I am sitting now on the top deck of the Explorer watching the lights of Alexandria disappear into the horizon as our ship pulls away from Egypt.
Writing about Egypt is a daunting task for me. Everything I’ve seen here has been so very different from anything else I have encountered on this voyage or ever in my life. In many ways, Egypt was a wake up call for me; an abrupt reminder that I am in Africa, in a nation that is home to one of the oldest civilizations on earth as well as much present political strife, surrounded by poverty, illiteracy, and a conservative Islamic culture that demands respect and adaptation on my part. Egypt is not a safe country, but I felt in awe more than I ever felt in danger. So many things that I saw-people, culture, sights, lifestyles, languages-lent imagery and experience to my previous impression of this country and made me oh so glad to hail from a country that has its act together at least in terms of economic and personal freedom. I sit here intrigued, shocked, and with an burning desire to learn more about the Islamic cultural norms and the constant political discord engulfing this entire region. For now I will write about what I have already seen and learned.
Day 1: Where in the world am I?!?!
We got off of the ship our first day in Alexandria with the intention of exploring the port area by foot or cab. On the ship they had warned us of crazy drivers and encouraged conservative dress, but beyond that we had little to go on. A large group of friends and I, nine in all, walked through the opulent port, past a huge gushing fountain, through throngs of tourist police wearing crisp, pressed, white uniforms until we finally exited the gate guarded by semi-automatic weapon carrying officers to the “real” Alexandria. At this moment, I realized immediately that any other time I had felt out of place on this trip, I was not. I felt foolish for thinking Spain had economic woes, for being baffled by the Greek alphabet, for believing that Turkey was not a western state. In comparison to the cities of Egypt, Istanbul is as Western as New York!!!
Alexandria is unlike any place I have ever seen. We took close to 10 minute to cross the street that was crowded with 10-year-old taxis, the oldest tram system in Africa, trash of all sizes and origins, the occasional horse or donkey, and other assorted motorized vehicles. Once across, we immediately realized that Alexandria was not a city we were prepared to walk, and we rapidly returned to the port to grab a clean, blue, tourist taxi whose fare might be more, but was regulated by the tourist police.
At this point most of the group had decided to join a Semester at Sea day tour of Alexandria, but Katie, Leah, and I had an itinerary in mind and chartered a taxi instead. Our first destination: the mall. Yeah, yeah, I know. But I had to ease myself into Egypt, and I know malls, so I figured I’d start with what I know. I’m calling it a significant cultural experience. Apparently I hadn’t packed enough conservative clothes on this trip, and my height and hair color had been warranting enough stares as it was. At the mall I was able to fill in my wardrobe at H & M and the Levi’s store while observing the many cultural differences and similarities here. First, I noticed how friendly everyone was to us. Despite my expectations, in my experience everyone LOVES Americans. They love our food, our clothes, our hair, our eyes, our president, and our seemingly bottomless wallets. They love to practice English with us, to tell us how beautiful we are and stare, stare, stare. By the end of the trip I was beginning to wonder if I had somehow become a YouTube celebrity and not known it for all the stares I was getting. No such luck, just my hair color, height and fair complexion.
Next we visited the Catacombs. Our cab driver, who at this point we referred to affectionately as “Uncle Khamis” and I decided looked like an Egyptian version of my Grandpaw, dropped us right by the ticket booth where we waited for a veiled woman to finish praying before checking our cameras and selling us our ridiculously cheap student tickets. A SAS trip had just left and we were very fortunate to have the entire place to ourselves. After descending a wide winding staircase underground into a series of tombs, I was met with what could have easily passed as an eerily lit set for an Indiana Jones movie. Seriously, this place was a series of ancient winding passageways all flooded with water so that we had to navigate on planks of wood. There were inscriptions covering some walls, intricate carvings on others, and some were left blank with modern, sharp edges that made me question the authenticity of the place. To make the entire experience even more eerie, there was a glass cabinet randomly positioned in one of the rooms full of human bones. It was such a cool place and seemed so much like what a movie producer would recreate as an Egyptian tomb that I thought I might be in a theme park. Of course, if I were in Disneyworld I would most assuredly not be one of three people in the entire place.
After that, we decided to hit up the Biblioteca Alexandria. This was such an unexpectedly modern site in a city that seems to be from a different era. This brand new library rises to meet the Mediterranean Sea in one of the most picturesque areas of the city. It is an extremely modern building of circular shape that is unlike anything I’ve seen before. Inside, it is the second largest depository of knowledge in the world, only behind the Library of Congress in D.C. I absolutely loved it here. Everything was so new and there were books everywhere. If I lived and went to school in Alexandria, I think I would be in this library every single day.
At one point I was separated from my friends for about 30 minutes and was wandering in the library by myself. This is a very safe, extremely secure place and I was not concerned to be alone in the least. I realized, however, why the ship stressed so explicitly that girls should never be alone in Egypt--I have never been hit on more in a library in my life. It’s the hair, I swear. But it was kind of ridiculous. Really ridiculous. I mean, I was wearing a skirt that went down to my ankles and a T-shirt that went up to my neck! Whatever, I guess I just look really different over here.
After our time in the library we found Uncle Khamis outside to take us back to the ship. Our trip to Cairo left really early in the morning and we hadn’t packed yet. On the way back, Khamis started digging around in the front passenger seat for something when all of the sudden…HE HIT ANOTHER CAR!!! Don’t worry, I’m all right. I mean, my Egyptian cabby just rear-ended a guy, but his bumper’s still halfway on, so it’s O.K. What does one do in that situation??? I sat there, speechless in the backseat and watched as the two parties involved shrugged it off in the middle of a side street in Alexandria. Oh Uncle Khamis…
Day 2: And I thought Alex was crazy!
My SAS trip to Cairo left at 8:00 in the morning and I was full of excitement for the next two days. We all piled into an air-conditioned bus for the 2 and a half hour drive to Cairo, during which we received a brief history lesson from our amazing guide. The drive from Alex to Cairo is kind of surreal. In many ways, Egypt is Western. Just like the states, Egypt has gas stations, KFC, and McDonalds sprinkling the roadways. Unlike the states, the entire country is covered in desert. Our drive went like this: desert, desert, dunes, desert, cluster of stores and a gas station with a splattering of small trees watered by hoses daily, desert, desert, desert…
I took a quick, or perhaps long, nap on the ride, and before I knew it I was in a metropolis of 20 million built along the Nile but very much so in the middle of the, you guessed it, desert. I’m not so sure that this was a smart idea. So many people in such a small space, surrounded by desert, fighting for precious resources, cannot make for a perfectly balanced, happy society. Issue number one (in my opinion at least): trash. Trash was everywhere. I wasn’t in the city for very long before our bus traveled a road which runs parallel to an irrigation canal that has turned into the city’s garbage disposal. Mountains of trash made up the banks of this mud colored creek. I couldn’t look away as we passed island upon island of floating trash. This was seriously the most polluted, trashed, yucky thing I’ve every seen. Occasionally I could spot a school of small fish just below the surface of the muddy water, and I could swear that they glowed. As we went further, I began to see something more alarming than any of the trash I had already passed: boys were swimming in this water!!! As polluted as this thing was, it passed as a viable recreational swimming area for the boys of Cairo.
Luckily, we were soon past the creek and at our first destination: the pyramids at Zoser. These smaller step pyramids often go overlooked by tourists, but were really very cool. We were able to go inside one of the pyramids where a guide showed us the intricate engravings on the walls and the paintings that after Millennia still contained vivid color. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would every be climbing into and around an ancient pyramid, but I did, and it was pretty darn cool. Plus, we were able to bribe the guide, or rather take up his offer, to take forbidden pictures of us inside. Not the last time I’d be bribing someone in Egypt, that’s sort of how they do things here.
Next we had lunch at a five star hotel and were off to the Archeological Museum of Cairo. This is the big daddy of all Archeological Museums. This is the place where all of Egypt’s relics are stored and put on display. It was vastly different from any museum I’ve been to in the states, partly because there was no air conditioning, but mainly because at every corner there was some relic or antiquity whose picture I could easily find on the pages of my world history textbook in the ninth grade. In my whirlwind tour I saw mummies, the famed coffin of Tutankhamun, solid gold thrones, statues of solid marble that were two stories high, ancient papyrus scrolls, ancient gold jewelry that seemed modern enough to be unwrapped from Tiffany’s today, and, strangely, the world’s oldest condom. Simply building the pyramids was not enough for these guys…
After all that history, it was time for a nap at our hotel. We stayed at the luxurious, five star Mena House, the closest hotel to the pyramids in all of Cairo. Our room looked out directly onto the towering Pyramids of Giza as though they might just be billboards advertising the sight. There were so close I could see the guards walking along their base. It was a beautiful hotel, but after only two hours of relaxing, it was time to head to the nighttime light show on the pyramids. I loved this. I mean, it’s a light show on the Great Pyramids!!! I’m a sucker for a light show I suppose. Most people thought it was totally cheesy, and it was, but I really secretly thought it was super cool.
Day 3: Holy Camel! It’s the Great Pyramids!!!
We had dinner and approximately 3 and half hours of sleep before our 4:15 wake up call to watch the sun rise over the Pyramids. Only a handful of groups get special permission to go into the Pyramid viewing area before sunrise, so this was truly a once in a lifetime experience. I am soooo glad I did this because it was quite possibly the most magnificent sunrise I have ever seen in my entire life. Scratch that; it is, definitively, the most amazing sunrise I have ever, ever, seen. Ever. Don’t worry, I think I took 300 pictures that morning, so I should be able to remember and share it. We also rode camels here, which was quite an experience. They are HUGE! And not nearly as comfortable as horses if I can say so myself. But they do give quite a ride, and I laughed the whole way around as I was barely holding myself on.
After this, and about 1,000 more pictures, we went shopping in the Grand Bazaar in Cairo. I didn’t spend much money here, but we all got a lot of attention from vendors. I was able to score a wooden Camel and a bright pink scarf. I think I’m getting better at bargaining, because everything here was much cheaper than in Istanbul. Could be the economy, but it might be my haggling prowess. I guess we’ll never know… It wasn’t as good as the bazaar in Istanbul, but I still loved looking through this open-air market. As soon as we were finished here, we piled into the bus to go to our Nile cruise.
Now that I’ve experienced lunch on the Nile, I want to come back and do a longer cruise. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would get the chance to float down this majestic river, but now that I have I want to see more. I really want to come back to Africa and do a safari, or maybe some volunteer work. I’ve only scratched the surface…
One two-hour bus ride later and I was back in Alexandria. I was pretty tired at this point and went to bed.
We got off of the ship our first day in Alexandria with the intention of exploring the port area by foot or cab. On the ship they had warned us of crazy drivers and encouraged conservative dress, but beyond that we had little to go on. A large group of friends and I, nine in all, walked through the opulent port, past a huge gushing fountain, through throngs of tourist police wearing crisp, pressed, white uniforms until we finally exited the gate guarded by semi-automatic weapon carrying officers to the “real” Alexandria. At this moment, I realized immediately that any other time I had felt out of place on this trip, I was not. I felt foolish for thinking Spain had economic woes, for being baffled by the Greek alphabet, for believing that Turkey was not a western state. In comparison to the cities of Egypt, Istanbul is as Western as New York!!!
Alexandria is unlike any place I have ever seen. We took close to 10 minute to cross the street that was crowded with 10-year-old taxis, the oldest tram system in Africa, trash of all sizes and origins, the occasional horse or donkey, and other assorted motorized vehicles. Once across, we immediately realized that Alexandria was not a city we were prepared to walk, and we rapidly returned to the port to grab a clean, blue, tourist taxi whose fare might be more, but was regulated by the tourist police.
At this point most of the group had decided to join a Semester at Sea day tour of Alexandria, but Katie, Leah, and I had an itinerary in mind and chartered a taxi instead. Our first destination: the mall. Yeah, yeah, I know. But I had to ease myself into Egypt, and I know malls, so I figured I’d start with what I know. I’m calling it a significant cultural experience. Apparently I hadn’t packed enough conservative clothes on this trip, and my height and hair color had been warranting enough stares as it was. At the mall I was able to fill in my wardrobe at H & M and the Levi’s store while observing the many cultural differences and similarities here. First, I noticed how friendly everyone was to us. Despite my expectations, in my experience everyone LOVES Americans. They love our food, our clothes, our hair, our eyes, our president, and our seemingly bottomless wallets. They love to practice English with us, to tell us how beautiful we are and stare, stare, stare. By the end of the trip I was beginning to wonder if I had somehow become a YouTube celebrity and not known it for all the stares I was getting. No such luck, just my hair color, height and fair complexion.
Next we visited the Catacombs. Our cab driver, who at this point we referred to affectionately as “Uncle Khamis” and I decided looked like an Egyptian version of my Grandpaw, dropped us right by the ticket booth where we waited for a veiled woman to finish praying before checking our cameras and selling us our ridiculously cheap student tickets. A SAS trip had just left and we were very fortunate to have the entire place to ourselves. After descending a wide winding staircase underground into a series of tombs, I was met with what could have easily passed as an eerily lit set for an Indiana Jones movie. Seriously, this place was a series of ancient winding passageways all flooded with water so that we had to navigate on planks of wood. There were inscriptions covering some walls, intricate carvings on others, and some were left blank with modern, sharp edges that made me question the authenticity of the place. To make the entire experience even more eerie, there was a glass cabinet randomly positioned in one of the rooms full of human bones. It was such a cool place and seemed so much like what a movie producer would recreate as an Egyptian tomb that I thought I might be in a theme park. Of course, if I were in Disneyworld I would most assuredly not be one of three people in the entire place.
After that, we decided to hit up the Biblioteca Alexandria. This was such an unexpectedly modern site in a city that seems to be from a different era. This brand new library rises to meet the Mediterranean Sea in one of the most picturesque areas of the city. It is an extremely modern building of circular shape that is unlike anything I’ve seen before. Inside, it is the second largest depository of knowledge in the world, only behind the Library of Congress in D.C. I absolutely loved it here. Everything was so new and there were books everywhere. If I lived and went to school in Alexandria, I think I would be in this library every single day.
At one point I was separated from my friends for about 30 minutes and was wandering in the library by myself. This is a very safe, extremely secure place and I was not concerned to be alone in the least. I realized, however, why the ship stressed so explicitly that girls should never be alone in Egypt--I have never been hit on more in a library in my life. It’s the hair, I swear. But it was kind of ridiculous. Really ridiculous. I mean, I was wearing a skirt that went down to my ankles and a T-shirt that went up to my neck! Whatever, I guess I just look really different over here.
After our time in the library we found Uncle Khamis outside to take us back to the ship. Our trip to Cairo left really early in the morning and we hadn’t packed yet. On the way back, Khamis started digging around in the front passenger seat for something when all of the sudden…HE HIT ANOTHER CAR!!! Don’t worry, I’m all right. I mean, my Egyptian cabby just rear-ended a guy, but his bumper’s still halfway on, so it’s O.K. What does one do in that situation??? I sat there, speechless in the backseat and watched as the two parties involved shrugged it off in the middle of a side street in Alexandria. Oh Uncle Khamis…
Day 2: And I thought Alex was crazy!
My SAS trip to Cairo left at 8:00 in the morning and I was full of excitement for the next two days. We all piled into an air-conditioned bus for the 2 and a half hour drive to Cairo, during which we received a brief history lesson from our amazing guide. The drive from Alex to Cairo is kind of surreal. In many ways, Egypt is Western. Just like the states, Egypt has gas stations, KFC, and McDonalds sprinkling the roadways. Unlike the states, the entire country is covered in desert. Our drive went like this: desert, desert, dunes, desert, cluster of stores and a gas station with a splattering of small trees watered by hoses daily, desert, desert, desert…
I took a quick, or perhaps long, nap on the ride, and before I knew it I was in a metropolis of 20 million built along the Nile but very much so in the middle of the, you guessed it, desert. I’m not so sure that this was a smart idea. So many people in such a small space, surrounded by desert, fighting for precious resources, cannot make for a perfectly balanced, happy society. Issue number one (in my opinion at least): trash. Trash was everywhere. I wasn’t in the city for very long before our bus traveled a road which runs parallel to an irrigation canal that has turned into the city’s garbage disposal. Mountains of trash made up the banks of this mud colored creek. I couldn’t look away as we passed island upon island of floating trash. This was seriously the most polluted, trashed, yucky thing I’ve every seen. Occasionally I could spot a school of small fish just below the surface of the muddy water, and I could swear that they glowed. As we went further, I began to see something more alarming than any of the trash I had already passed: boys were swimming in this water!!! As polluted as this thing was, it passed as a viable recreational swimming area for the boys of Cairo.
Luckily, we were soon past the creek and at our first destination: the pyramids at Zoser. These smaller step pyramids often go overlooked by tourists, but were really very cool. We were able to go inside one of the pyramids where a guide showed us the intricate engravings on the walls and the paintings that after Millennia still contained vivid color. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would every be climbing into and around an ancient pyramid, but I did, and it was pretty darn cool. Plus, we were able to bribe the guide, or rather take up his offer, to take forbidden pictures of us inside. Not the last time I’d be bribing someone in Egypt, that’s sort of how they do things here.
Next we had lunch at a five star hotel and were off to the Archeological Museum of Cairo. This is the big daddy of all Archeological Museums. This is the place where all of Egypt’s relics are stored and put on display. It was vastly different from any museum I’ve been to in the states, partly because there was no air conditioning, but mainly because at every corner there was some relic or antiquity whose picture I could easily find on the pages of my world history textbook in the ninth grade. In my whirlwind tour I saw mummies, the famed coffin of Tutankhamun, solid gold thrones, statues of solid marble that were two stories high, ancient papyrus scrolls, ancient gold jewelry that seemed modern enough to be unwrapped from Tiffany’s today, and, strangely, the world’s oldest condom. Simply building the pyramids was not enough for these guys…
After all that history, it was time for a nap at our hotel. We stayed at the luxurious, five star Mena House, the closest hotel to the pyramids in all of Cairo. Our room looked out directly onto the towering Pyramids of Giza as though they might just be billboards advertising the sight. There were so close I could see the guards walking along their base. It was a beautiful hotel, but after only two hours of relaxing, it was time to head to the nighttime light show on the pyramids. I loved this. I mean, it’s a light show on the Great Pyramids!!! I’m a sucker for a light show I suppose. Most people thought it was totally cheesy, and it was, but I really secretly thought it was super cool.
Day 3: Holy Camel! It’s the Great Pyramids!!!
We had dinner and approximately 3 and half hours of sleep before our 4:15 wake up call to watch the sun rise over the Pyramids. Only a handful of groups get special permission to go into the Pyramid viewing area before sunrise, so this was truly a once in a lifetime experience. I am soooo glad I did this because it was quite possibly the most magnificent sunrise I have ever seen in my entire life. Scratch that; it is, definitively, the most amazing sunrise I have ever, ever, seen. Ever. Don’t worry, I think I took 300 pictures that morning, so I should be able to remember and share it. We also rode camels here, which was quite an experience. They are HUGE! And not nearly as comfortable as horses if I can say so myself. But they do give quite a ride, and I laughed the whole way around as I was barely holding myself on.
After this, and about 1,000 more pictures, we went shopping in the Grand Bazaar in Cairo. I didn’t spend much money here, but we all got a lot of attention from vendors. I was able to score a wooden Camel and a bright pink scarf. I think I’m getting better at bargaining, because everything here was much cheaper than in Istanbul. Could be the economy, but it might be my haggling prowess. I guess we’ll never know… It wasn’t as good as the bazaar in Istanbul, but I still loved looking through this open-air market. As soon as we were finished here, we piled into the bus to go to our Nile cruise.
Now that I’ve experienced lunch on the Nile, I want to come back and do a longer cruise. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would get the chance to float down this majestic river, but now that I have I want to see more. I really want to come back to Africa and do a safari, or maybe some volunteer work. I’ve only scratched the surface…
One two-hour bus ride later and I was back in Alexandria. I was pretty tired at this point and went to bed.
Just looked at your trip itinerary -- it's coming to an end :( Let me know when you get back to the real world, I want to make a trip up to Fort Worth to see you and Leah!
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