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- Posted at 7:26 PM on 17/4/2008 by S P
SAFAGA, EGYPT

After docking at the port of Safaga early in the morning we met at 6am for our tour. All the buses (16 for our tour, 7 for the overnight tour and others for a 5-day tour, returning to the ship in Athens) all had to be full and ready to go at the same time as all visitors to the country travel in a police escorted convoy. Every bus except ours also had an armed security guard on board.

We left half an hour late and the drive to Luxor took 4 ½ hours instead of the 3 ½ hours it should have taken, which really cut down the time we had to see the sights. We had to meet the return convoy at 6pm so couldn’t stretch the day in any way. The drive there was fantastic. We drove through a barren mountainous landscape for several miles before it became flatter and more sandy. There was very little vegetation, a few sparse tiny bushes scattered about every few miles, and one bushy tree once in a while.

We saw ladies in colourful dress with herds of goats - goodness knows what the goats find to eat on the harsh, dry ground. There were many camels along the way, especially in a creek bed where there were a few scrubby plants.

Later on we came to the irrigated land where everything is green with many acres of wheat and sugar cane and plenty of date palms. Along the roadside pampas grass, oleander and bougainvillea line the banks, also small vegetable plots. It was a fascinating drive along the canal, looking across to the farming communities on the opposite bank. The mud brick houses are built around yards where washing was hanging out and ladies were sweeping and doing chores. Schoolgirls walking along the bank waved to us, men and boys were riding white donkeys and the occasional brown donkey, tractors were loaded with sugar cane and many donkey carts were also laden with the cane, most of which is carted by special trains with tiny engines (as in Queensland).  Every so often we saw people, sometimes children, in small boats pulling on a wire to cross the canal.

Every bridge over the canal and every road junction was closed to traffic while our convoy passed - which must have taken an hour or more. Guards with rifles were at every road block and the roads and bridges were packed with donkey carts, cows in the back of utes, bicycles, motor bikes, trucks, cars, camels - sometimes with people riding them - and pedestrians.

We also passed through several checkpoints, with guards in little boxes on top of poles, all with rifles, and at one point all the drivers had to have their papers checked. It was a delightful drive, just a shame it took so much longer than it should have taken.

Once in Luxor we drove to the West Bank and the Valley of the Kings that dates from 1570-1100 BC. Our guide was useless and spoke very poor English. He struggled all day to find his words and explained very little to us. Often he contradicted himself and he gave us no information on what we were about to see, what time to meet afterwards or where. Rebecca, one of the Third Officers, was also on our coach (the Paddle Girl - holding up a paddle with our bus number on it) and she smoothed things over as well as she could, telling us what we were supposed to be doing. Everyone is driven up to the tombs by electric transporters with two carriages on each. Other guides went up to each one arriving and called out their bus number but our guide faffed around while all the other buses went ahead of us. After 35 minutes we asked him how far away it was. He said it was a ten minute walk so we set off but found a couple of spaces on a transporter and went up with them. We were there in less than two minutes and it would not have taken us ten minutes to walk. Once there we didn’t know what to do as he had explained nothing to us. Someone said our ticket gave us entry to three tombs.

The whole area is not at all as I had expected. It is in a valley surrounded by dry, barren rocky mountains and the entrances to the tombs are newly built in matching stone blocks. We wandered around and went into two of the tombs, down steep ramps where the walls are covered with paintings, carvings and hieroglyphics - all quite magnificent. At the bottom of the first one, a large sarcophagus was in the centre of the room. Essentially you walk in, walk around and walk out, so it didn’t take long. We saw our guide sitting on a wall (all the others took their party into the tombs to explain everything) and he said the best one was the one near him of Ramesses III (or Ramses as it seems to be spelt in English) so we joined the long, long queue to see it. The walk in - and down - was very long and the walls and small side chambers were brilliantly decorated. It didn’t matter that the queue was slow moving as there was so much to see on the way. There was no sarcophagus there - different parts of it are in museums around the world - and there was more excavation work going on at the bottom.

After that we managed to get into a fourth tomb - the ticket puncher did not even look to see how many holes we had in our tickets - and that turned out to be the best one. The walk in was very, very steep and there was an Egyptian at the bottom who explained all about the paintings to us. It was so amazing.

We told our guide we would walk back down to the entrance but he said no, we all had to stay together. We said we were going anyway and he said no, we would get lost. How he thought we could get lost we can’t imagine. We went anyway, managed to get on another transporter and when we got off at the bottom, we could see the front of the next transporter taking on passengers!  There is a very short bitumen track in between barren rock, with a slight curve.

Next we were taken to Queen Hatshepsut’s Temple where we were supposed to have fifteen minutes to get out and take photos. Because we were running so far behind time, we were not allowed off the bus - what a farce. We arrived at a 5-star hotel for lunch just before 3pm and had to leave before 3.30pm. The buffet lunch was served in their floating restaurant on the River Nile, with feluccas coming up to the windows. For dessert we tucked into fresh dates straight off the tree - which, after our souq experience in Bahrain many years ago - I washed in a glass of water before eating! They have a very different taste from the packaged ones. Yum!

Driving through Luxor we passed several English pubs and restaurants, including a pub called, appropriately, the King’s Head. At Karnak, a vast temple with a massive collonaded hall erected by King Ramesses II, it was so, so crowded, we could hardly squeeze in, crushed shoulder to shoulder, the busiest one guide said he had ever seen it. There were sixteen Cunard buses there (x 50, making about 800 of us), but they made up only about a quarter, or less, of the total number of buses there. It was a nightmare and without a decent guide to explain everything we walked around in a fog and took lots of photos. We probably should have done some more homework on it before we went. We were there for an hour and it was all truly amazing, the amount of work done so many thousands of years ago.

That left us with twenty minutes to drive to the Temple of Luxor, see it and join the convoy for the drive back to the ship. We spent a good part of that time in a traffic jam and most people stayed on the bus. You cannot possibly see something so magnificent in ten minutes. By the time we got to the entrance of the actual temple, we were told we had five minutes but there were so many people there, all jammed into the entrance that we would not have been able to get in in five minutes, never mind get in, see it and get out again. So, I took a couple of photos of the outside and didn’t see it. What a disappointment that was.

On the drive back all the roads were barricaded once again, with many people, vehicles and animals waiting at each junction. We returned on the same road and this time had a good look at the villages across the road from the canal, all lit as it was dark, with people outside enjoying themselves and many donkey carts heading home. Children were waving to us and it was an interesting drive. After that I fell asleep for a while and later we were given one tiny piece of nougat each. Barry and I had gone prepared with bananas, apples, nuts, biscuits and chocolate so we didn’t go hungry. It was a long day and too long to go without anything more than lunch (after a very early breakfast) and we were longing for a cup of tea by the time we got back to the ship at 10pm. After a quick wash we headed to the Lido buffet for dinner and fell into bed.

That was the first time Cunard has offered such a trip so it was a learning curve for them and the overnight one would probably have been a better option, as they visited the Temple of Luxor the following morning before returning to the ship. We sailed as soon as they returned about 1pm. The overnight tour included a Sound and Light show at the Temple of Karnak but all the beds in Luxor were booked out so there is a limit to the number of people they can take on that tour.

It was great leaving port at that time of day. They normally have a Sailaway party on deck but we are normally at dinner at that time. One of the bands was out on deck and they had champagne on offer.

That night we had the Egyptian Ball and almost everyone dressed up. The ballroom was superbly decorated for the occasion. I had made an Egyptian-looking outfit with clothes I already had and some trim I found in Myer, and I had bought a beaded headdress. Barry then thought he should do something and disappeared for a while. He returned looking the part with a pillow case over his head, tied on with his network cable and wearing sunglasses! Shalom!


SUEZ CANAL

The day after we left Safaga, we moored at the entrance to the Suez Canal at 3am, ready to transit in convoy at 6am. I woke up at 5am and went out on deck. The passenger ship that had been next to us in Safaga was ahead of us and there were 35 ships in our convoy. Two convoys head south every day, passing the one north-bound convoy in the two lakes.

Last time I was here, I went to Cairo while the ship transited the canal, so I was pleased to be seeing it even though everyone said it was just sand. It is much narrower than I had expected and over the years much building has taken place so there was plenty to see. Even in the last two years there has been an enormous amount of development.

At first the decks were closed because of very strong winds but I had a good view from the Commodore Club that spans the front of the ship. When the decks were opened, one of the deck crew showed me how to get outside in front of the gym where I had a great view and could take photos. Later the Captain announced that the areas on Decks 6 and 7 across the front of the ship were also available to us. They are normally for crew only but Barry and I spent most of the day out there. At lunch time Barry made up warm beef and salad rolls for us and a lady we were talking to out on deck, with biscuits and fruit as well so I was very spoilt and didn’t miss anything!

We passed under the Egyptian-Japanese Friendship Bridge, funded mainly by the Japanese, that has a clearance of 68m and was opened October 2001. The bridge is 3.9kms long and the span across the canal is 400m.

There was plenty of activity on the banks of the canal, guards at posts dotted along the length of it, people in boats, small villages, a Second World War Memorial, the more modern Israeli War Memorial and numerous mosques in the sand. The east bank (Sinai Desert) was just that - desert - sand, sand and more sand while most of the habitation and activity was on the western bank.

We had a very quick transit, reaching Port Said ten hours after starting out. Normally it takes between eleven and sixteen hours to go through. The speed limit is 8 knots through most of the canal and 12 knots over the last part where it widens and eventually becomes the Mediterranean Sea, a very insignificant exit from the canal.


SUEZ CANAL UPDATE

Oops! The older of the two memorials we saw along the Suez Canal is to commemorate the First World War, not the Second World War as I said. I should have looked at my photos first!


GREECE

Crossing the Mediterranean we experienced our roughest seas yet, although it had calmed down by the evening. That day a Country Fair was held in the Queen’s Room that raised more than $US7,000 for charity. Barry and I had several tries at various things but didn’t win anything. I attempted to throw a plastic quoit over a bottle of wine and just succeeded in knocking over all the bottles, domino effect!

On arrival in Greece we docked in Pireaus early in the morning and Barry and I went on an easy tour to the Temple of Poseidon on Cape Sounion. Only one bus went and we had a picturesque drive along the coast. Unfortunately a south wind had been blowing for several days which meant there was a lot of fog and the views were not as good as they could have been. When the wind blows from the north the skies are blue and the water is clear.

Once at Cape Sounion the skies were clear and we had good views all around the southernmost point of Europe. There were four or five buses there when we arrived but they were all Cunard ones on a full day tour taking in Athens as well. They moved off when we arrived which meant we had the Temple to ourselves and managed to take photographs without crowds of people in them.

The temple is smaller than I had expected and is roped off so we could not see Byron’s signature but there were plenty of other ones engraved into the stone. It is very impressive standing on the point.

On the drive back to Athens the weather closed in again and was as foggy as it had been on the outward drive. We asked to be dropped off in Piraeus where we walked round the fish, meat, fruit and vegetable markets. We found a wonderful delicatessen where there were enormous bowls of olives and all the ingredients for antipasto, cheeses, gooey Greek sweets and other mouthwatering goodies. We found a café where we ate lunch and drank delicious Greek coffee before doing some sightseeing and visiting the massive dock area. Hundreds of ferries of all sizes come and go all day and it is a very, very busy place. We went on the long walk around the harbour to the cruise terminal where we caught the shuttle bus back to the ship.

That night there was a performance in the theatre by a local group. The Greek music is lively and we all joined in with some of the songs. Some of their dancing is surprisingly acrobatic and of course they finished the show with Zorba.
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