In case you didn’t know we left for Egypt and Jordan a couple of weeks ago on a tour called In the Footsteps of Moses. Believe me, Moses didn’t go anywhere interesting! Now while that is a kind of funny line, the trip was incredibly interesting… if you are a Biblical scholar (which I definitely am not) or a history geek (which I am) or love archaeology (which I do.) But more about that later – and there will be a lot, but there are a few other things I want to share with you first.
First of all, we got back to Texas in time to celebrate my lovely mother-in-law’s 100th birthday. 100 years, and she looks younger than I do! She also lives in her own home – by her own demand – and still drives; in fact, next month we are taking her to have her driver’s license renewed. God so blessed me with this wonderful woman, for which I thank Him every day.
The second bit of news is not so good. After many years my beloved publisher Vinspire has decided to close its doors. It reverted all four of my books back (without me even having to ask – how refreshing!) and even arranged for a reduced price to have the books reformatted without any company mention so I can republish. Of course, these books have been out for a while, so I wanted to update and re-edit them… and still stay in the time frame of the special order. Which meant returning from Jordan, working on the birthday party and updating/re-editing three books (one was my children’s book, which will be treated differently) all within a two-week framework. So – look for ECHOES IN THE DARK and DARK MUSIC (both romantic mysteries) and MISS MORRISON’S SECOND CHANCE (a very proper Regency romance) to be released by late summer. The job was exhausting, but then I started out exhausted, because of the tour.
Even in the beginning the tour was difficult. We were supposed to go from DFW to Heathrow, where we had a decent turn-around time, then on to Cairo. Didn’t work like that. We were on the tarmac in DFW when they realized that the entertainment system on the plane didn’t work. Neither did the wi-fi the pilots needed. We simply sat for an hour while engineers fiddled with it. Then another hour. Then the wi-fi was fixed, but the pilot told us that the entertainment part was dead and we would have to wait until they could pull a plane from somewhere and a crew from somewhere else, which could take up to five hours. And they offered to give us meal vouchers for our trouble… Or we could go without an entertainment system. By this time the passengers were not only restless, we were almost ready to revolt, so they decided we should go. We made our Heathrow-Cairo connection with just half an hour to spare.
Now to details – Hiram and I went in a few days early to Cairo, because we knew the tour would only be there for a day or so and we had things we wanted to see and friends to visit. Had a lovely talk with Ahmed, a tour facilitator who has become a dear friend. He has changed jobs so we won’t be seeing him professionally any longer, but it is always such a joy to talk with him. We had looked forward to a long and leisurely afternoon with our darling Salima Ikram, but she had the flu and, selfishly wanting to keep all her germs to herself, could not meet with us. We did, however, enjoy a long and leisurely telephone conversation with her. Wasn’t the same, though.
I got to do some shopping and bought the most incredibly beautiful (and useless, as we do not go to that many formal parties any more) dress, but I simply had to have it. Made of almost invisible mesh, it is a thob nashal – spelling approximate – heavily embroidered with gold-colored thread and meant to be worn over an evening dress. When I do wear it I will take a picture and publish it. Absolutely gorgeous! In Cairo (actually in Giza) we stayed in the incredibly luxurious Four Seasons First Residence hotel. Hot and cold running luxury. To tell the truth, all our hotels were either 4 or 5 star (though to my mind the definition of 4 and 5 star varies with location!) and it helped to counterbalance the rigors of the trip.
This was the most physically taxing tour I have ever taken. In Jordan especially it seems roads never run close to the sites. A couple of times we had to walk over a kilometer just to get to the sites, and for someone such as I who suffers from an ancient back injury and cannot walk significant distances without at least a cane that was a problem. So – there were a number of things I did not see, or did not see a significant part of, but I can live with that because I did see so much.
Compared to the majesty of Egypt’s impressive antiquities, lots of Jordan’s were sketchy if not downright disappointing visually, but what was impressive was the aura of antiquity. For days we drove through bleak, rough and mountainous terrain that was not only imposing but in a way terrifying. It is hard to comprehend the depth of faith that led a people – and their children, their animals, their scant possessions – through this moon-scape without maps or backup systems or sometimes even water… and all in sandals, yet! It was a sobering and enlightening experience.
Now to the day-by-day… The first day of the tour we went to the Grand Egyptian Museum.
After several years of promised openings, it is – partially – open, but is so large that even what is open is too much to see in a single day. It is glorious, and we plan to go back and spend at least three days there. Enormous (seemingly as big as some small European countries!) it is very modern and spacious, which I admit I found a little jarring. However, it is also very friendly for those of us who face mobility problems. Along with stairs to access the multiple levels, there are ramps and even elevators and escalators and lots of benches where you can sit and contemplate the artifacts. Each item is beautifully lit, has wonderful signage and lots of space around it. However… like the National Museum of Egyptian Culture (which is also glorious) it is both cherry-picked for the most spectacular pieces and to me at least almost sterile in feel. Both should be seen, though, and I will go back to both, but my heart still belongs to the cheerful chaos of the old 1904 Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square. While it has been freshened with a good cleaning and new paint, it is still chock-a-block with artifacts and the signage is still poor, but there is a feeling there of discovery, as you never know what treasure you will see. I fully believe it is more for the Egyptologist (amateur and professional) than the carefully curated perfection of the newer museums, which seem designed more for the non-Egyptophile tourist. All, however, are wonderful and should be seen.
The tour had that afternoon free – we did not know that would be almost the only free time we had! – and early (of course) the next morning we were off in a great big comfy bus. We stopped by the Temple of Bubastis (sacred to the cat goddess Bast), where we didn’t see a single cat. The temple was mainly ruins and had just foundations, but there was a tidy little museum. From there we went to Tanis, and how different it is now from when Hiram and I were there in 2000!
Then we just drove up to a rickety gate, gave some money to an aged ‘guard’ and wandered around as we liked. Now there is an enormous visitors’ center and no vehicle can even get close to the site. Worse, the site was only accessible by a long flight of bannister-less stairs and a hefty trek off across the sand.
This is one of my beefs with Egypt and most of the Middle East. Everywhere there are stairs and almost all of them have no bannisters, which poses a problem. I find stairs problematic even when there is a bannister, and the prospect of going down two stories’ worth of uneven steps with nothing to hold on to is an impossibility. Yes, I could have gone down on my derriere, but then there would be the problem of getting back up.
I sat under a tree and enjoyed my semi-bird’s-eye view while the tour walked around the site – which is enormous and has been greatly restored – and went into the Tomb of Osorkon II, which I remember as being cramped and most interesting. Glad I saw it years ago.
From there we went to Ismalyia, where we stayed in the incredibly beautiful (but somewhat haphazardly run) Tolip El Forsan Resort, which sits right on the edge of where Lake Timsah meets the Suez Canal. The next morning we were off early (all the mornings were early, sometimes starting at 5.30 AM) and into Sinai. We went to Ayun Musa, where the twelve springs and seventy palm trees of Biblical Elim are; unfortunately, the site was closed to tourists for some unknown reason (which apparently happens often once away from the tourist-friendly areas of Nilotic Egypt) so we went on to drive through Wadi Feiran and Rephidim (Wadi Refayid) then on to the er-Raha Plain and St. Catherine’s Monastery.
St. Catherine’s is fantastic. There is a town not too far away, bristling with hotels, but we were privileged enough to stay in the Guest House belonging to the monastery itself. It was listed as ‘clean and plain’ – and it was, both of them. Primitive might be a more descriptive word, but we had our own bath, a comfortable bed and a plain room (no phone or tv) and that was all we needed. It did have electricity, plus a coffee shop/safe that featured enormous cappuccinos for just $2. While there the few truly fit ones of us made the arduous climb to the top of Gebel Musa – the traditional Mount Sinai.
Built around the Burning Bush (and there is a large plant in the center of the monastery which is called the Burning Bush to this day. It wasn’t flaming, though, and no one could tell me what genus of plant it was) the monastery was begun in either 321 AD (when the first reports of monastic occupation were reported) or around 550 AD when Byzantine Emperor Justinian I ordered a monastery built. Either way it is old, and so very fascinating. I had been looking forward to seeing the famed library… until I found it was at the top of the big building, up four very long and steep flights of stairs. I made it up one flight, but knew by the time I reached the top – if I made it at all – the tour would be over, so I went back down and sat in a sunny courtyard – which turned out to be in the monks’ private quarters. Of course when I found out I apologized profusely and tried to move, but they very kind and told me to sit there as long as I liked, offered me tea while we chatted and were in general great. It wasn’t the library, but it was a great experience.
We stayed a full day at the monastery (meaning two nights in our ‘clean plain’ room) and went to see the Shrine of Aaron where the stone that is reputed to be the Golden Calf is. All I can say is that the ancient Israelites must have had a whopping imagination, because the stone (which is huge and taller than I) looks more like a deformed frog than a calf, but whatever. We spent the rest of the day driving around to various sites where various arcane things (battles/encampments/whatever) were supposed to have happened, and being told that sites were closed (which happened quite often, and usually with no rhyme or reason – but this area is on the edge of a conflict zone). In a way it was fascinating, but also saddening because there was so little left.
The next day we drove through the wadis of Eastern Sinai, and while we saw little but rocks what glorious rocks they were! Shot with wide swathes of minerals, sheer cliffs reaching far into the sky, colors you don’t associate with desert mountains, and rarely a tough and stunted little tree clinging to a crack… it was bleak, beautiful and other-worldly.
We stopped for a few minutes at a small women’s convent – Greek Orthodox, I think, whose name I sadly don’t remember that made me ache to stay there. The quiet was so intense it was almost a physical thing, and a spring had to be nearby, because the place was surrounded by what looked like some kind of willow. Very peaceful, but we couldn’t stay long and off we went to Taba on the Gulf of Akaba.
At Taba we took a lovely pleasure boat to see the Crusader Castle on Pharaoh’s Island, possibly the site of Solomon’s Ezion Geber.
It’s beautiful – a fairy tale castle with merlons and towers and stairs. Too many stairs. Looking at the long flight of uneven steps – without banisters, of course – I decided to stay on the boat, where the crew treated me like a queen. The captain showed me how the controls worked – but of course wouldn’t let me drive it – and the crew of three and I had tea and a lovely talk. When the rest of the tour came back it was obvious I had made the right decision – everyone was exhausted.
We were all still exhausted the next morning when we had to be up at 5 to take the Catamaran to Akaba. A great big floating bus, the catamaran was full of all kinds of people, not just tourists. Our tour courier gave us all tickets with our names on them – except there was one for a lady who had not been able to come… and none for me. The courier was unfazed, saying that he would be with me and there was nothing to worry about. Hmmm…. As this trip was our crossing from Egypt/Sinai into Jordan, I wasn’t so sure. It took a long long time after our 45 minute boat ride to get into Customs, but the courier had been right – they didn’t ask for my ticket (just my passport) or check us against the passenger list. I could have cried with relief.
Then we had one of our very few breaks on the trip. We spent two hours at the luxurious Berenice Beach Club, where we could go swimming either in the big pool or in the bay. Hiram and I opted just to sit under the big palapa by the bar and enjoy doing nothing.
After far too short a time we got back on the bus and headed for Wadi Rum, a place described by T. E. Lawrence (aka Lawrence of Arabia) as ‘vast, echoing and God-like’ – a description that doesn’t really cover it at all.
And this has been going on for too long, so next time I’ll tell you about the Martian landscape of Wadi Rum, sleeping in a plastic bubble, limping through Petra and our journey into Jordan.
Hope all is well in your world –