Walking like an Egyptian in Cairo

Okay, this is my final update of my Egypt trip. So, let me be redundant and say once again that this is basically what I wrote in an e-mail to my family in the middle of my trip. And just to warn you, this particular update is super long. Some would call me long-winded, but I prefer to think of myself as scientifically-detailed-minded. Enjoy!

So we arrived in Cairo after a hellish 10 hour bus ride from Dahab that drove all along the Sinai peninsula. It's beautiful, of course, but seen one dessert, you've seen them all. We also passed over the Suez Canal, which was cool historically. So, we eventually arrived in Cairo, found our hostel, which is a bit of a hole but only $2.50/night, walked around our area a little bit, then crashed.

The next day we woke up at 7ish, to SEE THE PYRAMIDS!! We rented a taxi for the day, to take us around to three sites: Giza, Saqqara, and Dahshur. It cost us $5 each, and lasted from 8:30 to 6 pm. Definitely worth the money! Plus, our driver, Abdullah, was very cool, despite the fact that he told us in the first 5 minutes how the bombings in Sinai were caused by Israel. Unfortunately, since then, we've met quite a few Egyptians who share this opinion. We'd heard from someone else that Jews caused September 11th. These Arab conspiracy theories are a bit tiring. But anyway, back to the fun stuff.

The first place we went, Saqqara, was cool, and it had the Step Pyramid and one that had collapsed. When we were driving up, I thought: "This is it? It looks so small!" But then we actually got out of the car, stood beside it, and saw how massive it actually was! We also went into a couple tombs, got suckered into a tour by a creepy Bedouin, had to give him a tip, and learned our lesson not to talk to anyone because they all want money. But our driver was great. He had friends in the border, where you have to pay entrance fee, and even though Hanna and I didn't have International Student ID cards, we all paid student prices. And he took a picture of each of us, posing in front of the step pyramid, with our arms out as if to show that we're holding it up. Just the first of many stupid poses during our Pyramid trip...

We drove one to Dashur, which I loved. Partially because all together it cost only $1. It had the Black Pyramid, The Bent Pyramid, the Red Pyramid, and one tiny one. We got out of the car, and climbed a bit of the Red Pyramid, but it was frigging GIGANTIC! So we had Abdullah take a picture of us up there. Then we went around, climbed a smaller pyramid (all the way to the top!) with a tourist policeman (got a picture with him, Ema, as per our "Men of Europe" calendar. He's holding his gun!) We went around to the other pyramids, then came back to the Red one to go inside. There are stairs, luckily, and we climbed up the outside, then came inside, where we had this weird stairs/slope thing that went down for ever. Some parts of it were lighted, but some weren't, so we would be walking down in total darkness. And it smelled so unbelievably rank! Actually being inside was a little anti-climatic, just 3 room with some hieroglyphics, because the good stuff was removed and put in a museum. But it was still really good.

Then, on to Giza! But first, lunch. Abdullah bought us koshery, this great chickpea, lentil, onions and noodle dish that is super cheap and super good. We also went into the Papyrus Museum, and got a tutorial on making papyrus paper. But we were anxious to head on to Giza. We rented a camel each ($15) to take us around to the 3 big pyramids and 6 small ones, plus the Sphinx. I was a little scared (read: terrified) at first, because I was so high up, my camel seemed to have issues and kept on moving around (or maybe he was just trying to get me off), and it was also painful sitting on him. So I held on for dear life, tried not to think of Christopher Reeves, and just thought about how cool it was that I was riding a camel by the pyramids. We entered the dessert, rode around for a while. We even trotted for a bit, but when the guide saw the terrified look on my face, we slowed down to a more leisurely walk. Marianne suggested galloping, but she must have known that that would be the end of our freindship, so she didn't insist. We took an obscene number of pictures. Literally. I'm not much of a photographer, and I take usually 1 roll, max, on trips, but this time I've taken 2 full rolls, and had to buy even more film. It's worth it, though. Maybe one day I'll even invest in a digital camera, but not yet. I'm still getting used to my cell phone.

When we got to the Sphinx, and saw the absolute mob surrounding it, we were very happy that we were usually off the beaten track and away from most tourists. They're pretty annoying, man! So, to finish this story, because my internet time is almost up, we left Giza, exhausted, and Abdullah drove us around a tiny bit in the Old City, to a mosque, and past the City of the Dead. Despite it's cool sounding name, the City of the Dead is basically a graveyard. There are thousands of tombs, but it's a graveyard. Although it was cool when our guide told us that some families actually live in the larger tombs, so that they can be closer to their loved ones. Uber creepy.

We eventually got back to our crappy hostel, utterly exhausted, but just as we were starting to relax, we got a knock on our door saying that someone was in the lobby asking for us. So we got out, and Rami was there! He was the owner of the hostel that we stayed in Dahab, who we became friends with. He said that he might have been going to Cairo also, so we gave him the name of our hostel, not expecting him to actually show up, but he did, and with a journalist friend. And since his friend had a car, we decided to go out for dinner and drinks. They took us to this restaurant by the Nile, payed for us even though we tried to stop them. Then, when we were back in the car, we stopped by a grocery store, but some drinks, drove on, and got off for a cruise down the Nile. They rented a tiny sailboat, and with a Bedouin taking care of the steering, we spent a leisurely hour drifting along the river. Didn't see any babies floating, just to let you know. Hehehe.

Somehow, we got back at 3 am, and would have liked to sleep later, but Rami called at 9:30 to wake us up for the Egyptian Museum. I've been to some great museums in my life, but nothing matches the Egyptian Museum in terms of pure weirdness. They have so many priceless artifacts, like sculptures, tombs, coffins and statues, just stacked around. They have so much, and it's not properly catalogued, that they're just lying around or stuffed in a corner. It's not they're fault. There's just so much of it, but it's a bit disconcerting. We'd heard that you can only go in for maximum an hour and half, because there's no air conditioning and the heat is so stifling. But somehow, we dealt with it (it was also only 29 C, much better than the heat in the summer). My favourite parts were the mummies, of course, and the treasures of King Tut. They took out his 3 coffins, all his jewelry, and basically the other stuff in the tomb, but kept his mummy in the Valley of the Kings because of the curse. Pretty cool.

We went back to chill at Rami's place for a few hours. He's such a cool guy. 29 years old, and the most entrepreneurial person that I've ever met. Left home when he was really young, had his first "restaurant" (basically a shack) when he was 14 which he rented for 300 Egyptian pounds, all the money he had in the world, and sold for 800 pounds a year later. He put himself through school, studying History at university, and continuing to start businesses. He served his mandatory army detail as a paratrooper. When he came back home, his family was having issues, so he bought his father land, built his mother a house, and found work for his some of his siblings (he has 11 all together). He started the hostel in Dahab three years ago and 3 of his brothers and one of his cousins works for him there. He doesn't totally get along with his family, but all the time helps them instead of helping himself. I really like him a lot. He's so down to earth. When we first met him, we thought he also just worked for the hostel, but didn't really do very much. That he was the lazy brother, because he wasn't cleaning or working at all. He spent most of his time in a hut (the one that's a dollar a night) smoking pot. But we started talking, all of us going out for dinners, and we found out that he'd traveled all over the world and a major businessman. He's now working on a venture of a coffee shop in England. He has the brains to start the operations, put the right people in charge, and then take time off so that he can go travel. In his next trip he's coming to Canada for a bit, and hopefully you guys will have the chance to meet him, because he's such an amazing guy.

He's also teaching us Arabic. Here's what I know so far:
"Shockran" - Thank you
"Yarogeel" - Whatever, or You're full of it"
"Emshee" - Go away
"Aha" - Go Away (it's so useful, we needed to learn two ways to say it!)

I'm looking forward to trying these out on my Arabic speaking friends in Jerusalem. What a beautiful language. Today we're going to the bazaar, maybe go back to the Old City, and then taking the 10 pm bus to Taba, where we'll take another bus back to Jerusalem. I'm a little sad that I'm leaving, because I had such a good time in Egypt. I'm surprised by how much I like Cairo. In some respects it reminds me of London, in some respects it reminds me of Athens (but cleaner, Ema!) and in some respects it reminds me of the stereo-typical Arabic town, the kind you'd find in Arabian Nights. It's so bizarre driving down the street, along the Nile, and passed carts driven by donkeys and woman carrying massive baskets on their heads. The people can be so friendly. And so irritating. Yesterday, when we were doing some shopping in the market for dinner, Rami sent us back to his apartment to wait for him, because when the shopkeepers saw him with 3 foreign women, they jacked up the price because they thought that he was also a tourist. And when we were just sitting around his place, telling riddles, his landlady came by, and when she saw us, she told him in Arabic not to bring prostitutes by anymore. But other than those things, Egypt is great, and I'm very happy that I came.

Thank G-d I've been safe, and I'm looking forward to being back in Israel soon. It's beginning to feel more like home.