Land of Touts and Old Stuff

Check out the best photos from my time in Egypt here. Let me warn you that this post is long.

Egypt: Cairo, Dahab, Aswan, Luxor, Cairo

You know you’ve had a good time traveling when you feel as though you could write a novel about two weeks’ time.  Things were a bit slow the first couple of days in Cairo. After meeting up with my friend Krista, who flew all the way from Minneapolis and remarkably didn’t show any signs of jet lag, we explored some of Islamic and Coptic Cairo and managed to miss the closing of the Giza pyramids by about ten minutes. Seeing Al-Azhar University and the adjacent mosque was fascinating for me considering it’s one of the oldest continually functioning universities in the world, though after living next to the Omayyad Mosque in Damascus for three months the architecture was a relative let down.  But after being turned away at the entrance to the Giza pyramids, we were mobbed by touts trying to sell camel rides around the pyramids. They jumped on the back of our taxi and tried to stick their heads through the windows while screaming, “Camel ride cheap price!” and “We take you around the pyramids! I give you good price!” Our portly driver was forced to stop the car, get out, and threaten them with his pork chop hands before they left us alone. Best quote of this leg: “What is this, a kneecap sandwich?” Krista nearly shouted this while we ate a Shish Taouk (like barbecued chicken) sandwich just before realizing that pieces of the chicken were only half cooked. We raced back to our bags to take some pre-emptive antibiotics, which apparently did the trick as neither of us became violently sick.

Next, we took a relatively nice night bus (but with a driver who seemed to think his AC had only one setting: freezer truck) to Dahab, which is on the Sinai Peninsula just north of Sharm El Sheikh. There, time slipped away unnoticed while I went snorkeling, drank fresh guava juice at seaside restaurants, and lay on the beach like an uncommonly pale sea lion. It was heavenly for two days but like all things it had to come to an end; after two days we left for Aswan. Dahab’s crazy moment: New Year’s Eve at ‘Friends’ restaurant where we were promised a ‘fire show’ (be very wary when an Egyptian invites you to such an event) when the clock struck 12:00. The show consisted of two fools with cans of cooking oil and jet lighters, throngs of spectators not more than three feet away, including half a dozen children under the age of six, and fireworks. Big fireworks. I thought Kansas on the Fourth of July was bad but those folks in Dahab definitely win the ‘Who can put more people in unnecessary danger for no reason whatsoever?’ contest.

After another and much worse night bus/refrigerator truck ride, we arrived in Aswan, southern Egypt to enjoy the sunrise over the Nile and commiserate with new friends and a few cups of coffee and tea over our suffering the previous night. I felt vindicated in all my struggles with Arabic when the tea man tried to charge us double what was written on the Arabic menu. One of our new companions, a hilarious German guy named Daniel, became a great friend for the rest of our trip, not least because he’s a planning machine (while often I would rather wander aimlessly than actually read anything other than the maps in my guidebook). It was in Aswan that I first felt like I was really in Africa. The market, though touristy in most parts, included many goods that apparently had traveled up the Nile from central Africa and the Nubian people that inhabit Aswan, though they speak Arabic, are culturally distinct from Arabs from North Egypt. We had a great day exploring Aswan and planning the next few days’ Felucca (Nile sailboat) journey up toward Luxor, including a walk across the desert from tombs of Pharaonic nobles to an ancient Coptic monastery.

Our Felucca journey was great fun and relaxing, though a bit boring at times. We traveled up the Nile for two nights and three days with Captain Ruby and his first mate Ziggy, who were, in the most positive sense, stoners. Daniel, Krista, and I were the first ones to arrive at the boat, where we waited for two hours for the rest of the passengers to show up. Before they came and while I was gone picking up some snacks Daniel and Krista witnessed Ruby smoke the first of many massive joints. I’m no expert on spliffs but these were big. Really big. This may or may not have been the reason for when, after the seven other passengers finally showed up and the supplies were loaded, we ran into a rock leaving the riverbank. We spent a good twenty minutes getting freed from it and then ran into another one.

After that, the journey continued without a hitch. Well, except for later that night when Captain Ruby poked his head out of the tiny cabin in the front of the boat and croaked in his tubercular smoker’s voice, “You have chewing gum? Chiclets? Gum?” We had just heard them bailing water out of the bottom of the boat. Luckily, all was fixed (somehow) and we made it to the docking point the next night, which we spent in part listening to Ziggy singing his own creative version of the popular children’s song: “She’ll be drinking Johnny Walker when she comes/She’ll be smoking marijuana when she comes/She’ll be drinking Stella beer when she comes.” We began to think that ‘she’ wouldn’t be making it after all and was instead more likely passed out on the side of the road.

We arrived in Luxor, our travel friends group now up to seven (we’d added a Lebanese-Australian, an Argentinian, a Greek, and a South African who lives in Brazil), and spent a day recovering from the sloth-like states we achieved on the Felucca. We spent that evening on the rooftop of a hostel listening to Jimmy, the South African-Brazilian guy, play blues music wonderfully….that is, until a Slovenian Rastafarian named Yuri decided he would join Jimmy by playing guitar solos out of tune and out of time. When Jimmy prodded him to use his auto-tuner, Yuri said indignantly, “I always tunes by ear.” Jimmy took a well-deserved break for a minute, which Yuri took as his chance to get his Rasta on. “Jah,” and “Mon,” popped out between every line and after a collective cringe, we started to enjoy the absurdity of it.

The next day we (sans Yuri…he wasn’t invited) went for a bike ride to the Temple of Hatshepsut and the Valley of the Kings, where King Tutankhamon’s tomb was found. It was an exhilarating ride and a ton of fun despite the heat and the relative disappointment of the Valley of the Kings, which was completely overrun with scantily clad Russian tourists I can only describe as redneck-ish. We stopped for dinner after a solid five hours of riding and exploring next to the impressive Colossi of Memnon. The night ended with more fantastic blues music, this time without any Rastarruptions.

Our friends all left town that night or early the next morning, so we spent the next day exploring Karnak Temple on our own and walking around the market behind the tourist market, which as always was much more interesting. As we walked through the narrow alleys, I accidentally stepped on a bladder. What kind of bladder I don’t know, but in the surprise of stepping on it I then stepped in a bright red puddle of blood. Apparently a sheep or goat had been slaughtered not long before and I was the fool oblivious enough to miss the acrid stench of a fresh kill and the flow of people parting to avoid the mess.

After a sleeping train back to Cairo on which we barely slept more than an hour or two, I had what I reluctantly admit was one of my worst lapses in travel judgment. We arrived at Giza station in southeast Cairo, not too far from the most famous site in Egypt, and I had the brilliant idea to take a cab ride around the pyramids at sunrise, not to go inside the complex but just to take some photos and enjoy the view. Exhausted, we walked out of the station to the usual gang of taxi drivers waiting to pounce on their innocent and unsuspecting victims. I started to talk with them in Arabic and English, explaining what we wanted and bargained them down to a price that in hindsight was way too high (mistake #1: when you accept a price that’s much too high, those ripping you off will assume you’re ripe for yet more ripping off).

The Syrian slang for ‘rip off’ is kharruf, which is the same word used for the slaughtering of livestock. It’s even more apt a term in Egypt where, this time anyway, we were led off to slaughter like wide-eyed sheep.

We soon made our second mistake. A taxi driver accepted our price a little too excitedly (a taxi driver in the Arab world should never look happy with the price you give him, if he does it means you’re paying too much) and walked us out to his car. I say car because it wasn’t a taxi. He even had to clean a few things off the seats before we got in. If I were in my right mind, meaning not delusional from lack of sleep and physical exhaustion, I would have refused it immediately. It should have been obvious that he was just some dude with a car that wanted to make a bit of extra cash. But alas, we got in as trusting as sheep about to be strung up on a butcher’s hook. Soon after we left the station, Krista said something that I would realize later was incredibly insightful: “It’s really foggy.” What’s that? Mistake three? Four?

It was foggy. Really, really foggy. So much so, in fact, that we could barely see fifty feet in front of us on the road. I, all doe-eyed, asked the driver how we were going to see the pyramids. He said in Arabic, “I know a special place behind the pyramids where you can get a really good photo.” That should have been enough for me but no, instead I said “Really? That’s great!” Whenever a taxi driver or a man on the street or any stranger at all in the Arab world tells you they know of a ‘special place’ with such and such interesting thing it means they have a friend who will sell you something worthless for an exorbitant price.

We soon arrived at a camel pen. The fog was still thick so we had no idea if the pyramids were close or not. A short, older man wearing a red and white scarf greeted us enthusiastically and began explaining the good deal he had for us. It was here that I reached the apex of my foolishness. After being assured that we would be able to see the pyramids and take some good photos despite the fog, we accepted a half an hour camel ride for $13 each (way too much!). It was a combination of hope beyond hope that despite the obvious indications otherwise we’d be able to see the pyramids as the sun rose and the thought ‘well, we’ve come this far’ that led us to accept such an absurd and false offer.

On the camel, our folly quickly became apparent. A sleepy and grumpy young kid, not more than fourteen and probably the son of our scruffy old camel man, led the beast without once looking at us. I tried to get to know him. “How are you?” was met with a simple and pointed grunt. “What’s your name?” with, “mumble…”. And, “Are you sleepy? You want to go back to sleep, don’t you?” with, “I was sleeping.” As we continued to walk through what looked like a trash-strewn field of dirt, I asked the boy which direction the pyramids were in. He said, as if there was nothing remarkable about it, “I don’t know.” I accepted at that moment that I had just gotten kharruf­-ed and geared myself up for the battle that was surely to come; there was no way in hell I was going to pay for that camel ride through the fog.

We returned to the pen cold, pissed off, and trying to stay calm. I (rightly) felt stupid, humiliated, angry, and still, exhausted. I was planning to be civil and calmly tell the camel man and my taxi driver that we weren’t going to pay for anything because they blatantly lied to us. But that was before the man, with a shit-eating grin on his face, came out and asked, “Are you happy? Did you like it? I think you’re happy!” It was then that I lost it. I yelled at the man, calling him a liar. He claimed that he never said we’d be able to see the pyramids. The taxi driver said, incredibly, it was too foggy, why did we think we’d be able to see the pyramids? I told him we thought so because that’s what he said to us. I called both of them liars. We argued for a few more minutes before Krista and I took our things from the taxi and walked away, catching a ride with an English guy in another taxi back to the metro station. I don’t like to admit it but this was one of my worst travel blunders, not least because it was so easily avoidable if not for my stupidity. But as always, I can’t really lose when traveling. Bad travel days become good stories to laugh about and learn from and good days are, well, good days.

We went to our friend Ceci’s apartment in downtown Cairo, where we were staying for the night, for breakfast and to recover a bit before heading out again to see some of the lesser known pyramids. Incredibly, we found a good, honest taxi driver named Khaled to take us. The pyramids at Saqqara and Dahshur were very impressive and not very crowded, which is just what I wanted. Unsurprisingly, we’d given up on Giza by that point.

***

I got home in Damascus about 10pm the next day, exhausted and happy. Egypt, while frustrating at times, was just the adventure I needed. I’ve been back at work for about a week now. I just started volunteering with an organization that gives scholarships and English training to Iraqi refugee students and right now I’m in the process trying to figure out some kind schedule to be able to study Arabic, teach, volunteer, and have a social life all at the same time (the latter is the only one I have figured out pretty solidly so far).