Alan Irwin’s Blog

DAM(N) GOOD

In the 1960s when Egypt decided to build the High Dam which would create Lake Nasser, flood huge areas of the Nile Valley and drown what was created thousands of year ago, UNESCO with the cooperation of several countries, amassed an international army of scientists, historians, photographers, archaeologists, engineers, geologists and other experts to move not only thousands of antiquities, but entire tombs and temples. In return for their efforts, several countries received enormous collections and even small temples. This feat is almost as extraordinary as the original design and construction of these magnificent sights.

By now, most of you should be familiar with our “coolness scale” which is based on the number of hours we would be willing to sit on a bus in order to see a particular sight. Somehow we need to factor in the start-time. We rose at 3:00 a.m one morning to join an escorted (i.e. armed) convoy of several dozen other minivans, buses, cars and trucks for a 4-hour ride through the desert from Aswan to Abu Simbel, 40 km north of the Sudan border.

Ramses’ Temple and the Temple of Hathor were among those relocated as a result of the High Dam construction. Gigantic tombs… moved 210 meters from the original sight, 61 meters up a mountain… and way off the coolness scale.

Also relocated – from one island to another – is the Temple of Isis at Philae. Like present-day goddesses in our lives, it is intelligently designed, graceful, strong and beautiful. Writing this long after seeing it, I think it is the most beautiful, well proportioned and best located (a nod to our real estate goddess friends) of the temples we’ve seen.

Birthday greetings to the goddesses born this month: Emily, Kalia, Laura H, Marla and Eileen (who passed this year but whose own spirit of discovery continues to inspire).

Next up: Cruisin’ for a Bruisin’.

MOUSSAKA AND MORE

Again, anything with eggplant has been fabulous and the koushari has remained a good fall-back food. The tahina (tahini) has been consistently good as have been the shawarma (grilled meat sandwiches), kofta (spiced, ground, grilled meat balls), the yogurt (full fat) and honey. Pizza is everywhere but we’ve only seen and enjoyed “Egyptian pizza” in Aswan. Filling choices are not particularly unusual but the stuffed crust is a cross between flatbread and a flaky phyllo. Excellent.

Alan and our new Lyonnaise friend (more on him later) enjoyed a chicken and vegetable stew that was redolent with cardamom. I’d like to figure out the recipe for that one.

There’s a condiment of sorts at some of the better restaurants. It’s a mixture of salt, crushed caraway seeds and crunchy bread crumbs. It adds a nice texture and subtle seasoning to just about everything.

Tomatoes are still in high season here and they’re sweet and juicy. They served at every meal with cucumbers that have almost a mild melon flavor and, of course, feta.

Biggest disappointments: The ice cream is similar to Turkish ice cream which is sort of chewy. It’s a little weird and not in a particularly good way. The pastries, no matter what shape they take, all seem to be one note – sugar syrup. The Egyptian equivalent of Greek baklava has no nuts and no honey. The cookies are dry, overly sweet and lacking in butter. (Please remember us if you happen to feel overloaded with too many Christmas cookies this upcoming season.)

Favorite beverage to date: fresh pomegranate juice (and Diet Pepsi in the 1-liter bottle, of course)

ON THE LAMB

The eggplant here is incredible. Sweet, smoky, and aromatic. My moussaka, (Marla’s recipe) made with ground turkey instead of high-fat, high-cholesterol lamb and grilled instead of fried eggplant, is really quite good but it would, I’m afraid, benefit from some of that high-fat, high-cholesterol lamb… and probably copious amounts of oil…

Our friend, great cook and editor of Edible Santa Barbara had this to say: “Of course it’s the lamb. They probably have incredible, free-range, heritage breed lambs there. My mouth is watering just thinking of it.”

With that in mind, click on the photo to see our album with more of those woolly heritage breed critters ranging freely in front of their feed trough in the little alleyway a few steps from our hotel.

KICKING ASWAN

For those of you not (yet) into Twitter, here’s Alan’s first tweet from Aswan: “Aswan is a sleepy little town. Harriet bought two souvenirs and then slept for 12 hours. Bargaining is hard.”

Aswan is a nice little city on the Nile – sort of the Cancun of Egypt with dozens of cruise ships disgorging tourists on a daily basis. The major souk street is several blocks long and partially shaded so it makes for a pleasant enough pedestrian mall despite the constant badgering by shop keepers dependent on tourists for their economic survival. There are the usual lines (in English, French, German, Spanish) — Where you from; Special price for you; No charge for looking; No hassle; How much you want to pay? — and there were a few that actually got our attention: Aloha; Only one million; and our favorite, Hello Mrs. Kojack.

The stuff is mostly schlock, except for the pashmina scarves that I’m pretty certain are imported from India, so there was little temptation to shop. (For those of you joining us for Thanksgiving, don’t despair; we’ll be sure to pick up your schlock – I mean, party favors — in Cairo.)

NOBLE ENDEAVORS

After shunning the touts who wanted to charge 25 Egyptian pounds (about $4.50), we joined the locals for a short ferry ride (about 18 cents) across the Nile. Steered by the Duffus Brothers, as Alan named them, men were seated in front, women in back. (No Rosa Parks anywhere in sight.) Engine failure, panicky brothers, boat change, no one surprised – just like an average day on MUNI.

Quick fashion note: Speaking of women in back or in black, Nubian women, for the most part, wear the all-black jalabas with black beading (nice tone on tone) or vertical silver designs for a little fashion flair. Except that I know they must feel like portable saunas, I appreciate the interesting patterns and subtle differences.

Once on the western bank, we hiked up the sandy hill to the Noble Tombs which were carved out of the granite mountainside, the final resting place for the priests, princes and governors who controlled the Nubian trade. This was our first encounter, up close and personal, with columns and walls elaborately etched with hieroglyphics and drawings – in situ. And save for a nice guy from San Francisco and the camel taxis at the base, we had the entire site to ourselves. Very cool.

From there we decided to follow the lush shoreline toward the mausoleum of the Aga Khan and St. Simeon’s monastery. Problem: nowhere to walk along the water’s edge. Solution: walk along the sand dunes. Problem: Sand … and heat (Alan describes the hike as stupidly long, idiotically hot. I would describe it as wandering in the desert for 40 years cloaked in a fleece-lined down jacket.) So NOW where are the freakin’ camel guys when you need them? Evidently, even the camels stage a strike every now and then. Those beasts of burden are smarter than we give them credit. They were certainly smarter than us.

After one hot eternity, we arrived at the mausoleum where the tourist policeman sized us up as the sort of people who wouldn’t pay baksheesh (bribe), which is true, and told us the joint was closed. Fine. So we shuffled back down toward the water in hopes of hitching a falucca (boat) ride with some tourists who might soon be returning from their camel trek to the monastery. We failed at hitching a ride on their 30-seater ferry and instead paid someone to row us back to the east bank in his tiny dingy with oars of rough chopped 6x6s. No blades, no handles, just barely squared, splintered logs. For a mere 10 pounds Egyptian, the going rate for this sort of thing, this guy really needs to consider joining the camel union.

* * *

Kudos to Laura L who caught our 80s girl band gaff. It was the Bangles, not the Go Gos who sang “Walk Like an Egyptian” however, the Go Gos did “Vacation” so we were writing with the same spirit (and big hair).

As for the pop quiz about the Great Pyramid of Cheops being only the second largest structure ever built, the correct answer (from my Cadogan Guide) is the pyramid of Cholula in Mexico. That was built 4,000 years later and mostly destroyed by the Spanish, so we’ll give partial credit to those who guessed the Great Wall or care to do more extensive research.

For those of you feeling creative, we’ve added a new feature to the blog called, “Caption, My Caption.” Challenge number one: Provide a caption for this mosaic on the terrace wall of Happy Land Hotel, Luxor.

* * *

Next up: Dam(n) Good

STRAY THOUGHTS, STRAY CATS

The ancient Egyptians may have revered their cats but the present-day Egyptians… not so much. It’s not uncommon to see bands of felines begging for food. Some are a bit aggressive, although their small size is a testament to the failure of their approach.

If one were to believe in reincarnation, the sweet kitty we encountered at Edfu Temple would fit the bill. It wandered around among groups of tourists, doing some serious people-watching in that weird way that only cats can focus on a single subject for an inordinate amount of time, and seemed to be welcoming everyone to her/his granite digs. It loved being stroked although I never heard it purr…. or maybe I just didn’t understand the accent.

WALK LIKE AN EGYPTIAN (Cue Go-Gos music…)

Our hotel is in the relatively quiet island neighborhood known as Zemalek. The shops are more upscale and cater to employees of the many embassies located in the area. (The U.S. embassy, however is not in Zemalek and we seriously doubt it looks like one of the many colonial structures guarded by a single skinny dude trying to stay awake in his tiny wooden guard shack.)

Though taxis are cheap and plentiful, I am unquestionably the former and we prefer to walk anyway. So walk we did. For hours. Many of them lost. Most of them lost.

When I say “lost” I don’t mean we were all alone with no one to ask for directions. We were far off the beaten path of tourists, but fully merged into the heavily pummeled path of locals. I mean we were two grains of sand amidst this infinite desert of people, cars, micro buses, more cars, trucks, taxis and… have I mentioned cars?

Our maps were useless at this point as what little signage there was was in Arabic, and stopping to ask for directions posed a threat as moving to the left would land us under a bus, moving to the right would get us creamed by a guy with a blow torch, and stopping would cause a major break in the flow for the cart piled precariously with 4x4s or a burro carrying a few hundred pounds of aluminum tubs. So on we walked.

We decided that a little street food would fortify us in our traffic-phobic meandering and stopped at a clean(ish) place with a friendly proprietor and what appeared to be his enthusiastic following. Turned out that he’s popular because he makes some of the best liver and mokh (deep-fried brains) in town. Maybe we didn’t need so much fortification after all.

Eventually, we bumbled into Islamic Cairo and found sanctuary within the Medieval walls along stone-paved, car-free streets, with ornate mosques and historical merchants’ homes. It also happened to be the wholesale hookah district. Good to know had we been in the market for a water pipe.

Food highlight: Ravioli stuffed with lamb and apricots in a light cream sauce; ravioli stuffed with chicken in a mallow sauce. The pasta was fresh and perfectly al dente but very chintzy on the stuffing. Mallow… the taste is similar to parsley but it produces a glutenous, slimy sauce. Think oozing okra. The “light cream sauce” was really a cheap white sauce and needed a heap o’ Parmesan for some flavor. Must try making my own lamb & apricot stuffing for ravioli. (Anyone want in on the experiment?)

COPPING OUT

The next day, we chose to walk fewer kilometers, save a few hours, and experience Africa’s first metro. An excellent move. (pun intended)

The Coptics came to Caro around the second century A.D. We showed up on Friday.

Housed in the fortress of Qasr el Shamah, the Coptic museum boasts a small but stunning collection from Egypt’s Christian era which linked the pharonic with the Graeco-Roman periods. Within the complex are several churches, the Ben Ezra synagogue (founded in the 9^th century but occupying the shell of a 4^th century Christian church), and the church of our hometown gal, Saint Barbara. Nothing like a good story of beheading and martyrdom to end our day in Coptic Cairo.

We took our dinner and accommodations on the overnight train to Aswan.

Food highlight: Inedible dinner; breakfast of 4 different forms of white bread plus processed cheese spread. Excellent service.

Oxymoron highlight: “Sleeper” car

Next up: KICKING ASWAN

NOTE: Clicking here or on any picture will take you to the album