Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Egypt

Here we go again, more empty promises. Sorry that I am not posting more, my life is just not that exciting. Whenever I sit down to write a blog post, I feel like I am 8 years old, writing in a journal, pretending like its natural, when really its not. I always have the initial feeling of writing, ‘dear journal, today I learned how to…I also have to say, having only 5 ‘followers’ is really encouraging, I guess I lost all my acclaimed support by posting too sparsely, I totally understand.

So to sum, Israel and Egypt were great, and it was a nice break from the heat! Visiting the fam was super nice, and seeing old friends put me in a major time warp.
I met Andrea and Halley in Egypt, where we lived up being tourists! After constantly defending myself in Ghana as someone who lives here, and not just a passing tourist (so yes, I have tried fufu, I know where im going and I know your price is too high etc…) we lived up being true tourists in Egypt, and I must say, it was kind of nice. There is such a huge tourist scene there, which at times (Luxor) is completely overwhelming and frustrating, but it does also make getting around pretty easy and pain free (sometimes..).We did the classic tourist thing- visited the pyramids, rode camels, slept in the desert, which I have to say was great! These places obviously had the usual touts that go along with these densely foreign populated places, which got to be a bit much, but overall, these places and historical sights were really fascinating. We tried to avoid organizing guides etc, but we realized after way too many roundabout answers, various bargaining tactics and obnoxious men on the bus making way to much conversation, that although more expensive than we would like, and not how we usual go about travel, that it may indeed be easier to arrange something in advance.

We traveled to a desert oasis called Siwa, which was incredible! It literally was an oasis, and after driving through the desert for 6 hours, it was amazing to come upon a town full of life. Although they get tons of tourists who pass through, we experienced no hassle. Siwa is very traditional and we saw hardly any women, as their place was in the home. It was a pretty interesting experience to walk around and literally only see men. This being said, we were 3 girls alone, and people hardly approached us. We met a British guy who was working and living there, and he explained to us that Siwa ‘use to’ have a huge homosexual population because the genders were always separated – the men working out of the home for days, and the women in the home. Interesting tid bit. We traveled out of the oasis into the desert for a night. The desert was so breathtaking! We drove up and down sand dunes in 4X4 car with 4 Korean girls, a Siwan driver who spoke no English, and us. Pretty hilarious. The driver (guided by no signs) drove vertically up the sand dune, and then plummeted down the other end, with the 7 of us thrashing around in the back, screaming, hold on for our dear lives! He was smirking, as im sure he does this daily and always has the same reaction from foreigners. We slept in the desert that night, which in theory was a great idea, but in reality turned out to be 1 night that felt like 4. The combination of wearing all my clothes yet still freezing and having to share my blanket with the stray dog that slept on me, I don’t think I got any sleep that night. But all definitely worth it.

We later traveled to Luxor - a city that I never wish to go back to. The train ride there should have been a sign not to go. We bought tickets (small pieces of cardboard with Arabic numbers written on them), and while we were waiting for the train to approach, we asked an attendant which car our tickets indicated. He told us car 13. So we boarded at car 13, found our seats, got comfortable, and tried to sleep (it was an overnight train). We then made the first stop, and were informed that we were in the wrong seats. So we politely moved to empty seats in the same car. No problem. This continued to happen at every stop. We showed people around our tickets, and we were informed that we were suppose to be in car 1. So yea, we had to walk through the train from car 13 to 1…three foreign girls, carrying our bags and huge blankets that we bought for warmth. I wish I could have seen this from a bird’s eye view. We proceeded to walk the length of the train, while in motion, first jumping over the sketchy area where each train car ‘connects’, then through the area of smoking men sitting on the floor as they could not get a proper seat, motioning at us to just sit with them, and then repeated this 13 times. Finally we approach car 13, which unbeanontes to us is first class and all foreigners. Classic.

We finally arrive, and the next 2 days followed this pattern. Luxor’s main industry is tourists, but unlike Siwa, Luxor is just downright obnoxious. We did manage to do a tour of the historical sights – The Valley of the Kings etc. and a great boat ride along the Nile, but all in all it was 2 days of our 14 that were severely unpleasant. Men drive all over town in horse-drawn carriages offering rides to tourists, a mode of transportation that no locals use. This being said, they trot up to you and latch. “Only five pounds, only five pounds”, we smile and say ‘no thanks’ and keep walking “Four pounds, four pounds”, we choose to ignore. “Ok, three pounds”, we then decide to give a look and say “no!”...but they never leave…still trotting next to us, yelling prices the whole way. No escape. And taxi drivers do this too, literally following us the whole way home, wasting gas and their time. The combination of the mice in our hostel room and men telling us ‘nice ass’ when looking at our face, we decided to get the hell out of there. Not so easy. We first tried to book our return train tickets upon arrival to get it over with. We were told that we could not and had to book them on the train the day of departure. We knew this was not true, so the next day we went back. Same answer. The morning of our departure, we again waited in line, surrounded by people buying tickets and receiving them, and were again told the same thing – buy the ticket on the train. After 2 awful days, there was simply no way we could manage another by not getting on a fully booked train. So we asked again. Same answer. So we waited for the train in anticipation, and we saw two older women, whom we asked if they had tickets for the train. They did. Printed out tickets too. We expressed our frustrations with them, and their reply was “oh, you just need to trust them”…thanks ladies. Easy for them, they had tickets. So we finally board the train, and indeed bought tickets. We settled into our seats, went to sleep, and then were of course awoken at the first stop because we were in someone else’s seats. Great. This happened 7 times. The irony of it all, our hostel’s name was ‘Happy Land’.

But that aside, Egypt all in all was great! Cairo was awesome and Alexandria was so beautiful! I could talk about both of these places forever, but I will spare you all. I hope the pictures can speak for themselves.

Massive pieces of cake came with our coffee...
Our tent
The next morning...
Cairo - amazing tea stalls everywhere
Boat ride on the Nile
Alexandria

Monday, February 1, 2010

This is LONG overdue, but here is the link to the winning video/song from the song competition. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diMXC5RcH74

Travel update coming soooon...