Heading back home from the Valley of the Queens, [I can't believe I was calling the lizard ridden hotel home, but I did -- it's right there in my journal -- any port in a storm, I guess]
-- the guide insisted on giving us the complete treatment and taking us to the tombs of noblemen -- no matter how much we begged him to take us directly home, he told us it was only a short visit, and he wanted us to take full advantage of the trip; also Gail was somewhat more game than I was. [I wonder why!]
So we went, but I stayed on my donkey and waited in the shade, while Gail took her little tour. The tombs were part of a small village, evidently -- or rather a group of huts where people lived -- and in front of the huts were round mud-looking constructions. We were told that these were used to sleep in when it was too warm to sleep indoors; however, I was never convinced by this explanation.
After about a half hour ride on the donkeys, we came to a rest house which had no water. The second one had some, but not to drink, and not in the faucets -- this water was brought to us by a girl (to whom, of course, we paid bakshish) -- we thankfully splashed our faces with that water. . .
At this stop I saw several hand-carved alabaster vases for 50 cents each, but I thought that was much too much, and finally bought three of them for a dollar.
Everywhere we went there were lots and lots of pictures of Nasser and many of Nasser with Khruschev, though not in Cairo.
The men were always pulling up their robes, for one reason or another, and they wear great pantaloons underneath. Turbans on their heads -- many wore sheikh headdresses -- they keep pulling those up also.
We saw a new village, one that the government was building, so that an old dilapidated one could be evacuated, but already the people were filling in the windows with rocks. We took a short cut home over very caked and cracked earth --
the donkeys kept slipping into the cracks and we kept holding what little breath we had left. Here the Nile had flooded and receded and left mud caked over the land.
Above taken directly from my journal written in 1964. Taking a break over the weekend to share my adventures at WBUR this week (actually, an Egyptian connection) and a recipe. More on Egypt on Monday.
Is that one of the actual alabaster vases you bought and you still have it! I am pleased that you had the good sense to keep yourself, and your elderly donkey, in the shade.
ReplyDeleteIn the US south, on hot humid summer nights, we would sleep on the screened porch directly on the floor boards, which were always cooler than a mattress would be. If it were truly stinking hot, one trick was to wear your nightdress in the shower and lie down to sleep soaking wet. The evaporation kept you cool enough to get to sleep, and by morning you and the nightdress were dry. So I can believe getting out of the house to sleep in a cooler place, esp if there were cooking in the house, or its windows were filled in with rocks ?!?!