better than more) and the bread is a fresh soft bun instead of a pita.  I could have eaten two.

After lunch we went to the Great Pyramids of Giza.  It's here that I did two of my most favourite things in Egypt:  ride a camel and enter the second pyramid.

The camel ride was reasonably priced at $11 US, $10 for the man and $1 for the camel.  I wonder if the camel is saving up for a nice vaca somewhere cool?  Camels are pretty scary.  I can see how people get hurt on them.  I banged my leg and had a bruise for a week.  Another woman thought she cracked a rib.  You climb on and in a matter of seconds the guy tells you to hold on tight and lean back and before you know it the camel is standing and you feel like you're riding a bull.  If you make it past this point all is well until it's time to get off.  That too is pretty scary, especially when your camel is tripping out.  Oh well, I made it.  I can scratch that off my bucket list.  Would I do it again?  No way. 

You have two opportunities to enter the pyramids in Giza:  $20 US for the big pyramid and $5 US for second pyramid.  I'm cheap so I did the latter.  It was very cool.   

This is the tunnel you have to climb down, and back up again, to get to pharaoh Khafre's tomb inside the second pyramid of Giza.  It's very small and narrow so you have to hunch over or you'll hit your head.  It even gets smaller and smaller as you head further down.  Actually, it's what I expected the tunnels to be like inside a pyramid. 

After checking out the Great Pyramids we went to see the Great Sphinx.

As part of these tours, they are always taking you to shops to show some demonstration and sell you something.  In Turkey it was the carpet store.  In Rhodes it was the pottery store.  In Cairo it was a jewelry store and perfumery.  Both were nice but I wasn't interested.  That filled our first full day in Egypt and now it was time to go to the train station and await our overnight train to Aswan.  This is what traffic was like on the way there.

The train station was another eye-opener for me.  Man, did we stand out.  It was very busy because everyone was trying to get home by Friday for the big feast (Eid).  Apparently it's common for them to sell out of tickets.  So, when a train comes into the station people will push and shove to get on, and when that doesn't work they jump on the back or climb on wherever they can even if the train is moving.  I saw a girl empty the garbage can with her bare hands.  One man had no shoes on and his feet were black as coal.  The trains are really scary looking as well.  They are filthy with dust and dirt, and many have broken windows or no windows at all. 

OVERNIGHT TRAIN TO ASWAN

Thankfully, we had a compartment for the night but it was incredibly small and not very clean.  There's no toilet in your compartment so you have to share it with everyone in your car.  By the morning the washroom was very disgusting with a puddle of water on the floor.  I've since thrown out my slippers.  The train makes sudden stops and jolts forward making it almost impossible to stand without getting hurt.  The compartment transforms from 2 seats into 2 bunk beds.  I had the bottom bunk and slept fine, but my roomie had the top and said she almost flew off the bed in the night when the train made an abrupt stop.  In order to open the cabinet door to use the sink you have to move the ladder for the top bunk.  Then, in order to open the door to get out you have to move the ladder back which blocks the sink.  What a nightmare that train was!  Don't do the train to Aswan.  It's better to spend a bit more and fly or take a cruise.  Life's too short.

ASWAN

Thank God we made it to Aswan by morning.  The first place they took us to was the high dam and the low dam.  Damn, that's a lot of dams;)  There are many temples south of Cairo and I saw a lot of them.  The first being the Temple of Isis which is on the Island of Philae.  You have to take a motorboat to reach it. 

Next, we saw The Unfinished Obelisk at the Granite Quarries.  This is where every obelisk was created by hand. 

Now it was time to check into our Nile Cruise ship, Medea, where we would spend the next 3 nights.  It was smaller but much nicer than the Greek cruise ship.  This time I had a window in my cabin that actually opened!  It was great because the Nile River is calm and narrow enough that you can open your window and hear the water and watch the people at the river's edge.  We didn't set sail until the following day though.

Now it was time to take an Egyptian felucca ride with some Nubians.  They not only sailed the boat but sang and had everyone dancing along with them. 

As we were sailing a couple of kids paddled up beside us in a small boat.  One kid was using a small piece of ply wood to paddle as the other kid bailed the water out.  They held onto our boat and sang for money.  It was something.

We sailed to Kitchener's Island to visit the Botanical Gardens.  I saw some coffee trees and mango trees.  The best part was holding a live crocodile!

To finish off this day, I watched a beautiful sunset and caught a belly dancing and twirling dervish show on the cruise.

ABU SIMBEL

The following morning we set off for a short half hour flight to Egypt's pride and joy, the Sun Temple in Abu Simbel.  The temple has 4 giant stone statues of Ramses II.  This optional excursion cost $295 US and in my opinion could have been omitted.  There are tons of temples you can see that don't require a flight and the big cost.

KOM-OMBU

In the afternoon we sailed towards Kom-Ombu.  Hany (our Tour Director) warned us about some aggressive merchants who would approach the cruise ship at the locks and try to sell us things.  He advised us to ignore them as always.  It was quite amusing to watch them at work though.  They would actually throw items (a scarf, a rug, etc.) onto our boat and people would throw them back, sometimes landing in the water and they would fish them out. 

We visited the Temple of Kom-Ombu that was built to honour the crocodile gods.  My favourite part was the crocodile museum that had an assortment of crocodile mummies.

EDFU

Over night we sailed to Edfu.  We took a horse and buggy ride to the cult temple which was devoted to the falcon god Horus.  As always, the traffic and sights along the way was just as interesting as the temple itself.

These are pictures of Edfu Temple.

LUXOR

Our cruise continued to Luxor for a visit to the Temple of Luxor which was built by King Amenhotep III in 1400 BC.



This temple has an avenue of sphinxes that connect Luxor Temple to Karnak temple.  Pretty amazing, eh? 

After the temple they took us to a papyrus store for another demonstration.  I bought a hand-painted Egyptian picture with my name in a cartouche. 

I've always wanted to go hot air ballooning but it's too expensive here.  Well, I had my chance in Luxor.  It made for a very early morning (4:15am pick up), but it was worth it.  BTW, some kid tried to steal my boxed breakfast right out of my hand as we were walking to the balloon.  Don't worry though, I stood strong and kept my meal. 
I can't really imagine a better place to see from 2300' above ground, the Valley of the Kings.  Surprisingly, the hot air balloon ride was kinda boring.  I thought there would be some kind of adrenalin rush, but to be honest I never once felt like I was in motion.  From the time we lifted off to the time we landed I never felt like we were moving at all.  It was really strange. 

After ballooning we drove to the Valley of the Kings on the West Bank which features 63 tombs from the New Kingdom period built into the hillsides.  Also, we saw Deir el-Bahri, Queen Hatshepsut's temple with its gigantic Colossi of Memnon, each statue cut from a single block of stone.

Next, we went to Karnak to visit the Karnak Temple.  It was once connected to Luxor Temple via the Avenue of the Sphinxes. 

That night we watched the Karnak Sound & Light Show, but it was boring.  They have sound and light shows for pretty much every temple.  I'd skip it if I were you; save your money.

Our cruise ended but we spent one last night in Luxor at the hotel Steigenberger Nile Palace.  It was much nicer than the hotel in Cairo.

CAIRO

No more trains or boats.  We flew back to Cairo via Egypt Air and watched another sound and light show that night at the pyramids.  It was also very boring. 

It wasn't until my final day of this entire trip that I started to have stomach problems.  I guess that was all it could take.  I did, however it was challenging, make it through the Mohammed Ali Alabaster Mosque, the Hanging Church of St. Mary, and the Egyptian Museum. 

BTW, on the drive to the Hanging Church we saw animal skins drying on the sidewalks and a shop that had about a dozen cow heads hanging on hooks left over from the feast.  Hungry?

Egyptian Museum

After the full day of sight seeing we packed up and flew out early the next morning.  That pretty much sums up my giant trip across the world to Europe, Asia, and Africa/Middle East.  It truly was a trip of a lifetime.  Where to next?  New Brunswick for Christmas and maybe Barbados in February.  After that I have no idea....... yet.