9 more days in Cairo

Nine days left in Cairo. We are staying with a great host via Couch-Surfing. Friends call him Blue, he is from Kuwait, has a great sense of humor and is an amazing host. He lives on a hill in the south east of Cairo. Not much to report otherwise. If we do something exciting while here, we'll post about it.

Here's a couple pics from Blue's roof top flat...

Pretty thick air here. :)

Later we will fill you in about "The Serial Killers from America" which is us...a funny story.

Back to Cairo - need passports back in our hands

We arrived in Cairo by train at around 13:30, which gave us 30 minutes to get to the Indian Embassy by the 14:00 closing time to get our passports. We had to run from the train station to the metro station, get on the crowded metro, get off at the 2nd stop, run up a few levels to the street, run to the embassy, and holy shit we made it by 14:58. The nice woman working the desk asked for our receipt that we paid last week and she handed us our passports with the nice new shiny visa for India. Now can go to India on the 18th of this month and have 6 months to roam the country. Once we arrive we have already lined up a host for us to stay with. We will be volunteering in the north, in the Himalayas. For the first month or so we plan to hang out on the beach near Goa and relax, soak up the sun, etc.

Train pics.

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.    

Cairo to Alexandria

We left Cairo yesterday via train, and arrived in Alexandria late afternoon.  This city is such a welcome change from the extreme heat we've been subjected to since arriving in Egypt.  Alexandria sits right on the beach, and feels like its in the 80s with a light breeze.  Getting here wasn't too bad either.  We took the metro to the train station in Cairo, and after battling the precarious queues at the ticket counter, we purchased first class tickets for 50 Egyptian pounds each ($8.00 USD), and boarded a spacious, air-conditioned train car with reclining seats.  It was a very nice way to make the two-hour trip.  While waiting to buy our train tickets, we were drenched in sweat from carrying our backpacks in the sweltering heat for more than an hour.  Then, the people here really have no concept of waiting their turn.  People kept cutting in front of us, and even when we finally got up to the counter and requested our tickets someone completely jumped in front of us to get money back for the ticket he had just purchased.  I was really annoyed with this person, and verbalized my disgust for his bad manners.  Kale told me to shut up, and accept the situation.  I told him to suck it:)  lol

When we arrived in Alexandria, the weather was perfect.  We headed toward the beach where we found the Union Hotel.

Typical street scene

  We were able to check emails, enjoy the sunset and buy beer.  The Union Hotel is Christian-owned, so they sell alcohol.  Because it is Ramadan, it is difficult to find bars that will serve you.  After relaxing for a bit, we set out to find dinner.  We walked up a street perpendicular to the Union, and stumbled upon prayer time.  There was a prayer bellowing over some speakers, and there were literally thousands of people praying in the street.  It was peaceful, beautiful, moving and nothing like anything I have ever witnessed.  I am so glad we're here during this time to experience this celebration.  After the prayer came to a close, people headed to their local cafe where they would spend the rest of the evening drinking juice, coffee, tea and smoking shisha.  The streets are busy until 3 or 4 am here.  Its so different from the schedule we're used to, and we haven't quite adjusted.  For dinner, we bought some pita bread, roasted corn-on-the-cob and lime-drenched fava beans off a street vendor.  We also had some hummus at a local restaurant on the beach.  Our entire dinner cost us about $2.50 USD.  We went back to our room around midnight, and took advantage of some intermittent sleep, awakening one or two times throughout the night via car horns and music.  Tomorrow evening, we will hopefully be able to enjoy an air-conditioned room:)

Some sunset pics

Cairo Day 3 – The Giza Plateau –

Before getting on the Metro, we snapped some pics at Tehrir Square...

On the Giza...

Finally, 30 some years after learning about the pyramids in school, reading books about them, reading mysteries and theories as to how they were erected-we finally got to see them on site. Heidi and I woke up around 0645 to meet up with our friend Justin, a fellow American traveling here. The three of us decided to embark on this journey together. Once we arrived all three of us were in awe of the superstructures. The immense size is so deceiving, any distance from them will distort the actual size, similar to looking at the Grand Canyon in AZ. It’s impossible to realize the size until you are standing at the foundations.  There are many pictures and I think we will post most of them below. We started at the Sphinx and then headed for Khufu, the largest pyramid.  We’ve been told that there is evidence of more chambers under the Sphinx but excavation wasn’t going to be allowed…hmm.

 You can faintly see the pyramids in the distance, pic taken from the freeway.

 At the entrance

The Great Sphinx of Giza - It is the largest monolith statue in the world, standing 241 ft long, 20 ft wide, and 66.34 ft high. Carved from a single block of stone, said to be built in 2500BC. There is possible evidence it was already buried in the sand at this time, carved much earlier.

 I didn't know it had a tail.

After drooling over the Sphinx, it was time to move on to the pyramids.  

The Great Pyramid of Giza also called the Pyramid of Khufu and the Pyramid of Cheops is the oldest and largest of the three pyramids in the Giza Necropolis. It is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the only one to remain mostly intact. "They" believe that the pyramid was built as a tomb for fourth dynasty Egyptian Pharaoh Khufu over an approximately 20 year period ending around 2560 BC. The dimensions are 480.6 ft in height, each base side was 755.9 ft long. The base covers 13 acres. The mass of the pyramid is estimated at 5.9 million tons. The volume, including an internal hillock, is roughly 90,000,000 cubic feet. Based on these estimates, building this in 20 years would involve installing approximately 800 tons of stone every day. Since it consists of an estimated 2.3 million blocks, completing the building in 20 years would involve moving an average of more than 12 of the blocks into place each hour, day and night. Each block weighing in at anywhere from 2 to 70 tons. The largest granite stones in the pyramid, found in the "King's" chamber, weigh 25 to 80 tons and were transported from Aswan, more than 500 miles away. It is estimated that 8,000 tons of granite was imported from Aswan. It is estimated that 500,000 tons of mortar were used in the construction of the Great Pyramid.  hmmm....methinks...


 Originally, the Great Pyramid was covered by casing stones that formed a smooth outer surface; what is seen today is core structure. Some of the casing stones that once covered the structure can still be seen around the base. 


The casing stones can be seen here at the top of the other pyramid, and at the base of the Great Pyramid

  I knew I was going to go inside the biggest one and I had in my mind I would spend any amount of money to accomplish this. As it turns out the ticket was LE100 to enter the pyramid of Khufu (Cheope’s). I figured any amount was worth spending to see something of this magnitude. Most people believe these are burial tombs; however we have seen the tombs at the Valley of the Kings. All the tombs have writings on the walls and the kings would often have possessions buried with them. The tombs in the valley were also clearly designed as such. If this was a tomb why aren’t there hieroglyphs or some evidence of one king’s life written on the walls? I know we couldn’t see every passage and room, but I saw the biggest chamber. While I was inside there were at least 2 passages that where blocked off from entry. "They" say there are three known chambers inside the Great Pyramid. This is the only pyramid in Egypt known to contain both ascending and descending passages. While inside, I saw one that was level, but blocked from any access...hmmm. I was able to enter the ascending passage. I could see pretty far down the paths that where blocked, too bad I couldn’t have gone in. Photos were not allowed of course, but I did catch some video.  I probably shouldn’t have, but why not. All should be able to see this and study it, aren’t we in the information age?

Video's will be posted later...

 I believe there is a main entrance as pictured below, where you see the huge stones positioned like a chevron.  The place I entered was below and to the right.

I’ve read a series of books suggesting this pyramid is actually much older than 2,500BC, perhaps as old as 10,000BC, in this series of books they suggest the pyramids were never built for the purpose of burial. Perhaps a beacon in the desert for something else, one could contemplate this forever. And if not for burial, why the chambers deep inside, why the alignment they have on the plain, why why why!… Guess I’ll keep studying.

After spending hours at Giza contemplating this vast undertaking, it was time to go. The three of us hopped on a bus and headed back to downtown Cairo.  A detour was in order, after standing at the edge of the Sahara all day, it was Miller Time! Well not Miller, but Sakara. Before getting to our hostel we stopped at Odeon hotel again and each downed two cold brews, ahhhh.  Now we could go back to the hotel, get some food and take a nap. Another one of the great mysteries of our planet checked off the list of things to be seen in person.  

 Oh, on the way back we snapped some photo's of the property owned by Mr. Mubarak, the former president of Egypt, ... they don't mess around here.

Nite...

Cairo day 2

Cairo Day 2 – Egyptian Museum

Not much to report here. We walked around our neighborhood, checked out Tahrir Square where the big riot/protest was back in January. There were still protestors sitting in the square. A military presence was nearly everywhere we walked. The main reason for our walk was to get to the Museum, and to locate some vegan friendly food, and possibly an ice cold Sakara. The museum was pretty amazing, especially the funerary mask of King Tut, which is made of solid gold, which is life size and features a Vulture and Serpent on its forehead. The museum was so huge, I’m sure we could have spent more time looking around, but because of Ramadan it was closing early. We rushed a little through the exhibits but felt we had gotten plenty of time to see the main attractions, including some mummies.

Tutankhamun's Funerary Mask, Personal Chest and Gilded Bed. There were hundreds of items taken from his tomb and are at the museum.

 On the way back to the hostel, we found a street market and bought some fruit and veggies from a nice old lady sitting on the sidewalk; it was great food at an amazingly good price. Once back to the room we ate and relaxed.

After a long day of walking around in the heat, then recovering, it was time to go back out. The time was bout 22:00 and the streets were alive with people everywhere, nothing like the daytime hours in Cairo. We found a rooftop hotel bar to finally get that cold Sakara then walked around and found a street coffee shop. Sitting in a huge open area was really cool, people everywhere celebrating Ramadan. The kids were lighting fireworks, music playing, flashing lights, etc.  We ordered 2 coffees and smoked a shisha pipe with mint leaves. Smoking these things was fun, it was really smooth on the lungs, and made us both a little light headed J Happy Times. After a couple hours it was finally bed time, at about 0200 we went walking back to our hostel. At this time the streets are still buzzing with action. Heidi and I decided we will go back to this same coffee shop tomorrow night, armed with or camera. We slept like babies. Oh, so far everywhere we’ve stayed there has been a Mosque next door; I’m starting to like the sound of the singing prayers from the Quran.

Cairo

This bus trip was a little too much for us, the bus was quite cramped, especially for me. Neither of us could sleep , we may have slept a couple times in 5-10 minutes increments, not enough to do much good. The bus left Luxor at 20:00 and headed north, stopping at a couple small towns along the way. I noticed we passed many police checkpoints too, normal for this area I'm sure. Heidi read most of the way, while I watched some movie playing on the bus, in Arabic of course. I had no idea what the movie was about, but it passed the time well. Once the Sun came up, I could see the Red Sea to our right, it was a beautiful sight for sure. We passed by Suez then headed west for Cairo. A total of 11 hours on this bus was finally over, not much more to say about it, except next time we will take the train, buy tickets earlier, etc, etc. :)

Our first order of business once off the bus was to go to the Indian Consulate to get our Visa for entering India later this month. I consulted the Xoom to find it was a 10 minute walk from the bus station, thank God, we are tired. We arrived early and had to wait about 30 minutes until they opened. Once inside it was a smooth transaction, our Visa's will be complete this Thursday morning! Very fast compared to getting this done in the US and A, great success!

Now its time to find the Hotel, Xoom says its about a 5 minute walk, and it was. Nice, we got to check in early, take a much needed shower then take a nap. Here's a few pics from the room.

Now it was time for a short walk around the neighborhood, it was pretty cool, lots of traffic and honking constantly.

                Tahrir Square is up the road in this pic, notice the military trucks, they were all over the place. We then went back to the room to search online for some restaurants

With no luck finding restaurants online, we decided to go on a walk again, this time going right next to the square, all was quiet, I didn't get pics though, there wasn't really anything to capture, plus there were many trees in the way. Maybe I'll get some pics tomorrow.

These are taken from the Hilton, overlooking the Nile and Cairo, nice view :)

A few minutes later we walked back toward the hotel, looking for a cafe or someplace to buy vegan friendly food. This took lots of effort with no apparent luck. Eventually we found a guy on the street selling pita bread, I bought a huge bag for LE6, $1.  Then walked across the street to a cafe for a coffee and sat in the street.

 Bread Good!, me hungry

 Here is the street bread vendor

When I went inside the little coffee shop to pay for our coffee's, these two men invited us to join them for dinner, so we did...finally we found some veggies, they shared all their food with us. 

They were more than happy to let us eat their food, nothing in return.

PS: Ramadan Starts tonight. :) good night.

Our new friends and family

Sunday evening we were invited to Sayed and Ahmed's home for tea and to meet their family. Sayed picked us up in his cab about 17:00. Our bus was leaving at 20:00 hrs so we went ahead and brought our backpacks with us. On the way to his village, we stopped at a family friends shop where she had womens clothing she had made herself. There Heidi bought a nice skirt for LE120, about $20.

After this, we walked through the village to their house. It was a nice cozy 3 story home, very colorful in decoration. Once inside Mom served us a cup of very good mint tea, a few minutes later we met the whole family; brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, all came up to visit us. We chatted for a while, then the girls took Heidi in the bedroom to help her fit her skirt properly. It was nice to see all ladies no matter what race, religion or creed enjoy some girl time. The boys and I stayed by the TV and watched the Futball game (Soccer to us mericans). Next thing we know, Mom gives Heidi a Hijab, or scarf, as a gift, and shows her how to wear it properly. Then one of the brothers gives me a necklace. The hospitality was beyond our expectations. We thoroughly enjoyed spending time with the family. Both of us wished we could have stayed much longer. We had to go soon, I figured we better get some photo's, I think we got almost everyone in the following pics.

We said our goodbyes and Sayed and Ahmed took us back to the bus station.