EGYPT!

Our port in Egypt was called Adabiya and it was one of the least attractive ports we’ve docked in. There was no town or city close by, just a lot of desert and some run down looking apartment buildings. I was traveling in Egypt with Corinne, Mio, Dave, Dan, and Andrew so we woke up really early to get off the ship and find a way to get to Sharm El Sheik. Our plan was to go to Sharm (a vacation/resort town on the coast with some of the best scuba diving/snorkeling in the world), and then make it to Luxor, Cairo, and up to Alexandria to meet the ship. The ship docked in Adabiya but it was going to travel through the Suez Canal and finally dock in Alexandria, and some students stayed on for the ride through the Suez.
We found a taxi and tried to bargain as much as possible, but usually the taxis that are right at the port are always overpriced and hard to talk down. We agreed on a price and got six of us in a taxi headed to the Suez Bus Station. We thought we had seen crazy driving in Vietnam but Egypt was much worse. Although there were distinguishable lanes the cars didn’t seem to stay in them very often. Our taxi would speed up behind a car in front of him and get inches behind it and then swerve around to pass the car. We started to get used to this after it happened about 12 times in a row. He was probably going about 85 miles an hour on a road that was not quite as nice as freeways in the US. We made it to the bus station after our near death cab ride and then ended up in a 20 minute argument with the driver about what we should pay him. We had agreed on a price at the beginning and then he started asking for more money from each of us. Luckily the boys were traveling with us because they were able to negotiate and we didn’t have to pay the extra. We stood in line for bus tickets at the outdoor station but we had a lot of trouble because there weren’t many people who spoke English, The weather was extremely hot but very dry, which was a nice change from the intense humidity we had been traveling in. We had been told to cover up with long sleeved shirts and pants out of respect for the culture in the Muslim dominated country. Women at the station wore pants or long skirts and long sleeved shirts as well as scarves wrapped around their heads covering their necks and hair. We definitely felt out of place and almost every person at the station was staring at all of us. It was pretty uncomfortable at first, but obviously we were clear outsiders so we expected to be stared at.
We finally got up to the front of the unorganized line to ask for tickets but Dave had found a driver who would take us to Sharm for about twice the price of a bus ticket ($12 each, and the tickets were $6 each). We thought that would be a better idea so we hired the man and got into a small van for the long drive to Sharm El Sheik. Luckily we made the right decision because the bus took about 7 hours but our driver got us there in 3 and a half. He took us to “Old Sharm” and we were automatically in awe of the town we arrived in. The drive had been purely desert and mountains with absolutely no scenery until we pulled off onto a stretch of road that led right down to the stunning blue ocean. We entered Old Sharm and saw restaurants, shops, tourists, and beautiful beaches. We were all pretty excited that we had picked this city to start off our tour through Egypt. After another long confusing cab ride we finally got to Naama Bay, which was the area that our hotel was in. We walked down the main road of the very touristy resort town and it was like being in “Egypt Town USA”. There were tons of hooka bars, restaurants (including a Hard Rock Café), hotels, shops, and even casinos lining the streets. It was an entirely new experience after spending time traveling in Asian, impoverished countries.
We walked for a really long time passing beach after beach and nice hotel after nice hotel. It actually started to look a bit like Cabo, which was something I never expected to find in Egypt. There was a small center of town and then a long stretch of paved walkway along the beach with hotels all on one side and restaurants all on the other side. We walked for a really long time, picking out which restaurant we wanted to come back to after we dropped our stuff at the hotel. We finally found the “Oonas Hotel” where we had booked rooms. It was at the very end and it was a small white building with balconies lining the second story, all looking out over the town and the ocean. It was much smaller than the other hotels and had no TV’s in the rooms but it was pretty cheap and perfect for us. We got two triples for the boys and the girls and put down our overstuffed and heavy backpacks. Every trip I have been on, whether it’s been one night or 4, I have managed to fit everything I needed into a regular sized north face backpack that I bought in Vietnam. I have been pretty surprised that I could live out of such a small bag, especially after being such an over-packer all my life. But it has been convenient to throw a backpack on rather than carting around heavy bags anywhere.
We left the hotel and found some lunch at one of the many restaurants on the beach. The view and the weather were incredible, and very unexpected. Egypt was one of the countries that I had almost no expectations for because I knew so little about it, and Sharm El Sheik was an incredible resort town that was a huge surprise. Almost everything was in English and there were foreign tourists everywhere. The only Egyptians around were men who worked at the hotels and restaurants. Everyone was running around bathing suits and resort wear, which was a shock since we had been so warned about staying covered up while anywhere in Egypt. We had some great food and took some time to relax and walk around the city. We also booked our snorkeling and scuba diving for the next day through our hotel. That night we decided to check out the bar that was on top of our hotel and it was absolutely incredible. It took up the whole roof and it was decorated with big wooden posts that looked like candles. There were red cushions and pillows organized into booths on the floor all overlooking the coast, which was lit up and beautiful. We were really happy with the view especially because our hotel was probably the cheapest one on the strip. After eating on the rooftop Dan, Mio and I headed out to see what the night life in Sharm was like. We walked to the main part of town and there was a good amount of people wandering around. We decided to go into the Hard Rock to get a drink and found out once we got inside that it was really expensive and basically filled with foreign men. We stayed for a while and then at midnight there was a huge dance party on the main floor. It was a very touristy and Euro in the bar and not too much fun so we walked back to our hotel and passed out after a long day.
The next morning we woke up early and had our complimentary hotel breakfast at the restaurant next door. We got outfitted with snorkeling gear and Dave and Andrew tried on all of their scuba gear. The hotel was also a dive center so they had everything we needed and a shuttle bus to take our group, and a few other tourists out to the harbor to get on our boat for the day. The harbor was in Old Sharm and was completely packed with almost identical looking boats. Our boat was about 45 feet long with 2 levels and lounging space on the top deck. There were 5 or 6 other people on the boat with us who were from Germany and the UK. The weather was really warm and the scenery was spectacular. The ocean water was crystal clear and surrounded by miles of tan sand and mountains. There was not any vegetation at all on the land around us. It looked like a sandwich of robin’s egg blue sky, the acres of bright tan desert, and then deep blue ocean for miles in every direction. I had to keep reminding myself that I was in Egypt because this was not at all what I would have expected. We stopped at three different places to snorkel and dive. The reefs in Sharm are supposed to be among the top 5 best places on earth to dive. Dan, Mio, Corrine and I snorkeled because we were flying to Luxor the next day and we would have had to wait a full 24 hours before getting on a plane. Dave and Andrew wanted to scuba dive so they went with the dive master and other tourists. The water wasn’t nearly as cold as the Pacific Ocean but it certainly wasn’t warm. Since it was October it was the end of the season so the weather had gotten a bit cooler. The four of us were outfitted in our flippers and scuba masks and we had some time at each spot to explore the reefs. I’ve been diving in Tahiti and Mexico but this was better then anything I’d ever seen. The water was really clear and the reef was close enough to the surface that there were hundreds of fish absolutely everywhere. They swam close enough to us that we could touch them and there was so much to see I barely had to even swim around. I basically just floated for a bit and watched the range of sea life below me. The fish we saw were every shape and size and a crazy range of colors. In every crevice of the coral there were sea creatures and fish to see. The snorkeling was phenomenal and the boys said that the diving was even more exciting. They got some great underwater pictures of a huge octopus, sting ray, and a small shipwreck. We lounged on the boat for a while on the way back and took tons of pictures of the amazingly unique scenery. The sun setting behind the Egyptian desert and reflecting on the water was one of the most memorable times of my entire trip.
While on the boat we started talking to another tourist about our trip. His name was Terry and he was from the UK. He traveled internationally for business and told us all about his company and then asked if we’d like to be taken out to an authentic Egyptian meal. Terry had a friend in Sharm named Muhammad, who worked for him as a translator (the guy spoke 9 languages!), so he called him up to ask where we should all go out. After we got back to the hotel and showered we met Terry and Muhammad and hopped in a cab toward Old Sharm. They were both extremely nice and told us all about the culture and the area. We hadn’t really had authentic food from the country so it was great to have a chance to try it. The restaurant was outdoors in the middle of Old Sharm and Muhammad ordered us a range of dishes. We had all sorts of dips (that were a bit like hummus) with pita bread and a few kinds of meat to eat with the bread also. One meat dish looked like ground beef but in sausage form. Corinne and I had the same meat the day before in our sandwiches and we figured it was just an interesting tasting beef. Beef in each country was a little different, especially in hamburgers (every one I’ve had has been pretty bad, except for at the McDonald’s in Kobe, Japan). I started asking Muhammad if people in Egypt ate camel meat often and he said that they did, and that it was the cheapest meat. Then I asked if it tasted good because I wanted to try it and he said, “You tell me, you just ate it”. So apparently that ground beef/sausage looking meat had actually been camel and I had eaten it twice before I even knew what it was. It made me a little sick to think about because I knew it had tasted funny but after eating snake I think I can keep anything down.
Dinner was delicious and Terry was nice enough to treat the six of us to the meal. It ended up being pretty cheap but if we had been on our own without Muhammad there we probably would have gotten a “tourist price”, which would have been higher than the regular restaurant price for dinner. We walked through the town and the shopping areas that all carried pretty much the same things: hookahs, t-shirts, wooden games, and other souvenirs. Muhammad and Terry brought us to a show after dinner at a place that was kind of touristy but every night there was traditional dancing and it was in a really cool outdoor area. We all sat around a big round stage on couches while women and men performed amazing dances. The show was fairly long and we were all exhausted so we headed back to the hotel and thanked Terry for his generosity. It’s always nice to meet someone who knows the area so that you can spend less time trying to find the good places to go, especially in a new foreign country. Dan, Mio, Corinne, and I had made arrangements to fly to Luxor the next morning and we had to be ready to go at 5am. We found a fairly cheap tour that included flights to and from Luxor as well as meals and tours when we got there. Dave and Andrew stayed to do another day of diving.
The early wake-up call was pretty painful especially because the guy didn’t speak English and just kept saying “bus Cairo now!”. He woke us up at 4:30am saying that and we were all confused because they told us 5am and we knew we weren’t going to Cairo. We figured it out eventually and made it to our shuttle that took us to the airport. There were a bunch of other foreign tourists with us and they divided us between English speakers and Russian speakers. The flight to Luxor was really short and easy and we boarded a bus when we landed to start our day of touring. I can’t remember the exact details of some of the things we saw but I think out of any tour I have been on this entire trip, this day was my absolute favorite. Egyptian history was fascinating. Our guide would tell us details about the lives of the pharaohs that were really interesting and the places we got to walk around in and touch were literally thousands of years old. The hieroglyphics all over the place were incredibly well preserved. The massiveness of many of the structures, columns, and statues was overwhelming. I can’t describe all of the places we went because it was a jam packed day but I’ll mention my favorite parts, and of course I’ll have tons of pictures to show everyone when I get back.
My favorite site was the Temples of Karnak. We walked along pathway lined with about 25 stone carved animals on each side that were almost all identical and were each bigger than me. The entrance itself was absolutely huge and once we were inside (technically this was all outdoors) we were surrounded by tons of gigantic pillars. They were all evenly spaced apart and covered in detailed pictures and hieroglyphics carved into the stone. When I was standing among the pillars it reminded me a bit of how small you feel when you stand between huge Redwood trees, except that these were manmade. Each pillar must have been at least 12 feet across (I’m pretty bad at estimating this stuff but this is a guess) and around 50 feet tall. The sun came in at all angles and cast huge shadows everywhere, which made it even more amazing. When we left this area there were two Obelisques that had been carved out of the red granite quarries in Aswan, Egypt and were erected by Queen Hatshepsut (whose father was Tuthmosis I). They were extremely tall and skinny, covered in carvings and coming to a point at the top. There were statues, walls, carvings, and huge structures everywhere making me feel like I was an ant. There was also a “Sacred Lake”, built by Tuthmosis III, which covered 3200 meters and the priests used to purify themselves before performing their rituals in the Karnak Temples. I still cannot believe this place exists and has existed for thousands of years, because I have never seen anything so impressive.
We also went to the Valley of the Kings, which is an area of desert/mountains in which there are over 60 tombs of kings carved into the land. These tombs were meant to stay a secret, but since they were created there have been numerous tomb robbings and they were al discovered. The area itself looks barren and dry, just like the rest of the desert around it. The tombs have now been open for people to view so each one has a marked entrance and stairs down into it. From outside I would never have guessed that there were entire extensive rooms that existed within the land. We got to look at a few of the tombs and the interiors were really unexpected. The walls were absolutely covered in pictures and hieroglyphics, which have probably undergone restoration but looked as if they could have been done less than a hundred years ago. There were literally thousands of characters and pictures either carved or painted within the walls of the tombs. At the bottom there was the main room with the sarcophagus inside, and of course all of the mummies and riches of the tomb were taken out and most were at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
The historical sites in Luxor were fantastic but the best part of the day was the sunset on the Nile. We boarded a small boat with our tour group and sailed down the Nile as the sunset. The scenery wasn’t particularly interesting, along the sides were buildings and other boats, as well as fields, camels, and a few people here and there. But the actual sunset was one of the best I have ever seen in my life. Everything was gold and orange and the clouds turned pink as the sun faded into the horizon. We took a ton of pictures and loved every minute of the boat ride. After the long, hectic day we headed back to the airport for our short flight back to Sharm El Sheik. When we got back to Sharm our tour bus hadn’t shown up so we just stood outside the airport waiting with everyone. Every other group had left with their buses and after about 10 minutes we were really the only people in the entire airport. A security officer came up to us and asked why we were still there and we told him our tour company was supposed to pick us up. The guy had a badge on his arm that said “Tourist Police” and he started getting all worked up and said that he needed the name of the tour company because it was a problem to have tourists standing around. He said that the company could be charged with a Felony for leaving us there. I have no idea what the tourist police is, or what they do, but it seemed like a pretty big deal. This was the only place I have ever been where it isn’t ok to wait at the airport. Our bus finally came and the officer had a stern talk with the driver, who looked like he was about to cry. I’m not sure how it was all resolved but we were just happy when they figured things out because we wanted to get back to the hotel and get some sleep.
We met Dave and Andrew back at the hotel and found out that they actually didn’t go diving that day. Dave had been really sick with a cold and fever the few days before and after diving one day he decided to go to a doctor at a nearby hotel. He finally got some antibiotics and decided diving wasn’t such a great idea. We all had dinner and a pretty calm night that night. The next morning we slept in and wandered around a bit before catching the 10:30am shuttle to the bus station were we caught a seven and a half hour bus ride to Cairo. We had planned on originally taking this bus overnight so that we didn’t miss a day but I am so glad that we took it during the day. There were assigned seats and the bus was totally full. Four of us got the seats in the very back of the bus that didn’t even recline so it was a good thing that we weren’t too tired. They actually played the movie “Gladiator” in English on TV’s in the bus so that was a good way to pass a lot of time. Taking the bus was a lot cheaper than a flight to Cairo and the seven hours passed by pretty easily. We got off at the bus station in Cairo and it was a completely different environment then Sharm or Luxor. Cairo is a HUGE city with the Nile running through it and a huge percentage of the population of Egypt lives in Cairo. Something like 80% of the country is basically uninhabitable desert so a huge portion is centered in Cairo and a few other cities that are located on the coast or near the Nile.
We negotiated with a cab driver (two of them were fighting with each other and one was offering a lower price but the other guy said he had no idea where he was going), and arrived at a hotel that we had picked out of a Lonely Planet guidebook. It has been really surprising how many cab drivers will pick you up in a foreign country when they have no idea where they are going and try to take you somewhere else (usually somewhere that they are getting a commission for taking you to, like a shop or hotel). Our cab driver spoke pretty good English and seemed pretty honest (it’s always hard to tell, and we were really cautious of being scammed) so he offered to drive us around to all of the sights of Cairo the next day for a pretty good price and we decided that was a good idea. The hotel we wanted was booked but there was another one a few floors above it in the same building that had one room they said they would put all six of us in. We were too tired to look around and it was only $100 a night for all of us there so we took it. There were originally 3 twin beds in the room but they brought in one more so we could push three together and have five of us sleep there. Dave had his own bed in the corner and we were all joked that he was quarantined there because he was still sick. We walked down the street looking for dinner, and the hotel was located in a pretty good area. We finally got in a cab because we had no idea where we were going and he took us into the busy part of the city to a good restaurant.
After dinner we came back to our hotel room to watch some TV and sleep. It’s nice having some time in hotels to watch TV while in port because on the ship there is no TV, only movies that play in our rooms sometimes. We woke up the next day to see what there was to see in Cairo. The first half of the day wasn’t too eventful, we saw two mosques that were pretty impressive and walked around some of the city streets. Then our driver took us to a place where we could get either camels or horses to ride out to see the pyramids. We decided to get three horses and three camels so that we could switch if we wanted to. Corinne and I wanted horses because we had heard that the camels were really uncomfortable and when you rode one you were like 10 feet off the ground. I’ve never been up close to a camel before this but they were absolutely disgusting. I don’t think there is any animal besides spiders that I hate more than camels. They were huge and dirty and kept making this gross bellowing noise. Their teeth are huge and covered in green and yellow filth, and they basically always look angry, especially when their mouths are open. Needless to say, I was happy to be on a horse. We all walked out through the streets past tons of small stables that rented out horses and camels for tourists to see the pyramids. It was strange though because they were all lining concrete streets, and I had never imagined this is where you would find stables. We walked for about 15 minutes, slowly, before we made it out to a field that connected the end of the street and the desert. We headed out into the desert on camel and horseback, excited to see an ancient wonder of the world. The pyramids were really surreal. We saw them at first from a distance and all took pictures with them but they basically looked like a backdrop, and like they weren’t really there. Also the city of Cairo is built really close to them, which I hadn’t expected. From the pyramids you can see the city a few hundred meters away to the side. We took our tourist pictures and then decided to get up close and see that they really looked like. As we walked up to the pyramids they looked like they were growing because they hadn’t seemed to be so gigantic from far away. The bricks of stone that formed the base were literally like three by six feet each. I cannot imagine how they were built without cranes and modern machinery. Each bottom stone looked like it would have needed at least six people to carry it. The size of the blocks got progressively smaller toward the top and formed an uneven surface that looked like giant rectangular tan gravel. At the very top there was a section of small bricks layered to make a smooth surface but that only covered the top 30 feet or so and the rest of the surface was uneven and scattered. It was incredible to see these things that looked like triangular mountains of sand from far away, become more and more detailed and massive as we approached them. I was really impressed and so happy to have been able to see the pyramids. We saw the Sphinx as well, which was only a few hundred feet away. On the way back I decided to switch my horse with someone and ride a camel, for the experience. I think that was the worst decision I have made in any country. The camels sit down on their long legs while you climb on top of them and then they stand up first with their back legs (and throw you forward), and then with their front legs. After I got up it was kind of exciting to be so far off the ground sitting on a saddle but after about five minutes I hated the camel ride. I really haven’t been a big complainer about things I’ve done while traveling but I don't think I have ever been so uncomfortable. The first problem was that the saddle on the camel was leaning about 6 inches to the right so in order to stay on I had to pull myself over to the other side the whole time. Also because of the heat I had long linen pants that were perfect for traveling but miserable for camel riding. I regretted getting off of my horse but the boys were ecstatic that they had gotten off of the camels. It was a long ride back to the stables, but I guess if I had to have a miserable camel riding experience anywhere, this would be the place to do it. We got back to our taxi driver and headed to the hotel to use some internet and take naps before dinner because it was another exhausting day. It was also Dave’s 22nd Birthday, and really unfortunately for him, he was still pretty sick and waiting for the medicine to kick in. Mio planned out a little cake and card to surprise him with even though we all knew he didn’t like sweet stuff so the five of us ate his cake and let him go back to sleep while we went out to dinner. We walked for a really long time to find a restaurant we had heard about but it was definitely worth it because the food was fantastic. Afterwards Andrew, Dan, and I went to the bar/club at the Hilton to see if there was any nightlife but there were about 5 people there so we made our way back to the hotel.
The next morning we woke up and decided to spend a few hours at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Out of any museum I have ever been to I think this had the most fascinating things. Inside it things weren’t displayed or protected very well at all, or at least compared to in US museums. The best part was going to the “Mummy Room” to see the actual mummies of a bunch of different kings and other figures of Egyptian history. To have only a thin layer of glass between myself and a human body that was thousands of years old was unreal. This definitely made history come alive more than in any other museum or historical site that I have been to. We also saw animal mummies, and the coolest was a huge crocodile that was mummified with a baby croc in its mouth. I was amazed at how well preserved everything was, and that they were all just displayed in thin glass and wooden cases that you could walk right up to. There were multiple times when I would look at something in the museum and realize that it had been on the cover of a history book or I had seen it on TV. It was absolutely packed with history and there was a ton to look at. As we left the museum we walked out the gates and along the sidewalk where there was a man sanding down the end of a thick metal pipe with a power tool. He was using a metal circular sanding blade (or disk, I’m not too sure about my power tool terminology) and there were sparks flying everywhere, the guy wasn’t even wearing goggles. Having the overly cautious instincts of my dad, I realized how unsafe that looked and starting walking as quickly as I could past the guy. Of course, 5 seconds later as I was about 20 feet away from it, I heard a loud cracking noise and it felt like I had been whipped with something hot on the back of my arm. I put my bag down and freaked out a little because it stung and I didn’t know what had happened. The blade had shattered into pieces and out of the 6 of us I was the one who got hit with a chunk of it. Luckily it didn’t really break the skin but I had a pretty good welt and a story to tell.
After that we took taxis to the station to make our train from Cairo to Alexandria. The train station was pretty cool and it was a cheap and fast way to get to where the ship was docked. The scenery along the train tracks was fascinating, from fisherman in the small river to shantytowns and farming. I have found that train rides are usually great ways to see scenic areas of any country and I have really enjoyed all of them. We arrived back in Alexandria with enough time to get a glimpse of the town and walk around a bit. We grabbed some delicious food in an alleyway restaurant by basically pointing at what other people were eating because there was no English menu. The town of Alexandria is right on the water and it was really gorgeous. The library was amazing, from the outside it looked like a big disk made of windows that was lodged into the land. I wish we had more time to check out the sights in Alexandria but we had to get back on the ship and we had seen a lot of Egypt.
I’m writing this pretty late after having been to Turkey and Croatia already, it was hard to keep up with only 2 days between ports. At the time I would have said that Egypt was my favorite country of the whole voyage but now that I have been to Turkey and Croatia there is tough competition. Having the chance to see so many cities and aspects of Egypt was incredible. I was really pleased with this trip and I had a great 5 friends to travel with. Egypt was so much more than I expected and I’m so happy to have had the chance to go, especially as a young person at a time when traveling to that part of the world is not very ideal. I got some great souvenirs and fantastic pictures and I can’t wait to share them with you all! Keep the comments coming, and I’ll get the Turkey blog up as soon as I can!