Egypt part 1: The land of our testing

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There were many moments during our week in Egypt when I considered how I would start this blog. I have to say that most of the time I settled on something like..."I really didn't like Egypt" or a similarly unfriendly conclusion. However, isn't it funny how some of the hardest times in life can be some of the most invaluable because of the lessons you learn and the ways you grow? So...this blog is now titled 'The land of our testing'...and you're about to find out why...

Back to a train in Roma and 2 happy travellers are chatting away to fellow Aussies and feeling at peace with the world. We're really getting this traveling thing now and we're pretty much pro's. I mean we've got this far (despite the critics and their doubts...) and we've had some adventures but nothing REALLY bad has happened. I double check my itinerary on the train to make sure we've got our times right and all is well. We're arriving at the airport in plenty of time for our flight to Barcelona. Our first sign that something is wrong was when we looked at the monitors to check the status of our flight.

There's a flight to Barcelona at 12:40 but not at 2:35 as we'd expected. That's odd, I thought. On arriving at our check-in counter, we realise our mistake...our flight IS at 12:40, not 2:35. It is now about 12:00pm. An unimpressed attendant tells us to give him our bags and RUN to the gate. So we ran and jumped queues and ran and ran. And Kev ran too fast. And we ran. We finally got to our gate, only to find out it had been delayed. By the time we actually took off, it was closer to 2:35 AND we'd managed to post 5 postcards at the departure gate! So...pride slightly bruised but we still came out on top 😊

In Barcelona, we had our first encounter with Egypt in the form of a friendly businessman on his way to visit family in Egypt. All was going fine until he started suggesting that we go to visit the Egyptian sights together...a happy threesome! We used a serious language barrier to our advantage and turned down his kind offer as diplomatically as possible. However, upon watching a conversation he had with a fellow Egyptian and then sitting next to that same Egyptian on the flight to Cairo, conspiracy theories started to roll around in my brain. We'd read about the many scams common to Egypt and were determined to be on guard, but were we already falling prey to a cruel plot to take advantage of us? We quickly learned that constant suspicion can be incredibly tiring and some people are just friendly and don't want anything from you.

Anyway, we landed in Cairo at about 1am and were met by an often sullen but genuine and open-minded hostel worker called Moustafa. Yes, like the lion! (oops, that's Moufasa...) I have to say, arriving at night when it is cool and there's no one around, you get a very warped first impression of Cairo! We were led up to our fairly dingy hotel via an antique lift and paid for our room for 2 nights (always a sign that business is a little dodgy when you pay up front!). After paying, we are told that our room actually has someone sleeping in it until 5am but they can give us another room to shower and rest in until 5, when we'll be transferred. It was 2am by then and I didn't like the idea of being woken up in 3 hours to change rooms. So, in an effort to stay on their good side, I asked Kev to just go with it and we spent the night in a not-so-nice room and moved into a much better one in the morning. But not impressed!

Our first day in Cairo, we took it pretty easy in the morning. Actually we spent a lot of time deciding whether to let the hostel owner book a tour around the other sights of Egypt for us or whether we'd save a little money and organise it ourselves. Although the LP said to avoid such a business transaction, we were helped in our decision by the fact that my sister and her husband faced the same dilemma 2 years ago, went with the tour and everything went fine. It was even the same tour company...supposedly renowned for being bad. But in the heat and the many challenges of organising anything in Egypt, we chose to do the tour and save ourselves some hassle. We did manage to bargain our hostel owner down by 200 Egyptian pounds though and decided we'd done well. He obviously felt that he hadn't done so well, so after accepting the payment, he came back to tell us that if we gave him another 100 pounds, our taxi for touring the pyramids the next day would be air conditioned. In less than 24 hours, we'd learned that we were paying to appease his wrath rather than paying for air conditioning so we handed over another 100.

That afternoon, we found ourselves battling Cairo for the first time. On our way to visit the Egyptian museum, we tasted some of the delights of Egyptian cuisine. To stop me from talking about food anymore, I'll just give you a quick summary now...the sweet fiteers or pizzas (which bro-in-law Dave had recommended) are amazing! And kushari...a cool vegetarian, dirt-cheap dish is also delicious! I also ate the best chocolate croissant I've ever had in Cairo at El-Abd bakery. Now, no more on that topic!

So Cairo is completely crazy. It's stupidly hot (you drink litres of water and still feel dehydrated), the crowds are like nothing else I've ever seen (especially in the cooler evenings when all the locals emerge), the traffic is ridiculous and the noise of merchants and car horns can be deafening. Another thing unique to Cairo is the sport of crossing the road. Crossings exist but no one pays much attention to them, so pedestrians are forced to walk out amongst rivers of cars and trucks and bikes and literally dodge them until you reach the other side. Kev often likened it to playing Froggo. Often, I would be standing on the side of the road saying to Kev "I can't do this!" but there we'd go...one lane at a time (when lanes existed) defying the vehicles that barely missed us. And Kev would tell me how proud he was of me when we survived another crossing. The last thing I really feel I have to mention about Cairo (and Egypt in general) is the men. We were expecting to be hassled incessantly to buy things and we were. We were expecting people to constantly start conversations with us and ask us where we're from and say 'Aussie, Aussie, Aussie' to us, and they did. We were expected to be the victims of endless scams and they tried but didn't succeed. But I wasn't expecting to receive so much attention just for being a woman. Knowing it was a largely Muslim nation, I dressed very conservatively (long tops and long pants even in 45 degree heat!)...despite the lack of modesty displayed by most other tourists. I thought this would help me blend in. I was wrong. Kev had many comments of "Mister, you lucky man!" and I had many "You wanna change husbands?" or similar. And men stared at me constantly! Maybe some think this is flattering, but I often found it very intimidating and was very glad to leave it behind when we left Egypt!!!

Anyway...back to the Egyptian museum. Basically, all the temples and tombs in Egypt have been looted over the years and the contents are mostly now found in this museum. So it's pretty cool...full of incredible mummies and statues and sarcophagi...all arranged in a fairly haphazard African fashion (signs made up of little bits of ripped up paper etc). Even Tutankhamun's death mask is there...pretty impressive. Probably our favourite display though was the statue of Cheops...the pharaoh who built the biggest pyramid in Egypt. The only statue found of him is one only 8cm tall. Under the very modest impression of him is the inscription, "Cheops, Builder of Great Pyramid". Obviously a humble fellow after all.

The next day we set off in our (air-conditioned) taxi to see the pyramids!!! Our driver was quite a character...every few minutes in conversation, he would say "Welcome to Eygpt"...that's probably the phrase we heard most in our whole week in Egypt actually. He had quite a cool car too...though he didn't use the air con until the last 30 mins or so of the day!...at one point, he said "you like Indian movies?" and flicked the passenger sun vizer down to reveal a DVD player with a rather disturbing Indian film playing. Weird.

So...our first stop was Dahshur...a stop with 3 pretty cool pyramids and free entry into one of them. We climbed half way up the pyramid and entered...down a very long dark tunnel ladder into one of a few open chambers. Really surreal experience being on the inside of a pyramid! The thing that really struck me was the air...it felt completely stale and dusty and devoid of life. I got out of there pretty quickly! Next stop was Saqqara...another cool pyramid and other ruins and lots of tombs. There's always plenty of men around trying to show you things and take you on special guided tours (of course, for a fee!)...some of them are the tomb 'guardians' or 'watchmen' and not just another guy trying to spend your money...or so they say. Next stop was a carpet factory...why not? Fascinating but we didn't fancy attaching one to our backpacks so we left fairly promptly. Finally, we were at Giza and having been pre-warned, were steeled against every attempt anyone would make to make us pay more than we knew was right! The taxi driver did take us to his mates, the camel and horse people. They would have been quite convincing if we hadn't firmly assured them that I was allergic to horses and could NOT ride one into Giza (and the last thing I wanted to do was ride a camel in that heat!). So we walked in and enjoyed the sights by ourselves. It is pretty surreal to see the Sphinx and the pyramids in person. They are pretty spectacular and despite the relentless hassling of the locals, are worth the visit!

The last thing to really annoy me about Cairo was our hostel owner asking me to fill out the 'hostel world' review while we were there at the hostel. I said yes but didn't realise he would be looking over my shoulder while I did it and telling me what to write and that if I didn't give him an excellent review, I didn't like him etc etc. Basically, really manipulative and totally putting me in a hard place (we were still half relying on him to make sure our tour didn't fall apart so had to keep appeasing...) So I was far too generous (as I'm sure everyone else who stayed there has been) and I was not a little angry.

That evening, Moustafa put us on an overnight train to Aswan. Thinking that we would get a comfortable night's sleep in '1st class', we were pretty disappointed to find that we were in a cabin with 4 other men and the seats were more upright than in an economy class flight. So we wriggled our way through a 14 hour ride and sat uncomfortably in the morning when we woke up and all the other men seemed to do was stare at me for what seemed like hours. Not fun! To top it all off, a man we had 'befriended' over the long ride, offered to help me with my bags. Being very persuasive, I allowed him (dumb!!!!!) and he jumped off the train with my bag before it came to a stop. The tourist police were kind but couldn't do anything to help. The worst thing was, I knew it was my fault. I trusted the wrong person and paid for it. I lost a lot of very sentimental stuff but nothing too valuable. We learned that it pays to be suspicious after all.

By this point in our trip, we are hot, pretty frustrated and oh so ready to leave Egypt! We were even getting especially homesick for the first time. But as I said at the start...these moments are when you learn the most. After lots of prayer and time in God's presence, I learnt that my stuff is really not that important. Nor is my 'comfort' or the food I eat or the temperature outside. I'm learning that the most important thing is to find my joy in Jesus...then none of these dramas can shake me too much! And I'm learning (sometimes slowly) to really love these people who intimidate me and rip me off and abuse my trust. What a lesson, hey! Definitely worth the ordeal of Egypt to learn that!

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Photos

Near death experience
Climbing back out of the Red Pyramid, Dahshur

Red pyramid
Dahshur

The prototype
Stepped Pyramid, Saqqara

Peeping at Zoser
Saqqara

The Sphinx and the Great Pyramid of Khafre
Giza

The Great Pyramid of Khufu
Giza

Comments

[gabe...]

did you see imhotep?
guys, that sounds incredible! what an amazing culture, and it's cool you can learn more and more to appreciate it in the midst of your hardship. bring me back my name in hieroglyphics! love you both xoxo

[Nina]

you are a conqueror!
Elle you inspire me so much! I'm sad for you for what happenned but so encouraged to read how you handled it!ah you are amazing!! and again, joy is not in things lest we forget, but in our beautiful Savior Who supplies all our needs according to His riches and glory! amen. Love you xox