The Great Sphinx

Nile River "green belt," where most tourist attractions are located.  The Sphinx is toward the top.

It's high season in Egypt now and when I was there last month, a veritable crush of tourists was swarming the Giza Plateau.  It's home to the tallest pyramids and of course the Sphinx, the Great Sphinx, the famous half-man, half-lion figure bellied down silently onto the desert floor for nigh on four thousand years now.  Yes, four thousand.

Arguably the most famous statue in the world, certainly one of the largest, over the millennia the Sphinx has become more than a symbol of ancient Egypt.  It's become the embodiment of mystery associated with one of the earliest and grandest civilizations in history.  

After centuries of research, archaeologists now know much about the ancient Egyptians -- with still more, of course, that they don't.  For example, they're still haggling over exactly how the Great Pyramids were built.  And exactly where that the ancient Egyptians came from.

Did I say that the Sphinx has been perching there silently all this time?  Well, not according to some locals anyhow.  While running the gauntlet of souvenir stalls, camel jockeys offering rides, agents offering personalized tours, etc., I came upon a man claiming that the mysterious figure is not so silent after all.

"Ohh, but the Great Sphinx, it speaks," he informed we passers-by, with wide-eyed fervor.  "It does?" I paused in mid-step.  "Yes, but only if you know how to listen," he went on.  

He pulled back the curtain to a stall to reveal a woman with head covered of black veil, the classic burka, with only a slit for the eyes.  She awaited next to a tray of crystals pointing up crazily at different angles, obviously a type of crystal ball.

The man smiled like he knew a great secret and nodded me in toward her.

   Smaller version of the Sphinx in Memphis.  Note row of stalls    

behind me, to be passed by as you enter the site.

     Our tour group, before statue of Ramses the Great.  Note that I'm the only

     one there without shades on.  Big mistake.

Stepped pyramid or stepped tomb at Saqqara, a necropolis, where ancient Egyptian royalty are buried.  Another of the archaeological sites we visited that day on our tour.  You can go inside some of these and I descended into two.  

By the time I encountered that fortune teller, or whatever he was, our little tour group had already been to three archaeological sites along the Nile River green belt.  Six hours of being bounced around on rutted and pot-holed roads.  I'd neglected to bring sunglasses and the glare off the sand had left me with a throbbing headache.  

To add to it, minutes before I had fended off a seller of papyrus scrolls with phosphorescent highlights purported to glow in the dark.  In short, by then I was in no mood for another sales hook.

As I hurried away, he called out after me, "Sir, best way to see the Sphinx is with eyes closed!  Eyes closed!  Close your eyes and listen -- LISTEN TO HIM!!!"

Just what I needed, I muttered as we made our way toward the entrance of the Giza Plateau, advice from a mad Seer of the Desert.  Throw him in with the hawkers of rings and necklaces adorned with stones of magical healing qualities, the oils of lotus flowers crushed beneath the feet of chaste young women, the perfumes favored by Cleopatra herself, and more, much more...

    

The pyramids of the Giza Plateau, outside the metropolis of Cairo.  I had no sooner snapped this photo when...

A man popped in front to offer me a camel ride!

    

        Railway Station at Alexandria, with the smiling little you-know-whats at bottom 

        eyeing me up as fresh meat!  To extract money from me, in other words.

"High Season" is not quite the term to describe Egypt this past November, when I was there.  It was the 100th anniversary of the discovery of King Tutankhamun's tomb; the pharaoh popularly known as "King Tut."  Television cameras and people protruding out microphones were doing interviews at many sites and museums, causing more than the usual commotion.  

In addition, five tombs discovered earlier this year were being unveiled in the Saqqara necropolis.  The term means "city of the dead" and is basically a cemetery with monuments and tombs stretching out for miles.  When we visited there, more media and more tour groups than usual were prowling about. 

And of course, the international Climate Change Summit had to place at the Egyptian resort town of Sharm El-Sheikh that month...with many of the participants taking in the sights before or after gathering to save the world from catastrophe.

These and more made for record crowds up and down the green-belt, crowds that even Ramses the Great might've been impressed with.  (But then again, after learning about his accomplishments and personality, maybe not.)

Statue of Ramses II, also known as Ramses the Great.  He ruled for 66 years, sired 150 children, conquered numerous other kingdoms.  I later viewed his mummy --  4,200 years old!

Now you might be wondering, was it worth it to endure such a grueling day, the crowds, the touts and hustlers, some even of grade school age?  The touristic chaos that is Egypt during such a high season?  Was it all really worth it?

What I concluded is, if you ever are in a position to go, yes, regardless of all that and more, you can and you should.  Like the Grand Canyon in the U.S. and the Great Wall in China, Egypt's own versions are marvels of the highest order and despite the travails listed above, should not be missed.

  

Me recovering after a long, but good day of touring.

 

 For those who've been considering a trip to Egypt:

Keep in mind, I was in Egypt for two weeks plus and most of that described above took place only one day, the day  I went along with that tour group.  An extraordinary confluence of events was taking place then, a confluence unlikely to occur again.  In following days, for the most part, I got off the tourist path and the experience was much more pleasant.

Travel tip to avoid many of the hucksters and associated stresses: 

Do not, repeat DO NOT let them lure you into their stalls or shops.  Ignore them or listen to as much of their pitch as you can, then jab your heel into the sand and walk away!

All in all, touring Egypt will be a much better experience.

 END

The Zone Of Tranquility

 

 French backpackers at the hostel in Leticia, Colombia.

La Zona de Tranquillo as they call it down there -- the words mean the zone of quietness or calmness; the place of tranquility.

When I first heard trekkers at the hostel discussing it, I scoffed at the idea.  It reminded me of the so-called vortices or portals in the earth around Sedona, Arizona.  Some claim that energies there emerge from down deep that are conducive to spiritual enlightenment and supernatural phenomena.

I visited Sedona a few times in the Eighties and Nineties and noticed very little of this.  One exception was at the Chapel of the Holy Cross, reportedly built over one of these vortices.  There I did experience some moistening of the eyes, some emotion.  But I wasn't sure if it was from the mysterious energies or from the colors and beauty of the structure itself.

 

Chapel of the Holy Cross near Sedona, AZ.

  

According to the tales I was hearing in Leticia, the energy of La Zona was similar -- it can calm you down, put you into an altered state, even a trance, just by passing through or being there.  At first, it sounded like something out of the X-Files.

Well okay, I thought, I'll soon find out.  The next day I was heading up to another river town called Puerto Nariño -- and would be passing through this so-called zone en route.

 

Along the Amazon near Puerto Nariño. 

Puerto Nariño was two-and-a-half hours upriver by boat.  I had planned to take photos along the way, but as it turned out, didn't take any.  Somehow I passed out part way or fell asleep or something...for about an hour.  Coming to, I looked about at the other passengers -- a lot of them were blinking their eyes, coming to as well.

Hmmm, I thought as the boat bumped up to the town dock, I wasn't that tired when we left.  Why did I zonk out like that?  We were jammed into seats three across with the sun beating in -- conditions not conducive to good rest, especially for someone who likes to stretch out. 

Could it have been...?  No, it couldn't have -- I shook off any notion of the zone and disembarked to find a place to stay.  At midday in those parts, I don't loiter long out in the sun. 

A street in Puerto Nariño.  The great wide river in the background.

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One of the places to stay.  Note likeness of a toucan bird carved out of wood.

Evidently means no whizzing out the side door.

Renowned as an eco-village, Puerto Nariño is considered a model for sustainable living.  It's popular with vegans and the green crowd, especially backpacker-college-student types concerned with climate change.  It's touted as almost zero carbon emissions there due to a prohibition on vehicles.  

Many residents belong to tribal groups such as the Ticunas, the Yaguas and the Cocanas.  Off in the rain forest, you can still visit villages where the hunter-gatherer lifestyle hasn't changed in who knows how long.

Indigenous peoples' market at the waterfront.

  Great place to just take a stroll.

Because no motorized vehicles are allowed -- no cars, no tuk-tuks, no motorbikes -- people ambled about seemingly without a care.  They moved and talked more slowly in this, their own little vehicle-less world. 

Because all transportation was by boat or by foot power, a lot of normal irritants didn't exist.  No glancing over the shoulder that they might get run down, for instance.  No screeching of tires or blatting from mufflers or honking of horns.  The dogs even seemed more subdued.      

Compared to the bustle of Leticia, the town in general was quiet, almost too quiet.  As nice as it was with the tropical flowers and birds and thus, I found it boring to the point of being uncomfortable and was anxious to get going after two days.  It was just too lethargic or something.

A guy at the guest house dubbed it Sloth Town -- after the cuddly vegetarians known for their gentle demeanor and movements akin to that of molasses in January.

A young sloth.  

To beat the tropical sun, I took the boat back downriver at 0700.  This trip would be faster, less than two hours because we were going with the current this time. 

Once again, I intended to take photos en route, had my camera out and ready.  Amazingly, the same thing happened -- somewhere in the aforementioned zone I zonked out.  The next thing that I knew we were approaching Leticia harbor!  The camera hung in mid-air, dangling from the strap around my wrist -- unused once again.  A whole hour or so had disappeared, was missing from my memory!

This time I didn't fall sleep, as such.  I'm certain of that.  More like I slipped away somewhere, somewhere nice.  I came to smiling, content...as if I'd been to my Happy Place.

Disembarking in Leticia, I was shaking my head at the strangeness of it and muttering, "Boy, this is weird...real weird."

The channel leading into Leticia harbor.

With my time in the Amazon thus ended, I flew back to Medellin a day later.  For the record, never during that three-hour flight did I doze off and lose track of time.  The reason, the main one?  My mind kept running, often echoing of tv and film writer Rod Serling...

As he might have put it -- had I really just visited a quiet little town along the upper Amazon or had I blundered onto a far off outpost of the The Twilight Zone?  After mulling it over, I dared to think that it was some of both.  

Whatever the the trip to Puerto Nariño was or was not, the Amazon overall, the eleven days that I was there, was one heckuva an experience.

End Of Series On The Amazon

Expedition Amazon

With Juan our guide keeping watch, we set off downriver.

Under a mottled gray sky, our boat motored out of Leticia harbor at 0900 and throttled up onto the great wide river flowing brown and swollen.  The cloud cover was a blessing as it obscured the sun.  Only a few degrees of latitude below the equator, the direct rays can blaze in onto you with a vengeance.

It was four hours downriver to our destination -- a river camp in a place called Zacambu, in Peru.  The members of our group settled back and took in the sights. 

Onboard was an international cast:  Three French women, all from Paris, a woman from Germany, another from Peru, a man from Poland and me, the wayward American.  They were all in their twenties or thirties and I was the old guy at, well, let's just say that I was older. 

When all was said and done, the age thing didn't matter; we were all drawn together by the same goal -- to experience some of the Amazon, the largest and most diverse ecosystem on the planet.

River camp.  Stilts are for the Amazon's high-water phase.

Stairway down to the boats.

Juan, our guide, with a fresh caught arapaima.

For that region, ours was a standard tour:  Embark out of Leticia, followed by three or four days staying in various camps and tribal villages.  The more adventurous could opt to stay out in the jungle for a night or so.  For those of us averse to mosquitoes, tarantulas and other vile creatures of the darkness, sleeping inside was the preferred option.

Besides getting a good look at the river itself, the tours offer various activities:  Swimming with fresh water dolphins, for instance.  We saw dozens on the voyage and got into the water to frolic about with some.  A few had even turned pink, which they do when they age.

We also visited a primate rescue center for monkeys and sloths, one of the highlights of the tour.

The rescue center.  Note water enveloping trees at left, indicative of the river rising.

Mary from France with the star of the center -- a baby sloth.

Lively little fella.

Next day on a fishing outing we caught a slew of las pirañas, the fearsome and dreaded piranhas.  The word means small, toothed fish.  And believe me, they do have some teeth.  The guide instructed us on how to hook them and how to grasp the keepers so that they don't clomp into your flesh.

Back at camp later, we cleaned them and ate them for lunch.  They reminded me of pan fish back in the U.S., only without the choppers. 

Yours truly with a stringer of piranhas

The gang -- a great bunch of young adventurers.

One of the toothy critters -- on the dinner plate.

We sailed out one night to find caimans, alligator-like reptiles that inhabit the area's waterways.  How do you find them in the dark?  In the beam of a spotlight their eyes shine like twin little stars just above the waterline, that's how.  We saw some six-footers and caught a few small ones which, after a lecture/demonstration by our guide, we released.

A young caiman snatched up from the river.

After more such activities, we then switched to phase two of the tour -- the trek into the rain forest to visit a shaman, a medicine man.  And to stay in his lodge or hutch.  Made of wood, bamboo and straw, his dwelling was of the type still used by many tribal peoples of the Amazon.

Your humble correspondent on the trek in.

Strange creatures along the way.

Don't get bit by this one!

In the evening, hammocks for sleeping were strung between lodge poles and enveloped with mosquito nets.  With no electricity there, candles and flickering from the firepit were the only lighting.  This made a great atmosphere for relaxing after the long, sweaty hike in and for telling stories.  

Next morning, with the shaman's supervision, we picked leaves from a certain bush to make mambei, a green powder.  It's used to make a tea-like drink or to tuck behind your bottom lip like snuff.  Supposedly mambei has properties conducive to good health.  But all it seemed to do is give us buzzing in the brain, along the lines of turbo-strength caffeine or nicotine.  Some us experienced minor hallucinations as well. 

Fish wrapped up in banana leaves cooking over charcoal.

The shaman processing mambei, the green powder.

Except for some snakes draped over branches, which the guide called constrictors, we didn't see any land predators.  None of the infamous anacondas, for example; the giant constrictors that supposedly wrap you up and squeeze until your eyeballs pop out.  Only smaller ones, that take birds and jungle rats and such.

At various stops, locals spun stories of jaguar encounters or jaguar lore, including that evening with the shaman and flames flickering in the firepit.  As time went on, such stories fueled the anticipation many of us had to see one.   

As we were hiking back out to civilization next morning, our guide bent over the path and exclaimed,  Aiee chicas, un gato grande!  Hey, you all, a big cat or jaguar! in other words.  He pointed to a series of paw prints in the mud.

Track of the cat.

No, it was not a live jaguar.  But a live one had been there a short time before -- maybe even scouting or stalking us.  It was nice to know that, despite declining in numbers, some were still out there.  Moreover, this one had been trodding our very path!  

This gave us all a jolt of excitement and was a fitting way to wind up what had been an interesting and worthwhile expedition. 

   

Tuckered out trekkers on the way back.

Part III To Follow Next Weekend

The Town Of The Three Frontiers

A painted-up tuk-tuk -- the colorful way to taxi around in Leticia.

An hour or so by air out of Medellin, I knew that we were in for it.  Off before us in the dusk, towering spirals of clouds had ascended from the endless mat of green far below.  Arcs of lightning flashed from spiral to spiral or crashed to ground in fantastic light displays.  Turbulence rocked the airplane as we descended.

After landing at Leticia, we disembarked onto the tarmac and walked out through a deluge.  Within seconds clothes and luggage were soaked.  Two men in sage uniforms awaited inside with a smiley dog who sniffed at our luggage.  Shiny leather boots rose up to their knees and stirrups protruded from their heels.  Two horses were tied up a short distance off.  It was the last thing that I expected to see there -- a horse patrol at the airport.

Thus was my arrival in Leticia, Colombia, a town along the mighty Amazon River, where the rainy season was picking up intensity and the river rising.

Center-city Leticia.

Leticia -- the town of tres fronteras, as it's known -- the three frontiers or three borders, where three countries come together.  You can stroll a few blocks into Brazil for breakfast, go back into Colombia for lunch and take a launch across the river into Peru for dinner -- all without too much effort. 

And not to worry about pesky things like entrance visas or getting passports stamped -- it's open borders in all directions.  No impediments whatsoever, except for the terrain.  (If you proceed farther on into any of these countries, however, you must go through customs.)

Many businesses accept payments in two or even three different currencies and some take U.S. dollars.  So despite the relative isolation, the feeling of being on an urban island within a sea of jungle, the place emanates an international air. 

Once you get outside of town, no roads exist for hundreds of miles -- only waterways, wetlands and green vegetation that goes on and on.  A few flights like mine come in daily, but otherwise all transport and commerce are by river.  In fact, at the center of everything here, it seems, is the river.

The Amazon near Leticia.  A mile-and-a-half across.

Passengers and freight coming in from downriver in Brazil.

, 

Accessing some of the boat docks can be a little tricky.

If you're coming in from North America, Leticia is your most direct routing to the Amazon basin.  You'll have to change planes in Colombia first, in Medellin or in Bogota, then two or three hours on by air from there.

In my case, I spent a week in the city of Medellin, one of my favorite places.  In this manner I got acclimated to South America again and being deposited into those steaming conditions later on was not so much of a shock.  Believe me, compared to the 0 degrees when I boarded the plane in NYC Jan. 16, the heat and humidity of the Amazon were indeed a shock. 

After a few days in Leticia, however, I was over it.  The inhabitants were a big reason.  Almost everyone I passed there smiled, said buenos dias or bobbed their heads in recognition.  In addition, the town is easily transited by foot and has its own culture, food and sights, all tinged with that unique Amazonas influence.  

The fillet of fish on a banana leaf here is a must.

Roast porker at Santander Park on Sundays.

Jaguar statues within a traffic circle.

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Of the things to do, I especially enjoyed going to the harbor and watching the activities, the boats being loaded and unloaded, and so on.  Also the daily doings at the tribal mercado or market place, the gathering of thousands of chirping parakeets every evening at Santander Park, and more.

All in all, Leticia is a lively place to visit and during my stay there I was never bored.

Along the harbor front in Leticia.  Umbrellas protect from the sun and the rain.

Even an outlet there for the gamblers.

After a few days though, it was time to expand out from the town.  The hostel where I was staying was organizing a tour and I was invited to join in.  The trappings of civilization, however rudimentary, were about to be left behind as we motor-boated, and then hiked, deep into the rain forest.

My base for touring the area.

Part II To Follow Next Weekend