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Published: January 12th 2009
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Well school is over; I just graduated from George Mason University with an International Conflict Resolution degree, so what better thing to do than to travel!! A last-minute trip to Egypt sounded like the right thing to do!! A country which I have always had a special connection to!
Arrived late in Cairo on December 28th and immediately introduced to Egyptian time: We called for the hotel airport shuttle around 22:00...."Ok, the shuttle will be there in about 15-20 minutes". A half hour later, the shuttle still hadn't arrived, so we called again: "Any minute now...they are on their way!" There was a couple-minute pause in the conversation; "Oh wait, sorry but there are no shuttles available tonight; the drivers went home." Haha welcome to Egypt!
Cairo reminds me a lot of Bolivia (Santa Cruz and La Paz); the smell of the city especially! The city is very polluted; there are cars, buses, and trucks everywhere and mixed among them is your occasional donkey or horse carrying a cart or wagon of fruits and vegetables. I couldn't help but feel bad for the poor animals. I also noticed a tremendous amount of street dogs and cats. Poor things!
Egypt is a beautiful country with amazing architecture; unfortunately however, many of the buildings are "empty" or unfinished. Although they may seem empty, many Egyptians actually move into the building and live there. Cairo is a busy and very lively city; I absolutely love it! Everyone is extremely helpful and mostly everyone is accepting of travelers. Many of these "helpers" though will expect some
baksheesh, or a tip. Two things you need to survive in this country, well maybe three things: Patience, spare change (for baksheesh) and a steal stomach! I absolutely love the food in Egypt! Being a vegetarian, I find that my options are often times limited, but hey, c'est la vie! That's life (as a traveling vegetarian)!
Falafel got a whole new meaning while in Egypt; it's nothing like what you find in Western restaurants, unless it's a legit Middle Eastern chef preparing your food! And
Tahini....A-MAZING! When in Egypt, you should definitely try
Koshari. It's a traditional Egyptian dish and its base is rice, brown lentils, chickpeas, macaroni, and a topping of Egyptian garlic and vinegar and spicy tomato sauce! Heavenly I tell you!! For dessert, a must-try is
Om Aly; three simple ingredients: Phyllo dough
Sinai
Heading for Israel?? or puff pastry, milk and nuts!
I put a lot of thought into what to pack for this trip; majority of the people in Egypt are Muslim, so short shorts and spaghetti strapped shirts were definitely out of the question!! I was amazed to see some women still dressed as if they were at the beach. It's just not ok, I think.
Since we only had a little less than two weeks, we stayed in the area of Cairo, taking day-trips out to Fayoum, Alexandria, Suez and Sinai. We saw the Giza and Saqqara Pyramids, which were amazing. They are so much bigger than I had expected!! Cairo Museum is definitely impressive; they are currently building a new museum, but we'll see if they actually finish the building haha the Khan el-Khalili was a lot of fun! Haggling, or bargaining, is such a beautiful thing! It should seriously be considered a form of art, or something haha it can be really tough! My brothers and I got into an argument with a seller in the Khan. We wanted to buy several different
keffiyehs, the traditional checkered scarves. Long story short, he wanted a certain amount, we lowered the
Sinai
Oyoun Musa, the place where Prophet Moses is said to have rested and caused water springs to stream...didn't see many streams though! price, he increased the price, we didn't like it and walked away. He was pretty upset! Later we came by again and worked out a deal haha it was tough though!!
Alexandria was also really nice! The sky was blue and the air was fresh(er) haha the people were different though. It seemed as if they either loved or hated you. We visited a street market and bought fruit from one of the stands. The sellers were really excited and switched their usual "Apples, bananas,..get your fruit here" chant, to "The foreigners bought fruit from us!!" haha while at another stand a bit further up the road, a young man about my age, shooed me away while saying
yallah ("come on", or "let's go"). Oh well,
malesh, so it be!
Unfortunately, I didn't get to do any diving. I really wanted to dive in the Red Sea but couldn't find any dive shops around the cities where we were. And in Alex(andria), one dive shop wanted to charge $100 for two dives where the deepest dive was only 8 meters. Not ok! haha soooo I guess I'll just have to go back sometime (=
Well, I hope
to be back in Africa in March,
insh'Allah (God willing)....
Stay tuned, next stop: Sierra Leone!!!
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Lieve lezers,
Laat me weten of ik van nu af aan ook in 't Nederlands moet gaan schrijven. Dan schrijf ik de eerste helft in 't engels en dan in het Nederlands...ja???! Hoor 't wel! Groetjes thuis xx
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Daan & Marieke
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Mooie avonturen!
Hey Nik, Klinkt alsof jullie weer mooie avonturen hebben beleefd, moet ook maar eens leren dat soort verhalen te schrijven. Marieke en ik zijn net terug van bijna een maand in Aziƫ, dit keer hebben we Birma en Thailand bezocht. Vooral Birma is een ontzettende aanrader! En jou volgende stop? Sierra Leone?! WTF? Je weet ze wel uit te zoeken, lekkere vakantiebestemming is dat... Dikke kus, ik bel jullie zodra onze telefoonlijn het weer doet... Daan. PS Er staat altijd een bedje klaar in Amsterdam, kom je nog eens langs?!