Pharaoh, Pharaoh, Oh Man Let Me Go!

This one is long overdue, my apologies.
Egypt.
What can I say?
I don’t really know what to say or how to say it.

This is where my journal might stumble a bit while traveling across the politically correct high wire. By stumble, I mean fall off. As a disclaimer, I do not intend to hurt or harm anyone with my words. I do not mean to offend anyone, and most of the political/cultural assertions that I make are of my own crazy mind and are developed from my collective knowledge and observations. Make sure to eat a full meal beforehand and to drink a full glass of water while reading this log. Possible side effects include but are not limited to: bloating, cramping, laughter, tears, confused feelings, anger, a monthly subscription fee of $200, acid rain, camels, Bedouin tents, and concussions (yeah, concussions.).

Here we go. Buckle up for safety. Helmets are for the weak.

Flashback! Pre-Semester at Sea. My loving father had warned me many times about the dangers in Egypt. I don’t know if you have been keeping up with current events, but Egypt and Israel are not doing their best right now. They had a really awkward breakup with their third wife, Turkey, and Egypt is angry. With that breakup comes some collateral damage, if you want to call it that. They have also had other major problems over the years since 1948. Deductive reasoning- Egypt doesn’t like Israel at the moment. Israel is the Jewish State. Therefore, Egypt doesn’t like Jewish people at the moment. That may be an unreasonable assertion, but hear me out.
My dear old dad told me he would really prefer if I could be as safe as possible in Egypt. I thought he was crazy. I am an idealistic college student who has everything to gain and nothing to lose, so I refused to believe there was any danger in my path.

Flash-forward! Egypt Pre-port. The staff aboard the MV Explorer warned the students that Egypt does not love the United States at the moment, and told us we had their permission to tell Egyptians we were from Canada. Oh, Canada. That is totally fine by me, I told everyone in Turkey I was Canadian too. The global perception of America is not too great right now in these parts, so I figured it couldn’t hurt. The staff aboard the MV Explorer then went on to warn that if any students were Jewish, we should avoid telling people that or letting them presume that we were Jewish. They gave American Jewish kids permission to be Canadian Methodists. That gave me a little scare. If the staff aboard the ship are publicly announcing this at pre-port, it is actually a big deal.

Flash-forward! Egypt Day One.
I was fairly nervous as I prepared to debark the ship and head out into Alexandria. Not only had I heard rumors that Jewish people and Americans should be careful, but I had also heard from many people that Egypt is nasty. Just imagine how excited I was to get off of the ship! On a scale of 1 to excited, I was at about a 1. Turns out that many Egyptians actually do have a moderate problem with Jewish people and Israel. My friend Jordan told me that when he got off of the ship the port agents interrogated him and harassed him because they thought he was a Jew (he has a crazy Jewfro in his passport picture, no joke). Thankfully I don’t look too stereotypically Jewish, so I made it out alright.

Paul, Heather, Hannah, Sophia, Lexi, and myself decided we were going to head to the famous Alexandria Library. My sources (Professor Wikipedia and the hobbit underneath my bed) tell me that the Alexandria Library burned down a long time ago, and many academics believe that if it hadnt burned down, we would be a much more advanced people today. Just throwing that out there. Didn’t I just blow your mind?

The library was nice, but other than looking cool and modern, it didn’t have much of a historical feel to it. All of the other SaSers were in the library too because no one knew what they wanted to do in Alexandria. My friend Marcus came by and gave me his internet password he had paid for so I could use the rest of his unneeded minutes. I left the group and went over to the internet to research sandboarding (basically snowboarding on sand It is one of the only things I wanted to do in Egypt other than see the pyramids). Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any information on sand boarding so I left the computers empty handed. I got lost in the massive library for an hour before finding the rest of my group, and we headed back to the ship. We all stayed on the ship for the rest of the day and that night because we were too afraid to venture around the insane streets of Egypt.

Day Two
At the last minute, I decided that I should jump on an organized Semester at Sea trip instead of trying to travel around the country with my usual group. I jumped on the one day camel and Jeep safari trip in Cairo, and Paul followed me aboard the bus. They only had two open spaces left, so it worked out perfectly. Even though I heard that SaS trips are pretty lame, this one was a great experience. I really liked being with a big group of SaSers, many of whom I met on the bus.

I was freaking out the whole ride to Cairo. Alexandria and Cairo are attached by a 3 hour long stretch of highways. Highways have lanes in America- not in Egypt. In Egypt, driving is more of a sport than a method of transportation. It makes the drivers in Italy and Greece look like amateurs. Four lanes on the highway? Why not make those four into six? Cars ride by each other at high speeds with horns honking from all directions. They don’t weave through traffic in Egypt, they swerve. They dont need mirrors because no one uses them. Egyptians only utilize four things in their automobiles: the horn, the accelerator, the brakes, and the steering wheel. I felt like I was in a bumper cars arena but instead of going 5-10 miles per hour, I was going 55 miles per hour. Safety last!

When we finally got there and I was done making out with the ground I looked up and saw the pyramids. WOW. The wow factor didn’t really hit me at first because I felt like I had already seen the pyramids. So many movies, popular references, history classes, and pictures show me the pyramids all the time. After a few minutes I realized the beauty of it all. The pyramids are colossal, and Paul is absolutely convinced that aliens constructed them. They are perfectly symmetrical, they have nearly perfect geometry, they are aligned with the stars, they are thousands of years old, and they make regular tombstones look like tombstones for ants.

Even cooler than the 9 Pyramids is the Sphinx. That thing is amazing. I hope that one day when people construct monuments in my honor they put a carving of my head on a camel. It will be called Stephen Camelberg, and its hump will be a constant reminder of the bloating I get daily from my IBS.

The day went on and we did some more touring of museums, ancient tombs, etc… I even got to climb down into one of the pyramids. It was pretty crazy. Random note: Egyptians have this thing called Baksheesh. It is essentially a cultural thing that is really hard to understand, but it involves tipping. I automatically assumed that it was being used to take advantage of tourists, because the people want money for every single thing they do. I had to pay a guy off for taking a picture in one of the tombs because he was trying to take my camera. The place is insane. That is the only way to put it. It is such a poor country with so much corruption. So many people live in poverty. So many people lack a good education. It is the first stop on our voyage where I really got to see the beginnings of the Global South, or developing nations. Yikes. Some more problems with Egypt: pollution, corrupt government, tax evasion, extremely dirty water, unemployment, and a lack of jobs.

For all of you Americans who complain about your crappy low paying job or your terrible living situation due to unemployment: come to Egypt. Explore Africa, then see how much you can complain. I have never seen anything like it in my life. Egypt does not have homeless people because the government gives out free public housing, but many of the people still have no money. Some of the things I saw really tug on those heartstrings. The thing that bothered me the most was definitely the pollution. All over Egypt, even around the pyramids and in the desert, pollution runs rampant. The place is like a giant landfill. It was a whole lot worse than Naples, Italy. The water is so polluted and dirty that you cant eat anything in Egypt unless it is cooked thoroughly or prepackaged, and you can’t drink water unless it comes from a sealed bottle.

Sorry about that little rant- let me get back to what I did in Pharaoh land. After all of the sightseeing, we got lunch at a country club. The food was incredible- I had a pita with cinnamon rice, chicken skewers, and some veggies as well as this awesome wheat based sugary dessert. I ate two huge portions (the food on the ship is getting nasty, so I eat as much as I can in port) and then I was ready to go. Afterwards, we went on a camel caravan around the pyramids and a Jeep safari trip in the desert. I have done the whole camel thing before so that wasn’t incredibly exciting, but the Jeep safari was neat. At the end of the day, we signed off of the trip before it went back to Alexandria and went to the hotel Cat and Marla were staying at to meet up with them. That night Colin and his family came over and we all had a good time in the resort. It was a late night at the hotel. Although I normally refrain from making alcohol references here, I am changing my rule just for a second. This is too good to leave out. After a crazy night, Paul, Marla, Colin, Wendi (Colins sister), and Mrs. Pentz managed to kill all of the hotel’s tequila. We tried to order another round and the waiter came over to me and said, “Tequila? No. You finish all of tequila.” Of course as you all know, the Arabic word for water is tequila, and we sure do love our water in the desert!

Flash-forward! No, you went too far flashback for a second. Okay. There you go: Day Three.
Day three was a relaxing day at the start. I woke up late and hung out at the hotel pool all day. I was still too scared to leave the hotel’s bubble. While at the pool the waiter from the night before came by and asked, “tequila?” What a joker! He was a real straight shooter. After I was all rested up, we were ready to go. Marla was sick, so she stayed at the hotel. Paul, Cat, and myself went to the Pizza Hut (they are everywhere in Egypt) by the Sphinx to get some dinner and watch the light show on the pyramids for free. We met up with our friends Bryan, Marcus, Trevor, and Brandon. We watched the lightshow for a few minutes, tried to take some cool pictures, and then we rolled out.

I went with the boys to their hostel in downtown Cairo and went out on the town. Downtown Cairo is like a totally different place, and it is absolutely ridiculous. People shop 24/7, and I am pretty sure the stores never close. That night I was in dire need of food because I didn’t eat at Pizza Hut and there was nowhere safe to eat, so I had to get McDonalds. That night was the first time Ive eaten nasty American fast food in over six years, and it might be the last time I ever eat nasty American fast food (that is, unless I am in Egypt again). I met this cool Saudi Arabian couple on vacation and talked to them for a few minutes about how much I loved living in Canada. It was a pretty interesting conversation, and the guy stumped me because he knew a lot more about my home and native land than I did. The night got crazy and I ended up falling asleep downtown in the hostel rather than taking the 30 minute cab ride back to my place.

Day Four? Already? Wow.
I woke up in the Reagan suite to the sound of Bryan’s alarm (I forgot to mention before that the hostel was called the American, and each suite had a different presidents name on it). I ran out into the street and caught a cab back to my hotel because I was late for checkout time. I was supposed to bring Trevor with me, but I was in too much of a rush and I forgot. The previous day, Trevor and the other guys told us about this cool Bedouin named Ishmael that they had met the day before. They called him the godfather, and they were telling me how he had invited them to hang out, ride horses, sleep in the desert, and even go to an Egyptian wedding. They were too sketched out by the guy, but I was sold on him. I convinced Trevor to stay an extra day in Cairo so we could go meet the godfather and have a crazy good time.
Trevor caught a cab to the hotel, we left our luggage, and we called the godfather. He sent a driver to us and we went to his place. It seemed ridiculously sketchy at first- the roads were unpaved, uneven, and extremely dirty- but it ended up being alright. Ishmael really was a crazy guy.

It was at this point that my Egypt experience really turned around. I went from being completely freaked out and hating Egypt to having the most incredible cultural experience and enriching 24 hours of my life. I have encountered some remarkable things on this trip; however, nothing compares to my exceptional Egyptian excursion. I had already done everything I wanted to do on the trip to this point other than two things: eat a legitimate home cooked meal with a local family and have a great political and cultural conversation. I got both in Egypt.

As I noted on mini Steve Jobs, Ishmael is actually pretty damn cool. We hung out for a while. He got us some sodas, water, and tea and we let the conversation flow. Ishmael is more of a joker than anything, he didn’t want to talk about religion or politics at all. He told us stories and jokes, and then he set us up with some horses and we headed out into the desert with his friend.

Prior to this day, I had never been on a horse. I think it is awesome to be able to say that the first time I rode a horse was in the Sahara desert, overlooking the pyramids. Ballin! Not only did I ride a horse, but I galloped for two hours in the Sahara. Towards the end of our horse ride, we stopped off at what I would call a desert convenience store. A local Bedouin guy who lives out there sold us some sodas and waters and we hung out for a bit in an attempt to refresh our bodies after being in the blazing sun all day.

We got on our horses to go back, and Cats horse ran away with her on it. We were all dying of laughter because we thought she was doing it on purpose; after all, Cat rides horses every now and then at home. Eventually, Cat was almost a half a mile away. Our guide was yelling to her, but there was no way she could hear. He had a pretty weak voice. We were all still laughing, but then Cats body tipped off to the side a bit and she almost fell off. The laughter stopped. I started yelling too, but she was way too far away to hear a speck of my voice. Suddenly, she fell off of the horse. It was a really solid crash, and she didn’t move for a good minute. The horse disappeared and kept running. All of us bucked up on our horses and yelled yallah (lets go in Arabic). Pauls horse was terrible so it didn’t run. Trevor, myself, and the guide all galloped over towards Cat. She still wasnt moving. An ATV darted out of the dunes toward her with a few guys from one of the base camps and they helped her up. By the time we got over there our guide was off trying to find the horse. Other than a few scrapes and some tears, Cat didn’t look too bad. We thought she was okay, maybe she just had the wind knocked out of her. Paul finally made it over, we found the horse, switched around, and went back to Ishmaels.

When we got to Ishmael’s we rode donkeys for fun and then he sent us out with his main man Mohamed to go get our luggage from the hotel and to grab a quick snack. Marla was still at the hotel feeling awful, so she got a cab back to Alexandria. Cat was supposed to go with her, but she decided she was having too much fun to go. Ishmael had invited us to eat dinner with him and to hang out all night in the desert riding horses and camels, and she didn’t want to miss that. Who would? We got our stuff and went back to the same Pizza Hut by the Sphinx. I didn’t eat anything because I wasnt hungry and neither did Cat. She was starting to act strange, but all of us ignored it because we were too busy having a great time. I was fairly sure at this point that she had a concussion when she fell off of that horse, especially considering her medical history of 5 previous concussions. I didn’t want to send her back to the ship alone and none of us were willing to leave, so she stayed along. Egyptian hospitals were definitely not an option.

We went back to Ishmael’s and there were lots of people there hanging out. We met this one guy who was loaded. He drove a big BMW sport utility vehicle and he had a stable next door with four beautiful horses. At first I asked the guy what he thought of America. Turns out he loves it, and he and his family vacation there all the time. He was telling me about this awesome villa he always rents out in Orlando, Florida for months at a time with his family. He is a mechanical engineer and (somehow) has done really well in Egypt. The talk continued and it got more political. He spoke nearly flawless English so I felt as if there was no language barrier at all.

Prior to this trip I was not a big fan of politics and I could care less about it; however, now that I have traveled through so many different countries, I realize the importance of politics and the impact that political systems have on their respective nations. I am taking a Comparative Politics class on the ship, and our teacher warned us about asking too many political questions to Egyptians.

A quick political lesson about Egypt: the President is Mubarak. He has been president for 32 years, and he is 80-some years old. Egypt never had elections until it recently (5 years ago) gave into international pressure and had a democratic election. Truth be told, the election was not democratic at all. Mubarak essentially has a dictatorship, and he controls the elections. There is a ton of pressure on Egyptians to support him, or else they can get into some major trouble with the law. That is why our teacher didn’t expect much real political conversation to come our way.

Luckily, Dr. D was wrong. We had an hour long conversation with our new friend, and it was incredible. We threw every question that we had at him- from questions about the way women are treated in Egypt, to his views on the Muslim Brotherhood, to Mubarak, to the future of Egypt, to American politics, and even all the way to Egypts internal struggles as a country. With no hesitation at all, he told us that he hates Mubarak and he hates what Mubarak has done to his country. It was an unbelievable conversation. He said that he doesn’t like the direction his country is going in, and he thinks something big is going to happen soon (Viva Revolucion!).

After the awesome conversation, we parted ways. The godfather rounded up a few camels and horses and we went out into the desert again. That night we played games, rode horses into the wee hours of the evening and morning, ate the most amazing home cooked Egyptian meal ever, camped out, told stories/jokes, taught each other Arabic and English, drank nonalcoholic beer (no lie), and had a real Bedouin experience. I never went to sleep because we were too busy having an awesome time and riding horses with Ish. Paul and Cat slept most of the time, with Cat complaining of a massive headache and randomly wandering off and falling down. At this point we all knew she had a concussion for sure. While they were resting, Trevor and I were getting wild with Ishmael, Mohamed, and Ali. We literally galloped on horses all night. We even meditated at one point, looking at the stars above the pyramids. We wanted to climb the pyramids, but the security guards weren’t having it. Apparently back in the day you could bribe the guards to let you do it at night, but some guy climbed the middle pyramid (it still has slippery limestone at the top) and he couldn’t get down. They had to airlift him out, and ever since then sikuritys bin tite. Even without the climbing, it was one of the greatest nights of my life.

Day Five
Around 5am it was freezing so we all laid against one of the camels and had him block the wind for us. We lay there waiting for the sunrise, but it never came. That is how polluted Egypt is. It was so dirty and smoggy that you literally couldn’t see the sun.

We went back to Ishmaels place, gave him some money for all of his services, and went to the train station. Trevor and I wanted to go to the Egyptian museum, but we had to be back at the ship by 6pm and the only train going to Alexandria that wasn’t full left at 2pm. That cut it too close, so the four of us split a cab back to the port. It was a long and hot cab ride, and we were all completely wiped out. We slept most of the way. Our cabbie had no idea where he was going once we got to Alexandria, but after he asked a good ten people for directions he finally figured it out. We all went back to the ship, ate lunch, got Cat some medical attention, took some much needed showers, and passed out.

That night on the ship I slept for a good 18 hours, it was perfect. What an experience Egypt was! I don’t know if I will ever go back, but it was definitely a journey I will never forget. I only hope Morocco can come close. I have been excited about Morocco this whole time, and I think it will be an awesome experience. Right now the plan is to go with my friends Nico and Marquette and the rest of their crew to Marrakech for most of the trip. We found a place to go sandboarding— I am entirely too excited for that.

So, Egypt, thank you. I am sorry if I misjudged you, but the cultural distress you presented me with is more of a lightning bolt than a static shock. I didn’t like the living conditions of the place, and I certainly didn’t like the external appearance of the place. What I did like was the deeper side of Egypt: a people who are not as afraid to speak out, an ambitious people, a fun people, a tolerant people, and a people that really are not as different as they may appear to be.

16 Days of Adventures Left,
Stephen

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