Day at the Zoo.

Recently, after the oasis trip, I took a trip to the Giza Zoo, which at one time, was one rated the best zoo in the world in the 1930’s. The zoo even has a historical bridge that joins two areas of the zoo together that was designed and build by Mr. Eiffel himself, the same man that build the Eiffel tower in Paris, France. Also, the Giza zoo was claimed to be the best zoo in Africa, which I find ironic because to me, a zoo is place made so people who don’t live in Africa can visit and see the native African and other continental wildlife, such as the Nile Crocodile, in which hometowns in the U.S. and the world, not 100 yards from the Nile River itself, have. However, all this great history aside, the zoo now is quite sad and was recently removed from the international zoo associations membership for its lack of care for the animals and living conditions… Anyway, I had heard about the Giza zoo from a classmate of mine who had just went the previous week and had held a baby lion. My friend Jessica and I were determined that we too would hold a baby lion. So, now you can see from the pictures, that I am a man of my word and that I have held a baby lion, in Africa.

My Oases Trip- Just a little late...

Hello again! Just to give an update as to the things that are going on with me here, I have been pretty busy with some trips and school but I have finally found a minute to sit down and write out the adventures I have had here in the past weeks.

In Egypt, immediately following Ramadan, is another holiday called Eid. Eid is end the month long fasting that takes place during Ramadan, in which everyone can celebrate their achievements of making it through Ramadan, by eating, spending time with their families and giving gifts. For me, this meant no school. So to fill the time for the non-Moslem students here, the Arabic Language Institute at the AUC organizes some great trips for students to go on during the holidays. The trip that I signed up for was a 4-day trip to the western oases of Egypt, called Bahariya, Dakla, Al- Kharga and also to the Black and White Deserts. FYI the last oasis Al- Kharga is where the Italian tourists departed from about 2 days before they were kidnapped and taken into Sudan and Libya, a week prior to our arrival.

Day 1 Bahariya
Our tour bus left downtown Cairo at 7am Tuesday Morning and we had a 4 hour drive southwest from Cairo to the smallest of the desert oases, Bahariya. I had no idea what to expect for these oases in general, and my mental picture was a small patch of palm trees and a small lake or watering hole surrounded by sand dunes in the middle of the desert.

When we got to Bahariya, we found the oases to be huge and not what I had imagined. I got the palm trees part correct, but from what we were told by our AUCian Egyptologist tour guide, that there were over a million palm trees in Bahariya, and every single one of them had thousands of dates (the fruit or tAmur) hanging off of them, just ready to be eaten. In total the whole oases was as big as the town of Fallon, Nevada with palm trees everywhere and small lakes here and there throughout the area.

The way that the desert oases in Egypt are formed, comes through natural depressions in the earth crust, in which the oasis sits, about 1000ft lower the desert plateau that rest of Egypt lies upon. Within these depressions, there are natural fissures in the ground that allow for some large quantities of water to escape large underground rivers and aquifers that exist under the desert. We were told that the aquifers and underground rivers were so large, that a recent NASA space mission, took a radar image of the Egyptian desert, from space, and could easily point out and follow the contour of the flowing waterways. So, from these fissures, there was a large amount of water that rises to the surface and creates these oases in the desert.

After arriving to our hotel, which was extremely nice, even by western standards, it also resembled an oasis within the oases, as the hotel was a circular one, with the rooms being the outside border and there being a large garden in the middle that all of the rooms opened into. I would definitely suggest staying here again.

After checking in we got back on the bus and went to some nearby tombs that were found in the ground about 10 years ago. We arrived at the tombs and were greeted by the man who discovered them, as he was the senior antiquities manager for the oasis, and he took us on a guided tour of the tombs or Bahariya. The tombs or Baharirya was dug around 300B.C. in the 26th Dynasty of the Egyptians. The tombs are quite smaller than the ones at Luxor or the Pyramids, however, there were dug entirely out of solid rock, that exists under the desert sand. The tombs sat about 20ft below ground, and were perfectly preserved, with the original color paintings on the walls still bright, as well as perfectly carved stone and rooms. In each of the tombs, there was an initial entrance, then a large room about 6 ft tall, with four large stone columns carved out. Surrounding this main room were smaller rooms in which the mummies and scarphogi were buried. The tombs were made for local governance officials as well as other nobles of the Egyptian rulers at the time. Inside, they found 6 full mummies with some gold plated coverings still intact. These tombs were great as not only did that have some A/C in them, which no other tombs in Egypt had, but that they do not get the large amount of tourists to ruin them. It was an honor to see them first hand. I have one picture that I took here. They took the mummies to a nearby museum, in which were allowed to go to, but in general is not open to the public. Thank you AUC!

Something funny: For a little background on the tombs here in Egypt as a whole, there is a comical thing that I have discovered, along with my friend Jessica. The way that most tombs in Egypt have been discovered has not been through technology or perseverance on behalf of the local Egyptologist or Archeologists, but instead by local donkeys. Most of the major tombs, including Tutankhamen in Luxor, 4 temples and tombs in the Oases Deserts including Bahariya, Dakla and Al Kharga, the Roman Outpost in Cairo, as well as the entrance to the pyramids of Sakara, have all been found by donkeys walking along the desert and falling into the open tombs below. From there the tombs are uncovered and excavated. So, it is the running joke of my friend Jessica and I, to let a herd of donkeys strapped with GPS go wild in the desert, in any direction they want, and as soon as we see one fall into the sand, we will have struck gold and new piece of Egyptian history.

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The Deserts of the Black and White, and the Accident in between.

The next morning we arose to breakfast at the hotel of normal Egyptian food, bread, foul (beans, my favorite!) and vegetables. After breakfast we stepped outside to see a long convoy of 4x4 Land Rovers parked in the driveway of the hotel. This was to be our transportation for the day to the Black and White Deserts and then on to Dahkla.

We drove through the Black Desert on our way to the White Desert, which earns its name from the black iron dusting that exists on the ground as far as the eye can see. It is here that Egypt scrapes the iron off the sand and then melts it down to make steel. It is quite a sight to see, like none I have seen in the U.S. so far, and when I was standing in the middle of it, I felt like I was visiting another planet.

After we had left the Black Desert, we proceed to the White Desert. However, we had a minor, but luckily not worse, accident on the way. Let me explain…

I and three others were lucky enough to be riding in the lead 4x4 of our convoy and our driver Mustafa was the leader of all the drivers. As we were driving for a while, Mustafa looked in the rearview mirror and noticed that none of the other 4x4’s were behind us. We stopped and waited for a sec and then turned around to see where the other Land Rovers where. As we drove back down the road, Mustafa and I had a bad feeling about why the other vehicles were not behind us. Soon, I could see a group of Land Rovers in the road, with some of them off the road. I knew something was wrong, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I stuck my body out the window as we were driving and I saw the Land Rovers strewn about everywhere on the road and a few far off the road. Finally, when we arrived to the group, I noticed that about 90% of the vehicles had damage on them. Especially, the two that were far off the road. So, basically, there was a massive pile up that took place and we missed the whole thing.

What had happened was the Land Rover behind my vehicle had stalled and pulled to the side of the road. The driver followed protocol for such and incident and waved to the next Land Rover after his to stop. The second Land Rover that stopped to see if all was alright, had stopped right in the middle of the road next the broken Land Rover. Soon, a third vehicle who do not see the other stopped in front of them, shot right between the two stopped vehicles, shaving off the side paneling and the mirrors of all three vehicles as it smashed through. Soon, a 4th, 5th and 6th vehicle had smashed through the now dusty area and had hit the first few vehicles. The Land Rover that got it the worst was the very last vehicle. Our ALI secretary, Mrs. Sherine, was sitting in the front seat of the last Land Rover and as it smashed directly into the back of another parked Land Rover, she proceeded to fly into the windshield and cut her head severely.

When my Land Rover arrived I immediately got out and tried to assess the situation. Most of the students were dazed and shaken up, but not injured. However, there were 4 people including Sherine that were pretty badly hurt, mostly coming from the last two vehicles, with concussions and cuts. A few of us attended to those that were hurt and also the drivers who were very upset for crashing into each other.

The most amazing thing about this accident is that even though we were 150 miles away from either oasis and any sort of clinic or aid station, in either direction, about 20 minutes after we had started first aid on those that needed it, another Land Rover was driving towards us. It just so happens that the driver was the only doctor in the area of both the Bahariya and Dahkla oasis. Amen to Murphy’s Law once again, as the most improbable thing, just might be the most probable. The doctor deemed everyone ok and gave some painkillers to those that needed them. The drivers pushed the worst of the Land Rovers to the side to the road, meaning that two were totally broken and out of commission and to be left in the desert for another day or two or however long it would take to retrieve them.

When we arrived at Dahlka, the Egyptian Military made us report the accident, as word travels fast, even in the desert. We waited for three hours in the bus and a nearby café to the military checkpoint until all injured people and all of the drivers had written down what had happened and that all injuries were attended too. All and all, it was still a great day it could have been much worse, maybe even fatal. Thank God it was not so and for being in the first Land Rover! More stories to come.

My Other Blog

I have created another blog to help convey some of my frustration or excitement about the world around me and I will be posting videos there from time to time to share with you all. I encourage you to watch if you have the time. Thanks!

Mike

http://mikegrafsvideos.blogspot.com/