Scorching Heat and Heading South

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I was planning on using my first day in Cairo to catch up to my lack of sleep from a full night of flying with zero leg room (thanks Air Ethiopia), meeting people at the hostel to do some sightseeing with, and generally bumming around adjusting to the heat and the vastly different Egyptian atmosphere. But as you could tell from the last post, the plan ended up changing.

Air Ethiopia is notorious for delays and inconveniences but despite a mechanical problem and an hour delay in Sudan, I still got to Cairo on time. I landed, got my visa, cleared immigration, and got my baggage in a surprisingly timely fashion. It was actually when I expected to get here. Then I successfully avoided all the taxi touts, got to the bus station and using my one-word Arabic vocabulary (marhaba = thank you) I found the right bus, got off at the right stop, and found my hostel within 5 minutes. The bad part about all this seemingly good luck is that I arrived way to early to check in. They let me take a shower anyway and store my luggage in a closet.

I set out for breakfast, intending on killing some time before going back to the hostel to nap in the common room. I didn't find any food at all, but I did run into 3 guys from Penn State, who were traveling around before doing a semester abroad in Rome. They told me how they booked a driver and car around the city for a day, so I ended up tagging along with them.

First we went to a sales office (I use that term very loosely) where the guy pitched us the different packages. We opted for one of the moderately ambitious ones. First activity was a camel ride to the pyramids and sphinx. I'm not sure why I expected camel riding to be any less excruciating than horse back riding, but it wasn't. I'm never riding any animal for the rest of my life. But the pyramids were of course incredible, and so was the sphinx. The heat and our guides' persistence of trying to get more tips out of us was a bit of a bummer, but it was a great morning. It's not every day you get to see an ancient wonder of the world.

Next we went to a citadel with a huge mosque in the center. It was enormous. The outside was what you would expect, but the inside was surprisingly very similar to a typical cathedral. I'm talking about the architecture here, not the statues and art. One thing to note was the requirement of taking off your shoes while inside and specifically not putting them on the carpet, but the carpet was filthy and not even neatly laid on the ground.

We then went to another pyramid site, this time they were step pyramids. We didn't stay long though as we had to get back. I took the afternoon to nap around and catch up on some much needed sleep before going back to meet the Penn State guys at their hotel, the Pharoah Hotel. It was much nicer than my hostel, but I had an air conditioned room and they didn't. There was a rooftop lounge filled with hookahs. I met one of the hotel employees, Ismael. He was very friendly and helpful about the city. We took the subway to the bazaar, which is like a huge market that goes until 4 am or something. This was exactly what you'd expect of an Arab/Egyptian atmosphere; the sounds, smells, people. We didn't really buy anything other than food though. We finished the night off drinking and smoking hookahs at the Pharoah and I wished I booked my room there instead of the actionless Canadian Hostel.

The next day I met up with the same group and we went to the Egyptian Museum for a few hours. They had tons of cool mummies and wood carvings and such but it was much too hot in there to stay all day (no air conditioning in a national museum?!). We stopped at some shops and I bargained for a great deal on a painting. I then said good bye to the group as they were flying to Ireland that night. I ended up going back to the Pharoah Hotel and went out that night with Ismael. It was nice being with an Egyptian because I didn't have touts coming up to me left and right for once.

This morning I went out and bought a hookah. A real, authentic Egyptian one. It's the greatest buy of my life I think. I spent double the money to ship it home as I did on the actual item, but it's still worth it. I booked an overnight bus down to Dahab. I leave in about an hour. Dahab is consistently ranked among the top spots in the world for diving, so I'm psyched for that, even though I need to start budgeting a little more. I'll start after Dahab, I swear. I actually met this English girl at the hostel who is also going down there so we booked the same bus.

I don't know what the facilities will be like down there if you don't hear anything from me in a few days, don't send out a search party.

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