We were met at the airport by a local representative of Aerocontact Travel. He started to talk about doing the Hapschesut Temple today and Abydos and Dendara tomorrow. I stressed that we had to be on our cruise ship by noon tomorrow and needed to get to Abydos and Dendara today. After a few frantic phone calls, he said it was settled.
It was a three hour ride to Abydos. Both Kim and I were tired; we only had three hours of sleep from the night before. We slept most of the way. On the way, we encountered many check-points. In years past, you could only visit these temples as part of a convoy. Convoys were groups of tour busses and vans with armed guards on either end. This was to keep the tourists “safe”. This area is still dangerous, as the government has a hard time keeping law-and-order here. In the last year or so, they have reduced the restrictions and individual vans and busses can travel freely (sort of). At some of the check-points, special permits must be examined. At one, a cocky guard blew a kiss at me. He was trying to intimidate me. I just smiled.
We wanted to see Abydos, because all of the other temples, except at Luxor, were built by the Greeks and Romans. Seti I started building this temple and it was finished by his son Ramses II (Ramses the Great). Seti I ruled right after the Amarna period where Tutankhamen’s father abolished all other gods, but the sun god. Seti put six different gods in this temple. He wanted to please the gods for the past period. Whenever you see pictures of the temples, they always appear as bare stone. Once you get closer, you can see some of the original colors on the stone. The colors are quite vibrant in some spots. Because the temple was neglected in antiquity, sand covered most of the temple and preserved the paint. However, Christians and then locals took up residence and used to cook inside the temple. All of the ceilings were back with soot.
Kim wore a skirt in this very conservative area. Since she was showing some leg, there were a lot of guards who would check her out as she walked by. To them, she was like a stripper.
Our guide left us in the temple to look around on our own. We quickly learned that when the guide is gone, there is a feeding frenzy of vendor and people wanting “tips” for showing you areas of the temple. We quickly left.
After another long drive, we made it to Dendara. The temple of Hathor (goddess of love and pleasure) was built by the Ptolemies and finished by the Romans. It is one of the few mostly intact temples from the period of the pharaohs. It has one of the few portraits of Cleopatra (the last of the Ptolemies). However, either the Romans or the Christians chiseled out some of the facial features. This was a common theme in the entire temple.
We wanted to walk around the area and get some bottled water. As soon as we left the hotel, a man across the street started to yell and come our way. We must look like easy marks, because he wanted to tour us around for money. We were both tired, so we just went back in the hotel. We purchased the water in the hotel. What a system to purchase anything. Someone had to get the water, another had to hand-write it on a slip of paper, and then someone else had to ring it up and take the money. The original person who showed us the water had to hand the back the change.
No comments:
Post a Comment