Inutile et Indispensable

The third and final installment of Neil’s adventures in Egypt. The accompanying photo album is up and good to go; check it out!

Samantha and I returned to Turgoman Station at midnight,about half an hour before our scheduled departure. We already had tickets and were directed to sit in a waiting area downstairs. Another individual came along and asked where we were going, then had us move to a different waiting area. There, just to be sure, I showed my ticket to a guard and asked him if this was the departure gate for the bus to Dahab. He told me it was, and it should be arriving shortly. “Shortly” extended for a while, which was unsurprising and unalarming given the nature of “Egypt time,” which is much like “Spain time,” “Nicaragua time,” “African time,” or time any other place that is not the US or Britain. Eventually, a bus pulled up and people began queuing at the door for their tickets to be checked, so Sam and I followed suit. When we got to the front of the line, addressing the same officer that I had spoken with maybe 30 minutes before, he said that there was a problem. This, he explained, was the bus to Sharm el Sheik–not the bus to Dahab.

A word on Sinai tourism–don’t go to Sharm el Sheik. I’ve never been so I can’t say this out of firsthand experience, but absolutely every review I’ve gotten of it has been overwhelmingly negative. If you’re into casinos and a huge preponderance of Eastern European tourists then it might be your place, but otherwise it probably is not. From the beginning, Sam and I made a clear and intentional decision to avoid Sharm and go to smaller places instead, like Dahab. However, the bus standing before us was not going to Dahab, despite what no less than three individuals in the train station had told us earlier. We had, in fact, missed our bus while sitting at the gate for a different one. We were hustled upstairs to the ticket office, where a slick employee with moderate English skills snidely explained that our tickets were now worthless. However, for just 20 LE more each, he could “do us a favor,” and put us on the bus to Sharm. We would arrive at 6 am and have to take another bus to Dahab from there, which would cost another 11 LE each or so. Sam and I were infuriated, but we really had no other alternative. We forked over 40 LE and angrily got on the bus to Sharm, resentful and sullen.

Looking back at this incident, I’m not sure how these circumstances came to pass. There’s really no good answer–either these people are so woefully inept and inadequate at fulfilling their remarkably simple jobs that they failed to read the ticket, and assumed that we were going to Sharm based on the fac that we were white, or it was intentional. I don’t imagine an intentional act would have been out of malice, but rather out of financial gain–if just two of the three people were in on it, they each made 20 LE, and they know that the dumb Americans aren’t going to be able to do anything about it. In fact, they could pull this scam every night to a different pair–just tell them to go wait in the wrong spot, and then charge them extra when they miss their bus. It’s not pretty, but it’s quite possible that’s what happened. Ironically, however, the Sharm bus caught up to the Dahab bus at around 2:30 am and a very helpful young Egyptian that spoke nearly flawless English helped sort us out. This happened at one of many security checkpoints, where a plainclothes officer would come onto the bus and check IDs. Sometimes they asked for everyone’s, sometimes they were much more selective and only took young males. Presumably, this was because they were looking for specific individuals–no doubt part of Mubarak’s crackdown on Hezbollah. I lost count of the number of times this happened, but I’d estimate it was about seven or eight during the course of our nine our bus ride. Finally, we arrived in Dahab the next morning, tired and sore but ready to go to the beach.

We stayed at a nice hotel in Dahab called Seven Heaven that was recommended by Lonely Planet. The staff there was very committed to making us feel as at home and appreciated as possible, which was a nice change after our experience at the bus station. Our room was small but very usable and clean, and literally down an alley and across a wide avenue from the Red Sea. Dahab is set up in a very simple but effective way, with one main Corniche-type street running along the shore, going directly through countless restaurants that seem almost identical. Each restaurant has a bar and indoor table area and kitchen, and then another branch on the other side of the boulevard with low tables and couches and pillows. Sitting at one of these spots, you are literally feet away from the sea, and can enjoy really good food with a great view. Dahab’s economy is based 100% on tourism, so interspersed throughout are hotels and tour agencies that arrange scuba diving, interior treks, rock climbing, camel rides, trips to St. Catherine’s Monastery and Mt. Sinai, and basically anything else that you request. The feel of the town was a little bit more touristy than we had hoped for, but it was still a very relaxed and mellow place. Everyone spoke English and appeared at all times to be at least a little bit high, so they were very friendly and slow-moving.

We never really went to a proper sandy beach, but we did rent snorkeling gear on our first day and walk up to a spot called “the Lighthouse,” which is a really good local spot for snorkeling and diving. I haven’t been snorkeling since I was a little kid and went to the Caribbean with my family, and even then I think I was too small to really do more than splash around in the waves with a mask on. Because of thise, Dahab was the first time that I think I’d ever really experienced it and been able to fully appreciate what I was doing. The Lighthouse is a large reef just off of the shore, where the ground suddenly drops away to perhaps 10 meters deep. Despite the heavy traffic, a lot of fish and jellyfish live in the reef, and even a few eels. We shared the area with a lot of other people, but we were able to observe a lot and even take a lot of pictures with my waterproof digital camera (it’s advertised waterproof-ness is arguable given past experiences, but this time it held up just fine). The Red Sea is quite salty, so it very was easy to float around with my face in the water and take pictures of coral and fish and scuba divers.

Daytime in Dahab is very slowmoving, with meals taking a considerable amount of time to arrive and no one walking anywhere very quickly. The nightlife scene picked up a bit, so Sam and I decided to be social. We went to a bar called “Yalla!” and made friends with some “locals.” I use quotation marks because it seems that very few people in Dahab are actually locals, and are rather Americans, Europeans, or Australians that have been there for at least three months or so. These people generally find work in dive shops or hotels, make enough money to support a fairly frugal lifestyle, and spend a lot of time hanging out on the beach–not that bad of a lifestyle, if you ask me. One of our new friends was German, another Britsh, and a third from Cairo. This was Monday night, which is apparently “quiz night” at Yalla!, so we formed a team to answer a large number of remarkably hard questions or complete tasks, in competition with other teams. I’m proud to say that our team of five officially did the worst out of all of them, an honor helped by our exceptionally bad skills on the Pictionary component. The prize was a relatively small amount of credit at the bar, so I didn’t feel THAT bad about losing so horribly. Afterwards we hung out with our new friends for a bit, then called it an early night.

The next day we hoped to go to a smaller town an hour up the coast called Nuweiba in the morning, but we got moving too slowly to catch the bus. Instead, we had a leisurely lunch and swam some more until the second bus came later in the afternoon. This we did make, and were surprised to find ourselves two out of five total people on the whole charter bus, including the driver. Nuweiba is relatively remote, and much less-discovered by Westerners. We were ushered off the bus at the edge of town, where a taxi driver was waiting. We had hoped to wander around a little bit on our own and feel out prices, but weren’t expecting how spread out, disorganized, and just generally empty the town is. The driver immediately dropped the name of Soft Beach Camp, which looked like the best of the options in the tour book, so I consented. We haggled a bit over prices (and still got fairly well screwed over), and he took us where we needed to go.

Soft Beach is an amazing place. For 60 LE, about $10, Sam and I stayed in a grass and wood hut with nothing but a dirt floor, a hard mattress, a mosquito net, and a bare light bulb. We slept a few hundred feet away from the white-sand beach, and half that to a delightful central structure that consists of a concrete floor with rugs and pillows and tables everywhere for people to lounge around in, with a slow computer and a kitchen that can cook about half of the things advertised on its menu, as long as you don’t mind waiting for an hour or two. The beach is beautiful, with hammocks and chairs and armies of little purple jellyfish that don’t sting but leave their victims a little slimy. A one-eyed dog named Charlie follows guests everywhere, digging in the sand for crabs and chasing Bedouin kids that come to sell handmade bracelets and necklaces to the tourists. Three large kittens roam around the lounge area begging for scraps and jumping into laps. On clear days, Saudi Arabia is visible, only 13 km away across the Red Sea.  Travelers generally come planning to spend one or two nights, and wind up losing track of time and money and spending a week. Sam and I stayed for three nights, which was the absolute maximum we could because this was the end of our trip together.

On the first night, we met a group of international students studying medicine in Israel. They were finishing up with their spring break a few days before Sam and I, and had spent the entire thing in Nuweiba. We followed them to another camp down the beach that had some young Bedouin men, clearly not sober, with tabla drums and a lot of slightly-sexist enthusiasm. There was a small group gathered and much dancing ensued. At times the guys would play traditional songs with lyrics that they all knew, or intermittently they would turn on a boombox pounding American rap songs that they would provide extra percussion for. I’m not sure how long we stayed, but we had a really good time. After a while, we got a bit exhausted of fending them away from the girls of the group, and went back to Soft Beach Camp. Sam went to bed at this point, but I stayed up and met more people. The other main group sharing the camp with us were four best friends from Alexandria, on the Mediterranean Coast of Egypt. They come to Nuweiba everytime they can scrounge together enough money to do so, and sometimes even when they haven’t managed to do so. Mo (short for Mohamed) is a Detroit native that was raised paying $1 whenever he spoke English in his home. He has a quick wit and sharp tongue that almost matches mine, so we had a good time verbally sparring. He moved to Alexandria four years ago to do a six year med school program after visiting extended family there his whole life. Gemy is his best friend of one year, an Alex native. His English was good but heavily-accented. Gemy is a huge, good-natured guy, who is very imposing but also very sweet. He has a massive scar on his right elbow where he had a horrific compound fracture from being hit by a car on his bike when he was five, riding in tears and frustration at the death of his mother earlier that day. Mostafa, called “Disha” by everyone else, is much quieter. He is less confident with his English, and has never been farther away from Alexandria than Nuweiba. Still, he is very good with puns and deadpan humor, and I liked his smile. He and Mo have known each other since they were just a few years old. Disha’s girlfriend, Salwa, was the last piece of the puzzle. She was raised in West Virginia but is also very Egyptian, and now studies in Alexandria. She is the thinker of the group, and offered a rational counter-balance to the other three goofy kids.

The rest of our time in Nuweiba was spent with these kids. We ate, drank, danced, swam, and snorkeled with them. Others joined as well–there was a New York native doing a master’s program in anthropology at the American University of Cairo, two British girls on gap year before starting their first year of university, and a small group of Germans. Nuweiba was a great place to make new friends, and it would have been nice to spend more time there. However, we had to get Sam across the border back to Israel and me to Cairo to catch my flight back to Beirut. I was planning on just going straight back on my own and spending some more time with Jonah and his family, but the Alexandrians convinced me to come back with them so they could show me their city for a day. I eventually consented, and am very glad that I did. Due to the lifestyle of Nuweiba, we missed two public buses before being fully packed and fed, so ended up hiring a microbus for 100 LE each, with no other passengers but us. The bus ride was a nine hour adventure, getting us to Alexandria at about 1:30 am. We were delayed for a variety of reasons, but a surprisingly large one was the presence of Americans. Paul the New Yorker and I apparently caused some consternation by taking a microbus rather than the approved larger buses that we had intended to take. We were actually turned away at a checkpoint and forced to take a different route, because Americans apparently weren’t allowed to travel on certain roads. Still, we made it eventually. We dropped Paul off in Cairo and then continued to Alexandria a few hours beyond.

We stayed up for all of that night, driving around the city in Gemy’s car and getting a late-night dinner at the sort of restauarant that they warn white people not to go to for the sake of our stomachs. We also had a delightful local drink made out of pure cane syrup, pulverized out of the canes themselves in a large machine as we watched, with orange or coconut juice added afterwards. This refreshing concoction was served in massive glass beer steins while we sat in the car, and cost less than 50 cents apiece. Egypt is awesome like that. The four of us ended up staying until dawn, and watched the sunrise from a little cafe across the street from the rebuilt Library of Alexandria. The cafe wasn’t open yet, but the attendant let us in and served us tea while we sat at a table and appreciated the beach and lightening sky. Alexandria is a very peaceful and beautiful city, and was probably my favorite place in all of Egypt. I’m not sure what I would do there, but I could easily see myself living there. We slept for a few hours at Salwa’s apartment, then did a quick tour of the city. There are a lot of remnants in Alex of the old monarchal order, including an extensive palace complex. Apparently, the old king had an entire palace for his, um, harem, which is rumored to have 365 rooms, for exactly the reason you think it would. Additionally, he had a separate palace for drinking tea, a tower that was his designated hash-smoking hangout, another large and impressive building to do administration stuff from, and his own private rocky beach to fish from. All of this was connected by a series of tunnels underground and a very nice garden/park above ground. The king seems to have had a pretty awesome life. After this, we got lunch at an amazing local seafood restaurant that was tucked into an alleyway. According to Mo, this restaurant is one of the oldest continually-used establishments in Alexandria, and is fairly famous in the region. The cooking was all done in grills and friers outside, in the alley, and food was brought upstairs into an adjacent building. The portions were enourmous and amazingly delicious. I got a massive combo platter with calamari, three fish fillets, a stack of very large shrimp, a huge pile of oysters, rice, bread, and extremely strong shrimp soup. This meal was incredible, but unfortunately slightly rushed as I had to get to the train platform to catch a 2 pm train back to Cairo.

Getting me on the train was an adventure, since we were a little late. In Egypt, you can either wait in line at the office and get a ticket, or you can just show up and get on the train, and pay a bit more on the train. This means that sometimes there are not enough seats for everyone, but is balanced out by the fact that most people don’t show up early enough to buy tickets, so there are spaces available for freeloaders that show up late. We were so late that the train was actually starting to move when we got to the platform, so I literally had to do a running jump into an open door to make it on and shout my goodbyes to my friends as I was rolling away. I paid the attendant a tip for letting me on (not that he really did anything to help), and then found a seat and bought a ticket when the collector came. The train ride was only two hours and I slept through most of it, but the bit of countryside that I did see was fairly nice. This whole area is the Nile Delta, so it is well-irrigated and moderately populated. The train was cheap and an excellent way to travel from A to B.

I spent my last evening in Cairo hanging out with my extended family. Jonah and I watched the end of an American basketball game. This was good bonding time, though as a true Bostonian he was pretty upset when the Celtics lost to the Bulls by one or two points in overtime. Afterwards, he put Zoe to bed, and Jessica and Mikayla and I played Disney Uno–which I lost horribly. Few things are as humbling as losing three times at Uno to a four year old girl, especially when you’re legitimately trying to win. Finally it was bedtime for her as well, and I had a chance to make some phone calls and get some sleep. My flight back to Beirut was early the next morning, which Jonah graciously got me to the airport for. Getting home was uneventful except for some unpleasantness with my ears painfully deciding to not un-pop for more than a day, and a particularly slimy taxi driver that conned me into paying an embarrassingly large fare for the ride home from the airport. I went directly to sleep, content with the best spring break I’ve had in a long time. Despite the few snags we ran into on the way, I definitely recommend Egypt to anyone who wants to have a crazy fun vacation.

Pics are now up for Egypt I and partially up for Egypt II. I’m struggling to get all of the photos up at the moment, but if you check back in the next few days they should be there.

Oh, we’re just gettin’ started…

Day two in Cairo was devoted to going to the pyramids. This has sort of been a lifelong dream of mine, which I think a lot of people can relate to. Ancient Egypt is just really freaking cool like that. Pyramids, pharaohs, mummies, hieroglyphics, all that jazz–it’s very exciting and romantic (okay, maybe not the mummies). So when Sam and Jacob and I got into a taxi and started driving to Giza, where the Sphinx and most famous pyramids are, I was very excited. And I wasn’t disappointed.

Our first view of the largest pyramid was a shocker–it emerged from over the top of an apartment building, as we were driving on a busy highway. I’ve always had a mental image of these massive structures deep in the Sahara Desert, accessible by a long drive or perhaps a camel trek. I didn’t realize it, but sprawling Cairo has spread to the edge of the Giza Plateau where these structures are built. On one side is city, on the other is desert. Very disconcerting and weird. Regardless, we bought our tickets and walked through a gate and were confronted with a straight-on view of the three big pyramids and the Sphinx. It’s a lot to take in at a single glance, especially with the juxtaposition of a KFC across the street and apartment buildings and motels to the side. There is a long walk uphill to the plateau, passing by the Sphinx on the right and heading towards the center pyramid. At this point I should emphasize that these things are big. Like, I know that when you learned about them in elementary school, you were told that they were rather sizable. But when you were a kid, you probably didn’t understand measurements like meters or feet or “bigger than a breadbox.” But these things are fairly massive. Wikipedia tells us that the Great Pyramid of Giza is about 140 meters tall and 230 meters to a side. That’s kind of big, for something that was constructed over the course of just 20 years around 2560 BC. Also, the measurements are incredibly accurate, with errors of scale measured literally in millimeters. What’s more, the sides of the Great Pyramid and the others are all almost perfectly aligned to true north. It’s pretty crazy stuff.

So we walked up towards these great structures, fairly awed. There were a lot of tourists, but the necropolis extends over such a great area that they were actually relatively spread out. As we walked, we got a lot of offers for camel, horse, donkey, and other livestock rides around the complex. Having ridden a camel once before, albeit briefly and mostly against my will, I didn’t really have any plans to fork over a big wad of cash to see the pyramids from six feet higher up and spend the next four hours trying to relocate my genitals. However, Samantha and Jacob had never ridden camels before, and a friendly group of “Bedouins” (hint: they weren’t really Bedouins) gave us a pretty good offer. So, the three of us saddled up on a camel each, behind experienced professional drivers, and headed off of the road and into the desert, arcing around the pyramids.

This experience was actually a lot more fun than I expected it to be. Perhaps it’s because my first camel experience was pretty forced and negative, as I was literally picked up and set on top of an unamused beast that was forced to live in the middle of a city, then my camera was grabbed out of my hands so that two pictures could be taken and the camel’s owners could let me down and demand $20. Regardless, the six of us (or nine, if you count the camels), rode off into the desert and had a pretty good time. I spoke almost entirely in Arabic with my driver, which was a satisfying experience. My driver was wearing traditional Bedouin garb, plus sunglasses and a cell phone that frequently rang and he answered at least four times throughout the ride. The camel’s name was Charlie, which I thought was cute. I explained to the driver that Sam was my wife, and that we lived in Beirut and Jacob was visiting from America. Apparently at the same time, Jacob was explaining to his driver that Sam was his wife, and I was a British friend they had met in the US. I’m not sure how that worked. Anyway, the drivers would periodically stop at pre-determined photo-op-spots and dismount, taking pictures of us holding our hands out so that our fingers touched the tops of the pyramids in the background. Jacob jokingly asked if we could stand on the camels, which actually we were indeed able to do, so that started an amusing game of “don’t fall off, break a limb, and get trampled and spat on by large, ungainly quadrupeds.” Fortunately all of us won that particular game, which was nice. We returned to the main tourist road, did some final haggling about appropriate payment, and said our goodbyes to our new friends.

After the camel adventure, we had relatively little interest in seeing more of the pyramids. Ironically, this was during Passover, which is celebrated by Jews worldwide as the time that they escaped Pharaoh got the hell out of Dodge (colloquially known as “Egypt”). Samantha and Jacob, both studying in the Holy Land for the year, decided to come back on vacation during that celebration. We had a brief photoshoot in front of one so that they could hold a handmade sign saying “Let my people go!” in front of one (Sam’s father insisted), and touched the Great Pyramid so that we could each say we’d done it. It’s a cool feeling to know, and have photographic evidence, that you touched the last surviving Wonder of the World.

We felt a little adventurous, so rather than paying an overpriced tourist taxi driver to get back to Cairo we took the city bus. This was an interesting cultural experience. There were no other white people, so the three of us (one of us resplendent in a bright blue “USA Hockey” t-shirt) stood out a little bit. After I taught Sam and Jacob the proper phrase, it was a really nice feeling to welcome elderly Egyptians onto the bus and give them our seats. The ride went on for a long time, and I talked with several other people on the bus. One very nice older woman got off at the same place as us and helped us find the metro station, which was gratifying. The neighborhood around that spot was a nicer Muslim area, with a very local feel. Around this time we started feeling even more out of place, and Sam bought a headscarf for a few pounds at a stand where a woman was very impressed with my Arabic (though to be fair, I think it was just because I was white and could speak at all, not that my skills were particularly good). From here, we took the metro to Old Cairo, which is more of a historic district with a more Christian and Jewish character. There are some very old churches and synogogues, so we explored these for a while. It was a little bit touristy but very manageable, and we wandered around for some time. Unfortunately we were too late to get into the big synagogue, which was our original goal, but it was still a cool neighborhood. Also no entry fee, which was a nice change after the pyramids.

That night we stayed at Jonah’s place again, and in the morning sent Jacob on his way back to Jerusalem. Sam and I spent quite a while trying to find the main bus station that we would be using for the next leg of our trip, in the process meeting a young middle-class banker named Walid. Walid’s English was pretty good, though I felt evenly matched with him, and enjoyed speaking responding in Arabic to his English questions. He wasn’t positive where the bus station was either, and we walked around in general vicinity for what felt like almost 40 minutes. Finally, we arrived at the newly reconstructed Turgoman station and parted ways. I felt like it would be very prudent and polite to give Walid a few pounds for a taxi back to work, as he was clearly skipping out on responsibilities to walk around with us. He refused vehemently, and even pretended to not understand to the point of offering me money. Obviously I declined. I didn’t understand this gesture, but after Walid left Sam gave her take on it, which I think was spot on. Culturally, he didn’t want to be seen as poor in front of the Americans, so was demonstrating that he had cash to throw around. I was too oblivious to realize that and was just trying to be polite and generous, and he defended his honor in his own way. I don’t think that I offended him too badly, and it was a valuable lesson for me.

At Turgoman, we purchased overnight bus tickets to the town of Dahab on the Sinai coast for that night. This was easy and straightforward, and we felt very secure and on top of things by having those in-hand. Sam and I were getting hungry by this point and decided to find lunch somewhere nearby. We wandered until we started smelling delicious food coming from an alleyway, and went in to investigate it. What followed was one of the more amazing culinary experiences I’ve had in my life. A bustling food stand inide of a garage door was serving up local Egyptian food while the young guys working the stand rocked out to nothing less than Dr. Dre’s “The Chronic.” They were so amazed to see white people that we became instant celebrities, ushered inside with stares and waves. Many of them even produced cell phones and started taking pictures of us. The food was fairly recognizable, but the particularly smiley guy dancing behind the counter kept forcing more samples onto us. We ordered a little bit of everything and he put extra stuff in our bag. We got an impressive stash of really good hot food for two of us for only a few pounds, literally less than a dollar. Around the corner we picked up a few Fantas in glass bottles, and then came back to our alleyway friends. They produced a tiny table and two chairs from the dirty garage next door, and we sat and ate and talked to them. One spoke some English, and asked me about New York City. I explained back in Arabic, and we had a really good conversation about America. We finished our food and took a group photo, then continued on our way. All in all, it was a fantastic lunch experience.

From there we walked to the Egyptian Museum, which was very impressive. They basically have so many ancient artifacts stored there that they don’t know what to do with them, and there are statues and carvings stashed behind shelves, forgotten and dusty. The interior is massive, with different rooms vaguely organized by era. The various objects weren’t particularly well-explained or labeled, but there was just so much to see that we breezed through it all and took it in as much as we could. There were sarcophagi, statues, carvings, tools, doors, jewelry, and animal mummies all over the place. There was so much that we were simply overloaded, and had to sit down for a little while against a wall. With the dust, heat, our long walk, and the big lunch, we were very tired, and both Sam and I fell asleep. We were woken by two gorgeous Egyptian girls with headscarves who appeared to be just making sure that we weren’t homeless or dead. We got up and browsed some more, and ran into the girls again. At this point they introduced themselves, and one asked to take a picture with us. I got an absolutely brilliant smile from her, which was a nice feeling. Then they went on their way, never to be seen again. Still quite tired, Sam and I resolved to go back outside to the large garden area around the entrance of the museum and take a nap. The two of us talked about life and love and relationships until we fell asleep, snoring in the grass for almost an hour. Then we headed back inside for the big finale stuff–the King Tutankhamen room.

You know that image that sticks in your head every time you think of King Tut, of his burial mask? The most vivid thought I have of it is on the cover of a National Geographic magazine from years and years ago. That’s an excellent photograph, but it honestly doesn’t do this artifact justice. You really have to see it in person and get the 360 degree shot of it in its glass case to get it. On top of that, there are cases and cases more of jewelry, as well as the sarcophagus, that were all discovered with Lil’ Tutankhamen. The sum total was the most elaborate and decadent thing that I think I’ve ever seen. The large necklaces especially struck me as incredible–layers and layers of gold and lapis lazuli and other shiny things all assembeled into an intricate and flashy burial decoration. The overall effect was pretty stunning, and was a great note to end the museum on.

That night we had dinner with Jonah and Jessica at an extravagant Indian restaurant in a hotel with a view of the pyramids to celebrate Jonah’s half-birthday (Jess was a little bit slow getting things together, apparently). It was one of the nicest places I think I’ve ever been, and was absolutely fantastic. We returned to their apartment, then Sam and I headed back to Turgoman to catch our midnight bus to the Sinai.

UPDATE: Egypt I album is up. Woot! Also, I have an approximately half-sized third Beirut album up now, with pictures of Sandra’s visit a few weeks ago and a few ridiculously adorable pictures of Nicolien and Walid’s cats from when I house-sat for them. Double woot!

Basically from the beginning, I was planning for my spring break from school in Beirut to be a vacation to Egypt. I have a distant cousin in Cairo, and I was raised on stories of pyramids and mummies, so it makes a lot of sense. The next few very long posts, with accompanying photos once I have a good enough internet connection to upload them, will document that journey. I’ll also put in wikipedia links where appropriate for those interested in additional cultural, historical, and religious information.

The flight over was an easy hour and a half jaunt across the Mediterranean and a bit of northern Egypt. The first impression I had of the country was looking out the window of the plane and seeing a nighttime spiderweb of small towns connected by well-lit highways. What struck me was that each of the them had at least one, and sometimes as many as five or six neon green lights that were clearly distinguishable from the yellow glow of the rest of the town. I was confused at this at first–what could they be? My first thought was pharmacies. In Beirut and many other cities around the world, pharmacies are denoted by a neon green cross outside. However, as the plane descended, I saw that these green lights were more like towers, pushing up into the night sky. That’s when it hit me–each one was the minaret of a mosque. Green, the color of Islam, was being thrust upwards as a beacon from each of these places of worship. That was my first of several impressions that Egypt is a much more religious, or at least much more Islamic, country than Lebanon.

My arrival at Cairo International Airport was uneventful save for a very long customs line that was made much more interesting by the presence of a gorgeous young Lebanese woman named Roba, or Rubes. I’d noticed her twice in the Beirut airport, standing behind her in the security line and then seeing her in the waiting area at the gate. I remember thinking in passing that it’d be nice to sit next to her on the flight, but I didn’t see her and forgot about it. Yet then there she was again, in front of me in the customs line on the other side. What’s more, she initiated conversation with me. We chatted for a half hour or so about travel plans and the irony of how both of us intentionally tried to go to a different line that was shorter, before being turned away and stuck at the end of the excruciatingly long line. We were the last people to make it through customs, and she got pulled away by security for an extra passport check. Before the Egyptian authorities dragged her away for interrogation or whatever, I managed to get her phone number, which was a pleasant surprise.

Jonah, my cousin, picked me up on  the other side of customs. I use cousin in a fairly loose sense of the word here–Jonah is the son of the brother of the ex-husband of the sister of my father. I’d never met him before, but we’re Facebook friends and everyone has been telling both of us that since we’re in the Middle East we need to meet up. He is a good-natured Bostonian, who teaches English at the American University of Cairo. He and his wife, Jessica, live in a nice suburb with their two daughters, aged four and one-and-a-half.  I had a lot of fun hanging out with them, but they were gone on a beach vacation for the majority of my time in Cairo. They left for that the next morning, after which point I hurried to downtown Cairo to meet up with my friend Samantha and her cousin Jacob.

Sam and I know each other from Lewis & Clark, and more specifically Model UN. We went to an MUN conference together in San Francisco exactly a year ago, and had some good bonding time. She is currently studying abroad at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and provides an interesting counterbalance to my admittedly pretty extreme views on the situation in Israel/Palestine. Her cousin is a nice kid from Minnesota, also at Hebrew U, who is a little bit clueless. Jacob had never been out of the US before this year, and since getting to Israel hasn’t gotten out much. More on that later.

The three of us took a taxi to Islamic Cairo, which despite what the Lonely Planet book says about it seems like a very appropriate name. One of the first things that we saw there was the massive Al-Husayn Mosque during Friday prayers. Al-Husayn is an extremely famous and holy mosque, believed to be the burial place of Muhammad’s grandson Husayn, the second most important figure in Shia Islam. It is also said to house the oldest compiled Quran in existence. Friday is the Muslim holy day, akin to Sunday in Christianity. Devout practicing Muslims pray five times every day in mosques, at home, or wherever they happen to be at the time, but for the midday prayer on Fridays they will go to their local mosque and hear an imam give a sermon (khutba). I didn’t understand most of what was being said, but it was certainly a striking visual image. The mosque we were at was so full that people were spilling out into the street from each of the entrances, praying on green carpets that were provided. Some even spilled beyond that, using their own prayer mats or, in one man’s case, a newspaper borrowed from a nearby stall. They moved, barefoot and in unison, going through the internal and external steps required for correct prayer. Fortunately, we happened to be on the side of the mosque opposite that of Mecca–meaning that everyone else in the area was facing away from us. Sam, Jacob, and I stood quietly behind them, discreetly observing and appreciating an ancient ritual. It is important to note that in all of my time in Beirut, I have not seen that many practicing Muslims. The call to prayer rings out over the city, but daily life goes unchanged. In fact, I’m not entirely sure that I’ve seen a single person praying here, and mosques are relatively few and far between. This is, of course, different in other neighborhoods. Hamra is a pretty multicultural neighborhood, with a mixed and largely secular population. Other parts of the city may more resemble Islamic Cairo, but I haven’t seen them firsthand. This was the first time I had ever seen in person so many Muslims praying together, and it was a pretty powerful experience.

Shortly afterward, we found our way to Al-Azhar Mosque, which is famous in its own right for many reasons. It serves as a university, and is one of the oldest continually running colleges in the entire world. Also, it remains one of the biggest centers of Sunni learning and teaching. It’s pretty much a big deal. We were welcome to enter, though we had to do a bit of improvisation with Sam–she needed to cover her hair, and didn’t have a scarf. Fortunately, she had a skirt stashed in her purse, which she fashioned into a headdress, and that worked just fine. Al-Azhar is dominated by a massive open-air plaza of white marble, which in the afternoon sun reflected in a particularly blinding way. It also has several impressive minarets scattered across the complex. As we wandered around, we asked a passing young man to take a photo of the three of us. It turned out that the man, Sham, was British of Pakistani descent, and he was in Egypt with a large group of his relatives and a British/Egyptian friend. Altogether, they were a group of five young men, extremely entertaining and fun to hang out with. The eight of us paid a tip (baksheesh) to a mosque employee, who unlocked a door so that we could climb up the tallest of the minarets. The climb was steep and dark, frequently completely black. Periodically we would emerge onto a 360 degree balcony. These offered impressive views of Islamic Cairo, with spiked minarets standing up all across the city. Their numbers were impressive, and gave a look into the nature of this city.

Around this time, I made another observation of Cairo–all of the women are covered. This wasn’t the case only in Islamic Cairo; it’s actually true everywhere. In Beirut, I will occasionally see a woman with a scarf. Rarely, one will be wearing an all-black chador dress. The vast majority, though, have their beautiful dark hair uncovered. Conversely, in Cairo, tight scarves were universal. Furthermore, a surprisingly large number of women had their entire faces covered as well, with only eye slits visible. These women will even wear black gloves, so that literally no inch of skin is left exposed. It is a very striking look, and I think says a lot about comparing the two countries.

We descended the minaret in the same blackness, edging down backwards one step at a time. Sham’s crew took us to a restaurant nearby with relatively “safe” food for westerners, and we enjoyed a long lunch. Afterwards, we all walked to the Khan al-Khalili market, which is a pretty famous attraction. The bazaar is very busy and intense, with stores lining both sides of an absolutely packed street full of Egyptians and tourists. All of them sell more or less the same stuff, of varying authenticity and usefulness. I recieved several offers for buying Sam, ranging from 20 LE (a little less than $4) to “two million camels.” I heavily considered the last one, which she didn’t appreciate much.

After the market, the eight of us decided to go for a Nile cruise. It is important to note that under no circumstances should one touch the water of the river, which is one of the most polluted and disgusting bodies of water in the world. In fact, as we stood by the edge of the Nile and haggled with the boat driver, Samantha and I had the following conversation:
Sam: Is that feces?
Neil: I don’t know.
Sam: I’m pretty sure that’s feces.
Neil: I don’t want to know.
Sam: Yeah, it’s definitely feces.
Neil: Stop looking.
Sam: Oh, look, there’s more over there!

Yeah. Don’t touch the water. Anyway, we took a sunset cruise in a fairly large motorboat, which was a lot of fun. The Nile, if you didn’t know, is a pretty big river, and it was a very pleasant evening. After about half an hour, we turned around and came back the other direction. As the sun went down, the boat drivers turned on overhead colored lights to illuminate our craft, and put on an American rap soundtrack. Possibly one of the most amusing moments of the trip ensued, with both Jacob and one of the drivers dancing in equally awful ways to Akon’s “Smack That.” The boat trip ended, and we parted ways with our new British friends. Jacob and Sam and I went to Jonah’s empty house and ate the leftovers in his fridge, and prepared for the next day’s adventure–the pyramids.

I’m flying off to Egypt tonight, which is pretty exciting. I’m going to meet my distant cousin Jonah, who teaches English at the American University of Cairo, and his family. I’m also meeting up with an old friend from L&C who is currently studying at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and we’re traveling together to the Sinai Peninsula. Should be a very fun and eventful trip. I doubt that I’ll have internet access for the majority of it, but once I get back I’ll post pictures and stories.

Cheers,
Neil