Cairo (& Luxor): Where I Found My Egyptian Husband

Here’s number two of my Middle East tour travel blog series which will cover Luxor and Cairo. An 18-hour bus ride from Dahab brought us safely to the Luxor bus station on Friday where Joseph, our hostel owner, met us. We received a similar “welcoming ceremony” to the one in Dahab at Joseph’s hostel, just less ocean resort theme and a lot more Bob Marley - because nothing says I’m vacationing in Egypt like Bob Marley décor. The plethora of soda cans (and upside-down McDonald’s cups) turned ceiling decorations was a nice touch as well. . . Joseph gave us the run down on suggested activities in Luxor - felucca sunset cruise down the Nile, Temple at Karnak, Temple at Luxor, Valley of the Kings & Queens and then the Temple of Hatshepshut.

We dumped our things in the dorm rooms then Joseph took us to the train station to buy tickets to Cairo. The train station was an interesting experience, one that definitely highlighted the fact “we were no longer in Kansas Toto.” The train station looks much like any other train station in the world, a spacious main room with multiple ticket counters followed by a hallway that leads to the train tracks - yet there’s a lot more to these simple ticket counters than meets the eye. Apparently there are an invisible signs somewhere above Counters A and B that actually say “Counter A is for normal people, tourists, etc and there aren’t anymore of the tickets you want” and “Counter B is for special people for whom we can miraculously find completely sold-out tickets.” Silly us, got in line B at first, but after the man at the counter could no longer handle our ignorance of who was allowed to stand in line B and who wasn’t we were told we had to get in the other line. Thus we made our way back to the end of line A only to be told the train to Cairo was full, we’d have to wait until Sunday evening (a day later than we had wanted). Joseph the hostel owner (and a new hostel owner at that) quietly pulled us aside to say if we wanted he could get us “black market train tickets (which you know actually just come from Counter B).” We figured why not, as long as they were legitimate tickets and they got us to Cairo sometime soon.

With the train ticket business behind us (we thought) he motioned for a taxi-bus to take us to Karnak - one riding equaling 25 cents (you remember 7 Egyptian pounds = 1 €) so a 15 min ride was worth mere cents. Arrived at Karnak, purchased tickets and began exploring the ancient Egyptian temple famous in Art History books for its “hypostyle hall.” It was really amazing to be walking through an actual Egyptian temple I’d spent hours studying in Art History 101 - well-preserved hieroglyphics everywhere, obelisks, statues, the whole deal. The photos I’ve posted pretty much tell the story.

Took the taxi-bus back to Luxor center and ate lunch at the Lotus restaurant recommended in our Lonely Planet guidebook. I’m going to blame it on being hungry and sleepy (as we didn’t eat much or sleep on the 18 hr bus ride) but I’ll admit I was a little grumpy and was therefore not pleased that we were eating at such a touristy restaurant as we were surrounded by French, British and American tourists who were ordering hamburgers and Italian food from the menu when “I didn’t come to Egypt to eat spaghetti Bolognese” (no offense Paolo and Roberto, you know I LOVE Italian food . . in Italy). Rachel convinced me that there were indeed things on the menu that were Egyptian so I got the lentil soup (which to my surprise was white) and an Egyptian tomato cucumber salad - both delicious, as was everything else on the menu I’m sure.

Feeling much better we decided to kill a little time before we had to meet back at the hostel for our sunset Nile River felucca cruise by visiting the “Souks.” The Souks probably embody everything that’s good and bad about Egypt for tourists all in one place. It’s a three or four block long market, filled with Egyptian goods and eager salesman ready to sell what they have to you whether you want to buy it or not. This meant it was time to put on the dark sunglasses because heaven forbid a merchant see you glancing at his items or he’d follow you to the end of the block trying out 4 or 5 different languages until you responded. Unfortunately I have no photos of the Souks, as stopping long enough to take a photo would have probably been the end of me. The kind of sad thing is all the children under ten they have selling “papyrus bookmarks” and other random things, it makes me wonder what’s wrong with the French children I teach who still have issues responding to “What is your name?” whereas these children can sell you a book mark in at least 5 different languages.

The felucca cruise (a traditional Egyptian sailboat) turned out to be quite nice. As we were the only guests staying in the hostel, the owner came along with us. My “sailing experience” from my first vacation to Italy apparently qualified me to “steer the felucca” basically I sat beside the rudder and moved it in the direction the captain told me too, but it was still neat. I took us to “Banana Island,” an island in the middle of the Nile where they grow bananas (obviously) as well as sugar cane. We got the official tour then were given samples of bananas and sugar cane. Eating the sugar cane was a little bit of a task -you use your teeth to peel back the bamboo-like outer layer then chew on white threads on the inside to break it down enough so you can suck out the juices. It was pretty much like sitting down to a glass of sugar water, not bad and entertaining to watch your friends wrestling with the sugar cane.

Left Banana Island just in time for sunset. We were given Egyptian tea which was accompanied by Arabic music until the mosques announced the call to prayer and everything fell silent. The broadcast reading of the Koran sounded like a type of music in itself so overall it was a very Egyptian experience cruising down the Nile in a felucca, sipping Egyptian tea listening to the Koran - not bad.

The rest of the Friday evening was uneventful, we passed by the Temple at Luxor, which everyone told us was not worth the price of admission you could see everything in it from the outside. Ate dinner at Hamees - not only the first place to charge additional 15% but also the worst food we’d had on the entire trip; pretty much we got gross food and a touch of food poisoning, nothing like waiting your turn to use the bathroom to bond you together as a group.

Day two in Luxor was comprised of a trip to the Colossi of Memnon, the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens. We had an exceptional guide, she was working on her Masters in Egyptology and another in Japanese, so she not only gave an interesting tour, but was able to answer all of our questions. Our tour started with the Colossi, two giant statues supposedly guarding the grave of the Ancient Greek war hero Memnon. The next stop was the Valley of the Kings; amazing anyone found it as it’s just a lot of mountains, cliffs and sands in the middle of the desert. Also, for all of the hype about it being the home to the Tomb of King Tut, it was a little anticlimactic. The Egyptian Museum in Cairo now houses all of the treasures not stolen from the tombs, so all that’s left to see in the tombs are the hieroglyphic wall paintings, some better than others. Your entrance ticket entitles you to see 3 of the 7 open to the public tombs of the 62 known tombs on site. Our guide chose the best three - Thutmus II, Ramses III and Ramses IX, basically the ones with the best-preserved hieroglyphics or the ones best illustrated the different hieroglyphic styles. The visit to the Valley of the Queens was similar; we saw the tombs of Titi, Amunherkhepshuf and Khaemwaset. The guide explained to us that for the mere price of 20,000 Egyptian pounds one could visit the famous tomb of Queen Nerfertari (one you probably know as Nerfertiti). We made our last stop at “Deir al-Bahri,” the Funerary Temple of Queen Hatshepsut. Interestingly enough, Queen Hatshepshut is portrayed as a man in the temple which commemorates her divine birth story (which she made up so she could be a pharaoh) and an expedition to Punt in Sumeria (look for the photo I posted of the tree stump brought back from Punt). Ate a late lunch at an all-you-can-eat buffet (wouldn’t have thought such a thing existed in Egypt) then braved our way once again through the Souk gauntlet so Nicole could buy some spices.

We met Joseph back at the hostel to pick up our tickets; 7 pm turned into 9:30 pm before he showed up looking pretty pale and upset . . . yes you guessed it no tickets out of Luxor that night. Somewhat skeptical we might be getting scammed . . “Oh I’m so sorry I guess you’ll have to stay another night, you happen to be in luck I haven’t booked anyone in your rooms for that night” . . . Nicole, Charles, Jesús and I headed to the train station to find out what the real deal was. We quickly realized we weren’t the only ones having problems getting out of Luxor - the ticket printer was broken and might not be fixed for days, therefore a long, irritated line of customers was quickly forming in front of both the “normal people” and “special people” ticket counters. We waited at the café outside the station until after midnight, Joseph bought us free drinks and I think tried not to cry while he smoked a shisha until we then decided to head back to tell the others it didn’t look like we’d be “getting out of Dodge” that night. Fortunately we actually weren’t getting scammed, by default of having six people in our group they couldn’t get us enough tickets for everyone to leave together so we got to stay the extra night for free since Joseph had promised us tickets (in exchange for a good review on Hostelworld - apparently a bad review from a German backpacker had been hurting business). A knock on our door the next morning was a welcome wake up call as Joseph had been able to get tickets for us on the 9:30 am train to Cairo . . woohoo!

The train ride to Cairo was probably one of the most comfortable I’ve ever had, tons of leg space, cushy seats that reclined almost all the way back, not a bad way to travel at all. Sure Luxor is a necessary stop on any tour of Egypt, but I think the less time spent there the better. Although I’d been warned about it before I even arrived in Egypt, all of the haggling and pressing you to buy things really starts to wear you down, because everywhere you go all the time, you stand out as a foreigner, so you constantly being approached, followed, spoken to, etc. Everyone is very friendly saying “Welcome welcome, where are you from? Oh “America” I LOVE America I have a “cousin” who lives there;” also with a military policeman on every corner I never felt like things were unsafe, it was just an exhausting experience. It was also just sad to see the poverty that so many of the people were living in - no running water, trash everywhere and as it’s obviously a very dry country everything’s covered in a permanent layer of dust. Also I think had our luck been a little better (train tickets, food poisoning, etc) in Luxor (and if we hadn’t had Dahab to compare it to), we might have had a cheerier outlook on it - all part of the adventure I guess.

I expected Cairo to be similar to Luxor just bigger, but this was not the case. Cairo is so big (population of 16.1 million), even the taxi drivers don’t know all the streets. This was of course our experience as we tried to find our hostel, it also gave us a good taste of what it’s like to be in a country that operates on a different alphabet than the Latin one. As Charles commented “I can see how frustrating it must be for the illiterate.” Whereas Luxor was small enough that you passed the same places/landmarks everyday in order to navigate around in addition to the street signs with both Arabic and the Latin equivalent of Arabic; Cairo was an example of urban sprawl with very few signs written in anything other than Arabic aka if you dare leave the tourist sites, you’re immediately lost - you can know exactly where you are on a map, but it’s a daunting task to try to recognize Arabic characters on the 6 different street signs surrounding you every time you switch streets - just like reading Chinese. Another important thing to know about Cairo, one quarter of all Egyptians lives there and as 35% of the population is illiterate - the average person not directly involved in tourism has more important things to worry about than communicating in English with a bunch of goofy Americans trying to find a specific restaurant in their English guide book.

As we had arrived in Cairo at night and other than a stale train sandwich hadn’t eaten much, dinner was at the top of our list of priorities. We went to the equivalent of an Egyptian Ruby Tuesdays, decent food, bad service and a 12% food tax + 10% service charge (ouch) ate our fill, then made plans to visit the Egyptian Museum the next morning and went to bed.

Woke up early the next morning to partake of the complimentary breakfast of “hot dog buns” - apparently France has the baguette, Egypt has the hot dog bun - just no hot dogs involved, jelly, cow cheese and tea then navigated our way to the metro stop with the assistance of various people on the street, as each one only half understood our English/attempts to speak Arabic, it took a couple tries. This navigation also showed us a significant part of what the real Cairo is like, not all the touristy stuff, and I’ll admit I felt a little uneasy, we weren’t getting anymore “Welcome welcomes” just stares and the feeling it was time to put on a head scarf. Long story short, arrived at the Egyptian museum, and set out to explore all the artifacts. Being the Art History fan that I am who likes to read every sign and take my time, we decided it would be best to meet back at a designated place and time. My guess is the Egyptian Museum looks almost identical to what it did 30 some years ago when my father visited (I’m assuming you went there Dad since you were in Egypt). So many things, 136,000 on display to be exact (and my more stored in the basement) that there’s hardly space for it all. They’ve therefore piled as much as they can in the warehouse-like museum and labeled most of it as “No. 232.” You can also tell they’re just waiting for some archeologist to find the rest of “Artifact No. 593” so in the mean time it can stay at the Museum. Wish I had paid for a guide because everything was overwhelming, but even then you could have probably spent a week with a guide and not seen everything. My favorite room was definitely the mummified animal room - 12 ft. mummified crocodiles accompanied by their mummified young found stored in their mouths upon their death, mummified monkeys, dogs with their fur still on them, cats, etc Another exciting thing at the Museum occurred when they began having security problems with the glass box that houses the famous golden Mask of Tutankhamen, so they had to remove it from the box and place it on top of another display case. This means I can say “I’ve gazed upon the face of Tutankhamen” with my own eyes (just like I’ve gazed upon the face of Agamemnon”). The Mask was surrounded by four museum staff, but they apparently weren’t being diligent enough as some stupid woman (I’m sorry to say I think she was American) decided she wanted to touch the mask- so she did - and they subsequently smacked her hand afterwards and I’m sure were screaming the Arabic of equivalent of “What the heck’s wrong with you??” this didn’t deter her from being very pleased with herself and sharing with the rest of us “I touched the mask, I touched the mask.”

Following the Museum visit, we had a “real Cairo metro experience” one I hope to never repeat again. We had found a restaurant in our book that was supposedly located right beside another metro stop, so we descended into the metro hoping to be dining there in 10 minutes or so. Unfortunately around lunch time, the metro becomes very full so when our car pulled up it was already full but odds of the next car being full as well were pretty high so our group went to the right in an attempt to squeeze into whatever space we could find. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Rachel heading for the car on the left and as I didn’t want her to be by herself I broke off too and followed her. The next thing I knew Rachel and I were holding each other, actually holding each other’s pockets and wallets, packed in like sardines . . . in the men’s car . . .yes they definitely have men’s and women’s cars and we most definitely were the only women in our car. We didn’t have any poles nearby to hold onto, but that didn’t matter as all of the old man Egyptian bellies being pressed against us didn’t allow for much movement. It’s probably pretty easy to picture red-headed Rachel and curly-headed Lisa surrounded by sweaty metro men going “ahhh ahhh” because that’s what we were doing.

Our stop finally came and by necessity we made a desperate every man for himself push for the door. We gratefully surfaced out of the metro, to realize we didn’t know which street we had surfaced onto (the Arabic problem again) and thus were unable to find the restaurant. In our restaurant wanderings, Charles happened to catch a glance of the Hilton - and his obsession with visiting Hilton’s in every country he goes to became known . . . As I’ve already discussed my issues with trying to be immerse myself in the culture of the country I’m in, the Hilton is not high on my list of places I wanted to go in Egypt, and the Hilton gods definitely spited me for this. Since when one is traveling in a group, one has to go along with the wishes of the group, we found ourselves probably the only customers of the day sitting down in the “Sports Bar of the Cairo Hilton.” I ordered what I thought was kebab, but it was not, it was kobeba, aka “little lamb balls.” Dissatisfaction was not the only thing I left with though, it became quickly apparent my little lamb balls had left me with a serious case of food poisoning . . . awesome. You might be wondering at this point - oh no how is Lisa going to meet this Egyptian husband with food poisoning? as food poisoning = not so sexy - not to worry, keep reading, it happens food poisoning and all .

Before the worst of the food poisoning set in, we actually took a pleasant trip to the Cairo bazaar, totally different from the one in Luxor. The merchants acted like they could care less if you looked at their goods or not, which was great, because it meant you could look around in peace and compare different things without been hassled and if you wanted to make a purchase the salesman calmly came over to “make you a special deal.” Among my Cairo bazaar purchases was a blue scarf for Becky who was to be visiting me the following week in France and as a French woman wouldn’t dare go out of her house without her scarf, I felt it was a necessity for Becky and what better place to find one than in Egypt. Nicole and Charles had gone off through the bazaar together, so Jesús, Rachel, Deborah and I found ourselves together at the scarf stand. After we had made our purchases (negotiating between ourselves in French on what we thought was an appropriate price) the scarf man proceeded to ask if I had a husband. I responded in fact yes I did, he was standing right beside me and then he asked the same to Deborah and Rachel and they replied with the same answer. The scarf man then turned to Jesús and said “Wow, what a lucky man you are, you have a tall wife (Rachel), a medium wife (me) and a fat wife (Deborah). With the look Deborah shot him, I think she almost got herself a free scarf - to his defense, I think Egyptian men actually prefer larger women, not “tall” or “medium” women, so he meant this as a compliment, but quickly realized it was not taken as such. Poor Deborah

The next day was to be filled with visits to all the pyramids in the Cairo area starting at Memphis, followed by Dahshur and ending at Giza. I have to confess the dreams in my head of me beside the Great Pyramids had not included food poisoning - but as I didn’t know when the next time I’d be in Cairo going on the much awaited “Great Pyramids, Sphinx Tour” I listened to the imaginary words of my father in my head saying “Suck it up Lisa” and I climbed in the bus the next morning. While my friends rode around on camels, I remained curled up in a ball against the Red Pyramid at Dhashur and between stomach cramps I did my best to take photos and try to enjoy the moment. Not to be too gross, but being in the middle of the flat desert, far away from any bathrooms is sort of a scary thought to one with food poisoning . . . Which leads into my next little “Adventures in Egypt” story - not that it’s exactly a scam, but it’s common procedure in between pyramid sites for the taxi driver to suddenly pull into an Egyptian carpet store where he obviously has prearranged connections with the owners. We said we didn’t want to go, we wanted to go the next site we had paid to see, but he said “No no I won’t leave until you go in, it’s no big deal just go in, there are free bathrooms here” pretty much anything to get you to go in so the carpet salesman can guilt you into making a purchase. “Bathroom” was the magic word for me though, so accompanied by Rachel and Deborah in we went this led to the thought “you try to pull one over on me I’ll pull one over on you! . . of course when we entered the Carpet Factory they offered us free tea, tour of the factory etc, but I replied “No our taxi driver made us come here and he said there were free bathrooms” not happy, they led us to the bathrooms and with the combined the meager toilet paper rations the man at the door handed out, I gladly paid a visit to the lady’s room I’m pretty sure the carpet men exchanged words with our taxi driver following our little visit.

Feeling better, I was better able to enjoy our visit to the famous Great Pyramids of Giza, Mekaure’s, Kafre’s and the Great Pyramid - the only surviving world wonder of the seven. I even put on the Egyptian dress my father had insisted I purchase so that I could fit in as a native. The camel owner even put my scarf on my head like the Muslim women wear them as I posed on the camel - stomach still wasn’t feeling well enough to go for a ride, so I was very content to just sit on “Charlie the Camel” and take photos so that it would look like I had ridden a camel. For as much as I had joked with Dad about his insistence that I wear an Egyptian dress, combined with the head scarf it actually worked like magic. Although I never would have though I could fit in as Egyptian, I apparently have similar coloring and face structure to Egyptians, so combined with the dress and head scarf, all the little children and salesmen stopped talking to me and if they said anything it was in Arabic to which I happily replied with one of the few Arabic words I had learned “No thank you” - Shukrun, end of story, no more being bothered by haggling salesmen trying to guess where we were from. This is where my Egyptian husband comes in . . . As Jesús is proudly gay, he doesn’t usually have much to do with women; also being of Mexican background, his darker skin promotes lots of “where are you from?” inquiries which of course the people prefer to go ahead and guess instead of waiting for an answer from him. In general we giggle when they ask if he’s Japanese or Australian, etc, but we found that he would stand up a little straighter and prouder when they asked if he was Egyptian. To bring all this background info together, once I put on the dress and head scarf I found that Jesús’ hand was constantly on my back to escort me, he was standing a little closer to me everywhere we went, etc - exactly like a protective Egyptian husband would do for his wife, and as Muslim women are rarely out in public without the supervision of their husband, it made perfect sense to the locals that Jesús would be my husband. So we can’t help but think that I became a prop for Jesús to better fit in as an Egyptian man. You can see the photo that attests to this of me and “my proud husband” in front of the Sphinx and Pyramids. Voila! I came to Egypt single and left with a husband I think the whole thing was actually a great experience for Jesús, we could definitely tell what a difference it made having a guy with us as Egyptian society doesn’t seem to really have a place for women in the public sphere without the presence of their husband or father (my “Gender in the Public Sphere” Politics professor would eat this up), and he stepped up to the plate well in that regard.

That marked the end of our Cairo visit as we then headed back to the hostel to pack our things up and wait for our over night bus ride to the Israeli/Jordanian border of which that story will be told in the next blog as this one is probably long enough as it is. Overall I think the general consensus is that more people should visit Egypt, it’s really an untapped treasure by Americans, but if you go anywhere other than the Sinai Peninsula, it’s best done as part of a tour group unless you’re lucky enough to know a native Arabic speaker (this would also give you access to the actual prices marked in Arabic numbers, not the inflated prices they tell you in English at the restaurants).

As for how things are going in the present, I’m in my first week of spring vacation. Instead of traveling the world this time, I’m staying in Chartres as I have a new English tutoring job at a pizzeria that meets everyday. Everyone except Rachel, Jesús and myself, has finished their teaching contract (they had 7 month contracts, not 9 month) and have subsequently returned to their homes or are on one last adventure before they return to the real world. The only assistant left in Chartres hasn’t meant I haven’t had plenty to do, I’ve started going to the gym that’s connected to my jiu jitsu club in anticipation of the Swiss Brazilian Jiu Jitsu tournament I will be competing in May 5 in Geneva. I believe I was the first girl to actually come lift weights here as all of the men quickly offered their weightlifting knowledge to me if I had the slightest question or needed any help. I also got to try my best in French to ward off the usual “How old are you? Do you have a boyfriend? Do you want a boyfriend? Do you need a ride home? I’ve lost my number, can I have yours?” Oh good times in France, nothing a “I’m fine thank you, believe it or not I’ve actually lifted weights before and think I’ve got this covered” won’t handle. I spent yesterday in Paris with a French friend and have subsequently been invited to a French BBQ on Friday, my friend from Spain and UVA Marcus is coming to visit at the end of April and we’re going to a party hosted by my French friend Charlotte Robert (you’ll be happy to know Aunt Catherine that I spent Easter weekend with Charlotte and her family at their country house - pictures to come, once I finish with the Middle East).

I hope you’re all doing well, I know this blog comes out at a difficult time for everyone in Virginia, I can attest to the fact that everyone in the world is thinking of you right now, it’s all over the news, newspapers and internet in Europe. Know that I have you in my prayers! I hope to hear from everyone soon. Much love ~ Lisa

PS Ticket has been purchased, mark your calendars, I’m flying into Washington DC July 7

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