random egypt

The short version is that I liked Egypt a lot more than I thought that I would. I was really excited and intrigued to go there, but before arriving, I was more intellectually interested in the place - the history is so long and so vivid, the culture so foreign and so fascinating, and the images of pyramids and heiroglyphics so iconic that I was looking forward to the education of the place. I got all of that, to be sure, and I feel much smarter than I did before I came. But I also liked Egypt - it was fun, the people were wonderful and different and fascinating, the food was fantastic, the weather quite lovely. That was unexpected.

As much as I was interested in going to Egyt, though, there was no way I was going to try it on my own. Every day I was there, I became even more convinced of how right a decision that was. I could probably have done Egypt on my own, but I don't know that I could have enjyed it. Egypt is very, very hard.

The most obvious is that it is hard to be a woman in Egypt. Not just a Western woman, though that is certainly harder, but being female. When I got to the airport, on the airport bus to the parking lot, I was the only woman. On the street, there were occasionally a pair of women traveling together, but they kept to themselves and tend to hurry along. I honestly never felt so conspicuous as a female as I did simply existing in Egypt. And to exacerbate the problem, the social and religious practices of Egypt itself make the men rather aggressive and unpleasant in a lot of ways - but only sometimes. Others are terribly friendly, with no ulterior motive at all. It makes it a challenge to do anything, because you get peppered with greetings just walking down the street, and you never know - is this person asking where I am from or saying "Welcome to Egypt" to be friendly, or are they doing it to elicit a smile that they can take as an invitation? This is not an exaggeration, really. It is a minefield. The attention, very unwanted and very constant, really got to me before too long, and even though I dressed conservatively, I still felt that I was on display. The fact that I quickly began to see the advantage of the traditional Muslim female dress I think says too much about the way men ae socialized in Egypt.

But it's not just a gender thing; the whole place takes negotiation. You have to constantly be on guard in Egypt, because the heavy tourist culture makes for an active culture of ripping off Westerners. My tour members quickly discovered that when you asked the price of something, if it took them more than a second to answer, they were basically inflating the price, often my 100-200%; if the price was immediate, it was probably close to accurate. This is not just for the outdoor markets aimed at tourists; this is at mini markets, drink stands, everywhere. You have to constantly be on guard, clarify that they mean EGYPTIAN pounds when they give a price (they like to "mean" English pounds to give a higher price to start the bargaining), and ask for a breakdown of prices when you buy a few things, because often the math got creative. You price things at various stores, and you learn that everything, EVERYTHING, is a negotiable price. You have to play it as a game, because otherwise you start to fee like everyone is out to rip you off. But Egypt is just random, and there is no good reason for two oranges to cost only 1 pound less than 2 oranges, two bananas and two plums, except that the people who bought the latter didn't balk at the price, so the vendor wanted to see how far he could go.

Egypt is random and unpredictable, but it was good. I don't know if I ever will go back - the Red Sea coast is incredible, and I would like to see the Western Desert and Alexandria, but it is difficult and there are so many other places to see. But I like that I get to associate Egypt with a sense of uncertainty and gambling that makes it entertaining.

more middle east

Egypt is officially no more for me.

Since we left Cairo, we have done the following (assume all is said with some disbelief that this is my life and this is all for real, because that's how it felt):

We got on a private bus on Friday to drive down to the Sinai Peninsula. A lot of the tourist routes in southern Egypt (Aswan-Luxor, Aswan-Abu Simbel, etc) have required convoys buses need to travel in for "safety reasons," but Sinai does not have this; they do, however, have mad check points all over and lots of scary military with scary huge guns. Sinai is pretty much a rocky, sandy moonscape that is pretty in a forbidding way. We also drove in the tunnel under the Suez - unreal!

It took several hours, but we got to St. Katherine's "City" (it is a few stores and hotels...) midday, and got toeat and rest before we climbed Mt. Sinai. No joke. The climb was long, but not terribly hard until we got to the last set of steep, rocky, uneven steps - I counted 763 of them. But the view from up top was just astronomical, and we watched the sun set from Mount Sinai before climbing down. Incredible.

The next day we went back to St Katherine's Monastary to tour around, and saw the burning bush and the Eastern Orthodox chapel, which was gorgeous, and navigated our way through some serious throngs of tourists. I am not really one for religious monuments as my top impressive tour sights, but something about St. Katherine's was really moving. Honestly, I think that it is because, in Egypt, there is this ancient monastary worked by a group of Greek and Russian monks, and the place is cared for and run by a particular Beduin tribe, a tribe that is 100% Muslim. There is even a mosque at the monastary for the Beduins to pray in. I just find it so compelling that the different religions and histories are all able to work with this respect for one another that is larger than any differences.

After Sinai, we went on the road again to Nuweiba, a little cluster of small resorts on the Red Sea. Can you say spectacular? I spent the last two and a half days staying in a thatched hut about 10 meters from the water, lounging in and by the water, and eating calamari. It was the perfect holiday in my holidays, and I got a bit of my tan back from Thailand. I was surprised a bit, but honestly the Red Sea is up there with my best beach spots ever, and apparently the Scuba was fantastic.

Of course, the relaxation was all to lull us to a sense of security, I can clearly see now. We have local leaders for each leg, so our Egypt guide left us at the port at 2 for our ferry, where we proceeded to wait in a seedy, dirty, gross port with no signs or announcements in English and air conditioning for only a little while. And we waited. We thought the ferry was at 2:30. Then we find it is at 4. Then it may come later. Then it is here, and we will load in an hour. No, another hour. We are shuttled from one door to another. We wait. At 7:30 they put us on buses to go to the boat. At 8 we are still queued up to get on the boat. Then they try to tell us that the boat is full, but we will not be dissuaded. Then they pull everyone from the back of the line and let them on and leave my group and about 25 other international tourists fighting to be allowed onto the boat, which we eventually are, but without seats. The ferry leaves at 8:45. We finally browbeat them into letting us onto some of the empty business class seats after sitting in the aisled for the first half hour. We get to Aquaba, Jordan about 10, but wait and wait and wait on the boat. They collect our passports, and we are unnerved by this fact. The disorganized, ramshackle, tedious immigration process takes about another hour. We have an Intrepid person waiting to get us to the hotel, which is wonderful. We finally make it, and I fall into bed and sleep like the dead at about 1 am.

It was a long, terrible day, and really tiring - I just about regretted being up to watch the sun rise over Saudi Arabia that morning.

But we are in Aqaba, which is so much more clean and polished and modern than Egypt - it reminds me a lot of Singapore, really. And we are officially in Jordan. The internet is slow-ish, and there are no USB ports to upload photos, but its here. Though tonight, we are going to a Beduin camp, so you know, probably no WiFi.

And we are offically done with Egypt. I have a lot, lot, lot to say on Egypt, but this has already gone on long enough, so I will add it soon.

diet coke: egypt

I give it a hearty "meh."

Much better than Greece (meaning it's drinkable), but much less appealing than Thailand. It looks cool, though.

But the most depressing thing is that I am beginning to wonder if I am forgetting what the real thing tastes like. That can't happen, can it? I can't be getting confused my my steady drinking of Fanta and an ever-increasing amount of water, can I? I will remember the joy of Diet Coke once more, when I experince the magic once again? Please say so!

Back to Cairo

Ok, foreign keyboards are hard enough, but signing into Blogger on an Arabic computer is damn confusing. The user name is on the right, the password is on the left. It's backwards, and I can't read anything at all.

Anyway, minor quibble, but here I am. I am just popping online briefly on our free day back in Cairo. We took an overnight train yesterday from Luxor and got in this morning, and then I took it pretty easy, going back to Khan al Khalili market to do some shopping (because I hear it's pretty rubbish in Jordan, so it is now or...Dublin) and also to Coptic Cairo, to get a feel for a completely different kind of Egypt. This is the Greek Orthodox area, and it has tiny winding streets and no cars, so it felt like a whole other world, even though it was only a few stops on the metro from our hotel in downtown Cairo. Surreal.

In Luxor yesterday, I discovered that donkey riding is way, way easier and more pleasant than camel riding - either because you feel like there is less distance to fall, or because they surprisingly smelled less, or because I had a mellow, lazy donkey who was keen to stop just...whenever, so I never felt out of control. Except when I wanted him - I named him Paco, for lack of knowing his real name - to andale up the hill. he preferred to whine and complain about how LONG and STEEP the hill was. Sounds like me on a bike ride.

Anyway, I've been all over - hot air ballooning over the Valley of the Kings, to see several tombs there, to the Colossus of Memnon and Karnak Temples, and on a felucca sailing up the Nile for an entire day and night in the most relaxing, no-agenda day I've had in ages. Plus, it was sailing up the NILE, stopping now and again when we got hot, to go swimming. In the Nile.

Life is getting surreal, but I love it. To add to that, tomorrow we drive south again, and then climb Mount Sinai.

The next couple of days we get to lounge by the Red Sea, and maybe do a spot of snorkeling.

It's so strange to get to do all of this, but I love it.

Down the nile

'Sup, yo.

Sorry that I am not updating as much. It is not, as you may think, because I cannot find Internet or because it is prohibitively expensive, as neither are the case. I've been in major cities so far, and the most expensive I've found is the one I am currently on, which comes in at a whopping $2 an hour. So this is not the problem.

Time is the problem. Tours are tiring! We do so much and go so many places, and I suddenly have people to talk with that when it's the end of the day I am too darn tired to muster up the energy to post a blog. I will be better, but it's looking like, nah, pictures are going to wait a while longer. They take too long.

So anyway, the tour so far is great. It's a small group, with 4 other Americans, one Canadian and 6 Aussies, and a good range of ages. The guise is Egyptian, too, which if you are ever coming here, insist on it - that alone (besides that he is very good) is invaluable.

On the first day we went to a Mosque, to the Khan al Khalili market in Islamic Cairo, and out to dinner where I had fanTAStic ground spiced lamb. Since then, we have also:


--visited the Pyramids of Giza (taking the metro and public bus to get there, which I loved)
--gone through the Egyptian Museum (which was wonderful, if rather completely overwhelming and chock-a-block with too much stuff, though the Tutankhamun room was jaw-dropping)
--ridden an overnight sleeper train down the Nile, which I loved. I adore train travel, sleeper cars are so North by Northwest, and it was such a cool way to tool down the country
--ridden feluccas on the Nile, visited Nubian villages, and, of course, the following:

I did quite well, thank you. even though I now can safely say that camel travel is both inefficient AND uncomfortable.

Today we got up ungodly early in order to leave the hotel at 3:30 am. Yeah. We are in Aswan, but we were getting a caravan of tour vans out of town to go a few hundred kilometers south to visit Abu Simbel. Everything I've listed above was, of course, astonishing and amazing; this was so far the highlight. This temple is just magnificent, and I could have spent hours staring at the carvings on the walls. Loved it.

After, we drove back (with a driver who stayed awake nearly the whole time!) and went to the Philae temple, which is an Egyptian temple and Roman church both (Egyptoman? Romyptian?) in the middle of the Nile. Lovely way to end the day.

Except it was about 2:30. So now we've had luch, and tonight our guide has arranged a dinner at some friend's houses - the cooking should be fabulous. I will say, though, that I am looking forward to tomorrow. We get on a felucca and spend the entire day and night just floating up the Nile and reading, drinking, eating, swimming, and relaxing. Oh, so fun!

I am so glad, though, that I am on a tour. I would not be able to do what I am doing on my own, and I don't think I would have as much fun. As it is, it is already starting to get hard to deal with the scams and rip offs that are so common everywhere we go. I understand that money is so important, but on the other hand, I don't appreciate being made to haggle to use a toilet when I know what it costs, just because I am a tourist. But hopefully it is residual crankiness from being up at 3 am...

Onto the next

Made it safe and sound to Cairo. It's such an overwhelming city, right from the start. The sprawl is huge, and from the air so many of the buildings are crowded together and the same color and not really defined, so they almost look like rubble fallen together. We did fly over the pyramids, though, so that was incredible.

I am back in heat, but it is so far WAY more bearable than Asia. I am itching to meet up with my tour tomorrow, and until then dont have a lot on the agenda. But I have officially reached a new country and a new continent. Woo!