Browsing the archives for the Egypt category

Veterans March on Washington 1932

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Egypt, United States

What I thought I remembered hearing about this was all wrong. I remembered that Eisenhower commanded troops that fired on veterans who were marching on Washington, killing several of them. Actually it was MacArthur who commanded the troops with Patton commanding the six tanks they sent in. Eisenhower was a lower level officer on MacArthur’s staff who advised him not to go there. Two veterans only were shot, and they were shot by police prompting President Hoover to order the troops to clear the veterans out. The gas they used to help disperse them was nasty stuff. At least one veteran may have died from exposure to it.

What led me to recall the misinformation I remembered hearing about this march was comparing it to what Mubarak did in Egypt. My thought was that any government when confronted by a large, unruly demonstration will first do what is deemed necessary to keep order – even the United States did.

I don’t know exactly what Mubarak ordered against the demonstrations in Trahir Square. I guess his trial, now going on, will bring that out, but my gut feeling is they should leave the guy – once their revered leader – to live out the rest of his days in peace.

Oh, and here’s some newsreel stuff on the 1932 march:

Someplace I Wouldn’t Go – Tunnels

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Egypt, Trips

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Farewell to Egypt

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bio, Egypt, Trips

Luggage outside the room EARLY, meet the guide in the Iberotel lobby, onto a bus and ride to the nearby Cairo airport. The prospect of a rest from the demanding touring did not depress me. The last set of pictures I want to show are scenes mostly of Cairo streets shot from various buses. They are here.

If It’s Monday This Must Be Memphis

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bio, Egypt, Trips, Wisdom I Have Learned

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And we’re talking the place outside of Cairo (the ancient predecessor of Cairo) not the one near Nashville.

It’s taking me a while to realize what sightseeing is all about albeit that I’ve been doing it. It’s about going to famous places camera in hand to take pictures that will prove you were there and with luck to have pictures taken of you in front of some monument or other.

It’s not something to do to satisfy a drive to become an accomplished photographer. Those are the frustrated folks waiting for Koji to move from the front of the statue so they can get a shot without Koji’s smiling face. I fancied myself in this category, but it’s not easy to discern that from looking at the pics I’ve taken. If I try to do anything special with the pictures I take of well-photographed sites it is to wander off the “beaten path” to take photographs from a different perspective. Anderson Cooper directed me to an entry on another traveler’s blog that informs what I was trying to say here.

So the question becomes where do I stand with Egypt. I remember explaining to someone years ago that Paris was a place to be not a place to see. Egypt, for me (I fear), is a place to see.

Since the above ruminations worked their way out of my head and into this blog while I was once again sitting on a bus waiting for the rest of the folks, I will leave them for now.

Before I forget I wanted to mention the only free time I had on the trip. Our last night in Luxor, I took a stroll along the Nile as far as the Luxor Temple. The air was cool and delightful and I especially enjoyed the night view of the temple.



First of all, the question arises for any reader who knows at least a small bit of Egyptian geography — how did I get to Memphis which is outside of today’s Cairo when the last time you heard from the intrepid reporter he was in the environs of Luxor? Early Monday morning we got on a bus, went to the Luxor airport and flew back to Cairo. Then another bus in Cairo and to our first stop, the Mit Rahina Museum. The few pictures taken are here.

After Mit Rahina we were back on the bus and driven to our last site of the trip, the Saqqara Necropolis containing the oldest know pyramids. My pictures are here.

Karnak Temple

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bio, Egypt, Trips

The last bus ride of the day was to the immense Karnak Temple (the largest outdoor religious site in the world).

The area covered by the temple complex is immense and these pictures only give a tourist’s feel for it.

The Valley of the Kings

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bio, Egypt, Trips

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The Valley of the Kings is warm even today. I’ve been in the tomb of Rameses III (no photos allowed). One is my quota for the day. Interesting if one enjoys being crowded together in an elongated unventilated tomb with sweaty enthusiastic tourists.

After the Valley of the Kings we headed for the Valley of the Queens where we would have additional opportunities for oxygen-deprived panic, say in the tomb of one of Rameses’ sons.

I wrote the above paragraphs as I sat in the shade at the Valley of the Queens waiting for the other tour members while the experience was still fresh in my mind. This day would prove to be a very busy one. We boarded our bus early and headed for the West bank and the valley, stopping for a quick photo shoot at the Colossi of Memnon along the road. The next stop was the Al-Deir Al Bahari Temple.

Hatsepshut’s temple greatly interested me because of the little I knew of her in history plus fictional books by P.C. Doherty that used her as a character. One thing we were not told when we visited was that Al-Deir Al Bahari was the site of the 1997 Luxor Massacre in which 58 tourists and 4 Egyptians were killed by Egyptian terrorists.

Since picture taking was not allowed in neither the Valley of the Kings nor the Valley of the Queens these are the only pictures taken during this part of the day.

Luxor Temple

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bio, Egypt, Trips

Ancient Thebes has become Luxor home to Luxor Temple along with many other attractions for the visitor to Egypt.

Later in the afternoon after lunch had settled we headed to shore through the lobbies of the eight boats between the Queen of Hansa and the shore. Naturally I counted the intervening boats so I would know when I reached the Queen of Hansa when we returned. What would become even stranger was that on our return the Queen of Hansa was only the third boat from the dock. Staying to watch the intervening boats’ elimination could have been as interesting as visiting the temple, but I digress.

A bus was waiting above the dock to whisk us to the Luxor Temple and “whisk” is the best word to describe the trip since the temple was just down the street from where the Queen of Hansa was docked. It was late in the day by the time we left the temple grounds and some of the pictures had to be retouched because they were too dark.

Somehow many of us had the feeling that Luxor Temple was not such a big deal, since we had been prepared for the BIG ones tomorrow: the Valley of the Kings, the Valley of the Queens and the Temple of Karnak. A fascinating sidelight of the trip to Luxor Temple and tomorrow’s trip to Karnak was that a ceremonial road lined with sphinxes linking the entire distance between Luxor temple and Karnak temple was month-by-month being more excavated and restored (there are a few pictures of a part of it at the end of the Luxor temple pictures). Mosques, apartment houses and stores are being relocated by the Egyptian Department of Antiquities to allow the restoration of the highway of the sphinxes.

Stacked Boats

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bio, Egypt, Trips

We were back on the Queen of Hansa heading down the Nile to Luxor where we would dock and spend the night. Along the way we were lowered from our high level of the Nile to the next lower level through the river locks at Esna. Another treat along the way for a few of us was meeting the ship captain as he sat on his bridge piloting the ship (pictures of these adventures here).

Because of an apparent limited amount of docking positions, especially here in Luxor (ancient Thebes), the first boat to a docking position naturally docks. Other boat captains who like that area “park” their boats parallel to the first, and the way to the shore from the newcomers is one by one through the lobbies of the boats between theirs and the dock. Today our boat is the ninth from shore so we will have to trek through eight lobbies to get to the bus to carry us to Luxor temple.

Ah, let’s get closer still.

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Each it may first

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bio, Egypt, Trips

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I am going to go with this title Google voice generated (sound it out). Today and yesterday have been Ptolemaic period temples in towns along the Nile. I now know how to get the largest granite blocks in place on a temple wall, but I doubt I will be building many more temples.

Our ship had docked at Edfu the previous night, so after breakfast it was onto a bus and off to the Temple of Edfu.

When everyone was ready it was time to run the gauntlet of the sellers of stuff to get back to the bus and back to the boat in time for lunch, as we began sailing for Luxor. Pictures? Of course there are pictures here.

Fly Me Down to Aswan

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bio, Egypt, Trips

Early luggage outside my room before breakfast, then we had an early flight from Cairo to Aswan, home of the Aswan Dams. I didn’t get a picture of the High Dam; nothing about it seemed to stand out when I was near it or on it. I did get a few shots of the low dam, but those in the article are sufficient. One thing that struck me about the High Dam was that it was an earthen dam.

Next instead of a road trip we took a “boat trip” to the island where the Philae temple is located (the Wikipedia article seems authoritative.

I’ve got pictures (boy do I have pictures here) including snapshots of folks from the tour group I was with.

Back on the bus after we successfully returned to shore. We did stop by a huge unfinished obelisk in situ that remained unfinished because a crack was discovered in it. After this view we got back on the bus and joined our luggage on the Queen of Hansa boat. The first group of pictures from the Nile here were taken as we cruised to our next stop of the day.

After a late lunch on the boat, we docked, got on our bus and went to visit the Kom Ombo temple. Are there pictures? Of course there are — here.