Two weeks bumming around Egypt
Actually that's not a very good description, based on my experience with Egyptian food. It melted in my
pants three times in two weeks...
Welcome to Egypt! Land of mind-boggling sized pyramids, amazing diving in the Red Sea, and every
Egyptian's favorite garbage dump, the Nile! The cool thing about Egypt (apart from melting in your pants)
is that it's like playing Dungeons and Dragons for real. Any Egypt guide book will have the tomb layouts
(which you shouldn't be reading, cuz you're not the Dungeon Master) for dozens of temples in
Egypt, with detailed descriptions. Here's a random excerpt: "Entry to the temple is through the damaged
gateway... Close to this entrance, to the right of the temple wall, is a small Shrine to Hathor, now used to store a
collection of mummified crocodiles..."
It almost makes you want to role a 20-sided dice to see if the Crocodile Mummies have enough Morale to
fight you and your +5 Megapixel Camera of Stealth! (Your Manual of the Lonely Planets won't do you any
good, because all your opponents will have one.)
Here's an example of how a geek (or me) might start out on a day trip/quest.
You have heard the long lost Temple of Hatshepsut is built out of a dazzling rock wall in the city of Luxor
somewhere near the Valley of the Kings. You and your allies (aka, your unemployed slacker backpacking
friends) meet at a local tavern for shai and sheesha (tea and water pipe) to make plans. The Dwarf
Paladin in your group will be especially useful because he has 60' infravision and the tomb guards (Tourist Police)
won't let you use the Flash of Daylight special effect of your Camera of Stealth (which you can only activate
three times a day anyway). In order to get there before the feared pirate Thomas Cook
unleashes his daily Plague of German and Spanish Tourists on the temple (against which your party stands no chance of
survival), you have to leave early. One of your party goes out to haggle with a local chariot (taxi) driver
and agrees to a price of 50 copper pieces (Egyptian pounds) for the day, receiving the chariot
(taxi) owner's personal guarantee that his brother/cousin/nephew/father/any-bullshit-claim-of-relation
will drive you around. You agree to meet at 7:30AM (before the Undead German and Spanish
arrive). You wait at the agreed point. Three other drivers ask if you need a ride. After telling them you are waiting
for someone, they inform you they are his brother/cousin/father (without asking who, in
fact, you are waiting for). After agreeing three times to meet the in-laws of your driver, your actual driver
shows up, after which the other telepathic drivers disperse immediately. You cross the Nile, get into
your chariot, and head towards the Temple. Your driver is wise and gets you there before the Undead Tourist
Army has arrived. You quickly enter the tomb. After admiring the magnificent temple, you head up the
ramp, past the Second Colonnade, through the Third Terrace, and into the Sanctuary of Amun. You can't go to the
Anubis Chapel due to the fearsome guards protecting it (it's closed and you don't want to bribe the Tourist
Police to get in). After defeating the Mummy, you head to his Sarcophogous and search for treasure. You
find a Solar Barque, Ankh of Ra, and 200 platinum pieces. After deciding the Elven Priest in your group
should get them (last time he only got a Ring of Protection Against Diarrhea, which didn't seem to
work, so he was pissed), you have your chariot (taxi) driver bring you back to town. You pay your 50 copper
pieces (Egyptian Pounds), include a little baksheesh for helping you to avoid the Undead Army (but not too
much baksheesh cuz he tried to get you to pay too much for a flask of water at his friend's
tavern), and accumulate Experience Points, learn new spells, and recover hit points. While recovering in your tavern
(flea-pit youth hostel) the local constable (Anitiquities Police) arrests you for
tomb-raiding. You pay him baksheesh and he leaves (he knows they're fake anyway--his friends make them). You pay your
inn-keeper, pack your backpack with your treasure and head to Cairo to discover the Great Pyramid and later
to the Red Sea to search for the sunken ship, the El Mina.
The ridiculous thing about the above description is, apart from leaving with the treasure (you'd buy fakes
in a store), it describes one day of my trip exactly. Rock on Egypt!
From the beginning...
Within 30 minutes of arriving in the country, four different people tried to rip me off. (Two
succeeded.) Two people at the airport tried to sell me visas for €20 when there is a huge sign in the airport stating
they are $15. First explanation for difference, "That's the old price." Second
explanation, "Administrative fees." Finally I found someone asking the actual price. Then I went to the
toilet, after which a guy waiting at the toilet asked for a €1 fee (which I assumed was exorbitant--I "slyly" bargained
him down to €0.50). I turned around to see him move a door which was hiding a sign stating something to the
effect of "Don't pay the guys that stand here". After getting into my taxi, which my guidebook states not to
pay more than 25 Egyptian pounds ($3.50) because that is already too much, I told my driver that is what I
would pay. After he tried to con me into paying for some bogus airport entry fee (there is none), which I
refused, he stared at me literally like he was going to murder me. I have never, ever in all of my travels
seen someone stare at me so angrily. My guidebook warns they scream and complain and to just ignore
it, but I wasn't ready for this. This being my first trip to an Arabic country as an American, I had no idea
what to expect. So I gave him 40 pounds.
I spent that night in an overnight bus to Aswan in the south, listening to some guy play Arabic techno on his
cell phone (oh yeah, shake your groove thang), wondering what the hell I had gotten myself
into. I was quite impressed by the lanky backpacker who was snoozing on the floor of the packed bus. I've done
this in Germany and Australia, but not in Egypt. In Aswan, I crashed out in my hotel for a few hours, then
spent four hours in a felucca (sailboat) on the Nile, checking out tombs. My sailboat driver Abdullah
regaled my with stories of his women all over Europe. (Note, this guy was ugly and married.) Just like James
Bond, except poor, he said. Sweet. The next morning I hopped on a minibus to visit a temple 30km from Sudan
called Abu Simbel. We had to wake up at 3AM to do it as a day trip, so I watched Arabic melodrama and
techno while waiting for the bus. I'm not sure I can recommend this at 3AM. I got back and then
changed €200 into Egyptian pounds. This is one of the cool things about developing countries. It just feels cool
to walk off with an unbelievably fat wad of low-value cash, a stack so thick you can't do anything with it
but shove it in your backpack, cuz it would never fit in your wallet. What makes it even
worse, is you have to get it in low denominations, because otherwise you will never find anyone that can break it
(or they'll mysteriously never have change). Then I went to a garden where a tourist police offered to let me play
with his gun for a few pounds. Hmmm. (That sounded unnecessarily pornograhic.) Then I spent the next three days alone on a felucca
sailing the nile with just my sailing crew. People almost always go in groups of 6 or more, but I wanted
to be alone. It was awesome. I just sat there on the boat and chilled while the crew
sailed, cooked, and took care of everything. It was so sweet! One night they took me to a wedding in a Nubian village (Nubian
is a race in the south). It was unreal. There had to have been 2000 people partying throughout the
village, including guests from other villages. 60 year old men were dancing, 4 year old girls were grooving down in
their tweety bird pajamas after midnight, 5 year old boys waving shiny canes, lights were flashing, music
was rocking, people were burning incense and smoking sheesha...it was awesome!!! Some guy went around and
wiped scented oils on the men so they would smell nice for the ladies. I tried to dodge, but he got me too
(wiped it right on my neck). I have to admit to being a bit of a pussy, I desparately wanted to join the
dancing (it really was amazing), but I was the ONLY white person there and I felt REALLY out of
place. Around 2AM, my boat captain, heavily stoned from smoking a ton ganja (this guy smoked more weed in
three days than every backpacker I've ever met combined), came to get me. Then we went back to the
boat and slept on the Nile. It was a good night.
And the next morning the sailors next to us brushed their teeth in the water I had been peeing in all
night.
The funny thing about that party was that it was entirely gender separate. There a definite
"boys side" and "girls side" and there was no mixing, anywhere. And something you notice while traveling along the
Nile is that (except for the garbage, which they toss everywhere) it could easily have been 3000 years ago.
There were men wearing cotton robes and sandals, water buffalo cooling themselves in the mud, and wheat
stacked in the fields. It was really tranquil.
One of the temples I visited along the Nile was Kom Ombo, which was partially a temple for crocodile
worship and had mummified crocodiles. It was here that I experienced the Derisive French Snort. It's hard to
explain if you've never been the subject of it yourself. It involves the head rocking back, eyes
rolling up, and a guttural snort/cough. The snorter will then look around for other French to join in the
snort. This will continue until enough snorting has occurred that all French in the vicinity believe the
snortee has understood his inferiority. A secondary role of the derisive French snort is to relieve the
snorter from actually doing anything about the incurred offense. I believe it was first witnessed in
World War 2. I experienced it when I tried to pass through a group of French tourists that refused to
move after I politely said "Pardon", twice. After they ignored, I crowd-weaved through, to which they were
unresponsive, so I mostly had to shove. And was snorted upon.
Then I hopped into the dirtiest train I ever been in (remember, I backpacked central China) after peeing in
the dirtiest toilet I've ever seen (really, no comparison so far), while bored children threw rocks
at the train as it passed. I always like trains. You see scenery that would never see otherwise. Having a
train pass by doesn't seem to change the landscape in the way that a highway does. People just continue
their lives despite the train track. Next to a highway, life changes, because people can get in and
out anytime.
This brought me to Luxor, where I saw absolutely amazing temples and tombs. I went to Luxor temple,
with its avenue of sphinxes (not The Sphinx). I visited Karnak, which is so vast it defies
description. I spent four hours wandering around it. I visited the Temple of Hatshepsut (with my Dwarven
Paladin and Elven Priest--seriously, it was amazing) and the Valley of the Kings, where I went in
Tutankhamun's tomb (boring) and Ramses 4's tomb (awesome). Luxor is just amazing. (I was amazed to
see an empty bottle of Canard Duchene, my favorite champagne, at my dumpy hostel. Who brought this
backpacking?!)
Then I took a first class overnight train (a bit run down, but comfortable and tons of leg room) to
Cairo. It was here that I figured out that the proper way to pay for a taxi (no meter) is not to bargain ahead of
time, but rather just to get in and pay some reasonable amount and ignore any protests. My travel
books says to do this, but I never had the balls to try it till a girl, who admitted to be bad at
haggling, told me not to pay more than 2 pounds (30 cents) to get back to my hotel. I did it and it worked
like a charm. If someone tried to negotiate before, I just got out and ran to another taxi that didn't ask
first. If you discuss price first, you pay way more.
I always had this self-serving belief that locals in developing countries had more respect for lone
travellers than people that travel in groups. After all, it takes a bit of nerve to travel around certain
places by yourself. It was during the numerous times that I got ripped off in Egypt that I realized this
was nonsense. After they get around everyday in their country just fine, so why should they be impressed
that you do it for two weeks?
In Egypt, I went in the Great Pyramid. It's not that impressive inside--it's just a tunnel and a
room--but amazing outside. It's made of some 2.3 million stones of 2.5 tons each. And it's 4500 years old. I saw the
sphinx and the Egyptian museum (full of all the antiquities from the tombs, which are all empty
now). After getting burned out in Cairo (quite easy if you spend much time in the markets--the vendors are sooooo
annoying!), I headed to Sharm el Sheikh on the Sinai peninsula for some diving in the Red
Sea. It was fantastic. Here was where I "went on vacation" at the end of my
trip. I was so burned out of haggling, dumpy hostels, and diarrhea, that I splurged and stayed at a
dive resort with air con (€20 per night) and spent all day diving and snorkling and relaxed at night with a
sheesha pipe (it burns fruit, not tabacco). I spent my last day at Hurghada, where I flew into and out of.
At the end of a day of diving, I went to a bar, drank beer, listened to music and read a book for several
hours. I had an interesting experience here. I was reading a book called Solo Faces about mountain
climbing. The main character had just rescued two climbers on a route that only he had
climbed. When interviewed, he was asked how he did it. Someone immediately
responded, "You love climbing. That's it isn't it?" He said no. "I love life," he said
simply. While I was reading this, a song by Enrique Eglesias came on. "You can
run, you can hide, but you can't escape my love." I imagined he was not singing about
a woman, but about life. I love life, he was singing. And it doesn't matter if you run and
hide, I will find you. Life, you cannot escape my love. And I suddenly had this image of people chasing down life, while it
tries to escape them. People who think, amid the drudgery of my work, I will find life. Despite one
more exhausting day spent just to feed my family, I will find life. Despite being
poor, I will find life.
So with this realization, I went back to my hotel, slept, woke up, packed my
backpack, got on a plane, and found myself back in Germany. Back at work. Slowly
paying off my debt.
But I will find life.
Matt