Thanksgiving on the Red Sea - Dahab

So it's Thursday afternoon and a truly happy Thanksgiving. We've finished our various pursuits at St. Catherine's and head for the sea. Dahab by dinnertime is the goal.

As we drive into town I'm delighted to see a real town, not the corporate resort area that Sharm el Sheikh, the elite Red Sea destination, has turned into. There is a walled Hilton resort area south of town, but the main tourist area is locally owned shops, hotels and restaurants owned and operated by people who greet you when you walk by or come into their establishment.

Our hotel, the New Sphinx is in the middle of town right on the water. My room was on the second floor with a balcony overlooking the pool area and the sea, with the mountains of Saudi Arabia in the distance. I awoke early each day and sat on that balcony with coffee, watching the sun rise over those distant mountains.

Dahab is a diving and wind surfing destination, and the first morning of our stay we discovered why the wind surfing. Winds were significant! Not liking the gusty blasts, I spent the day resting and reading. No snorkling with the winds as high as they were.

I promised to write more about cats. In Egypt, animals are as welcome in stores and restaurants as people, and in Dahab, cats are regular fixtures in each restaurant. They establish their territories and keep other cats out. The restaurants allow for real bonding experiences with the local felines, because most have low tables with cushions and pillows on carpets covering the ground. They're outdoors with windscreens, and in some places wood slat roof coverings for shade. So you settle into your little dining nest, reclining with a cool drink and the local cats arrive to help you order. They all recommend the fish, of course. You receive a spray bottle to keep them from getting overly interested in your food - the table is only 8" off the ground, remember. Many are beautiful variations on the Egyptian goddess Bastet with faces that are mostly huge eyes and ears, sleek, lean bodies and long tails. They know how to make you feel like you're the most important person in the world, curling up on your lap and gazing up at you with huge hungry, adoring eyes. Your food arrives and you fall all over yourself willingly sharing with this ravenous, helpless creature, and when your plate is picked up by the waiter, the cat is off to the next table to take those residents through the same scam. These are lean cats! It's hard to figure out where they store all the food! If you're hopelessly in love with your little beast, your only hope is to order something nice for dessert... ice cream would be fine.

I love eating lying down! I spent a pleasant afternoon reclining in one of these restaurants with a good book, excellent Egyptian music, a cat who stayed around because of the creamy apple concoction I was nursing along to entice her and hold my table, and a unparalleled view of the Red Sea. Met up with Kathy, Forrest and Bart for a nice relaxed dinner... again reclining, and with yet another precious, thoroughly self contained cat. I'm thinking about cutting off the legs of my dining room table!

Trip home from Dahab was a little unnerving. Our three guys showed up at the hotel at the agreed upon hour with a fourth guy, and this one had a gun!! Now, we don't speak Arabic and they don't speak English, so it turned into a bit of a confusing shouting match between my plucky sister asserting "NO, NO, NO!" and they demanding, "Security, security, security!" Our nice hotel manager came out and translated that because we were American, they were bringing along extra security. We finally relented because it was in the middle of the street, and we were drawing a crowd, but both Kathy and I were wondering the whole way back if this guy was legit, if he just needed a ride back to Cairo or if we were going to be kidnapped and held for ransom in the desert. We arrived home having taken a different route along the Red Sea north to Taba and then over to the Suez Canal tunnel and on to Cairo. When we arrived home, Kathy had an email from the embassy that the Bedouins in northern Sinai were restless and Americans needed to be alert while traveling in that area. That was probably why our guys added another guy with a gun, but with the language barrier, we were clueless.

Anyway, three days of breathing clean air and enjoying crystal clear skies was wonderful. Dahab is my sister's new favorite place.

Thanksgiving on the Red Sea - Mt. Sinai

We left for the Sinai Peninsula on Wednesday evening, Nov. 26th right after Kathy got home from school. We had a minibus that would hold 16 and there were four of us, plus three escorts - two drivers and an expeditor so we were able to spread out. The expeditor was worth his weight in gold. We went through about a dozen checkpoints before arriving at the Suez Canal, and numerous points in the middle of nowhere along the route to the St. Catherine Protectorate, home to the 2 thousand year old monastary at the foot of Mt. Sinai, and of course, Mt. Sinai where Moses purportedly got the ten commandments.

We arrived at our hotel at about 10pm. It is new looking but run down - when you see the web of cracks in concrete buildings all over the place, you wonder what will happen here with a major earthquake. The room was clean but smelled so strongly of pesticide, I wondered what they were working so hard to get rid of! The bottom bed sheet only covered the top half of the bed, I discovered in the middle of the night. Hotels here come with either full or half board meaning you get either just breakfast or both breakfast and dinner. This place came with both, so at 10 pm we were served a nice dinner of chicken, beef, veges, rice and a tray of Egyptian sweets with tea. All quite tasty.

I woke up determined to be more independent. I arranged my money according to denomination, and stored all my small change in an easiily accessible pocket for baksheesh (tips) and headed into the hotel main lobby to seek out a cup of coffee.

What a hauntingly beautiful place. The sky is purple blue and the jumbled, rough rockpile mountains and hills are rosy brown. I settled into the restaurant and pantomimed that I wanted coffee and of course got "nescafe" - instant coffee with reconstituted powdered milk, but it was hot, and I did it all myself! First step to independence in a foreign land.

A cat skittered through the restaurant. The same kitten that sat next to my chair during dinner the night before. Cats do quite well here - better than dogs and perhaps even better than children. More on cats later.

later that day...
We finally arrived at St. Catherine's and after the walk from the parking lot to the monastery I knew I wasn't going to be climbing Mt. Sinai. If I wanted to beat myself up climbing a mountain, I have a perfectly good one in my own backyard at home! The call of history and art was too strong, so I broke off from the climbers and entered the monastery complex.

Droves of tourists were everywhere, but being alone allowed me to drift about, joining an English speaking group when I needed an explanation for something and hang behind when I wanted to study a painting or icon a little longer. The monastery has been here unmolested for a zillion years. The prophet Mohammed provided the initial protection for it, and it has been gifted throughout the centuries by stellar monasteries and Christian leaders without disruptions and conflict that lead to destruction of books, icons, manuscripts and the stuff of monastic life in other places.

After photographing the ancestor of the original burning bush (fire really is good for trees!) I joined a crowd waiting to get into the monastery collections which is in a temperature controlled, carefully lit and well displayed series of museum-like rooms. A monk burst through the waiting crowd, into the closed and guarded door which he slammed behind him. Shouts and roars could be heard and people were summarily tossed out. The guard at the door told the fellow next to me that he was shouting "Everyone out! Nobody gets in, even the governor himself!!" I moved closer to the door and asked the guard, "Please.. I have come a long way." The guard told me, one moment," and slipped through the door. He came back and said, "Come in." I slipped through the door only to face the fierce monk. He shouted, "25 pounds!!" which I gladly paid, then waited to see if I was going to be fed to some waiting lions. He gave me my receipt and pointed to the adjoining room. I spent a marvelous hour in one of the most stunning collections of iconography and illuminated manuscripts this side of the Getty Museum in California. Things were beautifully displayed; lighting was perfect and the only sound I heard was Gregorian chanting somewhere distant in the monastery. It was an incredible hour. Just as I was ready to leave, others were being admitted in very small groups.

By the time I slipped into the courtyard near the little cathedral, most tourists had departed in their tour buses and the place was silent. I strolled around the grounds, watching the workmen who had appeared as visitors had disappeared. I still had hours before my climbers were due back, so I hung around watching a couple of craftsmen building a granite cobbled courtyard around the fortified church. What a delight. The older man was the head craftsman on the job, laying block with such care and precision, it was a delight to watch. When he noticed my interest, he took care to show me how he worked, how he chose, prepared and leveled each stone. His young hod carrier was anxious to practice his three words of English, so we spent a stellar hour laughing, nodding and pantomiming. Later, I spoke to a young visitor who explained to me that the Bedouins care for the monastery and do all the work and building seen on the site. When I asked if they practiced the Christian religion, the young man said, "No, but all is the same." Would that we all practiced that truth.

Shortly after settling in with a cup of coffee, which I figured out how to order all by myself, my guys marched into the area, happy to be off the mountain, but equally happy that they made the climb. After hearing how much harder it was than the guidebooks indicated, and reflecting on the wonderful day I'd had, I'm thrilled with my decision NOT to climb Mt. Sinai!

Cairos's Solution to Three Major Problems...

Day two was filled with contrasting views of modern Cairo. We took a tour no tour bus would have scheduled with a woman, one of Kathy's friends, who sees hopeful signs for the future where alone, we would have only seen chaos.

Getting Around..
We started by meeting other friends and loading into two cabs for the ride to the Moqattam or Garbage City. Some of you might remember that name from news stories a month or so ago about a huge land slide that covered homes and killed lots of people - same area, different place.

Getting there we experienced Cairo's first solution - too many cars. With bumper to bumper traffic, there are no rules. No stoplights, no respected on-way streets, no lanes, no crosswalks, NO RULES! Traffic moves with very few traffic jams... Our drivers acted as a tag team, filling (or wedging) into tiny empty spaces and creating space for the other. Traffic is like bumpercars with big trucks, tiny cars, buses and mini buses jockeying for position, cutting in front or behind, careening up semi empty streets regardless of their one-way designation, nosing into traffic honking, braking, accelerating; than add the masses of pedestrians. M.J.. our guide said that up to 70 pedestrians A DAY are killed in Cairo! The injured are dumped into the next available taxi because ambulances would take too long. This is an Islamic country and perhaps a deeply held belief in a better life after death, and belief that Allah will end your life when He's good and darned ready and not before contributes to this lack of concern.

Garbage City..
, we made it to Garbage City, which is Cairo's answer to what to do about the mountains of garbage produced everyday in a city of probably 20 million people. The problem has turned into an opportunity for the Coptic Christians, not a highly regarded segment in an Islamic country.
The Coptics gather the garbage from throughout the city and return it to their homes in Moqattam. Garbage City is a warren of narrow, dirt streets running randomly between multi-storied buildings which are homes/workplaces/shops/garbage recycling areas. Families use the ground floor for sorting and recycling even the smallest shred of styrofoam. Reprocessing doesn't happen here, so the Coptic's receive a small percentage of the benefit of this massive recycling effort. The first thing that hits you is the smell, then the visual assault of the tons of garbage stacked in heaps waiting to be sorted. Then you notice the piles sorted by type, and the organic matter being picked over by goats, pigs, cats and dogs. Then you see the scores of people living their lives; working, socializing, showing off new babies, young couples holding hands, children playing in the streets, old people sitting in doorways observing. And it dawns on you that no single stereotype can describe what you're seeing. This is a bustling community with its own set of problems and successes sitting on the garbage of Cairo.
The Coptic Church has several huge sanctuaries cut into the mountain above the city itself, and on Sunday afternoon many families had gathered in the clean, well maintained open spaces around these places of worship to socialize and play. The church has beautified the area with huge relief sculptures of biblical stories which are cut into the cliffside - all done within the past 10 years.
We tried to shop at the recycling center, a place where women sell their creations made out of recycled products, but it was closed. I may return later with M.J.

City of the Dead
Then, it was on to City of the Dead, the northern cemetery. Cairo is thousands of years old, and Muslims don't cremate, so it could become little more than a giant cemetery without a solution. The tradition is to have underground family burial chambers with rooms above for visitors to stay while visiting the dead. This tradition is thousands of years old. The rooms above have become homes for tens of thousands of people. For active burial sites, the family living above acts as caretaker for the grave. The one we visited was a three room home, a kitchen/entryway, a living room with overstuffed furniture and a bedroom.

Access to the underground burial chambers is in the courtyard behind. Burials take place within 24 hours of death, so the caretakers are notified by the grave site owner, and they clear the sand and rocks in the courtyard that fill the stairway to the underground chamber. There is a room on the left for males, and one on the right for females. Shrouded bodies are laid out on a slab and the tomb is resealed. Hopefully burials don't happen too often, because it takes about 3 months for a body to dessicate. When the space is reopened, the caretakers roll the bones up in the shroud and stack the remains. Each site holds more than a thousand bodies! So a small space, probably no more that 15'x50' offers living space for a family above and burial space for thousands below.






Al-Azhar Park
This is Cairo's one and only public park, build on a previous garbage dump. It is gated with one entrance accessed by taxi only... and there is a small entry fee which means that the poor are out of luck. Be that as it may, M.J. talked about how wonderful to have a place where children can run in the grass, and people can sit among green things. It is hoped that more of these parks will be cropping up in other areas of the city and that the poor will begin to have access. We strolled by fountains, pools, gardens beautifully lit in the evening. We had coffee at the huge beautiful park center overlooking Cairo and listened to the call to prayer and watched the sun set - amazing sight. Could just barely see the pyramids - pollution is terrible.



Tomorrow it is off to see both an upscale and middle class view of life in Cairo.

First full day in Cairo

Flight was long and uneventful. I'm here!
I was awakened today by the 5am call to prayer. Not an unpleasant sound. After learning about Islam from our shared foreign exchange student, Camilla, I can only hope that the lovely sounding message blasted all over the city is something like "Allah reminds you at the beginning of this beautiful day to love one another. Today, be kind, be of help to someone in need in this vast city." I smiled and went back to sleep for two more hours!

Yesterday was a good introduction to the city. I learned how many expats there are in Cairo, how to cross the street and how to take a taxi.

After 4 hours of sleep - plane arrived in the middle of the night - we went to the annual International Christmas Bazaar at the Hilton Hotel downtown next to the Egyptian Museum. I think there were 65 countries represented by expats selling food and goodies. Kathy and I met 2 friends from her school and rode the metro into city center. We rode in the "women's car", an additional protection from groping in the subway. Most of the women wore western clothing but were "veiled", that is, they've covered their hair with exotically twisted and wrapped scarves of great beauty. Many of these women are gorgeous, and I see these scarf contraptions as making them look more alluring and mysterious rather than modest and chased. There were a few women in bags of cloth with their faces showing - decidedly chased looking - and a few burqas - just walking bags of cloth.

We split up immediately and braved the throngs for a German potato pancake and sausage, then took to the streets in the neighborhood to look in a few shops Kathy knows about.

Crossing the street is an art in self-preservation. Those little green blink walking figures occasionally (very occasionally) seen are nothing more than enticements for the unwary who don't understand that minibus drivers use them to pick off tourists... or at least strip off a layer of clothing on their rear view mirrors. Car do not stop for, they run over pedestrians! To cross the street, you must plunge into traffic, looking for staggered lanes, often 4 or more. Cars are careening in front and behind you, and your job is to hold tight and wait for a space in front to clear so that you can move to the next lane. Kathy's strategy is to get down-lane from an Egyptian male and cross when he crosses, using him as a human shield. It's like a video game with dire consequences if you loose!

Taxis are another game. You negotiate your fare before getting in - no meters - and hang on. I may be wrong about the translation of the many times a day calls to prayer. It could be something like, "Please Allah, protect all those unwary tourists jumping into cabs without seatbelts hoping that their drivers actually know how to drive... and Allah, please make sure that brakes and horns actually work!"

It's too easy to get lost here. Streets wander, alleys look like streets, signs are in Arabic, and everything is made of the same color plaster - sand. My sister is amazing. With a few Arabic phrases she plunges into the mire, confessing that she gets lost, but finds her way eventually. She responds kindly to persistent demanding street vendors, and she looks thoroughly at home in this unlikely place. Without her, I would not have stuck my nose out the door. But with the experience, I'm ready for another day of new things!

Today it will be Garbage City, City of the Dead and Al-Azhar Park. Brother-in-law Forrest and I are joining a private tour created by expert neighbor, MJ created for her guests. Taxis arrive at 12:30.

When I figure out how to download images, I'll be adding pictures, so check back.
Joanne

Planning for Egypt

In a little over a week I'll be leaving for three weeks in Egypt. As usual, I'll be journaling about my trip. I have a camera, but find that taking photos distracts me from the sights, sound and textures of my travel experience. I force myself to snap a few photos, but only to illustrate my thoughts recorded in a travel journal.

Last month I pulled out an old journal of a trip to the Virgin Islands. What a joy to re-experience that journey through descriptions recorded as they were happening! I look forward to having the same recorded memories of this trip to Egypt, and at the suggestion of an avid blogger friend, I'll be sharing those experiences with family, friends and interested online travel enthusiasts.

...and yes there will be photos.
More in a week and a half as my journey begins.
Joanne