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This page was last updated on Saturday, 17 November 2007 09:40:25 PM
Sacred Tours for 2007

Egypt
In July 2007 we investigated the Abu Sir pyramid complex over 5,000 years old, (see photo to the right) visited the Cairo Museum, naturally one gets to see the Nile, ride a camel around the pyramid / sphinx "Giza" complex, see a tomb or two and get to eat at a family BBQ (Egyptian style of course) Interesting place Cairo, you can get your visa at the airport prior to customs formalities, plain clothes secret police will ask you before and after customs control what are are doing in Egypt and where are you staying, you will be requested to show your passport.
Egypt likes to keep their tourists in the tourist areas, I was staying with friends so it's completely different but even so I got swamped by taxi and baggage hawkers. You can be polite but for how long, you are hassled beyond belief, worse then a child screaming for some lolly at the supermarket check out. You can give them the no speak't the language or talk to the hand routine but eventually you crack and you let fly with every known swear word in the book. Most of the ATM machines in Cairo are MasterCard so Visacard holders like me had problems, to get money from official banks required presentation of passport. I personally found when shaking hands the men did not present a straight up and down vertical handshake rather their hand was horizontal so they could lay their hand over your hand, rather strange custom but you would do well to understand the meaning and "your hand was palmed with silver" this hand shake method allows them to give and receive gratuities, for the record the Egyptian word is Baksheesh.
		In July, August, Cairo is definitely hot and dusty and looks as if it needs torrential rainfall for weeks on end to clean away the dirt, yet its only now that I have come to realise that on the unconscious level it's not the drab or the desert dirt it's the lack of completeness. I mean it's there from the outset the buildings, the houses, the villas nothing is finished nothing is completed.
And the reason, well its quite simple. The Government or council only charge owners of property a building or construction tax when the building project is finished or completed. So it stands to reason why finish a building when you have to pay tax .... so when you have pyramids at Saqqara, Abu Sir, Memphis, Giza and Sphinx that are in their current state of decay, and tourists are coming to see ruins .... why complete your own dwelling place.
In the back streets of the outer suburbs, life exists where one sits in the shadows, out of the sun's glare and repressive heat, waiting for the sun to go down, so you can bring out your mats and roll out your carpets and lay out on the parched ground and prepare your evening meal, this is the area that tourists don't come.
	This is a land of donkeys and carts getting the fresh produce from locally tilled land, the street canals are lined with trees that bring the colour green to your senses, your body feels the sandy, gritty atmosphere clinging to your skin, this is not some holiday home at the beach.
You can hear the canal pumps, each beating to their own rhythmical cycle, each pump is periodical placed to maximise the waters of life out of the street canal and into the irrigational channels to the small pockets of arable land that's still under cultivation .. the same tilled land for which the donkey and his master were taking the produce to the market.
40 metres below the city of Cairo lies the largest underground natural reservoir in the world, even though it hasn't rained in months and months when the water reaches the surface it is refreshingly cold and invigorating, its is one of the unique wonders of this world. For a land of the Egyptian myth and the multiplicity of Gods to the monotheism view of one god espoused by Akhenaton to the commonly held Muslim view of today, Allah as the one and only true God, this is indeed an interesting paradox. Strange in a land where nothing is complete and in decay, the opportunity exist seven times a day for a Muslim devotee to go to prayer and think of only higher thoughts and a build a personal relationship with his or her maker, contrast that to the western man/woman where the trip to prayer is once a week. Who then is on the true path of self realization, perhaps the concept of "love one another as I have loved you" is more pronounced as a way of life, as do the words at the Delphi Temple "know thy self" is equally true for those who see their Psychiatrist. What ever teaching one takes and there will be many roads a devotee will take, a true spiritual warrior's heart and soul will resonate on to the path that leads to the truth. This is a tour for the physical experience.

Some info for vegetarians: The Egyptian BBQ, a sheep is purchased live at the market, a Muslim halal butcher is hired to prepare the meal. A cut off steel 44 gallon /220 litre drum is used as the BBQ, a pedestal electric fan is turned on to produce airflow to heat the coals, and meat is put on skewers, no salads, no fruit, no vegetables, no deserts only meat plus bread is served.

Copyright Jeffrey Shaw 20th October 2007 Check this section for travel updates for 2008 Sacred Tour