It was something else to see an airport in the desert. Imagine sand everywhere - no grass, no trees, only sand and runway. Welcome to Cairo. The heat was unbelievably dry when we finally got out of airport. I mean, so dry that you could literally feel the moisture being sucked out of your mouth, nose, and eyes as you walked into the sun. The cab drivers were nowhere near as bad as the guidebooks had warned, but we were still in for adventure. First, we had to find our bus stop. The first stop we went to was for tour buses, not local buses, so someone gave us directions to walk across the parking lot. We walked to find a few dusty chairs and about six people: the bus station. We waited. And waited. The occasional crammed bus would come, but not the ones we wanted. Finally, as my sweetie says, the "bus station" got up and moved to somewhere else in the parking lot. We followed everyone and waited in the middle of the parking lot for another two hours, never seeing any one of the three buses that went to downtown Cairo. My sweetie and I didn't mind too much: we practiced figuring out the Arabic numeral system by reading license plates on passing cars, and watching the occasional car drive in the wrong direction against four lanes of oncoming, one-way traffic.
A young girl named Dahlia befriended us, and hesitantly suggested one of the buses that would take us to Midan Tahrir Square. If it weren't for, we'd probably still be waiting at the airport! We switched buses at Terminal 1, and an hour later we were in the midst of swirling traffic and throngs of people in Midan Tahrir Square. My impression of Cairo from the drive to the Square was that it was a browner, dustier, more worn-down version of Athens: lots of maniacal traffic and horns, but less rubble and a bit more crowded. After getting off the bus, with Dahlia still in tow, we found the Egyptian Museum, where some guards waved us in the direction of Tahat Harb Square. Actually, what was happening is that Dahlia kept offering to help us, but she was more lost than us and had to stop for directions everywhere. We finally politely got rid of her, but near Tahat Harb Square got suckered into two more hustlers' ruses. OK, so every guidebook and web page I had read about Cairo mentions these, but no one, NOTHING prepares you for their unbelievable tenacity and how quickly they sidle up to you and start with the conversation ("Where are you from? Canadian? I have a sister in Canada! What hotel are you staying at? Oh yes, that one. Um, I work there.") Smile, don't way a word, and keep walking. It's harder than it sounds. By the time my sweetie an I found our hotel (Meramees: nothing special for a hostel, but great location. It's a youth hostel, so don't expect anything, including sheets.), we were so tired that we no longer felt tired. The hostel is beside a mosque, and we had a pretty spectacular view onto the mosque and the street. Every few hours, prayers blare out of the mosque (sundown, sunrise, and whatever other prayer times there are.) I thought that was really neat. We had supper at the Cafe Riche, where Nasser allegedly plotted the 1952 revolution with his buddies. The harassment was worst around Talat Harb Square, particularly on our way back to the hotel.
I had expected the train station to be much like the ones in China: scenes of unbelievable, terrifying chaos; mobs crawling and scrambling over each other; deafening screams, shouting, and loudspeakers. It wasn't. It was a very typical, European, orderly station with ticket offices (we had no less than three people, including a tourist police) stand beside us and help with buying tickets. The train didn't leave until 2pm, and it was only 12:45, so my sweetie and I found a quiet spot to sit on our backpacks, stocked up on food and water for the trip, and checked out the guidebooks for Alexandria. We're using both the Let's Go and the Lonely Planet books. I can't say if there's a clear winner so far. Lonely Planet has more maps, but interestingly, these are less accurate than Let's Go's. I also find that Lonely Planet lists information and sections in a less logical order. Important information about a city, for example, is at the back, while sights are at the front. But Lonely Planet can be incredibly thorough, and its prices are very close to what we're paying.
The train to Alexandria was amazing. We had seats in a clean, second-class Spanish train. It was quiet, (no smoking!) and the two hours of travelling through the Nile delta was educational to say the least. So much land to farm, yet not a tractor in sight. Imagine harvesting a third of the Prairies by hand. Buildings are made of concrete, but the roofs are always unfinished, with steel rods sticking out of half-finished concrete columns. Rubble everywhere. Donkey carts and people haying in the fields. Alexandria, when it arrived, seemed less chaotic than other cities. My sweetie and I left the station and walked down Nabi Daniel Street, which was probably the highlight of my day. It's a narrow, crowded street full of shops, packed with pedestrians and a car vainly trying to make its way through. The temperature was perfect, and it was the nicest of walks. Our hotel, the Union Hotel, is right along the Corniche a block away from the famous Cecil Hotel. We actually contacted a travel agency (Osoris Travel) and asked them to make our reservation for us. Our room is unbelievable: it has its own washroom, and best of all it has a big balcony with a table and chairs that overlook the Mediterranean and the Corniche. Wow! (Union Hotel: Highly recommended. Very clean hotel, great location. We booked through the wonderful A HREF="http://www.osoris.com/"> Osoris Travel Agency .) We can even see Fort Quitbey, the start of the marathon (and where the ancient Alexandria Lighthouse was supposed to have been.)
This evening my sweetie and I wandered around, looking for a spot to eat. The guidebooks had lots of suggestions, but trying to keep track of the maze of streets here is more or less impossible. Our supper was at a small outdoor place. When I was done, I looked down to my left and saw a cat looking at me with huge eyes and meowing. After supper, more wandering around, then we checked out fireworks (October 6 is a holiday in Egypt), and had to go to the Cecil Hotel to get the directions to this Internet Cafe. (If you are considering the Cecil, it's now managed by Sofitel and has the most amazing staff.) Tomorrow my sweetie and I are picking up our race kits and getting our first feel for what the marathon will be like.
Our goal for the the day was to pick up our race kits, which a strangely worded email from the organizing committee suggesting that the registration site was at the Citadel of Quitbey. So my sweetie and I walked along the corniche for three or for kilometres until we got to the Citadel, whiuch was surrounded by fish markets and a wide area for watching the surf pound the shoreline. No registration desk in sight. My sweetie and I waited for a while along the wall, checking incoming tourist buses and anything that looked remotely race-like. Nope. So we decided to tour the Citadel for a while, thinking that when we were done the race committee would have something set up (this is Egypt, after all, and even if an email makes a vague reference to 10h00 at the Citadel, we have to add a few hours to account for Egypt time.) The Citadel was impressive: it was built on the island of Pharos using the remains of the ancient lighthouse that had collapsed on that site. One of the tourist police took us through the outer walls, then asked for a tip. We got to the inner mosque where another guard prepared to do the same, but just ignored him. The view of Alexandria from the outer walls was incredible: the city stretches for miles and miles along the corniche, a never-ending line of concrete apartment blocks with the new Bibliotecha Alexandria in the middle.
Outside the Citadel, everyone we asked gave us confused looks when we asked about the marathon. As we were walking away from the Citadel and planning how we'd call the office of the committee, I saw three young men putting up pillars that looked like what could be a start/finish line. One of the guys was wearing a tag, and when I walked up to him I realised that it read Alexandria Marathon. He even spoke English! He started calling people on his cellphone for us, then told us that the bib numbers were coming "in the next ten minutes. Maybe fifteen." My sweetie and I stayed around for a while. Fifteen minutes turned into 45, and after an hour of baking in the sun we told the friendly young guy that we'd eat lunch and be back. "No problem. We are here all the time until tomorrow. Very sorry." Out we went in search of food, settling on a little kiosk selling yummy falafel and later ice-cream from a shop (that cost as much as the falafel.) Everybody here hoards small bills: one pound notes are in short supply and no one wants to make change. We wandered through a few back streets that made me think of Venice (did you know that the fuel truck in Egypt is a green tank pulled by a donkey?) then back to the Citadel where someone had set up a chair with a sign for the marathon. A new guy, also wonderfully friendly, and very apologetic because it appeared that we were supposed to have picked up our bib numbers yesterday at the Zara Consultant's office. In fact, we had been given numbers 3 and 5 (out of 2000 numbers) because someone seems to think we're really important people. The famous star of the marathon was given number 1, we were told, and we had hand-written invitations from the general manager of the consultants himself for the gala dinner following the marathon. We were treated like royalty while someone drove our bib numbers from the office to where we were. ("Would you like anything to drink? Please, anything. Please sit here, Madame Helen, out of the sun.") We sat with the man giving out the bib numbers, who told us about the route and a bit about himself. He said he loved America and especially Julia Roberts. My sweetie said he too liked Julia Roberts. I expressed my discontent and got a laugh from both of them. Our bib numbers arrived and we took a photo of the registration site, and away we went. The entire process of picking up the race kit had taken four hours. I like to point this out to my sweetie, who always teases me and says, with great exasperation, that I can only plan ONE THING every day and that I seem incapable of both traveling somewhere and sightseeing. In Egypt, this strategy has proved both handy and accurate.
We strolled back to the hotel, practicing our new talent for crossing streets. This is my favourite part of Egypt. Cars never come to a full stop and traffic signals are completely meaningless. You cross a street of three to four lanes by gently easing from the shoulder into the first lane until cars in the first lane begin going behind you. You wait between the first and second lanes until you see a bit of a gap and repeat. The hard part is getting from the last lane to the curb because cars are starting up from the side of the road (and curbs here are over one foot high) or pulling away from it. Sidewalks are optional for pedestrians at all times. Most people walk in the road. Quite frankly, after a day of clambering up and down those damn curbs, I'm beginning to do the same thing. And I really find the street-crossing quite fun, although my sweetie still crosses with a terrified look on his face (very uncool. One must do this in a casual swagger in order to get the proper respect from drivers.)
We refreshed a bit at the hotel, then decided to check out the new Biblioteca Alexandria. It's a UN-Egypt project that was built on one of the possible sites of the ancient Alexandria Library. The architecture is really something else. You need a ticket to get inside, which we thought quite odd for a library. A ticket for an Egyptian costs 4 Egyptian pounds; a ticket for a foreigner, which you buy in the line for "Foreigners", costs 10. Another thing about Egypt (that's identical to China): if you travel here, you must accept that you will be overcharged for EVERYTHING. Simply accept this and move on. Rationalise it any way you want, but don't get bitter over it. There are times when it's quite OK to be a bit upset and say so. Bargain for taxis, hotels, clothes, and when the overcharging is just a little over the top, even by generous Egyptian standards. Otherwise, have fun with it. Anyway, the Library has an interesting problem. It has too much room and not enough books. For anyone who has studied in a Canadian university, most of which are quite old, have no money, but lots of books, this seems like a really nice problem to have. My sweetie and I wandered in and out of the stacks, amazed at this outstanding building. It's a beautiful place to study. We stopped in at the bookstore, where I bought a map of Cairo. That turned into another small duel over small change. I put down a 50 lb note to pay for my 23 lb purchase. The clerk wasn't happy. "You don't have three pounds?" "Um, no." "Reeeaaaalllly." "Really." But I got my one pound notes!
My sweetie and I ate supper at Pizza Hut, something that's turning in to a pre-race tradition (which goes quite well with our post-race tradition of eating at McDonald's.) The service and the food kicked butt. In fact, they were probably twice as good as most North American Pizza Huts. My cheesecake was straight out of the freezer, so I got treated to something that tasted like rich cheesecake ice cream.
So I am getting ready to run tomorrow. Unlike my sweetie, I'm terrified and nervous. My one and only goal is to finish. I plan on running very, very slow for the first 20 km, then walking and running for the last 20km. The sun will be our worst enemy. You could really fry an egg with that sun. I don't even want to think of how hot it will be on black asphalt. But I've done marathons before in worse shape (Toronto Marathon, my first, when I was hypoglycaemic and didn't know it.) As Billy Mills said, before winning the 10km gold at an Olympics, "God has given me the ability. The rest is up to me. Believe, believe, believe..."
A sunset over the Alexandria skyline from our fantastic hotel room.
We were up at 5:15 am to shower and eat breakfast. I woke my sweetie up, who replied, "Just send Chickie [one of my cats] in the bedroom." He had been dreaming that Chickie, my fat cat at home, had been surreptitiously watching television (a great big plasma screen TV in my kitchen!) even though I had disallowed it. It was a funny wake-up and we joked about it all morning. We coated ourselves in Vaseline and sunscreen to ward off blisters and nasty sunburns, then set out for the Citadel. We didn't see one single runner along the way, no one walking in our direction, not a single on of the "800, maybe 1000 participants" that yesterday's organizers had assured us were registered to run. The were no waterstops set up, and traffic was zipping along everywhere - no lane closures. When we did get to the Citadel, we saw about 150 young men, most in yellow tank tops, gathered around an organizer who was screaming into a microphone. Race directions in another language! Well, all we had to know was that the course was an out-and-back along the corniche to Montazah Gardens. Then the organizer made everyone shuffle about 100 feet to the right, and resumed talking. Then everyone had to go back to where they had been standing before, and the organizer started talking again. Shuffle once more back. My sweetie and I stayed put and waited behind the start line, meeting a snotty Egyptian runner who spoke French and had done two marathons previously, including this one last year. "It was much better organized last year," he admitted. I call him snotty because within two minutes of speaking with us he asked us about our marathon times and how fast we ran. As far as I'm concerned, that's bad runner etiquette. You're not supposed to care about other people's time, and it's quite judgmental to ask or refer to it. You talk about what marathons they enjoyed, what they like about races, etc,, but not about times. We also met a wonderful older gentleman with bib number 20 who was running his first marathon.
We actually started on time! For Egypt, this is quite an achievement. Traffic hadn't been blocked off outside the Citadel area. Instead, a cop was roaming around on a motorcycle waving cars left and right. The yellow tank tops sprinted off, but lots of them stopped and waited for their friends, or would run a bit and then run back to meet someone. The concept of a "race" was completely foreign to just about everyone running. No one other than Number 20 and the snotty Egyptian had running shoes on. I saw two teenagers running in shirt, pleated khakis, and leather oxfords (they had bib numbers.) We passed by the first waterstop within one kilometre of starting. It was actually on the finishing side of the course and was supposed to be the last waterstop before the Citadel, but most runners darted across four lanes of traffic, grabbed all the water bottles at the stop, then darted back to the other side of the road. My sweetie and I were running with Number 20. We passed the first kilometre sign in....8:50. Now that would have been slow, even for a mile, which led us to believe that the course distances might be inaccurate the whole way through. And we were right.
The heat was piercing. That sun could get right under your clothes and make your skin burn. Being in the shade made all the difference - and there wasn't going to be any shade after the turn-around in Montazah. But my biggest problem were my knees. I was wearing a brace on my right knee and my left knee was beginning to give subtle thuds of pain. After two kilometres, the pain began increasing quickly. I wasn't sure if my right knee was hurting as well, since the brace masked the pain. But I knew that at the rate the pain was worsening I wouldn't be able to finish the marathon. It was pretty easy to come to that conclusion because I had started thinking of this marathon as my sweetie's event, not mine. He had trained for this and really merited every bit of support I could give him; carrying on would have been quite selfish. We passed the first real water stop. I took a sip and splashed the rest over my head. I was still running with Number 20 and my sweetie had moved up a bit. I ran and ran, wondering if I really HAD to quit, if there was anything or any way I could get around the pain. But we're only given one set of knees and I didn't want to spend weeks after the marathon trying to get them back in shape. So I left Number 20 and sprinted up to my sweetie. It felt great to run fast and smooth, which made the decision only harder. I told my sweetie that I was dropping out, and asked him to run one kilometre for my uncle, who moved into a hospice on Monday. The idea still gets me choked up. As those of you who have read my previous marathon entries know, I've always run the last few kilometres of a marathon for someone. It's hard to give up on someone else, after all. My sweetie and I ran together until the Biblioteca, and I turned back. I crossed the street to the sidewalk along the shoreline. An older man crossed with me and asked, "What's this?" "It's the Biblioteca", I replied. "I know, I know. But these people?" "Oh, it's a marathon." It turned out that he was from Alexandria and ran every morning, but hadn't heard about the marathon. I don't think publicity was a big part of the organizing committee's budget.
Walking back to the hotel was tough for all sorts of reasons, a white woman dressed in Spandex in a Muslim country being one of them. Alexandria is much better than Cairo, but people behave much differently when my sweetie isn't around. I planned the rest of my day: shower, breakfast, book hotel in Cairo, walk to the finish line and wait for my sweetie. Breakfast (served every morning in the hotel lobby) was interesting. Instead of yesterday's soap operas, the television was on Nile TV, the news channel hosted by France for Egypt. I'm sure there are lots of things that happened in the world yesterday, but if they didn't involve explosions in the Middle East, especially by Big, Bad Americans, then they weren't mentioned. Instead, cameras lingered on scenes of corpses and shot-up cars from every country between Turkey and Egypt. We all have our propoganda, I suppose.
From the hotel room, I could see the first runners finishing up the last kilometres of the marathon. They were running alone, with traffic (again, no lane closures), cutting through taxis and horse carts and buses. One of the leaders was hanging on to a cyclist, getting pulled up to a decent speed. Not a waterstop in sight. No referee cars. Nothing. Good thing registration was cheap. I walked to the finish and saw a few more runners, some of them barefoot (on hot black asphalt!) The finish line was typical chaos. Officials were trying to get tour buses to turn around before the Citadel area, but they finally gave up and hordes of tourists and schoolkids walked and ran around the wide area. The weather had suddenly cooled off and it started to drizzle. I sat on the stairs in front of some sort of extremely expensive sports club. It was so expensive, in fact, that even the cat-callers and hustlers avoided it and left me in peace. My sweetie expected to finish in four hours or 4:20. I figured the rain was a special order for him, since he enjoys running in the rain. Another Egyptian huddling on the stairs with me said that the rain had been completely unexpected today. In fact, if organizers had know about it, they would have cancelled the marathon! Finishers shuffled by. Some walked. Most limped badly. Some turned around and went back to find their friends, or stood around chatting before wandering over to the finish line. Anyone who has only ever done marathons in North America must think I'm making this up. I suppose you had to be here to see and understand it. The first woman passed like a rocket. She was a beautiful sight: 3h30min, going strong, and a powerhouse of a runner. The weather cleared up and my sweetie arrived in 4:46. It turned out that the course had indeed been long, and the air from the exhaust of the (leaded gasoline) Ladas had been very thick. My sweetie's legs were black. There had been only one water stop after Montazah Gardens (imagine one waterstop - serving only water - in the last 20km of a Canadian or American marathon!) My sweetie raved about the beauty of Montazah Gardens and the palace, where the King of Egypt lived until 1952 until Nasser booted him out. My sweetie had run with Number 20 for about 25 kilometres. Number 20 was in fact an optician who had once attended CEGEP in Montreal. His wife followed him for most of the race in their car. After Montazah, they had passed a wall lined with very young children holding up a banner. One of the downsides of the race (other than no lane clsoures, no Gatorade, and few waterstops) was not having any spectators, but apparently the kids made up for that. When they saw my sweetie approaching, they jumped up and started cheering and holding up some sort of banner. The wind picked up and it rained for a bit. Sometimes runners were forced onto the sidewalk by buses. My sweetie ran kilometre 37 for my uncle, passed the Biblioteca, then ran the last 4 kilometres to the Citadel.
There were no refreshments or food left at the finish line. No medal, either. We shuffled back to the hotel, cheering the runners still out on the course. Even the young teenagers, normally the worst-behaved and the ones who taunt us the most, smiled and waved at us if they were running. We stopped to cheer on Number 20 and two American runners, who didn't even bother to look at us. And of course we had our traditional post-marathon meal at McDonald's! We spent the rest of the day buying our train ticket for tomorrow, and checking out the Roman Amphitheatre. The Let's Go travel guide gives it a thumbs up, and with good reason. Some of the remains that have been dug up are impressive in their detail. We were also adopted by the most affectionate little black cat who purred and cuddled in my arms. We had to chase away the annoying tourist police who followed us, asking for tips for stuff they hadn't done. The amphitheatre itself is very small. My sweetie and I tried out the acoustics. One of us would sit in the seats and the other would be at the bottom where the actors would have been. There was one particular spot, marked out with a large, flat round stone, that amazed us. When you stood on that spot and spoke, the sound reverbrated and came back with huge force.
That was the first half of the day. What happened next was something out of a surreal story book, and as I mentioned before it may take me a few weeks to get all the details down. We had special hand-written invitations to attend a gala dinner that evening in the Montazah Gardens. Someone named Ahmed recognized my sweetie at the finish line and offered us a ride to the Gardens. He arrived in a taxi, dressed to the nines. During the maniacal taxi ride out the Gardens, Ahmed mentioned that he was applying to emigrate to Canada. He also went down the guest list for this evening's dinner: the Governor of Alexandria, the Chief of Police, the Minister of Youth and Sport, the Consul-General of France. My sweetie and I were somewhat underdressed for the occasion. During this time, the taxi was swerving between horse carts and other taxis. Very few cars in Alexandria have side view mirrors. I suppose they get in the way when trying to squeeze by things with an inch or two to spare. And who needs sideview mirrors (or brakes, for that matter) when you've got a horn? Lanes mean absolutely nothing. You drive wherever you find room, and if there are no other cars on the road, you can still drive anywhere, preferably right over a traffic line. Lights are purely decorative. Just before we arrived at the Gardens, Ahmed and the cab driver began haggling over the fare. The tone changed when we entered the gardens and got lost. We arrived at the Malawiti Hall with other guests and very well dressed attendants. They sat us at the table with the winners of the day, only one of whom spoke a few words in English. The gala dinner was supposed to have started at 8pm. We arrived at 8:45 and nothing got underway until 9:15 with a series of speeches (in Arabic) from the VIPs. Some were televised. Then the oddest part of the evening started. The organizers gave out the biggest, most elaborate set of awards I've ever seen for any event. First they gave some to themselves. Then they gave some to their sponsors. (Now we know where the money went: not for Gatorade or lane closures, but for awards.) Then they announced that they were handing out medals to all the foreign runners, and called us up in order of bib number to get a huge, heavy gold medal. No one noticed that I hadn't finished the marathon, so I marched right up there, got my medal, and shook hands with the Governor of Alexandria. Thank goodness there had been no chip timing at this event, or my bluff would have been called.
A fancy supper was served at 10pm (a good chance to see how Egyptians eat. Dinner is often a series of plates of vegetables. Do you eat these with pita bread? Mix them with something? Fork?? Hands?) Looks like it's pita bread all the way. My sweetie and I escape around 11:00pm, walk through Montazah Gardens (ah, quiet), and take a cab back to the Cecil Hotel with a delightful cab driver.
My sweetie heads toward the finish line of the Alexandria Marathon. It's not exactly Boston or New York; in fact, it's very Egyptian!
The sweetest cat I've ever met. She came running up to us at the Roman Amphitheatre and begged us to pick her up.
UPDATE October 14, Luxor: Greetings from the Land of Chaos. I'm a few days behind in updating the website, and so much has happened that I'll probably do the full entries when I return to Canada. Since returning from Alexandria, my sweetie and I have dealt with finding a bus station that isn't on any map in a city of 16 million people, a lost passport, a night in the desert and singing with Bedouins, a bus that broke down in the middle of the desert (with not an English-speaking person around), having our felucca (sailboat) pirated by tourist police in the middle of the Nile River, and train schedules that run on Egyptian time (stated time, give or take an hour), and running out of money twice. Oh, and Ramadan begins tomorrow. For the next month, Egyptians will be fasting from sunrise to sunset. That's right: my sweetie and I can't eat or drink in public for 12 hours while we trek through the Valley of the Kings in Luxor in 32 C and brutal sunlight. In spite of all this, we are actually beginning to enjoy ourselves here in Egypt, though we dread returning to Cairo, which is probably as close on Earth as one can come to Dante's Inferno.
Quiet, refreshing train ride with nice scenery. It seems that every field is currently being harvested, particularly cotton fields. The fields are small, but everything has to be harvested manually. At Ramses Station in Cairo we buy tickets on the very fancy Wagons Lit train to Luxor on October 13. We pay in American dollars and realise we may run short. American currency is being hoarded by Egypt and can be hard to get. Egyptians also refuse to give up small change, which is a really big deal, as it turns out. Find our new hotel, the Pensione Roma, which is much nicer than the Meramees in Talaat Harb, but I don't like the area as much. We actually didn't get lost finding the hotel! Only someone who has been to Cairo can realise what an achievement this is.
Our errands for the evening include finding the Turgoman Bus Station, which isn't on any map, buying bus tickets for the Baharia Oasis, finding an ATM, reserving another hotel for our last days in Cairo, and getting groceries for the bus ride. Finding Turgoman Bus Station ranks as one of the hardest things I've ever done while travelling. Imagine walking after dark in a foreign city, without a map, no street signs, no English-speaking people, wild traffic bellowing massive amounts of black exhaust, trying to find something you don't really know the location of. The more my sweetie and I walked, the grimmer things got and the more it felt like we were in some sort of horror movie. We finally did find the station after walking down a horrible, long black alley. To reward ourselves, we ate supper in an American-style restaurant (we could sit down! Inside!)
From the outside, the bus to Bahariya looked nice. On the inside, we realised there are no washrooms, no air-condition, and packed with loud Egyptians who wander up and down the aisles. My sweetie's chair lurched back and forth because it's broken, which didn't really help an upset stomach. We endured this for SIX HOURS (no washroom, no A/C even though we're heading for the desert.) It took 90 minutes of sitting in a traffic jam to get out of Cairo, and then we were in Giza passing the Pyramids. It's impossible to convey the awe and serenity they embody. They loom over crazy Cairean traffic, far bigger than any picture has every shown them, and obviously works of another era. We'll be visiting them at the end of the trip.
The drive through the desert mesmerized me. For four hours I stared at it and never once got bored. There are so many different kinds of desert. Near Bahariya, we descended a massive cliff that forms the edge of the Farafra Depression where the oases are located. Bahariya is actually a vast oasis with many small towns; we're getting off in Bawiti, the largest town in the oasis. When we get there, the tourist police rounds up all the tourists and takes them to the tourist office, where a tourist guide arranges for transportation to the hotel of our choice. I like this system: it arose because the touts (the hustlers at the bus/train stations who follow you and try to get you to come to their hotel) got so out of hand that the tourist police actually decided to do their job for a change and help tourists instead of hit them up for baksheesh (tips/bribes/money.) We chose a fantastic hotel, the El-Beshmo Lodge. It's by far the nicest place we've seen in Egypt (not that we've seen many places, but this one is truly exceptional. In fact, it's probably one of my all-time favourite hotels.) We sleep for the rest of the day, wake up to a nice supper, then haggle with a guide over an overnight safari in the desert. Our haggling skills were pretty good: his initial price was 800 pounds, and we finally settled on 450 EP. Walked around town and enjoyed TOTAL SILENCE except for crickets in the dark!! No car horns, no exhaust, no one arguing, and no touts. People were friendly for a change.
If I had to do a top-ten list of my favourite hotels in the world, the El Beshmu in Bawiti would be near the top. These are the welcoming gates.
A photo of the side alleys of Bawiti in the evening sun.
After lunch, keep going to Crystal Mountain. It doesn't look like much from the side of the road. It's definitely not a mountain. But up close it turns out to be a massive quartz formation with a huge hole in the middle. The quartz is red, black, white and yellow. Back in the truck, and 45 minutes later Ravi suddenly veers off the road to the right into a huge, sandy downhill. We get stuck halfway down. "Photo opportunity." It takes a long time and lots of water on the Landcruiser's radiator before we finally get down the hill. Abeeda explains that these are the Aqabat Moutains. "Aqabat" means "strange", "beautiful", or "difficult" in Arabic. Camel caravans used to struggle to cross this desolate land of rugged plateaus rising sharply from the desert floor, hence the name. I can only imagine how a camel caravan leader would feel as he approached the mountains and wondered what route to take. Back in the truck again, we get stuck trying to get back on the road. After an hour of driving on the road, Ravi whips the truck back onto a hard desert area and we race across the desert toward massive rock formations that my sweetie and I have been staring at for the past few minutes. "Western Desert", says Abeeda," Not on 2 day programme, only 3 day programme. But for you, free." It turns out it's a photo opportunity (choice A), but my sweetie and I don't mind. The magnitude and the vastness of the place amaze us. The last stop is the Old White Desert. It's OK if you don't mind looking at funny white rocks, but I find them a bit boring. All the safaris seem to be here, and it turns out we're all heading the same place in the New White Desert to camp for the night. Most of the overnight programmes boast a night in the White Desert and a chance to see the sun set. Several other safaris have settled in for the evening. Ravi races the truck around in circles while arguing with Abeeda over where to camp. After we get a spot and hop out of the Landcruiser, Abeeda points in the distance at some animals. "Camel caravan", he says. "Photo opportunity." Translation: I need time to set up camp, so get out of my hair while Ravi and I work. We trek across to the camels and snap some photos. A team of French tourists are on a one-week camel safari across the desert. Walk back to the camp, watch the sun set with lots and lots of tourists scattered across the desert floor. In spite of all the people, watching the sun set in the desert is as amazing as everyone says it is. Eat an incredible supper made by Ravi and Abeeda around a campfire: a fantastic vegetable stew, chicken grilled over the fire, rice, and pita bread. All by candlelight and campfire. After supper, the four of us sit around the fire, sipping tea and watching the stars come out. Ravi entertains me with the ring tones on his cellphone. The entire Milky Way is visible and I see three shooting stars. Then walk to a neighbouring safari, and spend the evening singing Bedouin songs, sipping tiny cups of sweet tea, and having the best night of the trip.
Our first "photo opportunity" at the sand dune near Bawiti. That's Abeeda, the safari guide.
Nothing quite properly describes the beauty of a sand dune or the vastness of that land.
Same sand dune, with the Land Rover, Rafi the driver (standing up) and Abeeda.
One of the highlights of the tour was the view from Black Mountain. All those mountains in the background were actually old volcanoes that had been worn down by millions of years of wind and sand.
The edge of the Aqabat Mountains, which used to strike fear in the hearts of camel caravan leaders.
That's the LandRover in the background. Rafi was trying to cool it off with water in the radiator. We were stuck there for a while.
Oh, the beauty of the Western Desert, which is actually the edge of the Sahara. This photo, and the photo below, are of absolutely massive rocks formations, more like mountains.
What the photo doesn't do is give a sense of perspective or distance: it's at least a kilometre between where we are and that mountain.
The desert sunset.
Camp in the morning, just before sunrise.
We spend two hours in broken-down bus, playing cards, betting on when the next bus will come, and wondering what to do if we miss our 8pm train to Luxor. Then suddenly, a small slender man is at the front of the bus speaking fluent English to us, saying there won't be another bus until 9pm and there's a minibus leaving for Cairo right now if we want to get on it. ?! My sweetie gets up front beside the driver who feds him candy, I sit right at the back with an Egyptian policeman who listens to my MP3 player, our luggage is strapped to the roof, and off we go. It was actually a really great time, much better than the bus ride would have been. It turns out that the man who had been speaking to us on the broken down bus, Mohammed, is a travel agent. At a rest stop, he asks about our itinerary and recommends that we spend less time in Luxor and try going to Aswan for a day or two. When we arrive in Cairo, the driver lets us off at Giza. We take a cab to Giza train station to catch the metro to Ramses. The cab driver is a another wonderful man: when we ask him what the fare is, he says "As you wish." So we paid him 10 EP instead of the 2 EP the ride probably cost. Our train is fantastic: we have our own cabin, get served supper (in our cabin.) And sleep on bunks (in our cabin.) It was probably our biggest expense of the trip, and if I had to do it again I'd go for the regular sleeper train which costs about a quarter of the price (though meals aren't included. It's not air-conditioned either, but that's not really a problem since the train is very cool to begin with.)
The ruins of Karnak Temple in Luxor, and the obelisks and the man-made lake.
Me walking around the scarab beetle at Karnak. According to Egyptian legend, you walked once around for good luck and happiness, three times for marriage, and seven for prosperity.
My sweetie doing the walk-around.
Our felucca ride at Luxor. There are several feluccas in this photo and we're all tied to the felucca ahead of us. The first felucca is being towed by a tugboat that takes us up the Nile (against the current) so that we can return with the current. Some call this sailing.
Sunset over the Nile.
Around that corner is the Temple of Hatshepsut. I thought the cliffs were more remarkable. My sweetie and I climbed over those, by the way.
The Worker's Village near Valley of the Artisans. The condition of the village was truly outstanding. What was even better was that my sweetie and I were the only tourists there.
At the end of that alley was the Keylany Hotel. I thought it was neat how such a nice hotel could be tucked away on a little street. Egypt was right at our doorstep.
The main alley in Khan Al-Khalili. It was one of my favourite parts of Cairo. What a great atmosphere.
Then it was off to Sakkara to see our first Pyramid. This was really a small one, only 36m high. It used to be 46m, but time and weather have shaved 10m off. The pyramid is in terrible shape; sections of the outer walls were crumbling as we walked by. Enroute to the Pyramids at Giza we stopped in a carpet factory to see how hand-made carpets are put together. Essentially, one takes some eight-year olds out of school for a year and teaches them to tie knots really, really fast. The speed those hands could move was amazing. The owner of the place made a long sales pitch to get us to buy a carpet, but the prices for the silk ones were a bit too much for us. We stopped at a fancy restaurant for lunch (Hamid's selection, not ours. Our typical lunch budget is 30 EP. This one cost 126 EP.) But we got to dine while gazing at the Pyramids, which is probably priceless in the long run. We actually didn't spend much time at the Pyramids . I think Hamid had misjudged the time and spent too much of it at Memphis this morning. Regardless, we would have enjoyed more time at Giza wandering around and gazing at these absolutely massive structures. They took 20 years to build, though the workers (mostly farmers, not slaves) only worked on them three months out of each year when the Nile flooded. It's humbling to drive or move around the three pyramids and get an idea of their size. Like the other pyramids we had seen, these aren't doing so well. The outer limestone wall is completely gone and all that's left are the blocks of the inner wall. While at the Pyramids we also dealt with The Camel Tour. Earlier in the day I had told my sweetie and Hamid that I really wanted to ride a camel. Hamid found us a camel tour at Giza, and my sweetie and I hopped on camels. What we hadn't done was negotiate the price first; Hamid had done all the talking and I had relied on him. Never, ever rely on other people, particularly Egyptians within a 200-mile radius of a tourist sight. Those camel tour operators robbed us blind; one harassed my sweetie for baksheesh (bribes/tips) for our entire three minute camel ride, then grabbed a $20 CDN out of his hand when my sweetie was holding it while negotiating the price of the tour after we were done. The lead operator took all of our euros, then wanted all our American cash, then took 100 EP on top of the euros. I protested and Hamid said something so that we got 50 EP back, but the three-minute camel ride cost $35 CDN, not counting the $20 CDN that were stolen. Yikes.
Next was the Sphinx, which is right in front of the Pyramids acting as a protector of them. By this time Hamid was feeling quite bad about the Camel Tour (we won't even talk about how my sweetie was feeling). The Sphinx was OK. That sounds quite negative, but I think over the years I've come to expect something of gargantuan propertions. In fact, the Sphinx is quite small, and its nose was NOT blown off by Napoleon as I had been taught. To wrap up the day, Hamid brought us to a perfume factory (read: sales pitch by perfume salesperson.) The one perfume I wanted to buy is not exported out of Egypt (lotus flower.) Hopefully eBay will be able to help me out here.
And so ends our Egypt trip. We had supper in the streets at Ramadan hour, the time just after the sun sets when the entire country grinds to a halt and everybody eats. We ate with them all in the streets, then wandered around. Tomorrow we're off to Frankfurt, then home on Friday. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm actually going to miss Egypt.
The Tombs at Memphis outside Cairo and the giant statue of Ramses II (his leg is outside Ramses Station in Cairo itself.) And that guy on the right waving? That's Mr. Baksheesh.
Every couple needs a photo of them on camels in front of the Giza Pyramids, right?
These pyramids were so absolutely massive. Hamid, the guide, and I are at the base.
My sweetie and I with the Pyramids behind us. Can you see the smog over Cairo?
The Sphinx guarding the Pyramids.
