Have you been reading Voracious, T?
Your faithful author has been trying to blog more, but it's hard when I feel like I'm shouting in the dark!
Miss you, dear readers!
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
To Summarize
These and other wanderings have been the high lights of the last years;
when I turn from them the sky darkens.
--Edith Wharton, A Backward Glance
Monday, July 13, 2009
The end of the beginning
As I'm sure you've guessed, these Americans are outta Cairo.
I've been back in the US for about two and a half weeks now. I've had all kinds of adventures in that time frame: travel, reverse culture shock, food, employment.
But of course, this is not the place to recount the beginning of the rest of my life!
(Whatever that means ....)
So please update your blog reading software. To remain plugged in to the continuing adventures of my life (under new management), set your sights and sites on my new blog:
Can't wait to see you again!
I've been back in the US for about two and a half weeks now. I've had all kinds of adventures in that time frame: travel, reverse culture shock, food, employment.
But of course, this is not the place to recount the beginning of the rest of my life!
(Whatever that means ....)
So please update your blog reading software. To remain plugged in to the continuing adventures of my life (under new management), set your sights and sites on my new blog:
Can't wait to see you again!
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
The Flying Cat Circus
My family grew a bit while I was in Cairo - it definitely got fuzzier. I adopted India in October 2007, and Zanzibar joined us as a tiny baby this past December. Cairo simply crawls with cats, so while adopting 2 cats was basically pissing into the ocean, at least I felt good that these two cats got off the streets.
As you might suppose, India and Zanzibar are mortal enemies. To be precise, Zanzibar is India's mortal enemy; Zanzibar's arch-nemesis is the washing machine. He's really not very clever.
There was never any question of leaving the cats in Cairo when we moved back to the US. The question, of course, was we had to do to actually accomplish the fact. And there were multiple layers of strategy required - exiting Egypt, physical transportation, and entering the US.
Physical transportation seemed the easiest to take care of first. We booked flights on Delta - we had to get all the way to San Francisco, and we needed to avoid the UK and the EU because neither cat is microchipped. Delta has a pretty extensive website dealing with "jet-set" pets. My cats weren't headed to Monte Carlo; they just needed to get to the US in one hop. We could have taken EgyptAir to JFK and dealt with fewer restrictions, but I didn't intend to pay a pet fee for EgyptAir and then another pet fee for Delta - one $150 (per cat!) was all I was willing to shell out for those little beauties.
That's right. Delta charges $150 per pet ... the pet has to stay in the cabin between May and September (no baggage checking) ... and only 2 pets per flight (economy class) are permitted. KC had delayed in getting his flight tickets, so we ended up having to fly on separate days because the second pet space on my flight was filled by the time KC booked. Maelesh.
I took Zanzibar to the vet to get his rabies shot and to ask about the protocol for getting the cats into the US safely. Dr Rafik spent a long time explaining an incredibly detailed process to me that had appeared nowhere in the research I had done. According to Dr Rafik, I had to leave the cats' vaccination records (they have kitty passports) with him, and he would generate a health certificate for each cat. His certificate was only good for 15 days, and had to be taken, with the kitty passports, to the Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture for exit papers. Those papers would have to be presented in Egypt and in the US to clear customs. Dr Rafik also wrote out a series of instructions, in Arabic and in English, with the names and office locations of the various officials we'd have to visit at the Ministry.
I picked up the certificates a couple of weeks later. Dr Rafik had gotten the year wrong on India's last rabies shot, so that had to be fixed (a simple typo that could have been catastrophic). We also had to be very careful that KC appeared as Zanzibar's owner, and I was listed as India's, so there'd be no question of proper transport of the cats. A few hours later I realized I'd forgotten to pick up the sedative that Dr Rafik had offered me for India, but I decided to just make do without it.
The Sunday after our aborted trip to Abu Simbel, we headed to the New Campus to take care of some final things. Then we decided to take the bus straight to Mohandesin to the Ministry, rather than go back to Garden City and then schlep back out to Mohandesin. By some miracle I had the kitty passports in my purse, but of course I did not have Dr Rafik's instruction sheet. We figured, how hard could it be? Dr Rafik had promised it'd be nothing like the Mogamma.
You can see where this is going. For that matter, so could we.
We easily found the Ministry of Agriculture. I'd remembered vaguely that Dr Rafik had said there were multiple ministry buildings (possibly four) and that the office we wanted was in the building perpendicular to the street, not parallel to it. Right.
We picked a building, I showed the doorman the vaccination certificates from Dr Rafik, I explained in my very simple prepared Arabic what we were trying to do. The gentlemen appeared to understand us and gave us a set of detailed directions (lots of arm waving) to direct us to the office we wanted. When we finally navigated the warren of the building and arrived at the office, we discovered that it was absolutely not the office we wanted, and the occupants of the office (usually a director) were completely puzzled as to why we were such idiots. We then explained everything again, showed the certificates, and were directed to another ministry building.
Take that last paragraph above. Repeat it four times with four separate buildings scattered among a few blocks in Mohandesin. Oh, and turn the temperature up to about 100 degrees fahrenheit and have four lanes of speeding traffic come straight at you, horns blaring. Then you'll start to get a picture of how we spent our afternoon.
At one point a puzzled director said to us, "This is the animal production department. Do you want more cats?" We also got into a huge fight with a guy who wanted to test the cats for avian influenza and couldn't figure out why we hadn't brought the cats. "Because we don't want the cats tested for avian influenza", we replied. "Then why are you here?" he responded. In his defense, it turned out that we'd been erroneously directed to an avian influenza lab. And so on.
Finally, we did actually managed to find the Quarantine Office (we did not want the cats quarantined) in a building that lacked a Ministry of Agriculture sign. This office consisted of about six people sitting around in a stiflingly hot room. We spent the next forty minutes walking back and forth between this office and the office next door. The protocol went something like this: get signature from woman in office 1. Go to office 2 to buy stamp. Get signature from man in office 1. Go to office 2 and buy another stamp. Return to office 1 and get third person to sign forms. Bring forms to fourth person in office 1 (sitting right next to persons already visited for signature). Verify with another person in office 2 that another stamp was not needed. Help woman in office 1 (with apparently no function) read her English language newspaper ("What is 'cherish'? What is 'flora and fauna'?). And so on.
Eventually all the papers were stamped and signed and ready for departure. I swear I checked them before we left the office and I swear I didn't see any mistakes.
The next day, Monday, we had our smashing coup at the EgyptAir office and our final trip to the Khan al Khalili. Tuesday we had a last dinner with friends upstairs and I made a valiant effort to finish the alcohol we'd brought to share. It was really, really hot when we made our way back to down to our flat a half hour before KC was scheduled to be picked up and taken to the airport. One last time I checked KC's stack of papers -
And saw that the people at the Ministry of Agriculture had swapped the names on the cats' papers. KC was listed as India's owner, and I was paired with Zanzibar. After a frantic consultation, KC dashed over to the Four Seasons business center and had photocopies of all the papers made, so we could show Customs exactly where the mistake happened.
I didn't hear anything from KC the next day, so I assumed everything was fine. At 11 pm I wrangled India into her carrier and headed for the airport. As I entered the terminal, a military policeman barked at me, "Cat? Papers?" I responded, "Yes" and kept walking. Clearly I'd been in the country too long.
At Delta's ridiculously extensive security counter I forked over the $150 for the cat, checked my bags, and walked onto the plane. The flight from Cairo was one of those cattlecar planes (I think a 767). I was two or three rows from the back, on the aisle. Being on the aisle was good; it meant that India was subjected to more of the traffic in the aisle, but it meant I could get her in and out more easily. During the flight I draped a blanket over my legs and over the carrier, making a tent. We do this a lot at home - India likes sleeping under the covers. I think it helped keep her warm and sensory deprived. She really did not like take off or landing, but in general she was well-behaved during the flight. It was uncomfortable for me, and one of the flight stewards offered to move her up front, but I declined and kept her with me. The plane was noisy enough that I'm pretty sure I was the only person who could hear her when she cried.
Four times during the flight to JFK I took the bag into the lavatory and let her out. I tried to do this while most people were sleeping. She was shaking like a leaf and she looked like a rabbit, with big rolled up dewy eyes. She wouldn't drink any water and she would only eat a few bites of her dry food if I held it in my hand and put it right under her nose. All she really wanted was to be cuddled, which was really pathetic. She was trying to purr but she was shaking so hard she could only produce odd little sounds, but she constantly nuzzled me and made her scratchy paws. She didn't fight very hard when it was time to go back in the bag.
At JFK I checked the "transporting animals" box on the customs form. The passport control guy looked at India, looked at the form, and told me to keep walking and someone would stop me. The woman ahead of me in line had a cat too (she was the reason KC couldn't fly with me) and she told me that she'd never bothered to go to the Ministry of Agriculture; she just had the vaccination record and the certificate from her vet. After passport control I got my bags and went through customs. Nobody stopped me. I even handed my form - with the checked box - to a customs officer who waved me through.
I rechecked my luggage, then headed back through security. Here I had to put India's carrier through the scanner and walk through the metal detector with her in my arms, which I stupidly did with my cell phone in my pocket (so I had to do it twice). Everyone in line, including the agents, was cooing over India and so they helped me get her through (she still managed to scratch my arms up through my jacket). At JFK I tried to find a bathroom that had dividers that went to the floor, or a single-person bathroom, but I couldn't find any, and the janitors said they were all open on the bottom.
At the gate in JFK I got permission from one agent to preboard and then was told by another that I couldn't preboard with a pet. Again I was about 4-5 rows from the back on the aisle. Before the flight took off I took her into the lavatory and she drank a little water and ate a little food, but still wasn't interested in her custom-made litter box. People were always using the bathroom on the flight to San Francisco, so she stayed in the bag for 6 hours. At SFO there were still no separate bathrooms and no one asked for any papers on that end either. So we just walked out of there.
All told, India was in the bag for almost exactly 24 hours. She was unsedated, surprisingly well-behaved, and didn't create any biohazards during the flight.
All that effort, and the papers didn't even get checked once. KC said that his customs agent did look at Zanzibar's rabies vaccination record, but that was it. Yeesh. Now I have a contraband cat.
As you might suppose, India and Zanzibar are mortal enemies. To be precise, Zanzibar is India's mortal enemy; Zanzibar's arch-nemesis is the washing machine. He's really not very clever.
There was never any question of leaving the cats in Cairo when we moved back to the US. The question, of course, was we had to do to actually accomplish the fact. And there were multiple layers of strategy required - exiting Egypt, physical transportation, and entering the US.
Physical transportation seemed the easiest to take care of first. We booked flights on Delta - we had to get all the way to San Francisco, and we needed to avoid the UK and the EU because neither cat is microchipped. Delta has a pretty extensive website dealing with "jet-set" pets. My cats weren't headed to Monte Carlo; they just needed to get to the US in one hop. We could have taken EgyptAir to JFK and dealt with fewer restrictions, but I didn't intend to pay a pet fee for EgyptAir and then another pet fee for Delta - one $150 (per cat!) was all I was willing to shell out for those little beauties.
That's right. Delta charges $150 per pet ... the pet has to stay in the cabin between May and September (no baggage checking) ... and only 2 pets per flight (economy class) are permitted. KC had delayed in getting his flight tickets, so we ended up having to fly on separate days because the second pet space on my flight was filled by the time KC booked. Maelesh.
I took Zanzibar to the vet to get his rabies shot and to ask about the protocol for getting the cats into the US safely. Dr Rafik spent a long time explaining an incredibly detailed process to me that had appeared nowhere in the research I had done. According to Dr Rafik, I had to leave the cats' vaccination records (they have kitty passports) with him, and he would generate a health certificate for each cat. His certificate was only good for 15 days, and had to be taken, with the kitty passports, to the Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture for exit papers. Those papers would have to be presented in Egypt and in the US to clear customs. Dr Rafik also wrote out a series of instructions, in Arabic and in English, with the names and office locations of the various officials we'd have to visit at the Ministry.
I picked up the certificates a couple of weeks later. Dr Rafik had gotten the year wrong on India's last rabies shot, so that had to be fixed (a simple typo that could have been catastrophic). We also had to be very careful that KC appeared as Zanzibar's owner, and I was listed as India's, so there'd be no question of proper transport of the cats. A few hours later I realized I'd forgotten to pick up the sedative that Dr Rafik had offered me for India, but I decided to just make do without it.
The Sunday after our aborted trip to Abu Simbel, we headed to the New Campus to take care of some final things. Then we decided to take the bus straight to Mohandesin to the Ministry, rather than go back to Garden City and then schlep back out to Mohandesin. By some miracle I had the kitty passports in my purse, but of course I did not have Dr Rafik's instruction sheet. We figured, how hard could it be? Dr Rafik had promised it'd be nothing like the Mogamma.
You can see where this is going. For that matter, so could we.
We easily found the Ministry of Agriculture. I'd remembered vaguely that Dr Rafik had said there were multiple ministry buildings (possibly four) and that the office we wanted was in the building perpendicular to the street, not parallel to it. Right.
We picked a building, I showed the doorman the vaccination certificates from Dr Rafik, I explained in my very simple prepared Arabic what we were trying to do. The gentlemen appeared to understand us and gave us a set of detailed directions (lots of arm waving) to direct us to the office we wanted. When we finally navigated the warren of the building and arrived at the office, we discovered that it was absolutely not the office we wanted, and the occupants of the office (usually a director) were completely puzzled as to why we were such idiots. We then explained everything again, showed the certificates, and were directed to another ministry building.
Take that last paragraph above. Repeat it four times with four separate buildings scattered among a few blocks in Mohandesin. Oh, and turn the temperature up to about 100 degrees fahrenheit and have four lanes of speeding traffic come straight at you, horns blaring. Then you'll start to get a picture of how we spent our afternoon.
At one point a puzzled director said to us, "This is the animal production department. Do you want more cats?" We also got into a huge fight with a guy who wanted to test the cats for avian influenza and couldn't figure out why we hadn't brought the cats. "Because we don't want the cats tested for avian influenza", we replied. "Then why are you here?" he responded. In his defense, it turned out that we'd been erroneously directed to an avian influenza lab. And so on.
Finally, we did actually managed to find the Quarantine Office (we did not want the cats quarantined) in a building that lacked a Ministry of Agriculture sign. This office consisted of about six people sitting around in a stiflingly hot room. We spent the next forty minutes walking back and forth between this office and the office next door. The protocol went something like this: get signature from woman in office 1. Go to office 2 to buy stamp. Get signature from man in office 1. Go to office 2 and buy another stamp. Return to office 1 and get third person to sign forms. Bring forms to fourth person in office 1 (sitting right next to persons already visited for signature). Verify with another person in office 2 that another stamp was not needed. Help woman in office 1 (with apparently no function) read her English language newspaper ("What is 'cherish'? What is 'flora and fauna'?). And so on.
Eventually all the papers were stamped and signed and ready for departure. I swear I checked them before we left the office and I swear I didn't see any mistakes.
The next day, Monday, we had our smashing coup at the EgyptAir office and our final trip to the Khan al Khalili. Tuesday we had a last dinner with friends upstairs and I made a valiant effort to finish the alcohol we'd brought to share. It was really, really hot when we made our way back to down to our flat a half hour before KC was scheduled to be picked up and taken to the airport. One last time I checked KC's stack of papers -
And saw that the people at the Ministry of Agriculture had swapped the names on the cats' papers. KC was listed as India's owner, and I was paired with Zanzibar. After a frantic consultation, KC dashed over to the Four Seasons business center and had photocopies of all the papers made, so we could show Customs exactly where the mistake happened.
I didn't hear anything from KC the next day, so I assumed everything was fine. At 11 pm I wrangled India into her carrier and headed for the airport. As I entered the terminal, a military policeman barked at me, "Cat? Papers?" I responded, "Yes" and kept walking. Clearly I'd been in the country too long.
At Delta's ridiculously extensive security counter I forked over the $150 for the cat, checked my bags, and walked onto the plane. The flight from Cairo was one of those cattlecar planes (I think a 767). I was two or three rows from the back, on the aisle. Being on the aisle was good; it meant that India was subjected to more of the traffic in the aisle, but it meant I could get her in and out more easily. During the flight I draped a blanket over my legs and over the carrier, making a tent. We do this a lot at home - India likes sleeping under the covers. I think it helped keep her warm and sensory deprived. She really did not like take off or landing, but in general she was well-behaved during the flight. It was uncomfortable for me, and one of the flight stewards offered to move her up front, but I declined and kept her with me. The plane was noisy enough that I'm pretty sure I was the only person who could hear her when she cried.
Four times during the flight to JFK I took the bag into the lavatory and let her out. I tried to do this while most people were sleeping. She was shaking like a leaf and she looked like a rabbit, with big rolled up dewy eyes. She wouldn't drink any water and she would only eat a few bites of her dry food if I held it in my hand and put it right under her nose. All she really wanted was to be cuddled, which was really pathetic. She was trying to purr but she was shaking so hard she could only produce odd little sounds, but she constantly nuzzled me and made her scratchy paws. She didn't fight very hard when it was time to go back in the bag.
At JFK I checked the "transporting animals" box on the customs form. The passport control guy looked at India, looked at the form, and told me to keep walking and someone would stop me. The woman ahead of me in line had a cat too (she was the reason KC couldn't fly with me) and she told me that she'd never bothered to go to the Ministry of Agriculture; she just had the vaccination record and the certificate from her vet. After passport control I got my bags and went through customs. Nobody stopped me. I even handed my form - with the checked box - to a customs officer who waved me through.
I rechecked my luggage, then headed back through security. Here I had to put India's carrier through the scanner and walk through the metal detector with her in my arms, which I stupidly did with my cell phone in my pocket (so I had to do it twice). Everyone in line, including the agents, was cooing over India and so they helped me get her through (she still managed to scratch my arms up through my jacket). At JFK I tried to find a bathroom that had dividers that went to the floor, or a single-person bathroom, but I couldn't find any, and the janitors said they were all open on the bottom.
At the gate in JFK I got permission from one agent to preboard and then was told by another that I couldn't preboard with a pet. Again I was about 4-5 rows from the back on the aisle. Before the flight took off I took her into the lavatory and she drank a little water and ate a little food, but still wasn't interested in her custom-made litter box. People were always using the bathroom on the flight to San Francisco, so she stayed in the bag for 6 hours. At SFO there were still no separate bathrooms and no one asked for any papers on that end either. So we just walked out of there.
All told, India was in the bag for almost exactly 24 hours. She was unsedated, surprisingly well-behaved, and didn't create any biohazards during the flight.
All that effort, and the papers didn't even get checked once. KC said that his customs agent did look at Zanzibar's rabies vaccination record, but that was it. Yeesh. Now I have a contraband cat.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Back Blog : Dahab, the Sequel
My birthday this year was a big one, the big three-oh. KC asked what I wanted to do for my birthday that was special; after all, we'd gone all the way to London for his. It seemed that my first choice - ignoring the occasion entirely - wasn't going to happen, so I picked my favorite thing in the whole world.
We went scuba diving! I decided that being underwater while I turned thirty was a good plan. So I planned a trip to take us back to Dahab, where I'd had a great time diving with some friends last August. And speaking of last August, I managed, for the second time, to go diving in Dahab without the underwater camera! This time the underwater case was fine, but the camera had been struck down on the top of Mt Moses under suspicious (read: divine?) circumstances.
We stayed at the Dahab Coach House, a really splendid tiny hotel run by a wonderful Danish couple. I'd been introduced to them last fall, and I'd intended to take a trip to Dahab last Eid but ended up going to Lebanon instead. So this June was my first time staying with them, and it was really great. I wouldn't consider staying anywhere else (unless it were free, of course!).
And once again I dove with Sinai Divers Backpacker and couldn't have asked for a better experience. I even managed to get the same dive master as last time, Pritesh, who makes fun of me for being a slow diver but then points out living things that are invisible to my eye. Perfect.
We had a lovely first day's diving at Umm Sid where, among many other things, we found sailor's eyeballs (below left), lionfish, Red Sea walkmen (below right), eels (giant moray, eek!), sand divers, lovely chromodoris, and a blue-spotted ray ... and that's in addition to all the Red Sea regulars!
Thanks again to Google Images for saving the day!
We got seven dives in total, including another set of stellar dives to Canyon and Bells/Blue Hole. Canyon was a bit crowded, but it turned out to be kind of cool - all those divers made lots of bubbles, and the bubbles escape the crack in the floor (the canyon) in a curtain that rises from the edge. It's surreal, playing with the glittering silver bubbles, 20 m under the water.
I don't think I'll ever get tired of Bells/Blue Hole, which is a haunting dive. To do the entry through the Bells, we walked past a wall that has the names of all the divers who have died there. For me the best part of the dive happens after exiting the Bells, when we sweep along the outer edge of the Hole. There's absolutely no bottom, and on the left the blue stretches away into the unknown. Even though there's great sea life right in front of my nose on the wall, I find myself obsessively scanning the blue and below. I get the tingly feeling that there's something big - like a whale shark, or a thresher, or an eagle ray (which I did see once) - just out of sight.
The best/terrifying part of this dive is when we put our backs to the wall and swim out in the blue. It means being super careful, keeping one eye always on my depth gauge, but it's completely thrilling, being surrounded by absolutely nothing. I've done this dive three times now, and I've never felt unsafe or like I was doing something risky. I am not a risky diver. No way.
As we were crossing the saddle of the wall to get into the Blue Hole proper, I saw a big fish that I couldn't identify. I hovered right on the crest, straining my eyes. Was it a napoleon? That'd be a first for me. Pritesh had already dropped over the saddle, and KC was hovering with me, looking in the same direction. I decided to go get Pritesh so after the dive he could identify the fish for me. I signaled to him to come back, and when he arrived I turned to point out my mystery fish. And then to my intense surprise, I spotted a turtle! At the dive's end, KC told me that the turtle had been there all along and that's what he'd thought I was pointing at. Nope! I was the last one to see it, even though I was the one who stopped in the first place. Typical.
We were also lucky enough to do a few dives with a marine biologist from the Red Sea Environmental Center. She was a bit less focused on guiding than Pritesh - it was more like the three of us were just diving together - but it was fun having a fellow biologist with us. In fact, Pritesh talked us into doing a fluorescence night dive with her.
KC and I aren't really night divers. We'd tried it for the first time in Sharm, and we thought it was good but not great - not really worth too much effort. But the fluorescence angle sounded intriguing, and Pritest was really excited about it, so we thought we'd give it a go.
The evening started with a pre-dive briefing on fluorescence and fluorescence in biological organisms. We felt a little guilty because it quickly became obvious that we were ringers. KC ended up giving the "fluorescence" part of the briefing, and I gave the "fluorescent proteins in biological organisms" part of the briefing. Is it our fault that we actually work with these things for a living? We found ourselves a little skeptical about some of the ideas the biologist threw out there - we're not convinced that these things are used for communication at 20 meters. Just doesn't make sense. But eventually it was time to suit up with our special gear - blue wavelength flashlights (for excitation of the fluorescent creatures) and a yellow filter for our masks (to be able to see the fluorescence more clearly).
We stayed in about 3-4 meters of water the whole time. It was amazing, the first time I trained my flashlight on an ordinary-looking coral and it blazed green! We crept along the bottom and came to a small reef, where we moved an inch at a time, trying to find things that glowed. My favorite was the anemone crab (above right), which smolders a fluorescent red when you hit it with the blue light. We also discovered that scorpionfish fluoresce yellow - we didn't find too many fish that did glow, although lots of the coral did. I was having a reasonably good time until I turned my face over my shoulder - and found a (poisonous) lionfish within two inches of my nose. The lionfish are attracted to the lights, and even though our only white lights were with the DMs, I was surrounded. I enjoyed myself a bit less after that; I was uncomfortable knowing that the animals could see me but I couldn't see them. All in all, I'm glad I did the dive, but I don't know that I'll rush to do it again.
At the end of the Dahab trip, we arranged to go to St Catherine's, so KC could see the monastery and climb the mountain. This was a return trip for me, and within only a few weeks! Originally we'd planned to climb the mountain at dawn, but we were so tired from diving that we decided to hit the mountain at 6 am, just around sunrise. It was a two-hour drive from Dahab to St Catherine's, and we couldn't bear the thought of getting up at midnight to start our day.
And boy did we make the right decision, because to my shock, the valley was deserted at 6 am. When I'd arrived to make my last climb, the place was crawling with busloads of ill-dressed tourists and swarming with security guards and beduin "guides." The rule, of course, is that you must hire a beduin guide if you want to go up the mountain. This time, KC and I encountered a single snoozing security guard next to the metal detector. We tiptoed around him and dashed up the path, trying to get as far up the path as possible before we were found out and stuck with a surly guide.
But that moment never came, and we had a splendid climb. It wasn't really that hot while we climbed, and we didn't freeze at the summit. We were alone - truly alone - for something like 90% of our climb. No camel hawkers, no Russian tourists, no pilgrims. Nothing. The kiosks were either closed or deserted. Everyone was up ahead of us. We passed a few people on their way back down the camel path at first, but we'd missed the rush entirely. At the summit there was a group of about 10 Greeks - an amazing contrast to the hundreds of people I'd shared the sunrise with a few weeks earlier. And we came down the Stairs of Repentence completely alone, which was stunning. I'll post some pictures here when we've got them downloaded.
Bottom line: watch the sunrise on your way up Mt Moses. You'll have a better chance of finding the peace and serenity that has drawn people there for hundreds of years.
We spent about an hour and a half at the monastery after our climb, seeing the icons and the museum, the ossuary and the church. And then we made the long drive back to Sharm for the short flight back to Cairo.
But that's not the end of the story, of course! Our 50 minute flight was delayed for an hour in Sharm, and we spent another hour at the new terminal in Cairo trying to avoid being bled dry by taxi sharks. Cairenes, take note - either have City Cab or the university pick you up. It's not worth the hassle of trying to arrange your own transport from the new terminal.
Dahab: two thumbs up. St Catherine's in the late morning: five stars. Terminal three: gaaah.
We went scuba diving! I decided that being underwater while I turned thirty was a good plan. So I planned a trip to take us back to Dahab, where I'd had a great time diving with some friends last August. And speaking of last August, I managed, for the second time, to go diving in Dahab without the underwater camera! This time the underwater case was fine, but the camera had been struck down on the top of Mt Moses under suspicious (read: divine?) circumstances.
We stayed at the Dahab Coach House, a really splendid tiny hotel run by a wonderful Danish couple. I'd been introduced to them last fall, and I'd intended to take a trip to Dahab last Eid but ended up going to Lebanon instead. So this June was my first time staying with them, and it was really great. I wouldn't consider staying anywhere else (unless it were free, of course!).
And once again I dove with Sinai Divers Backpacker and couldn't have asked for a better experience. I even managed to get the same dive master as last time, Pritesh, who makes fun of me for being a slow diver but then points out living things that are invisible to my eye. Perfect.
We had a lovely first day's diving at Umm Sid where, among many other things, we found sailor's eyeballs (below left), lionfish, Red Sea walkmen (below right), eels (giant moray, eek!), sand divers, lovely chromodoris, and a blue-spotted ray ... and that's in addition to all the Red Sea regulars!
Thanks again to Google Images for saving the day!
We got seven dives in total, including another set of stellar dives to Canyon and Bells/Blue Hole. Canyon was a bit crowded, but it turned out to be kind of cool - all those divers made lots of bubbles, and the bubbles escape the crack in the floor (the canyon) in a curtain that rises from the edge. It's surreal, playing with the glittering silver bubbles, 20 m under the water.
I don't think I'll ever get tired of Bells/Blue Hole, which is a haunting dive. To do the entry through the Bells, we walked past a wall that has the names of all the divers who have died there. For me the best part of the dive happens after exiting the Bells, when we sweep along the outer edge of the Hole. There's absolutely no bottom, and on the left the blue stretches away into the unknown. Even though there's great sea life right in front of my nose on the wall, I find myself obsessively scanning the blue and below. I get the tingly feeling that there's something big - like a whale shark, or a thresher, or an eagle ray (which I did see once) - just out of sight.
The best/terrifying part of this dive is when we put our backs to the wall and swim out in the blue. It means being super careful, keeping one eye always on my depth gauge, but it's completely thrilling, being surrounded by absolutely nothing. I've done this dive three times now, and I've never felt unsafe or like I was doing something risky. I am not a risky diver. No way.
As we were crossing the saddle of the wall to get into the Blue Hole proper, I saw a big fish that I couldn't identify. I hovered right on the crest, straining my eyes. Was it a napoleon? That'd be a first for me. Pritesh had already dropped over the saddle, and KC was hovering with me, looking in the same direction. I decided to go get Pritesh so after the dive he could identify the fish for me. I signaled to him to come back, and when he arrived I turned to point out my mystery fish. And then to my intense surprise, I spotted a turtle! At the dive's end, KC told me that the turtle had been there all along and that's what he'd thought I was pointing at. Nope! I was the last one to see it, even though I was the one who stopped in the first place. Typical.
We were also lucky enough to do a few dives with a marine biologist from the Red Sea Environmental Center. She was a bit less focused on guiding than Pritesh - it was more like the three of us were just diving together - but it was fun having a fellow biologist with us. In fact, Pritesh talked us into doing a fluorescence night dive with her.
KC and I aren't really night divers. We'd tried it for the first time in Sharm, and we thought it was good but not great - not really worth too much effort. But the fluorescence angle sounded intriguing, and Pritest was really excited about it, so we thought we'd give it a go.
The evening started with a pre-dive briefing on fluorescence and fluorescence in biological organisms. We felt a little guilty because it quickly became obvious that we were ringers. KC ended up giving the "fluorescence" part of the briefing, and I gave the "fluorescent proteins in biological organisms" part of the briefing. Is it our fault that we actually work with these things for a living? We found ourselves a little skeptical about some of the ideas the biologist threw out there - we're not convinced that these things are used for communication at 20 meters. Just doesn't make sense. But eventually it was time to suit up with our special gear - blue wavelength flashlights (for excitation of the fluorescent creatures) and a yellow filter for our masks (to be able to see the fluorescence more clearly).
We stayed in about 3-4 meters of water the whole time. It was amazing, the first time I trained my flashlight on an ordinary-looking coral and it blazed green! We crept along the bottom and came to a small reef, where we moved an inch at a time, trying to find things that glowed. My favorite was the anemone crab (above right), which smolders a fluorescent red when you hit it with the blue light. We also discovered that scorpionfish fluoresce yellow - we didn't find too many fish that did glow, although lots of the coral did. I was having a reasonably good time until I turned my face over my shoulder - and found a (poisonous) lionfish within two inches of my nose. The lionfish are attracted to the lights, and even though our only white lights were with the DMs, I was surrounded. I enjoyed myself a bit less after that; I was uncomfortable knowing that the animals could see me but I couldn't see them. All in all, I'm glad I did the dive, but I don't know that I'll rush to do it again.
At the end of the Dahab trip, we arranged to go to St Catherine's, so KC could see the monastery and climb the mountain. This was a return trip for me, and within only a few weeks! Originally we'd planned to climb the mountain at dawn, but we were so tired from diving that we decided to hit the mountain at 6 am, just around sunrise. It was a two-hour drive from Dahab to St Catherine's, and we couldn't bear the thought of getting up at midnight to start our day.
And boy did we make the right decision, because to my shock, the valley was deserted at 6 am. When I'd arrived to make my last climb, the place was crawling with busloads of ill-dressed tourists and swarming with security guards and beduin "guides." The rule, of course, is that you must hire a beduin guide if you want to go up the mountain. This time, KC and I encountered a single snoozing security guard next to the metal detector. We tiptoed around him and dashed up the path, trying to get as far up the path as possible before we were found out and stuck with a surly guide.
But that moment never came, and we had a splendid climb. It wasn't really that hot while we climbed, and we didn't freeze at the summit. We were alone - truly alone - for something like 90% of our climb. No camel hawkers, no Russian tourists, no pilgrims. Nothing. The kiosks were either closed or deserted. Everyone was up ahead of us. We passed a few people on their way back down the camel path at first, but we'd missed the rush entirely. At the summit there was a group of about 10 Greeks - an amazing contrast to the hundreds of people I'd shared the sunrise with a few weeks earlier. And we came down the Stairs of Repentence completely alone, which was stunning. I'll post some pictures here when we've got them downloaded.
Bottom line: watch the sunrise on your way up Mt Moses. You'll have a better chance of finding the peace and serenity that has drawn people there for hundreds of years.
We spent about an hour and a half at the monastery after our climb, seeing the icons and the museum, the ossuary and the church. And then we made the long drive back to Sharm for the short flight back to Cairo.
But that's not the end of the story, of course! Our 50 minute flight was delayed for an hour in Sharm, and we spent another hour at the new terminal in Cairo trying to avoid being bled dry by taxi sharks. Cairenes, take note - either have City Cab or the university pick you up. It's not worth the hassle of trying to arrange your own transport from the new terminal.
Dahab: two thumbs up. St Catherine's in the late morning: five stars. Terminal three: gaaah.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Leave one out
This story is so bizarre, I'll start with the end of the tale first:
So we went to the office, spoke with an agent, signed a form with the manager, got a full refund in cash, and left within 15 minutes.
Right. Now that you've heard the end, let me back up.
Back in May I alluded to a "hair-raising adventure" with EgyptAir. But things didn't even start in May - I started working on our trip to Abu Simbel back at the beginning of April.
Bottom line, KC and I wanted to see Abu Simbel before leaving Egypt. The Abu Simbel site is a set of two temples built by Ramesses II in the far south of Egypt. In fact, the temples are located so far south that when the Aswan High Dam was built in the late 1960s, the resulting Lake Nasser would have submerged the temples.
Eventually, someone figured this out - that building the dam (which may or may not have been an ecological catastrophe) would endanger literally dozens of pharonic sites in Upper Egypt. I need to do some more reading about this, because it's quite a remarkable story. The Egyptian government and UNESCO got help from institutions around the world to actually move the two temples at Abu Simbel (and some other sites too, like Philae) to higher ground.
Ever wonder why there's a complete Egyptian temple inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City? It was a "thank you" gift to the museum for working on the UNESCO project. Thanks for your help - here, have a temple. We were going to wreck this one anyway.
On the other hand, diving these things would be fantastic ... but I digress.
We wanted to go to Abu Simbel. I had enough EgyptAir frequent flier miles to get one free ticket to Abu Simbel, and it seemed a good use because generally that's an expensive ticket. I called the EgyptAir hotline and got put through to the rewards desk. I explained to the helpful woman that I wanted one reward ticket and one regular ticket to Abu Simbel on a particular day in June. She typed a bit, and then gave me the reservation number and told me to go down to the EgyptAir office and pay the taxes on the tickets.
"The reservation is confirmed?" I asked.
"Yes madam, no problem."
"The ticket has been issued?"
"Yes madam, just go pay the fee."
"You're absolutely sure this reservation is ready? Because I don't want to go all the way down there and find out I don't have a ticket."
"Don't worry madam, you have a ticket."
So of course I went to the Adly Street EgyptAir office and - brace yourselves - of course there were no damned tickets. I'd walked into the office and saw a desk with about 30 representatives, and there were no other customers (shockingly). An agent waved me over to his desk. When I saw his face, I said, "Oh, I remember you! You used to be in the Tahrir Office!" And to my complete and utter surprise, he responded, "Yes Dr. Tiffany, I remember you."
I almost passed out. This guy had seen me once in January and he remembered my name. That type of thing would never happen in the US. If you're in the Adly Street EgyptAir office (over near Midan Opera) look for the guy with the round glasses and thin bristly mustache. He's the one you want.
Anyway, I freaked out at this guy for a few minutes, and then settled down to business. He's a great agent - smart as hell and efficient. Eventually he constructed a delicate series of reservations for our trip, but unfortunately both seats were waitlisted. I was told to keep checking the waitlist on the airline website and to come to the office when the seats came through.
Three weeks later, the reservation for the two tickets was still waitlisted. I figured enough was enough - EgyptAir was offering a fare of LE 837 (USD $150) round-trip including taxes. I went back to the office to just pay for the tickets. Imagine my surprise when a new agent told me that the reservation I'd made was only in my name - KC's ticket didn't exist.
This precipitated an hour-long argument, and I'll gloss over the details. The most frustrating aspect was telling the guy that not an hour before EgyptAir's website had listed KC's ticket. The agent responded that that wasn't true because his system didn't have it. Fine, I said, open up the internet and I'll show you.
Apparently this was akin to suggesting that we sacrifice his firstborn son. The agent protested that he couldn't possibly do that. I pointed to the Internet Explorer icon on his desktop and said, "Click on it." Back and forth, back and forth, and finally a manager came over.
Eventually I realized the stupidity and futility of my efforts. I asked the manager to cancel that reservation and make a new reservation, which I'd pay for in cash. 10 minutes later all was settled and I walked out the door with my paid, confirmed tickets.
Or so I thought. [cue ominous music]
This past Saturday we dragged ourselves out of bed at 4 in the morning, tossed a few things in the backpack, and headed for the airport. After our airport taxi catastrophe on the way back from Dahab, I'd called City Cab to arrange for transport both ways from the airport in a metered taxi. We got to the airport around 5 am ... and that's when all hell broke loose.
The security guard looked at our itinerary before letting us through the security checkpoint BEFORE the area where you can actually check in. This is normal in Egypt. What was not normal was his refusal to let us pass, and his claim that the flight didn't exist. He directed us over to the EgyptAir ticket counter.
The guy at the ticket counter said this wasn't his job and sent us over to Customer Service.
The guy at Customer Service said this wasn't his job and sent us over to the ticket counter.
This is where things started to get ugly.
We told the customer service guy that we'd been sent to him by the ticket guy. He walked with us over to the ticket counter and lit into the ticket guy, screeching at him in Arabic. Finally it was determined that yes, dealing with ticket issues is in fact the job of the guy at the ticket counter.
We found out that our 6:00 am flight had been cancelled and we'd been put on the 8:45 am flight instead, which would get us to Abu Simbel at 11:30 am - with a return flight departing at 2:15 pm.
Of course, this was completely preposterous. We were tired and really, really angry at this point.
So the recriminations began. We were incensed that EgyptAir had made no effort to contact us before we arrived at the airport on the morning of our flight. The agent claimed that we had given EgyptAir no phone number to contact us. I pointed out how absurd this was, since EgyptAir had been calling me on my mobile phone for 2 years. They even called to tell me when the Tahrir office closed! The agent told me I was lying and I'd never given them my mobile number. There was a lot more shouting at that point.
At some point through my red haze of fury I realized that KC was doing something very clever. He was basically running through a checklist of things that airlines (in the US at least) can't do when they cancel your flight. For example, he asked if our flight had been "cancelled" or "rescheduled." The agent said "cancelled" (not good for the airline). KC asked for a copy of the cancellation policy of the airline. The agent refused to give us one (really, really not good).
The agent scored his only point when he demanded, "What do you want me to do?" Because of course, what we wanted him to do was to schedule a plane just for us, leaving at that exact moment. We found this much funnier later.
We decided that we just wanted our money back. The agent refused, saying we had to go to the office that had issued the ticket. OK, we returned, give us a piece of paper showing that we'd actually gone all the way to the airport before figuring out we were screwed. The guy handed me a blank piece of paper with the words "EgyptAir" printed on them. I gave him my most pissed-off withering glare of derision and he went in the back and printed out an itinerary that had the airport office letterhead.
And then we had to find a taxi to get home. We managed to find a different metered taxi, but the police prohibit the drivers from picking up passengers in front of the terminal (you figure this one out - for the fixed fare scam?) so we walked down the ramp toward the highway with the taxi following us until we were out of sight of the police.
Yesterday we went to the EgyptAir office to get our refund. We girded ourselves mentally - we prepared our extensive set of documentation - we worked out the good cop/bad cop routine - and we ticked off our set of arguing points. We were called up to the desk - and our agent was the "new" agent who'd told me in May that KC's ticket didn't exist.
"Do you remember me?" I asked him.
"Yes - Abu Simbel frequent flier. How was your trip?"
[beat]
"Actually, that's why we're here. We got to the airport and found out EgyptAir had cancelled our flight. We'd like a refund. Here's our original itinerary."
"Please wait here, I'll be right back."
The agent stepped away and we settled into our chairs. He was gone for about 10 minutes, walking here and there through the office. Finally he came back and said simply, "Come with me."
We were ushered into a manager's office behind the ticket counter. I thought they were bringing us back there to bludgeon us to death for asking for a refund. Instead the manager came around the desk, shook our hands, and boomed, "Congratulations!"
For what? we thought. Being the first EgyptAir customers to get a refund? We stared at him blankly.
"Congratulations on your country!" He beamed at us.
We thought, Great. What have we done now?
"Congratulations on your football! America very good!!"
Ah. America had just beaten Egypt in some big soccer game. Of course this was just about the furthest thing from our minds at this point.
We signed a paper and were sent to the cashier's desk. We showed photocopies of our passport - and 3 minutes later we were handed LE 1674.
To repeat how I began this long sordid tale:
So we went to the office, spoke with an agent, signed a form with the manager, got a full refund in cash, and left within 15 minutes.
I was convinced I was having a coma dream. This last trip to the EgyptAir office is by far the weirdest thing that has happened to me in this country.
And now we have to come back to Egypt - because we haven't seen Abu Simbel.
So we went to the office, spoke with an agent, signed a form with the manager, got a full refund in cash, and left within 15 minutes.
Right. Now that you've heard the end, let me back up.
Back in May I alluded to a "hair-raising adventure" with EgyptAir. But things didn't even start in May - I started working on our trip to Abu Simbel back at the beginning of April.
Bottom line, KC and I wanted to see Abu Simbel before leaving Egypt. The Abu Simbel site is a set of two temples built by Ramesses II in the far south of Egypt. In fact, the temples are located so far south that when the Aswan High Dam was built in the late 1960s, the resulting Lake Nasser would have submerged the temples.
Eventually, someone figured this out - that building the dam (which may or may not have been an ecological catastrophe) would endanger literally dozens of pharonic sites in Upper Egypt. I need to do some more reading about this, because it's quite a remarkable story. The Egyptian government and UNESCO got help from institutions around the world to actually move the two temples at Abu Simbel (and some other sites too, like Philae) to higher ground.
Ever wonder why there's a complete Egyptian temple inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City? It was a "thank you" gift to the museum for working on the UNESCO project. Thanks for your help - here, have a temple. We were going to wreck this one anyway.
On the other hand, diving these things would be fantastic ... but I digress.
We wanted to go to Abu Simbel. I had enough EgyptAir frequent flier miles to get one free ticket to Abu Simbel, and it seemed a good use because generally that's an expensive ticket. I called the EgyptAir hotline and got put through to the rewards desk. I explained to the helpful woman that I wanted one reward ticket and one regular ticket to Abu Simbel on a particular day in June. She typed a bit, and then gave me the reservation number and told me to go down to the EgyptAir office and pay the taxes on the tickets.
"The reservation is confirmed?" I asked.
"Yes madam, no problem."
"The ticket has been issued?"
"Yes madam, just go pay the fee."
"You're absolutely sure this reservation is ready? Because I don't want to go all the way down there and find out I don't have a ticket."
"Don't worry madam, you have a ticket."
So of course I went to the Adly Street EgyptAir office and - brace yourselves - of course there were no damned tickets. I'd walked into the office and saw a desk with about 30 representatives, and there were no other customers (shockingly). An agent waved me over to his desk. When I saw his face, I said, "Oh, I remember you! You used to be in the Tahrir Office!" And to my complete and utter surprise, he responded, "Yes Dr. Tiffany, I remember you."
I almost passed out. This guy had seen me once in January and he remembered my name. That type of thing would never happen in the US. If you're in the Adly Street EgyptAir office (over near Midan Opera) look for the guy with the round glasses and thin bristly mustache. He's the one you want.
Anyway, I freaked out at this guy for a few minutes, and then settled down to business. He's a great agent - smart as hell and efficient. Eventually he constructed a delicate series of reservations for our trip, but unfortunately both seats were waitlisted. I was told to keep checking the waitlist on the airline website and to come to the office when the seats came through.
Three weeks later, the reservation for the two tickets was still waitlisted. I figured enough was enough - EgyptAir was offering a fare of LE 837 (USD $150) round-trip including taxes. I went back to the office to just pay for the tickets. Imagine my surprise when a new agent told me that the reservation I'd made was only in my name - KC's ticket didn't exist.
This precipitated an hour-long argument, and I'll gloss over the details. The most frustrating aspect was telling the guy that not an hour before EgyptAir's website had listed KC's ticket. The agent responded that that wasn't true because his system didn't have it. Fine, I said, open up the internet and I'll show you.
Apparently this was akin to suggesting that we sacrifice his firstborn son. The agent protested that he couldn't possibly do that. I pointed to the Internet Explorer icon on his desktop and said, "Click on it." Back and forth, back and forth, and finally a manager came over.
Eventually I realized the stupidity and futility of my efforts. I asked the manager to cancel that reservation and make a new reservation, which I'd pay for in cash. 10 minutes later all was settled and I walked out the door with my paid, confirmed tickets.
Or so I thought. [cue ominous music]
This past Saturday we dragged ourselves out of bed at 4 in the morning, tossed a few things in the backpack, and headed for the airport. After our airport taxi catastrophe on the way back from Dahab, I'd called City Cab to arrange for transport both ways from the airport in a metered taxi. We got to the airport around 5 am ... and that's when all hell broke loose.
The security guard looked at our itinerary before letting us through the security checkpoint BEFORE the area where you can actually check in. This is normal in Egypt. What was not normal was his refusal to let us pass, and his claim that the flight didn't exist. He directed us over to the EgyptAir ticket counter.
The guy at the ticket counter said this wasn't his job and sent us over to Customer Service.
The guy at Customer Service said this wasn't his job and sent us over to the ticket counter.
This is where things started to get ugly.
We told the customer service guy that we'd been sent to him by the ticket guy. He walked with us over to the ticket counter and lit into the ticket guy, screeching at him in Arabic. Finally it was determined that yes, dealing with ticket issues is in fact the job of the guy at the ticket counter.
We found out that our 6:00 am flight had been cancelled and we'd been put on the 8:45 am flight instead, which would get us to Abu Simbel at 11:30 am - with a return flight departing at 2:15 pm.
Of course, this was completely preposterous. We were tired and really, really angry at this point.
So the recriminations began. We were incensed that EgyptAir had made no effort to contact us before we arrived at the airport on the morning of our flight. The agent claimed that we had given EgyptAir no phone number to contact us. I pointed out how absurd this was, since EgyptAir had been calling me on my mobile phone for 2 years. They even called to tell me when the Tahrir office closed! The agent told me I was lying and I'd never given them my mobile number. There was a lot more shouting at that point.
At some point through my red haze of fury I realized that KC was doing something very clever. He was basically running through a checklist of things that airlines (in the US at least) can't do when they cancel your flight. For example, he asked if our flight had been "cancelled" or "rescheduled." The agent said "cancelled" (not good for the airline). KC asked for a copy of the cancellation policy of the airline. The agent refused to give us one (really, really not good).
The agent scored his only point when he demanded, "What do you want me to do?" Because of course, what we wanted him to do was to schedule a plane just for us, leaving at that exact moment. We found this much funnier later.
We decided that we just wanted our money back. The agent refused, saying we had to go to the office that had issued the ticket. OK, we returned, give us a piece of paper showing that we'd actually gone all the way to the airport before figuring out we were screwed. The guy handed me a blank piece of paper with the words "EgyptAir" printed on them. I gave him my most pissed-off withering glare of derision and he went in the back and printed out an itinerary that had the airport office letterhead.
And then we had to find a taxi to get home. We managed to find a different metered taxi, but the police prohibit the drivers from picking up passengers in front of the terminal (you figure this one out - for the fixed fare scam?) so we walked down the ramp toward the highway with the taxi following us until we were out of sight of the police.
Yesterday we went to the EgyptAir office to get our refund. We girded ourselves mentally - we prepared our extensive set of documentation - we worked out the good cop/bad cop routine - and we ticked off our set of arguing points. We were called up to the desk - and our agent was the "new" agent who'd told me in May that KC's ticket didn't exist.
"Do you remember me?" I asked him.
"Yes - Abu Simbel frequent flier. How was your trip?"
[beat]
"Actually, that's why we're here. We got to the airport and found out EgyptAir had cancelled our flight. We'd like a refund. Here's our original itinerary."
"Please wait here, I'll be right back."
The agent stepped away and we settled into our chairs. He was gone for about 10 minutes, walking here and there through the office. Finally he came back and said simply, "Come with me."
We were ushered into a manager's office behind the ticket counter. I thought they were bringing us back there to bludgeon us to death for asking for a refund. Instead the manager came around the desk, shook our hands, and boomed, "Congratulations!"
For what? we thought. Being the first EgyptAir customers to get a refund? We stared at him blankly.
"Congratulations on your country!" He beamed at us.
We thought, Great. What have we done now?
"Congratulations on your football! America very good!!"
Ah. America had just beaten Egypt in some big soccer game. Of course this was just about the furthest thing from our minds at this point.
We signed a paper and were sent to the cashier's desk. We showed photocopies of our passport - and 3 minutes later we were handed LE 1674.
To repeat how I began this long sordid tale:
So we went to the office, spoke with an agent, signed a form with the manager, got a full refund in cash, and left within 15 minutes.
I was convinced I was having a coma dream. This last trip to the EgyptAir office is by far the weirdest thing that has happened to me in this country.
And now we have to come back to Egypt - because we haven't seen Abu Simbel.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Last Day at the Khan
The past few days have been filled with too many lasts - or lasts for now - for me to want to risk a tearful gooey blogpost slide into nostalgia.
This morning we said goodbye to our washing machine, which moved up the street to a friend's place. To be specific, the guys from the university showed up, disconnected my washing machine, moved it out of my flat ... and then dumped the machine outside my friend's flat and left. Without ringing the bell, let alone actually installing the machine. For some strange reason in Cairo the washing machines don't belong to the flat but to the tenant.
We tied up a few loose ends in Garden City, then headed to the EgyptAir office to deal with our aborted trip to Abu Simbel. More on this later - because our episode today was, by far, the strangest experience I've had in Egypt.
And if you've been following this blog, you know that means a lot.
Then we made our final pilgrimage to Islamic Cairo. First we headed back to Tentmaker's Bazaar to say goodbye to our friends there. In two years I've really come to value the Egyptian concept of shopping and shopkeeping. I've been buying from Mr Magdy (in the covered part of the bazaar) and Mr Ayman (just past the bazaar) for two years - and taking my friends to them. After about 6 months of this, I realized that both these gentlemen acted mortally offended if I passed by their shop without dropping in for a cup of tea and a chat. Even if I wasn't interested in buying, I was welcome in their store. I don't think I ever spent less than 20 minutes with either one of them, even if I didn't spend a cent.
So how much can two people buy in 30 minutes at Mr Ayman's store? Today: 19 scarves, 5 bags, and 2 big applique wall hangings. I'm especially pleased by the one up above, an unusual applique with a fish / Red Sea motif. Mr Ayman does great work; I frequently see new patterns in his store before any of the others in the bazaar, and usually a few weeks later I see them everywhere.
I'm not usually into these pictorial pieces; I prefer the calligraphy and abstract works. But I saw this fishy scene and knew I had to have it. Fortunately KC agreed, and we went ahead with our rather staggering purchase. In the end the damage came to LE 1000 (USD $178.60), and no matter how hard KC haggled, we couldn't budge Mr Ayman any further (although he did give us an extra bag of our choice).
We managed to talk our way into the fantastic Qalawun complex over in Palace Walk, precipitating a massive fight between the caretaker and a nearby policeman. Some baksheesh to both parties got us out of there in one piece, but it was a bit strange. The caretaker really really did not want us there, even though we were willing to pay and the site is technically open. Why would you spend so much money restoring a monument and then forbid anyone to see it?
Along the same lines, why would you have UNESCO and your government spend millions of dollars to save the temples at Abu Simbel and then arrange the flights so people can only spend an hour in the temples?
Ah, the mysteries of Egypt.
And Mr Ayman's deets:
Stitched Like an Egyptian
Ayman Molokhya
Original Appllique [sic] Art Work
18 El Khiamia st., Babziwela - Cairo
Mob: 012 100 6756
molokyaoneonly@yahoo.com
This morning we said goodbye to our washing machine, which moved up the street to a friend's place. To be specific, the guys from the university showed up, disconnected my washing machine, moved it out of my flat ... and then dumped the machine outside my friend's flat and left. Without ringing the bell, let alone actually installing the machine. For some strange reason in Cairo the washing machines don't belong to the flat but to the tenant.
We tied up a few loose ends in Garden City, then headed to the EgyptAir office to deal with our aborted trip to Abu Simbel. More on this later - because our episode today was, by far, the strangest experience I've had in Egypt.
And if you've been following this blog, you know that means a lot.
Then we made our final pilgrimage to Islamic Cairo. First we headed back to Tentmaker's Bazaar to say goodbye to our friends there. In two years I've really come to value the Egyptian concept of shopping and shopkeeping. I've been buying from Mr Magdy (in the covered part of the bazaar) and Mr Ayman (just past the bazaar) for two years - and taking my friends to them. After about 6 months of this, I realized that both these gentlemen acted mortally offended if I passed by their shop without dropping in for a cup of tea and a chat. Even if I wasn't interested in buying, I was welcome in their store. I don't think I ever spent less than 20 minutes with either one of them, even if I didn't spend a cent.
So how much can two people buy in 30 minutes at Mr Ayman's store? Today: 19 scarves, 5 bags, and 2 big applique wall hangings. I'm especially pleased by the one up above, an unusual applique with a fish / Red Sea motif. Mr Ayman does great work; I frequently see new patterns in his store before any of the others in the bazaar, and usually a few weeks later I see them everywhere.
I'm not usually into these pictorial pieces; I prefer the calligraphy and abstract works. But I saw this fishy scene and knew I had to have it. Fortunately KC agreed, and we went ahead with our rather staggering purchase. In the end the damage came to LE 1000 (USD $178.60), and no matter how hard KC haggled, we couldn't budge Mr Ayman any further (although he did give us an extra bag of our choice).
We managed to talk our way into the fantastic Qalawun complex over in Palace Walk, precipitating a massive fight between the caretaker and a nearby policeman. Some baksheesh to both parties got us out of there in one piece, but it was a bit strange. The caretaker really really did not want us there, even though we were willing to pay and the site is technically open. Why would you spend so much money restoring a monument and then forbid anyone to see it?
Along the same lines, why would you have UNESCO and your government spend millions of dollars to save the temples at Abu Simbel and then arrange the flights so people can only spend an hour in the temples?
Ah, the mysteries of Egypt.
And Mr Ayman's deets:
Stitched Like an Egyptian
Ayman Molokhya
Original Appllique [sic] Art Work
18 El Khiamia st., Babziwela - Cairo
Mob: 012 100 6756
molokyaoneonly@yahoo.com
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