It’s been a long time since I visited Egypt; Mubarak was still in power, but I still have strong memories. I noticed the huge posters with Mubarak’s face. They were all in a line on the median of one of the streets. This seems to be a trademark of dictators. In Baby Doc’s Haiti, I noticed billboards with pictures of ‘the Haitian family’ on them.
But, back to Egypt. at the time of my visit, there were armed guards at the hotels, and on the trains, presumably to protect tourists, but there might have been other reasons. In any case, I felt safe, even as a solo female traveler. I noticed that Egyptian women (at least in the places I visited) did not go out alone. They were either with a man, or with one or two other women. Although few wore the hijab, they were dressed conservatively, with their arms and legs covered. Not wishing to make myself too conspicuous, I kept my legs covered to below the knees, and my arms covered to the elbows. I was still pretty conspicuous. Cairo has a subway system with carriages especially for women. I preferred to travel in the women-only carriages; the women eyed me as I stood in the crowded carriage.
The reason for my visit was twofold. I wanted to conduct research for my novel Star’s Reflection, and I was on a personal pilgrimage to the old temples. My fiance and I had planned to go to Egypt, and after he died, I decided that I would go solo, a ritual of mourning. He and I had wanted to walk in the footsteps of the priests and priestesses of the ancient temples. The temples were breathtaking. I was in awe of their grandeur, the colours of the paints still clinging to the walls after thousands of years. The statues pulsed with the accumulation of those years.
I went to Luxor, not only to visit the famed temple of Karnak but because, from there, I could travel to the temple at Dendera, the temple of Hathor (or Het Heru, the name I use in the novel). The temple that now stands was built in the time when the Greeks had taken over control of Egypt. The ancient kings of Egypt would sometimes build their temples using the materials and site of a previously erected temple, and this is the case at Dendera, modeled on the temple that was even older. The temple’s mud-brick encircling walls had crumbled, but the temple structure was well preserved, although emptied of its altars and statues. Still, I kneeled before the place where the altar would once have been. The guide/guard respected my moment of privacy in that place.
At Karnak, the temple’s sacred pool was filled with water, but at Dendera, the pool was dry; palm trees reached skyward from the floor of the former pool, which would have been filled by a system of channels.
On the train to Cairo, I looked from the window at the passing scenes. It seemed that the countryside must have changed little from ancient times: women beat carpets outdoors; donkeys carried loads; the sun rose hot and red on the horizon. In Cairo, the museum pool grew the blue lotus flowers that were prized in ancient times, and the Nile, though now dammed, is as important as ever.
In may ways, it was the museums that gave me a better idea of the artifacts and lives of the ancients. I made inexpert drawings of the tools and household items that would have been used. But the old temples, teeming with groups of tourists, gave me a true feel for the scale and glory of these places, the care, work and love that went into erecting them, the incredible knowledge of those ancient architects and builders.
My time in Egypt was too short. I would have liked to have visited the temple of Seti I in Abydos, and the temple in Abu Simbel, built by Ramesses II (which I mention briefly in the novel as the temple that he planned to build). I felt something from that land had formed a permanent part of myself. Perhaps, one day, I will get a chance to visit it again.
