Following in Moses' Footsteps!

Today, we climbed Mt. Sinai. I pumped myself up for it all day, trying to convince myself that it wouldn’t suck. Originally, we had two options, a sunrise hike and a sunset hike. The sunrise hike initially sounded more appealing, to avoid climbing in the heat, but it apparently involved a 2am pick up time. So, under much peer pressure and resistance on Michael’s part, the whole group was convinced to do the sunset hike. 

We left Cairo at 6am and arrived in the town of St. Katherine’s at 1pm. Our hotel was very nice from the outside, with an enormous swimming pool and views of the mountains. The inside, however, didn’t live up to the external hype, with a  barely functioning toilet, cracked walls, and power that went out at least 4 times while we were there. After a quick rest and lunch, we drove to the monastery at the base of the mountain to begin our climb. Michael informed us that he would absolutely not be climbing with us (“Are you climbing the mountain too, Michae?l” “Sure, not” This is funnier in his Arabic accent and due to the fact that he said the not with as much enthusiasm as he normally says sure), so we met our Bedouin tour guide. He kept assuring us the hike would be slow and easy, but there were definitely parts where I begged to differ. The middle half was by far the hardest, morale wise, but the last 750 steps were the hardest, physical activity wise.

Once on the top though, it was definitely worth it. The views were pretty spectacular, and the amazing night sky full of stars on the way down was unlike anything I’ve ever seen.

 I’ve also never been so absolutely exhausted in my life. I literally fell asleep within moments of hitting the pillow. Of course, I still woke up 3 hours later but apparently that’s my life now!

Mid-Adventure Funk

Today was not a happy day. Everyone was cranky, nothing went as planned, and the energy level in the group is at an all-time low. Originally, Michael told us that he train would be getting into Cairo between 6 and 7 am, so everyone was prepared for an early wake up call around 530 for breakfast and such. Personally, if I know I have to get up early, I’m awake for 2 hours before that, half dozing and checking the clock. Well, breakfast came at 7:30 and the train didn’t get in to Cairo until 9, so everyone was already cranky from being told the wrong information and having an interrupted night of sleep. We then found out that we could not check in to our hotel early. So, from a sweaty, sticky night of sleeping on the train, we went straight to the Citadel.

The Citadel was pretty cool, and the mosque interesting as well. They make all the girls cover up upon entering, but apparently my kosher outfit was totally hallal, too – they just made me wrap a shall over my arms and neck, as opposed to dawning a full-on gown. 

From the Citadel we went to the Hel Hallal (?) market which, from the itinerary, sounds like a traditional souk. False. This is just another tourist market where they sell you endless pyramids, sphinxes, and scarves. A totally unnecessary hour and a half spent in the heat, hot, sweaty, tired, and hungry.

Today also happened to be Karolina’s birthday, and Michael was determined to do something very nice for her. So, the intentions were there as we rushed through our lightning-fast lunch at Hard Rock Café. Karolina was sung to by the whole staff and stood on a chair as the staff and everyone in the restaurant danced to  La Bomba . However, the whole thing was very strange. We were rushed through lunch, only allowed to order one drink, and Karolina barely had time to eat a slice of her birthday cake before we were rushed out and into taxis home. The whole thing made very little sense and we never found out why we were pushed out of there so quickly.

When we got back to the hotel Michael gave us our briefing on our trip to Mt. Sinai the next day, pissing some people off in the process. He can be very nice and helpful, but he can also be quite the moody asshole. He doesn’t like to be questioned and I really think he resents our group’s need to understand his directions. The need wasn’t there before, perhaps, but I’ve started asking many questions and that got the group started. So, I’m on his shit list now.

We spent the rest of the day relaxing at the hotel. At night, we redeemed our funkified day by having one of the best meals of the trip at a restaurant not far from our hotel called Falfalel. 

They served traditional Egyptian food, along with pasta. Only two of us were brave enough to try new things (me included, of course) and everyone else got the pasta. We washed it all down with a couple of beers (HURRAH for restaurants that serve alcohol, they are few and far between in Muslim countries) We headed home early in anticipation of our 5:30am wake up call!

Luxor is not necessarily luxurious

That day and the following were spent in Luxor, which literally translates to “Temples”. There are two major temples in Luxor, the Luxor temple itself and Karnak temple. The temples, as it turns out, are connected by a 3 kilometer long avenue that’s lined with Sphinx statues that archeologists are just now unearthing. So there is a project in Luxor where they are uprooting and demolishing all the buildings and modern city between the two temples and unearthing the underground passage with the Sphinxes. It should be complete in a few years and there will be a direct walkway between the two temples.

After a few hours of recuperation and a highlyunsatisfying lunch of dry falafel from a street vendor, we set off for Karnak temple. For some reason that is still beyond me, our tour guide gave us the option of walking to Karnak temple from our hotel (a 3km walk) or taking a cab, which would be 5 L.E. per person ($1). For reasons that are, once again, beyond me, the group elected to walk in the 100 degree weather. I tried to say something, but, being in the minority, I wasn’t gonna press the issue. By the time we finally made it to the temple, no one really gave a shit anymore about what Michael had to say. We listened, we fanned ourselves, we took some pictures, and we all hurriedly eagerly out of the temple into the air conditioned van that was waiting for us.

Why doesn’t anyone ever listen to me? I think I was also severely dehydrated because I felt like I was going to collapse for most of the afternoon. That night, though, we went out to a very nice dinner not far from our hotel where we once again took pictures of the Nile at sunset and had some delicious Moussaka!

The next day was, once again, an early one as we left the hotel at 7am in order to visit the Valley of the Kings. This series of tombs built into the rocks in the mountains is the grave site for all of the Pharoahs of Egypt, included the major ones like Ramses the II and Tutankhamun. Its pretty impressive how intricate all the artwork is inside the tombs, with the colors still preserved thousands of years later. Unfortunately, I have no pictures as we were not allowed to bring camera inside the site.

After visiting the Valley of the Kings, we were off for our donkey ride. As I’m writing this entry two days later, my legs are still unbelievably sore as they have never been before. I think I was holding on to that donkey with my legs for dear life. They’re very low to the ground, but after a call of “hup hup” from their masters, they go rather fast.  The trotting of the donkeys was nothing like the trotting of the camels, and I think I lost about 10 years of elasticity in my breasts from that 20 minute ride. A heads-up to wear a sports bra would have been helpful.

Our last site for the day (there were two more that we saw from the bus but I couldn’t say what they were because I passed out) was Hatsheput’s temple. She was one of the only real female rulers of Egypt (Cleopatra, apparently, came thousands of years later and was not in the time of the Pharaohs. Also, apparently the term “Casearean section” comes from the fact that during Cleopatra’s romance with Ceasar, she gave birth not in the natural way  - they had to cut his baby out of her and thus, the term was coined). The temple was pretty impressive, especially the fact that she is almost everywhere depicted as a man, because it was the only way she could exude her power as a ruler (Guess things haven’t changed much for women in Egypt in the last 4000 years)

The rest of the day included two meals of junk food, a stroll through the tourist-only souk “Madam, come look, you so beautiful, let me help you spend your money”, and a horse drawn carriage ride from the Luxor temple back to our hotel.

We then boarded our night train back to Cairo. 

Cruisin’ the Nile to Luxor

This was the day I dreaded the most – spending almost 24 hours out in the open air on a sail boat, with sporadic access to a bathroom. Between the heat and the mosquitoes, I was sure I would be completely miserable the entire time. I have to admit that I was very pleasantly surprised by how much I didn’t hate the experience. We had a late start, thank goodness, and boarded our sail boat at noon. We split up into two groups – it was supposed to be the girls on one boat, and the couples and boys on another.

Justice, however, true to his form (which I’ll have to get into in another post because I’m not sure enough words of videos can describe the spectacle that is Justice. A small preview: blond, balding 20 year old German boy permanently decked out in knee-high socks, hiking boots, and a Jack Wolfskin hat and fanny pack) requested to be “on the boat with the German flag”, aka the girls’ boat. The real reason is that he’s in love with Karolina who is 10 years his senior and completely out of his league. I’m not sure he even has a league.


Anyway, we entertained ourselves for the first couple of hours taking pictures all over the sailboat, enjoying the views and the breeze.

At lunchtime, we boarded our “support boat”, which was a two-story motor boat that had two bathrooms, a kitchen, and an eating area. Lunch was a simple dish of macaroni and potatoes. Considering that more than half of us were suffering from some serious stomach problems from the day before, we were grateful for the simple meal. The boats then docked at a shore and we spent the next couple of hours playing in the Nile.

 Then back on the boat again when our Coptic Christian tour guide, Michael, entertained himself by flipping through one of the girl’s magazines and getting altogether too excited at EVERY SINGLE bikini picture he saw. Finally we docked for dinner as the sun was setting and had a nice meal with a lovely view.

After a day of doing nothing, everyone was awfully boisterous and no one (except myself, of course) wanted to go to sleep until close to 2am. Covered in Nile water, sunblock, and bug spray we all climbed into our sleeping bag liners on the felucca and tried to grab a few hours of shut-eye. This was a lot FEWER hours than anyone of us knew because, as the sun rose, the motor boat turned on its engine and our wake-up call was the smell of gasoline and the sound of the motor. Needless to say, I was not the happiest of campers for the rest of the day. 

Ramses & Restrooms

Today started with a 3:30 am wake up call and a 4am pick up to join the convoy to Abu Simbel.  The drive took 4 hours, covering over 300 kilometers of desert and arriving about 40KM from Sudan. Abu Simbel is the site of two temples, built for King Ramses II and his “most popular” wife Nefertari on the banks of Lake Nasser.

Not only were these temples built in 13^th century BC, which makes them unique in that “WOW these are old” way, but they’ve also had an interesting modern history. Because the Egyptian government created a dam to help control the ebbing and flowing of the Nile River, the water started to rise and threatened both the Nubian villages in the area, and the temples themselves. So, in 1960, the temples were taken apart and physically reconstructed on higher ground. With the Nefertari’s temple, you can see where it was cut into pieces for movement, but you can’t tell with Ramses’ temple.

We spent about 2 hours exploring the temples (which was about one hour and forty minutes too long for this adventurer) and by 10am were already on our way back to Aswan, escaping the excruciating 110 degree heat. I passed out for the first hour, but then woke up urgently needing to pee. Michael, our tour guide, had told us the day before that there would be no stops and that the hotel and the site would be our only chance to use the restroom. I sat there suffering for about 40 minutes, but when I saw a sign that said 150KM to Aswan, I realized that if I didn’t pee, I would explode and then ruin the rest of the ride for everyone. So, I woke Michael up, telling him I had a problem and we needed to stop. I didn’t need a bathroom, I had no trouble squatting behind a sand dune or peeing in a cup, but I needed to stop. I guess my timing was pretty good because within 2 km we pulled up to a random shack (which Michael called a ‘coffee shop’) with a smaller shack next to it that was clearly an outhouse of sorts. It was really just a hole in the ground with a bucket next to it but at that point I couldn’t possibly care less. (I was later told that Michael and the bus driver were standing at equal distances between the bathroom and the bus, their arms folded like body guards. Too bad no one took a picture)

When I came out , another bus had pulled up next to us.  “That’s the tourism police,” Michael tells me quietly as we walk back to the bus. “I need to tell him that you are sick and we had to stop, or he will take away my license because it is illegal to stop as part of the convoy. You need to look like you are really sick”. So, I did my best to look miserable – something I’m generally quite good at and the excruciating heat helps. So I stood by the bus, doing my best to look miserable while Michael talked to the police officers. Everything ended up working out fine, but apparently all the tour companies sign a form saying that they will not stop as part of the convoy, and making any stops is illegal. We also happened to be the 2^nd to last vehicle in the convoy, so the bus behind us had to stop and wait for us to get back on the road. We’re still trying to figure out why it is that they’re making it impossible for a bunch of western tourists to stop even once in a 300km stretch of desert. There’s so much opportunity for profit there! They could charge $10 for a bottle of water and $5 to use the restroom!

We had lunch at McDonald’s (because you can’t visit a foreign country without sampling their Mickidiees) and spent the rest of the afternoon doing nothing. 

We then walked into down for dinner, and spent the rest of the evening in a café smoking shisha and drinking cold hibiscus tea. For once, I actually left the hotel appropriately dressed and wasn’t sent back to the room by Michael to change my clothing. I was wearing a knee length skirt and a long sleeved shirt, but the heat, even at night, was unbearable. So, sitting at the café, I was fidgeting and trying to cool myself off and apparently at one point, I pulled my skirt about 2 inches above my knee, unconsciously. Michael witnessed this, his eyes buggered out, and he slammed his hand on my leg “What are you trying to do!” he yelled at me. I’m clearly his problem child of the trip. Who would expect any different?

Today, we board our felucca to spend the next 24 hours baking in the heat and not having access to decent restrooms while being eaten alive by mosquitoes. I’m considering taking a lot of different pills and praying for this part of the experience to be over as quickly as possible. 

First Days in Egypt!

Egypt Adventure indeed! I can’t believe how much I’ve seen and done in the last 48 hours. I arrived in Cairo around 8pm and was relieved when it only took 20 minutes for the Gap adventures representative to find me. We then drove through crazy rush hour traffic, where we didn’t move for 10 minutes at a time and where the drivers made 6 lines out of 3 to finally arrive at my hotel an hour later. The room was pleasantly cool and upon retrieving my passport from the front desk, I met Sean, another one of the tour participants. We went out onto the streets of Cairo to find dinner, during which I understood the value of covering up – even though I was wearing a conservative outfit, for me. The looks and jests and jeers I got from the men were not at all flattering and made me feel really uncomfortable. I can’t say that my first dinner in Cairo was particularly great either. We stopped at a place that had cheap pizza on the menu but, after ordering and looking around, I realized that the pizza we would be served was coming from frozen boxes. Yum!

This was not that astute of an observation on my part as, arranged on top of the pizza oven, in a rather picturesque display, were the boxes from which our pizza was being defrosted.

Yuck. Oh well. Shortly after returning to my hotel, my roommate Marjian, from Belgium, arrived. We spoke briefly and passed out.

The next day we had breakfast at the hotel and met the rest of the group before heading for the pyramids. Our tour guide, Michael, did his best to explain everything to us, but it was a lot of information and I’m afraid most of it went in one ear and out the other. Our tour guide: 

The pyramids are impressionable, and I’m glad I saw them, but personally, I have to say that Chichen Itza was far more impressive in my opinion. Of course, these pyramids are older, and the fact that there’s 3 million stones and that it took 20,000 people and 20 years to build IS impressive, but when you simply look at the two structures, I have to say that the pyramids are well…not that great. 

We also saw the Sphynx, and our tour guide made sure we took the most cliche picture there is:

Finally, we visited the Egyptian Museum. I’m not a fan of museums, especially ones that aren’t air conditioned when its near 100 degrees outside. So, I didn’t enjoy the museum. After the museum, we headed out to the train station to board our overnight train down to Aswan. Due to the odd way the day was planned, we basically had over two hours to kill. Some members of our group were determined to get some alcohol for the ride down so we stopped at a SHADY, dark, hot “liquor store” where 4 of us bought 2 bottles of “Fineland Egyptian Vodka” to share. It was cheap looking, and I knew it would be disastrous, but everyone else was determined to stay on a “budget”. In the end, no one had a hangover but no one got drunk either, so we’re thinkgin t he “43% alcohol” on the label is a lie. While we sat at the train station, 5 or 6 other trains that weren’t ours went by and it made most of us pretty apprehensive as to the train we would be taking. The trains that passed us clearly didn’t have AC – they didn’t even have windows! Some train cars were full to the brim with people, with people hanging out the doors and windows, and we witnessed more than once people running after the trains and people in the windows helping them climb in. In very “movie-like” moments, we even saw kids riding in the back or on top of the trains. This is all a little unreal!

In the end it turned out our train was not so bad, and, apparently, the nicest train you can take in Egypt. The food was passable, the beds were comfortable, and we even had sinks, even though there was no water pressure. We passed a really nice evening in the train’s “club car”, a smoky greenish gray room with chairs and tables nailed to the ground, playing “Never Have I Ever” and rejecting the poor “bar” tender’s offers to sell us Fanta, Coke or Sprite. This world without alcohol is rather strange.

Me upon arrival into our car for the evening: 

I

n the morning we arrived in Aswan. Our car attendant kept telling me and the other girls to put on hats or cover our hair because the sun was very strong. When I put on one of the headscarves that I bought in Jerusalem, my tour guide and the car attendant both started laughing at me, but wouldn’t tell me why. Later, I found out that the style and way in which I was wearing the scarf (the way all married women wear it in Israel) is only worn by servants/cleaning women in Egypt. Awesome.

We spent the rest of the morning at the pool in our surprisingly nice hotel. We went into town for some lunch and I had my first taste of Koshoury, a dish of macaroni, lentils, onions and, in my case, liver and tomatoes. It was surprisingly good. I hope I don’t get sick from the vegetables. The heat at that time was UNBEARABLE though, and the 10 minute walk back to the hotel felt like an eternity in hell. I spent the rest of the afternoon hiding in my room with the AC. 

In the evening, we took a motorboat to the West Bank of the Nile River, where our next method of transportation awaited us- camels! The camel ride through the desert was awesome, amazing, incredible, and everything else that no picture or video can convey. It was unreal.

At the end of the camel ride, our Nubian hosts for the evening picked us up and we rode back to their home in the back of their pick up trucks:

The home and the dinner were both lovely. The food was delicious and the little kids were adorable.

 Before we left, all the men and boys of the village gathered outside the house where we ate and started playing drums and singing for us. We joined them in this little street party of sorts and danced and sang and clapped. It was an amazing send off.

We then rode the pick up trucks back down to the water, with the little boys riding on the back of the trucks and jumping off last minute. They were all adorable and looked happy, but I couldn’t help thinking that it’s so unfair that only the little boys get to play outside in the (finally, slightly) cooler night air, while the girls are still stuck inside in the hot kitchens.

Our motor boats were waiting to take us back to our hotel but, once we were all comfortably settled on the roof and the boat had drifted away from the harbor, it turned out that the motor was broken. Another boat had to come in and tow us back to the dock, where we waited for the boat to get fixed. Me, chillin on the roof of the boat, waiting for the boat to get fixed:

Finally, an hour later, hot tired and happy, we were home.