Maybe it was my disinterest in school, but I think I have been grossly misinformed about what Egypt is. I knew of Cairo and that was essentially it. And, I thought Cairo was basically the Pyramids and the "city" part of the city was tourist stuff to get westerns to and from the Pyramids and a place to spend their money.
Well, the last part of that exists, but Cairo and Egypt are so much more. The city is lively and has a great vibe. It has been Ramadan for the past several days, so the city is different now than it was when I was here when I last posted (not including the Quick Post earlier today). The people are visably exhausted from not eating or drinking anything while the sun is up. While normally very friendly and helpful, Egyptians are a little more curt and abrasive during the month-long holiday, though still very friendly and helpful.
Since I was last in here, I took a bus from Cairo (near the top of the Nile) to Aswan (at the bottom). The bus ride should take 11-12 hours. It took 15.5 hours, with the driver starting a third Arabic movie at 2:30AM, playing his Arabic "music" (this is not a slight, I really do not think it was music) blasting loud when movies were not playing, and honking the horn at literally nothing constantly during the ride. It was not pleasent.
Once in Aswan, the four New Zealand guys and myself hired a falucca to take us north toward Luxor. A falucca is basically a small boat that you ride up the Nile just relaxing, talking, playing cards, napping, etc. There is not anything specific to do not the falucca as it is almost the most basic boat imaginable, but it is an experience unlike any other still. Our captain, or "Cabten" as was painted on his boat, was coincidentally name Ramadan. He took us north for a few hours until we stopped at his village where he brought us dinner on the boat which was simple (rice, potatoes and veggies in a tomatoe sauce) and delicious. We slept on the boat then headed north further to Luxor (faluccas intending on stopping in Luxor always stop before then for some reason).
Luxor is my least favorite city in Egypt. Part of it is the heat 45 degrees Celsius (113 Farenheit). Part of it is that anything in the city worth doing cost relatively huge sums of money. Part of it is that because it was Ramadan and Luxor is not a major city like Cairo, there is no place to eat after 12 noon as all the locals go to mosque at noon then nap until 4:30 leaving tourists like myself to eat at a US-priced McDonald's or the uber-touristy Snack Time (similarly priced). But mostly it was that I was fined 250 Egyptian Pounds in the Valley of the Kings for taking pictures in the tombs. Yes, that is less than 50USD, but that is an enourmous amount of money here. The average per capita income for Egyptians is about $1643. For 5 photos I was fined about 3% of what the person who fined me makes a year. I was pissed, but it was better than the alternative of him calling the police and me hoping for the best.
I was not the only person unhappy with Luxor. We had planned on staying two nights and promptly left a day early when we got feed up with the city. I was pleased.
From Luxor we took a 10 hour bus ride (meaning 14 hours) to Cairo. This bus ride was different other than the complete inability of the bus company to estimate the duration of the trip. The bus departed Luxor at 6PM. At prciesly 6:30 we pulled over for 45 minutes. Why? So that everybody could eat. People bought McDonald's or made a sandwich or whatever and brought it on the bus waiting for the sun to set. Some people got off the bus and joined the table of locals gorging themselves after they finished the food they had. It was quite a scene. The rest of the bus ride was also the polar opposite of the other. On this one there was plenty of room, only a little unnecessary honking, and even a movie in English (Jackie Chan's Drunken Master which was great). The sleep I got on this bus was among the best I have had since I have been travelling.
In Cairo, we returned to the Lialy Hostel and just planned on chilling out for a bit. The Kiwis (slang for natives of New Zealand) had a flight in a couple of days and I scrapped my plans to visit Alexandria because of the money was fined in Luxor. I just wanted to soak up the city a bit more and organize my plans for the next month.
Then the fun started.
After a day of lounging around and figuring out exactly what I am doing next I sat down in an Internet cafe to book my flights. I need to arrange four in total (in previous post). I knew it would be a bit pricely, but doing Greece now would actually be considerably cheaper than doing it in the summer of 2010 because it would be high season then while it is currently the low season. I knew getting to South Africa would be expensive no matter what because it is pretty far away. I recognized flying to Dubai for less than a week is costly because of the flight and because of the city. And, I knew that once I return to Cairo getting to Tel Aviv takes way longer than it should and is complicated.
Still, these were all things I wanted to do and they needed to be done. So, I looked up flights, figured out the best and cheapest way to do everything, and decided exactly what I was going to do. Tried to pay for my first flight with my Visa credit card. Declined. OK. I probably typed something wrong. Declined again. Not good, but I do not have time to figure it out right now. I used my debit card. No problem. Second flight. Tried the credit card again. Declined. Debit card worked fine. Third flight. Credit declined again. Debit card, declined. I assume I typed something wrong. Try debit again. Declined. Shit. My two sources of cash are frozen, I have about 100USD in cash, and leave for Greece (one of the flights I did manage to make) in less than 12 hours. I am freaking out. I call the international collect numbers on the back of my cards. Ring, ring, ring. Nothing. Shit. I send paniced emails to family at home, but it is still too early there and nobody is awake.
Finally, this guy in my hostel, Chris, says I can use his Skype account to call the US 800-number over the Internet. Except, he needs to put money on his account. I have known Chris for less than 24 hours and, man, did he help me out.
Chris and I plan on meeting up in Dubai.
No comments:
Post a Comment