Egypt: Thumbs Up Africa Blog Four - Supershops and Mini Temples

For many years, Luxor has been a must-see for every tourist in Egypt. If not for the temples of Luxor, Karnak or Deir el-Bahri, then you would definitely touch ground here for the breathtaking Valley of Kings. Twenty-four-year old Mido Noubi runs six souvenir shops in the old city market, also known as the Luxor souk. He points to the empty street outside.

"As you can see, business is not going well. I hope, inshallah, this will change."

Egypt's tourism sector has not benefited from the Arab Spring. "Before the revolution, I had 150 customers on a bad day, but now I have three customers on a good day," says Mido calmly. "People are afraid, because the media depict the wrong image of Egypt. There is no problem here and the Egyptian people are very friendly."

Mido sells shishas, scarves of different fabrics and miniature pyramids and pharaohs. The shop, where Mido invites me in for tea, opened in June 2010. That's an unfortunate date if you recall that the Egyptian revolution started only five months earlier

Tea talk

However, the souk shop owners find comfort in solidarity.

"Muslims and Copts sit together and drink tea to work something out," Mido explains. "But then again, what can you do when the big tourist agencies from Sharm el-Sheikh build their own souvenir supershops? In contrary to these agencies, we keep the prices low. The supershops work on commission."

As I'm being served another cup of tea, a young European couple walks in. They take a short look around and leave without saying a word. Most shop owners in the souk try to lure foreigners with small talk in every world language. Experience has taught Mido that it is better to leave the customers for who they are.

"People do not like to be hassled. I learned this not long after my cousins and I opened our first shop back in 2001," he says.

A part of Mido's income once came from domestic tourism. "Egyptians are afraid, as they read in the media that there is many problems on the railway because of the revolution," he says. "This, too, is not the case."

Fewer tourists, lots of girlfriends

According to Mido, the government should come up with a solution for the tourism sector. He is not happy with the instalment of Morsi as prime minister.

"Hosni Mubarak was a bad man, but at least he made sure that the people were safe," he says. "The police did their job, but now nobody respects them anymore. Freedom is good, but too much freedom cannot be good. Now I see that people sell a lot of drugs and even guns."

Despite these acts of crime, Mido feels sure that tourists are safe in Egypt. He turns to me: "Tell your friends that Egypt is safe. The media sell one big lie. Tell them they should not believe what is written and let your friends please come back here."

A man of around 40 enters the shop. It is Mido's uncle. Yesterday a relative got married and they tell me how good the party was. Mido himself does not think about marriage yet. "No business, no marriage. But I do have a lot of girlfriends," he laughs.

I ask if he wants me to share this blog with him on Facebook. He laughs again. "No, I don't like Facebook, because that started all of this."

http://allafrica.com/stories/201210220692.html?page=2

Avenue of sphinxes to open to public in March

During an inspection tour of Luxor’s archaeological sites, the Minister of State for Antiquities Mohamed Ibrahim announced that the Avenue of Sphinxes will be partly opened to public by mid March. “We have chosen a date that coincides with the opening of the Berlin International Tourism Market on 13 March 2011,” Ibrahim told Ahram Online.

He explained that a 150 metre long section out of the 2,700 meters of the avenue will be ready for the public after restoration, promising to solve all technical and financial problems in order to resume restoration work in the rest of the avenue.
The Avenue of Sphinxes was built during the reign of Pharaoh Nectanebo I of the 30th Dynasty. It replaced another built in the 18th Dynasty by Queen Hatshepsut (1502-1482 BC), as she recorded on the walls of her red chapel in Karnak Temple.
According to this record, Hatshepsut built six chapels dedicated to the god Amun-Re on the route of the avenue during her reign, indicating that it had long been a place of religious significance.
However, over the span of history the avenue was lost, with some of its sphinxes destroyed and whole stretches buried in sand and build on.
Five years ago, in the framework of the Ministry of Culture, a programme to restore ancient Egyptian monuments with a view to developing the entire Luxor governorate into an open-air museum, a project was planned to recover lost elements of the avenue, restore the sphinxes and bring the place back to its original aspect.
During his tour with Luxor Governor Ezat Saad, Ibrahim visited American Research Centre excavation and restoration sites in Khonsu temple as well as monuments of the 18th and 19th dynasties at Karnak temple.

Blinded by a balloon ride

APARNA KARTHIKEYAN
http://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/travel/article2618294.ece

How Aparna Karthikeyan hurt her eye in Luxor — but not before it had captured some breathtaking sights presented by the ancient land against the rising sun

“Please, can you show me your hip,” said the doctor, primly averting his eyes.

“But doctor,” I said, “it’s my left eye that’s injured.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that,” he said, in a clear, unaccented English, “but I need to give you this injection.” He brandished, from the depths of his bag, a large needle. First a prick in the eye and now this, I thought resignedly, and rolled over.

We were in Luxor, Egypt, staying in a sumptuously relaxing resort, the Nile hugging its backyard, slender palm-trees and white-sailed feluccas lending the rugged landscape an air of elegance, a touch of softness. After the heat and dust of Cairo, Luxor was a blessed relief, the deliciously cool air drifting across the Nile soothing the days, and chilling the nights. Having had our fill of the wonders of ancient Egypt and overwhelmed by its exhaustive history, we recklessly walked up to the travel desk and signed up for a hot-air balloon ride the next morning. And then spent the entire evening worrying if we had done the right thing…

Long before dawn cracked and cocks crowed, we piled into a bus to reach the pier to take a boat to the ballooning site. We hugged ourselves and rubbed hands to keep warm, until we saw the field with the balloons. It warmed us, mind, soul, everything.

Dotted all over the great, rolling sand-drifts, there sat tens of balloons, their multi-coloured canopies brilliantly lit by the roaring fire in their bellies, the people awaiting to alight bathed in a neon-orange after-glow. We were quickly ushered to our wicker basket (about the size of a small car) surrounded by some busy and several idle ground-staff, the whole set-up so reminiscent of India, that we couldn’t help smiling…

It was the last smile in a while though, until the balloon reached cruising altitude in any case, for it was quite frightening initially, the tongue of flame (the burner ably controlled by the pilot) flaring with sudden boom-booms to sweep more hot air into the nearly taut balloon. And when the ropes were finally released, we took off, dangling from the enormous red balloon, into a sky that was fast fading from a velvety purple to a blushing rose. The pilot, we quickly realised, was clearly experienced (though he teased us that this was his first flight too and asked us all to pray, hard) and extremely knowledgeable (then again, half the people we had met in the trip sounded like veteran Egyptologists!). He briskly pointed out monuments dotting the sands below and his witty quips, especially ‘that massive complex, over there, is the Hot-Chicken-Soup Temple’ loosened us up considerably. (‘Hot-Chicken-Soup’, we later learnt, was a corruption of the name ‘Hatshepsut’, one of Egypt’s celebrated woman Pharaohs).

The rising sun, in the meantime, decided to put up a spectacular show — for our sole pleasure, it almost felt — the fiery orange ball staining the horizon in bands of red, orange and pale butter-yellow. In a matter of minutes, the whole landscape visibly lightened up, the dull brown craggy hillocks suddenly glowing orange-gold, throwing long, silky shadows between their folds. By then we were ballooning-veterans, relaxed as we took pictures of the shifting images beneath us — one minute, a snapshot of the Nile, a thick blue ribbon snaking through the narrow verdant strip, many hot-air balloons leisurely floating over the jewel-green fields, looking very much like enormous, showy flowers. And the very next minute, we were drifting above the vast expanse of the desert, dotted alternatively by majestic ancient monuments and far more recent clusters of peasant houses.

All too soon (45 minutes, to be precise), it was over. We began our descent, skimming over other people’s terraces, peeping into their backyards, the humble peasant homes with their dark brown thatched roofs and white idli-domes, as frayed as anything from ancient Egypt. Cows breakfasted on dull-green scrubs, the washing hung limply from sagging lines, and in the distance, we watched fascinated as a small boy went about his business, on the back of a stout, galloping donkey.

The ground crew had already assembled and taken their positions, and when the basket neatly touched the golden desert sand, they took-over, helping the giddily happy passengers out. Collecting our ever-so-cheesy certificates, we took our places in the boat, and all it took was one terribly excited child wildly waving about the awfully sharp edged square of cardboard to ruin a perfectly glorious morning. The sharp edge pricked my left eye deep. I glared balefully with my one good eye, but it was no use — it needed all the ministrations of the kindly Egyptian physician the hotel recommended, and the massive doses of painkillers and steroids (which he insisted on injecting into my hip) to make the journey back home tolerable. A journey that has since remained memorable for loads of right reasons and one blindingly wrong one.

Soarin' in Luxor

DAVE FULLER, QMI Agency

http://www.torontosun.com/2011/10/26/soarin-in-luxor

LUXOR, Egypt -- If, in my next life I'm allowed only one hot-air balloon ride -- assuming Egypt's pharaohs were correct about this after-life business -- make it this one.

Another 4 a.m. wake-up call? No problem. Just get us to the balloon on time. I witnessed several spectacular sunrises over the Nile during our visit but only one while soaring 500 metres above Egypt's Valley of the Tombs in a six-passenger, hydrogen fed, hot-air balloon.

Sure, it set me back $100 or so, but the adventure included: Mini-bus from hotel/cruise ship to Nile River crossing; small ferry boat ride (with coffee and Hostess Twinkie) to the Egyptian west bank; another mini-bus ride to the balloon compound; one quick lesson on the do's and don'ts of ballooning. And then one extraordinary thrill: A breath-stealing, 45-minute flight over 4,000-year-old temples, tombs and monuments carved into the limestone hills of the Sahara desert by those filthy rich pharaohs.

Ours is one of nine hot-air balloons lifting off this early morning. A sign, says our pilot/captain Tarek Mohamed Khilil, that tourism has rebounded following the spring ouster of Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarek.

Khilil has been piloting balloons for eight years and is clearly a master of the soft landing -- though it's the wind, he says, that determines the aircraft's direction.

On this day, the wind seems determined to push us into the side of a tourist police station as we brace for landing. But, with one quick thrust of the craft's hydrogen-induced flame, we glide over police headquarters and settle down a few feet away from the highway, where a standby-crew gathers up our now deflated balloon.

Back on our tour bus, we head to the Valley of the Kings, where King Tut, Ramses I-through-VI and about 55 other mummified Pharaohs were buried in their gold-encrusted coffins, along with their thrones, jewels, perfumes and other earthly possessions in preparation for an after-life which, who knows, might include one out-of-this world balloon ride.