Cruising along

In Aswan on the last night of a Nile Cruise. The things you see on these cruises put the antiquities in Cairo to shame, but mostly it's just a very different experience. No time to post or ability to post pictures at the moment, alas. Tomorrow I leave Cairo and Saturday morning I meet up with my fellow hikers in Nairobi assuming all goes well!

wedding recap

The invitation said 8pm. People here told us to expect something more along the lines of 9 or 9:30, more or less. In truth the wedding started closer to 11pm, with food coming out at 2am and the party shutting down at 5am, and was worth every moment of the wait. Bagpipers and belly dancers and amazing food and a poolside view of the Nile at night. It was very probably a once in a lifetime experience and I feel very lucky to have had a chance to be a part of it. As the only other wedding I've ever been to was on a goat farm, I feel like I'm getting a pretty unusual data set to extrapolate from.

Today we saw the oldest synagogue in Cairo. Apparently that’s next to the spot Moses got pulled out of the reeds 5,000+ years ago. You can’t go 10 feet in that part of town without passing over some spot where the major players of the Bible were hanging out. Dear lord.

Wedding Day

Today is Noha and Javier's wedding - the reason we're all in Egypt. Most of what I've learned to expect is that there wil be dancing until there's food, and then there will be more dancing. Not to start before 9:30pm and unlikely to end until 2am. There is some worry about sandstorms destroying the wedding. Fingers crossed on that front.

Yesterday we went to the Citadel (historic fortress/mosque) and the Coptic Quarter (Christian part of town). As our guide kept reminding us, Egypt is about 87% Muslim and the rest are Christian, so going to see the religious sites is kind of a must do. At the Citadel they didn't seem to care if women covered their heads or not (we did as we're not jackasses), which surprised me, but they almost made me put on an extra robe over my clothes even though I was covered from head to toe, because my pants were slightly sagging when I walked by the guard and my belly was showing momentarily. I found that fascinating. In the Coptic quarter we were in churches that were 1600+ years old, one supposedly built over the place Jesus and fam hid when they fled to Egypt 2,000+ years ago. I knew Egypt had old stuff, but it had not really occurred to me that included things since the pyramids. Talk about history. That just makes all those centuries old churches I've seen in Europe seem kinda...well...new.

And of course, speaking of traditions as old as time, yesterday was when we got the heavy handed introduction to what we termed the "shakedown" where we got taken by our tour guide to the places to buy all the tourist swag. Since we did actually buy stuff I'm not sure whether that made the shakedown more or less ok. The day before we'd gotten our first shakedown - a "tour" of a "school' where ten year olds were hand making oriental rugs. Interesting to see and also a bit sickening. A big rug was quoted at $5,500 before haggling. Given that they explained it would have taken ish 2,000 hours of effort and you know the kids aren't seeing the profit, it's kind of astonishing that was a touristy thing to swing by. Today we got a mini-shakedown just walking down the street from the hotel. Everyone is trying to sell you something all the time. It's impressive. Still, most of the "negative" things I've seen in Cairo pale in comparison to the equivalent I saw in Mumbai. I realize though that I'm far more sheltered here than I was there.

Most surreal moment of the trip so far has been driving an hour+ out into the desert to a gated community to see how the ultra-rich of Cairo live. Lush garden + pool + several story mansion where we awkwardly ate sweets and listed to some hired musicians, far, far, far away from the noise and crowds of the city. It was nice, just a bit surreal. Getting away from the noise and crowds is no small achievement. I can see why those who have money to burn do it. Javier tells us that Cairo is the loudest city in the world, and I can't say I have any reason to doubt him. Even conversations seem louder here. I can't tell if it's just a culture that likes to argue with each other or if everyone is angry all the time or if what sounds like shouting to my english-inflected ears is actually the norm.

I finally acquired an Egyptian phone number, though surely it would have been more useful to me earlier in the week. Better late than never, right? My number is 0194884393. No idea if that is all you need to dial or not. But I have a ton of minutes so feel free to reach out if you need to. As long as you remember it's a 10 hour time difference from Seattle. If you want a post card from some part of this Africa trip, let me know!

Also, while it turned out I had 45 free internet minutes A DAY (I thought total) and I wish I had known that earlier, after today I'm not really sure what my internet situation is going to be like. I do have a phone from which I think I can at least kind of get online so at minimum I should be able to check in every once in a while.

Touristing it up.

We’ve spent the last couple days sight-seeing. Today was the big day – the pyramids of Giza and Sakkara, and the Sphinx. Poor Judy seemed to melt in the desert, as expected. I confirmed that I have inexplicably inherited high heat tolerance from my Polish roots and Seattle life. I was a little hot. Alas, I’ll have no tan when I get back – between the outfit and the SPF100 sunscreen (I’m allergic to everything else) I’ll be as pasty as ever.
Oh yes, also rode a camel. That was mildly terrifying, but it was certainly an experience.

I'm in love with Egyptian food. Noha tells me we have no Egyptian restaurants in Seattle. That's quite a shame as everything I've had has been wonderful. Of course, Noha has been handpicking the restaurants and the menus, often with an eye to my garlic desires.

No phone yet. Also, may not get photos online any time soon, but rest assured many are being taken.

Cairo Time

After a long day's travel I've arrived in Cairo safe and sound and tired as you'd imagine. So far all we've done is check into the hotel and meet some of Noha's friends for dinner. We're at the Cairo Sheraton so we're not hurting for comfort. The city is hazy like I wouldn't believe - it's smoggy but I think a lot of it is sand that literally strips away the exteriors of buildings that aren't made of super hard stone. Other than that, I seem to not be as overwhelmed by chaos as the locals expect from Americans. The driving is no crazier than Buenos Aires. Tomorrow when we're less travel-weary and jet-lagged, we'll go sight-seeing. Pyramids and all that good stuff that one does when in Egypt.

On the eve of departure

When faced with clear empirical evidence, I'm forced to admit it, I'm apparently a terrible blogger. Suffice it so say that I've done a lot of fundraising, done a lot of training, and the moment has finally arrived. In about 6 hours I'll be getting on a plane heading to Cairo, where I'll be spending a week seeing the sights and then attending a wedding. The next week I'll be doing a Nile Cruise, and after that comes the big adventure - Kilimanjaro. If I have internet access at any point, I'll attempt to be better at blogging. After all, it's the African adventures that are the most intriguing part of this whole process.

By the by, for those who are interested, I raised over 2800 GBP. With the switch in trek my new goal was actually only 1975, so I blew that goal out of the water! Thanks everyone for your support!

Progress!

I bought my tickets. Things are starting to get more real, more immediate. I'm also starting to get nervous. Hopefully this is all a good sign.

I owe a long gym post coming up with the May recap and June works - I've been working out (though sickness has stolen a few workout days). I simply am once again behind on recording it.