The Overdue Egypt Post: Part One

Yes, folks, I’m finally getting around to it! Please note that Part Two is already posted BELOW this, so you can read right through, and pics are three posts back.

This is a few of the highlights, followed by a breakdown by days. Let me know if you want me to expand on anything.

My Three Favorite Experiences in Egypt

1. Hot Air Balloon Ride—Mom and I went on a hot air balloon ride over the West Bank of Luxor for Christmas, which was fabulous. We got to fly over all of the cool monuments that we didn’t have the time or inclination to visit, and despite the smog, the views were great. Also, no people screaming at you to ride their camel at 2000 feet.
2. Desert/Oases—We went out into the Western Desert twice—to Siwa Oasis near the Libyan border, which was cold but delightfully laid back and surrounded by beautiful sites, and to Bahariyya Oasis and the White Desert, which was… cold but delightfully laid back and surrounded by beautiful sites.
3. Food—Oh. My. God. This might be partially because I was coming from Madagascar, where the cuisine has the creativity and variety of, ahem, plain white rice, but the food in Egypt was fabulous. We had kusherie practically every day—a delightful comfort food mix of pasta, rice, lentils, garbanzo beans, dried onions, tomato sauce, and garlic sauce IN ONE BOWL. There were stands of fresh fruit juice on every block, mint tea at every turn, yummy desserts (including om aly, which is pastry shell, milk, and almonds under a crème brulee-ish crust). Even the random side dishes, like fried cauliflower in thyme sauce and beet salad, were delicious. Oh, and did I mention that this is all street food, and costs less than a dollar? Sigh…

Safety and Hassle

Despite the political climate of the past month, and despite the religious bombing in Alexandria while we were there, I felt safe in Egypt—honestly, I felt safer walking around the streets of downtown Cairo at night than I do walking around the streets of my little Malagasy village at night. There were basically no drunks, which cuts out 90% of the annoying or aggressive people right there. With the notable exception of Luxor, people were exceptionally polite and helpful, and on the two or three occasions we were approached by unsavory characters, people were quick to intervene on our behalf. When a crazy guy on the streets started following us, a nearby gentleman immediately put himself in between us and him and escorted us out of harm’s way, then walked off without waiting for thanks.

Now, I guess, for the hassle. I didn’t find Egyptian men nearly as unpleasant and aggressive as people told me they would be, though I’m sure this was helped by the fact that I was traveling with another woman (either my mother or another female traveler) most of the time. Plus, my tolerance of harassment has been skewed by living in Madagascar, where I’m stared at and followed constantly, so only being stared at 10% of the time was a pleasant change. That said, baksheesh is annoying and people in Luxor were outright hostile. The baksheesh thing goes back along ways, culturally. Give him a pound to unhelpfully guide you around or a pound to leave you alone, either way, the dude’s getting a pound (one Egyptian pound = about 15 or 20 cents, btw). Luxor is a step above annoying—a constant stream of people yelling at you to ride their carriage or camel, getting vocally hostile when you don’t, and trying to rip you off—not kind of rip you off, majorly so. It’s understandable given Luxor’s constant stream of tourists and recent monument issues (the government has moved people out of their houses and torn up historic buildings in order to uncover ancient monuments). Understandable, but not excusable.

In Egypt

Day One: I got into Cairo the day before my mother at the bracing hour of 5 am, so after staring tiredly off into space for awhile and then checking my email (practically every hostel we stayed in had free WiFi! It was AMAZING!!), I decided to brave the city streets. I suppose a lot of people find people find Cairo insufferably dirty and somewhat undeveloped, but again, I was coming from Madagascar and found Cairo amazing. Tall buildings—not much trash in the (downtown) streets—nicely paved multilane streets and overpasses everywhere—I felt like such a yokel. Even most of the Gasy capital is two-lanes, two-stories.

I eventually found my way to the Egyptian museum, that overcrowded and poorly labeled treasure-trove that contains with all things, provided they are old, carved, stone, and Egyptian. I reluctantly braved the absurd security measures and entrance price (the security measures seemed especially absurd a few weeks ago, when I read that rioters broke in and damaged some mummies). Then I took a deep breath and plunged into the crowds of (sorry) fat, rude, uncaring, and one udder short of a moo tourists. My god, however do people think they can enjoy a trip when their being whisked around by an uptight tour guide, who charges them five times what they should pay and makes everyone else’s lives miserable by attempting poke their little FOLLOW ME flags in the eye of every independent and thoughtful tourist?

Anyway. The Egyptian Museum was quite delightful, once I adjusted myself to the crowds and (evil) guides. My Lonely Planet proved useful in tracking down the “big” pieces, and the rest of the time I just wandered from room to room (there were about 50 rooms, plus hall exhibits).There were alligator mummies and King Tut’s headdress, and stone statues of gods, pharaohs, and ancient VIPs in every size you can imagine. You can Google Images this if you’re interested, there were no cameras allowed inside.

In the afternoon I had my first bowl of kusherie (instantly hooked), braved the insane traffic (no pedestrian crossings for the most part, you just run out in front of cars and hope for the best), and met up with a lovely Vietnamese-French woman who treated me to dinner after I tried to help her locate her lost baggage by translating in my shoddy French.

Day Two: I met another female traveler over hostel breakfast and since my Mom wasn’t supposed to come in until later that night, we decided to take the (fantastic, clean, and efficient) Cairo Metro to Coptic Cairo. We hit up the museum first, which has everything (really, EVERYTHING) you could ever want to know about Coptic religious art. Very nicely presented but paled in contrast to the Egyptian Museum and by that point I REALLY wanted to get outside. The building it’s in was fantastic though—intricately carved wooden reliefs on every surface and, worth a special mention, a fully enclosed litter the size of a small car used to carry upper-class female pilgrims to the Holy Land without them having to walk or be seen. I can’t decided what would be worse—to have to carry the thing or to be stuck in the sweltering little box for weeks on end.

Several of the churches in the area were unfortunately under construction, but I did enjoy seeing the Hanging Church, which has beautiful mosaics and, in several places, cutouts in the floor where you can look down a 40 foot drop. The church was built straddling an old Roman water tower—that’s how it got its name.

On the way back to the hotel to meet up with my Mom, we stopped at Egypt’s oldest mosque and a Thai restaurant. Coptic, Muslim, Thai, gotta love the cultural mix.

Day Three: With The Mother Unit finally accounted for despite the best efforts of the London snowstorms, we headed to Muslim Quarter for a day of bartering at the market (Ted, you taught me well) and eating (Egyptian pancakes—not always as good as they sound). Some of the market guys were annoying (Hey lady, looking is free), but wandering around the alleys filled with leather and spices and silver and fabrics was…delightful. I feel like I’ve used that word before, but there you go.

Day Four: This is the day you’ve been waiting for, THE PYRAMIDS, dum dum DUM. (That was dramatic music, by the way). We split a cab for the day with two other tourists and headed to The Big Boys Who Were Definitely Overcompensating, only to see—well, not much actually. The Pyramids, as happens oh so rarely, were fogged in. Seriously!?! We could just make out the sphinx through the mist, since we were kept farther away than usual because of construction. And we could see maybe a quarter of the way up the pyramids. The one thing we could see very clearly were the camel drivers, who popped up every ten feet HEYLADYYOUWANTCAMELGUESSHOWMUCHHISNAMEMICHAELJACKSONHELOVEYOU.…so we headed out to out next destination, Saqqara.

OK, quick and incomplete pyramids history here. Basically this dude Zoser decided about 5000 years ago to make a monument and tomb everyone would remember him for, so he piled layer of rocks on top of one another to make a 6-layer step Pyramid, also known as Saqqara. Think of the Mayan Pyramids, it’s kind of that shape. Then the next guy had the brilliant idea of smoothing out the sides to make it a “real pyramid”, only he got too ambitious and halfway up, they realized it would collapse if they kept going at the original angle, so they had to reduce the rise over run and that resulted in the aptly-named Bent Pyramid. Then the next dude actually got it right and was able to make the world’s first “real pyramid”, the Red Pyramid. After that, things got kind of crazy for awhile with every pharaoh wanting to outdo his predecessor in the Pyramid Arms Race, which resulted in what we know as The Pyramids, aka Wonder of the World near the Sphinx (whose head’s really too small for the rest of his body, btw). And then eventually someone realized that hey, that’s a really stupid way to spend money, maybe we should work a little harder at vanquishing our enemies.

If anyone reading this is an Egyptologist or just really well read, I apologize for the preceding paragraph, I don’t have my guidebook or Google so it’s just what I remember off the top of my head. But it does give you a little context to the next few sites, since we went to Saqqara, which was, wait for it, under construction. Couldn’t see half of the site and the rest was covered in scaffolding. So we sighed and went to the Red Pyramid and HEY! This one’s actually pretty cool! Third time’s the charm, right? The Bent Pyramid was visible in its militarized and forbidden zone off in the distance, and the Red Pyramid was just chilling out in the sunshine, bold as day and clear as brass (wait…), and NOT SURROUNDED BY CAMELS AND TOUR GROUPS! Sweeeeeet. We even got to go inside, via an intense and steep ramp that lead us into the hot, sweaty, and incredibly smelly bowels of the pyramid. We glanced around appreciatively at the empty tomb and sloped ceilings, and then got out as fast as we could, sweating profusely and tearing up at the intense ammonia smell of what we hope was bat pee. Yes, friends, the Red Pyramid was awesome, and made up for the fact that our next stop at Memphis was pretty boring.

But wait! Day’s not over yet! We suddenly realized that we still hadn’t really seen the Pyramids, we had a multi-entry day ticket, and that the site was still open for an hour. So after some arguing with our driver, we went back to the Pyramids for sunset and managed to actually see them and photograph them. Very cool, despite the crowds and camel dudes. And then, having lost our taxi because of the “late” hour, we took the metro back into the city (probably got back faster that way, anyway). That night, we took the train down to Luxor—“first class” seats, which were completely uncomfortable and also hard to book. We took the more expensive sleeper train back north, and it was worth every touristy penny (though we did meet a very cool Dutch couple on the way down to Luxor).

The Overdue Egypt Post: Part Two

Day Five: Luxor, not hating it yet. We took it easy, and spent a good part of the day trying to book a balloon ride for the next day, which took way longer than it should have. We ate some good food, though, and took a short boat trip down the Nile to Banana Island, where Mom and I were surprisingly the only tourists. We took a stroll outside of Luxor Temple at night, then things took a rather nasty turn when we went to a small greasy-spoon Egyptian eatery for dinner and the proprietor tried to charge us a whopping 88 pounds for what was probably a 15 pound meal. Not even a subtle rip-off. He refused to back down when we confronted him, even after I started using the smattering of Arabic words I’d learned by this point. So being the cheeky little foreign chick I am, I went and got change from a nearby store, gave him 25 pounds, and walked away. The people at out hotel later confirmed this was more than fair, but—let the Luxor loathing commence.

Day Six: Balloon Day! We had an early boat ride over to the other river bank. Our balloon company thoughtfully provided us with breakfast—one Twinkie each. If this breakfast on the Nile wasn’t the first time I’ve had a Twinkie, then it was my second. Huh. Anyway, I spent the whole ride over staring at the multicolored balloons floating over the Luxor smog and Theban mountains, and after a short safety demo by our very competent (Driver? Captain? Balloon Master?), we were up up and away in our green balloon, floating over the smog-covered monuments of the West Bank—Hapshetsut’s Temple, Valleys of the Kings, Queens, and Nobles, the Rammesseum, Medinet Habu, and so on. And the Nile in the near distance, of course. I think we were up over 3000 feet? Very fun. After we landed in a gravel pit with the help of about 20 random guys who had run after the balloon to jump on the basket, we headed back to the hotel for a (delightful, and I’m not being sarcastic) breakfast of Corn Flakes (oooh, I miss cereal). Later that day we went to Karnak Temple, where the ticket seller practically threw my (oops!) expired student card in my face and called me a liar when I protested the absurdly high entrance fee, which had (I think) doubled in the past three months. Entrance for one person was higher than our hotel room for the night, including breakfast. Karnak Temple itself was awe-inspiring, with well-preserved columns and statues, but I was almost too grumpy to enjoy it. Let the Luxor loathing continue. (Please note, as mentioned in my little intro, people in Luxor have pretty good reasons to be bitter with the tourism that inundates them, but it was still really hard to enjoy the monuments when people were being so unfailingly rude).

Day Seven: In Which We Leave Luxor, Good Riddance. We spent a good chunk of the day on the quieter West Bank, where we had unfortunately been unable to get a hotel room. We ran into another incredibly rude ticket seller who had me in tears, but cheered up when we decided to avoid the overpriced and crowded Valley of the Kings (twice the price of a hotel room to enter Tut’s tomb) and Hapshetsut Temple in favor of some less-visited monuments and memorials at the Ramesseum, the Valley of the Nobles, and Medinet Habu. Good decision. Nice places, but I’m sure descriptions are both boring and inadequate, so I will just say hieroglyphs rock and check out the pictures if you want to see more. We had a nice chat with some restaurant owners (finally, some civil people), and headed back to the East Bank for a quick trip to the market before we hopped on the sleeper train, and after that, a commuter train to Alexandria.

Day Eight: Alexandria’s kind of a hard town to find your way around unless you’re on the waterfront, but we eventually ended up at a “budget” hotel near the famous and lovely Corniche. We dug up same fantastic budget (no sarcasm that time) fast food joint, Egyptian style, which was basically a tableful of deliciousness for three bucks. We walked along the Corniche one way to the ultra-modern Alexandria Library and then the other way to Fort Qaitbey (13^th century ruler made it with the rubble of the Wonder of the World Lighthouse of Alexandria). We hung outside for awhile, watching people fish and a little leery of monuments after Luxor. But we decided to go in eventually and it was interesting—reminded me a bit of the Chateau D’If in The Count of Monte Cristo.

Day Nine: After some wandering and getting lost, we finally found our way to the Catacombs, which is where the Romans buried their families during the period they took over Egypt. Pretty cool: a spiral staircase takes you down into the underground tombs which feature carving that are a mixture of Egyptian, Greek, and Roman art. We sat around in the park awhile, soaking up the sun and quiet, then went to find the famous Pompey’s Pillar, which we took one look at through the gate and decided nope, not worth the entrance fee. So we went to eat instead. That night we took a freezing night bus to Siwa Oasis, where we arrived, teeth chattering, at 5 am and had to wake up the hotel manager to let us in.

Day Ten: After the approximately 17 hours it took us to get warmed up, and having to switch rooms to one where the water came out of the faucets instead of heating it and running it into the toilet, we waited for breakfast awhile. And waited some more. And it didn’t matter because after about three hours in Siwa, you suddenly decide that time is the most irrelevant thing in the world and the food can take its dear sweet time. (Incidentally, for me that’s saying a lot, since I’m compulsively early and Lord help the person who gets between me and a meal.) Siwa itself is pretty small and dusty, and dominated by a collapsed fort that withstood hundred of years of invasions only to be destroyed by a few days of unaccustomed rains. We took a wander through the palm groves to the Oracle, which Alexander the Great consulted—I wasn’t expecting much, but it was pretty and interesting, with sweeping views and a deserted complex. Also, we had the advantage of a non-annoying volunteer guide, who strolled around with us and taught me a few words in Arabic. (Most unrequested guides: “That’s a goat. That’s a camel. See the camel? You want a camel ride? That’s a hieroglyph. Very interesting. That’s a camel.”) After giving some baksheesh we were for once actually happy to part with, we wandered past another temple that had been destroyed by dynamite in Victorian times by a mayor who decided he needed some rocks, and then on to Cleopatra’s Bath, a big cold spring that we didn’t go in because hey, it was cold. That night we took a taxi way out to a fancy campsite with deliciously hot hot springs and decent meals. Some of the campers gave us a ride back into town, and we stopped by a restaurant for dessert and got a brief taste of Siwa’s crazy but completely chill expat community.

Day Eleven: After a lazy morning (I don’t know if anyone or anything in that town gets going before 9), we had an adventurous little jaunt in the afternoon with a few other tourists in a hotel 4x4. Our driver took us on a ride through the dunes at the edge of the Great Sand Sea, aka The Real Sahara. In between plunging over “dune cliffs”—fun stuff—we stopped for tea at a lake, stopped for a toe dip at some hot springs, and halfheartedly glanced at some shell fossils (the Sahara used to be the ocean floor). Then we watched the sun set over the sands and hightailed it back into the oasis before it got too cold.

Day Twelve: We decided to break our usual waste-no-time-or-money habit by taking a day bus back to Alexandria, thereby spending a day in a vehicle and not saving hotel room money. And it was totally worth not having to take another night bus. And we saw camel road kill, how ‘bout that.

Day Thirteen: We spent some time before the next night bus wandering around the city and peeking in at the ethnic cemeteries (that’s a weird description, but Alexandria has a cemeteries district where each lot has a different ethnicity and art style—Greek, Lebanese, etc.) It was kind of quiet, and we saw police in riot gear on one corner. Hmm, that’s weird, maybe we’d better head back to the hotel before yet another night bus ride.

Day Fourteen: On arrival in Dahab via Sharm and innumerable Sinai Peninsula police checkpoints, we learned from our helpful hotel people what the unhelpful hotel people in Alexandria failed to tell us—there had been a religiously-motivated church bombing in Alexandria during midnight services which had left 20 dead and 80 wounded. Oh. Well that explains the riot police. We wander around Dahab for awhile—it’s incredibly touristy and a bit overpriced. So much for backpacker’s paradise. It does, however, have a decent used bookstore, which I happily raided. And then we had a nice dinner.

Day Fifteen: We headed up to St. Catherine’s Monastery at the foot of Mt. Sinai, where Moses received the 10 Commandments, and WOW THAT IS A LOT OF PEOPLE LET’S GET OUT OF HERE. We left the monastery after peeking into the church and then being jostled for 10 minutes, and opt instead to camel watch and sit on the mountainside. All in all, not a big fan of the Sinai Peninsula.

Day Sixteen: We take a day bus back to Cairo.

Day Seventeen: Also not really a happening day. We walk around downtown, eat, plan our desert trip, and take a break from traveling.

Day Eighteen: We took an early morning bus to Bahariyya Oasis in the Western Desert and were picked up by our driver/guide, Nasser, and his slightly annoying nephew Muhammed. We were supposed to share the cost of the trip with two other tourists, but it ended up just being us for the same price—very nice. We drive through the Black Desert, which looked vaguely volcanic and is mostly famous because it makes a nice contrast to its neighbor, the White Desert, which is legitimately awesome. The White Desert is blindingly, uh, WHITE, filled with hoodoos, crystals, and windblown rock formations that the guides have helpfully named after animals they vaguely look like. “Look, there’s a chicken. It has an egg. Look, it’s a rabbit. And there’s a camel.” Predictably, this drives my mother crazy. Nasser and Muhammed set up camp neat the camel (ha) while we watch the sunset turn the rocks and sand colors. Then, of course, it gets really cold, and we retreat under authentic-smelling camel hair blankets which apparently take pity on us and donate half their hair to our polar fleeces. We eat a delicious meal (thank you, Nasser) and watch the stars come out. We eventually snuggle up under the blankets and listen to far-off drums presumably played by a slightly annoying trustafarian getting in touch with his inner desert—MOUSE!! Yup, that was a desert mouse that just ran across my blanket, two inches from my nose. Not cool. I wrap my head in a scarf and try not to think about that story I head about a PCV waking up to a rat chewing on his hair. And I notice how deafeningly quiet the desert gets when the trustafarian shuts up. And I snap my fingers experimentally just to make sure it is, in fact, that quiet, it’s not a sudden hearing problem on my part. The desert it is.

Day Nineteen: We get a slow and lazy desert start (well, OK, Mom and I are up early and hiking but it takes the other two awhile to get going). We wander through the desert some more and go on a short mountain climb before ending up in the Oasis, where we get a free night in a camping hut because we’ve been staying at the lodge’s sister hostel in Cairo. Also, they have no other customers. But that’s OK, because it means we get all the hot water to ourselves, all five minutes of it! Nasser takes us on a little loop of the oasis, nothing too exciting—palm groves and little dunes. After dinner, we have a relaxing evening by the bonfire and have Bedouin-style tea (a lot of the oasis people are descended from Bedouin nomads).

Day Twenty: We take a bus back to Cairo, eat kusherie, watch a movie, and get eaten alive by mosquitoes. In our hotel. Where are they coming from?

Day Twenty-One: Museum Day! We set out for one of the famous smaller museums by metro and find it—closed to construction. Bummer! So we head over to another small sculpture museum, which was—closed for repairs. Hey… Then we seek out a third, which has apparently disappeared from the face of the earth because we walk in circles around the area it’s supposed to be in and don’t see it. Really? Well, not meant to be. So we load up on snacks and go watch The Tourist at the movie theatre, because there are no movie theatres in Mad. And even though the movie’s not great, at least I get to watch it on the big screen.

Day Twenty-Two: Mom heads to the airport early and I spend the entire day eating—spending the remainder of our money on a variety of food I won’t see in awhile. Sigh. And then it’s back to Madland for me, where there’s no kusherie, but where you don’t need to bury yourself in camel hair to stay warm.

And there you go.

Random Pics

Hey! Sorry for the longish blog silence--I've been meaning to get a blog post about Egypt up before I start back in on Mad posts (though it almost seems a little silly given what kind of news Egypt has been putting out lately), but here up north we've been having the kind of crushing humid heat that sends everyone into the 95 degree shade for four hours in the middle of the day, and the heat had robbed me of my motivation. So here are a few random pics to tide you over:

Some of my English Club with the completed World Map Project. I just taught them what thumbs up means, so two of them are giving a thumbs up to the camera. The two guys on the left are two of the English teachers I help (there are now a grand total of three who aren't terrified of me and my English fluency).

This is what I sift out of every cup of flour I use. Yum, right? Best not to think about it too much.

Drying my laundry on my lawn. My living fence keeps falling down (with not a little help from the kids and cows) and I keep patching it up again and again. It'll be nice and sturdy...by the end of my service.