SB '09 Reflections

Perhaps the best thing to come out of this trip was a renewed appreciation for Jordan and America. I was feeling a little down on Amman in the weeks leading up to Spring Break, but every problem here seems insignificant by comparison to Egypt. The most obvious thing to notice about Egypt is how hot it is. Unlike the dry heat throughout Jordan, the Nile adds the component of humidity, which makes things awful and sweaty. And this was in early April, I can’t imagine what summer must be like there. Also enhancing the heat is the pollution. Amman is not good in that regard. I walk home from school along a busy road a few times a week and have begun to feel it in my lungs, but Cairo is so much worse. The buildings are all caked with brown grime. When you wash your face or blow your nose, all this black stuff comes out. It’s pretty bad.

The traffic in Cairo is also the worst I’ve ever seen. There’s gridlock all day. Every block is choked with traffic during peak hours, and it can take ten minutes to go two blocks. It was a little better on the weekends, but still not great. Amman traffic can get pretty bad during rush hour, but it at least still moves, albeit very slowly. Crossing streets in Cairo is a lot more dangerous than in Amman (which is really dangerous to begin with). There are traffic lights on every block, but noone obeys them unless there is a traffic cop there to enforce them.

None of these problems is quite as bad in Luxor, but the people were. In Egypt people always want money from you. Whenever people come up to you on the street, it’s almost always to ask for money or to get you to do something that’ll give them money. If you ask for directions, people will lead you into a store or restaurant where they’ll get a commission. Taxis have no meter, so you have to negotiate every ride, which can be awful. Everything’s dirt cheap in Egypt, but the micro-transactions that come from this “baksheesh” really add up. Even at the pyramids, the police officers would try to sell you stuff. It was all very dirty and degrading.

Speaking of money, the Egpytian coinage might be the worst in the world. There are about five Egyptian Pounds to one dollar (and about eight to the Jordanian Dinar) and converting all the time was a hassle. The worst part though, was that nobody uses coins. There are twenty-five piaster (about a nickel) notes that are completely useless. The money also gets really nasty from being constantly handled and sweated on in the 95-degree weather. It’s a major change from Jordan’s currency, which is valuable, nice, and easy to handle. Anyway, just about everything in Egypt was a hassle.

The good: there are a lot of amazing and beautiful things to see and so much history. Cairo is also a lot more cosmopolitan than Amman. It’s a lot like going from a small city like Harrisburg to New York. Despite how awful a place it is, a week really isn’t enough to see everything and I would like to go back. Alexandria is a beautiful city and is free of most of the problems in Cairo. The people there are a lot nicer and more willing to be helpful and talk to you . They also seem less interested in ripping you off. I’d like to spend more time there. We also didn’t get to see some of the cooler sights in the desert, like the monasteries, oases, or Mt. Sinai. I also have heard really good things about Aswan.

Anyway, even though a lot of annoying things happened, this was a really good trip. It wasn’t very relaxing, but I can safely say that it was the best vacation I’ve ever been on (not that it has all that much competition).

SB '09 Part 2

Monday was the third day of our trip. We were staying in a decent hotel in Cairo called the Luna. It was in an old building and all the rooms were around this big, twisting hallway. Our rooms had a great view of the busy street below. We got up early to go see Coptic Cairo. We saw a bunch of churches from early Christianity, plus Egypt’s first synagogue. We also went inside of Egypt’s first mosque, which was just down the street.

Later in the day we went to the Egyptian museum. It was big and had a lot of cool stuff in it, though there really weren’t any labels anywhere, which made it harder to navigate. The mummy room was pretty cool. After the museum we took a taxi to Al-Azhar Park, which is located inland from the Nile, close to the citadel and Islamic Cairo. The park was relaxing, a nice change of pace from the rest of the city. Afterwards we tried to walk towards Islamic Cairo, but ended up at the Necropolis. It probably wasn’t a good idea to walk through there, since a lot of bums call it home, so we took a taxi back to the market where we went the day before. We walked around and had dinner before heading to catch the train for Luxor.
We didn’t get a sleeping car, so the eight-hour ride was pretty uncomfortable. When we arrived we took a taxi to our hotel and slept for a few hours before walking to Karnak Temple. The temple was pretty awesome. The coolest part was the Hypostyle, which had over 100 huge columns. Afterwards we headed back and saw Luxor Temple at sunset. That was cool because it was lit up.

Luxor was brutally hot. It was at least in the upper 90s and very humid all the time. There was a breeze off of the Nile, so it made things somewhat bearable. The next day we went to the West Bank with a group of people from our hotel. First we saw the Valley of the Kings, then a couple of palaces and the Colossus of Memnes before heading back. It took most of the day. It was nice having a guide to take us around, even though her English wasn’t very good. We tried to nap afterwards, but someone was on the street banging on some metal, which was really annoying. That night we ate at a place on the Nile waterfront and went to bed early since we had a 7:00 flight back to Cairo the next morning.

After arriving in Cairo, we wanted to take a day trip to Alexandria. It was easier said than done, however. The first train we wanted to take was sold out, so we tried to get a bus. After walking around Ramses Station for about fifteen minutes, we thought we had found the place. A guy took us to this back alley where these vans were being loaded, but they only came every fifteen minutes, and there were a lot of people waiting. After awhile we decided to go back and get a later train. It left a little after noon, but we didn’t get into Alexandria until almost three. First we went to the new library, which was really cool. It was a nice change from all the ancient stuff that we had been looking at. Next we went to a seafood restaurant in this side alley. The food was good, but the presentation was lacking. Afterwards we walked along the Corniche and stopped at a café before taking the train back. The next day we flew back to Amman.

SB '09 Part 1

I just got back from Egypt this evening, so I thought I would share the experience. We left last Thursday after classes on a Jet bus bound for Aqaba. The trip was off to a good start as we got the front seat on the upper deck, so we got a really good view (though it was nighttime in the desert, so there really wasn’t much to see).

We got in around 11:00, so we really didn’t do anything but eat dinner at this place called Rover’s Revenge. We started our first day of Spring Break by walking along the “Boardwalk” to Aqaba’s Mamluk fort. The Boardwalk in Aqaba is nothing like the one’s on the east coast back home. It’s basically a string of street vendors selling swim trunks and some other beach gear. The Mamluk fort was pretty cool. There was a herd of cats living there though, and it subsequently smelled like cat. Afterwards we went to the beach, which was sort of a mixed bag. There was little sand and a lot of rocks and coral. It was pretty painful to walk on, but beautiful to watch with the snorkels we bought. Afterwards we went to a really good Chinese restaurant and a café.

The next day we were set to take a ferry to Nuweiba in Egypt. Things did not get off on the right foot. We arrived at the port around 10:00 in the morning, with plenty of time to spare before a noon departure. First, we had to go upstairs in the office to buy tickets. Next, we had to go back downstairs to buy the departure stamp. After that, we had to go back upstairs to get the stamp put on our passports. Then we had to go back downstairs to wait for a shuttle, which took us to the ferry. We finally had made it to the ferry, but it wasn’t until 1:30 that we left. Two hours later we arrived in Nuweiba, but had to wait on the ferry for another half hour before we could get off. When we did get off, we found ourselves in this awful port, filled with semis. We had to walk across the port and wait at this dank, smelly, crowded office to get our arrival stamp and then walk to another office to get the stamp put on and retrieve our passports. Another interesting wrinkle: when we first got on the ferry they took our passports, and the only thing we got in return was this slip of paper with a little scribble on it. After finally getting our passports we had to go through security, which was a warehouse filled with garbage. Finally, we went to the East Delta bus office next door to buy bus tickets for the next day and took a van to our hotel. All this was made worse by the fact that it was about 95 degrees and muggy. It’s hard to describe what an awful and frustrating afternoon this was. Welcome to Egypt.

The hotel (the Ciao) was much better. We started off by having dinner at the hotel restaurant, which was pretty good. After that we went down to the beach on the Red Sea, where one of us hooked up our iPod to some speakers and had a mini-dance party with the eight of us as the moon was rising over Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Israel.

The next day we took an eight-hour bus ride across the Sinai desert to Cairo. About as exciting as it sounds. It was kind of a culture shock arriving in Cairo. Our hotel was in downtown, which is a lot more crowded and cosmopolitan than Amman. That night we spent getting tickets for the train to Luxor and getting lost at Ramses Train Station. We went to bed early in preparation for our tour of the pyramids the next day. The pyramids were pretty awesome, as expected. We took camels and horses around Giza, then took pictures of the Step Pyramid from the road. About 45 minutes south of Cairo is the Red Pyramid, which was cool because you could go inside of it. There really wasn’t anything to see there, and it was really hot and smelled like ammonia, but it was cool simply for the fact of being inside of a pyramid.

The surprising thing about Giza is how close the pyramids are to the city of Giza. You can easily see the city and there are people and archaeological debris all over the place. It’s surprisingly similar to what a lot of other historical sites are in that regard, though still spectacular. After we got back we napped, since it was nearly 100 degrees and very humid. In the evening we went to Cairo’s old downtown where there were a lot of crowded shops with cool stuff for sale. We ate in this little alley at a dingy but delicious Kosheree (Egypt’s national dish) place.

I should probably mention that I was traveling with three other people, one guy and two girls, from our program. There was also another group of four girls that we were with some of the way because they had a similar itinerary. Ours was a really good group to travel with because we all were interested in having a similar trip. Anyway, more to come in the coming days.

Money

Apparently, Amman is the second most expensive city in the region, behind only Dubai. I guess expensive is relative, though. It’s pretty amazing how cheap some stuff is here. Jordan’s currency is the dinar (JD) and one dollar is about equal to about .7 dinars. The cent here is called the piaster or kirsh. One interesting thing is that there is a vestigial decimal to indicate the fil, which is 1/1000 of a dinar, so something that is 35 piaster is listed as .350 JD. Sales tax here is a lot higher though.

Food here is by far cheaper than in America. The exception to that is American fast food places, which are about the same, if not a little more than they are back home. There’s a Subway a couple blocks down from our apartment, which I've gone to a few times. A foot-long sub there comes out to about six dollars. Luckily they were passing out discount cards at the university and I grabbed a bunch, though the employees there seem to think it’s more like a VIP card so they never collect them. Hopefully they’ll accept them back home, since I eat at Subway a lot. The cheapest food is the bread, a pound of which can be bought for twenty-five piaster. The markets are really cheap too. Some really nice clothes and shoes can be had for less than ten dinar, though they are often used.

Consequently, change is a lot more valuable here than in America. To make using the change a bit easier, Jordanian coins are much bigger and sturdier than American coins. Dimes are bigger than nickels, and there’s a half-dinar coin. Best of all, nobody uses pennies, though I have gotten a few from our local supermarket.

Tomorrow I will be leaving for Egypt and may not have internet access until the 19th.