Trains, Taxis, Minibuses, Buses, Taxis and Trains

Well, I just got back from a little weekend trip in Alexandria, well Alexandria was the drop off point because I was never actually in Alexandria except to get on and off the train.

So the point of this little trip was to go visit Tammy and go to the beach. So after I got to Alex, we are close enough that I can shorten its name, I jumped in a cab and went to Agami.

Agami is a beach town outside Alex that I used to go to as a kid. It was, as Sahel is now, the place to be. Now it has sort of lost its glitz, but the beach is still good to me. But this story is not all beach and fun times; we had some funny ups and downs.

When I got to Agami Tammy told me the next day we were to wake early in the morning to jump on a minibus at 7 a.m. to Marsa Matrouh.

Marsa Matrouh is a brilliant beach. I also went there when I was about 13, so I was willing to ride in the uncomfortable minibus for 3 hours.

Well 5 hours later we got to our 'hotel,' oh yeah we were supposed to spend the night. Before I go on please have a look at the view from the hotel room.



Pretty isn't it?!

So back to my little story, we got there at noon and were told to wait in the room for 2 hours while the trip organizer went to find food. Tammy, myself, and the others, were not having this.

So we left to find the beach.......Only this wasn't the Marsa Matrouh I had been to before. They brought us to a public beach, which here in Egypt is a big bad, uh uh no way!

The problem with public beaches is that we 5 ladies were the only ones wearing Westernized bathing suits. All the other women were swimming, if they swam, were in head scarves and full clothing.

Now picture the stares we got.
Ok, now picture the stares I got, being obviously Egyptian.

This was not the relaxing day at the beach we had pictured or paid for. So, after a few arguments and with the trip organizer, we decided to cut our loses.

When the sun started to go down, we hit the road.

The ride back was much more comfortable, the big bus was pretty empty, and it was only 3 hours, fancy that!




Oh and we got a ride in a pretty funked out cab:



The next day was more like it. A private beach in Agami, which basically means young people in their bathing suits enjoying a day at the beach. The waves were amazing, and the sun was hot. So all is well that ends well.



Well this may be the last blog for a while with pictures. I am off to Greece in the morning, so I won't have my trusty 8 million pound laptop with me to dump the pics on. I will try and update during my travels. But do forgive me if the white sands, blue waters and cold drinks in the Greek Islands keep me away from any computer at all!

Oh and did I mention I HATE packing?! Yeah, I know, poor baby.

Adventures on Foot

I know, I know, I stay away for a while then I blog for two consecutive days. I never said consistency was a strong point.

So anyway, on the topic of finding your own adventures yesterday I decided to visit the Citadel, which I haven’t been to in seven years, unless you count the night we went to the concert, but I don’t.

It is an amazing building. The domes, the minarets, and the alabaster façade of the entire mosque, are all fantastic. I spent about an hour and a bit there, just wandering about, snapping pictures, etc. When I finally went inside, I had to put on a nice big satin-type green cloak, as a sign of respect so as not to show any skin.



But inside the mosque was brilliant. The circles of lights were my favourite part, which you will be able to see from the sheer volume of pictures I shot.



When I was done at the Citadel I still felt like wandering about, so I took to the streets. It was a pretty fun little adventure, and an adventure it was!

As I was walking across the street a small white pick-up truck saw me and sped in my direction. I literally had to jump up and out of the way on to the curb. And I was not a second too soon, the thing almost rammed my foot as I jumped. When I turned to look at the driver he looked out the window, grinned and gave me the thumbs up sign, like I had passed some test.

But some of the other locals were a bit friendlier, and some weren’t. I met some women selling fruit on the side of the road. One asked me for water, so I filled her bottle from mine, and in return she let me take her picture. They all became enamored with the camera and asked me to keep taking their pictures, which I did. It was pretty funny.



After I got away from the fruit ladies I ventured on, and met the olive man, and snapped a few pics.



Before I walked on, he told me I should take some pictures of another man selling fruit.

When I turned around to see the man he was talking about, I was greeted by a man wielding a chair and threatening to beat me with it if I took his picture. The olive man was yelling (and laughing) “She’s Egyptian!!” It was funny to me even then.

So after a little bit more wandering about, it was time to go, so I hailed a cab. Word to the wise, while in Cairo always keep your eyes open. You never know what you are going to see. Look closely at the next picture, the driver wasn't wearing any shoes.



**oh, and in case it isn't obvisous, the links are to the pictures.**

The Bread Man Wins

So I think Egypt is rubbing off on me. Well, in certain ways. I am a bit tardy on this post, obviously today is not June 30th, which is when I had intended on updating the blog. But c'est la vie.

So the bday was lots of fun, and really how could it not be, two days of sunning, swimming, celebrating and being treated like royalty. We stayed at a summer home of Dina's friends, and they had someone there to cook for us, etc. It was surreal, I am not used to that kind of treatment, but I did let myself enjoy it for the weekend.

We even had a nice bottle of Moët for my champagne bday, and a surprise bday cake. And yes they got me the candles that keep relighting. It was all fun and games.



But weekends in the sun eventually have to end. So Back in Cairo I have been doing much the same as before, wandering about the streets, most often aimlessly.

It's funny when you travel half way around the world, you expect life to be completely different. But it’s just not the case. People wake up in the morning, go to work, come home have dinner with the family, hang around drink tea, watch TV etc. I admit to being a bit naïve, I was expecting adventure and mystery at every turn. But Egyptians, which I am one of them, are normal people. Surprise!

But on another note, it is pretty easy to find adventure here, and you don’t even have to look that hard. A few days ago I hopped into one of the tiger attacked taxis, and as we were leisurely (aka sweating our faces off) driving down my grandmother’s street, a man carrying a load of bread dropped a loaf.

Now before I continue this little story I have to tell you how bread is transported around the city. A young man carries a large wooden skid on his head while riding a bike. Not a very easy task; especially that the bikes are in pretty rough shape.

So, my taxi driver slowed, not stopped but slowed, the car down, opened his door and scooped up the lost loaf. He then began beeping his horn and drove up to the bread man. He informed him he dropped a loaf and tried to pass it to him through the passenger window of the moving car.

I was sitting in the back the whole time wondering if all this was actually happening. The poor bread man could not grab the loaf, keep his bread on his head steady and keep riding. So he told the driver to keep it and eat it. But this is not the end.

The driver then instructed the bread man to ride over to the driver’s side of the car and he would put it on his load for him…..while driving.

So the bread man does as he is told, and Mr. Taxi Man opens his car door, stands up, yes the car is still moving, and places the loaf on the top of bread man’s head. Quite the spectacle I must say! I only wish I had the pictures to show you all. But I was too in awe to pull out the camera. But here is another bread man so you can see what I am talking about.Sorry it's blurry, but he was moving and I was in a taxi.

Bye Bye 28

Today will be my last blog of my 28th (and yes I know that is not CP Style, but this is a blog!) year. Tomorrow, June 29, 2007 I will be 29. It's funny I am sort of indifferent about it. The last year of my 20s, but so what? No one believes me when I tell them how old I am anyway.

So being as Thursday is Friday here, i.e. the start of he weekend, we are off to the beach for the weekend. Sahel, the beach we are going to, is supposed to be 'the place to go,' so I will let you know when I get back Saturday night.

I will post pics then too, I know the last two posts had nothing to tantalize your eyes.

I am looking forward to getting out of Cairo's crazy heat and Mack Truck air for a few days, and hey the beach on the bday, things could be worse.

So the next time my fingers hit the keyboard I will be older and wiser, with much knowledge to pass on to all of you.

And if you believe that, I have an island I want to sell you.

Thicker than Jlo's Caboose

The air was so thick with heat and pollution yesterday, that every breath I took felt like I had attached my lips to the exhaust pipe of a Mack truck. I felt like I wasn’t really breathing at all, which let me tell you, is a very strange sensation. There is no cool breeze blowing, and no relief to step into the "fresh" air.

Yesterday I hopped in a cab to go downtown, and by the way the cabs are mostly old Fiats and Peugeots from the 1960's and 70's with interiors that look like a tiger attacked them. The poor cab driver, who looked no older than 25, and I were incessantly fanning ourselves....it did no good. The backs of my knees were even sweating, so much so that my leg kept slipping off the other one. Pretty picture isn't it.

Mr. Weather Man says it will be the same all week: 40ºC will be the lowest temperature until Saturday. Saturday will be a breezy 39ºC, oh goody!

I was planning on doing a walking tour of Old Cairo today, but I think that might have to wait until the Sun God, or should I say Sun Devil eases up a bit. I might try and hit a few air conditioned art galleries, and maybe head to a café, enjoy a Turkish/Greek coffee and read up on my new Lonely Planet Greece book. That’s right I am planning a little jaunt to Greece.

I figure if work is not really going as planned, I may as well make use of my time away and go see some places I have never seen. I may even pop by Croatia, and when I get home to Toronto I will be rich with stories, pitches and poor as hell in terms of money!
But such is life. Well, at least such is mine.

Oh and on a side note, it was Teresa's bday yesterday, HAPPY BDAY TERESA!! I had the urge to hear a friendly voice from home, so I called her up on my celly. And what do you know, I got two for the prcie of one! Miss Tbone was with Robbie Nice shopping for BBQ fixings. It was really nice to hear you guys. So nice in fact that I called Lily a little while later and had a good chat.

Oh and another little side note: Melanie and Krista, ANSWER YOUR PHONES!! Geesh!

Ok, tata for now

Jenny Yang, you are my hero.

I realize I have been slacking in the update of my blog as of late, but as it may surprise some of you for various reasons, I didn't really have much to say. But I am back now, and marking the date of two months in the Middle East. Impressive isn't it?

I have been becoming a little more familiar with life here in Cairo. On the weekends people go to weddings, I have been to five so far(tonight will make six)....and counting! Seriously it's nuts I have been to more weddings in the weeks I have been here than I have in the last five years, or more.




My week days, which by the way are from Sunday to Thursday here, are pretty tame. Sometimes I just walk around and explore, or go to the bazaar, or hang out and work in my new favourite café/bookstore, called 'Diwan.' Thank you cousin Mona for telling me about it!

A lot of the times it's too hot to do much, especially because it is not appropriate to wear things like shorts, tanks and little dresses. And speaking from experience, jeans in 42ºC weather is a cruel joke. But, I admit, a few days ago I did get a little rebellious and take my light jacket off and walk around in a tank top. And yes I got lots of dirty looks and looks of bewilderment, but it was really hot. Sorry mom.

I still stare in amazement at women who are fully covered from head to foot in black burkas, some in gloves and multiple layers of clothing. I can't figure out how they can stand it. But one young man assured me it doesn't bother them, and by the grace of God they don't feel the heat.

I asked how he knew that, he told me he just knew. Sounds about right considering he was in a nice light t-shirt and cotton pants.

So a few nights ago my Canadian friend, Tammy, and I decided to go see Ocean's 13 at the movies. It was like being in a time warp, but in a cool way. First off when you get there, you don't just buy your ticket and walk in, nope you have to look at the seating chart and pick where you want to sit. Then a bowtie clad, flashlight wielding USHER brings you to your respected seat. But I haven't even got to the strangest part....there is an intermission half way through the film!

And the concession stand serves popcorn from an old popcorn cart, tea and Turkish coffee in ceramic cups, etc. It is quite the experience and I highly recommend it. But just so you know the films are 'edited' for content.



Yesterday night was also another adventure for the books. Dina, my cousin, her friend Mado, and I went to the Citadel for an evening concert. It was pretty amazing to be at such a historic spot listening to Arabic music. People from all over and all different socio-economic backgrounds were there, which made it even better. It was a full band, and a full show, complete with multiple belly dancers, Sufi dancers, and entertaining singers. The crowd was going nutso bananas!





Other than that, I have gone to a few fantastic beaches, Ein Sukhna (The Hot Eye) is incredible and only an hour from Cairo. The sand is white, the sun is hot and the water is crystal clear, aka it's paradise. And there is a really good seafood retaurant there too, called Bouillabaisse!



Tammy took off to Alexandria to take a TOFEL course, so I think I might go visit her and go to the beach for a weekend soon. It's very odd having no set plans, very odd indeed!

I am working on my Arabic, but my God this is a hard language to wrap your mouth around, literally. Coming from a Latin based language, it is really difficult to make my mouth and throat work together to make sounds needed to speak Arabic properly. So people laugh at me a lot, oh and they LOVE to make fun of my Canadian pronunciation of words like "out," "house," "about," "south," or anything with a long "O." To tell the truth, I think they are all just jealous!!


And as always check out the mélange of pics.
I have added a whack load!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cairocaroline/

Going to the Chapel and.....

Well, actually I didn't get married. But I did buy a ring and have a made-up husband named Charlie. Oh and I have been married for 3 years and sometimes have two sons, named Peter and Jon, or at least that is the story I liked to give those who insisted on harassing us. But, more on that later.

Oh, as a side note, like before there are too many pictures to upload on the blog, although I have speckled a few in there, so checkout the flickr account at the bottom of the page!! happy reading this is a long one:)

So, now I am back in Cairo, after a 10 day jaunt around the south of Egypt, and two days in Petra, Jordan. Diana and Tammy went to Aswan a day and a half before I did, so I met them in Aswan and we jumped on a Felucca (a very small sail boat) for a two day trip down the Nile with six others: two American girls, Molly & Diana, a couple from Holland, Sashka and Timo, and a couple from Melbourne, Emily and Nic. Everyone was great and we just lazed around for two days doing barely anything but lying around and chit chatting. Oh, the first night we were treated to a large warm beer a piece, yum.

We traveled from Aswan to Kom Umbo, to Edfu on the Felucca while making a few stops at various islands along the way the say hi to the cows, donkeys, camels etc. It actually was a lot of fun and I recommend it to anyone.

After our lazy Felucca days we landed in Edfu to check out the temples and ruins. But first let me preface this by saying this type of trip is never done by Egyptians in the dead of the summer. In fact they all looked at me like I was bananas when I told them I was going. The daily average temperature in the south of Egypt at this time of year is about 40-41ºC. So yep, bananas might be right. But we had fun.

After Edfu we jumped on a bus with a tour group of 16 or so 20-somethings from Australia, New Zealand, and Britain and headed for the temples in Luxor. The bus was air conditioned and the company was funny and friendly. Soon we arrived at the temples to wander about, and take about a zillion pictures (honestly when I was downloading everything from this last adventure it looked as if I never took my eye out of the camera's view finder, I assure you all I did).

But we soon got our reward for spending about seven hours blistering hours in the stifling Egyptian sun.... a hotel with a pool and a small price tag, and the group of friendly and funny Australians, Brits and New Zealanders. After another temple and a museum we treated ourselves to nice long showers and dinner on the rooftop patio of the hotel. But nothing goes better with dinner, than the company of new friends and nice big COLD beers. So we treated ourselves to some of that too, and a good swim at the pool.



But here is a word to wise, when a small elevator in a small hotel in Luxor says 6 people max., do not stuff 7 or 8 in there and think it will be ok. But it did make for a funny moment and story.......once we got out.

All in all good fun at the New Windsor hotel in Luxor. The next day was a bit painful, after a short night of sleep and a long night of beers, the sun and 40ºC weather was unforgiving. But 17,000 bottles of water later all was good. The Valley of the Kings and Queens was exceptional, and Queen/King Hatshepsut’s temple was awe inspiring.

That evening we once again joined our new friends for more drinks and night swimming. Good times had by all. I unfortunately did not learn my lessen and had another painful early morning, but we Canadian girls were going to the beach.

Sharm was a short trip, only one day. I have been to Sharm a few times in the past, but it is super touristy now, and more expensive than it used to be, but we decided we deserved a good dinner so we went to the Hyatt and had Fantastic Thai food!!

Then we went off to the strip to do some people watching, shopping (it was here I got my fancy wedding ring, it cost 10 Egyptian pounds, which is about $2CAD)and go to the infamous Buddha Bar. Unfortunately the lack of sleep caught up with us and we didn't make it too long at Buddha bar, c'est la vie.

Sharm was also where we developed the last of our three ways of keeping the harassing men at bay. You already know the wedding ring, the second we developed on our last night in Luxor, which was pretending we were deaf and signing to each other. Now we felt pretty guilty about this; that is until the men yelled out in Arabic "They are deaf!" and started laughing like hyenas. The last of the methods was the fake names, which we gave them those of Josie and the Pussy Cats. It was pretty funny when I heard some guy yelling "Josie! Josie! Josie!" at me from down the street.

The next day we went to paradise, aka Dahab. The great thing about traveling and meeting people is that they are always willing to share info on where to go, what to do and where not to go and what not to do. Thanks to our new friends we stayed at Seven Heaven hotel (and no I did not make a typo, it's Seven Heaven, not Seventh Heaven).

It was amazing, the people were sweet, the diving was fantastic, the beach was relaxing, and the water was clear. What more can I say, we never wanted to leave, and Tammy actually went back.

Seven Heaven is a great little traveler’s hotel. It's a bit bohemian, no frills, and incredibly laid back. AKA exactly what we wanted after all our sight seeing. Oh and the restaurants by the beach are amazing! The food is fantastic, and super cheap, but they give you way too much. It might be wise to split meals if you have the option!



Made some good friends there, more Brits, and an American, and a few of the diving staff. I worked on my Arabic quite a bit over the trip, and actually saw some improvement, on the bus to Luxor I taught one of our new friends how to say "I don't want anything" in Arabic. Which believe me is more useful than knowing how to say "Where is the bathroom?" I have traveled a few places around the world, but I have to say the Egyptian venders in the tourist places are by far the most aggressive group! At times it was funny, and others it was more than annoying, it was rude. But such is life.

So after Dahab, we jumped on a bus to catch the ferry to go to Jordan. We left at 10am. The ferry is scheduled to leave at 2pm. But time in Egypt is a whole different realm than time back home. We didn't actually get on the ferry 'till about 4pm. I think because I am Egyptian and have seen this kind of thing through out my travels here I could see the humour in it, but that couldn't be said for everyone.

So when we finally got to the boat they checked our passports three times in the span of 10 minutes and requested that we get into a single file line, this was all too funny and surreal.

So finally after a long day of taxis, buses, ferries, and more taxis we finally got to Petra, which is about a two and a half hour drive from the port in Aqaba.

The hotel was less fantastic, but it had three beds, a shower and toilet. Really there isn't much more we could ask for, we paid about $7.50/ea a night.

But what was fantastic is the city of Petra. We spent about 10 hours hiking up and around the rose coloured stone mountains. It's like nothing I have ever seen. The monestary, treasury and tombs are all carved out of the side of the mountains! There is no putting the stones together to see if they fit, they just carve them straight out. As you will see, I might have gone a bit overboard with the pictures, but it was pretty cool.

Tammy was a bit held up at the beginning because she had to stop at the "Indiana Jones Gift Shop" to dump her photos on a disc.



But when we did find her she had a new friend. A cute 10 year old Bedouin boy named Saleh, who became our impromptu tour guide.

Saleh, was known by just about everyone on the mountain, and they all called him the boy that was half Japanese half Bedouin. We took him for lunch and he stayed with us on the whole 10 hour trek. He took us to the highest pint of the mountain, where we met and had tea with his family. He has two sisters and seven brothers, all of them very cute. After we had tea, Diana, Tammy and I perused through his family's stand and all picked something to buy.



Saleh accompanied us all the way back down and through the mountains, so he could go get his donkey. I don't think we could have asked for a better tour guide. At the end of our 17 million hour trek we sent Saleh home with a bit of money and headed over, nice and dirty mind you, to the Cave Bar, which is the world's oldest bar. It's in the side of the rose stone with tombs in the walls. Very cool and not as creepy as you may think. Unfortunatly it wasn't so happening when we were there, so we left and went to another bar for a drink.

Tammy and I had quite the experience with one of the world's easiest drinks...vodka soda. The waiter brought over two glasses the colour of scotch and water, and I used my excellent Arabic skills to basically say "what the hell is that?!"

It was vodka of some sort, and it was pepper flavoured, aka the most putrid drink I had ever tasted. He argued with us that it was vodka and we asked for vodka and that's what we got. Well after a long hot day of hiking I was not a girl to be messed with and promptly got him to bring us new drinks. I went as safe as possible and had a Heineken.

Surprisingly we still had a little bit more left in us, so we headed over the nice and fancy Movënpick. We went on a bit of sleuth mission (and yes we were still covered in sand and dirt from our day of climbing and walking). We went touring through the 'guest only areas,' aka the pool, sauna and steam rooms, workout areas. It was all very beautiful and if you have a good amount of money you should stay there. Otherwise you can slum it at the Moon Valley Hotel like we did :)

But we did go to the Movënpick for a reason, and reason was ice cream. It was sooooo good. We sat in a fancy bar with a fantastic ceiling and had two scoops each. The perfect end to a perfect trip.



Now I am back in Cairo and have been asked to write about my trip for the magazine, through my eyes. Fancy that, after a year of journalism school telling me to keep myself out of the story, go figure.

!!PICTURES HERE!!