Egypt

Egypt...

February 10 - 16, 2001

    I will pick up this story when at 5:00 am on the tenth of February in Istanbul, after a very sad good-bye to my parents I went back to bed to get a little more sleep before my flight left at ten in the morning. I boarded the flight to Egypt. I was greeted by my old housemate and traveling companion Justin. We caught up for awhile and then headed down to the Kahn to wander the world’s oldest market place. It was really great, but not so different from many of the outdoor markets around the Middle East. I am not trying to belittle the place at all, it was incredible but not unlike anything that I have seen. Well the night was not to continue this way. At 6:00 we went into an ancient mosque and sat and waited, I was excited having heard much about the Suffi dancers and the two hours flew by as Justin and I caught up. WOW! The dancers did not disappoint – for those unfamiliar this is a religious sect that believes they get closer to Allah by spinning in circles and playing some incredible music! I went to bed and after heading to the museum in the morning the dirty and brutal air quality got to me, and I bought a ticket for the bus to Dahab. Before I go there I should comment on the driving and drivers in Cairo. Now you hear a lot about the driving in Cairo, and coming from the constant honking of Istanbul combined with the not so tame drivers in Bahrain (and the nutso Saudi drivers who come on weekends) I felt I was ready for Cairo. Well no. Not even close in fact. There are no lanes in Cairo, nor rules. You do anything and everything that you can to get where you need to go as quickly as possible. What do you mean? It is simple if you need to go the wrong way around a roundabout just do it! If you need to back down a street, do it. If you need to squeeze four cars through two lanes just don’t hesitate or else you will have to squeeze six. The most important think about driving in Cairo is whatever you do you must always be honking. You honk to say come over, to say don’t come over, honk to say I am coming through, honk to say why isn’t any other car honking, honk to say it is 4:20 or any other time of day, JUST HONK. You think I am exaggerating, well put it this way all of the cars in Egypt that I saw and/or drove in had adapted there horn so they could honk by a similar motion to flashing your high beams (but on the right hand side of the steering wheel). This enabled them to honk quicker, and longer without tiring out there arm or having to move there hands. Wow, am I ranting?!?

            So I get to Dahab at 1:00 in the morning and head to where my friends tell me they are staying, it is now 2:00 and I sneak in without any real problems. Dahab is nothing like Cairo, it is a historic hippy haven of one long beach with restaurants that all have cushions all over the ground and you just sit and relax, I don’t think I heard a horn the whole two days! Well I awoke the next morning at 8:00 and headed immediately out for a scuba dive. Incredible, I personally thought Thailand was better but my dive buddy debated that, needless to say I have dove in two pretty amazing spots! I dove again in the afternoon and decided I would dive the next day as well. This meant that I would have to forgo the burning bush and mount Sinai, but I was afraid that I would be given the ten commandments for driving in Cairo and then be run out of town, well really my friends had gone the day before my arrival and I would have to do it solo….OK, OK the real reason is that they said there was snow up there. I had one day of “kinda-snow” in Istanbul and was not ready for more. The second day of diving did not disappoint, neither did the other half of the day that was spent lounging on pillows and eating! Need I say that you all should go…didn’t think so.

   Well I boarded another night bus at midnight and headed back into Cairo, I arrived about fifteen minutes before my host left for his day of work. I got some rest and when I woke up was not really feeling too well, I hung out around Heliopolis (his district of Cairo) and enjoyed the pollution that was violating my body. I jumped on the subway and headed to meet Justin at a school in the south. The Cairo subway is nuts but that is another story. I got to the place where I was supposed to grab a cab to the school and wandered around looking for a bank machine, it was a nice night and I was wondering if it would be possible for me to walk to the school, so I asked a friendly gentleman, who immediately said he was headed in that direction and that I should come with him. This is great! This is also typical of Cairo, everyone was saying welcome to Cairo wherever I went and people were terribly friendly even though many were figuring how to rip you off. Some people would have said it wasn’t the smartest thing to do (get in a car with some strange man in a city – no country that you don’t know, or speak the native tongue); well I didn’t have to worry because when I got to his ride I realized he was an Arby’s delivery man (you can get anything delivered in the Middle East!) and we would be traveling by scooter to the school. Well I thought this might just be one of those experiences so on I jumped. I thought the cab drivers were nuts. As the air rushed by me, Ahmed looked for air from the speed bumps and used the sidewalk as a third lane of traffic whenever necessary. It was actually really fun, weaving through cars and pedestrians alike. I got off at the school and everyone outside of it was looking at this white guy who came with the Arby’s deliveryman. I went inside and met Justin and his star track athlete who was competing (and kicking serious butt) in the pentathlon.

            After the meet the boy’s driver (much tamer then Ahmed) drove Justin and I to a restaurant, where we ate like kings (which of course we are of our respective countries). We then went to see one of Justin’s friends DJ at a club in a boat on the Nile which was really cool. There I met some really cool couples including the woman who does the Arabic voiceovers for all of the Disney movies (she sings the female lead roles) – cool job. We headed back and crashed. The next day Justin headed for work and I headed for my third wonder of the world for this little vacation. I took the subway and then a cab to the wonderment of the pyramids. I was greeted by the sphinx who looks to the rising sun and the east, but has his view obscured by the KFC and Pizza Hut that has been built in his way. Modern Cairo has crept right to the pyramids and you did not read incorrectly I took a subway virtually to the pyramids! That said they are no less incredible and magical. The three tombs whom have been marveled by millions of people throughout the ages added me to their guest book. I enjoyed seeing them up close but wanted to take off into the desert and see them from a distance. This is exactly what every guidebook tells you to avoid doing and to stay away from the countless touts that are on every corner. Seriously one got into my cab ten minutes from the pyramids to start his routine. I didn’t care I wanted out there on a camel with a guide and I was willing to pay for the chance, I was not disappointed. The pictures turned out so well that I think they look like they were shot in a studio in front of a back drop, I assure you however they are real! I then returned to the Sphinx to meet Justin and another teacher from his school Lisa, I was early and had the opportunity to have some good laughs with the touts who hounded me. I had some of them even yelling at each other fighting over whose shop I was going to go into enjoy a drink “no pressure – to look is free”, when I had no intention of buying perfume for anyone or leaving the spot where I was meeting Justin. I let them solve there differences (it never did come to blows) before informing them that I would be waiting here until my friend arrived and then going to a place that was not their shop! So I watched the sun set behind the pyramids and contemplated my own smallness. I even went into the Pizza Hut to grab a drink and wonder how many customers go in there just cause you can stand in the pizza hut, and look out at the pyramids…well add one to that list of suckers! Justin arrived and we headed off into the desert despite being told by everyone that we were not allowed in. Here Justin’s Cairo experience showed off big time! He would lay into them in Arabic and demand to see a security card, when they did not show it, we would just walk through the whole in the fence that they were guarding. When they did show it a small bribe was always enough to let us move on. I was a little ancy when two uniformed guards showed up with their automatic weapon (riding camels - seriously!), but the result was the same, a small sum of money later we were off in the sand dunes by ourselves with the three giant monuments silhouetted against the night sky. We watched the light show from this vantage, it was amazing – but also in Japanese. The show was so good though that we decided that we would pay to go in for the English version. It was great! From here we headed to the Kahn to eat and look for a Sheesha pipe for me. We found it and were safely back in Heliopolis in no time. Justin gave me a sneak preview at the sunrise set that he will be playing at Ibiza this summer - look out Sasha!

   The next day would be my last and to make matters worse I had to leave at 2:00. We made the most of it though by going to a weekly market that is held in the City of the Dead. This market is like nothing you have ever seen before, selling cow’s heads, poultry alive - or killed and plucked (on premises), scorpions, monkeys, furniture, one guy sold nothing but rusted through pipefittings! If you knew antiques you could make a mint here!

    Thanks so much Justin for your hospitality. As Egypt is so big I am just glad that you will be there for another year, as I have much more to see in your fine city and country. Well if you are still awake you deserve a medal, sorry to have blabbed for so long. I hope that this finds you all smiling, me a line if you have a second.

    If you want to see some pictures from Egypt, click the right arrow below (left will take you back). As I get the time to scan them I will add more.

cheers,
mark

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