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!

Greek Week

It's interesting how much Athens can change in a week. Compared to when I was here with my parents, on this visit the city was far, far more crowded. I expected there to be more Greeks in twon, since it was no longer the long Easter holiday, but there were also exponentially more tourists and backpackers around the city as well. There were suddenly venders lined up in front of marble pillars that were not there before and the metro was packed and busy. May 1 must mark the start of the big tourist season or something, or at least other people pay attention and start their vacations AFTER Easter? Imagine that! I still really enjoyed the city, but if people I've talked to had only visited during high season, i can easily see why they would find it a crowded, dirty city.

Of course, my circumstances changed as well - before, I was not only on a high from getting to see my parents, but I was also in a happu hotel existence, bopping about the islands at a good clip and enjoying the company. On my return, I was back to hostel living. The one I stayed at a supremely nice location, but also had a barely-tolerable bathrooms (some of the worst I've encountered thus far actually - I hope it's not an indication of the hostels in Europe...).

I also noticed the travelers here - like with everywhere I've been, the majority seem to all come from a similar background, and in Greece, in May, a huge percentage of them are American or Canadian college students either finishing their study abroad by traveling about or getting a jump on their summer backpaking through Europe.

Even though the age groups are similar, for some reason, this group strikes me as decidedly more Baccanalian than the young Brits traveling everywhere in Australia. Maybe because the Brits were in one place longer, and were working, and were living and traveling both, but somehow they were not as ...frat party about thier travels. Sitting in the hostel's garden, listening to groups trade stories about where they had been and where they were going, so much seemed like a waste - a giant drinking binge across a continent. I hope that, too, is not an indication of the hostels across Europe...

(Though it did encourage me , since I will be in my last month in Western Europe during high season, to make the unprecedented move to book hostels for that whole time - good thing, too, since I already ran into places being booked out).

But despite some of the difference not being for the better, and despite it being a 3-day stay rahter than a day-and-a-half one, I had a good time back in Athens. I went to the Archaeological Museum, whioch we missed the first time on account of Good Friday but which was absolutely worth a visit, and I sat in the National Gardens, so unruly compared to the tidy, manicured botanical gardens of Australia and New Zealand.

I also went to Delphi today, to see the oracle and a bit of northern-ish Greece. It involved a long day of travel and lots of clmibing about the ruins, but it was well worth it - the rocks and cliffs and stones were just gorgeous, and there was almost palpable history there. Of course, to get to Delphi (three hours out of Athens) one must get up before 6am. And at that time, one thinks one is tucking ones camera in their bag, when in fact they are leaving it in their backpack at the hostel. Sigh.

on the road again

All alone again, now in Athens. My parents left today, and I am not going to lie and say it wasn't hard, but they are off to Italy, and in a couple of days I am going to Egypt.

The good news is that even though I am back to traveling alone, back to hostels, back to it all, I have sort of re-discovered my reason for doing this. I am once again looking forward to the places I get to go, and once again feel capable of getting to them. So really, the time with my parents, the time in Greece, it all had the rejuvenating effect I hoped for. And thank goodness!

I am glad my attitude returned, though, because the day my parents left, things did not go so well. I had worked out what I wanted to do for the four days between coming back from Santorini and going to Cairo, and I made reservations at a hostel on a nearby island called Aegina, and then at a hostel in Athens for two nights each. No problem.

So yesterday I sadly leave mom and dad, and get on the Athens metro and ride it to the ferry terminal. Then I get a ferry to Aegina. Then i wait an hour to get bus to the other side of the island. Then I get there and discover in 8 minutes that the hostel is shut up tight - presumably still for the season? I don't know. It's overgrown and padlocked.

Awesome.

So I basically get to retrace everything - wait another hour for the bus, catch another ferry, do another metro ride, and go to the only hostel I know in Athens, where I do not have a reservation, at 7:30 on a Saturday night. Good lord.

But, fortunately, they did have a bed, and I was so exhausted from a futile day of LOTS of travel that I fell into it. I have one more day in Athens now, so we will see how I fill it.

It seems my travel karma markedly improves when I have others in my family there to help it along.

something old, something older, something oldest

Ah, Santorini. Really stunning place - the island is on the cusp of a volcano, with the towns clinging to the sides of sheer cliffs in white, stair-steppy glory.


Santorini at times feels a bit superficial, or like its water - shallow, but pretty! - but there were some really cool, amazing things to the island as well. On Naxos, we went to the Mitroplous museum and saw the remains of a city from 1300 BC and I marveled that it was the oldest thing I'd ever seen (apart from nature, of course). Today, though, we went to two museums. At the first, there was a new record, as most of the artefacts - gorgeous, well-preserved vases and pots, still painted and lovely and mostly recovered from the town of Ancient Thera - dated to 1700 BC. Everything was stunning. But THEN we went to the Museum of Prehistoric Thera, where they keep the really old stuff. It's findings from Akrotiri, an ancient...well, urban hub, really, that has only been 3-5% excavated. The new oldest thing I've ever seen is this:

dated from a Cycladic period from 2800-2300 BC. Jaw-dropping. Aren't they incredible?

In New Zealand, I marveled at how new everything was. As an American, I can go to England and see schools still in use from back before anyone over there even FOUND our continent, so in New Zealand, where America was old hat during their entire Anglo history, everything seems so young. But, of course, the Maoris were there long, long before - as with the aboriginal sin Australia, the Native Americans, and so on. There were people there and living hundreds of years ago. But in Greece, it's in terms of millenniums - there were people there, building cities, wearing jewelry, making purchases, taking baths, cooking and eating and celebrating not too differently from how we do now several MILLENNIUMS ago. It boggles the mind.

But that is not the bulk of Santorini - really, the bulk is all about the pretty. I get the feeling that the Santorini Chamber of Commerce or whoever saw tourism starting in Greece like 30 years ago and decided to capitalize by turning the island into Quintessential Greece (tm). The terraced, perched villages are stunning, but all the buildings seem to be hotels and restaurants and shops - everything for tourists; the locals (of which there aren't many, year-round) are sensible and live on the flat parts, where it's not 40 zillion stairs and a donkey ride to get a bottle of water from the market.

It's worked, though. If you go to the Greek Isles, from the States anyway, then Santorini is the place you go. Often to Mykonos as well, and maybe another, but Santorini without a doubt. If you go ona cruise in Greece, you go to Santorini. It really is "typical Greece all the way" I wonder if that's Quintessential Greece (tm)'s motto?

I can't even imagine what this place is like during the high season, too. We were in Fira today - the capital, where we stayed - when there was a cruise ship, I think from Spain, was in port, and toe town felt overrun. That was one ship. Yesterday, there were nine cruise ships docked for the day. NINE. It made me so happy that was the day we rented a car (this time an even more stripped-down mini vehicle in bright yellow we dubbed Little Buttercup) and fled to the other parts of the island. We got to see lots of beaches - one in red! - and lots of quiet towns not yet thumpin' for the season. We ran into two Japanese tour groups when we went to Oia at the north of the island to watch the sunset, but mostly we zigged when the hordes zagged. In high season, I don't think there is that option - our waiter tonight was telling us that, in August, the adorable cobblestone walkways are so packed, people can only shuffle along, not walk at full speed. Even with things sometimes being not open or the weather being occasionally cold, I will take Greece outside the high season, thank you. After all, it's still pretty.