A week in Egypt (The Christmas Trip)

Let the circus begin!
There are thousands of vacationers from around the world coming and going here every day and so it is quite madness when you get to the customs area. No one seems available to answer your questions so you just kind of look around and hope you are doing the right thing, or if not, that you realize it before you've already been waiting in the enormous passport control line for an hour (it's not that bad). Fortunately, no one tried to screw me with the visa cost - everyone said they would try to charge me more than the Russians - but there were so many people and such chaos how could anyone notice??

Then the baggage claim, all of our bags conveniently thrown in a large mess so that some Egyptian could dig it out for you in 5 seconds and then ask for baksheesh (ah, memories of India!). Well, then off to the hotel area to walk around and scope out the possibilities for entertainment in Hurghada. Keep in mind the hotel I stayed at was 90% Russian and I'm quite sure that I was one of maybe 5 Americans in the whole city!! it was so strange to hear all these Egyptians speaking incredible Russian!

WEDNESDAY - We began the day with a disgustingly large and delicious buffet breakfast (included in price of tour and dinner was too).
Then, contrary to everything our tour guide host told us, we spent the whole day cruising around the town looking for souvenirs right away. I really expected to find a lot of amazing stuff in Egypt like in India, but I was sadly mistaken. There was just crap, crap and more crap. All the stores were the same. But amazingly, you don't have to haggle. You can go to the bazaar and do so if you wish, but there are many stores where the shop owners are just as tired of it as the tourists and have simply listed the prices like a bargain basement store.
On the contrary, almost every supermarket has no prices and they look at all your products and give you a price based on how rich you look or what language you are speaking. The first question everyone asks is 'where are you from?' They are looking for the Scandinavians mostly. They know Russians are poorer. And it's amazing how many languages these people speak!!!!

THURSDAY - this was an amazing day! We took a 4-wheeler safari through the desert. And we were the only people in our tour!!! Usually there are 10-20 people. Nope, just us. So we wrapped up our heads and faces in scarves and took off. It was excellent! Then we went to a little 'set up for tourists' Bedouin village and smoked kalian (hookah with flavored tabacco which is the national pastime of Egyptians - they rarely drink alcohol) with some guy who didn't speak any languages and then an exciting daredevilish 30 second camel ride up and down a worn path with a just as worn Bedouin woman leading the way. On the way back our guide took us through hills and jumps with the bikes and then stopped to talk on his mobile while we whipped the 4 wheeler up and down the desert at 60km an hour. So cool!

FRIDAY - This day we somehow managed to drag ourselves out of bed at 4:45am and went to Luxor to see some incredible temples and carvings and tombs. Unfortunately we were obliged to follow around this guide all day, Mimo, who I'm sure was a eunuch, and
When he spoke,
He spoke
Like
This
As though he were rapping and he even had some hand movements to go with his speech. Strange cat. This was my first long term experience with an Egyptian. Well some observations:
First of all, Arabic speakers often can't distinguish between B and P and that combined with this dude's singing style of speech, I had a difficult time understanding his ridiculously long explanations, which everyone in the group told him that he needed to cut short.
Secondly, Egyptians speak their mind and are very easily annoyed. Our guide yelled at us all the time for not listening to him. AND - when we first got off the bus of course everyone wanted a toilet and after 20 minutes of his explanations, one poor Finnish man dared to ask him for the toilet and the Mimo's actual reply was 'What is more important, the toilet, or my explanations?" oh yeah. 4 of the group told him the toilet and they immediately left!
Anyway, forgetting about the guide, the temple was fascinating, but I do wish I had read more about it on my own and really known some of the history before going. We finally got some time on our own and went off to another temple far away and desperately tried to thwart the many attempts by men to be our guide, but finally gave in to one who took us up to the roof whereupon I heard another pair of sandals flapping up the stairs rapidly behind us. My heart jumped into my throat because I read travellers' tales of getting trapped like this and being robbed or molested, even if the girl was with a guy. But nothing happened. We gave them one dollar and they asked for more but we just said no and they let us downstairs.
Then we went to the Valley of the queens, but the tombs actually weren't that impressive. Just small and they all had the same kind of paintings. Saw some absurd Russian couples there. SO easy to spot a Russian out of Russia. Just look for the girls who look like Madonna in 1985! And unfortunately Nefartiti's tomb was closed. But it was still neat. And it's also interesting to hear how Egyptians pronounce these names compared to how we always learned in English. Like not Ram-ses, but Ram-i-sis.
Then we went on a tour of a papyrus 'factory' and an alabaster 'factory' which is just a ploy to get you to buy stuff. Every tour here involves some unwanted extras - with the not so attractive option of paying and going or just sitting on the bus and waiting for the others. It's all a scam - but it's Egypt. Should you be surprised? Lastly, we went to some great statues, where I bought the best souvenir of the trip - there was a little girl stand a bit away, not bothering all the tourists like the others. She was holding something and I couldn't see what it was. So I went over to her - but she didn't know any of our languages like they usually know a few words. She just knew 'one dollar!' she had this ugly handmade little doll thing. I had to buy it from her because she was just so sweet. Then she took my dollar and ran away through the corn fields. It's my favorite souvenir.
We returned to the hotel in time for our massive dinner, after which we realized that we had to stop eating so much because looking in the mirror we saw that our stomachs were actually bloated and we physically couldn't put on our jeans. GROSS!!!!!!!
No sleep this night since it was already 11:30 and our bus to Cairo was leaving at 1:50am. Relaxing holiday hey?

SATURDAY - Arrived in Cairo completely exhausted - but hey, who said a vacation is supposed to be restful?
Today's guide was named Mamdu, who nicely told us we could call him Mama. His English was at least straightforward and understandable, but again, that same attitude. He actually scolded us several times for not following him, or not standing close enough, or not paying attention! We started off at the national museum, which was really amazing - they had thousands of exhibits and the special display of all Tutankhamen's stuff. Oh the jewelry!!! After that, the star attraction - the Pyramids of Giza and the sphinx - on Christmas day! There are 3 pyramids - each one is open for 5 years, then they rotate to preserve them. The guide tried to convince us that it was boring to go down inside and that there was nothing to see. Yeah, but who wouldn't want to go inside?!?!?! It's a long way down and the air gets REALLY bad because they don't control the amount of people they let in at a time. I'm sure people pass out frequently. Actually, aside from having an inside, I have to say the pyramids of central american indians are a lot more interesting. There wasn't much to look at outside. But there were a lot of ruins and the guide took us down the causeway that led to the biggest pyramid, and with all the traditionally dressed people and camels you really got a feeling of being back in time. Then we saw the sphinx at the end by the mumification temple, but you can only be far away from it.
We learned some interesting things from the guide, like how you can tell how important the person was from the beard on the statue and that the reason most statues are deformed is because they believed that your soul could only come back to you if it could recognize you. so by cutting off the statue's nose, the enemies could be sure that the spirit of the king was gone forever. And that is why a lot of times there were many sarcophigi (??) inside each other to increase the chances of return.
After this we skipped the 'factory' tours to head off to Alexandria. We got SO lucky too. OK - we are the dumbest people because we set off on our own with no guidebook or information at all. But there was an guy who spoke English on our bus and got everything for us. Told us how much to pay for a taxi, told us a good cheap hotel, gave us his phone number and the number of his friend in cairo, helped us get tickets back and everything. Amazing luck - and really great guy!

SUNDAY - Most of this day was spent trying to obtain my renewal visa to come back to the Motherland. Long, boring, aggravating story.
Then we tried to see some things in Alexandria, but again, dumb us brought no guide or information and we don't know a lick of Arabic of course. We just hung out by the Mediterranean Sea for a while. It was a bad idea because it gave me the flavour of real travelling again. I so wanted to be out there on my own backpacking with all the time in the world. It sucked to have to go back to Hurghada. I mean, one or the other type of trip is fine, but you can't do both. I really feel unsatisfied because I know I missed a lot of amazing things in Egypt and at the same time didn't get a real restful resort type holiday either. You just can't do both.
Funny thing happened though - got yelled at for giving each other a little kiss in the back of a taxi (no, no, no!! We don't do that here!!). Oops, so much for our cultural sensitivity. It was just a little innocent brush of the lips!!
Well, we went back to Cairo to meet our bus back, which came 2 hours after we were promised!!! That REALLY sucks because we could have seen more of Alexandria! But we just waited around in a hotel.
We had to ride a bus back with a bunch of Scandanavians. Those people are annoying!! They are so fussy and capricious. Blech. Don't put your seat back, don't move too much, etc. etc. etc.
Then, at one point in the ride the driver almost collided with a truck coming the other way and everyone in the front of the bus screamed so loud and one girl started crying! Glad I couldn't see anything. After that they all watched the front window to see what was going to happen, as if they could prevent it. Deal with it! Egyptians drive like maniacs - I guess coming from Russia it wasn't so different for me.

MONDAY - The last day. So sad. We really needed 3 more days I'd say for the trip to be perfect. One day to see Alexandria, one to veg out, and one to go to Mt. Sinai and visit the world's first monasteries from the Coptic Christian religion. Would have been nice.
But we spent this day out on a boat diving the Red Sea. Unfortunately, it was the coldest day. And unfortunately the boat was all Russians, with the exception of one Arabic family, who will figure into this tale in just a minute.
So there is the guy explaining the instructions for diving in Russian and obviously it's a really serious thing to listen - life or death kind of thing. Well, one of the Arabic guys was talking to one of the boat crew and the instructor yelled at him to listen since it was his first time diving. And then he was showing us the hand signals for underwater and came to the one for "all ok" and the arabic father said, no it's not. And the Russian guy was like, huh? And the Arabic guy started yelling at him for yelling at his son and all that stuff. Man - they are SO argumentative!
The diving was OK - nothing like the Great Barrier Reef of course. And in December it is a bit too cold to be out on the water. The real problem, though, is that all the yachts anchor in the same area and it's just like a Russian civil wedding factory (you know what I mean). One diver in, out, next in, out, etc. No one really watches out for you or cares if you enjoy yourself. It is a bit scary.
The rest of the day we finished up our shopping - and ran an interesting special errand. My boyfriend is probably the only person to go to Egypt and sell something to them!! He sold his mobile phone to the kid we bought our kalian from!! For about $35 and some packets of tobacco. Well, it was so old and useless anyway and he's been dying for a new phone for so long - why not?
At night we went to see an entertainment group at a bar in a neighboring hotel lip-syncing all the songs from Saturday Night Fever. It was so ridiculous, but so fun. They had different shows every night - Rocky Horror Picture Show, Phantom of the Opera, Moulin Rouge, etc. Actually, I think that would be a fun summer job for a while, just to do something silly like that!

TUESDAY - Well, bye-bye Egypt. Out of the chaotic airport (you'll wait about an hour to get to the first x-ray machines) and into a chaotic plane (TransAero) where the stewardesses got so fed up with the clients that they hid in the back, threw all the drink and snacks on the last seats, and didn't come out again till we landed. I kid you not.
A fabulous, highly recommended, somewhat cultural, cheap, getaway-from-Russia (almost) trip!!!