grandpease grandpease egypt 2009 Flying from the second-to-back row Posted Sunday, Feb. 22, 2009 So we’re off, and by the time you read this we will already have landed in Cairo. Most flights are pretty brutal, but the overall duration of our flight to Egypt is 19 hours with one stopover in London.  Let us count the ways in which this flight is freaking us out: 1) We’re sitting in the second-to-back row. The turbulence back here is amplified 10-fold. It’s like being a human bobblehead. 2) We’re sitting in front of missionaries. Normally, this would be fine. Possibly a good thing. But they’re singing hymns. Lots of them. They’re singing so many hymns that people from other parts of the plane are coming over and teaching them new hymns in other languages. Our latest: Hebrew. 3) There is no free alcohol. This is especially troubling when you account for the above-mentioned hymns. If we had some alcohol, we would be singing with them. 4) We heard a mildly entertaining story from someone who had once been on a plane filled with a herd of white Austrian stallions. Where did he get the alcohol? 5) We’ve watched two movies: Max Payne and the Secret Lives of Bees, which we would grade at about a D and a C- respectively. So while the rest of the world is watching the Academy Awards, we’re getting primed for a movie with Greg Kinnear about the guy who invented the windshield wiper. We’re watching these theatrical delights on a screen the size of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. No crust. 6) I spilled 10 oz. of apple juice into the ... uh ... center of my pants about 30 minutes before we got off the plane. The pee-your-pants look is pretty cool, I hear.  Eager to get away from the plane from hell, we did finally get that beer at a “pub” in London’s Heathrow airport. Nothing like beers and bap at 6:30 a.m. We’ve touched down in Cairo now and are about ready to collapse after watching some Oscar highlights on youtube. No pictures yet, but the architecture we saw from the cab is amazing. So is the amount of people wandering around outside of our hotel, which is to be expected seeing as we’re staying in the heart of a city with 22 million people. Tomorrow we explore. Cheers - cmg tmg ‘There are 22 million you shouldn’t trust’ Posted Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2009  So last night one of the last things our hotel manager told us was that “There are 22 million people in this city, and there are 22 million you shouldn’t trust.” I think we ran into all of them in one day. Just off the top of my head: We had a guy jump into our cab on the way to the pyramids, claiming he was on his way to work, but instead he was directing the cab driver to some shady side entrance, where, presumably, he would get some kind of kickback if we used it as our entrance. The problem is, we would have been sneaking into the pyramids, and in a place where tourist police sling over-the-shoulder rifles that’s not a good plan. No thanks, man, take us to the main entrance. Speaking of, the lady at the main entrance quoted me one price, which I paid, but when we got inside I noticed it was 1/3 more than the price listed on the ticket. Awesome. How about the camel guide, who won’t stop pestering us -- at all -- until we take his camel for a short jaunt, which turns into a long jaunt and into quite a bit of money that we weren’t willing to pay, which turns into an argument and finally a settlement that still has us sour. This is not to mention the dozens of touts who all subscribe to the same “Hook Your Tourist and Win” formula. A conversation, -- should you let it go beyond “No thank you” “La Shukran” or “Get the fuck out of my face” -- goes something like this: “Hey, hey man. Where are you from?” “California” “Oh hey, I thought you were Egyptian, you have an Egyptian face. Hi-Ho Silver! Welcome to Alaska my good Americans!” The first time you hear this, it’s somewhat charming and almost funny. By the fourth time you’ve heard it, in the exact above-mentioned sequence you begin to become annoyed and then just sad that people 1) have to live this way 2) think hi-ho silver is regularly-used American phrase and 3) have no originality.  That’s enough ranting for one night, though. Despite the scam artists and the inconceivable traffic problems of this city, we’re having a blast. Today we hit the Great Pyramids of Giza and the Step Pyramid of Saqqara, and we were truly blown away. The Great Pyramids and the Sphinx, clustered together in an amazing composition where city meets the Sahara, are worthy of their hype. It’s crazy to have seen so many pictures of them, for all of your life, and then to stand right in front of them and still marvel at their size and at the skill needed to erect such behemoths. It was not a letdown, I’ll put it that way. Neither was the Step Pyramid. It’s visible on the horizon from the Great Pyramids and was worth the 20-km ride. It’s the oldest building on the planet according to people that measure things of that sort.                  So after shaking out heaps of sand from our shoes and dusting off, we skipped over to the island of Zamalek for some refreshments and took in views of the Nile and Cairo Tower. After a few drinks we made our way over to Abou El Sid, Cairo’s answer to the world-wide hipster craze. Here the trendy mix with the tourist, as all walks of Cairo are welcome in this unpretentious, but very difficult to find, bar. It’s a darker, more intimate version of Rick’s in Casablanca. Smoke rises everywhere from patrons inhaling apple sheesha (we had to try some), and melds with the sounds of Arabic music, Islamic decoration and the delicious smells of grilled meats and Egyptian sauces. We had falafel and some kind of grilled chicken with rice and green and red dipping sauces. I want to go back tomorrow.   All dressed up Posted Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2009  Today, Tiff got all dressed up. Not once, but twice. She’s a good muslim wife. Because they’re sexist, mosques in Cairo require women to be completely covered, so twice today Tiff was required to cover up. In the above photo, she’s simply wearing a traditional head scarf that 85 percent of the women in Cairo wear at all times. Earlier in the day, however, she was transformed into SUPER MUSLIM.    What’s really funny about this (aside from the obvious) is that we have no idea why she had to wear a green cape. Except that it looks cool.  Before Tiff began fighting Americans and Jews, she and I took a look at the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities. Pretty amazing stuff. Despite the glittering gold of the Tutankahamun and Tanis collections and the hordes of sarcophagi --- the worst of which would shame any museum anywhere -- the highlight of the place has to be the mummified remains of the Egyptian kings. I imagine this is kind of like a Russian going to see Stalin’s remains, only these guys at the museum are 1,000s (plural) of years old. Pretty creepy to see the skin, teeth and fingernails still fairly ripe on some very old dead guys (imagine John McCain, but like 10 years older). We only have a few pictures from the outside because I had to stow away my camera and got busted trying to use my iPhone.   Afterward we took a cab up to The Citadel of Cairo, home to the Muhammed Ali mosque, some incredible views over Cairo and SUPER MUSLIM.      Afterward we cabbed it (I cabbed it, Tiff swooped down from the sky) to the Islamic Market and Khan Al-Khalili. We also stopped into the Al-Ahzar mosque and Fishwa’s alley cafe for some hibiscus drink.            We finished the day with a walk through beautiful Al-Azhar Park, where we found a great restaurant to watch the sun set. We ordered a delicious meat parade that could have fed five (or my brother and I).     After spending another full day in Cairo, we’ve felt the city grow on us. There’s more than just honking horns and scam artists. As you would expect from a city this size, there are many layers. We’ve peeled away some of the best ones when we’ve been off the tourist trail and among the locals.  It could be a few days before our next post. We’re heading out by jeep into the Sahara tomorrow, where we plan to camp in the White Desert. I don’t think they have Wi-Fi there. -cmg The Sahara Posted Saturday, Feb. 28, 2009  Good morning from Luxor. Apologies for the delay in posts. As it turned out the internet does not exist in the middle of nowhere. Currently, we’re sitting on a balcony overlooking the Nile as the day begins. Twenty-four hours ago, and almost 1,000 miles into the Sahara we watched the sun rise from the lonely, but beautiful chalk dreamscape of the White Desert.  It was amazing to watch the transformation from the humanity of Cairo to the desolation of the desert as we made our four-hour trek by minibus to the Bahariyya Oases. City turns to suburb, suburb turns to failed suburb, which turns into suburb overtaken by the sand and then just ... sand. Sand as far as the eye can see. What’s amazing about the Sahara is that it’s not just mounds of beautiful untouched khaki, there are many different types as Egyptians will quickly point out. .  khaki   black   white And the sand comes in many forms.  flat  wavy  volcano  there are peaks and valleys  there are lots of pictures with me holding my hands out  there are mushrooms  camels  chickens  rabbits  there are Japanese tourists  and there is Tiff.
 
 
  
 
  
 
 
Speaking of tomorrow, we’re heading to the Egyptian Museum to view the greatest collection of mummies outside of our family (terrible joke). Afterward we’re off to Islamic Cairo to see the market of Khan El-Khalil and the mosques of Al-Azhar and Mohammed Ali (not that one). I wish I had more time to write, but I’m exhausted (Tiff’s been asleep for over an hour). I’ll leave you with some of the movies we took today. Undoubtedly, this will grind this site to a complete halt, so if you gotten this far, thanks.
Sites and sounds from a Cairo cab.
Getting dizzy on the camel ride.
Tiff feeding the camel, but not very well.
 
Insha’Allah, it’s time I answered the call to bed.
 
-cmg
 
All amazing things, and all thanks to our guide and driver from the Bahariyya desert. I won’t attempt to spell their names because I could barely pronounce them. But they were good people, can handle some serious off-roading and make a pretty mean lemon chicken with vegetables over an open flame.
 
Once we reached the Bahariyya Oases (a town of about 30,000 smacked in the middle of nothing but filled with palm trees and happy children) it was another four hours to the white desert, only this time we were traveling in our shady looking, but more than reliable Toyota.
 
 
We sat on the floor of small straw-covered hut and ate Fuul (the owner of the place kept repeating Fool Fool Fool to me. I wonder what he meant?) at a small village about halfway through our trek. We visited the black desert (the pictures that look like we’re surrouned by volcanos), a mountain made entirely of quartz, did some major off-roading down steep dunes and ended in the white desert, where we camped under a brilliant blanket of stars like none we had ever seen.
 
 
 
 
As desolate as it was, our trip was not entirely off the tourist trail. For most of Thursday our guides raced another guide carrying two women from Luxembourg (how random is that? we’re in the middle of nowhere and we meet two people from a country of 500,000. Incidentally, they knew all about San Jose from the Tour of California and were avid cycling fans who wanted us to promote Luxembourg cyclists) and several big groups from Japan, England and France. Still, a dozen cars in one day is not much.
 
After dinner we marched over to the open fire of a neighboring camp, where both sets of guides sang Bedouin songs and banged Bedouin drums while Tiff danced around the fire.
 
 
In the morning we watched the sun crest over the desert before heading back to Bahariyya, then Cairo Airport before reaching Luxor last night and crashing.
 
This doesn’t come close to telling the story, but here’s a vid from our trip.
 
Today we’re off to see the tombs and temples of the wealthy egyptian pharaohs and hopefully get a chance to relax beside the Nile. We’re also going to take a shower and use toilet paper for the first time in two days.
 
-cmg
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