A Few Memories of Almati Before Continuing on the Silk Road

An amusement park in the sky - or on the mountain overlooking Almati.

Yes, we are really here - in Kazakhstan.

 

We rode up to this mountain amusement park on this cable car.

When I thought of coming to the Silk Road, I never imagined this sight.

Final glimpse of Almati, as we start the 4-5 hour road trip to Bishkek and the Kyrgyz Republic - Kyrgyzstan.

Almati, continued

We met our guide, Jama, and the rest of our Road Scholar tour group this morning.  We then spent the day getting the feel for Almati, the biggest city in Kazakhstan. Today afforded a small taste of this enormous country (the ninth largest in the world, and the wealthiest of the Stans). Almati is the jumping off point for our tour of the Silk Road. Tomorrow we head for Bishkek Kyrgzstan.

Paul at the Falcon Center puts a raptor through its paces. 

Sergei, on horseback, with another big bird.

Zenkov Cathedral is being refurbished. It is one of Almati's few surviving tsarist-era buildings.

St Nicholai Church.  Stalin closed all the churches in the USSR except this one.

Mosaic wedding in the subway station.

Almati Kazakhstan

Dostyk Hotel

Thirty hours after we left our home in Portland, OR we meet Igor, a tall well sculpted blond young man (note from Taylor: Jamar is sleep deprived at the moment, but Igor may represent the Viking gene pool in Kazakhstan), at the airport in Almati. He drives us to the Dostyk Hotel, gives us a few words of advice and leaves us to our own devices.  We walk into our room around 1 a.m.,  exhausted.  Jamar's ankles have become their own entity giving a new visual for the term hub caps.

The next morning, Friday, we sleep until 10:30. We find the Traveler's Coffee House for morning coffee, followed by lentil soup and a walk. At first exposure Almati feels quite European. I'm not sure what I expect to see in Almati, but I don't expect this guy.

Fortunately, the signage on the shops looks more like my idea of Central Asia.

Merchandise on the shelves of the mini market further meet my expectations.

After purchasing Taylor's Coke Zero, the sales clerk says, "Dasvidaniya." Does this surprise me, or I did I know that Russian is the spoken language here?

One more full night's sleep should improve our currently fuzzy mental state. As of now, all is well in this part of Kazakhstan.

The Silk Road 2018

Taylor and I are on our way to The Silk Road!!!! We leave Portland on Wednesday August 29 at 7:00 am, and we arrive in Almaty Kazakhstan on Thursday August 30 (at 11:50 pm local time).  We like to say we are going to "the Stans".  This means we will visit all the countries that have the final syllable "stan", except for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

One of the hopes for ourselves and for you readers is to be able to say the names of the five countries we will visit.  If any of us manage to be able to spell the names of the countries as well, we should get a huge reward. Shall we organize a Spelling Bee?

Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan
Tajikistan
Uzbekistan
Turkmenistan

 We will stop off in the Netherlands on our way home, to break up the long journey,  and to spend some time with Iris' parents.  As if not spelling challenged enough, we plan to visit Aachen (Germany).  Since we will be in the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium territory I'm sure there will be even more spelling challenges.

Queen Hatshepsut's Temple

We have now seen more temples than I can count, without looking at our itinerary.  I'm feeling a little dazed, but still enjoy the cruising life.

With the red carpet, I kind of feel like royalty as I go back and from from ship to shore.

Like everyone else, we have a room with a view.  When we are lucky enough to be in our room we look out on Luxor Temple.

The highlight of today's temple tour was definitely Hatshepsut Temple. This is a mortuary temple.  Mortuary temples were built near royal tombs in Ancient Egypt.  Right up the road from here are the Valley of the Queens, and the Valley of the Kings. Temples were designed to commemorate the reign of the Pharaoh under whom they were constructed and then would further be used by the pharaoh's cult after death.  Hatshepsut Temple's architecture is remarkable and uses materials not found locally. It is also interesting because the Pharaoh who built it was a woman! Queen Hatshepsut was the stepmother of pharaoh Thutmose III and through various twists and turns of history she herself eventually became the pharaoh. She was the longest reigning female pharaoh, and accomplished much for Egypt. Well done, Queen Hatshepsut!

Hatshepsut Temple looks very modern to me, compared to the others we have seen. It was built between 1479-1458 BCE so it is another young temple.  It's built right into the side of a mountain.  Materials used in this temple come from all over Africa and Arabia. Further up the road from here are royal burial tombs that are also dug into the mountain sides.

Multiple statues of Queen Hatshepsut line the upper entrance terrace.  She is wearing a beard.  According to hieroglyphic stories, pharaohs always "strapped" on a beard when doing their royal business.

 And after a long day of admiring the work of ancient pharaoh's it's time to return to The Senator, and the elephant in the room.

I continue to be amazed by the bath towel sculptures.  I guess this is part of the cruising culture.

Young Temples: Temple of Edfu and Kom Ombo Temple

Our journey on the Nile continues in a very relaxed manor. The accommodations on The Senator make me feel as if I'm in a British colonial novel  The lounge is very comfortable, and the passing view is pleasant.

The lounge on The Senator makes me think that this is the Mohonk of the Nile (Mohonk Mountain House is my favorite old hotel in upstate New York)

The edges of the Nile are lush and green, but desert soon overcomes the green.

Edfu Temple
We aren't allowed to relax for long. After all there are temples to see, and adventures to experience.  We leave The Senator and jump into carriages for the drive through the town of Edfu, headed for Edfu Temple.

Carriages seem to be the preferred choice of transport in Edfu.  These carriages are also known as  Egyptian Ferrari.

We no sooner take off in our Egyptian Ferrari than I made the mistake of smiling at a man on the street.  Before we knew it, he was in the carriage with us!  Naturally  he had a shop somewhere and wanted us to come see his goods.

Here are some tourists negotiating prices on carriage rides.

After our carriage ride our immediate goal is to visit Edfu Temple  This is the youngest temple we have seen so far.  It is also one of the largest temples in Egypt, dedicated to the Falcon God Horus and built in the 2nd century BC.

The Temple of Edfu, dedicated to the Falcon God Horus.

Front door.

Here he is, the falcon god, Horus. He is a sky god, protector of Egypt. He is wearing the crown of upper and lower Egypt.

We take the carriage back to The Senator where we enjoy more of the Nile...................and shopping.  There is always shopping.

This row of shops is right outside our cabin window.

I still have not gotten weary of the river view.

Kom Ombo Temple
Although we get lunch and a little rest mid day, we still get to soldier on to view yet another temple.  It seems that two temples a day is the minimum for this trip.  Next on tap is Kom Ombo Temple.  This is a very young temple, built in 119 BC. An interesting fact about this temple is that it was at one point in it's existence defaced by Copts and used as a Christian church.

Kom Ombo Temple is dedicated to Sobek, the god of strength and power.  Egyptians feared and worshiped him.

Here he is - Sobek.

Crocodiles are carved everywhere in this temple.  And, hundreds of crocodile mummies were preserved and later found in the temple.  We saw many of these mummies in the Crocodile Museum.

The ears have it!  If you pray to these ears, they will listen and you will get a response - from the priest standing behind the wall.

As usual, it's been a busy day.  Lest we forget, we are cruising on the Nile and we have another towel sculpture to remind us.  Good night to the Nile, and good night to the peacock.

Transition from Lake Nasser to the Nile

This will be our last day on the Omar Khayam and Lake Nasser. Later today we will arrive in Aswan.  We will disembark from the Omar Khayam and move into a smaller ship, The Senator. Omar Khayam has been our introduction to cruise ships, and I must say we have enjoyed ourselves.  In addition to providing a comfortable journey it provided a means for us to see the remote Nubian portion of Egypt.After today we will travel the more populated areas north of Aswan Dam.  In other words, we move back to civilization more like we know it.

Before we get to Aswan, there is another temple for us to explore:  Kalabsha Temple.

This temple, like the ones we have already seen, has been moved to avoid being flooded when the Aswan Dam was built.  This is the youngest of the temples we have seen so far.  It was built by the Roman Emperor Octavius Augustus from 30 to 14 BC.

One of those two little boats is what we take to get back and forth from our ship to Kalabsha Temple.

This is one of the small temples off the the side of the main event.

Front door

I was surprised to see petroglyphs, not so different from the ones found in Oregon and Washington.

Kalabsha Temple is the last Nubian temple that we will see.  Our next stop is Aswan.  As you can see from the photo, Aswan Dam, which created Lake Nasser, is immense.

Aswan Dam

I still can't believe I'm in Egypt and here I am, overlooking Aswan Dam.

While the Omar Khayam was certainly luxurious by our standards, The Senator, which is much smaller had an elegance that we weren't prepared for.  Although unprepared we settled right in to life on a ship with only 16 cabins.  

Before checking in to our cabins, we all enjoyed a welcome drink in the lounge.

AFter the welcome drink, and lunch, we left The Senator and enjoyed a felucca ride on the Nile. This was a very relaxing introduction to the city of Aswan.

Here's our Nubian captain, steering the felucca, playing the drum and singing.

Our captain and his assistant.

This is the old Cataract Hotel.  Agatha Christie wrote some of Death on the Nile while staying here.  

Back on The Senator, after our felucca ride, we sat on the top deck and enjoyed the river and the sun.

Lots of felucca's drifted by as we enjoyed relaxing on the top deck.

The sunset, and the lights on the tombs across the river, give our view from The Senator a magical quality.  The structure on top is a tomb.

This has been another perfect day on the Nile.