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.

El Tunco, take 2.

So, Kaj and I have been back in El Tunco for the last week or so. It´s miraculous how quickly a week spent in a hammock can pass. In my defense, I have also gone out for several more days of surfing, and have actually caught a wave or two (albeit not for very long). I need to learn how to do push-ups. I have a feeling that that would greatly improve my quality of life down here... or at least minimize my daily salt-water intake.

Another thing I´ve pegged as a priority on this trip is learning how to cook. Here is a photo of Kaj with a fish that we bought in the market. Somehow, while perusing the seafood aisle, we came to the conclusion that -- of course they would gut the fish for us... how could you sell it otherwise? ... and came home with this thing thinking we could just chop the head off and dump it in the oven. My, how very mistaken we were. Did you know that you also have to take the scales off? They don´t do that for you either. I pity the cleaning lady in Papaya´s hostel. I did the best I could to clean up, but considering that in our haste, we began mercilessly beating the thing against the counter, flinging scales and guts every which way... I wouldn´t be surprised if a chair was employed to get the last of the bits off the higher parts of the wall. It didn´t help that the dog got ahold of the bones when we were done either. It made for a very unpleasant morning... especially for the first person to step barefoot into the kitchen.

In addition, I have also spent the majority of this past week trying to learn how to click my heels... a lifelong aspiration that I´ve recently decided to try to fulfill. Here is where I got on my last day before I came up to Santa Ana. Let it be known that jumping around barefoot on a rocky beach is a stupid... stupid thing to do.

The locals had a good laugh though. Man, sometimes I can be such a stupid tourist.

Speaking of interactions with locals, on Saturday night, the lot of us from the hostel went out to the local cantina (the only cantina) to have a brew or two with the natives and try to assimilate with the local culture. The night somehow ended with an angry Salvadorean lady drawing back her arm to punch me in the face. The blow never landed, but I´m really not sure how we got there in the first place. It began with a mistake (or, rather 5 mistakes) on our tab which they refused to rectify. Who would drink Golden when you could get your hands on a Pilsener anyway? Anyhow, lesson learned- do not sass an angry latina. It will not bode well for the future of your teeth.

On the same night, we witnessed quite a bit of local flavor- B-boys, a Michael Jackson impersonator, and one guy doing freestyle flow in English, although I´m not sure why he´d choose a second language, since he apparently sucks at it. I got a little homesick thinking of my friends back home that could rip that guy a new asshole. Anyhow, the hip hop culture down here is really quite the same, except that all the music videos feature the artists fanning themselves with stacks of USD 10 bills. My, how comical an economic divide can be.

Anyhow, Uga is patiently waiting for me outside this internet cafe. Here is a picture of him as a kid that I doubt he´d let me upload if he knew what I was doing. It´s part of a goldmine I found in his sister´s bedroom. I will also add more under the ´El Salvador Photos´tab at the end of the week. There are some good ones.