Egypt…sigh…WHAT an experience. To be completely honest, I had imagined my trip to Egypt to be an opportunity for spiritual healing and welcoming the new year. Well, I didn’t exactly get that (maybe for like 7% of my trip). Instead, I got to see some amazing historical monuments (yes they live up to the hype), learned lessons about hard work ethic, and witnessed the most corrupt government/citizens in ALL of my travel experiences. Egypt was a mental challenge. Since it destroyed my imagined perception, I was forced to confront the reality of poverty and capitalism, which has contributed to the demise of the country, and I even had my ideology surrounding Islam, shaken up a bit. For those of you that have been following my blog for the last few years, you would know that I have had nothing but positive, loving, receptive experiences with the Islam community in Spain and from various other parts of the world. In Egypt, not so much. And no, I am not the type to provoke breaking the cultural norms, I made sure I dressed conservatively. I was covered body wise at all times and even had my head wrapped on certain occasions. But since I did not speak Arabic, since I was a woman traveling with another woman, and, most significantly, since I was an American, the discrimination, rudeness, and nasty attitudes I experiences were definitely not expected or appreciated, especially from Egyptian Muslim men.
Nevertheless, I won’t dwell on abstract complaints. Here are my Top 10 Memories of my Winter Trip to Egypt: Good & Bad
10. Cairo-Arabesque hostel to the Hilton
I arrived in Cairo December 20th, after a two day spanned out flight from New York to Russia to Cairo. Devin (my bff/travel partner), sent the hostel staff to pick me up from the airport thankfully, because after a two day flight/being stalked by 3 African men at Cairo’s airport, I was not in the mood to deal with finding a taxi, bargaining (I probably would have been charged something overprice since I didnt get to understand the system until later), and figuring out how to communicate where my hotel was in Arabic. For one, I assumed that 70% of the population would speak decent English since they were conquered by the British. WRONG, WRONG, WROOOONNNNNGGGGG. I would say about 1 in 20 people spoke decent, broken english. With the rest, we had no hope of communicating. Anyway, I get to the hostel and I am greeted by a nervous Devin, who had experienced her first 24 hours of Egypt with a run in with a corrupt Egyptian police officer and airport official. Essentially, they forced her to the allow them to give her a ride to the hostel “for her saftey” and then the following day, the airport official returned to the hostel and stalked her all day. The hostel staff did nothing, and basically allowed the man to sit in the lobby and wait for her forcing her to stay locked in her room for at least 6 hours with no food or water. So by the time I get there, she tells me the guy left literally 2 hours before I arrived, and then I went OFF on the staff. Needless to say, in fear of our safety, we saw a Hilton across the street, the only American hotel in sight, and transferred the rest of our stay there. All of this occurred within the first 24 hours of my trip, what an interesting welcome to Egypt.
9. Train Ride from Cairo to Luxor
I met this cool professor from Berkeley School of Music at JFK airport and he told me that I absolutely HAD to go to Luxor. To give some background, Luxor and Nubia are in the South of Egypt and by far the most beautiful part of the country. It is known for the ancient civilization of Nubia aka where all the black Egyptians are located. So we were told by our hotel that we could take an overnight sleeping train to arrive in Luxor in the morning. I asked if we had to buy the tickets now, and the hotel employee replied no, buy them at the train station a few hours before you leave. So Devin and I went to see the Giza pyramids and the Sphinx for the day and returned about 5 hours before the train was scheduled to leave. So we get to the train station and the attendant said that the sleeping train tickets were sold out (which was probably a lie, ill get into that later) and that we could try taking the local train, which the locals take and doesnt have beds. Alright, so we went to get tickets for the local train and the attendant said the same thing “no more tickets.” Devin essentially went off and begged for tickets, in which he magically was able to provide tickets when we offered him extra money. When we got on the train, we discovered that at least 70% of the train was empty, so they were definitely lying and being difficult to just to be difficult. What was also funny, was that all non-arab poeple aka westerners were placed in one car. For 9 hours, throughout the night, we were woken up about every hour and a half to have our tickets checked, often by the same man. You know I was pissed. Lets not even get on the conditions of the train…using the bathroom…yea how about a whole in the train floor and peeing directly on the tracks. It was cold, it wasn’t pleasant, and I vow to never ride a damn local train in Egypt again.
8. Luxor/Nubia- Osama the super cool taxi driver
When we finally got to Luxor, the people were so friendly, so helpful, and so kind. If I had not experienced this piece of the country, my perception of Egypt would have been skewed to the negative side. We crashed the Hilton in Luxor for breakfast and then had them arrange a tour guide for us to see the Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens, and the Temple of Hatscheput. All of which were stunning, unfortunately but fortunately you cant take pictures in order to preserve to the tombs and art, but take my word for it, it was simply amazing. Anyway, Osama, was our taxi driver/tour guide for the entire day. He took us everywhere and even hooked us up with a great jewelry store (which I couldn’t afford because I was that broke lol) and a delicious authentic Egyptian restaurant. At the end of the night, he was the FIRST man and person in Egypt to not try to rip us off. He charged us 250 pounds which is like $50 for the entire day, which ended up being like 9 hours and then he took us out to a local hookah spot for tea and paid for it! I was shocked, but it just goes to prove that hospitality is always in the South. If I ever go back to Egypt, I’m flying directly to Luxor. I wouldn’t step foot in Cairo again if my life depended on it.
7. Hiking Mt. Sinai
On Christmas day, Devin and I hiked Mt. Sinai. It was a 3 hour grueling experience, up 7,497 feet and 750 steps at the end, but it was all worth it to see the most amazing sunset across the mountains. I said my prayers, and I mean hey, what a better place to pray than where Moses supposedly received the commandments. Getting down the mountain was a struggle though, my knees were like jelly, so we ended up hiring a camel…riding down 7,497 feet on a wobbly animal…yea kind of like riding donkeys up the mountains of Santorini, Greece…thought my life might have ended.
6. Minibus from Mt. Sinai to Cairo
After being stalked at dinner by some man trying to convince us to ride his “minibus” aka van back to Cairo instead of the regular bus, I snapped on him and told him absolutely NOOOOO. So it was no surprise that at 6am in the morning when we are waiting on the bus, he pulls up to the stop in his “minibus” with some Canadian woman who gets out the van and tells us that the real bus “broke down” and that we should come with him. Well, I still wasn’t having it because I knew he was LYING for the MONEY, just like everyone else in Egypt. But of course, Gordon, our male hiking accomplice from Ohio, said we should just take the chance in case he was telling the truth because then we would be stuck in St. Katherine’s another day AND NONE OF US HAD MONEY for another hotel night. Well we made it to Cairo alright, but of course he dropped us off at some random bus station (not the one the regular bus goes to) and we had to navigate our way to Alexandria. Lesson: I already knew this, never trust ANY Egyptian driver. They are 99.9% of the time lying other than the .1% who was like our amazing taxi driver Osama from Luxor.
5. Alexandria “Prostitution Park”
Oh boy, so LET ME TELL YOU what I witnessed at the Montazah Palace park in Alexandria. So for my birthday, Devin took me out to dinner at a delicious seafood restaurant overlooking the Nile in Montazah Palace park. However, it was the walk home through the park (our hotel was across the street aka highway from the entrance) that made me raise three eyebrows (if i had that many). Little did we know, Montazah park is the hang out spot for all the young Egyptian muslims. It was like a 60s movie, cars parked, windows fogged, girls in hijabs going “down,” no I mean literally going “down.” Yes, use your imagination, so I don’t have to be too vulgar. I was SHOCKED and it just proved my hypothesis that young people regardless of religion or upbringing have hormones. But jeez, you could’ve at least took the hijab off girl! You should’ve seen the look on Devin’s face after witnessing that LOL. As usual, we were cat called by all the young Egyptian muslim men. But my thing is why are y’all coming after the “loose western women” because CLEARLY your women do the same thing, no surprises over here!
4. My Birthday Eve in Alexandria, Mediterranean Sea
On my birthday eve, we walked to the edge of the Mediterranean sea and I stuck my feet and hands in the water in time for me to leave behind my “teens” and turn 20. This was by far the most spiritual experience of my trip, since the moon was shining a path of light directly to where I was standing and the waves seemed to look majestic. I said my prayers, expecting nothing but greatness from this new age!
3. Bus Ride/Mosquitoe Attack Alexandria to Cairo
As I am typing this, my ankles are still swollen like someone hit them with a baseball bat. We left Alexandria the night of New Year’s Day, only to discover a bus station that was swamped with mosquitoes EVERYWHERE and especially by the light sources. Devin had to buy our tickets because I refused to go over to the ticket counter and be attacked but little did I know that of course the SMART Egyptian bus drivers would leave the bus doors open with the lights on while the bus was parked in the station. Needless to say, about 50 mosquitoes, I am not even exaggerating, were waiting for us on the THREE HOUR bus ride to Cairo. There was nothing I could do. I was in leggings and a hoodie (my airport travel gear) with flats on. I literally had to take my scarf off and wrap my feet so that they didn’t get completely eaten (which they still did). My hands got bit up. AND the mosquitoes bit through my leggings. We had it the worse because OF COURSE, as non-arab people, we were restricted to sitting in the front, by the BUS LIGHT, and by the TV another LIGHT SOURCE. It was hell, seriously, I have never experienced anything like that. I’ll probably have some scars from mosquitoe itching to tell my children this story. Yes, it was something like a movie.
(these are not my feet, but mine look worse, just wanted to give you a visual lol)
2. Airport Camping
When you’re broke with no money for hotels, what is the best and safest place for you to stay, THE AIRPORT! LOL Every seasoned traveler has had this experience. Airport camping is the best, and you know its bad when you see the same cafe employees return 24 hours later for their next day shift LOL. We arrived a little after midnight on the 2nd, Devin left about 8 hours later, and my flight wasn’t until 11PM on the 3rd. So I had almost 48 hours to sit and wait to get out of Egypt. It was soooo boring and since I made a vow not to bring my laptop with me and stay technology disconnected on my trip, I had NOTHING to do. After reading almost every book I brought with me and writing as much as my brain could handle, I decided to take a trip to a near by hotel (which I could not afford to stay in) and use the internet for an hour to make sure my family wasn’t trying to contact me and relieve some boredom. I asked the cafe staff, who I had made friends with on every shift, if they would allow me to leave my big suitcase there (I’m not crazy, I kept all my valuables, passport, etc. physically on me), and the guy of course said yes….well needless to say after you read the #1 memory moment, that fell through. But my first 2 day airport camping experience (my first overnight was in Germany on a flight from Madrid to JFK) was definitely in the “interesting” category.
1. Losing my luggage in Cairo Airport
Well, the employee who promised to watch my stuff, left his shift without telling the next shift that he said I could keep my stuff there. So what did they do of course, they REPORTED IT. LOL I am laughing about this now but it was seriously not freaking funny when I had to track all my shit down. Of course, the Egyptian airport staff and “police” are much like the regular Egypt we encountered: unorganized, chaotic, and solely arabic speaking. So one of the cafe cashiers went downstairs with me (side note: we were in Terminal 3) to find out where the “police” took my luggage. The Terminal 3 police said that they took my luggage to Terminal 1′s police and that I should go there to get it back. So the cashier told me to take the airport transfer bus there and just ask the Terminal 1 police about my luggage when I get there. I knew it wasn’t going to be that easy, because NOTHING is that easy in Egypt. But I said hey, let me humor myself, so I basically went to the terminal, to discover again that 1 in 20 people speak broken English and no one could understand the situation. Eventually, they got tired of me and told me to walk across the parking lot to a white building that was a police “headquarters.” It was really a bank, I got the point. I returned to Terminal 3 luggageless after 3 hours of no luck IRRITATED AS HELL. When the cashier saw the look on my face, he must have known what’s up because he immediately offered to speak with the police in Terminal 3 again and I replied that this wasn’t good enough and insisted that he accompany me to Terminal 1 and serve as a translator. He obliged, being the kind soul that he is, and we set out on another 2 hour adventure to find my luggage. We encountered the same chaos that we did the first time except this time he could speak Arabic. We finally figured out that my luggage was being held in an underground part of the airport in Terminal 1 by customs. Well, he took me to the customs office and told me that he can’t go in to speak with me but pointed me directly to the office door and said they were expecting me. Of course, they weren’t and it took another 20 minutes for me to explain the story and find another english speaking translator. But eventually they sent a very cute Egyptian customs worker (olive, tan skin, brown eyes, fitted jeans, structured face, yea…but not english speaking lol) to escort me to where they were holding my luggage. They charged me, so I had to pay people off to get my luggage back and when I finally got it, they had broken a statue I had wrapped (which they unwrapped) in my suitcase. But my brother’s hookah, and everyone else’s gifts were still present and in tact. By the time I made it back to the terminal it was the afternoon of the 3rd so I grabbed some food, with the drained bank account I had and ate some yummy Burger King (I know GROSS) before napping and boarding my flight.
In all, these are just my top 10 memories of Egypt. There were many more but I feel like I have written enough. It was simply an insane experience that taught me a valuable lesson mostly about PATIENCE. I think that is one of the things 2010 will bring, it will be a test of endurance, determination, and patience only to bring me out on top.
I love you all and thank you for the support/birthday wishes while I was away.
It’s good to be home,
Ari
