Egypt

Alas, it has happened again (remember Panama?) but I lost my camera. Sadly, this time the chances of it being returned are slim, and slim is pushing it. I left it in the taxi I took to the airport.

People are asking me, how was Egypt? I have to say, that the Pyramids were wonderful, Alexandria and visiting Sam M. was awesome, but the the traveling was exhausting and challenging, more challenging than any other place I have traveled since coming to Europe. Mostly, it comes from the fact that most Egyptians see me as a big walking dollar sign and hassle me for tips at every corner, not speaking or even being able to read the language was more challenging than I imagined and just not feeling like I had much control of my situation (and it mostly went well) was really hard.

I landed in Cairo at 3AM and waited in the airport for the first bus to Alexandria, which departed at 530AM. All went smoothly and I arrived in Alexandria at the "new" bus station, which was a big dirt lot and luckily, Sam was right there to meet me. We spent an AWESOME day, drinking tea, catching up, walking along the water and seeing the new Alexandria library (which is a big modern building) with some cool art and a great retrospective on Anwar Sadat's life. The highlight of the day for me was drinking mint tea and playing backgammon with Sam (oh there was a great picture of this) at his local tea house. His favorite server probably had never seen an Asian before and asked if I did karate! It was great. I really felt that, with Sam and his Arabic skills in Alexandria, I got a true taste of modern Islamic city life.

On Saturday morning, Sam returned to class, and I hopped on a first class train (35 L.E. (7 US Dollars) watch out because the numbers are going to start getting big) to Cairo. I get off the train in Cairo and get immediately accosted by taxi drivers. I am a bit overwhelmed and perhaps I didn't do my homework, but there was no public transportation system in Cairo (or at least none that I knew of) and I picked a taxi driver for a ride to Giza and the pyramids.

Now things get interesting. The taxi driver, speaking no English, knows I want to go to the pyramids. I want to go to my hotel. We can't communicate, the traffic is CRAZY and I end up being taken to a camel stall near the pyramids. I am offered a camel ride tour of the pyramids. At the time, I felt like I was being hijacked and had no real choice, but in retrospect everything was on the up and up. The camel ride through the pyramids was AMAZING. The weather was perfect, not hot at all, no wind and it was around sunset. WOW. Now comes the part where I am single-handedly supporting the Egyptian economy. I have to pay the camel owner, pay the entrance fee, pay the camel guide, tip the camel guide, tip my actual guide and pay the taxi driver for the ride and his two hours of waiting. I think I spent a total of 800 L.E.. Money is money, yeah? So, I'll have the wonderful memories and pictures in my mind.

That night, I haggled a taxi ride back to the pyramids for the light show, which was kind of cheesy, but a chance to see the pyramids again was worth it. Dinner? On the street for a total of 5 L.E.. Now sure what I ate. It was edible but nothing to really that memorable, other than trying to communicate with the guy at the stall who was enjoying watching this Asian guy eat.

Sunday morning, I got up and was planning on going to Islamic Cairo, but my taxi driver, better English this time, told me about another set of pyramids at a place called Saqqara. I went for it and this was the highlight. My driver got me a one-on-one guided tour. The guide took me into the funerary tombs of the manicurist and butcher of one of the fifth dynasty kings. I had a fantastic time and learned a ton about Egyptian views on the afterlife. The hour and a half I had with this guide brought Egyptian art and funerary ideas to life.

Afterwards, the haggling for the tips, the drive to the airport ended with a haggling for the fare and tips and here's where I must have left my camera in the taxi.

Now that I'm reliving the experience in my mind, I am really more sad about losing the pictures than the pain of the travel and feeling like I was being ripped off the entire time. As they say, time heals all the pain and hard parts and it's true, I'll just remember how great the good parts of the trip were.