Alexandria

Overall Alexandria was an adventure mixed with some less than desirable outcomes.  We arrived Thursday evening, had dinner and a few drinks, and went to bed.  After waking up, having coffee by the beach and reading a little bit, we decided to head down the beach to meet our hosts.  We flagged down a microbus, paid the two pounds and with our backpacks on our laps in a very crowded van, we were off.  We stopped at one point because we thought we were getting close.  There were nice beaches to our left and a few nice hotels to our right; among them was the Four Seasons.  We exited the microbus and began to walk.

The weather was perfect, and the only thing I wanted to do was get to our destination, and buy a bathing suit so I could sit on the beach and read my book.  As we walked, something familiar caught my eye.  It was green and white, and it looked somewhat tribal with its squiggly lines, and overall roundness.  Could it be?  Yes it was!  STARBUCKS!  I truly have never been so happy to see the fast food of coffee in my life.  It was attached to the Four Seasons.  Of course I had to run right in.  I hadn’t had a proper Americano in over a month. 

We walked in, and the familiarity of the décor and smells made me miss home.  We got in line, and heard something that sounded like music to our ears at that moment…people ordering their drinks in unadulterated English.  The two customers ahead of us looked at each other, and asked where each was from.  Turned out, they were both from Tampa, FL.  Kale and I had to join in.  We said hello, and told them we were from Arizona traveling around the globe for a year.  It was such a nice moment to have two fellow Americans with us that could relate to the craziness and culture shock of being in Egypt.  Heidi was the name of the lady, which was quite a coincidence, and gave the encounter a bit more meaning.  Terry was the gentleman, and we ended up exchanging cell phone numbers and emails with him.  He currently works in Alexandria, and lives near the Four Seasons.  As we left Starbucks, we had a positive feeling, and headed further down the beach to our destination. 

Further and further down the beach we headed until we found where we were supposed to meet our host.  This was about seven or eight miles from where we had stayed the previous night.  We found a coffee shop, and waited there for a couple hours.  By the time our host arrived it was around 4 pm.  We were so ready to settle into our accommodations, and head out to the beach!  Our host and his fiancé met us, and we started walking up the stairs to their apartment.  They live with his mother, and since they don’t use the place, they were going to let us stay there.  It was so generous of them, we were truly grateful for their hospitality.  After climbing the five flights of stairs, we entered the apartment.  Unfortunately it was under construction.  They told us that they were renovating it, and that was why it looked the way it did.  I then asked if there was a place to buy a bathing suit, and was told that bathing suits are not acceptable on the beaches here and that I would be better off wearing a loose t-shirt, and loose shorts.  Our hosts were anxious to leave us because they had an appointment to get to, so we let them drop us off at a grocery store, and we agreed to meet up with them after their Ramadan celebration around 8 pm.  We bought some dates and headed back to the apartment. 

Once we got back to the apartment I let Kale know that I did not want to stay there.  We were far from the west end of the beach, which was the location we preferred.  We figured we would go to the beach to watch the sunset, and plan out our next move.  I pulled on a loose-fitting t-shirt, a hoodie and my husband’s shorts so I wouldn’t be “inappropriate” on the beach and we headed back down the five flights of stairs and across the street to the beach.  We found a clear space, laid out our blanket, and sat down.  We were maybe there for five minutes when someone approached us, and told us we could not be there without tickets.  We asked where to buy tickets, and started walking in that direction.  There was no official ticket booth, and people are constantly trying to make a quick buck here, so the claim seemed odd to us.  We asked the random person who told us we needed to buy tickets how much, and he told us forty pounds.  We decided against paying the forty pounds because it didn’t seem worth it since the sun was setting at that moment.  We sat on the board walk for a few minutes to think, and some random guy ran up to us and started taking pictures of us.  That was when we decided to leave.  We were not in a place we wanted to be, and didn’t want to spend any more time trying to make it work.  We called our host and let him know we would not be staying there, and we were going to head back to the west end of the beach where our friend was staying.

We had travelled to Alexandria with Dustin, who is from Michigan.  We enjoyed his company, and figured we would head to where he was staying so we could hang out with him more.  We originally met him at our hotel in Cairo, and travelled to the Giza pyramids with him.  He has been traveling since April 2009, and has been a wealth of information as far as travelling in Southeast Asia, Nepal, China and India.  We’ve enjoyed his 

company, too.    

Here's a pic of the sunset...

We jumped on a microbus, and made the twenty-ish minute trip back to where we originally started that morning.  We walked into the Union Hotel (where Dustin was staying).  Luckily there was a double room available.  When Kale pulled out money to pay for our room, the attendant at reception asked us a question that made my heart skip a beat, “passports please?”  Shit! 


Our passports were at the Indian embassy in Cairo, and they were going to be ready for pickup on Sunday between 11:30 am and 2:00 pm.  Neither of us wanted to leave our passports behind, but everyone told us it would be fine as long as we had copies of them, state id's and passport information cards.  We went against our better judgement, needless to say, and the hotel we wanted to check into turned us down.  We handed the receptionist our passport info cards, state id’s and passport copies, but he wouldn't accept them.  We were screwed.  At the time, I was very irritated, but after further analysis into the situation, I totally understand the receptionist’s stubborn behavior and refusal to validate the credentials we tried to present in lieu of our passports.  He wanted to see the page of our passports that proved we had an Egyptian-issued visa.  As an Egyptian, he would have to go through a literal act of congress if he wanted to visit the USA.  From what our friend Ahmed told us, it takes Egyptians at least two months of administrative, bureaucratic nonsense to procure an American tourist visa.  We, as Americans, however merely need to show up in their country, pay twenty bucks and viola…we have a 30-day pass/visa to tour Egypt.  I am sure the receptionist was happy to turn us away from his hotel for not producing the proper documentation, and who could blame him? 

We left the hotel, and there in the middle of the busy sidewalk, I cried.  We found a hotel that would take the credentials we had on us, but it was a total dump.  There was no air conditioning, and no bathroom in our room.  Our room was next to a busy street that did not quiet down until at least four or five in the morning.  Ugh.

By Saturday, we were still in Alexandria, but planned to head back to Cairo on Sunday to get our passports and Indian visas, which would be conveniently attached to one of the pages.  We opted to stay in the shit hole for one more night.  Again, our room was right by the street where there was tons of traffic 24-7, horns honking and loud intermittent bursts of Egyptian music bellowing from the cars passing by.

We will probably stay in Cairo for the rest of our time in Egypt.  There is also a chance we might travel back to Luxor, or check out Sinai.