Here are some more random things about Cairo.

I actually pay attention to, and appreciate the clothes the women wear here. At home I barely notice. Specifically, I really enjoy the long, fancy gowns that the slightly conservative women wear. (All the cool kids wear jeans and shirts, everything long but also tight.) I’ve seen some very cool long gowns, as well as tastefully understated ones. My favorite is a long black gown which has on it, in spirals, numbers in blue and green hues. At home you will find T shirts with similar creative designs, but the effect is much better when a design is on a full body dress instead of just a small rectangle on the chest.

I’ve been seeing a physical therapist for a pulled muscle in my elbow, and Danielle has twice seen a dermatologist regarding a rash she’s had. It’s pretty sweet to be able to just call the specialist directly, and be able to see them the next day. Prices seem very reasonable (about $20 for a consultation). We found our doctors by checking the US embassy web page. They do seem to prescribe medicine much more readily than doctors at home. For instance I’m taking 2 pills and a cream for my elbow. They also massage, use ice and electrical stimulation, as well as ultra sound and a laser light. (I’m sceptical that the laser does anything, but you never know.) But medicines are cheap, and prescriptions are not required. We were able to buy more of our malaria medication for about a fifth the price we paid in the US.

Anything you might want is available in Cairo, although finding it is a function of your personal network. There isn’t really a yellow pages or a website where you can look up anything. To get a new camera battery (custom one for Canon cameras) we went to an electronics neighborhood. There we randomly picked somebody and showed him what I wanted. He passed my battery to somebody else, who went off somewhere (presumably) far away. It took about 45 minutes before he returned, but he did have a brand new, Canon brand, battery for me. The price was quite reasonable as well (a little bit more than it would cost at home, which is par for imported products).

We went to Saqqara with my parents the other day. We’d gotten a private tour for the 4 of us, and it was awesome. If you only visit one ancient Egyptian site, this is the one. The pyramids are neat to see from the outside, but the highlight was that we visited the inside of a noble’s tomb. The inside was covered in great rock carvings, largely still intact. It is one thing to see some slabs of rock in the Egyptian museum. Seeing it all in context is much more interesting. We also got to go inside of Tite’s pyramid. Unlike the great pyramids, the insides still have a lot of hieroglyphs left over, and our guide explained to us how the pyramid’s massive sliding rock doors were closed, and how grave robbers got in anyway. Most of what we saw was in incredibly good condition too. It was hard to believe that it all was thousands of years old.

Muslims respect their mosques in a very different way than Christians respect churches. Non-believers are not allowed inside many of them, while anybody can wander into a church. On the other hand, churches tend to be a quiet respectful place, while in mosques I’ve observed what I thought were loud conversations. I’ve even seen people walking around using their cell phone at times. Every mosque also has quite a few people in it just lying on the floor, taking a nap. But in mosques you take off your shoes and, if you’re a woman, cover your head. Expectations just differ a lot between churches and mosques.

I offered to take a look at our neighbor’s computer, which locks up when accessing hotmail. So after quite a bit of playing around I concluded it was the modem driver that did it. We moved the PC to our apartment to use DSL and get new drivers. And to be nice I downloaded 50MB of Norton updates, but during install the machine locked up. Turns out the HD was bad, and now WinXP wouldn’t boot anymore. (It took me quite a while before I figured out that the HD was the issue.) So I got a new one, and installed WinXP from scratched, recovered almost all files from the old machine, and generally cursed at Windows, wishing I could just install Ubuntu instead. It takes a long time to install XP, download updates, install them, and reboot all the time. It’s quite amazing how much better Ubuntu is in this regard. Anyway, I finally got it all pretty happy. I did have a bit of trouble activating the installation. None of the Egypt phone numbers worked, so I used Skype to call the US 1-800 number, which was busy. So I called the US toll number, which transferred me to a rep in India who helped me get the magic numbers. Next time I’m running memtest86/badblocks first, and then looking at any problems that might exist.

I’ve finally browsed the Koran a little bit. I’m no Bible expert, but I have read bits and pieces. The first thing that struck me about the Koran is how explicit it is in its rules. A lot of the same stories from the Bible are in the Koran, but the interpretation is not left up to the reader. On the other hand, it’s not like a true franchise manual. For instance scholars do not agree on how women are supposed to dress. There is at least one section in the Koran aimed at atheists (can any of your friends create a universe? then surely you must believe in Allah), which makes me wonder how prevalent atheism was when Mohammed wrote the Koran. There at least a few places where it explicitly states that Jesus is a prophet, and not part of any holy trinity and not God’s son either. It’s interesting, but not easy reading.

It’s about time that I write something more on the blog. Since my blogs are very activity/travel oriented I have slowed down quite a bit while here in Cairo because just not as much events happen every day. Mostly the events are studying Arabic and eating. The most recent event is that maybe I ate something not so good, because on Sunday I woke up at 3am and took regular trips to the toilet (conveniently located adjacent to our bedroom) from then on. Danielle has had occasional stomach tenderness before and I hoped that I would be immune. Turns out that’s not the case, so now it is her turn to walk an extra 5 minutes to the far away grocery store that sells imported cans of Campbell’s soup.

Combined with sickness I’ve been feeling a bit down anyway. Arabic class is still fun, but studying outside of class is really starting to feel just like any homework I’ve ever done. It is rewarding though so (for now) we are sticking with it. I go back and forth between being appalled by how little we’ve learned in 40 hours of class time (plus at least that many studying) and being surprised that we are able to learn as much as we are, having had 0 exposure to the language (or any language like it) until we arrived in Egypt.

I feel, much like at home, that I don’t have the time to do all the things I want to do: play harmonica, blog more, read some of the Koran, learn about history, hack on mnemosyne, improve my web page, research where we might go next, fix the neighbor’s computer, and on and on. I suppose that is a sign that we’ve really settled here and are establishing a bit of a life. Buying tomatoes is no longer an adventure, it’s just another chore. We do still wander down streets we haven’t been down, but mostly we find the same things we’ve already found. If we were here for the long term this is when I would go and seek out friends with common interests. As it is it doesn’t quite feel like it would be worth the effort.

The recent big event was the arrival of my parents over a week ago now. It’s been fun for us to share what we’ve learned, and also motivated us to go see some of the sights we haven’t seen yet. We’ve visited Hussein’s mosque (featuring mister Hussein’s head in an elaborate silver box), the Citadel (where we saw another 2 mosques), and just re-explored some of the places we’d already been. It’s also been nice to have a conversation in English about more than just what we like in Egypt, although predictably that is a common subject of conversation anyway.

I haven’t really talked about the food here. Generally it’s good. Some of it is very good. There is not a huge amount of variety, though. There are some expensive upscale restaurants with foreign cuisine, but we tend to stay away from them. Common meals are roast chicken, kebab, served with rice, pita. Vegetables we see a lot are tomato, cucumber (mixed together with vinegar), and egg plant (fried or stuffed with rice). The spices used are quite tasty, but again without much variety. The candy is good but again, there’s not a lot of variety.

In general I do not see a lot of evidence of other cultures here. There are of course all the historical influences (Arab, English, French) but the vast majority of people that live here have lived in Egypt for generations. They have the same religion, roughly the same ethnic background, follow the same sports, and eat the same food. Not to say that everybody is the same, but even in fairly homogeneous Santa Barbara there are at least 2 religions, 2 ethnic groups, any number of non mainstream sports, and countless ethnic restaurants. I think we may have seen the same homogeneity in East Africa, but we weren’t around for long enough to really notice it. There’s nothing like travelling to make you appreciate home…

P.S. I’m all caught up on uploading high res versions of everything, so now is also a good time to go back and see some of those safari pics in more detail.

It feels a little bit like on this trip I’m always complaining about how tired I am. Part of it is (of course) that we don’t give ourselves any rest. We think we do, but it always turns out that what we plan is harder than we think. We’re discovering that just 2 hours of Arabic class really takes a big chunk out of the day. We “commute” about 25 minutes each way. Then I enter the day’s new words into Mnemosyne (I’m getting OK at touch typing Arabic) and we need to study them. On top of that we also often have homework which takes even more time. And then cooking, stretching, taking care of various chores eats up most of the rest. When we do think we have time we go sight seeing or do something else that isn’t completely relaxing.

The classes are going quite well. We’re taking classes at the Arabeya institute. It looks like all the teachers are girls who recently graduated from college, majoring in foreign languages. The teaching feels very free form, without a book and just a rough schedule. After learning the script, we mostly do what we want to do, writing new words and learning grammar as we go. We are now at the point where we can make simple sentences, and conjugate verbs (present and future tense). Sometimes this is useful, but we still need to do a lot of pointing, or find somebody who speaks a bit of English, to get our point across.

To get to class we take the metro. While the streets are dirty, the metro is very clean. Much cleaner than in New York. A ride of any length costs just LE 1, which means that most Cairenes can only barely afford it. Nevertheless it gets really busy at rush hour. Trains run about every 5 minutes, but they’re still very full. There is no concept of politely waiting. When the train arrives at the central station simultaneously a large crowd tries to exit and enter the metro. There’s often a little shoving involved, because the doors open just briefly, and they’ll close whether people are in the doorway or not. (The mechanism isn’t terribly strong, so you can fairly easily hold it open for a buddy.) Women who don’t want to be sandwiched in with the men have the option of riding on one of the two women-only cars in the middle of the train. Sometimes they’re less busy, and sometimes they are just as packed.

I signed up for DSL 3 weeks ago, and it finally started working a few days ago. Until then I would routinely walk to an Internet cafe about 12 minutes away. There are actually several that are closer, but I’m picky in that I want one that lets me plug in my laptop, and has a decent connection. Many of the very cheap cafes are filled with kids playing video games. I’ve seen little kids play Grand Theft Auto in a ‘net cafe, which is another interesting contrast from the conservative feel of other parts of life. Most of them play some MMORPG though. Also very popular are places that have a bunch of PS2s set up for playing Winning Eleven (a soccer game). Most Internet cafes are also filled with smoke, which seemed to affect Danielle more than me. But now we have Internet at home (3 days out of 4, so far), 25KB/s down, 6KB/s down, LE 90 per month, plus LE 30 per month for a wireless router, TEData.

To follow up on the football post, it works as advertised. We watched football on Sunday nights, but don’t bother getting up at 3am on Tuesday for the MNF game. We do watch too much TV otherwise, at least while eating, stretching, cooking, and just about any other time we’re at home. Right now Goonies is on, and before that we watched most of The Fabulous Baker Brothers (which is quite good).

Sex relations are probably the biggest thing that is foreign to me and that I don’t understand. On the one hand I feel that all women are oppressed by having to wear a veil, on the other hand I feel that they’re all quite happy and don’t appear to be oppressed at all. I did feel weird when a waiter mimed to me that he approved that Danielle was covered (except for her head). And there is the women’s metro car, and I’ve accidentally startled a few women who I caught without a head scarf. But then the other day the neighbor came out to help translate without her head scarf on, and at the doctor (minor muscle pull) my arm was massaged by a female nurse which nobody thought was strange. On TV you barely see any veiled women at all, and apparently that is OK.

2 days ago we were invited to a wedding party in the flat next to us that was last night. We agonized a bit over gifts and dress. We ended up bringing chocolate and flowers for the couple, but it looks like nobody else brought anything. (Maybe the gift giving happens at another time?) We had some extra chocolates for ourselves, and despite fancy packaging it was pretty bad. The flowers weren’t all that either. We can only console ourselves with the thought that we did our best. We did OK on dressing though, deciding to go conservative. We knew the party started because we heard loud music from the flat next door.

After a bit we went over to join in the fun, which was just a bunch of people sitting around enduring loud music at that point. When the bride and groom arrived, everybody streamed out to the stairwell to watch them and more of the wedding party come in. Now it had become quite crowded, and the bride and groom danced the first dance. The next event was the presentation of the jewelry, which the bride and groom then put on each other. Unlike at home, where you’d wait and give everybody a good view, they just went on with it and everybody crowded around as closely as possible. Then we ate some awesome food, mostly rice stuffed in vegetables, and samosa type things. After that there was the cutting of the cake, and the bride and groom feeding each other cake. Finally the bride and groom exited and left in a car procession to drive around town.

Throughout all this there was lots of dancing and people surrounding the dancers while clapping. Especially many of the women were really awesome dancers, and it was great to watch them dance and have a good time. Danielle and I were both dragged into the dancing group a few times. Needless to say she did a lot better than I did, but we all had fun. I also took a ton of pictures and video, partly at the urging of other guests. Despite the fact that we weren’t able to talk to anybody, we still had a great time watching the spectacle and interacting with the few people that we did.

So we’re still experiencing a lot of new things, and we’re also a bit stuck in a rut. Regardless we’re looking forward to the next stage of our journey. We haven’t quite figured out what it’s going to be, but upper Egypt, the Red Sea, and Jordan are all likely destinations.

One of those American cultural things we enjoy is watching NFL football on TV. We figured Cairo is a huge city, so we’d take the opportunity to catch a game or two. But as it turns out there’s no place that shows it. I think our second Sunday here, we went to meet Alex for a drink, and he promised to show us some American football. American football, by the way, is conveyed by saying “football” and then pulling your arm back as if you’re about to throw the ball. If you don’t do that, they assume your talking about an American soccer league. He took us to several cafes, and even stopped by the dorms at American University. Nothing but soccer everywhere.

Some Internet digging found 2 ways that we might see some football. The first is to get Showtime Arabia satellite TV. The second is that Sports Cafe in Mohandisseen might show it. So we figured, once we’re in our apartment we’ll get Showtime and watch football to our heart’s content. The Monday that we moved in I called Showtime to get that set up. With a bit of luck we can watch MNF at 3am, I thought. Of course there was no luck. They needed me to sign an actual piece of paper, as well as copies of my passport and credit card. We tried to use a fax machine at the telephone office but it didn’t work in either direction.

So they sent a courier the next day. I signed the piece of paper and all was well. It would be done in 48 hours. The next day they called to confirm the contract, and mentioned the $150 fee for canceling in the first year. We had to think about that. I think it’s very interesting that after some discussion we decided that it was a lot of money, but yes, we really are that desperate for a piece of home that we’ll pay it. So the day after that I called to say OK. In 24 hours it should work. Only it didn’t. They’re having technical difficulties, and it’ll take at most 2 days to resolve it. So now it was Sunday again, and we got a call saying we’d need to buy a new receiver.

No football on Sunday, so I went to Sports Cafe to see if they showed any, but it was sports all along. They did say that if they didn’t have 3 events (all soccer) going on already, they would have been happy to tune one receiver to ShowSports 4 where the NFL is visible. We spent another day thinking about it, and decided paying for a receiver on top of everything was just too much, so we decided against Showtime altogether. But the previous day, thanks to Darell’s blog I learned that Arabic Radio and Television has a package that includes ESPN. So at least we might get to see MNF.

I called ART on Monday morning, and the package is cheap! Just LE 90 (less than USD 20) for 3 months. To sign up I just needed to go to the nearest ART office, which is right behind the cinema around the corner. I searched a bit and called the phone number again and they guided me to a place a few blocks away from the cinema. Then the people there spoke virtually no English and hadn’t heard of the cheap sports package. On the phone again, so the rep could explain to the sales people what I wanted. Paid my money. It would work “tonight.”

It didn’t work when we went to bed, but optimistically we got up at 3am to watch MNF. Of course we still had no ESPN. So the next day I got on the phone again to ask what was up. ART had not received the money from the sales office, but they’d get on it and it would work tomorrow. Miracle of miracles, the next day ESPN started working for us. And the miracles didn’t end there. Skipping around channels, we also get ESPN NASN. This is the North American Sports Network which shows mostly hockey and baseball but, on Sunday night, shows 2 football games! Good ones, too. This Sunday we’ll get to watch Chargers +1 at Bills, and Colts -1 at Packers. That’ll be awesome! I’m not sure what the broadcast games are at home, but it’s probably San Francisco, Oakland, and the aforementioned Chargers game. So we went from having no football on TV, to being able to see better games than we would at home.

We are more than ready for some football. This Sunday night, after class, we’ll be headed home with copious snacks, drinks, and maybe we’ll order out from Bob Sushi. (Random Cairo culture fact, all the fast food restaurants here deliver, including MacDonald’s, KFC, and Hardees.)

We’re living in Cairo now, kind of. We don’t have jobs, but we do have a 5 day a week obligation to go to Arabic class (for 2 hours). So we have a little bit of a routine, while we spend the rest of our time trying to make the TV work and figure out other things about Cairo life. It’s great to have a home, but in many ways it doesn’t feel like a real home and we’re constantly reminded of all the differences. We’ve both noted how much we sleep and how tired we feel despite all that sleep. It’s still just like traveling, seeing new things, and just being in a foreign environment.

While everything is different, a lot of it is also really neat. It’s frustrating when we’re woken up at 9am in the morning because it’s pay day for the garbage man and we need to give him LE 10. And this afternoon the gas man made a house call to read the meter (which is inside) and to collect his money (LE 4). The other day the groundskeeper’s wife came by to collect LE 5 so the stairs could be washed. None of these people speak any English, so there’s usually some pointing and maybe some miming involved. While it breaks the illusion of being in a normal place, it’s also interesting. I know the garbage man now. I’ve spoken to him several times. Same thing with the groundskeeper’s wife. I don’t know the gas man but I would get to know him if we lived here for several months. You really get to make a small but personal connection with the people who keep things running smoothly. At home I (of course) barely know any of these people, and it sure took more than a week to start getting to know them.

There’s a grocery store just around the corner from us. There is another one 5 minutes walk away. Two blocks away is a farmer’s market that’s always on. There are any number of stores that sell household goods, bakeries, butchers, and anything else that you might want in daily life all within 5 minutes walk. I routinely go out at night to grab a sugar cane juice at the juice stand. The guy there knows me and I think he understands that I am slowly learning Arabic. There’s a bakery that makes the awesomest little pastries (2 for LE 1) and if I feel I can take the sugar I pick up a few of those as well. Likewise I am now a familiar face to him. The guy who mans the Internet cafe I go to (13 minutes walk because I’m picky) also knows Danielle and I. And all this without being able to make small talk due to language problems. It feels like there is much more of a community feel here and we are, just a little bit, being part of it.

On a sad note, Danielle has started to dress more conservatively (beyond simply covering shoulders and legs) because of occasional touching by young Egyptian men. I don’t want to exaggerate the problem. It’s only happened twice (and I didn’t notice anything), but it annoyed her enough to go on a shopping spree. We’re both more aware of where we stand/walk now. While actual violence is extremely rare here, this kind of harassment is apparently fairly common.

Our Arabic classes are going alright. We’re taking small-group (a group of 2: Danielle and me) lessons at Arabeya 5 times a week, 2 hours at a time. So far we’ve focused mostly on reading/writing, learning a few words on the side. We’re getting into grammar now, but there’s been very little practical things we’ve learned at this point. The script is hard and weird, but it does look cool and given 10 minutes we can usually read a company name and then decide that it’s just phonetically what the English name is.

Yes, the images with this post have very little relation to what I wrote. Maybe I’ll do better next time.

At 11pm on September 29th we sped through busy Cairo streets with Morad at the wheel, Amany and Mimi in the navigator’s seat, and Merna, Danielle and I in the back seat. We hit some traffic, but it didn’t take terribly long to get out of the city and onto the main freeway. There was little traffic, enough lanes, and smooth straight tarmac that let us drive up to 160km/h. Once we hit the coast the road got a bit smaller and more curvy, but there was still plenty of fast road which let us see oil tankers and refineries. We took a break about half way, and ended up arriving in Hurghada at 4am.

In Hurghada we’d rented a furnished flat together. Everything was very new. We had our own bedroom, and each room had AC. It was a nice place, but only came with 1 key. That was a bit annoying but not a real problem. Across the occasionally quite busy street was a fancy super market that even stocked such exotic imports as apples.

The first day we slept late. Because it was still Ramadan we went off in search of food around lunch time. We took a bus to Sigala, where we walked around a bit (it was hot) before settling on the restaurant in a Russian hotel. A lot of Russians come to Hurghada so the menu here was English, Russian and Arabic. In the evening we visited Morad’s friend Mohammed, who he knew from when they lived in the same neighborhood in Cairo. We also met his parents, his sister and her little boy. We enjoyed breaded fish and sun bread among other things. Sun bread has that name because it’s baked in the sun, not in an oven. Just lay out the dough and pick it up when it’s done. Very tasty.

Mohammed was the local friend, and Morad basically left the week’s activities up to him. Danielle and I said we wanted to snorkel, and they told us we would go on a snorkel trip the next day. After TV we took a driving tour of the area with Mohammed’s sister (whose English was very good). We stopped at a beach to sit and just relax next to the black water. The beach was much harder than we’re used to at home, and the water much calmer. We sat maybe 6 feet from the water, and had some drinks.

Everybody was talking in Arabic and I was not enjoying just sitting there. On top of this I was getting increasingly worried that we would not be on a boat to go snorkeling the next day. We were waiting for Mohammed to get back from his work and he would tell us about the trip. I decided that at 11pm we would leave and organize our own thing. But at 10:50pm we started to leave, and at 11pm Mohammed showed up. We went to a grocery store to buy lunch food for on the boat which still hadn’t been confirmed yet. Both Morad and Mohammed assured me not to worry. At a bit before 1am we went to bed, with Morad promising to wake us up in time for the boat.

That didn’t happen. We woke up (earlyish) on our own, and heard that we’d be leaving for the boat at 2pm. Skeptical that anything would happen that resembled a snorkel trip as we think of it, we went downtown to organize a trip for the next day ourselves. Our skepticism proved justified when we got back, and the afternoon activity had changed from going snorkeling to hanging out at the beach. I decided not to go, and instead practiced some Arabic, went for a run, and visited an Internet cafe. That made me feel better, but I wouldn’t be really happy until we were seeing fish in the water.

As an aside, Muslims don’t drink alcohol. So when I refer to having drinks, we’re talking fruit juice, tea, and coffee. Not being much of a drinker, I think it’s great. There’s no societal pressure to drink alcohol, and instead we get to try different fruit juices, most of them blended freshly right there. (Favorites so far are lemon and strawberry (often canned).) Hole-in-the-wall fruit bars are everywhere, and they usually have fresh sugar cane juice which I like a lot as well. Another aside, about half the men in Egypt are called either Mohammed or Ahmed. Between friends, they will often refer to each either by middle or last name to avoid confusion. It’s an interesting difference coming from a culture where people go out of their way to give their children unique names.

And some more background info, we hadn’t actually started to study Arabic yet, but being the impatient person that I am I had bought a book and did some self-study. I’m using a program called mnemosyne which in theory makes you review words at the optimal interval for learning. The main nicety is that I recorded Morad saying the words, so that every time I see it on the screen, I hear his voice. It’s a lot more sophisticated than the program I wrote back in middle school to help me learn Latin. I wonder if that still exists somewhere…

Anyway, no snorkeling that day. But the next day, finally, we would snorkel. We were picked up from our flat and then ferried to a resort to rent fins (we packed masks and snorkels) and wander onto a boat. It looked like tour guides just delivered people to whichever boat still had space, and would then pick them up later. The boats were leaving, our boat fired up its engine, and we went nowhere for an hour. Finally we took off. The crossing over was pretty rough and took 2 hours, but we made it to Big Giftun Island and tied up next to another boat, at which point we finally, really, went snorkeling.

I was the first one in the water and made the “wow” through the snorkel sound. Danielle was in just a few seconds later, dove down, and under water pumped her fists in the water. It really was awesome, and we stayed in until I got cold. Since the water temp is about 80 degrees, that was a while. Danielle knows what fish we saw, all I know is I saw a ton of fish in all kinds of colors, clams which were green and purple inside, puffer fish, parrot fish eating coral, a stone fish, and even a 2′ puffer fish. We also saw a great big trigger fish.

Then they moved the boat just a little from the coral reef to a few pinnacles where we jumped out again. As we entered the water, a napoleon wrasse swam maybe 30-40 feet below us. Danielle dove down to check it out. From up where I was Danielle and the fish appeared to be about the same size. Sadly I can’t clear well enough to get much below 10 feet, but it was still great to see. At the under water cliffs we tended to see greater schools, while in the coral reef we’d see more individual fish. So here we saw big groups of the black and white fish, as well as of the orange fish and the greenish blue ones.

We were one of the last back on the boat, and they ran out of food before I could get my lunch. Luckily I had a packet of Stereo cookies (guess what those look like) and some nuts on me to tide me over until we returned. Because we didn’t return right away. First we had to moor somewhere else and get ferried to the island. There was nothing on the island besides beach, sand, and overpriced drinks. We had an overpriced drink and then lay down on the shaded benches next to our table. Earlier than expected we were called back to be ferried back to the boat. After 20 minutes of waiting we did get ferried, and the boat returned home. The snorkeling on this trip was good, but the organization left much to be desired.

Still, being in the water until you’re cold takes a lot out of you, so we did not snorkel the next day. Instead we joined the family on a quad ride through the desert. There was more waiting, but the ride was a lot of fun. The desert scenery was also pretty incredible. The entire ride I don’t think we saw one twig, leaf, or any evidence of life. Just sand and jagged peaks. We rode to kind of a Bedouin entertainment camp, where we got to ride a camel (briefly), eat some food, but then rode back. The ride back was in the darkness, which sounded pretty scary but turned out to be fine. The biggest problem we encountered was some kids who didn’t understand what “single file” meant.

Before that trip, though, Danielle had called a few places from our book, and decided to go snorkeling with Aquanaut the next day. They picked us up in a bus that actually had the company name on it, and drove us to their office which is right by a harbor. I got a wet suit to be able to stay in longer, they gave us fins. None of the giant herd of people all yelling their size and getting fins. We actually talked to the people behind the desk here as we were the only ones renting equipment. Then we went on the boat, and maybe 15 minutes later we left. There were 6 other people on the boat, 4 from Holland and 2 from Bulgaria. They were all diving. We were the only ones snorkeling.

We headed straight for a huge coral reef in the middle of the sea. There were boats there but not as many as 2 days earlier. The dive master did a dive briefing and explained to us where the good snorkeling was. We went in and the snorkeling was even better than the day before. This site was not as damaged as the other one, and seemed to have a greater variety of fish. We saw pretty much what we’d seen, plus a school of large butterfly fish, some gorgeous angel fish, little green fish hiding in coral…

Then the boat moved to a second site while we ate lunch. There was plenty of food, and it was very good. The second site consisted of several pinnacles, but only 2 were tall enough for snorkeling. That was plenty, though. This was the best place we’ve been yet, with large schools of fish hanging out on the down-current side of the pinnacles. I saw a lion fish swim around. There was a 3′ file fish (grey with bright blue spots) just hanging out. More of the same, but the same is pretty awesome. We spent our time just going back and forth between the 2 pinnacles and it was great.

Then the boat returned to the harbor, the bus brought us back and that was that. This trip cost us about $70 (including wet suit rental) instead of the $40 we paid 2 days before, but it was totally, totally worth it. The crew was friendly and spoke English. The boat wasn’t crowded. It left on time. We didn’t waste time going to a crappy restaurant on an island. I highly recommend Aquanaut for diving/snorkeling out of Hurghada. My only regret is that I did not manage to get a disposable underwater camera to take along.

On the final day we ate home-made koshari at Mohammed’s house for dinner before driving back to Cairo. It was good again, and nice to glimpse another little bit of Egyptian family life. Back in Cairo at 1am the streets felt deserted. What a difference from Ramadan! It was so quiet in Morad’s apartment that we could hear crickets. Overall, the snorkeling this trip was great, the ride through the desert was good, but I think we’ve learned a lesson regarding going on vacation with people. Make sure you have the same goals.

We arrived in Cairo early in the morning. We stood in the wrong line at first, but that was quickly resolved. The correct procedure is to buy your visa sticker at the bank, which is then put in your passport by the immigration officer. Right out of the airport somebody offered to take us to the cabs. We thought he was a cabbie so we asked how much it was. Upon quoting 8 pounds we figured it out, and walked right past him across the street to the cabs. There we negotiated a taxi into town for 60 pounds. That’s way too much, and not how it works here.

To take a taxi, first you find one. At the airport they’re parked somewhere. In town they’re just cruising. Then you tell them the neighborhood you want to go to (eg. Zamalek). If it’s OK the cabbie will imperceptibly nod, and if he doesn’t want to go there he (never she) will just take off. Get in the car, and as your driving explain exactly where you want to go. Most cabbies speak a little English, but some speak none at all. Once you get there you get out of the cab. Then through the open window (it’s always open, it’s hot in Cairo and they don’t have AC in the taxis) you pay him some money. If it’s good then you just walk away. If it’s not enough then he’ll loudly complain (or so I’m told). I usually pay a few pounds more than it’s supposed to because I don’t want the hassle and I figure it’s good for him. (The average Egyptian makes just 500 pounds ($90) per month.) If you’re lucky and find a yellow cab, then there’s a meter and AC. In theory they cost more than the black and white ones, but in practice they’re cheaper for me (which just goes to show that I pay the black and white taxis too much money). So we’ve learned a lot about taxis since we got here.

The first night we stayed at Pension Zamalek. It’s just a big apartment in a large apartment building. To check in we had to talk to the manager’s wife over the phone, because the man behind the counter did not speak enough English. She asked many times whether we were married. We had a big room with AC, and that’s really all we wanted. The next day we called Andrea’s friend Morad, who picked us up from a MacDonald’s later that day and we’ve stayed with his family in downtown Cairo for almost two weeks.

Morad is the man of the house. His English is quite good and he loves to talk as well as smoke and watch soccer. Amany, his wife, is very nice but because she speaks virtually no English we haven’t gotten to know her as well. She reads coffee grounds religiously. (Danielle is going to have a baby and it will be a surprise.) They have a daughter, Merna. She’s 6 years old and loves to talk as much as her father. The fact that we cannot understand a word of it does not bother her at all. We play simple card games and encourage her to count in English. Finally they have a dog, Mimi. She’s small, white, doesn’t get out much and is always very excited to see you. Occasionally one of the street cats (always the same one) will wander in through the window. She was pregnant when we first saw her but has since given birth. Finally there is a house keeper for a large portion of the day. She speaks even less English than Amany and isn’t included in family dinners so we don’t know her at all.

The apartment is in an older building on the second floor. The ceilings are really high, it’s got large windows, large rooms, a large hallway, and big doors. Our bedroom is big, and the bed is a nice size as well. We have a balcony which looks out over a shopping street below. The only thing missing really is AC, and we’ve mostly learned to cope. At night usually a nice breeze comes through and gets everything to a bearable temperature. Downstairs people sew jeans in shifts, and right outside the door are several stores which ask if we want to buy jeans no matter how many times we’ve gone by. Just down the alley is a mosque which dutifully sends out prayer calls at least 5 times a day.

Just half a block away is a MacDonald’s, which we actually went to fairly often. The reason is Ramadan, which this year was for the entire month of September. During Ramadan all Muslims (90% of the population) do not eat or drink anything while the sun is up. This means almost all cafes and restaurants are closed during the day, except for a few places catering to tourists. So we ate a lot of fast food. It’s no better here than anywhere else, and I recommend against the MacArabia sandwich. The best experience was at Cook Door, which is a local chain. We also ate at KFC, Pizza Hut (quite inauthentic), and Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf.

Because people fast during the day, those who can, sleep. Regular business hours are reduced to about 10am to 3pm. Some stores might stay open a little bit longer, but at 5:40-something, when the sun sets, the evening prayer call starts. At this signal everybody rushes to the already set dinner table and drinks their fruit juice. Then they eat, and praying is done afterwards. The food is usually heavy on starches, so the next hour or two are reserved to get over the sugar coma. Then the day really starts at about 8 o’clock. All stores reopen, and people take to the streets for shopping and socializing. During the day the city is hot and mostly empty looking. At night it’s comfortably warm and it feels like a festival is going on. All this makes being in Egypt during Ramadan a mixed blessing. We enjoyed seeing it for a few days, but were looking forward to the end of it.

Religion does play a really major part of life, and is really everywhere. Prayer calls are heard several times a day. People whose job prevents them from going anywhere, like security guards, will pull out a mat and pray right there. Many people will have a dark spot on their forehead from praying on a (presumably dirty) prayer mat. It feels like they wear this as a mark of pride.

Of course all the women wear at least a head scarf. Some wear full veils, and a few go so far as to wear gloves, and even a strip of cloth in between the eyes so nothing is visible but the eyes. Having said that, many girls wear brightly colored scarves, sparkling clothes, and tight fitting T-shirts over tight fitting sweaters. The dress code here is different, but it does not at all feel like anybody is not able to express herself. Household TVs are commonly tuned to one of the religion channels which tend to show nature imagery while playing songs in the background. I assume they’re excerpts from the Koran but I don’t know that.

Religion is also very much part of one’s identity. While watching TV Morad will know for each actor what country they’re from and what their religion is. When filling out our visa extension I was asked what my religion was. Talk about plans is peppered with “Insh-Allah” (God willing). I think this strong religion is also largely responsible for how safe Cairo is. Every source says it is safe for a women to walk alone through Cairo in the middle of the night. There aren’t many cities where that’s true.

The first few days were spent just trying to relax a bit from a busy end to our Kenya trip. Our days consisted of sleeping in a bit, eating one brunch meal, wandering around or doing a chore, eating a big meal at iftar, occasionally go somewhere or just relax, snack a little and go to bed between midnight and 2am. We only did 2 really touristy things. First we visited the Egyptian museum. There are tons of artifacts in a building that is busy and not air conditioned. Most of the pieces are not behind glass or ropes, meaning you can walk around them or even touch them if you choose to disobey the rules. From the wear patterns on the stone it’s clear that plenty of people do. It was neat to be able to get right up to statues, sarcophagi etc. and walk around them to see some of the fine detail. It’s amazing that thousands of years after they were first created, some still have some vivid colors remaining. We also enjoyed the remarkably lifelike eyes that some of the statues had. They were made from clear quarts, and had pupils from some other kind of rock. Even with all that, it did feel a bit like endlessly more of the same. I’m sure that somebody who knows their ancient Egyptian history wouldn’t see it that way, but I’m not so lucky. We left after we finished the first floor, to come back some other day for the second one.

The other major attraction we visited was the pyramids at Giza. It was a cool experience, but not as amazing as I would have hoped. Maybe the most interesting thing is how close they are to Cairo. In all the pictures it looks like they’re in the middle of the desert, but in fact you can see them in between concrete high rises from the main road. We did a camel/horse ride (switched halfway through) to see them, and that was a bit of an adventure. Riding a camel is pretty neat. They’re huge, and you have to hold on pretty tight when it stands up and lies down. Our camel had some cool patterns shaved into his head too. Very “Attack of the Mutant Space Camels”. It was hot that day, and sunny, and of course there’s no shade.

We took our ride, saw the pyramids from a distance, saw some tombs, and then got a chance to walk up to the pyramids and touch them. That was the only part where it really felt like we were there. The rest of it we felt like we were looking at a picture in the distance. It was neat to see something so old that’s still in pretty decent shape, considering. (The building behind Morad’s place in Cairo is in a lot worse condition.) We took a distance shot of the sphinx, and we were out of there. Maybe we could have done more, but with the heat we were more than ready to leave. A very hot cab ride later we just did nothing for the rest of the day, and I think it took Danielle until the next day before she really recovered from the weather.

The pyramids trip was organized by Alex, a friend of Danielle’s sister. He takes care of ex-pats and tourists for a living, so he knows everybody and everything we might care about. In general his prices are a little bit higher than what you might be able to negotiate by yourself (if you’re good at it), but you can be sure that what you get is something good. Kind of like Macy’s. You can e-mail him at alex1_egypt@yahoo.com or call him at 0123393544. Everybody who’s in Egypt for more than a few days should really get a sim card. Cell phones are everywhere, and we’ve used ours a lot.

In the evenings Morad would take us to see some of Cairo. We saw Attaba, which is a ridiculously busy shopping center, with some very nice mosques right in the middle of it. We went to Old Cairo but all the mosques were closed for Ramadan. (Closed to visitors, that is. During Ramadan they’re reserved for praying.) He took us up a mountain neighborhood where we had a great view of the city lights, while we tried sheesha. We saw quite a few things, and it was nice to have a guide to steer us through the crowds.

We also visited 2 different people. First we visited Morad’s cousin, who lives in a nicer apartment. He works for a big oil company and has visited the United States several times. Evidently while Morad was talking to him he must’ve mentioned that I’m an atheist because we had another good discussion about people’s beliefs. I say another because I’d already had a similar discussion with Morad. Their view is basically that everybody believes in the same god but in different ways (Christian, Muslim, Jew). Atheism is a new concept to them, as is evolution. The most interesting thing is that they perceive there to be proof of a creator around them, while most Christians who I’ve talked with say that one day god spoke to them or they had another similar, not verifiable, experience. My talks about religion have been very civil, very interesting, and I’m happy to say that almost everybody (on any side) is quite tolerant and happy to hear about others’ beliefs.

Second, we visited Amany’s grand mother. She lives on the other side of the economic scale, on the first floor in a small apartment with no windows. She made coffee on a small kerosene stove, while I had a coke that was bought outside. Because Morad was not with us, we had a hard time communicating but we made it work. Then she read Danielle’s coffee grounds and through a big round of charades we eventually learned that: 1. We are going to have a baby. 2. We are going to buy a house in Cairo. 3. We are going to start a business here. 4. Money will come to us from America. Amany had read our coffee grounds earlier, and made similar predictions. I didn’t ask how this meshes with her Muslim beliefs, but I did think it was interesting. A lasting image for me was to watch Amany use her cell phone to illuminate the coffee grounds enough that she could read them when we were somewhere dark.

I think the Internet here deserves its own paragraph. It’s fast. I’ve been able to upload higher res versions of quite a few of the pictures I’ve taken, and I’m all caught up on movies. Once I’m 100% caught up I’ll let you know, but there are some much more detailed images of our safari up for viewing already. Contrary to what our guidebook says, there are Internet cafes everywhere, and typically you get at least 25KB/s down and 5KB/s up. At restaurants that westerners frequent (McD’s, Cilantro, …) wireless networks are often installed (as well as wonderful AC).

Something else that deserves a paragraph is traffic. While it’s not quite as crazy as Nairobi, this is not a place I’d be comfortable driving. There are lane markings, but they are ignored by everybody. When the traffic is dense, there are as many lanes as will fit in the space, which is usually one more than is marked. When traffic is moderate, people are wherever they feel like. Pass cars on the left, the right, pull around them, it’s all good. If you’re stopped somewhere and can out-accelerate the guy in front of you when there is temporarily more space, more power to you. The only reason Egyptians put on a seat belt is if they spot a police officer ahead. Head lights are only used “when necessary.” That doesn’t mean only at night. It means only if it’s night and you’re on a bit of road where there aren’t any street lights, bright store fronts, or other vehicles with their lights already on.

As you’ve already read, we decided to stay in Cairo for a while. This is kind of how that happened. We were waiting to meet Alex at Cilantro. Danielle mentioned, as one of does in every place, “wouldn’t it be great if we can spend some more time here and learn the language?” “Well,” I replied, “Why not?” We were both at the point where we feel a little bit done seeing a new place every few days, and Cairo seemed nice. Then when we met Alex he mentioned that his real income is from finding ex-pats apartments. A day or two later we told him that we’d like a place, and 2 days after that we’d found one we liked at a decent price. (We only viewed 5 places, but we didn’t want to spend the time to do a “proper” apartment search.)

Letting Morad and his family know what our plan was did not go over well. They seemed very offended that we wanted to get our own apartment instead of staying with them for 2 months. We tried to explain that, culturally, we just feel better if we’re in our own place and not imposing on people (no matter how much they say we’re not imposing). I don’t think they really saw our point of view, but they did eventually accept it as an American strangeness. After that initial discussion they never brought it up again and have been nothing but supportive.

That brings you kind of up to speed on our first almost two weeks in Cairo. There are lots more impressions and little things I want to share, but in the interest of catching up on my blogging that will have to wait. I assume Cairo isn’t going to change that much while we’re here so there will be time for more rambling later.

Workouts: 9/19, 10 rounds of 10 burpees: 49s, 1:14, 1:33, 1:34, 1:40, 1:47, 1:46, 1:53, 1:56, 1:23 for 15:34. 9/23, 3 rounds of 40 x 10 lb one-handed db swing (switch hands on each swing), 20 lunges. 2:00, 2:18, 2:09 for 6:27. 9/29, 5 rounds of 4 clap pushup, 10 jumping squats: 23s, 28s, 35s, 57s (because I was doing regular squats), 37s for 3:01. I’m not working out every other day, but at least I’m getting something in.

In Nairobi we took a taxi to a hotel the book likes. Our taxi driver had to stop and get out of the car to ask for directions twice, and on top of that the car stalled several times. Despite all this he asked for a tip (which he did not get). Tipping in Kenya is not as for-granted as it is at home. In general I’ve noticed that if a cab has a radio, then the rest of the car is in workable shape. If it’s got a fancy radio then it’s probably in good shape. We checked into the Terminal Hotel. As always, Kenya’s tourism is in bad shape right now which means we can walk in anywhere and get a room. It was pretty nice, with a hot shower in the morning and evening. The noise was quite reasonable considering that Nairobi is a huge city. It also had a nice supermarket in the building across the street, which was convenient for water and snacks.

We were only in Nairobi for one whole day, which we used for Internet and eating. We also wandered the downtown area a bit. All this time we felt perfectly safe. Nairobi has the reputation of being the most dangerous city in Africa, but when we were out it was busy. Even where we went for dinner the first night was well lit outside and we felt fine walking back. But eating. My first good food was the white forest cake at the coffee shop across from the hotel. I’d been disappointed with dessert the last night, but all was forgotten. Very nice cake.

Then for lunch we went to Carnivore, which has all-you-can-eat meat. At one time they offered all kinds of exotic meats (zebra, giraffe) but that is now illegal in Kenya. In the restaurant everybody got the same meal. We were first given soup and bread. Then for the rest of the meal, waiters just wandered around constantly putting more meat on our plate. They wandered around with big skewers, and cut the meat straight from the skewer onto our plates. We also had a big thing of garnishes and sauces to have with the meat, and a token salad. So we tasted: lamb, beef, pork spare ribs, ostrich meatballs, and crocodile. I enjoyed all of it. Finally we got a very tasty dessert as well. All the food was included in the price. Separately we also each got a dawa cocktail, which is vodka, lime, and honey. When we were there the place felt nice and full, which gave it a nice atmosphere. It was also the most expensive meal of our trip so far. All this came to less than $70, and afterwards we were so full that we just had a light snack for dinner.

Back at our hotel we went to bed a bit early, and woke up about 1am to get to the airport. At 1:30am we were picked up by Milton, a cab driver, and we got to the airport just before 2am. Our flight didn’t leave ’til 5:15am, but we didn’t want to show up late just to discover that we really did have to be there 3 hours before. It turns out there was no reason to be there that early. The check-in counter wasn’t even open when we arrived. So we sat around, checked in, went through emigration, waited a long time in a deserted tax-free mall, and finally got on our plane. The only advantage to being the first flight of the day was that it left exactly on time.

Goodbye Kenya, we had a great time. At least half the people we talked to in Kenya asked that we tell everybody it was great, and it was, so here you go: Kenya is a great country to visit. Come and spend your money there, see some great wildlife, relax on a beach, see some old culture, maybe climb a mountain, whatever floats your boat.

Workouts: 9/16, 5 rounds of 4 clap push-ups, 10 jumping squats. 26s, 31s, 55s, 60s, 40s for 3:33. Quick but really kills you.