Jordan vs. Egypt (No Contest)

I’ve moved on to Israel, but I don’t think that I’ve written enough about how much I enjoyed Jordan, so I want to do one last entry in which I discuss how much Jordan rocks. One way to do that is to compare it to the country I visited immediately before Jordan, Egypt.

Here is some advice that nobody will take: If you have an opportunity to visit either Egypt or Jordan, choose Jordan. Nobody will take this advice because everybody wants to see the pyramids and the Sphinx. As somebody who was just there, let me tell you that Petra is much more impressive. The sandstone carvings into the mountains, high into the mountains, are breathtaking throughout the city, whereas the pyramids are large collections of stone. The pyramids are huge, but they have very little else going for them. The structures in Petra are absolutely beautiful. Point – Jordan.

The capital cities also stand in stark contrast. Cairo is a megalopolis of 40 million people (counting Giza and the surrounding area), while Amman is much smaller, but still a good-sized city of 2 million. The biggest contrast, though, is that to say Cairo is dirty is to insult “dirty.” If you’ve followed this blog at all, you realize how much I love the bigger cities. Cairo, however, is just a sty. Despite some impressive landmarks, the whole city is crawling with garbage. Amman, on the other hand, is a very clean city with white buildings, sidewalks that are actually walkable, and is not suffering from severe overpopulation, as Cairo is. I’d like to go back and spend more time in Amman. I can’t say that about Cairo. Point – Jordan.

I do have to give Egypt some credit. Once I got outside of Cairo, it was a beautiful country, at least along the Nile. The Nile cruise that I was on was one of the highlights of the trip for me. Still, Jordan wins this battle. Jordan may be the most beautiful country that I’ve ever seen. From the port city at Aqaba, looking out over the Red Sea, to the red sands and mountains of Wadi Rum, the clean cityscape of Amman and all of the mountainous landscapes from the roads in-between, I’ve never seen such consistent beauty. Point – Jordan.

If Egypt has anything going for it, it is that the country is much cheaper than its neighbors to the northeast. Still, Jordan is not very expensive, as I came to appreciate once I crossed the Jordan river into Israel. Still, economically, I guess it’s a point to Egypt.

Don’t get me wrong; I think that Egypt is worth visiting, with the possible exception of Cairo, and the farther south that I went in Egypt, the more I liked it. Still, and I can’t stress this enough, if you can choose only one, you definitely should choose to visit Jordan.

Exodus

Well, it looks like I have time to draft a few more entries, though I’m not sure exactly when they will be posted. We will, however, do what we can. This entry is about the trip from Egypt into Jordan.

First of all, Moses had fewer problems leaving Egypt than we did. The original plan was simple and painless enough. We were going to take a 2-hour bus ride from St. Catherine’s to Nuweiba and then hop on the one-hour hydrofoil to Aqaba in Jordan. We left at 8:00 am to get to the ferry station in plenty of time, as required, and that part worked out perfectly. Then things went awry.

The first problem was with the hydrofoil. Although we got to the station in plenty of time, the hydrofoil didn’t. Not only was it not there on time, it wasn’t coming at all because of bad weather in Jordan. Even though we could see Jordan from where we were waiting and we could see absolutely nothing wrong with the weather in Jordan, the hydrofoil wasn’t coming.

Plan B. We did have a Plan B. Plan B said that we would hop on the cargo ferry, which usually takes around two hours, and then head on to Jordan. Plan B looked good considering the fact that the ferry was sitting there in the Nuweiba harbor, ready for us to board. And board we did, settling in at around 12:30 pm. The plan said we were going to cross into Jordan, check into our hotel in Aqaba and spend the afternoon checking out the town. The plan didn’t go exactly as it was supposed to go.

When we boarded the ferry there already were plenty of people on board, but we were able to find seats in order to wait for the trip to begin. Our seats were in booths in one of the upper classes and they were quite comfortable. This proved to be fortunate. We waited for the ship to depart. One hour. Two hours. Three hours. Four hours. Finally, at around 4:30 pm, the ferry finally departed Nuweiba. Good enough. A two- or three- hour trip would put us in our hotels in plenty of time to have dinner and drinks and a good night’s sleep before heading out to Wadi Rum the next morning. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a two- or three- hour trip.

Throughout the night, we kept receiving messages over the intercom that I assume were updating us on the status of the trip. Unfortunately, the messages were in Arabic and none of us spoke Arabic. Starting at around 8:30, eight hours after getting on the boat and four hours after leaving Egypt, we started getting updates here and there from other passengers that we had another hour to go on the trip. We got these messages at around 8:30 pm, 9:30 pm, 10:30 pm, 11:30 pm . . . . Finally, shortly after midnight, we got our first, last, only message in English on the trip. It was along the lines of “welcome to ship, water choppy, cannot dock, enjoy trip.” Okay, screw it, we’re not landing. I put in some earplugs and slapped on a sleeping mask and decided to go to sleep. There was not going to be any dinner or any drinks, but at least I would try to get to sleep.

Finally, at around 2:15 am, the ferry finally docked in Aqaba. We still had to go through immigration and customs and it was around 3:00 am before we got to our hotel. Once there, we learned that our morning activities had been cancelled for the next morning so we could get around five hours of sleep and walk around Aqaba a little bit before heading out to Wadi Rum.

The tragedy of the entire debacle was that we missed our evening in Aqaba. We walked around in the morning for a few hours and it was a beautiful city. At least I think it was a beautiful city. After seeing all of the grime and garbage in the cities of Egypt, it probably wouldn’t have taken much to impress me. But with that proviso, Aqaba certainly did impress me.

A friend and I walked around town, stopped by an ATM and then went to a restaurant called Ali Baba for some coffee and to take advantage of the free WiFi. We also did a little shopping, particularly at a few of the many, many liquor stores in Aqaba. Jordan is a relatively dry country, but Aqaba is a duty-free port city connecting Jordan with Egypt and Israel and the liquor stores were plentiful and cheap. We bought some Jack Daniels and Coke to enjoy on our trips to Wadi Rum and Petra. Sadly, that was pretty much the extent of our trip to Aqaba. From there, we bused to Wadi Rum and yet another blog entry.

Egypt - If Moses Could Do It . . .

Because it’s there.

- George Mallory.

“We came. We saw. We kicked its ass.”

- Dr. Peter Venkman

We had to get up early again on Sunday to head out of Africa. It was time to head to Asia, the Sinai Peninsula and Mt. Sinai. It would take an eight-hour bus ride and a trip under the Suez Canal, but it will be an experience I will never forget.

The bus ride itself was fairly uneventful. It was eight hours through desert. Lots of desert. Crossing under the Suez Canal was simple enough and once that was completed, we were in Asia. For a while, we drove down the west coast of the Sinai Peninsula, parallel to the Red Sea, which made for some pretty seaside views. Other than that, the bus ride gave me an excellent opportunity to become reacquainted with my iPod.

We stayed at a crappy resort hotel in St. Catherine, which also is the name of the monastery that sits in front of the entrance to Mt. Sinai. I guess saying “stayed” there is a little premature. As soon as we got to the resort, we had time to drop our bags and head to Mt. Sinai.

We weren’t going to see Mt. Sinai. We were going to climb Mt. Sinai. Well, six of us were anyway. With little sleep, little food and immediately following an eight-hour bus ride, six of us were going to climb this 2200 meter mountain in the winter. That lasted about ten minutes and then we were down to five. The one who fell off was a 70-year old in fairly poor shape and we couldn’t see making much of an attempt to begin with. The remaining five of us, however, kept hope alive.

In hearing about the trek up the mountain, I was led slightly astray. I was told that there is a path leading most of the way up the mountain and then 750 steps to the top. I was told that the steps could be difficult, but that if I made it up to them, I could feel some sense of accomplishment and see a great sunset. The “path” however was an obstacle course of steps and large stones and small stones and dust storms and camel poop and, since this is a mountain climb, completely uphill. In parts of the “path,” the walk wasn’t so bad, but other areas of the path were tremendously steep. Since my legs are much better than my lungs, I generally took the lead and got several meters ahead of the rest of the group and would then wait until the group caught up with me in an attempt to catch my breath.

The five of us continued up this path, about 1700 meters up the mountain and then we reached the “steps.” Again, “steps” was applying a very generous definition to the term. Actually, they were large stones of varying sizes and shapes that ascended very rapidly, zig-zagging up the top of the mountain at a very steep pace. On top of this, the temperature had gotten down to about 30 degrees Fahrenheit and the wind was gusting over 50 miles per hour. It would have been a miserable time to walk around the block in this weather and I was trying to climb up this steep mountain. But the other four of my group kept going and, since I was the youngest of the group, I kept going with them.

About halfway up the 750 “step” finale of the trip, we lost one more of the five. A sixty-year old woman named Carol had come up over 90% of the mountain before she finally gave up, but the rest of us marched on. I think Moses was like 350-years old or something like that when he ascended the mountain to get the Ten Commandments. I couldn’t let Moses show me up. We kept going.

And then, tragedy almost struck. About twenty-five steps from the top, within view of the summit, a gust of wind caught my coat and took me with it. I ended up off of my feet and landing a few steps below where I started and landed on my right hand and right knee. I think I broke my right pinkie finger (I’m still not sure; it’ll be a few days before I’m in a town in which I can get it x-rayed) and I couldn’t put any weight on my right knee. Still, I was determined. I got up, hopped over to a rock wall to block off the wind, and tested my knee to see if I could “walk it off.” I could see the summit, and at this point, I was going to reach the top if I had to hop up the last 100 meters.

After taking about twenty steps in place, I determined that my knee wasn’t hurt too badly. I decided I could walk up the steps. As for my mangled hand, the cold and the wind had completely numbed it, so there was not much pain, although I knew that there would be plenty of it once I thawed out. I decided that I was in good enough shape for the final ascent. The rest of the group was close behind me and we kept going.

From this point forward, I did not waste any time or energy. I did not look up; only down at where I was placing my feet. I did not rest. I did not even pause. I went up the rest of the steps quickly and positively and reached the summit in about three minutes. On top, in the cold and the wind and the pain, I felt a sense of accomplishment that I have very rarely felt. The final three members of my group made it to the summit and we all celebrated together with pictures and pride. As I attempted to photograph a married couple who were members of my group, another burst of wind grabbed me and threw me down again. This time, I landed on my more fleshy parts and there was no additional injury. More importantly, I managed to fall without damaging their camera, with which I was trying to take the photograph.

After about fifteen minutes at the top of the mountain, it was time for the second part of the trip – climbing down. We retraced our steps, but we were in a race against time. It was sunset and coming down the steps in the dark would be pretty dangerous. Obviously, we made better speed going downhill than we did going uphill and we were fortunate enough to reach the bottom of the steps just before dark and having to use our flashlights. Once we were out of sunlight, we maneuvered through the confusing path in the dark. It wasn’t easy, but again, it was much less troublesome because were heading downhill. In all, it took us around 2 ½ hours to reach the top and another 1 ½ hours to reach the bottom. There, we were met by our Egypt travel guide and taken back to our hotel for a well-deserved, if horrible, dinner.

That’s all there was to it. Yesterday morning, I had never even come close to attempting to climb a mountain. Today, I can say that I’ve climbed to the summit of one of the most famous mountains in history. A few hundred people do it every day, but that doesn’t take away from my sense of accomplishment. For now, this is the high point of my trip to the Middle East. So far.

Egypt - Abu Simbel; Even Further South

Hour number ten of an eternal, soul-crushing ferry ride to Aqaba probably isn’t the ideal time in which to try to write another article about Egypt, but what the hell else am I going to do? This story is about Abu Simbel.

What is Abu Simbel, you ask? How convenient for me. Abu Simbel consists of a pair of ancient Egyptian temples. One of the temples was built in honor of Ramses II, who ruled Egypt for 67 years, from 1290 to 1223 B.C. (I’ve heard that from so many tour guides that I’ve committed it to memory. More accurately, I’ve had it etched into my now-crushed soul), and the second was built in honor of one of his 42 wives, Nefreteri. She was a Nubian princess and the temples were built in what once was Nubia.

To visit the temples, we had to leave Aswan early. Damn early. We had a 3:30 a.m. wakeup call and were on the road by 4:00 a.m. The way to Abu Simbel was mostly desert but the views of the sky were mesmerizing. I don’t know if I have ever been so far away from all city lights and the lack of reflection made the stars brighter than I have ever seen before. Even without the temples, the view alone made the trip worth the time.

We didn’t go to where the temples of Abu Simbel were built because that land is now buried under Lake Nasser. The temples were moved in the 1980s to their current location. Even though I was pretty much templed out by this point, the temples were impressive. For me, the most stunning feature were the massive statues of Ramses II directly outside of the temples.

Inside the temples were some of the most vivid carvings and paintings that I have seen in any Egyptian temple. To be honest, I think that much of this art was so vivid because of restoration, but that didn’t make it any less stunning.

Unfortunately, there really wasn’t much else at Abu Simbel. We drove three hours each way to spend less than two hours at the site. The next day, we headed back to Cairo. We visited a tenth-century mosque and a museum dedicated to some 20^th century British dude who donated a house to Egypt. As you can probably tell from my lack of excitement, this final day in Africa was fairly anti-climactic. The next day, we were heading to the Sinai Peninsula and Asia for what has been the high-point of my trip thus far, but that’ll be the next post.

Stay tuned.

Egypt - More Temples, More Temples, More Temples

Upon leaving Luxor, we have continued to travel up the Nile River towards southern Egypt (the Upper Kingdom). We have had a lot of free time on the trip up the Nile and the trip has been fantastic. I have enjoyed immensely watching Egypt going by as we sit in the warm Egyptian sun, sipping the local brew. It has been like watching television with the sound off. The background is constantly changing between lush, green fields of sugar cane or palm trees, or sand-colored mountains or little villages. Also, the people that are on the cruise with me are very interesting and fun to hang out with. If there was nothing on this trip but the Nile River cruise, it would be worth it.

But of course, there is more. What more is there? Temples. Lots and lots of temples. In the last three days, we have stopped in three towns to visit temples dating back to the periods of Greek and Roman rule of Egypt.

The first temple we stopped at after leaving Luxor was the Edfu temple, which is the second largest temple in Egypt behind the Karnak Temple. It was very impressive, though to be honest, suffered from following the Karnak Temple on the itinerary.

After leaving this temple, we re-boarded the boat and went down to the Kom Ombo temple further upstream. This was the first temple that we saw at night, and we ended up paying for it. Many of the lights were out at the temple because of a rare rainstorm that occurred a few days earlier. Despite this, the tour went on until we entered the third room of the temple. At that point, the oldest member of our group fell into an unlit pit, about a foot deep, and landed on his hip and head. He was sore, so we persuaded our tour guide to go to the hospital with him to get looked after. That ended our tour, but most of us were sort of getting templed-out by this point in the day any way.

Today, we visited another temple on an island in the Nile near Aswan. I forget the name, but I’ll try to look it up and put it in here before I post this. (If I forget, remind me.) (Note: Temple of Philae. I remembered to look it up.) The temple was moved brick-by-brick from another Nile River island between 1982 and 1990 because the original island was being submerged by waters rerouted by the Aswan Dam. At this point, the original island is completely submerged, but the temple remains intact. Earlier in the day, we visited the Aswan High Dam, which I believe is the largest dam in Africa and one of the largest in the world. To be honest, I was a little disappointed because I was hoping for views and scenes as impressive as the Hoover Dam in Nevada, but those didn’t exist. We only spent around twenty minutes there, so I took some pictures and then we left.

This is our last night on the Nile. We get up at 3:30 in the morning to hop on a bus to go see yet more temples at Abu Simbel. From there, we will return to Aswan and then hop a 13-hour overnight train (see my earlier post about the train if you want to know if I’m looking forward to it) back to Cairo before heading into the Sinai Peninsula.

There, I’m finally up to date in my articles. Now if I could only find some internet connection strong enough to let me post them . . .. I’m sure these posts are a little dated when you get them, but I’m hoping they will catch up to real time soon.

Egypt - Life of Luxor-y

After heading out of Cairo, the next stop on the tour was Luxor. I can almost say that I liked Luxor as much as I disliked Cairo. The first port of call in Luxor was the Karnak Temple, which is the largest temple in Egypt. Roughly five thousand years old, the Karnak Temple has, among other things, the oldest surviving obelisks in the world. In addition, it has a room (once, but no longer, covered with a stone roof) with 134 (or something like that) massive columns that had to truly have been breathtaking while in use. To be honest, they were still breathtaking. We were at Karnak Temple for a few hours and, if I ever get internet service again, there will be plenty of pictures of it on Facebook.

After Karnak Temple, we returned to the boat for lunch on the Nile. Afterwards, a friend and I went down to the Luxor Bazaar. Let me tell you about the bazaars here in Egypt. Walking through a bazaar here is truly like running through a gauntlet. The bazaar in Luxor spanned several city blocks. On each side of the block were stores selling cheap, generic local souvenir-type items. In this sense, it was very similar to a Sunday afternoon in San Telmo in Buenos Aires. The difference is that every single shopkeeper at an Egyptian bazaar yells at you or grabs you and attempts to get you into his shop. (I will leave the pronoun in the masculine because there were few women running the shops in Cairo and no women running the shops in the smaller cities.) I learned quickly that the best plan was to not make any eye contact and to pretend that I spoke an unpopular Polish dialect because the minute that a shopkeeper thinks he has gotten your attention he becomes that much more aggressive. As a business technique, I think it probably is very ineffective because it dissuades people from browsing the merchandise. To pause even for a second is to invite a shopkeeper to pounce on you like a buzzard on a livestock carcass. Nevertheless, I was scammed into buying some souvenirs for people back home. I’m sure I overpaid, but I got the items that I wanted and I guess I’ll accept it as a learning experience.

We spent the night on our cruise ship on the Nile. It wasn’t moving and I slept well, but I was awakened at 5:00 in the morning so we could get breakfast and hop on a bus to the west bank of the Nile to visit the Valley of the Kings. Our first stop was at a temple built by a queen of Egypt around 3500 years ago. I forget her name, but her temple was breathtaking. (Note: I looked it up. Queen Hatshepsut.) Once we realized that around 60% of the temple was a reconstruction of what the temple used the look like, I was able to get my breath back and breathe much easier.

Technically, this temple was not in the Valley of the Kings. After visiting the temple, we went to the Valley of the Kings to visit three tombs. No pictures are allowed at the Valley of the Kings, so if that’s what you’re waiting for, I apologize. We visited three tombs in the Valley of the Kings. Two belonged to Ramses I and Ramses III. I forget who the third one belonged to, but I’m sure he understands. The tombs were very interesting, though all of the treasures have long been removed. The most striking thing about the tombs, from my perspective, was the vividness of the colors of the 3700-year-old paintings inside the tombs. We learned what some of the hieroglyphics meant and the names of various Egyptian gods, which added to the experience. We also went to the tomb of Tutankhamen. It cost an extra 100 Egyptian pounds ($19 U.S.) and we had seen all of the treasures in the Cairo Museum a few days before, so we didn’t enter the tomb, but it was interesting to see from the outside, nonetheless.

Overall, I was very pleased with Karnak. It was a much better representation of the Egypt that I expected to see than was Cairo or the pyramids. I can say that the Karnak Temple has been the high point of the trip thus far and I hope it is an omen of things to come on the trip and the first of many pleasant surprises.

Egypt - The Train From Hell

I have no pictures for this post, so I’m just going to add random Pyramid and Sphinx pictures.

Upon leaving the pyramids, we went to a train station in Cairo and boarded an overnight train to Luxor. The train was an experience I won’t forget soon . . . no matter how hard I try.

The train was a sleeper train. I was in a cabin with another man who is around 75-years old. The cabin had two bunks to sleep in, one on top and one on bottom. Since there was no way he was climbing the ladder, I ended up in the top bunk. We’ll get back to this story later.

After the train arrived, we went into our cabin to await our “airplane-style dinner.” I’m not sure the exact nature of the food that they served us, but I can tell you that there is one member of our tour group that consumed it and hasn’t been seen since. I was hungry, though, so I ate it. Perhaps to my detriment, I have severe problems turning down free food.

After dinner, the beds were pulled down and I climbed on top. The bed was a wooden board with a thin mattress. All things considered, it wasn’t terribly uncomfortable, however, it was only about three feet wide. Now, I’m not the largest person in the world and have managed to sleep on twin beds plenty of times without falling off, but usually the twin bed in question isn’t in a vehicle making several abrupt stops throughout the evening. I had trouble getting to sleep, mainly because of the fear that I was going to be thrown violently from by bed and hurled mercilessly to the ground some six or seven feet below.

Somehow, at some point, I managed to fall asleep for a few hours when disaster struck. I woke up at 3:30 in the morning and I had to piss. I was laying in a three-foot-wide bed in complete darkness with only a vague memory of where the ladder was and a person sleeping six feet below me that I didn’t want to wake up at 3:30 in the morning and I had to piss. I tried to hold it. I held it for about fifteen minutes. Then, just when I though I wasn’t going to be able to hold it any longer, salvation struck. A light came upon me as if from an angel delivering me from my torture. The light, however, wasn’t heavenly in nature. Rather, it was from the door of my cabin that had just been opened by the 75-year old man in the bottom bunk who also had to piss. I found the ladder and, soon, all was right in the world again.

At 5:00 in the morning, somebody started pounding on our door. It was the wake-up call. We were arriving in Luxor a 6:00 am, so they were giving us breakfast and giving us a few minutes to get ready to go. The breakfast consisted of various breads, some edible while others were not, butter and fig jam, which I quite enjoyed. Our next place to sleep would be a cruise boat on the Nile, but it wasn’t ready yet, so we loaded our luggage on a bus, hopped on a horse-and-buggy and made off for the Karnak Temple. That’s where the high point of the trip (so far) begins . . .

Egypt - Great Pyramid and Sphinx Edition

When people start talking about Egypt, one area is almost always the first topic of discussion – the pyramids/sphinx. The area of the Great Pyramid and the Sphinx was the first tourist thing that we did on this trip, so I will talk about that now.

My first vision of the Great Pyramid was very similar to my first vision of the Eiffel Tower. I was in a town car coming from the airport and when I was in Giza, I noticed the Great Pyramid through a cloud of mist off in the distance. I knew what it was immediately, of course, but the mist made it sort of a surreal experience.

I made it to the hotel, met with my tour group, and the next morning we began our tour of Egypt with a trip to the three famous pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx.

I don’t want to have two negative entries in a row, but neither do I want to lie. I found the pyramids to be pretty disappointing. The three famous ones in Giza, including the Great Pyramid of Cheops are impressive in their size, but ultimately they merely are large man-made structures. They don’t sing or dance, but just sort of sit there. Granted, from a historical perspective, they truly are amazing – but, you know how you go someplace and you take pictures and you later think that the pictures don’t do the place justice? Well, pictures do justice to the pyramids. They are what they have always appeared to be, for thousands of years.

It didn’t help that the area around the pyramids was a pig sty and tourist trap. The ground was covered with camel crap and there were throngs of people swarming to every tourist trying to hustle, scam and sell cheap crap for crazy prices. One person in my group was asked by a police officer if he wanted his picture taken by the policeman. After the policeman took the picture, he asked the tourist for 5 Egyptian Pounds (about $1).

One of my favorite scams was that whenever one of the hustlers came up to a tourist he would offer whatever he was selling for a pound. The Egyptian unit of currency is a pound. When the tourist tries to give the seller an Egyptian pound, the seller corrects him and says it is an English pound, which is about eight Egyptian pounds. I saw this numerous times. What I didn’t see, but what I heard was common, is when a seller tells a tourist that the price is a Nubian pound, which is worth whatever the seller says it is worth because there’s no such thing as a Nubian pound.

After the pyramids, we went to see the Sphinx. This was perhaps the one thing in Egypt that I was most interested in seeing. Once again, it was a little disappointing. It reminded me of when I saw Mount Rushmore. I remember thinking, “is that it? It’s much less impressive in person than I expected.” I sort of felt that way about the Sphinx, too.

I went into the temple that is adjacent to the Sphinx, but that was a waste of time. It was sixteen columns, mostly restorations. Nothing, and I mean nothing, else. Well, there was a “wishing well” that gets cleaned out by the guards shortly after closing time. Other than that, there was nothing.

Earlier in the day, we had gone to the Cairo Museum. There was plenty of typical Egyptian stuff in the museum, but the prize pieces, comprising nearly half of the museum, were the treasures of Tutankhamen. The gold death mask and other golden treasures truly were amazing. Our tour guide was knowledgeable and friendly and I think I learned a lot. I enjoyed the museum, though at the time I was mainly just excited about seeing the Great Pyramid and the Sphinx. Little did I know that the museum would be the high point of the day.

After he pyramids and the museum, we left Giza for a train station in Cairo to head to Luxor. That’ll be in the next post. Until then, later.

Egypt - Cairo Edition

I’m still rolling down the Nile and watching Egypt slowly pass by me while I summarize the trip. Now that I’m out of Cairo, it is truly a beautiful place. Cairo, on the other hand, wasn’t particularly beautiful.

That leads me to this – the Cairo Entry.

My hotel in Cairo wasn’t in Cairo proper. Rather, it was in Giza, which is on the west bank of then Nile, but is considered part of Greater Cairo. According to my Egypt tour guide, Cairo has around 22 million people and Giza has another 18 million. That sounds a little high, but what do I know?

I love cities. If you’ve read my prior entries, you know how much I love cities. In my brief two-day stay in Cairo, I have to say that I didn’t like Cairo at all. Granted, I didn’t see a ton of it and it may be unfair for me to say that I didn’t like it, but I didn’t like it.

As far as observations, I think the first thing I noticed was all of the clothes hung up from the buildings in the city. It sort of reminded me of what I imagined New York would have looked like at the turn of the last century. It was just something that caught my eye.

Another thing that caught my eye are the number of unfinished buildings that I saw. I saw numerous buildings that were occupied but had a column jutting up from them or otherwise appeared to have another floor in an early state of construction. I was later informed that this is common because people in Egypt do not have to pay taxes on buildings until the building is completed. Because of this, they make the buildings appear to be incomplete. I also heard from others that this is common in Italy, Greece and Turkey as well, though I don’t have any first-hand information about that.

Like many big cities, much of the city appears to be under construction. This doesn’t make any city very attractive. On top of this, the city is a mess. There is garbage strewn everywhere. I know I had some complaints about Buenos Aires being dirty, but Cairo is much, much worse.

Speaking of amplifying a negative aspect of Argentina, the streets in Cairo were the craziest I have ever seen. I walked a few miles in Giza down a street and there were no traffic lights. The street was six lanes, three in each direction, and there were no lane markers on any of the streets. Crossing the street required great skill, great luck, and blind faith in an almighty being. I did it once, well twice because I went back as well, and I anticipate that I will now be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder for years to come.

Lest I sound like I’m coming down hard on Egypt, I think that everything I have seen in Egypt, well most everything, has been awesome since I left Cairo/Giza. But as far as Cairo is concerned, I believe that my two days there were more than sufficient.

Egypt - Getting Here

At the moment I am sitting on a boat, sailing down the Nile between Luxor and Aswan, drinking a Stella. This Stella isn’t the Stella Artois that you’re familiar with (I don’t think), but is an “Authentic Egyptian Lager Beer” named Stella that is eerily similar to Stella Artois. Since Muslims don’t drink (for the most part) and Egypt is 85% Muslim, it hasn’t been easy to find Egyptian beer, but here we are. I’ve got the afternoon with little to do between lunch and afternoon tea, so I thought I’d draft some entries on Egypt. I’m not sure when I’ll post them, but it’ll be as soon as I can. (Note: I finally found some WiFi in Aswan and I'm posting about a half-dozen entries to show up at 16-hour intervals, so they are on their way.)

First up – the trip to Egypt.

The trip to Egypt really wasn’t too bad. It started with a two-hour flight from RDU to JFK in New York. I arrived at RDU three hours early because I’m a good little traveler (and because it was necessary in my last international flight out of Buenos Aires) but it was sort of a waste of time. American Airlines isn’t busy at all at RDU, so I was through check-in within ten minutes of arriving at the airport.

Getting to JFK, I had a five-hour wait before I hopped on my plane to Cairo. I actually needed much of this time because I had to get back in line to check-in for my flight to Egypt. From JFK to Cairo, I flew a direct flight on Egyptair. The flight I took to Cairo is the only flight on Egyptair per day out of JFK, so the counters weren’t open when I arrived five-hours prior to my flight. I had to wait around for an hour or so and then I was near-first in line when the counter opened. I went through with no problems and went to the gate.

The JFK terminal for international flights, at least international flights on smaller, foreign airlines, was dead. Fortunately, I ate before I went through security because there was virtually nothing there one I got through. Fortunately, there was free internet, so I played around online while I waited for my flight to board.

Everything went pretty much on time and I hopped on my plane to Cairo. This was my first time flying on Egyptair and I was pleasantly surprised in some aspects and not particularly pleased with others. Among the pleasant surprises was the care package that we received on the plane. It included earphones, a sleeping mask that I desperately needed and a toothbrush. That was more than I received on any of my other flights. Among the disappointments was the lack of entertainment on the flight – which was particularly disappointing on an eleven-hour flight.

Having flown a lot of long flights recently, I’ve learned a little. For this trip, I brought earplugs. This was particularly fortunate considering there was a child who is certain to have a future in horror movies as a screamer. Generally, I have a lot of trouble sleeping on airplanes, but between the earplugs, complimentary sleeping mask and a handful of Tylenol PM, I did manage to get about three or four hours of sleep on the plane, for which I was very thankful.

I usually get nervous before I go through security, immigration and customs on foreign flights because you never really know what to expect. I think I was more nervous about Egypt than I usually am because this was my first trip to the Middle East. Unexpectedly, the trip through immigration and customs was a breeze. I got to immigration and there was no line. I got to the agent and he asked if I had a visa. I though “damn, did I screw this up somehow?” I said “no, where can I get a visa?” He directed me to the bank directly behind me. I went to the bank and they charged me $15 for a visa sticker. (This was a pleasant surprise because I had read that an Egyptian visa cost $45.) I purchased the visa and returned to the line, which still was empty. Without a single question about why I was in Egypt or the intended length of my stay, I got my passport stamped and went through.

On the other side of immigration, I was met by a representative of my tour group. I picked up my luggage and was taken to the Great Pyramids Hotel in Giza. It was surprisingly easy. We’ll see how it goes when I head to Jordan, Israel and then back into the United States.

Stay tuned for more.