Going to Alexandria for three days. I'll finish the story about Siwa when I get back, which will include but not be limited to:

• How we almost died, at least six times
• How we stopped our hearts
• The man who ate fire
• The best meal I've ever had
  
• A pants-off dance-off contest with the Berbers
• Wild dogs and midnight hot springs
• How to sleep in the Sahara

PLUS! Bonus picture album and collection of YouTube videos of our adventures. Get excited.

After that, I will tell you the tale of the Cairo Zoo, in which our heroine holds a lion. Not kidding.

With love,

How to See the Sahara, Pt. 1

After our placement test on Tuesday (which left us in pain), we found ourselves milling about the AUC gardens wondering what to do with ourselves for the next four days before our advising meeting. Somehow the topic of travel came up. Sarah's roommate was planning a trip to Sharm el-Sheik, a resort town on the Red Sea. We could go there. Jacob, who had spent the last week backpacking around southern Egypt (Aswan and Luxor), suggested we avoid touristy towns and airfare and go to Dahab, Jordan by ferry, and leave tonight. Unfortunately, that would exclude Hafsa, whose green card status made traveling a bit more difficult. She had refugee status in the United States (she's Kashmiri), but an Indian passport, and had to wait for some official approval before she went out of the country. We started looking for possibilities within Egypt, and that's when someone mentioned Siwa.

Siwa is an oasis town (the red dot on the map) about 50 km from the (mined!) Libyan border. Wikipedia puts it as being settled since the 10th millennium BC, and its famed oracle was a favorite of Alexander the Great. While it's rumored that he's buried there, no evidence of it exists. Today, Siwa is home to about 22,000 people, all of whom are ethnic Berbers. They speak their own language, Siwi, but begin learning Arabic and English as soon as they enter the madrasas. (NB: While many people think a madrasa is a purely religious or Islamic teaching center, madrasa simply means "school." It's the noun form of the verb "to study," darasa.)

We looked at some of the pictures of Siwa and the descriptions of our travel books. Sitting in natural hot springs watching the sun set over the Sahara desert? We could do that. Quickly, logistics were sketched out: leave Wednesday morning by bus, return Friday night. As for the days in the middle? We'd fill them in somehow. Maybe take a day trip out to one of the more remote oases, or explore the city. We didn't have much of a plan, but it did involve bringing one native speaker of Arabic along. Hammad, our friend from school back home, is Palestinian, and would prove to be invaluable on the trip.

Wednesday came and we all managed to make it to the Cairo bus station by 7:30. Those with bigger backpacks warily turned them over to a nice man who put them in the storage compartment under the bus, and prepared to never see them again. It took us about an hour to get out of the city with the morning traffic, and provided an interesting view of the city at morning. Most of us tried to sleep, but for some reason I wasn't tired, so I watched out the window for awhile and then turned to my book (pleasure reading!), American Gods by Neil Gaiman. Highly recommended.

Then the movie started. I swear to you, I have never heard sound quality so bad in my life. It didn't help that we all were seated directly under the speakers for the entire back half of the bus. The audio cracked, buzzed, hummed and whined at a volume unnecessary for any time of the day, let alone morning. As you can see from the picture, sleeping was done with the utmost of effort. I rocked the iPod, and tried to stick to culturally relevant selections. That means stuff like Habibi Ya Nour El Ein by Egyptian superstar Amr Diab, and Ah Wah Nos by the sharookh Nancy Ajram. It quickly disintegrated to tenuously tied songs like Insha'Allah by Goodie Mob or Ya Habibi Yalla by the Gypsy Kings, and by the time we hit the desert, it was The Rolling Stones and Lil' Kim.

Our plan was to take this first bus out to Marsa Matrouh, and then take the bus to Siwa. We stopped in the middle of the desert for prayers at a roadside mosque, and it became suddenly apparent how much of nothing there was. To the left, nothing. North, nothing. Just flat, hot sand. We passed kilometer after kilometer of completely anonymous land. Once in awhile, the bus would slam to a stop at no discernible landmark. A wave of panic would wash over our faces in the back row: surely this was the time the bus would break down in the middle of the Sahara, leaving us at the mercy of the sun and the passing trucks. But instead the bus was letting people off. Where they were going was anyone's guess.

As we wound our way west, we eventually got close enough to the Mediterranean coast to see some glimpses of water. Brilliant, blue and flat, the shoreline was absolutely empty. Every now and again we would pass groups of abandoned and windowless homes. They stood, copses of corpses, suggesting a better time.

Jacob and I commented on the lack of development of the coastal areas. Our general opinion was that in the United States this would be a resort town, full of hotels and beaches and shops. For a country that relies so heavily on tourism, Egypt needs to diversify. But it's more than that; tourism is not a steady source of national revenue, especially in the Middle East. A string of bombings in Cairo or Alexandria could cripple the economy. Here, where foreign investment has been discouraged or prevented since the days of the Suez crisis, indigenous industries suffer. There's the potential for Egypt to be the next Sweden, where a bit of external venture capital and a heavy focus on a specific emergent technology transformed their economy. But that can't happen without the government loosening its control over capital flow, and that's definitely not going to happen soon. It's too late, anyway, for the tumbling ghost towns of the coast.

We just barely made it onto the bus at Marsa Matrouh, a smaller Egyptian city. Men wore more traditional garb, and most women were wearing the niqaab instead of the hijab like in Cairo (hijab is just a head scarf; niqaab is a head scarf/veil combination leaving only the eyes present). Hammad and I watched the sun sink on the ride to Siwa, looking for the triangle signs that market the mine fields that were supposedly just over the horizon. We never saw any. We arrived at dusk.

Hotel Yousef had been recommended to us by a kid in our program at AUC who had been there before. He said it was cheap, and he was right. It was about $3 USD per night, and wasn't that dirty. The girls had our own bathroom. There were flies, but no mosquitoes or cockroaches, and that's about all you can ask for. Our first adventure was to the roof, where we caught some amazing views of Siwa and Shali (the ancient town in ruins) at sunset.

The town was small, and had an old-world feel to it. While there were some cars, the main mode of transportation was by a donkey cart.

We went out to find somewhere to eat, and eventually stumbled across a restaurant that seated us around a campfire in a palm tree grove. We were the only people in the place, ordered lots of food and tea, and came out only about $4 poorer. The exchange rate of about 5.5 Egyptian pounds (LE) to the dollar is incredible, especially in the less touristy areas that don't charge Western-style prices. That night we sat on the roof of our hotel and talked until midnight, making tenuous plans to hire a guide for the next day and venture into the Sahara.

In the morning, we split up; the girls went to run errands (internet cafe, bank, pharmacy) and the boys went to price shop for a safari tour. We met back up at the mosque at 10am, to hear that the boys had found a guy willing to take us to the hot and cold springs at Bir Wahed, about 20 km outside Siwa, and then a camp at night for a fire and dinner. We would be back by 9am on Friday, time enough to catch the 10am bus back to Marsa Matrouh or Alexandria. The cost? 80 pounds each. It was an amazing deal. Because we were going closer to the Libyan border, military permits were required, and this meant we had to wait until the afternoon to leave. We checked out of Hotel Yousef, and decided to get some food.

We had an amazing breakfast across the street from our hotel. For about $2 each we got about six dishes, all eaten with fresh baked bread, and mint tea. While in Cairo we're not supposed to eat most vegetables and dairy products, in Siwa we indulged. Fresh vegetables washed with clean spring water and cheese from local goats is fine. My favorite was cream and honey, which when scooped up with a piece of warm pita is delicious.

With time to kill before our 2pm departure for the desert, we decided to climb the old fortress that rises above the old town of Shali. Wandering out of the town proper and into a more residential area, we were trying to find the way up to the summit when we attracted the attention of a group of kids playing in the street. Hammad asked them how to get to the top, and they said they would take us.

I never knew how many kids there were all together, but at any given time there were about 7 or so clambering about on rocks showing us secret paths, caves, and the best way to the top. None of them spoke English, but Hammad was able to talk to the oldest, Mohammad, who gave his age as 12, 15 or 10, depending upon who asked. I gave them some chocolate wafers I had in my backpack, Jacob gave them gum, and we all handed them 25 or 50 piaster (like cents) notes for their services. We made it to the top, and the view was incredible. My favorite quote of that adventure was from Hafsa, as we were walking through the narrow streets lined with clay houses, followed by a swarm of children: "This is so NatGeo." (We have some great pictures of us with the kids, but they're on Hammad's camera, who hasn't uploaded them yet.)

Mohammad wanted to take us to his house, and although we didn't have much time left before our tour, we couldn't say no. Siwi homes are made of a clay that is not water-resistant; every 30 years or so they are rebuilt. Inside his house, it was dark and cool. We took our shoes off, and Mohammad gave us pillows to sit on. We found out that four families lived there, with at least 15 children wandering in and out of the main room at any given time. They had a TV, and were watching Arab music videos. Also, there was a goat.

The girls, who had stayed inside during our mountaintop adventure, sat with us, and we tried to converse in broken Arabic. It's not too polite for men to talk to girls, so the three of us made an attempt. Eventually, Hammad just started talking to them, and translated for us. The eldest girl, probably about 13, asked where we were from. America, he told them. Have you heard of it? Her response, as translated: "Of course I have. Everyone has. And why do you speak Arabic? You learn that in school? Here in Siwa, we learn English and Arabic in our schools, but you only learn English." We didn't really have a response for that. It's amazing to see how informed and knowledgable even the children are here. I had never heard of Egypt until the 5th grade; I had never heard of Siwa until yesterday.

It would have been interesting to talk to them more, as they were all really bright and probably had some good insight into more traditional Egyptian culture, but we had to go. On our way out, we played an impromptu game of soccer on the street with about 20 little kids. Chaos, but fun. We said goodbye to our guide Mohammad, who asked to meet us the next day in the morning when we returned from the desert to show us Siwa. We agreed on a meeting time and place, but as it turns out, we never made it.

We went to pick up some snacks: chips, fresh fruit and Siwa bottled water for the desert. Hammad got into a lot of conversations with friendly shopkeepers, one of whom tried to give us the food for free. Again, Hammad translated their conversation, as it was over all of our heads. Basically, while there is a strong negative perception of the US government in the region, the man wanted to stress to us (and for Hammad to take back to America) that he sees Americans as individuals, and has found them to be warm and friendly. He told Hammad that it was his duty as an American Muslim to spread the corollary: that all Muslims are not defined by the actions of a few. This was the same opinion that Ali had given us earlier in the week at lunch before the Pyramid adventure, and it seems to be the general sentiment we've been given so far.

After that, it was time to hit the desert. We met up with our driver, Ali, at the Palm Trees Hotel, and climbed into the back of an old Toyota truck with two bench seats and a roof. We picked up an Egyptian couple, probably from Cairo, as well, and set out west. As we bumped and jostled over the small sand dunes and previous tire tracks, Ali's friend in the front seat handed us a guest book, filled with inscriptions of travelers past. All raved about the experience: beautiful stars, great water, delicious food. Some comments were in English, some in Arabic, some in German, some in French. For some reason, all the comments in French said the same thing: "Ali est un chauffeur fou." A crazy driver. It couldn't be that bad, right?

We hit our first stop, where we were encouraged to take pictures. Like I said at the Pyramids, pictures really can't do it justice. We snapped like crazy, but it's hard to capture the color and the emptiness that the Sahara really means. I wrote my name in the sand. Ali drew some pictures. We moved on.

Our next stop was a warm springs in the middle of the desert that smelt faintly of sulphur. We spent a long time there, as other travelers from other safari outfits joined us. While it was pretty remote, and most people there were western, us girls swam with long tshirts and shorts covering our bathing suits. No need to be too scandalous. The water was aerated through a pipe in the middle, which gave, as Ali called it, a great massage. We tried to teach Hafsa how to float on her back, which just ended up with us looking like we were trying to baptise her. The entire time, I kept thinking: we are in the middle of the Sahara. We are almost in Libya. And we are in a hot spring almost as warm as any hot tub. It was surreal.

Eventually we were getting too warm, and it was time to go to the cold springs. We all got out, toweled off, and headed back to the truck.
I had one foot inside when Ali stopped me.

"Do you want to ride on the roof?"

And this is where we learned what chauffeur fou really meant.

Baksheesh

I'm not sure if I was the first to see the man approaching us, or if we all saw it at the same time. Peaking over the crest of another sand dune was a second man on a camel, similarly costumed and armed. He kept his distance, but the first man kept coming. From the back of the line, Mahmoud shouted something in Arabic at our guide on the white donkey. The donkey broke into a trot, and the camels begrudgingly and half-heartedly followed suit. We were now attempting to run away from an armed man on a camel in the Sahara. Huh.

I looked over my shoulder to see if perhaps the quickly approaching man had some other destination in mind, but all was sand. I glanced at the train of camels bearing my friends, but none of them met my gaze; they were all staring at the man in blue.

Later I would come to find out that they all had similar thoughts:

This is where they take us out into the desert and kill us.
They're going to take my money and my passport. Oh, why did I bring my passport into the desert?
Of all the ways to die, I guess this is one hell of a way to go out.

And then things got cool.

As our camel train headed farther into the desert, Mahmoud peeled off and met the man on camelback halfway. They seemed to know each other, with a cool familiarity that suggested they did this often, but were not friends. I watched as Mahmoud slipped a hand under his black tunic and withdrew something. The man shifted on his camel. A row of brass buttons caught the light of the sinking desert sun, and I knew: police. The officer palmed Mahmoud's offering and turned his camel around. He disappeared as easily and as quickly as he had emerged.

Mahmoud rode up beside Sarah and Hafsa, and shouted, "We are taking you to where you can see not just the three big Pyramids, but all of the little ones too!" We all just nodded, and said nothing. Later it would become apparent what we all now knew: we were on the back side of the Pyramids. The side tourists can't go to. Behind the fence. Off the map. The beginning of the Sahara, patrolled by guards who could be bought for a price.

Later, when we finally reached the vantage point Mahmoud had been talking about, we grouped together. "This is illegal," somebody whispered. "We're not supposed to be out here." It was probably true, I realized, as I looked around, saw the Pyramids, and absolutely nothing. There should be tour buses, or pushy children hocking trinkets. Instead, there was the odd remnant of a shelter here, a crumbling stone foundation there, and lots of trash. Illegal. I thought on that. It would come to be a theme in our later adventures. Is it still illegal if its implementation is flexible or for sale? Several times that day throughout our Saharan sojourn, various police officers similarly outfitted would approach Mahmoud, and the same interchange would occur. We ourselves were never bothered. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Mahmoud was right, though. Once we finally reached this magic viewpoint, the sight was spectacular. I was cursing myself for deciding not to bring my camera to the information session that morning, but Hafsa and Aliyah were taking pictures for us all. We said it over and over that day, and in the ones to follow, that no camera could really get Egypt or the Pyramids right. The color of the stones. The vastness of the desert. The surrealness of their magnitude. It's really just something you have to see for yourself, and I hope you all do someday.

In the far off distance we saw a mass of tour buses, and various buildings. We guessed that was the "touristic entrance" to the site. After taking our panoramic shots, Mahmoud said it was time for us to "touch a Pyramid." So, we did. We followed our guide to the Pyramid of Khafre, the middle structure and the only one to retain part of its limestone coating. It is smaller than the Pyramid of Khufu ("the Great Pyramid"), but appears larger due to its angle of construction and the elevation of the ground around it.

We parked our camels at its base. My recalcitrant camel all but refused to kneel, and did so only after the encouragement of a whip or two by Mahmoud. It was nearing 4:00, at which time the entrance to the tomb apparently closed. You would expect large tour groups milling about, mass photos being taken by loud foreigners, but there was nothing. It was practically deserted.

The ticket office was a leaning shack where a man on a couch took your money, and the only people around were Egyptians. Mahmoud told us we weren't allowed to bring our cameras in, so we didn't try. A throng of Egyptians were at the entrance to the tomb, but the guard was not letting them in. It was only 3:45, but apparently it didn't matter. Men were arguing, the officials were distracted, and the six of us slipped past the gate. The guard looked annoyed. We passed under a rusting metal archway and began our descent into the Pyramid of Khafre.

The ground sloped significantly, and our traction was only maintained by a sporadic lattice of wood nailed into the walkway. The ground was lit, and the air was heavy.

We passed a man in the narrow hallway who told us in English to hurry up, that they were closing. Just as the path had fallen into the ground, it rose back up; we climbed until we reached a small room with an open stone coffin at one end. We looked around, and saw that it was the end of the line. This was apparently all there was to it, but we were inside a damn pyramid, so we didn't really care. As the air hung thick around us, Jacob suggested we tip the gatekeeper for allowing us in. Begrudgingly, we did--what did he do but operate within posted business hours?!--and made our way out of the pyramid.

Tipping, or baksheesh, in Egypt is a way of life. In the West, we tip for explicit services rendered. A porter for our bags, or our waitress at a restaurant. In Egypt, it goes beyond that. Certainly, this facet of tipping is included in baksheesh, but the man at the Radio Shack who opens the door for you expects money too. Sarah found this out about two minutes into Egypt, when she used the bathroom at the Cairo airport. A woman staffing the restroom handed her a roll of toilet paper, and a paper towel to dry her hands. Taken aback, Sarah said "Uhh...thank you?" to which the old woman replied by sticking her hand out for money.

But baksheesh goes beyond tipping everyone and their mother. Another of its uses is for the granting of favors. Almost everything in Egypt is for sale, from almost-after-hours tomb gazing to off the map camel rides. The only good thing about this is that the exchange rate is favorable for Americans. A tip of a pound, appropriate for all small and most moderate services, is about 17.5 US cents. In fact, the exchange rate can be amazing here, but more on that later.

We mounted our camels once again and went to pass by the Sphinx. As you can see, one of the drawbacks to seeing the Pyramids the "Egyptian way" was that we were not able to see the Sphinx from head on. We were on the other side of the aforementioned post-9/11 fence. I like the profile myself, but this means...Denney, I'm sorry. I couldn't get your Sphinx/fast food juxtaposition photo. But I'm here for another 5 months, and I imagine I can make it back to Giza again.

After staring at the Sphinx for awhile and recalling a clay modeling project I did in the 6th grade (thanks for the help on that, Mom), we decided to trade our camels for horses. While we waited for them to be brought back from the stables, we sat on a sand dune and watched the sun set over the Sahara. It was our first, but it would not be our last.

We kept repeating that it didn't seem real, that it really hadn't set in what we were doing. We talked about what kids back at school might be doing right now. It was snowing, we remembered. Kids were frantically trying to schedule appointments with their dean to drop this class and add the other. Future little diplomats were selling their souls to wrangle a course with such and such professor so that they could have an in with the State Department. And we were sitting at the edge of the world's biggest desert, looking out at the only remaining Wonder of the Ancient World, and we didn't care about school at all. It was a wonderful feeling.

Mahmoud's associates soon arrived with stout Arabian horses, and we took one last ride into the desert. For all his taunting that we should go to a gallop and have a race, whenever I took my horse to a trot he got uneasy. I've noticed that many Egyptians act foolhardy or crazy (e.g. "We will gallop the camels and whoever does not fall off, I will make you tea! But if you do fall off, you buy me a pyramid!"), but are realistic and prudent when it really comes down to it. I like their style of humor; it's bold and warm.

Eventually we took the horses back to the stable. On the way there we passed a dying horse in the street, in its last throes, lifting its feet into the air. No one seemed to notice but us. At his offie, we drank more mint tea, as is apparently customary. This time there was even more sugar in it. Please don't tell my dentist. Mahmoud arranged a taxi for us, and set the same price as before: 35 pounds. We piled in, and filled the half hour cab ride back to Cairo talking about Iran and, when we realized how toolish that sounded, talking about how amazing our day had been. Sketchy. Crazy. Lucky. Amazing. We had seen the Great Pyramids at Giza, and it was only our first day.

We had just maxed out Egypt. How could we ever top this?

I would quickly find out.

How to Cross a Street in Egypt

My first introduction to Egyptian traffic went something like this: put about 20 bewildered and jetlagged Americans on a taped-together bus, drive about 80 kph along narrow streets and through seemingly chaotic traffic circles to blaring Arab pop music until AUC is in sight, and then grind to a halt. Watch and laugh as they attempt to navigate a street with no crosswalk where the cars don't stop. Chuckle at the (hopefully) 20 flustered and hyperventilating Americans on the other side. In Egypt, red lights are mere suggestions and lane markers are completely ignored. It will take some getting used to.

Another mere suggestion, apparently, was the location of our information session sent to us via email. While the brochure said once place, the email said another, which resulted in about 50 lost international students (including myself and friends) wandering around a performing arts center for 45 minutes, eventually finding ourselves somehow backstage, being told by at least three officials that the meeting was on the 3rd, 2nd or 4th floor, and then getting a phone call saying that it was across campus. Huh. "Maybe this IS the orientation session," one kid quipped. Orientation indeed.

We made it back to the right building. Sarah and I found the sign up sheet for course advising before the horde did. So, on the advice from our Georgetown Study Abroad coordinator, we signed up for advising on Monday so that we could get the best classes. Good idea, right?

Didn't learn much in the information session, except for that all students who had previously studied Arabic had to sign up for Tuesday or later, because we had to wait for the results of our Arabic placement test today. Okay, fine, we'd go back and change it to Tuesday. But when we got down there, the line was out the door, and we were going to be late for our placement exam, so we followed the masses to the Mariott room to take our exam.

I don't know what went wrong, but the room filled up faster than expected and about half of us got shut out. We'd have to take the exam on Tuesday, pushing our advising to Wednesday. But when we went back to the sheet of paper, everything up to Friday was filled. We grabbed some Saturday slots, resigned ourselves to a terrible schedule, and decided to find a bank and get some food.

This is where it gets weird.

Characters: Me, Sarah, Hafsa, Alyiah, Eric, Jacob.

Scene: A busy street in Cairo, much like the one pictured, except busier. With more potential death.

We're wandering around, trying to find somewhere that appears semi-sanitary for lunch. Like aforementioned, cars don't really stop for you at crosswalks, and the stream of traffic is almost constant. For an American, who's used to traffic lights, crosswalk signals and a safe passage from one side of the street to the other, Cairo leaves a lot to be desired.

So we're all huddled on one side of a busy street, trying to figure out how to get across it, when I hear an Egyptian man talking to Hafsa. "You just have to go!" he says, "Just go! And they'll go around you. Slowly, like an Egyptian. Casual! Just go."

Just go, huh? So we did. We strolled. And lo and behold, the cars just kind of parted, slowed, sped up, did whatever was necessary to avoid us.

On the other side of the street, the man starts talking to us. He tells us more about crossing streets in Egypt: don't look like a tourist, don't use the crosswalks, walk in a horizontal line. He's speaking to us in pretty good English, and we naturally respond in English, but we throw in a little Arabic once in awhile. He's impressed. He gives us a big Welcome to Egypt speech, and asks us about our studies, where we're from, all that good stuff. We ask him where to eat lunch around here, and where to exchange money, and he offers to take us. Out of the kindness of his heart? Hmm. But, good enough.

His name is Ali, and he cautions us to avoid exchanging money at banks because they charge lower rates. Instead, he asks if we would rather go to the Egyptian exchange center, which gives a better rate of exchange. Sure we do. So the few people who needed to do some banking went and did their thing, while Jacob, Eric and I talked to Ali about the town where he lived, Giza. This would come to later be a theme of our day.

Ali then took us to a Egyptian pizza place, where the food wasn't that bad. He told us, in oddly colloquial English about his "better half" and their quest for a boy (5 girls, then one son alhumdulilah). He gave us his opinion on the United States, Middle Eastern politics, and Egypt. And then he waxed eloquent on Giza, the Pyramids, and the best way to see them: at sunset, the Egyptian way, on a cloudless day. Much like today, he noticed. He was going that way anyway. He explained to us that after September 11th, the Egyptian government had built a security fence around the Pyramids, dividing it into two sections. There was the front side, that had the Pizza Huts, the tour buses, and the electric light show. He would escort us to Giza, he said, and get us in the second, almost unknown gate to the Pyramids.

Like, today? Like, right now? We all kind of looked at each other. Sarah was in a skirt. Hafsa was in sandals. I didn't have my camera. "I will negotiate an Egyptian price for your cab ride out there. You will want that. And it is so beautiful today." I looked at Eric. Eric looked at Jacob. Jacob looked out the window.

Just go.

So we did. As Ali was hailing and haggling a taxi, Sarah turned to me: "This is either the best idea ever or the worst idea ever." No kidding. But carpe diem, and off we went, six of us plus Ali in a station wagon-cum-taxi, driving out of Cairo to Giza.
Along the way, Ali taught us some colloquial Egyptian. One of the more memorable phrases was Sharookh, literally meaning "rocket" but used, as Ali described, to mean "I wouldn't kick her out of bed." Nancy Ajram, an Arab songstress, is sharookh. I was, according to Ali, farash, a variation on the theme. I don't know where this guy got his English, but he had an interesting working knowledge of English slang.

The taxi driver pulled over on the highway so we could get our first view of the Pyramids. "This shows you both sides of Egypt," Ali intoned, as Alyiah and Hafsa (the only two with cameras) snapped pictures. "Green, farms, agriculture--the heart of Egyptian life--and old Egypt, the Pyramids." We drove on.

The taxi drove through the lightly flooded streets of Giza, past local stands selling carrots arranged like cactii, and dropped us all off in front of a horse and camel stable down a side alley. The price was 35 pounds, which is about 7 US dollars for a half hour cab ride. I could get used to prices like this.

Ali introduced us to Mahmoud, who owned the stables. He immediately brought us mint tea, and sat down to chat with us before discussing prices. The Egyptians like a little tea with their sugar; it tasted like honey melted to a thin liquid with a hint of mint. Delicious, of course, but I could feel my teeth crying. As we drank the tea, we talked about Nancy Ajram. Ali told him I was farash, and Mahmoud smiled and nodded.

Down to prices. There were three options: the small, medium and large tour. The large tour let us go inside a pyramid, and was about USD$50 with student ID. After a quick conference, we decided that this really was a once in a lifetime deal, and we should shell out the money. To Americans, 50 bucks for a five hour tour of the Pyramids probably doesn't seem like much, but remember the prices here. We knew we were going to get a lot for our money, if all went according to plan. He asked us if we wanted horses or camels. If we were going to do this tourist thing right, it had to be camels. He smiled.

We all paid him. Then it was Ali's turn. We didn't think he would do this for nothing, but he pretended like he would. "Now, I go home to my family," he said, after a long speech about the beauty of Egypt and its warmth. "I must go to the marketplace to buy some fruit for my family, since I have kept them waiting so long." We knew what was expected of us, and gave him some US dollars "for his children." We were fully aware that he probably didn't have six children, and they didn't want any fruit, but he provided us a service and it was the least we could do.

Then, Sarah was given a pair of Adidas track pants to don instead of her skirt, as riding a camel sidesaddle didn't seem pratical. We exited his office, and found six camels waiting for us.

As soon as I got on mine, she decided it was a really good time to stand up in a frenzy, even though all the other camels were nicely sitting in line. It's a really, really long way up. Like a horse, but about six feet taller.

Once everyone else's camels had gently and politely stood up on command, we set out. We shouted a goodbye to Ali, shukrun wa ma'asalaam ya Ali! You can barely see it in the picture, but look at the far left of the picture. There's a gap in the wall, and that is the second entrance to the Great Pyramids at Giza. It's guarded by police with some type of semi-automatic assault rifles, and a chain which they kindly removed for our caravan. Mahmoud chose a horse to ride, and another man who took the lead, a white donkey.

Slowly, ploddingly, the camels took us out into the Sahara. To our right, the city of Giza and in the distance Cairo, and the Pyramids. To the left, sand. Dunes, hills, valleys, all of sand.

It still hadn't really set in. We were on camels. At the Pyramids. In Egypt. And we were walking farther into the desert. Soon, the tops of the Pyramids dipped out of sight behind a sand dune. Before us, the Sahara.

We talked about it as we rode along. It took hundreds of thousands of of men hundreds of years to create these temples. Each block weighed at least two and a half tons. "Men died for this," Hafsa said, as the Great Pyramids were finally out of sight. "I haven't even really grasped what we're doing yet."

We were now headed towards the middle of nowhere. Slowly all of us started to realize that we were drifting away from our destination. Jacob turned around to say something to me, when I caught a flash of motion to my right. I turned to look, and saw a man in a dark blue tunic riding a camel directly towards us. In his hands was an assault rifle. So, I thought. This is it. At least it's one hell of a way to go.



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I have to stop here because I'm getting up early tomorrow to go to a desert oasis out in the middle of nowhere, Egypt. We're catching a bus that takes us from town to town, and staying in a cheap hotel in the city. The oasis has hot springs. My life will be complete if this really all works out.

Blogger has been a bit picky lately, and decided to post this about 3/4 of the way through. Sorry guys.

I'll finish the story (with more pictures!) when I return on Saturday. Take care y'all. :)

Atlantic Crossing

As promised, the (not so interesting) story of my journey to Aegyptus:

I guess it began at the security checkpoint. After saying goodbye to my mom and dad, practically disrobing for the friendly TSA employee ("Where are you going?" Egypt. "Oh, day trip?"), and doing the awkward belongings-gathering shuffle at end of the x-ray belt, I was off. And somewhere in between the Starbucks kiosk and the terminal entrance (that's about 15 feet), I realized that I was suddenly, maddeningly alone.

I travel by myself often. I do it all the time. I had even made it to Rome once all alone. But on the other end of those flights there was always someone waiting for me--the excited parents, the patient boyfriend--and in Cairo there was nothing. Maybe, if I was lucky, there would be a driver from AUC from whom I was not to expect a confirmation nor any help through customs, according to the friendly email. I didn't even know where I was living.

That's probably where the panic set in, and quickly ran the whole gamut: adrenaline rush, elevated heart rate, lightheadedness and...tears? Almost. But then I remembered. I needed a bottle of water. Having a task to do, some distracting action? This I could accomplish. And so I did, and thus passed the one and only moment of true fear so far. Thank you, Poland Springs.

Not much to say about the 9 hour and 45 minute flight over. I had the perfect seat neighbor: friendly, liked my sarcastic jokes about the in-flight entertainment (included but not limited to the American cinematic masterpiece Step Up), watched Deadwood on his DVD player for six hours and passed out. I tried to sleep, but succeeded only halfway. My seat neighbor drank five complementary German beers within the first two hours with the same intention, but had no luck with his sleep until the sixth hour of Deadwood. To each his own.

I woke up as we were circling Frankfurt, just in time to get a nice view. Little red roofed hamlets, dark forests, and a single anonymous factory with an incredibly large chimney. I think the graphics people from Crusin' World must have taken the same flight that I did.

So, got off the plane, saw that my assigned departure gate was precisely ten feet from my arrival gate, and started to wonder what I was going to do for the next four hours. Well, first stop, bathroom. And so began my foray into the shortcomings of the Frankfurt airport. If there's one thing I expected of the Germans, it was efficiency. No aesthetics, no sugarcoating, no conceptual design, everything created for its purpose. So you think they'd be able to build a damn bathroom. But no. Here's how it goes:

You pull on the unobtrusive-to-the-point-of-being-near-invisible ladies' room door, only to find that it instead opens inward to a sink room approximately the size of my 4 x 4 dorm room closet, where about six women are trying to a) wash their hands b) do their makeup or c) brush their teeth. And none of them will move. So you think, okay, I'll wait until it's a little less crowded in there, at which point someone with more Frankfurt Airport Bathroom Experience Points barges in ahead of you and leaves a swath of angry Swedes or Indians or whoever in the wake of her rolling suitcase. So then you think, well, I'd better go in. There must be a lot more room in there past the washroom door. So in you go, barely even able to make it in the door, hitting everyone within arms' reach (NB: that'd be everyone) with your backpack/messager bag only to find that past the golden gate of the washroom door there are two (2) bathroom stalls, both of which are occupied. So you wait, impatiently, until someone exits, at which point there is no where to which you can retreat, and pressing forward is impossible, so you engage in the awkward bathroom waltz ("Which way are you... oh I'm sor...ha, sorry...no I'll go this way...sorry") until you finally get a stall to yourself. Wash, rinse, repeat upon exit.

Okay, that's my rant. Other things were pretty inefficient in the airport, like the oddly un-ergonomic gate seating that allowed for only about 1/4 of the plane to sit, or the inability of the airport staff to open the door to the plane, but the bathroom was by far the worst. I tried to use the TMobile phones to call my boyfriend, but they wanted a credit card for long distance calls. I played that game in Italy once, and lost (it involves me paying over $75 to leave a 15 second message on a cell phone), so I wasn't playing it again. I found an Internet terminal, where it was 2 Euros for 10 minutes. Not a bad deal, I guess; at least I could shoot off a quick email to the family and habibi.

Fate had other plans, as all of my email passwords have a required special character ("for added security!!") that's not on any of the German keyboards. After the first Internet terminal froze and I had to pay a second 2 Euros for the adjacent one, I was able to send a Facebook message out--the only password without an asterisk--while being chatted up by a man from my flight. ("I am going to Istanbul! How cool is that?")

I was standing in line to check in with the gate attendant that I was in the right place when I saw my friend Sarah. True to her promise, she was the one curled up around her backpack. Her layover was two hours longer than mine, so we commiserated for awhile about how we just wanted to lie prone, and how poorly designed the bathrooms were. Seriously. It was upsetting. Germany can do better.

Sooner or later we were greeted by our friend Hafsa and her friend from home Aliyah, both on our flight. We sat there for awhile and discussed the practicalities of the situation, i.e. why the hell we were going to Cairo in the first place. Finally, once the friendly blue and yellow Lufthansa people figured out how to open the door, we boarded. This involved us taking a bus to our plane, which was parked right next to a C17 (?? Jake, help me out here) from McChord. I was sitting next to a girl from Portland who goes to Willamette University and spoke no Arabic. I felt a lot better then, since I really don't speak any either. (This will become apparent later.) The plane ride wasn't anything memorable, as I don't remember any of it. I woke up just in time to look out to the left and see the Pyramids lit up with purple neon lights. Huh.

Turns out there were a lot of us on the plane, at least 15 bound for AUC. We all deboarded, and were almost immediately met by a really cheery and adorable old Egyptian with a huge AUC sign, shouting, "Go through, get your bags and DON'T MOVE. DO NOT MOVE...or I cannot help you, you are up to Allah then!" We got our passports stamped at Passport Control with no problem at all, and then waited an agonizingly long time for our baggage. I thought we'd go through Customs, as I knew we were supposed to at least declare our laptops. But the friendly AUC man whisked all of us under the Nothing To Declare gate. "Welcome to Misr," whispered the armed guard at the door. He winked at me. Welcome to Egypt.

We then proceeded down a tunnel, over some rocks, around a corner and into a really dark and random parking lot filled with police cars, a bus and a Toyota Tundra. The kids who were living in the Garden City apartments put their luggage in the bed of the truck and the rest of us put our luggage on the bus. We all boarded the bus, and then proceeded to drive in circles around the Cairo Airport for about ten minutes until some magical signal was given, and all the Garden City kids were asked to get off the bus and walk towards some unknown place/vehicle. At this point, we said goodbye to Hafsa and Alyiah and started planning their funeral.

But apparently they made it, and so did we. After our luggage was searched ("Any beer?!"), we got our room keys and found our rooms. Floors are sex-segregated and guarded here, so the two porters with my luggage had to be escorted by a female. Best part of the whole night: As soon as we hit the all girls' floor, the escort starts slowly, sonorously bellowing, "MAN ON FLOOR.....MAN ON FLOOR....MAN ON FLOOR." They're really not messing around here. You happy, Dad?

My roommate's stuff was there, but she was missing. I unpacked, which took all of three minutes because I tried to pack light, and took a much needed shower. I had just sat down to do a bit of correspondence when Nadja from the Netherlands (okay, could that get any more perfect/stereotypical?) and is for some complete and utterly unknown reason a post-grad studying Law here for a semester. She seems quite nice.

I proceed to pass out, and slept until I somehow woke up 8 minutes before my alarm feeling rather well rested. I set off to begin my first day in Cairo, which actually just ended. I'd write about it now, but I should get some sleep. You'll want to read about my first day though, so check back tomorrow. I'm also kind of waiting on some pictures to post with the story, otherwise you might not believe that it actually happened.

I can't give many hints, but I can say that it started with Sarah saying to me, "This is either the best idea in the world or the worst idea in the world."

Salaam ya shabab,

Kari

I'm here. My bedspread is bright pink, I have lots of closet space, and the wireless actually works. Alhumdulilah.

I'll update when I have more energy. Right now I'm concentrating on finding the bathroom and not killing the happy, perky Egyptian girls who have clearly been here a lot longer than I have. (Like, 20 years.)

A River in Egypt

So. I'm actually, really doing this. My flight is technically today. I've looked at my booking information. I've made plans to meet up with friends at the airport in Frankfurt. I'm packed to the gills, and probably still forgetting something crucial and not available in the Middle East. And I still don't really believe that I'm going. Denial is a beautiful thing.

I'm not really nervous about going to Egypt in the way most people would assume. A typical conversation with your average friendly neighbor/family friend/bank teller goes something like this:

Them: oh study abroad that's wonderful enjoy europe
Me: I'm going to Egypt.
Them: sweet baby jesus why are you doing that you're going to get killed at least i hope you speak the language
Me: Define "speak."
Them: (eyes widen) Aren't you worried?
Me: Well, at least it's not Iraq.
Them: (disconcerted)

The act of going to Egypt or being in a foreign, third-world country doesn't really bother me in and of itself. I'm not scared or worried about my health or safety; travelers make it there and back safely all the time. I guess I'm more concerned about the culture shock than anything else.

My cell phone gets shut off tomorrow. That makes me nervous. What will I do with my hands now, if not to send witty and equally useless texts to my friends? Will AUC's definition of high speed internet be congruent with mine? I have to check my mail every 3 minutes; Georgetown's Office of the Provost might have sent out another innane email since I last refreshed Thunderbird. How well will I adjust to a society described in my International Student Handbook as lazy, slow and "inefficient"? And, most importantly, what the heck am I going to eat? I'm going to have to wean myself off my diet of Luna Bars and Kashi.

Maybe Egypt will seem real when I get on the plane in Portland tomorrow. But I've got a sneaky feeling that it's not going to hit me until I get off the plane in Cairo at 6:30 in the evening (Sunday!) and take my first look at my home for the next five months.

And realize I can't understand a damn thing they're saying.

Here's to it, and through it, to do it again.

An Imminent Departure

Portland, Oregon.

It's T - 5, and I've taken all the appropriate steps:

I swallowed live typhoid cultures for eight days.

I took a deep breath and mailed my passport off to the Egyptian Embassy in DC for my tourist visa.

I dutifully walked my doctor through AUC's health exam. (Debilitating menstrual disease? No. Flat feet? No. Varicose veins? No, but thanks for asking.)

I tested negative for HIV antibodies.

And now I've checked my last box: creating that travel blog as promised (hi, Mom). But I don't think that any of this has really prepared me for the next five months, living in a densely populated city in a Third World country with a dominant language, religion and culture distinctly different from anything I've ever experienced before. The tourist visa (they did give me back my passport) doesn't tell you how to maintain an even-longer distance relationship with your boyfriend. The traveler's checks don't come with tips on how to exist as a young, American female in a country with some serious misconceptions as to your basic nature. I guess those are things I'll just have to find out along the way, in Cairo.

Now for the basics: I'll be studying from February to June at the American University in Cairo, the requisite study abroad semester of my junior year at Georgetown University. There, I'm a Science, Technology and International Affairs: Security Studies major, but in Cairo I'm hoping to forget my long-winded major and focus on different affairs. My goals while overseas:

• Improve my Arabic. Seriously. This needs to happen. It's not really funny anymore how poorly I speak that language.

• Explore. This means food, travel, culture, myself.

• Take a break. Study literature. Write more. Read for pleasure. Breathe.

• Start training for a fall marathon. How I'm going to do that on a treadmill, I'm not sure.

• Remember everything I see, write it down, and take good pictures.
  

That's it for now. Hopefully I'll have some interesting things to post soon. In closing, a bit of an oft-quoted poem of which I'm particularly fond:

Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

-Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Thanks for stopping by. But mostly, stay classy.