Temple of Edfu

The Temple of Edfu is located on the West bank of the Nile, about halfway between Luxor and Aswan. The temple, dedicated to the god Horus, was built between 237 and 57 BCE, during the Ptolemaic period in Egypt, and is a mix of traditional Egyptian styles and Greek influences.

The enormous pylon—which, at approx. 120-feet-tall, is one of the largest in Egypt—is decorated with remarkably preserved battle scenes of King Ptolemy VIII smiting his enemies before Horus (the Ancient Egyptian version of propaganda). Beyond the pylon you enter the Court of Offerings, surrounded by columns elaborately decorated with reliefs.

The temple at Edfu is so well preserved because over the years it was covered with drifting sand and silt from the Nile floods. Like other famous Ancient Egyptian sites, locals built homes on top of the buried temple, and by 1798 only the upper reaches of the temple pylons were visible. In 1860, the French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette began uncovering and excavating the temple and in the early 2000s new lights and a visitors center were added.

Horus is a very important Ancient Egyptian god, most often depicted as a falcon or as a man with a falcon head. The son of Isis and Osiris, Horus is basically the Egyptian Jesus (or rather, Jesus is the Catholic version of Horus, the latter predating the former by thousands of years). After Osiris is murdered, Isis reassembles her husband’s dismembered body parts—using her powers to remake his penis, which had been thrown into the Nile and eaten— and brings him back to life in order to conceive Horus, as one does.

The streets of Edfu are so narrow that we couldn’t travel to the temple in our usual tour bus. From our cruise ship, which was anchored in the Nile, we boarded a horse-drawn carriage (known as a caleche) and the drive through town was chaotic to say the least. We had the option to purchase a souvenir photograph after we returned to the ship and—although it’s a classic tourist scam—I think the photographer captured my essence perfectly.

Karnak

This city of temples, known collectively as Karnak, is one of the most visited ancient sites in Egypt, second only to the Great Pyramids at Giza. Approximately thirty pharaohs contributed to the construction at Karnak over 2,000 years, which began during the Middle Kingdom and continued into the Ptolemaic period. The complex is located on the east bank of the Nile, less than two miles from Luxor Temple.

The first thing you encounter at Karnak is an avenue of ram-headed sphinxes, representing the god Amun. Each holds a small effigy of Rameses II (this guy, again) between their front paws. Today, visitors to Karnak enter through the last pylon built at Karnak, erected by Nectanebo I (380-362 BCE). The pylon was never completed and remains unadorned—remnants of mud brick ramps used in its construction can still be seen just inside of the entrance.

One of the most impressive sections of Karnak (and probably its most famous feature) is the great hypostyle hall, the construction of which was begun by Seti I and completed by his son, Rameses II. The more than 50,000-sq-ft hall contains 134 papyrus columns set in 16 rows. The columns originally supported a roof, but now stand alone with traces of their brightly colored decorations still visible. In 1899, 11 of the columns fell like dominoes, but they were restored to their upright position in 1902.

Several obelisks were discovered at Karnak and three remain standing today inside of the temple complex—built by Sety II, Thutmose I and Hatshepsut. There are some really wonderful and unique carvings and relief decorations at Karnak (including depictions of the obelisks). Part of one of the only ancient treaties for which both sides' versions have survived, the Egyptian–Hittite peace treaty, is engraved in hieroglyphics on the walls of Karnak (the other part is in the Rameseum).

Egypt came under Roman rule in 30 BCE and Christianity was adopted by the Roman Empire under Constantine the Great (306 - 337 BCE). The emperor Constantius II (337 - 361 BCE) closed all pagan temples in the empire, which included Karnak. Coptic Christians used the Temple of Amun as a church, and you can still see evidence of this time period in the literal defacing of some of the Egyptian gods and a statue (pictured above) that was crudely fashioned into a cross by early Christians.

As a perk of our tour, Dr. Mostafa Waziri, Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, was our guide for the temple of Khonsu, an area of Karnak that isn’t usually open to the public. He dramatically revealed some recently discovered statues in addition to taking us inside of the temple, built by Rameses III. Its elaborately decorated walls are currently undergoing a painstaking restoration process that has revealed the most brilliant colors as if they were just painted yesterday and not more than 3,000 years ago.

Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut

Hatshepsut, who ruled from about 1493 to 1479 BCE, was the fifth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt. She was the second confirmed female pharaoh to rule Egypt and she was the daughter, sister, and wife of a king. Thutmose I was her father and Thutmose II (her half-brother, ew) was her husband. Originally, she ruled jointly with her step-son, Thutmose III—who ascended to the throne when he was just two years old—but she later assumed the full powers of a pharaoh herself.

She directed artists to depict her as a male—sometimes with a beard and large muscles—in many of her images and sculptures. This, coupled with the fact that Thutmose III had almost all of the evidence of his step-mother’s rule eradicated (like a typical man), meant that she remained largely unknown to scholars until the 19th century.

Hatshepsut extended Egyptian trade and lead ambitious building projects, the most notable of which is her Mortuary Temple at Deir el-Bahri, located on the west bank on the Nile, near Luxor. The necropolis includes several mortuary temples and tombs, but the centerpiece is the tiered colonnaded structure, designed and built by Hatshepsut’s royal steward, architect and possible-lover, Senenmut. The 97-foot-tall structure comprises three terraces, connected by long ramps and is built into a steep cliff.

Like Abu Simbel, the temple is striking not only in scale but in its placement, both things that photos can’t possibly convey. What I’ll remember most about our visit to Deir el-Bahri is how blazingly hot it was—temperatures exceeding 100 F in the midday sun are not the ideal conditions in which to focus, but we did our best. There is a café located near the temple and they had reasonably priced cans of Pringles and blessedly cold drinks, which was a godsend for me at this point in our trip (never underestimate the restorative powers of a cold soda and a salty snack).

The Mortuary Temple had been largely destroyed over time, and The Polish Academy of Sciences has done extensive restoration work on the site. Most of the statue and ornamentation has been stolen or destroyed, but so much statuary was produced during her reign that almost every major museum has a piece of Hatshepsut in their collection—the Metropolitan Museum of Art has an entire room dedicated to her.

There are two temples on each end of the second terrace, one dedicated to Anubis and one to the goddess Hathor. Hathor is an ancient Egyptian goddess usually shown as a woman with the head of a cow, ears of a cow, or as a literal cow (check out that necklace on the cow relief above). She is one of the only gods depicted as front facing, instead of in profile, and she was especially important to Hatshepsut, a woman in power.

Hatshepsut died when she was in her mid-40s or early 50s and she was buried behind Deir el-Bahri in the Valley of the Kings. In 1903, Howard Carter discovered Hatshepsut’s sarcophagus but it was empty. In 2007, a mummy, that had been discovered in the tomb of Hatshepsut's royal nurse, was removed from the Valley by Dr. Zahi Hawass. It was missing a tooth, Hatshepsut's existing molar fit and DNA evidence confirmed the match. Her mummy currently resides in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

In November of 1997, 62 people—mostly foreign tourists—were killed at Deir el-Bahari. Members of an Egyptian Islamist organization, armed with automatic weapons and knives, killed two armed guards and then trapped the tourists inside the temple, where they were eventually killed. Bad people and evil acts exist everywhere, but it’s awful to think that such a horrific act could occur at such an impressive and sacred place. Men had once tried to erase Hatshepsut from the history books and men have since tried to scare tourists away from visiting the wonders of Egypt, but luckily, neither have succeeded.

Luxor Temple

Luxor Temple is located on the east bank of the Nile, in the Upper Egyptian city Luxor. There are several temples in Luxor, including Karnak, the Temple of Hatshepsut and the Ramesseum. Construction on Luxor was begun by Amenhotep III (1390-52 BCE), completed by Tutankhamun and Horemheb and then added to by Rameses II. Like Abu Simbel, the entrance to Luxor is flanked by six massive statues of Rameses, two seated and four standing (all that remains of one is the pedestal).

Our tour group received special permission to visit Luxor at night, and thus had the entire complex to ourselves. This was easily one of the best perks that our tour offered, and being able to explore a popular tourist site with just a handful of other people was just as wonderful as it sounds.

Originally, there were two pink granite obelisks standing on either side of the entrance—obelisks usually came in pairs, but most of them have been moved out of Egypt over the years. The second Luxor obelisk currently stands in the the Place de la Concorde in Paris. The remaining 82-foot-tall obelisk sits on a base adorned with four sacred baboons.

Present-day Luxor was once called Thebes, and from medieval times people were living in and around the temple. Accumulated garbage and sand once covered three-quarters of the temple. When Luxor was excavated in the 1960s, a mosque built inside of the temple was preserved and remains active today. In ancient times, a 1.5 mile-long avenue lined with 1,350 human-headed sphinx statues connected Karnak and Luxor temples and is currently undergoing restoration.

The complex includes a colonnade of open-flower papyrus columns and a hypostyle hall, with some of the columns still retaining traces of their once-bright colors. There are several statues inside of the temple, including two representing Tutankhamun, but on each his name has been replaced by that of Rameses II (was he basically the Ancient Egyptian Donald Trump?).

Abu Simbel

Our day trip to Abu Simbel came at the tail end of our two-week Egypt tour, and despite the early morning wake-up call, three-hour bus ride and inevitable temple fatigue, the site still managed to thrill. Built between 1264 BCE and 1244 BCE by the master builder, Rameses II (aka Rameses The Great), Abu Simbel comprises two huge temples carved out of the mountainside.

The main temple is dedicated to the gods Amun, Ra-Horakhty, and Ptah, alongside Rameses himself. Humility was not one of Rameses’s strengths, and the entrance is guarded by four, 65-foot-tall statues of the pharaoh. The statues, while all depicting Rameses, differ ever so slightly and the second from the left was damaged by an earthquake in antiquity—its head and torso remain at its feet (I love that ear!).

The 115-foot-wide facade is topped by a frieze originally made up of 22 baboons and smaller statues positioned at the base of the larger four depict Nefertari—Rameses's favorite wife—queen mother Mut-Tuy, Rameses’s first two sons and first six daughters. Immediately upon entering the main temple, you’re greeted by eight huge pillars, once again fashioned after Rameses himself (the guy was not shy).

The sanctuary is the holiest part of a temple and the one at Abu Simbel is undeniably the best one we saw on our trip. On a back wall sits four, rock cut sculptures—one of Rameses (of course) along with the gods Ra-Horakhty, Amun Ra and Ptah. The Egyptians were so precise that they aligned this sanctuary in such a way that on two days during the year, October 22 and February 22, all of the statues except for Ptah—associated with the underworld—are illuminated by sunlight. We missed the October date by just a few weeks, but the chilling effect is recreated artificially for visitors year-round.

In 1959, with the construction of the Aswan High Dam imminent, a campaign was launched to save the monuments of Nubia that would be threatened by the rising waters of the Nile. Despite one well-received plan to build a dam around the submerged temples complete with underwater viewing chambers (can you imagine this??), beginning in 1964, the temples of Abu Simbel were cut into pieces and moved to a new location 200 feet higher and safely set back from the water.

The smaller temple is dedicated to Hathor and Rameses’s chief wife, Nefertari. This marks only the second time in ancient Egyptian history that a pharaoh dedicated a temple to his queen, but don’t give Ramses too much credit—he couldn’t resist carving himself into the facade alongside Nefertari. The interior of this temple is also lined with columns, but here they are topped with the face of the goddess Hathor.

By the 6th century BCE the statues of the main temple were covered up to their knees in sand. In 1817, my favorite circus-strongman-turned-archeologist, Belzoni, was able to enter the main temple, but it remained partially buried for several decades. This didn’t deter visitors from carving their name into the face of the temple to prove they had made it all the way to Nubia, and like most of the monuments we visited, Abu Simbel has its fair share of historic graffiti.

Nubia is a region of southern Egypt near the Sudan border, and Abu Simbel sits on the western bank of Lake Nasser. Words can’t describe what it’s like to turn the corner and catch your first glimpse of the four towering pharaohs, looking as if they could rise from the seats they’ve occupied for more than 3,000 years and walk right out of the mountainside.

Great Pyramids of Giza

In conjunction with the Great Sphinx, the nearby pyramids were an obvious highlight in our trip to Egypt. The Giza Plateau is the only place in the world where you can still find a Wonder of the Ancient World—of the seven original wonders, the Great Pyramid of Khufu is the only one that remains. The plateau actually contains six pyramids—the three most famous ones plus three smaller subsidiary pyramids—a workers’ village, quarries and several cemeteries.

The three largest pyramids were built by three generations of pharaohs—a grandfather, father and son. The largest and oldest, The Great Pyramid (also known as the Pyramid of Khufu or the Pyramid of Cheops) was built during the Fourth Dynasty between 2580 and 2560 BCE. It is the oldest of the Seven Wonders, and it was constructed for the pharaoh Khufu. It was originally 481 feet, but now due to erosion and the absence of its casing stones, it measures 455 feet (a rod placed at the top shows its original height).

It’s a common misconception that slave laborers built the pyramids. The more than two-million blocks—used to build the Great Pyramid alone—were actually quarried and transported by tens of thousands of skilled (and paid) workers, whose village and tombs were discovered nearby. The limestone building blocks were cut from nearby quarries, the Tura limestone casing stones were quarried across the Nile and the granite used to build the interior chambers was transported from Aswan.

The Great Pyramid is the only of the three that you can currently enter, and it contains three known chambers. I actually entered the pyramid with the rest of our group, but had second thoughts when the corridors began to narrow, so I turned back. It’s impossibly hot and airless inside, and the low ceilings and tight spaces are a claustrophobic nightmare. The King’s Chamber and Queen’s Chamber are connected by the Grand Gallery, and from what I heard they are mostly empty and lack the colorful inscriptions of other tombs.

The second-largest pyramid, the Pyramid of Khafre, is my favorite of the three because it still contains portions of its original limestone casing stones. What an incredible sight it must have been to see all three pyramids as they were originally designed, polished and bright white, gleaming in the sun. The Pyramid of Khafre was originally 471 feet tall and now stands at 448 feet, but because it’s built on slightly higher ground, it looks to be about the same size as the Great Pyramid.

The third, and smallest pyramid is the Pyramid of Menkaure, son of Khafre and grandson of Khufu. Constructed in 2510 BCE, the 213-feet-tall pyramid would be impressive on its own but it is dwarfed by its two more famous neighbors.

The Giza Solar Boat museum was built in 1985 at the base of the Great Pyramid to house Khufu’s reconstructed solar ship. The ship was rediscovered in 1954 buried in a pit near the pyramids. It is one of the oldest, largest, and best-preserved ships from antiquity. Found in 1224 small pieces, the 143’ long, 19.5’ wide ship took years to reassemble.

We were lucky enough to have special early-morning access to the Giza Plateau, and we basically had the entire complex to ourselves for a blissful hour before the hordes of tourists began arriving. On the last day of our trip, we stayed at the Mena House in Cairo, and even after all of the other magnificent temples and tombs we saw along the way, a view of the pyramids still managed to thrill. They are just so massive and otherworldly that photos will never be able to truly convey the feeling you get while standing in their great shadows.

The Great Sphinx of Giza

It may be a cliché answer, but if I had to pick a favorite out of all of the wonders we saw in Egypt, I would have to say the Great Sphinx at Giza. The Giza plateau is the most famous of all the Ancient Egyptian sites and for good reason. I’ve experienced this with other things to a smaller degree, but photographs just can’t compete with the experience of seeing these wonders in person (I say this as a preface to a post containing … photographs 🤷‍♀️). Scale, detail and sense of place are all essential components that are impossible to grasp second-hand.

Because of our tour’s connection to Dr. Zahi Hawass, we had special permissions to meet him at the base of the Sphinx. There is a public viewing platform on the left side, but we were able to stand right in between the great paws and walk around the perimeter of the original, oversized roadside attraction (just a few days before Melania racked up her extravagant hotel bill).

Built in the Old Kingdom circa 2558–2532 BCE for the Pharaoh Khafra—the builder of the second pyramid at Giza—the Sphinx was carved into the bedrock of the plateau. It is 240 feet long from paw to tail, 66 feet high from the base to the top of the head and 62 feet wide at the rear.

“Sphinx” is a Greek word for a mythical winged creature with the head of a woman and the body of a lion. The most famous Sphinx in the world has been called that since antiquity, although the Egyptian version has the head of a man and is not winged.

At one time the Sphinx was buried up to its shoulders in sand and several excavations of the site were attempted over the years as early as 1400 BCE. The entire Sphinx was finally uncovered from 1925 to 1936, and in 1931 repairs were made to the head. Renovations to its base and body were done in the 1980s, and again in the ‘90s, but Dr. Hawass insists that it should never be fully restored and should be allowed to exist as a ruin (I agree).

The Sphinx is famously missing its nose, but the legend that it was broken off by a cannonball from Napoleon’s army is incorrect because sketches that predate Napoleon’s time have been found depicting the Sphinx without a nose. Fragments of a ceremonial beard have also been found, although it may have been added later and therefore would not have been included in the original design. Traces of pigment are remarkably still visible on the face and headdress of the Sphinx, leading experts to believe that it was once brightly painted like most of the stone monuments and temples built by the Ancient Egyptians.

The Sphinx is such a remarkable and enigmatic figure that I found myself completely enchanted by it, thousands of years after its construction. Despite various theories, Dr. Hawass insists that there is nothing hidden within, or underneath the Sphinx, but that hasn’t stopped people from insisting otherwise. It may be the most famous “ruin” in the world, but I was struck by the power it still has to captivate—especially when combined with the pyramids rising majestically behind it.

Valley of the Kings

Most people have heard of the Valley of the Kings in relation to its most famous resident, King Tutankhamun, whose nearly-intact tomb was discovered by Howard Carter on November 4, 1922. The valley contains 63 known tombs, and 18 are open to the public on a rotating basis.

The Valley, located on the west bank of the Nile across from Luxor, was used for burials from approximately 1539 to 1075 BCE. The name is a bit of a misnomer because in addition to Pharaohs, the valley is also the final resting place of nobles, wives and children—only about 20 of the tombs actually contained the remains of kings.

The Valley of the Kings was our first stop after flying to Luxor, and we arrived just after noon (yes, it was very, very hot). The Valley has been a popular tourism destination since antiquity and the tombs contain more than 2,000 instances of graffiti. Members of Napoleon’s expedition visited the Valley in 1799, and Belzoni—former circus strongman and my favorite Egyptian explorer—discovered several tombs in the early 1800s.

Tickets for the Valley of the Kings allow you to visit three tombs of your choice, but separate tickets must be purchased to enter the tomb of Tutankhamun. Purchasing yet another separate photo ticket will allow you take photos inside of some of the tombs, but photography is prohibited completely in others, like KV62 (Tut’s tomb). Carter’s discovery was such a big deal because it was the first time a royal tomb had been found that still contained an intact burial. The tomb had actually been robbed several times in antiquity, but a large amount of funerary treasures still remained in the tomb.

Thieves never discovered the young king’s mummy and it is now displayed in his tomb adjacent to his gilded wooden coffin which lays inside of his sandstone sarcophagus. Aside from a few paintings, there is nothing else to see inside of the small tomb—the rest of his treasures are on display at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and the entire collection is in the process of being moved into the still under-construction Grand Egyptian Museum.

I don’t want to sound bratty and say that I was disappointed with King Tut’s tomb (I was), but I was also pleasantly surprised by the beauty of the other tombs that we toured. The Valley was our first experience with richly decorated tombs, and while they’re all different, they’re all spectacular in their own ways. It’s a shame that most were stripped of their treasures, but I’m glad that the beautiful interiors haven’t remained hidden forever, as originally intended.

KV2, the tomb of Rameses IV, has been open since antiquity but is somehow still covered in colorful carvings and reliefs of scenes from the following funerary texts: Litany of Ra, Book of Caverns, Book of the Dead, Book of Amduat and the Book of the Heavens.

One of the things I was most blown away by in Egypt was the meticulous planning of the Ancient Egyptians, and there were two plans discovered for the layout of KV2—one on papyrus and one inscribed on a slab of limestone. The tomb has three corridors followed by a large chamber and the burial chamber. Past the burial chamber is a narrow corridor and three side chambers. The successors of Rameses III (there were at least eleven Pharaohs that took the name Rameses) constructed and decorated their tombs in a similar style.

KV6 was the final resting place of the 20th-dynasty Pharaoh Rameses IX. There are indications that the tomb was not finished at the time of Rameses's death and that it was rushed to completion. Graffiti left by Roman and Coptic tourists can be seen on the tomb’s walls.

The most dazzling of all the tombs we saw in the Valley of the Kings, however, belonged to Seti I. KV17 was discovered in 1817 by Belzoni, and it also requires a separate ticket for entry. If you only have time to see one tomb in the Valley, I would direct you to this one, which contains beautifully preserved decorations in all but two of its eleven chambers and side rooms. Work on the tomb was abandoned upon the death of Seti, and although photography wasn’t allowed I couldn’t resist snapping a few photos of the unfinished drawings that offer a rare glimpse into the Ancient Egyptian’s artistic process.

Bonus Mummy Content:

In 1881, a tomb-robber discovered a tomb at Deir el-Bahri containing the mummies and funeral equipment of more than 50 kings, queens, and other royalty, including mummies that have been identified as Rameses IX and Seti I. A separate cache was discovered in the Valley of the Kings, containing more than ten mummies, one of which was identified as Rameses IV. The only mummy still in his original tomb is King Tut’s, but the others can be viewed at the Egyptian Museum (no photos allowed in the Royal Mummy rooms) and in the Luxor Museum.

One of the mummies currently at the Luxor Museum took a rather circuitous path to get there. A Canadian doctor purchased one of the mummies from the Deir el-Bahri cache and it soon ended up at the Niagara Falls Museum. The museum exhibited curiosities (my kind of museum) and its collections traveled between Canada and New York before it closed in 1999.

In the 1980's, the mummy was tentatively identified by a German Egyptologist as Rameses I, and when the museum closed it was sold to the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University in Atlanta. The mummy was studied and identified as royal—its arms were crossed right over left on its chest and radiocarbon dating placed the mummy from sometime between 1570 to 1070 BCE. In 2004, it was returned to Egypt and is now resting much closer to its original home, just across the Nile in the Luxor Museum. The Rameses I designation remains controversial, and the placard in Luxor simply identifies it as a Royal Mummy.

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💀 Happy Halloween! 🎃

Saqqara

Located about 19 miles south of Cairo, Saqqara was the necropolis for the Ancient Egyptian capital of Memphis. There is virtually nothing left in present-day Memphis to hint at the city’s former glory, but the Saqqara complex contains several pyramids, tombs and mastabas.

Arguably the star of Saqqara is the famous Step Pyramid of Djoser. It was built from 2667 to 2648 BCE during the Third dynasty for Pharaoh Djoser by his vizier (the highest official to serve the pharaoh), Imhotep. It’s considered to be the first Egyptian pyramid, the earliest large-scale cut stone construction, and the birthplace of architecture. It started off as a traditional mastaba tomb—flat-roofed with sloping sides—and was expanded several times into the 197-foot-high stone and clay pyramid, with six layers built on top of one another.

Under the step pyramid are chambers and galleries totaling more than 3.5 miles in length, with rooms for the king, his family members, and the storage of goods and offerings. The pyramid is surrounded by a large limestone wall and you enter the complex through a nearly-intact colonnade, with 20-foot columns chiseled to look like a bundle of plant stems.

Nearby on the plateau is the Pyramid of Teti. Teti ruled during the Sixth Dynasty in the Old Kingdom from 2345 to 2333 BCE. You wouldn’t immediately know that this large pile of rubble was once a pyramid, but below ground the chambers and corridors are well preserved. Like most of the tombs in Egypt, the pyramid was looted in ancient times but still contains an unfinished sarcophagus (the first of its kind found to contain inscriptions), a lid fragment, beautifully carved walls and a corbeled ceiling.

The Pyramid of Teti also has the honor of being the first and only pyramid that I actually entered fully. I am extremely claustrophobic and the low ceilings and the hot, airlessness was almost too much for me for me to bear.

Teti’s vizier Kagemni is buried in the largest mastaba in the Teti cemetery, located right next to the King’s pyramid. The mastaba was rediscovered in 1843 and while the lower registers of the walls are well preserved, the upper registers have been replaced (and are thus devoid of inscriptions).

The limestone tomb comprises several rooms covered with beautiful scenes (including one that resembled the Ancient Egyptian version of a Rockettes kickline), some still retaining their original colors. This was my very first time seeing tomb reliefs in color and there really is nothing like it. We saw so many more brightly colored temples and tombs on our trip, and it never ceased to be a thrill.

In addition to being our first pyramid(s), Saqqara was also the first time we truly experienced the great Egyptian souvenir gauntlet. We were warned that we would be hassled by vendors, and while it was at times intense (and always annoying), my New York-honed tactics of ignore, ignore, ignore served me pretty well during this outing and subsequent others. The best piece of advice I received about the Egyptian haggling experience was “It’s very cheap to get on the camel, but very expensive to get off.”

Giza Zoo

We arrived in Egypt with one and a half days to spare before our tour officially started. Our first order of business was the Egyptian Museum, but the next day we wanted to do something that didn’t require a taxi ride. The Giza Zoo was located directly across the street from our hotel, so it won by default.

The Giza Zoo opened in 1891 as a botanical garden over an area of about 80 acres. It’s one of only a few green spaces in the city, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that we were literally the only non-Egyptians there. In fact, I think my uncle and I drew significantly more attention than any of the animal exhibits, and several couples asked to take photos with us.

A quick search of the Giza Zoo yields some horrors, such as an article with the title “Giza Zoo Might Be the Worst Zoo in the World.” Luckily, I read these dismal reviews (“not recommended”) after we had spent the day there. While the negative reviews certainly have merit, we thoroughly enjoyed our time exploring the grounds, which are—as my uncle accurately said—in an exquisite state of decay (my preferred state, to be honest).

In 2004, the Giza Zoo was expelled from the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums because it had stopped paying membership fees and began ignoring the association’s recommendations. In 2004, two gorillas thought to be infected with the Ebola virus were killed by zookeepers; in 2006, more than 500 birds were slaughtered to prevent the outbreak of the bird flu; in 2013 a giraffe at the zoo allegedly committed suicide after being hassled by visitors (“don’t teas animals, they have feeling like you") and around the same time three black bears died during a bear riot.

You don’t pay much attention to rules and regulations until you suddenly find yourself in a place without them, and the Giza Zoo felt like we had traveled not only to another county, but to another time as well. A time when you could interact with and feed the animals (for a fee, of course, nothing in Egypt is free) or easily climb into their enclosures. My uncle and I were enamored with the shear volume of stray cats, although we did recognize that it was silly to go all the way to Africa and spend our time gawking at cats (something that we can both do for free in our respective homes).

When I later told others in our group about our day at the zoo, someone mentioned that the zoo had recently been accused of trying to pass off a painted a donkey as a zebra. It turns out that the zebra imposter was found at a different zoo in Cairo, but based on what we had seen at the Giza Zoo, the story seems entirely plausible.

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Giza Zoo
Charles De Gaulle، Road، Oula,
Giza Governorate 12612, Egypt