Last day in the Middle East

So I'm sitting in an internet cafe in Cairo, waiting for my flight at 2 am tomorrow morning. I really, really have to pee. Ack! The crappy thing about checking out of your hostel first thing in the morning is that you have nowhere to waste your time until your flight.

Happily, I managed to get quite a bit done here today. I bought some easy children's books for the kids I'll be working with in Ethiopia, washed my laundry (aka, rubbed a bar of soap all over the mound, then hosed it down with the bathroom shower-head... strange that the shower itself is in no way separated from the rest of the stuff in the bathroom), and dropped about 5 pounds off my pack for the flight.

Anyway, before I take off from the Middle East, let me recap the last couple of weeks.

I finished at Bahariyya Oasis, and decided to go to Luxor instead of Dahab (I mean, how many beaches can one person really take, anyway?) and quickly realized it to be the ninth circle of hell. Holy crap, it's hot. Hot and dirty. Also, you can't take photos at like, half of the sites there. Here's one of the few that I DID manage to get, at the Colossi of Memnon. Yeah, I know- cheesy... but it was really hot and I couldn't think of anything less campy. They were pretty cool. I also got a look at the Valley of the Kings and Queens, and Hatshepsut's Temple. No pictures. -pout-

Anyway, after Luxor, I decided to go to Dahab anyway. A series of unfortunate events in Luxor (and the intervention of good old common sense), dissuaded me from trying to stuff Jordan in my trip plans as well, and I spent a few days snorkeling, shopping, and simply BEING. Morgan from Isla de Ometepe was right. Dahab IS paradise. (Reiteration of question phrased above: How many beaches can one person really take? Answer: A LOT.) What makes Dahab, and really, the rest of the Sinai penninsula so different from the beaches in C.A. is that the reef comes RIGHT up to the water's edge. You have about 3 feet of sand, then straight up coral, then bottomless ocean, filled with fishies. Highlight: I think I saw a fish orgy. Lowlight: I saw a huge jellyfish out of my peripheral vision and went berzerk, started to scream, inhaled salt water, fought for the surface, and pissed myself right in the middle of a school of very unhappy fish. The jellyfish = plastic bag filled with water. FUCKING GARBAGE. For my first time (last time?) snorkeling, it was pretty cool. There's a photo of the Funny Mummy restaurant under the 'Egypt Photos' tab. Literally, the reef was RIGHT there.

Now the good stuff: Israel.

I'm going to add an Israel tab up top, so I'll try not to bog this post down with too many photos... but let me do a quick rundown of each day.

29th of September

- My arrival. It took 1 border, 2 buses, and 3 different trains (stupid Yom Kippur) to get to Nahariya... but when I did, I was greeted with Shiran's smiling face. And food!

- Nothing much for the rest of the day- tried to send some stuff at the post office, but was foiled. Shiran, Shiri, and Shiri's boyfriend came out with me for a birthday drink at midnight. It was nice.

30th of September

-Akko. FUCKING awesome. Very colonial, and mmmm- such good hummus

- Rosh Hanikra. Even better than fucking awesome! There's a photo under the 'Israel' tab. I've never seen water that blue- especially up close... well, except for maybe the Red Sea... but even so- the Mediterranean is better.

-Tel Aviv.... OK- I had planned to have as much fun as I could on my 25th birthday. It's a big one, right? But I had secretly, in my heart, been aware that being away from home, being away from everything that I know- it just wouldn't be the same. This is true. IT WAS BETTER. Of course, I would have loved to have everyone at home in Israel with me... but really... how many times in your life can you get smashed in Tel Aviv, reunite with someone you met in a foreign country two years ago, puke in 4 different locations throughout the city, and get carried home by a mixture of old school homies, and brand new ones? Here's a photo from that night. One of my best birthdays... EVER.

1st of October

- Woke up and immediately went for hangover munchies.

-Shopped all over town, and got to glimpse the seaside. First major city I've been to with beaches that weren't buried in garbage. Here's a picture of me with some hot young soldiers. God- I love a man with a gun... too bad they're all about 18 years old.

-All you can eat dinner just outside of Nahariya.

2nd of October

-The Golan

-The Sea of Galilee. It was really beautiful... but there were lots of people on the shore doing weird stuff. Pretending to walk on water earned me the stink-eye from everyone else there. It was worth the picture though.

-The famous bread-and-fish stone. I'll post the pic under the 'Israel photos' tab that I've yet to create. Too many pics for such a small space, I think. End the night back in Nahariya after scaling the border with Lebanon. Lots of tanks. Lots of fences.

3rd of October

-Ein Gedi and The Dead Sea. Watch me float on my belly! People weren't joking when they said not to put your head anywhere near the water. I got a drop on my lip and felt like puking when I licked it off. It also makes all your fragile parts burn. Stupid salt.

4th of October

-Jerusalem. I'm not sure what I can say to encompass what Jerusalem as actually like. Uhm- Historical? Chaotic? INCREDIBLE? The city itself wasn't all that much to look at... but we took a free tour around the city and it's fucking insane how much such a small plot of land can mean to so many people. Here's a photo of me at the Wailing Wall. I'm thinking of my prayer.

5th of October

-Hiking in Ein Gedi, and my departure. I won't write too much here. The area itself was ... uhm... rock-ish. From what I gather from my two lovely guides, there used to be a lot more water. It was still really pretty though.

This is a long post- whew! Tonight, I take off for Ethiopia, and I wanted to close the chapter on my Middle East experiences before I moved on. It's so odd being right in the midst of the Arab-Israeli conflict and yet meet awesome people on both sides, with such fascinating lives and such a friendliness about them... you can't help but be charmed. Really love this part of the world. Really love the food. Next time I come back, I'm bringing drawstring pants.

Thoughts on Egypt

Gotta make this a quick one (I always say that, don't I?) .. I'm going to be picked up for a felucca ride in about half an hour, so I'm going to limit this post to just a bit of Cairo and Bahariyya Oasis. Here's a photo of some cool mushroom shaped rocks from the latter. I know it doesn't make sense to post it up here... but I thought it would be more aesthetically pleasing balance out the text/photo ratio of this post.

I got in at Cairo airport about a week ago. One thing I want to point out: EVERY TRAVEL GUIDE EVER LIES. I have chosen to go without a guidebook for Egypt as a byproduct of my exasperation with the Lying Planet Central America.... but did a bit of research both online and in the Rough Guide about Egypt. Everything says that it's possible to get a multiple entry visa in Cairo airport. WRONG! I'm no spring chicken to getting scammed... but honest to God, you can't. First you get a regular entry visa, then you have to go to another building in downtown Cairo to get a re-entry visa.. particularly if heading to Israel. An observation: Going to any bureaucratic institution in Cairo city is a nightmare. I've never been pushed and shoved so much in my life... and I went to public school!

Oh, wait... I'm supposed to be keeping this short. Sorry. My first few days in Egypt included the pyramids, the Egyptian museum, and Khan al Khalili market. I posted pics of these under my "Egypt Photos" tab. All were marvelous... but God, talk about a congregating point for scammers. I think I've hit my limit for "friends" taking me to their "brother's" perfume shops due to the museum being "closed at this time... you can go when they open in half an hour". NO baksheesh! NO BAKSHEESH!

Anyway... I took leave after a few days and headed out to the western desert to see Bahariyya Oasis. I stayed at a place called Sahara Camp, which had a common room that looked like this. Pretty cool, huh? The place was paradise, and it was only 3 bucks a night for my own, two-bedded hut! Sweet.

Through Sahara... I met a Japanese guy named Toshi with whom I ventured into the desert. Most of it was pretty, athough uneventful-- just climbing all over rocks and looking at stuff... but nothing was really ALL that exceptional, until we hit the White Desert. There's a photo or two under the tab, but here's a cool one of the site we stayed at... I would have liked to be somewhere a bit more enclosed since sand kept getting in my eyes, and I had to sleep with my sunglasses on... but the stars were sooo bright. It was pretty cool.

Oh, and here's a photo of a desert fox. They came to visit when we layed down to rest. Cute little buggers, aren't they?

An interesting piece of knowedge for Americans headed to the deserts of Egypt. If you tell the police (who have checkpoints every few miles down the highway) that you're an American, ... they will send a couple of armed guards in the car with you. If you lie about being from another country (in my case, the driver told me to tell them I was from China).. they will hassle you and scream in English while trying to get you to show your passport... and then try to put armed guards in the car with you. Lowering your IQ and faking an accent helps.

I managed to get away armed guard free (hooray for my driver!)... but not without sprouting a white hair or two in the process. I think I would have been better off telling them the truth... but once you start lying, going back makes you look like a douche. It's a slippery slope.

OK, I'm out of time.... for real. Off to Luxor!

Books I've Read on This Trip

I first started this account sometime in August/September 2009 with the hope of having read the "Best 100 Books of All Time" before finishing my trip. The idea was that I'd finally read all those novels I was supposed to have studied in undergrad- now that I had time. It didn't happen. Below is a record of the books I DID manage to complete. Most of them are on the list, but many of them are not. One thing that unites them is that they ALL affected the outcome of my trip in some way, and they ALL enriched my experiences (yeah, even the "Twilight" books. Don't judge me) in one manner or another. I also attempted to finish Vanity Fair, but it wasn't working out and I decided to stop and spend the rest of my leisure time musing instead. I'm ambitious- not impervious to boredom.

1. Hemingway's Short Stories - Hemingway

2. 1984 - Orwell

3. The World According to Garp - Irving

4. Emma - Austen

5. Around the World in 80 Days - Verne

6. Middlesex - Eugenides

7. A Thousand Splendid Suns - Hosseini
8. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Kesey

9. A Long Way Gone- Memoirs of a Boy Soldier - Beah

10. The Stranger - Camus

11. Gulliver's Travels - Swift

12. There is no Me Without You - Greene

13. Hamlet - Shakespeare

14. Tender is the Night - Fitzgerald

15. I'm OK, You're OK - Harris

16. Robinson Crusoe - DeFoe

17. The Kite Runner - Hosseini

18. Flowers for Algernon - Keyes

19. The Color Purple - Walker

20. Shantaram - Roberts

21. The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Doyle

22. Garden of Eden - Hemingway

23. Oliver Twist - Dickens

24. Frankenstein - Shelley

25. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World - Murakami

26. Life of Pi - Martel

27. Marching Powder - Young

28. The Hobbit - Tolkien
29. Matilda - Dahl

30. Burmese Days - Orwell

31. Eclipse - Meyers

32. Julius Caesar - Shakespeare

33. Motorcycle Diaries - Guevara

34. Breaking Dawn - Meyers

35. Count of Monte Cristo - Dumas

36. Dune - Herbert

37. Jazz - Morrison

38. Love in the Time of Cholera - Marquez

39. A Widow for One Year - Irving

40. The Picture of Dorian Gray - Wilde

41. The Bell Jar - Plath

Going, Going, Gone!

So I'm writing from the first decent computer I've been at in almost 3 months. Man, it's nice to be at my sister's house!

Let's catch up on my last few weeks in Latin America.

I left for San Juan del Sur and spent about a week getting punished by the waves at Playa Maderas by day and partying at Matilda's Hostel by night. Here's a shot of the view from my dorm around 6pm every evening. Man, I wish I'd been able to get that horizon straight and do this shot some justice. 

Matilda's was great, SJDS was great, and aside from puncturing my foot on very pointy rocks on the walk from Matilda's to the actual surfable beach-- I passed all 4 or so days there in absolute serenity.

Before I continue, I should mention that I had some pilferage in my money belt after my time in the BioReserve in Esteli, and followed up by canceling my credit cards. That was almost 3 weeks ago, and I have yet to get one fully functional card. After 5 different phone calls to different Washington Mutual agents, followed by a myriad of e-mails with lord knows how many MORE WaMu (or, rather, Chase) agents, I have a debit card without a PIN. No money for me--- and I fly to Egypt on Wednesday. Huzzah for not having a plan!

Anyhow, I took out enough money to survive until I got to DC in cash, then cancelled my cards and continued on to Isla de Ometepe. Here's a view from the Mirador halfway up Volcan Maderas. Pretty amazing, huh? Too bad it rained the whole way up and the whole way down this 3 hour hike. Was pretty slippery, and not good for the poor Israeli guy with only one functional foot... but definitely worth it for this view.

Spent a few more days in Ometepe partying, relaxing, and catching up on my reading in a hammock until about a day before I flew. I had intended on leaving earlier, but my whole backpack got stolen! The crazy thing is that it happened on a really rainy night from my dorm room in the middle of the jungle. Who would go through all that trouble for some dirty mismatched clothes and a beat up pair of retainers? I mean, really. The pain in the ass it caused for me is at least 20x greater than the value of anything they could have actually gotten out of the bag.

Anyway, I had something of an emotional breakdown that night, and spent the rest of my time on the Isla boozing like crazy. The last day there, I went down to Ojo de Agua with a couple of 

cool kids from my hostel. The day was pretty much perfect. Forget the bag, forget that it was raining the whole way there, forget that Chico was VERY much drunk and we had to keep convincing him to let Ines drive.... floating on my back in the water and watching the rain drop from the sky was one of the most surreal things I've done on this trip so far. Also, taking pictures with Nemo's underwater camera was sweet. Here's a shot from that day. It didn't come out as symmetrical as I would have liked... but still pretty cool.

I thought I might post a photo of me at the airport here. Here I am with all my luggage. You can see all of it in the photo. Btw- passing through customs with a grocery bag containing only one change of clothes, a flashlight and two cans of bug spray will gain you nothing but questions. First time I have ever been pulled into the "little room." Now I know what it's like to be of Middle Eastern descent.

Overall, Central America was great. Had oodles of fun and met lots of cool peeps. I would have liked to have less robbery involved though. Being robbed less would have been great.

So, as things stand now... I'm currently without luggage or money... and I'll be on my way to Cairo in less than 5 days. I'm just as clueless as everyone else as to how I'm going to survive for the next year and some without either of these two things. I'll keep you all updated as I arrive at solutions.

AAGGHHH!

OK, I´m running out of internet time so I´ll make this quick... Bullets!

- Finished up in León with some volcano boarding. I didn´t think I could possibly be so bad at anything, but ha HA! I was wrong.

- Went to Estelí on a whim and spotted Trev from my taxi window. Sometimes it´s great to have a very, very white man for a friend. They invited me to come to the Bioreserve Miraflor with them for a couple days and I did. Since I already posted a photo of me at the Mirador under my ´Nicaragua Photos´tab, here is one of the back of Trevor´s head.

- While in the Bioreserve, we went on numerous hikes, and rode horses all over the place (I find it´s easier to maintain your balance if you don´t expend all your energy screaming like a prepubescent girl). We were also goaded into playing games with some local children. Here is Kyria as the ¨Gallina¨... aka, Blind Chicken. She was not as amused as the children were.

- I am now in San Juan del Sur... got about 15 days left in this region, so I figure I´m going to spend them all surfing. Kinda. Or, at least I´ll spend them all in the ocean with a surfboard attached to my ankle. Close enough, yeah?

Are people having trouble leaving comments here? G. has recently told me that it´s impossible for some reason, but D and J have already left comments on some of my past posts. Let me know if this is the case.

Amoebas, Soccer, and Impenetrable Heat

That´s right, I wrote ¨soccer¨.... I´m an American, dammit!

So... first off, I´m going to write that I am excluding one very juicy detail of my last few weeks. I will be of no interest to some of you, of much interest to a few of you, and of great interest to find out to all of you, since I won´t write it here. If you want more, you will need to write me personally so I can evaluate your worthiness for such a story.

And on...

I got amoebas. I´m sure that the majority of you will wish that this had been the part that I had chosen to omit, since this particular week of my travels involved little else than pills and poop, but I thought it prudent to record my illnesses as my trip wears on. It lasted something like a week and a half, and involved something like 8 different kinds of medication. Seriously. No joke. Look at the picture under the El Salvador tab. I managed to escape, however, and I am fully indebted to Uga for his particular role in my recovery. I´m not exaggerating when I say that there was a dark, stormy night, a frantic trip across town to call in a favor from an old friend, and much, much nervous anticipation (at least on my part- I didn´t think I could last another night).


Anyhow, I recovered just in time to receive Kat and Adam on the 25th of last month. There was much tomfoolery to be engaged in, and I will post only this photo of Adam locking himself into their own room to verify my point. The one really sucky thing about this part of the week was that I couldn´t drink. The particular pills I was on called for a complete abstinence from alcohol... so the firt time I saw my friends in nearly 4 months, I had to be Sober Sam. Lame Sam- some might say. Oh well.

I made my way back to El Tunco (don´t judge me) and met up with Stav for a day or so more, before heading southward with her friend Jeff. Since the borders between El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua were only tentatively open, we decided to take the less conventional way, and boat it through the Gulf of Fonseca. This is what we found.

Another astonishing thing was La Unión, a city commonly considered to be El Salvador´s asshole. Hot, Sticky, and, well.. shitty. It was absolutely beautiful. Not in the traditional sense, as in good to look at... because it wasn´t... but the people were wonderful. Here I am posing with some policepeople we met. Aside from the fact that nobody in the town seems to know anything about transportation to or fro.. we found them to be perhaps the nicest of those we met in E.S. ... which is hard to say because everyone we met in E.S. was pretty much awesome. We also joined some locals in watching an intermural soccer game in a school yard basketball court. I didn´t get any photos, but it was quite the experience.





The last thing I want to include is this picture of a cute girl in Potosí Nicaragua. The loveliest lady in red in town! Here she is, befuddled, but standing with her proud father. They both waved merrily as we jostled out of town in an overcrowded bus filled to bursting with puppies, baseball teams, and actual chickens.

Oh, and here´s another picture of me in Las Peñitas, Nicaragua. I thought it artistic although my friend Austin has told me I walk like a lesbian... and it seems to be particularly apparent in this photo. Whatever.