2nd class citizens

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My relationship with Egypt is like a bad marriage where I'm the rich (ha!) husband and she's the good looking, money-grubbing wife. Things aren't good....but we need each other. Here's why:

- Egypt needs me around to support her.
- I like Egypt because of her aesthetic values and her history.

As soon as I crossed the border (or attempted to at least) between Israel and Egypt at around 10pm, I knew something was fishy about this country. Aaron and I had planned to go to Dahab, a beach town in Sinai where we could relax after the 2 weeks of lack of sleep in Israel. You don't need a visa to go to Sinai as it is still a disputed area between Egypt and Israel, however, you do need one to get to Egypt's mainland. Our plan was go to to Dahab for a few days, then head over to Alexandria.
Thing is, you aren't able to get the visa while you're in Sinai, so we needed to get it before we entered. In order to get the visa for Egypt, we were told when we got to the border town that night, we needed to go back into Israel, go to the consulate there, get the visa, come back at 9am and then cross over. But....as with any other shady country, there's a guy. A guy is someone who spots you out from across the room. You look stressed out. It's late. He can tell what you need. He approaches us and asks us if we need a visa. We tell him yes. He tells us he can get one for us...at a cost. Yadda yadda yadda, we end up spending $20 more to get him to write a letter to his buddy at the passport stand to stamp it...$35 altogether.

So we leave that office and head out to see if we can get a bus to Dahab. There are no buses running so we would need to get cab. Dahab is 2 hours south of the border city so it's going to be expensive but we meet 4 guys trying to do the same thing so we all hop in a van after negotiating 50 Egyptian Pounds each...about $10. After driving about a 1/2 mile down the road we're stopped at an 'office'. We're told we need to pay another 75 EP to leave the border town. After much arguing, we finally give in after they surround us and demand the $. So in a matter of about an hour, I spent $30 for exiting Israel, $35 for the Egyptian visa, $10 for the cab, $15 to leave the border town. And this is exactly why I hate Egypt. The screw you over for everything they can get their hands on.

Either way, we made it to Dahab at around 2am and got a hotel. Dahab was a nice change from the crazyness that we had experienced for the past couple of weeks. Only thing is it's pretty touristy with the owners and workers of the many shops and restaurants constantly hasseling you to look at 'my shop'. It seems like such a minor annoyance but when it's never-ending it gets pretty obnoxious. So, Aaron and I got a room at this hotel called "7 Heaven" (not 7th) for 10 EP each. Dahab is world renowned for its unbelieveable snorkeling/scuba diving. There's a place nearby that is considered the best, and most dangerous, place to scuba called The Blue Hole. We didn't head over there but we went to an area down the boardwalk called the Islands a couple of times. Pretty much any hotel or guesthouse in the town rents out snorkeling gear for 10 EP/day.
As many of you know, my eyesight is fucking awful. I've never met anyone with worse eyes in my entire life and I refuse to get contacts cuz touching my eyeballs freaks me out. I was assurred that the water allows you to see things 3x better so I went with it. It was a bit of a downer when Aaron would point at something and I would look at what looked like a blob 20 ft away but it actually worked better than I expected it to.
So after 4 days in Dahab, we headed off to Cairo on a train to meet our friend Lauren who was flying into Egypt from Paris to travel with us for a couple of weeks.
We met Lauren in the Cairo train station and from there went straight to Alexandria with an arrival time of about 11PM. We were able to get a great room with a balcony a view of the Med for an awesome price. We decided that we were going to stay in Alex for the day and take off that night for an overnight train to Luxor. So, we went to the Alexandria Library - once the center of the world for knowledge before the Romans (surprise, surprise!) burned it down. It was rebuilt and burned down twice more following that and then they pretty much gave up on the prospect of having a cursed library. However, not long ago, was built not long ago as a very modern structure. Today, it's essentially a tourist attraction with surprisingly not many books. They have some that have survived the years in a special chamber but we didn't go check it out. Outside the library, the inscriptions of every known alphabet is carved into the side which is a pretty cool sight.
After walking around for the day, we eventually took the 14 hour overnight train to Luxor in the south.

We had decided that we weren't going to take the train further south to Aswan in order to take a felucca boat cruise) up to Luxor. We were pretty pressed for time so we thought spending a few days in Luxor, checking out the must-see's and going on a cruise there would suffice.
As a former employee of the Sheraton, I continue to scheme my way into getting the employee rate all over the world. Luxor was the 2nd stop at a 5-star hotel tour...the first being in Tel-Aviv for 2 nights.
Walking into a 5-star Sheraton and telling them that I'm the Front Office Supervisor while sporting a huge beard, shirt/shorts that have been worn repeatedly and not washed for days, and body that needs a shower like cereal needs milk - doesn't usually go over that well. This case was no different. I eventually gave them a card that I found in my bag and things were hunky dory from there on out. They put us in a Bungalow room with a Nile View. The place had 2 pools. One outside the bungalows and another next to the Nile...literally.
Now, our boat cruise was a perfect example of the Egyptian attitude towards foreigners: We had found a boat captain when we arrived in Luxor to take us to Banana Island, cook for us (we would buy the food in the market), while we drank, ate and were merry. This was supposed to last late into the night. He had told us that because there was a motor in the boat, that we were to pay extra for the gas to get to Banana Island.
So, we went to the market, got food, booze, etc...all the ingredients for a great night on the Nile in a Egyptian sailboat with some Egyptian comrades, right? Wrong.
For those of you who don't know - the Nile in Luxor is jam-packed with cruise liners that are extremely loud and pump out black exhaust 24 hours a day. So, naturally, our boat captain decides we're going to go about 100 yards downstream and hang out with these badboys for about a half-hour, until we suggest that we go....."somewhere". So this is what we do - it's crazy, unpredictable and totally adventurous! - we sail across the Nile! It's about 10 minutes of grueling work for the boatmen. (Note: the sarcasm.) And, when we're -finally!- on the other side, we do the same thing we had been doing before. Sitting there. Not going to Banana Island. We figure, hey, fuck it, let's just start to get drunk...we'll get there eventually. I guess this was the boat captain's plan, too. He asked for a drink and I thought maybe by giving him a drink, he'll feel more obligated to go there cuz of our newfound friendship. Well, after sitting across the river for about 20 minutes, he asked for another. "No tonic - just straight." This is when we started to get a little pissed. Not only was he drinking our booze, he was ordering drinks like he was at a bar...an open bar at that! So, I gave him a little bit more but said let's go somewhere. He explained that there was no wind and it was impossible to go but our agreement was paying more for a motor to get us there. Eventually, the motor is revealed! It's in the form of another boat that tows us down the river...about 200 yards. This is where we were going to eat our dinner, apparently. So, we said whatever, let's just do it and go to the Island after.
The "cook" didn't know how to cook and Aaron ended up making our meal and we never actually made it to Banana Island. We asked after about an hour longer if we could just go back across the river and end the trip. We knew we weren't paying the full amount but that's not what the captain had in mind. He started arguing with us and after we tried to explain that not only did he drink our booze without a thank you, tell us there was a motor on board when there wasn't, and fail to cook us dinner - he literally took us across the river! We gave him about 2/3rds the money, which is more than he deserved and left with one angry, drunk captain behind us.
Eventually I leave Egypt for a more caring, beautiful country...Morocco.

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