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Published: November 20th 2005
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For Reasons that I can't explaing right now my photos are unavailable. Hopefully this problem will be fixed soon but in the meanwhile enjoy a picture of me and lloyd in Slovenia...more phots soon to come
Egypt has deffintely made the top five places I have visted so far. The people, the history, the natural beauty, and of course the ever so taxing persistence of the salesmen.
Bargaining has become a rather fun hobby of mine. Because we usually don't want to buy the giant sphynx statue of the lovely dress that they are trying to sell us we play a little game of "how low can I get them to go." Lloyd has become quite the bargainer though he still trying to get down the part where you don't buy the piece of crap that they are selling you. I must say I have bought perhaps 7 things so far. A tshirt for myself and presents for those lovely people who's birthday it is this month, but Lloyd is the king of Egyptian shopping. From memory this is what Lloyds 100lbs bag contains as of this moment. 2 table cloths with egyptian designs on the not to mention matching
napkins. About 5 papyrus paintings and 10 papyrus bookmarks, 7 pashmynas, an Osama Binladen headress (we plan to wear them upon arrival in Capetown), 6 assorted tshirts, 2 watches (cartier and AdidOs) , 3 necklaces, one Rosetta stone (he was forced to buy this lovely piece of art after he broke somthing in a store), aas well as many other things that I'm sure he has been embarassed to share with me.
Gadi Lloyd and mysel headed to the Sinai peninsula for some Scuba diving, unfortunately We had the great idea of going out and partying the night before our 8 am ferry ride and didn't wake up till 11. Gadi "says" he "tried to wake us up" but I doubt it. If you are given lemons throw them back at the person who gave them to you and go buy some lemonade. We decided to go scuba diving in Horgada and not go to Sinai. This was a great decision.
The Scubadiving on the red sea was absolutely phenomenal. Never in my life have I seen such amazing tropical fish. We saw every color of the rainbow. Clown fish, Sting rays with blue spots, Flute fish (my
Karnak Temple
Best site in Egypt, besides the Pyramids and Abu Simbul favorite), Massive Eels, this 6 foot long eel swam under me, and if I you could scream under water I would have.
I would come back to egypt alone for the scuba diving. We said goodbye to Gadi and headed back to Cairo for one last night. We recieved an amazing reception in Cairo. You would think they had never seen a white man before. Lloyd and I stopped and bought some fresh mango juice for (16 cents). Everyone was comming up to us and asking our name where were from etc. Oh how I miss Cairo. After bargaining for a cab for 20 minutes (we were bargaining one egyptian pound with this guy and because we thought we were being ripped off we decided to take public trasport. The subway in Cairo is amazing. The only weird thing was that only men were using it. As we stood on the train we noticed that every person on the train was staring at us. It is a surreal experience. Of course we started acting silly and doing pullups and as we got off we sais "Ma a Salam" (GOodbye) and everyone started waving at us and smiling. It was
amazing.
We decided to spend our last day at Khana Kalili, the big Bazaar and do some last minute shopping. We left the bazaar with 2 hours and 45 minutes to spare before our plane left. We bargained with cab driver and for 7 dollars he was going to take us to our hotel and then to the airport. Great deal!!
Unfortunately this guy had no concept of time. We started heading to the airport and pretty soon we had no idea where we were. We were driving down back alleys, waiting for donkeys to move out of the way, our cab drive honking everyother second. Lloyd and I kept asking the cabdriver if we were going to the "AIRPORT" while making plane sounds and signals with our arms. He parks his car in this alley gets out and walks away. We looked at eachother dumbfounded and scared we were going to miss our plane as well as get robbed. Lloyd gets out of the car with his torn jeans and NO Underwear (butt in full view) and starts asking people using his arms to look like a plane if the airport is near. Our cab driver comes
out of the building with a new guy and all of a sudden we have a new cab driver with 1hr 45 minutes before our plane is leaving. Of course this guy spoke even less english. We couldn't even get his name.
We got to the airport with 1hr 30 minutes to spare but of course we had to wait in line for 20 minutes to have our bags scanned at the security counter.
Ahhh but we made it to south Africa
Things I will miss:
$1.68 hotel rooms...breakfast included
meeting guys named Mohamed, Ahmed, Mohemed, and everyother version of
that name possible.
Shady cab drivers with no seatbelts
Bargaining for everything from toilet paper to chicken
33 cent meals
Mango juice
The Pyramids
Smoking "Shisha" or Waterpipes and drinking Arabic Coffee
Beating lloyd at Backgammon
Along withe every other cooky thing about this country
Goodbye Egypt...I will be back again. To all my friends and family if you haven't been here please come...You'll love it
Adam
After three months of straigt travel and 5 weeks in the middle east I am ready to
head to Lloyd's home, South Africa.
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Gadi-Ray
non-member comment
Alive and kicking
You forgot to say you'll miss Shisha and Le Marquis. Otherwise, you were spot on. To Egypt (look straight in the eyes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)