Cairo, Cairo, Cairo...

Everything from the taxi drive, to my first "hostel", and right up to this moment has been madness! (Not excluding my rush to the Athens's airport.)

I got slightly sidetracked, and also had a lapse in memory as to the time of my flight. It would be an understatement to say I rushed to the airport.
I got from Syntagma Square to the metro, to my hostel where I picked up my bags, back to the metro, changed subways twice, and sprinted my way into the airport security all within a 40 minute period.
This had much less to do with the proximity these places have to each other than it does the amount of sweat I presented the earth with in that time frame.
I felt like a contestant on The Amazing Race and, if I had been, I'm positive I would've won.

People say we don't change much from who we are as children, barring some traumatic experience, and I recently proved this to be true by using myself as an example.
I was always the kid who would get questions wrong on exams even when I knew the answers, but because I hated bothering with reading the instructions.
I felt very put upon when people asked me to exercise patience.
This, as an adult, came back to bite me my first night in Cairo.

When researching (and I use that word extremely loosely here) where to stay in Egypt I picked the first place that popped up on Hostelworld.com.
I did this partially because I felt I shouldn't be wasting my time online when I had other things to be doing, and partially because I made my reservations the night before I left for Cairo.

The taxi driver dropped me off at about 10pm in Nasir City (not Cairo) at a "hostel" where I was not just the only woman, but appeared to be the only traveler. The staff showed me to the empty 5th floor, and into my private room.
Before going any further, so as to not give the wrong impression, I want to make clear that this place was actually very nice. Or it would have been had it been what I was looking for. Everything was clean, the private bathroom was a nice feature, there was a T.V with 2 English-language movie channels.
However, reciting the lines with the actors in The Sandlot was the closest I got to an intelligible, two-sided conversation that night or the following morning since not one employee in the day or night staff spoke English.
Here is an example of a conversation I had after realizing that I might be stuck there since no one could tell me where I was, or what to see and do around town, or how to get anywhere:

 

Me: Okay. This isn't working. Can you please tell me where an Internet cafe is?

(blank stare from receptionist, I pantomime typing)

Internet?

 

Her: Coffee?

(she points to the next room)

 

Me: Internet?

 

Her: (smiling in friendliness) No, thank you.

 

Me: Is there anyone here who might speak English?

 

Then the receptionist handed me a rubber band.

 

I really can't blame her. She didn't speak English, okay fine--I mean, I don't speak Arabic, either. And, probably if I'm coming to her country I might have bothered to learn a few words, or at least carry around a dictionary, but-- I thought I would be staying at a hostel like every other one I've ever stayed in.

 

Suffice to say that I did finally figure out where a computer was and made a reservation for another hostel online, which my helpful mom recommended via email. I settled the price of my room and flew out of there as fast as I could.

 

This is the part where I write a love-letter to what became my home base in Egypt, Dina's Hostel.

42 Abd El Khalek Sarwat
5th Floor
Downtown, Cairo, Egypt

 

Dear Dina,

I have been to 4 continents and been traveling on my own internationally since age 17. Your small, well maintained hostel is a diamond in a rough but bustling city. It's my favorite hostel I've ever stayed in and you--darling Dina--are surely the most maternal, but laid back and cool young woman in all of Egypt!

Truly, this place created a better sense of community than any other place I've stayed.

When I got lost trying to find the train station, so couldn't buy my ticket to Alexandria, you found room for me to stay even though it would've been much easier to turn me away.

And, when I got sunstroke from the desert, you concocted an ancient Bedouin remedy and nursed me back to health!

 

You deserve huge success!

xoxo,

Amelia.

 

 

Speaking of the desert, I believe my first words as we bumped along the Sahara sands were, "I'm pretty sure this is what the moon looks like!"

I know it's hard to believe but I've never actually been to the moon. Still, I doubt if Neil Armstrong has seen much I haven't.

To be honest, I started to wonder about 6 hours into the trip if it was going to be worth traveling so long for only one night somewhere.

But about the time we were eating a cooked-over-the-fire dinner while listening to our guide singing tradional Bedouin songs quietly to himself, looking up at the stars I knew that I would've sat through 3 times the travel length to experience that.

We slept under the sky on teh sand and were visited by a desert fox who at first was shy, but curiousity eventually overpowered his cautiousness.

 

It was fantasic to know that the Bedouins (pronounced Bed-Win) lived out here still and knew their way around that part of the desrt the way I know my way to the nearest grocery store in Seattle. Everything out there looks exactly the same! Sand grain upon sand grain. But our guide said he and his Bedoin people, who are nomads by nature, use the rocks and the sun as their map. For all the iphones, and GPS, and satellites it was startling and humbling to find people living essentially the way they've been living for thousands of years. Obviously with the exception of the people who now use tourism as their primary source of income.  

 

On the way back from the desert a girl from Holland I fell asleep on teh bus and awoke to the man in front of us taking our picture.

The men in Egypt are the biggest cultural adjustment for me. They stare, make kissing and hissing noises. There is no attempt at subtelty. One look leaves you feeling violated somehow.

Yesterday I took a walk with a Frenchman and he was in shock. He kept apologizing to me, and half joked that he feared for his own safety when walking beside me.

 

Here I am, no makeup, unkept hair, convered in dirt and sweat, mismatched and dirty clothes and it makes no difference.

In such a sexually repressed society a forearm or elbow of a light skinned woman can cause mayhem.

I almost bought a burka just so as to not have to deal with the picture taking and "accidental" run ins.

 

I'm going to be sad to leave here because parts of Egypt are so great! But there is a part of me that will be glad to return to a place where even a man who finds you very attractive will go out of his way to pretend not to notice you at first.

 

Next, and most important item on the agenda is buying myself a duty free camera at teh airport in Spain. My old one is MIA. My desert pictures are gone and I have no Egypt ones except the following:

 

I hope to post pictures in the near future with the help of new travel friends via facebook.