[Volcanic Trip, Part 2] Goals 18 & 60(under review): Egypt

[2] Egypt

What can I say about Egypt? Other than, of course, it's the most absurd and different place I've ever been to. Egypt was a trip all its own.

We arrived in Cairo at 1 am with no plans beyond arriving in the airport at 1 am. We're approached minutes after walking out of the terminal about what our plans are in Egypt, and how we can get our whole trip planned for us and we can get our hotels and book them and we can get drivers and we'll be taken care of and... and... it goes on. We refused for the most part, knowing that there must be something sketchy going on, but we did need a hotel, (we had planned on sleeping at the airport, but it was too small) so we went ahead with it.

The airport featured Egypts only known skybridge.

On the way to our hotel it started to set in how different this place was. There were monuments and hieroglyphics everywhere, the mosques were humongous and beautiful, and nothing looked familiar. We arrived at the hotel (which was only on the top two floors of the building) and started settling in.

It was about 5 am singing began in the loudest way possible. It was prayer time. I started to get up, and when I went to get on the balcony, it was hard to believe I had traveled so far.

All buildings seemed to have some sort of shack built on top of them, sometimes made from little more than scrap wood and trash.

When we were checking out, we were again heavily bothered by a man trying to sell us vacation packages and plans to see Egypt. I think I broke his heart a little when I told him we were just going to walk around Cairo... and walk we did.

While we walked around, the world around me was flipped upside down from what I was used to. Obviously it was apparent that we were not Egyptian, and the locals constantly reminded us of this by commenting "Welcome", "Welcome to Egypt" every chance they got. As we walked through the streets, we walked past markets that sold breaker boxes and car parts in extreme excess. To cross the street, you don't wait or look, you just go for it.

We got lost about four times in Cairo, and found ourselves walking the wrong way. One time we were given directions by an Egyptian who really loved Sweden (we told him we were from Sweden...) and insisted that he make us some tea after he showed us his shop. He told us about his essences that were only 2 £E per gram, and we were thinking 'alright, that's cheap, we can buy some and not even feel bad about drinking this tea in this nice air conditioned shop.'

wrong.

As we were considering what to buy, the transaction began to speed up when we realized you can only buy this stuff in amounts of hundreds of grams. Well cuss. We couldn't back out now, and they had started pouring different essences into bottles and telling us that we were buying four different kinds, or we could buy six and get one free or we could get a deal or we could buy only fifty grams or, and, but...

We did well to not buy more than we needed, and only spent 200 £E. At the end, they even tried to take a 10 € bill I had in my wallet, but wouldn't tell me what I would get for it, just that they'd "make me smile." I had had enough, so we quickly left.

We were a bit uncomfortable with what had happened, and after consideration of it all, we realized we spent around 40.00* € on 100 grams of sheisty essence... We got Egyptianed in a bad way, and we had only brought 460 £E for the entire trip.

*It was 40.00 € with our quick conversion, but in reality, it was a little under 30.00 €. The mis-conversion did well to make us feel seriously sheisted though, and it made us over cautious for the rest of the trip, which caused us to save quite a bit of money.

The streets are a lawless place where people drive wherever they fit, and go as fast as they can. Trash is thrown where it's convenient, and if there's enough in one place, the petting zoo shows up. It was extremely common to see stray cats wandering around eating trash also.

Goal 18: See the Pyramids

Every day we were in Cairo we went to the Pyramids, but we didn't actually get up close to them until our last day in Egypt. Every day we seemed to get there just as they were closing. The first night, however, we walked from the Giza metro station to the pyramids, which was much, much further than we had expected, and took us a ridiculous amount of time, something like four hours... We got there at sunset.

(This picture is blown out so that you can see the pyramid) We ate at a pizza hut that looks out to the pyramids. The pyramids are literally right outside of the Giza suburbs. If you check them out on Google Maps, you'll see that they are just right there.
After two days of trying to see the pyramids and Cairo, we wanted to get out to a town called Dahab, on the coast of the Red Sea. We bought our bus tickets, and took a nine hour bus ride to Dahab. About every hour or two you're on a bus in Egypt, it stops at a checkpoint so that everyone on the bus can get their passports and IDs checked. This made it near impossible to sleep.

Going to Dahab was the best decision of the trip. Dahab is a desert paradise on the Red Sea that is built around scuba diving and snorkeling along the reef they have. We arrived in time to see the sunrise over the Red Sea.

We spent the rest of the day relaxing and walking around this beach town. We got sunburned reclining on the roof of one of the restaurants, and it was the laziest, most relaxing day. It was superb.

Before the end of the day, I bought some swim trunks for 20 £E (3.00 €) and rented a snorkel. I went just off the shore and found a Red Sea Reef of tropical fish, eels, anenomies, spikey things, sea cucumbers, and all kinds of cool stuff. It was a last minute decision that was well worth the experience!

This was 'Ped.' He was a stray dog that we claimed while we reclined in the morning. The best thing about him was that after he spent the morning with us, he remembered us when he saw us again later in the day! He got super excited and wanted to play with us a bit, and it made him worth noting.

The water pipe (hookah) is a huge part of culture in Egypt. For this reason, I felt like I should give it a try here, if anywhere. Plus, it was just another excuse to chill at a new lounge area by the beach.

As the sun began to set, every place along the beach gets out their fresh fish catches, and tries to sell you their dinner as you walk by. Because we had already been sheisted, and because I was getting a hang of haggling, we drove a seriously hard bargain all the way down the beach until we found a place that fed us well at an absurd price. The above pictured dinner included:

2 Fresh Fish

4 Large Prawns

Diced Calimari with vegetables

5 Salads with Pitas

1 Dessert

All for a price of 90 £E... about 12 €. The best thing about the deal was that they felt shamed that they had given us such a good deal. When the guy we bargained with told the waiter, the waiter was distraught, and there was a quick exchange in Egyptian. Plus, it was delicious.

The next destination took plenty of convincing on my part to get into the itinerary. Mt. Sinai was about 2 hours away, to be climbed at night, and created a dangerous situation for getting back to Cairo. In the end, it was well worth it.

The problem was this, the bus from Sinai left at 6 am. The sunrise on top of Mt. Sinai is at about 4:50am. They usually quote that it will take 2 and a half hours to climb. We were told by an Egyptian Bedouin that we weren't going to catch our bus.

We arrived at base camp at about 2:00 am, and started up the mountain. Two eagle scouts have no problem passing people on the way up a mountain, and we continued to pass everyone we saw.

Goal 60 (under review), climb a huge mountain.

It was about 3:15 am when we reached the top of Mt. Sinai, and realized that we were the only ones. We had climbed the mountain in about an hour and a half, and beat everyone else doing it. *The reason this is under review is because I'm not sure if I can really count this as a huge mountain. It was definitely a mountain, and it's huge as far as religious history goes, but I'm not sure if I can claim this goal as complete just yet.

At the top, I rang the church bell in victory, and occupied the highest point of the mountain long enough for this picture to be taken.

The sun began coming up at about 4:30 am. We knew that we were going to have to run down the mountain to reach the bus station (which we didn't know where it was located) at 6 am. Kenny took a head start because his toe was seriously injured, and I started down at about 4:50am. I was running at a speed I was uncomfortable with, and people were confused as I ran past them in the opposite direction they were going.

This is St. Catherines monastery. It's at the base of the mountain, and pretty neat.

We made it to the bus stop with time to spare once we found a taxi at the bottom. We headed back to Cairo. Once the bus reached Cairo, it stopped in the middle of the street as if for a stoplight, and people started getting off. People get on and off from time to time, so this didn't seem like our stop, but then the driver came up to us and informed us that this was the stop, and it was time to get off. We left the bus to find ourselves in the middle of a Cairo street with no way to get to the sidewalk... We had to walk through traffic quite a ways before we were safe, and it was the most ridiculous spot I have ever been let off of a bus before.

In the final day we hired camels, and finally got up close and personal with the pyramids. I flexed my haggling muscles, and was able to get two hours camel ride with entrance to the pyramids for only 240 £E each, a little over 30.00 €.

That night we were to leave Cairo at 4 am. Just before we left we were told about the volcanic eruption that would soon seriously change our travel plans...

Status: