To Dan’s dismay, I made it back without being re-enslaved. Lucky for me Jews escaped slavery over 3000 years ago, but it was close nonetheless. Anyways, while watching the sun set behind the Great Pyramid, I reflected on my time in Egypt and, much like the hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt, I carved my reflections into the stone. Below you will find a piece of my carvings.
Side note (for those who actually care about what I did): Awesome trip - Started in Cairo and took a sleeper train down to Aswan and spent a few nights cruising back up the Nile on a ship (hit Edfu, Esna, Luxor, and then flew back to Cairo). Saw/did everything - museums, pyramids, camel riding, sphinx, temples, mosques, tombs, catacombs in Alexandria, nightlife.
Air Egypt
Don’t ever fly Air Egypt. I felt somewhat safe on the plane until the oxygen masks above our head came down about 2 hours into the trip. Not everybody’s, just mine and the guy next to me. Was God trying to tell me something? The attentive staff shoved the masks back into the ceiling only to have them fall down time and time again. There’s nothing like flying with an oxygen mask waving in your face for 10 hours.
They did serve us dinner though, which I thought was nice, until the food came. It looked like somebody sliced off a piece of a cat and cooked it for 4 and a half hours. I ate bread.
Cleanliness
Not a big issue, but Cairo isn’t the cleanest of cities. 18 million people live in metropolitan Cairo and there’s about 8 million cars, and you can definitely tell. I breathed in more smog in a few days than I have in 2 years in NYC. And if you think New Yorker’s putting their garbage out on the sidewalk in unclean, just walk down a street in Cairo. Garbage everywhere (even in the Nile), people everywhere, cars everywhere – I’m glad I got my shots before I went.
Security
In some sense, traveling with your own automatic weapon carrying security guard makes you feel safe. But when you really think about the fact that you need automatic weapons and police escorts, you start realizing that maybe wandering off on your own to explore wasn’t such a good idea.
The fact that the Al Hussein (no relation to Saddam) Mosque and the Khan el-Khalili bazaar were bombed a few weeks ago might have heightened the need for armed guards. More disconcerting was that we were at that bazaar for a few hours buying crap made in China and smoking shisha.
Extracurricular Activities
One would think that a trip to a Muslim dominated country wouldn’t consist of drinking and smoking. But, as dutiful American tourists, we managed to sniff out the important stuff.
If x = # of drinks consumed per day and y = # of hours of sleep per night then x > y for 90% of the trip.
Drink of choice: Stella (not Stella Artois) and Meister Max (for those nights where I needed to ramp up quickly – 8% alcohol)
Shisha of choice: “Special” grape (not statutory grape) – actually, we couldn’t find “special” grape which was recommended to us by a local, so we had to settle for regular grape. Melon was a close second.
Sleeper train
The only thing worse than Egypt Air was the sleeper train from Cairo to Aswan. This thing looked like it hadn’t been used since the Great Pyramid was built. After hearing a blood-curling scream at one in the morning, several workers and our guide ran this girl’s room where she claimed to have seen a mouse. Nobody believed her, but she was vindicated when another guy woke up a few hours later to several mice up on a shelf in his room eating his food. I slept fully clothed with my shoes on.
Jellabiya
I wore a dress and got drunk. I am not ashamed – it was the Jellabiya party (I'll post a picture of me in a dress soon).
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