Actually seeing the pyramids was indescribable.
Courtney and I arrived on the Cairo tarmac at 2:10 a.m. on Friday morning after befriending an entire plane full of people from Palestine, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa - we even picked up a surrogate father along the way who gave us a two pound bar of genuine Swiss dark chocolate and a tub of cough drops for Courtney's throat.
Our surrogate Egyptian daddy. He even used Mont Blanc pens like my own father!
(And we look rough. We'd been traveling for about 10 hours at this point.)
The three stooges - from Saudi Arabian - and some of our friends from the plane.
We actually almost didn't make it onto the plane to Cairo. We had electronic boarding passes, but the blonde lady behind the counter said we didn't have our "tickets"... although I don't know what the difference between a pass and a ticket are... and I went into Gary-Paulzak-mode and yelled at the lady until she saw that I was serious about getting our butts on the plane, and called security to check. She kept just waving us away, like we didn't matter, and it was extremely frustrating because we had about 10 minutes before the plane was going to take off and no matter how many times we said "How do we get a ticket?" she wouldn't answer us. But no fear... my slew of mean words and our determination got us aboard, to the amusement of a bunch of people who saw the entire ordeal take place... and those were the people who laughed and chatted with us on the plane. It was definitely a good opening act.
BUT... we made it to our hostel by 3 a.m. Courtney even had a man with a sign pick us up from the airport - very classy! And the ride through Cairo in the early morning was eye-opening. The city doesn't sleep (and we had no idea that it didn't), but when we exited our car, the street was teeming with people of all ages: street venders, passersby, taxi drivers, little kids running around... we weren't sure if there was a special festival going on or something. We did learn, though, that nobody in the city ever sleeps, and we quickly fell into that same pattern... getting about 5 hours of sleep the entire weekend that we were there. There are simply too many things to do, see, and experiences to be had to waste time on dreamland!
Thus, we fell asleep around 5 a.m. in our comfy hostel double bed, cuddling and exclaiming at our good fortune to find ourselves in the cradle of life, only to wake up a few hours later and depart for the pyramids with our own private driver. We kept staring at the windows the entire time... gasping at our first view of the Nile, staring at the 1940s cars and donkey-drawn watermelon carts, and anxiously awaiting our first glimpse of the pyramids that were imminent on our horizon.
The first glimpse that made me fall in love with Egypt.
I do have to say, of this entire experience, that I have never met more kind or friendly people in my entire life. Not only the amazing Hostel Brothers, Mohamed and Mustafa, but EVERYONE was kind and patient. They took pleasure in our marveling at their gorgeous city, and seemed to be delighted that we were enjoying ourselves so much. One of the drivers (because we ended up having several), Salem, put on some Arabian music and danced with us in the car - shouting his trademark phrase "Welcome to ALASKA!" (to which we exclaimed that 'Alaska' was quite warmer than we had expected) and driving like a roller coaster down the freeway.
Salem, our fabulous driver.
Our pyramid tour guide indulged our wishes for silly photographs and helped me gallop across the desert on my horse with the stirrups that were too short. At one point he came over and said "Okay girls, quick, climb the pyramid!" And I turned around and knew, surely, that he was kidding. I think I distinctly remember saying "You're just messing with us, right? Climbing the outside of the pyramids is illegal!" And yet there Courtney went, swiftly up the side, and I wasn't about to hang around in the Sahara while she was scaling an ancient wonder of the world.
We were catered to, fused over, and laughed at - flirted with, teased, and called Moza (which means beautiful). People bought us ice cream, sailboat rides down the Nile, Egyptian eye charms to hang as good luck from the bazaar, and Joey even bought a shot glass for Courtney's big sister in our sorority. There wasn't an ounce of hostility to be found, and once people found out that we were Americans, their faces would light up and they were quickly pronounce "I love America!"
"Nah nah nah nahnahnahnahhhh sheets of Egyptian cotton..."
Carla, the camel. I named it Shamoo at first, but after much discussion, we decided that Carla was a better name.
At one point, Mustafa even decided to abandon his job for the day and come hang out with us instead. We met up with some Americans that we met at our IREE conference in Washington D.C., and together the band of us headed for a sailboat on the Nile. Before we got there, though, we climbed a gigantic lion about 8 feet up in the air on the only pedestrian bridge in Cairo (another monument that, I'm sure, was illegal to climb) and got a bird's eye view of the city. I even shouted "GOOD MORNING CAIRO!!" to all of the cars streaming past, flashing a peace sign and laughing at my own silliness.
The Americans in Cairo: Joey, me, Courtney, Dawn, and Daniel.
Kisses on the Nile for my ABS... we love each other very much.
Our boat ride down the Nile was magnificent. (I feel like I'm running out of synonyms for the word incredible while I write this!) We bartered for a faluka, a small sailboat, to journey up and down the Nile for an hour, and then as soon as the ship set sail, we claimed the bow of the vessel and dangled our toes in the water. When our toes got wrinkly, we laid out on the front deck and sunbathed in the Egyptian sun, soaking up the rays and marveling at our luck. I mean, who really gets to hang out in a sailboat on the Nile and sun bathe? And my camera had run out of battery at this point, so I stole Joey's (thank goodness he was good natured about it) and captured our Nile adventure on his camera... and since he hasn't given me the pictures yet, I will have to add those later. The "captain" even let Courtney and I steer the boat for a little while! And after the sun got too hot, "Audrey - God of Shade" was born. I think we amused even ourselves that afternoon... playing a game of how-many-people-can-we-get-to-flash-the-peace-sign-at-us-while-we're-on-this-boat, and laughing at each other about our lack of actual scientific work going on in our respective countries of study.
The Nile by boat at night.
I will write more stories letter.. of our adventures to get silver rings, making our own papyrus, meeting Mohammed Ali, smoking a hookah in the bazaar, and belly dancing on a Nile cruise. I'll even tell the embarrassing story of how I fell off of a stopped horse, but for now, I must get back to work.
Have a wonderful day, Habibi!
No comments:
Post a Comment