But that's all forward thinking. Something I haven't been doing much of over the past weeks. For now, I'll give you a glimpse of the past few weeks instead.
I quit Dahab with a heavy heart. Leaving Freya and the joy she brought was one of the most difficult parts of this trip. But she too is headed to India and I hope to catch up with her when she arrives in February. And I had good company on the onward journey, in the capable hands of Christophe, who I met in Jerusalem. We rushed onto an overnight bus after returning from our getaway on the beaches of Ras Abu Gallum and made our way to Alexandria, where we spent an all-too-short day wandering through the beautiful seaside city. Formed along a magnificent bay, Alexandria is a spectacular sight to behold - the Mediterranean stretches out as far as the eye can see, and old Victorian buildings line its shores. We wandered the boardwalk with ice cream, watching young boys fishing on the rocky shore and couples ambling happily along the street. We stopped in for fresh calamari at a quaint restaurant on the water and talked politics. Well, Christophe talked politics. As an international relations student finishing his masters in Liege, Belgium, he has spent the past two months interning at the Palestine Israel Journal, and his opinions on the Israel Palestine conflict are strong, harsh, and provocative. I was impressed and slightly intimidated, so I stayed quiet, trying to absorb some of his fervor and passion.
From Alexandria we took another overnight bus to the Siwa Oasis. For those of you who have never seen a real, live Oasis before, it is like something out of a dream. Emerging from a great abyss of sand, the green of the palm trees and blue of the water seems unreal. Siwa is the most remote and best preserved of Egypt's oases. Situated close to the Libyan border, its southern perimeter marks the beginning of the greatest desert in the world, the Sahara. While on the north side of the oasis, the landscape is dotted with rock formations much like those out of the Wadi Rum, the southern edge is the Great Sand Sea, huge dunes of pristine sands that stretch as far as the eye can see. It is simply magnificent. With beautiful desert stretched before us, and the safety and protection of the oasis around us, Christophe and I quickly fell in love with Siwa. We had planned to spend two or three days there. We stayed five.
We spent leisurely afternoons biking through the villages, Christophe played football with children and I snapped photos of the locals. We found the local hot springs (which weren't hot enough), and watched sunsets over the palm trees and the great salt lake. We scrambled through the ruins of the Old City, saw the tombs of ancient nobles in the region carved into the rocks, and visited temples of once-revered Gods. We hitched rides around town on the back of mopeds, talked with local story-tellers, and made friends with villagers, young and old. We ate the delicious local food – dates were predominant: date omelets (a recipe I'm dying to try at home), date pancakes, date jam, and best of all, dates dried by the Saharan sun and plucked from the palms by our thieving hands as we ambled along the dusty roads. Other exotic treats included olive jam, which was sweet with a hint of rosemary, and the harshest, strongest tea I have ever tasted (served in shot-sized glasses). We lay in sand dunes and tried to take it all in, browning in the Saharan sun. It was a truly magical time with wonderful company.
It was hard to depart, but as Christophe and I discussed, it's always best to leave while the place still has charm. If it all got to familiar, we would tire of it. We hopped on another overnight bus to Cairo. Arriving in the chaos and commotion of the city from the peace and quiet of the oasis was like being hit with a ton of bricks. Despite arriving at 4 in the morning, the city was wide awake, with a hundred taxi drivers insisting we get into their cab. We were, of course, royally scammed. We spent two days on the tourist route - the Egyptian museum, full of mummies and sarcophagus's and Russian tourists (who were so distracting, walking through in droves, wearing itsy-bitsy shorts and tank tops and making it hard to concentrate on the beautiful handicrafts of the ancient Egyptians). The room with King Tut's famed golden mask was so full I could hardly walk around. I felt cramped, claustrophobic, uncomfortable. In fact, this is how most of Cairo made me feel. It drew many similarities to feelings and experiences I had of Damascus. The same dirty, grittiness of that comes from thousands of years of inhabitance. The same overwhelming numbers crowding streets and buses. You could feel the oppressiveness of the poverty. You could see the differentiation between wealth and the lack of it. You could taste the pollution, the smog hangs over the city like a hot summer haze. But it is magnificent in it's magnitude and historical significance. You can see why Cairo is referred to as "the Mother of the Earth."
At the Pyramids of Giza I felt a surge of nostalgia for my primary school days, when Pharoh's and Egyptian Gods were first introduced to me. Back then, it was my dream to visit the famed sights of their kingdom. And they were spectacular. But the feeling of awe was quickly surpassed by anger and frustration as we were asked innumerable times if we wanted a camel ride to the base of the pyramid. Or a horse ride to the panoramic lookout spot. Or a tacky plastic pyramid. Or an ugly Egyptian headdress. I try not to get angry but it’s so hard not to scream “GO AWAY”.
The next day Christophe and I decided to escape the madness of it all and find our way to the lesser known pyramids of Darshour. These are slightly off the beaten track but the site is renowned for the Bent Pyramid, which appears slightly malformed (see pictures! c). Not sure of how best to get there, we took a taxi, about a 45 minute journey, for forty pounds ($8). We wandered around, and even climbed inside the pyramid itself. But more fun was the adventure back home. We walked to the entry gate and picked up a tuk-tuk (three wheeled car), driven by what looked like a boy of about twelve, into the tiny town center, full of donkey carts and camels. This cost two Egyptian Pounds (40 cents) - we probably overpaid him but he was so cute. After a delicious falafel, we took a minibus to the nearest hub. Fifty piasters (10 cents). Another minibus to the edge of town. One Egyptian Pound (20 cents). A big bus to the metro station. Two pounds (40 cents). The metro back to the hotel. One Egyptian pound (20 cents). Grand total: $1.10. ($1.30 if you include the falafel sandwich). We were very impressed with our ingenuity and frugality.
I lost my companion Christophe to Christmas celebrations with his family and university exams, as he flew home to Belgium and I carried on. I was sad to lose a friend so easy to travel with. Someone who motivated me to get out and see things, to try to head off the beaten track, and who made me laugh, learn, and love each moment. Still, I wasn't alone for long. I feel I've come full circle on this trip, as I was lucky enough to reconnect with Bus Stop, or Nick, the first friend I made when I left Istanbul for Selcuk. We discussed our last two months when he stumbled into the hostel at 2 AM after a night out with a new friend. As we talked, it hit home how much has happened over the past two months, after we went our various ways. We discussed what we’d been doing and speculated about what was to come. When we met, I was timid and scared and shy, and I can see I’ve begun to learn the ropes, open up and gain confidence and become a happier person. I feel I have developed hugely since that tired morning at the Izmir bus station when he called over to say “hello.” We spent the following day wandering the Islamic Souqs in the Old City with his new Egyptian friend, the lovely but overzealous Koory. Just as we met, Nick and I parted ways at the bus stop, I went south to Luxor and he east to Dahab.
The overnight bus was painless, though thirteen hours can make anyone antsy. I was seated next to a Norweigan man with whom I spent the following two days exploring the Luxor Temple, Karnak Temple, and Valley of the Kings. It was more ruins and tourist touts, but the scale of the temples was magnificent, and despite many thousands of years, much as remained in remarkably good condition. And on my final day in Egypt, I made my way further south to Aswan.
Aswan, like Luxor, is a small city set on the Nile, but it maintains much of the authenticity that Luxor has lost through extensive tourism. The city is more quaint and the landscape more picturesque than its northern cousin. On the east bank of the river the sand dunes rise like mountains and feluccas and colorful ferries dot the river. Elephantine Island is the main attraction in town, a peaceful haven accessible only by boat, which harbors two old Nubian villages. On the ferry across with Joey, an American traveler (the FIRST!) I met on the train from Luxor, we met an enthusiastic and animated local, Mustafa, who eagerly showed us around his village and invited us for tea at his shop. He even convinced us to come out on a felucca ride on the Nile, which is one of those “must-dos” in Egypt. We drifted along (lacking any wind), watching sails of boats unfurling on the river, camels walking to the shore for a drink, and youngsters playing at the water’s edge as the sun dipped behind the horizon. It was a perfect way to end the trip.
Since that time I have spent 15 hours in a train from Aswan to Cairo, 2 hours in a bus to the airport, 3 hours on a flight to Bahrain, 6 hours wandering aimlessly in the Bahrain airport (convincing myself that no, I don’t need a Cartier watch from Duty Free), another 3 hours to Delhi, and 45 minutes in a taxi to the Vivek Hotel in the downtown area of the city at 5AM. I have just emerged from my cocoon and have yet to peer outside into this new world.
I think it’s time to get up now...