delightful and rich in culture. Egypt has been one o
f my top ports by far. I felt easily at home.I knew that I had a SAS to lead trip for 2 days in Cairo to hit all the big sites: Pyramids at sunrise, Sphinx, Egyptian Museum, and the Bazaar, so I was prepared to spend the first day just "being" in Cairo. Granted, Cairo is not close--and after a 3 hour hot, sweaty cab ride from Alexandria (our port), I had begun to rethink my plan. Our cab driver was the most persistent cabbie we met outside the
port gate...kudos to persistence....initially, he was only taking us to the train station in 
Alexandria but in the 15 min. cab ride, we were offered a ride to Cairo and back, along with all day in Cairo with him for only $100. $50/piece seemed like an awesome deal, so we went with it and let the adventure unfold.Egypt quickly struck me as being dusty, barren, dirty, hot, and brown. Traffic is very disorganized, meaning the painted lane lines are irrelevant and were a waste of someone's time.
He was a super hospitable guy, even stopping along the way and buying us Pepsi's to ease the heat. Mido was his name--a young 28 yr. old Egyptian man, born into a family of cabbies from which the art of
shuttling tourists (mainly) around Egypt in a semi-purposed fashion had been handed down generation by generation. Throughout the day, I learned that he had recently ended a 
serious relationship with a woman because "she was too much after money" and that his hometown of Alexandria, Egypt, affectionately known as "Alex" was far more superior (in his eyes) to the chaotic Cairo where we were headed. I also learned that the phrase "no problem" rolled off his tongue as easily as the sweat collected in 
my lower back. He was there to take us where we wanted to go, and was a bit struck by this odd pair that didn't have any interest in going to the Pyramids, but would rather just wander...but "no problem" he easily said. It took a bit of coaxing, but eventually he succumbed and took us to a random street where we had a quick, but oh so good! lunch of foul and falafel. (easily the best falafel I'd ever had the joy of eating. Thank you, Adam, for the foul recommendation. Egyptian refried beans??) This led to tea, then coffee mixed in with an impromtu Arabic lesson. Watch here.My travel partner was on a mad-dash for an overnight train to Luxor, which left me and Mido getting back to Cairo on our own late that night. The idea of this was something that I paused to consider the safety of several times that day, but in the end Mido had won over my confidence
that he was a nice guy that would safely get me back to the port in Alexandria. It could have been a long 3 hr. cab ride back, but with sunflower seeds shared between us and multiple stops for bottles of water, the time seemed to fly by. Before I knew it, after a late night stop for falafel, I was happily walking up the gangway back home again.The next 2 days were spent in a large tour group on an even larger tour bus (i.e. Definitely not Stephanie-style!) that was traveling in a caravan with 3 other equally as large tour buses around Cairo from tourist spot to tourist spot. On the one hand, it was nice to be shuttled from place to place without having to navigate trams
or taxis on my own, but eating lunch at the 4 Seasons and dinner at the Le Meridian hotels in town was a bit obnoxious for my tastes. I, however, made the best of it and really got to know a lot of the kids on my bus much better. The one thing that I shocked me more than anything was how extremely close the Pyramids were to the city. ... part of the skyline! And how camels and horses were in the streets as part of the traffic--Less that they were there, but more that they didn't seem bothered by the chaotic traffic.
It was my turn to carry the medical beeper for the next two days, so essentially I was forced to relax and hang around the ship more often....which is a nice thing to be 'forced' to do because it is easy not to take care of yourself and become a slave to the block of time in country. I got to see the famous library of Alexandria. Very interesting place: held the 2nd machine ever to be able to print an entire book in 20 minutes, architecture was designed in a way to use only natural light and no light bulbs, but never let direct rays in, and from the outside was supposed to symbolize
the sun with a revolving moon. Interesting.
A highlight of the day was spontaneously meeting a group of University students at the falafel shop. They saw us in line and graciously offered to help order our food. We all began chatting and discovered how amazingly perfect their English was. One of the girls told me that she had never left Egypt to practice her English (amazing!) and was currently enrolled in a class to 'perfect' her accent to enable her to work in a call center. The goal, she said, was to emulate the Britsh accent like on the "BBC network". They listened to recordings of this in class as a way of changing her accent to be 'neutral' for the call center. Wow, and doubly wow!
All in all, Egypt is a place that I need a historian to come back with me next. (Adam, help!) Too many nuances and too many details that I felt that I glazed over because no one was there to tell me about them! Chalk that up as the need for another trip. Dad, when you're ready, I am too.
Thanks for keeping up this far!
On our way to Morocco now. More of this adventure later.
No comments:
Post a Comment