Sharm el-Sheikh

Sharm el-Sheikh is situated on the Red Sea on the Sinai Peninsula and is sort of Egypt’s mini version of Las Vegas. It has strips of shopping, casinos, night clubs, hookah lounges and restaurants. Thankfully, it is much less conservative here! You can even buy a beer at a supermarket and wear a tank top. 70% of the tourists here come from Russia with the others from Italy and Spain. There are few visitors from the US.

This is supposed to be one of the best diving destinations in the world! My Lonely Planet book says, “Ras Mohammed National Park features some of the world’s most brilliant and amazing underwater scenery. The crystal-clear waters, rare and lovely reefs and incredible variety of exotic fish darting in and out of the colorful coral have made this a snorkeling and scuba diving paradise, attracting visitors from all over the globe.” Carrie and I boarded a boat with other divers and snorkelers for a day in this National Park and the day didn’t go exactly as we’d hoped and expected.

The boat trip out to the dive/snorkeling site was a little rough, but not too bad. My first dive site ranks in the top 10 in the world. The dive was cool, but not spectacular. The coral reefs were nice and the colorful fish were pretty but I didn’t see anything amazing that I hadn’t seen before. It is winter here – the air temperature is 68 degrees now and the water temperature is a chilly 61 degrees. The dive masters said the underwater scenery is much better in the summer. While the dive wasn’t amazing, it was still enjoyable and I’m glad I did it.

The dive was easy but getting back on the boat was not! By this time the winds had picked up and the boat was rocking so much that it made it very difficult for the divers to get back on. The currents swept me under the boat, which was pretty scary, but eventually with the help of the crew I managed to get on. One poor girl from Amsterdam had a very difficult time getting on board. The crew tried and failed to get her one so they released a rope to tow her while the boat motored away from the reef. She couldn’t hang on and as soon as she let go she drifted away. It took awhile for the boat to get into a position to get her back and by the time the crew got her on board she was pretty worn out.

While the boat and crew were picking up the divers the snorkelers were stuck in the sea waiting. Carrie climbed on board really sea-sick and headed straight to the bathroom. I’ve never seen so many sea-sick people. I’d guess half of the people on the boat tossed their cookies that day.

They took us to a sheltered cove for the second dive and again, it was pretty, but not impressive. I think I am extra tough to please because I have been spoiled by the waters off the coast of Honduras and Lombok…

While Carrie and I were on the boat TJ checked out the city. He shopped, wandered around and relaxed and drank beers on the beach.

I usually try to avoid eating at restaurants that I can eat at in the US, but since the food is so bad here we were excited for dinner at the Hard Rock Café! We had dinner and drinks and wandered around before heading back to our hotel.

We are staying in a 3 Star hotel here in Sharm el-Sheikh and are again baffled with the hotel rating system here because this one is nicer than our 6 Star hotel in Luxor! We are taking it easy today because we leave tonight at 9:30pm to climb Mt Sinai. It’ll take a few hours to get there and once we arrive we stay at the base of the mountain at St Katherine’s Monastery for a couple of hours. We’ll begin our climb around 2am so we can summit the mountain at sunrise. It’ll be a cold, hard climb and I expect we won’t be able to walk very well for the next few days. But, I’m sure we’ll be glad we made the climb in the end. It will be kind of cool to be on Mt Sinai on Christmas Eve day…

We’ll spend Christmas Eve back in Sharm el-Sheikh, which will be nice as the city is fully decorated with lights and Santa Clauses. We’ll spend Christmas day in Cairo before heading to Istanbul on the 26th.

Check back to read about Mt Sinai and St Katherine’s Monastery. I am sure the ladies at the monastery will detect my purity and try to recruit me like they did at the Monastery in Arequipa, Argentina…

Nile Cruise - continued

The next day we disembarked the ship for a short visit to a temple in Edfu and then had the rest of the afternoon and evening on the ship. It was nice to lounge on the top deck of the ship, read, relax and watch the small villages and scenery on the Nile as we cruised by. We knew when we were getting near a village because we could hear the call of the muezzin (mosque official) that blasted through speakers posted around the village. About 90% of Egypt’s population is Muslim and the other 10% is Coptic Christian. The Muslims and are expected to pray 5 times a day so we are constantly hearing the muezzins calling the people to prayer through speakers on top of the minarets. Sometimes it almost seems as if they are competing with each other and the calls are painfully loud.

It was a nice day on the boat, UNTIL WE GOT FOOD POISONING! Imagine the worst cramp you’ve ever had and that was how my stomach felt all night. I was miserable and it was necessary for me to stay steps from the bathroom for the frequent emergency visits. The kid in the room next door may have been worse because they had the doctor come twice that night. The crew on the ship said we had the stomach flu because of course they didn’t want to admit it was food poisoning!

After a rough night we packed up our stuff and happily checked off the boat. We had arrived in Luxor and were off to see the Valley of the Kings! The Valley of the Kings is where pharaohs and other royalty who had died were placed in sarcophagi to wait for immortality. There are 62 tombs tucked into cliffs in the desert and we were able to check out a few of them, including the tomb of Tutankhamun! The tombs had long halls that were intricately carved and painted with scenes from Ancient Egypt and the pictures told stories about Pharaohs and royal families. The tombs were very impressive despite all of their original contents being stolen or moved to the museum in Cairo. King Tut’s tomb wasn’t discovered until 1922. I’m not surprised as these tombs were very strategically hidden in the desert! We saw the mummified body of King Tut and his burial mask – both were pretty cool!

Our next stop was The Temple of Hatshepsut. We were on the verge of nixing this site from our itinerary as we’d seen enough temples! But, the picture looked impressive so we decided to go. Carrie, TJ and I agreed that I’d have an aggravated stomach ache if our guide started to go on and onJ The temple was cool and we were glad that went but we agreed that the Temple of Hatshepsut would be the last temple we’d visit in Egypt! There is no question that there are other impressive temples to be seen, but along with the temples comes information overload…

Our final stop was at an alabaster factory owned by a “friend” of our guide. It was cool to see the products they create and the shop had neat stuff but as soon as the owner quoted us a price of more than 10X what it should be TJ got mad and left. The people don’t seem to realize that we don’t want to do business with people who are blatantly trying to rip us off.

We cancelled the next 2 temples we were supposed to visit that day, relieved our guide and driver and checked into our “6 Star” hotel. Again, we were perplexed by the hotel rating system. Our room is mediocre at best, but our room overlooks the Nile and the hotel has amenities such as a pool, restaurants, shops and a bar so I suppose that is how the hotel earns its stars. We have the afternoon in Luxor and then fly to Sharm el-Sheikh on the Red Sea tonight.

Nile Cruise

We woke up at 3am the next day to catch our 5am flight to Aswan, where we would board our ship for a cruise up the Nile. Somehow I was issued a ticket in the name of Khalid Abrahim and even more surprisingly I got through 3 checkpoints with this ticket and boarded the plane!

We checked into our “5 Star” cruise. We are still trying to figure out the rating system here and how many stars there are because our “5 Star” boat was painfully tacky and the food was terrible. This was slightly amusing to us as we were in it for the cruise and not the décor. But, if we (like everyone else on our boat) had flown from Germany for a 1 week cruise on the Nile and got stuck on that boat we would have been very disappointed.

Our first stop on the Nile was the Aswan High Dam. In 1960 35,000 workers began to build the dam to control the flooding on the Nile, increase the amount of cultivable land and provide hydroelectric power to the country. The dam was funded by Russia and was completed in 1971.

Our next stop was Philae Island, where we visited the Isis temple. The temple was originally in a different location until the high waters of the reservoir created by the construction of the old Aswan Dam flooded the temple leaving a large portion of it under water. For years (38?) the temple remained underwater until it was disassembled and moved stone by stone to it’s currently location on Philae Island. The temple was impressive and our guide, Sayed, told us stories about gods and Pharaohs in ancient Egypt that were entertaining.

Sayed, told us one story about a god whose body was chopped up into 14 pieces and spread across the land. His wife was able to recover 13 of the 14 pieces and can you guess what part she wasn’t able to find? Of course, it was his penis. Apparently his penis is still at large and many people believe a catfish ate it. Not surprisingly, we have yet to see catfish on a menu… We’ve kept an eye out for the missing penis thinking that if we come across it we could sell it on e-bay.

After visiting the temple we headed back to the boat for a crappy meal, a tacky show that we suffered through 2 minutes of before leaving and Lebanese MTV.

The next morning we boarded a felucca (traditional canvas-sailed boat) to sail on the Nile. The trip was very scenic and relaxing until the locals capitalized on the fact that we were captive tourists. A few minutes after we boarded the boat one of the three crewmen uncovered an array of souvenirs he wanted us to buy. They were all crap, so we didn’t buy anything. Later two small boys in a tiny boat latched on to our boat, asked what language we spoke, then sang to us until we paid them to go away. The topper was when the crew on the boat got out a drum and started singing and dancing with us - all for tips. Carrie, TJ and I have travelled a lot and these are the kind of tourist traps that make us cringe and we try to avoid, but all of this was unavoidable and frustrating as we were stuck on a boat.

An hour or two later we went back to town and had time to wander around Aswan so we checked out the market. It was interesting to see the spices, shee-shas (water-pipes), fabrics, etc but again the people ruined our shopping experience with their comments and behavior. We’ve tried to ignore the bad behavior but it is so overwhelming that it cannot be ignored.

I don’t think I can convey my frustration with the people here. I have never travelled anywhere where I have to control my urge to punch people! Almost all of the men we have encountered are rude, dishonest, disrespectful and aggressive. Even places where we expect better treatment such as hotels and banks we leave frustrated. We didn’t even trust our guide in Cairo as everywhere he took us was so he could get a kick-back. Thankfully our guide, Sayed, who has been with us since we’ve left Cairo has been great.

The local people have a huge impact on my impressions of a place. I absolutely loved Bali, Indonesia largely because the people were wonderful. Because of the people there I had a stress-free, safe, enjoyable time. The people added to my experiences and made me want to return. The locals here disgust me and as a result I’d rather stay in my hotel room than wander around. Egypt boasts spectacular sites and the history is amazing but the people have made a very negative impression on me and have detracted from my experience here. Every day here I am grateful I was born in the US!

That night we visited another temple called Kom Ombo before setting sail again on the Nile.

Pyramids!

We arrived in Cairo, Egypt around 5am and crashed after the long and stressful trip getting there. After we woke up we ran a couple of errands and wandered around a bit before heading to the light at the Pyramids of Giza! We thought we’d have to drive for an hour or two outside of Cairo to get to the pyramids but that was not the case! They are located right smack in the middle of the busy city of Giza. It was very dark out (and cold!) but we could still see the impressive silhouettes of the Pyramids. Even at night they seemed magical and amazing. The light show was slightly informative but overall pretty cheesy.

The Pyramids of Giza are the only remaining ancient wonder world and we went back the next morning for another visit. The Pyramids were built as tombs for pharaohs and we were totally awestruck by the size and grandeur. THEY ARE HUGE!!! Each block of the pyramids weighs approximately 2.5 tons and it is baffling to see that someway and somehow people(?) managed to perfectly engineer and construct the blocks into pyramids 48 stories high.

We climbed up a tiny fraction of the largest pyramid and then went inside! There is a small, slightly claustrophobic, tunnel carved into the interior of the pyramid and we crawled through it and up a pretty steep ascent to a room that used to host some serious booty! The climb back out of the pyramid was physically challenging (our legs were still sore days later!) and a little scary because one careless step could have been bad news! It was exciting and a bit eerie to be inside of a structure dating back more than 4000 years!

We spent hours at the Pyramids admiring them and all of the activity around them. A savvy camel owner showed us a post card of a 3 pyramids together taken from a spot in the desert beyond the pyramids. So, we loaded onto camels and set off into the desert to get our picture. The camel ride was a blast and we got our post-card worthy photos. Everything was going according to plan until my camel bit Carrie’s camel’s tail and the camels started fighting. Carrie and her camel driver took off ahead leaving TJ and I to manage the camel on our own. I was a little worried since my camel was looking at me funny and seemed to be in a biting mood… We eventually made it back to the base of the Pyramids and then checked out the Sphinx.
The Sphinx has a woman’s head and a lion’s body. Apparently “she” used to tell riddles then kill anyone who couldn’t come up with the correct answer. Unfortunately the Sphinx’s stone is deteriorating from the inside. Experts have tried to restore the Sphinx but their attempts have made the condition worse. The Sphinx was impressive despite her nose being hammered off sometime between the 11th and 15th centuries and the numerous pigeons who use her as a resting spot.

Our next stop was Saqqara. Saqqara is a huge cemetery that was an active burial ground for pharaohs and their families, administrators, generals and sacred animals for 3500 years. Saqqara is also where the first pyramid was constructed. Our book said we should dedicate at least half a day to this site but we found 30 minutes sufficient.

After Saqqara we visited an open air museum at Memphis, which features a huge limestone statue of Ramses II. While both Saqqara and Memphis demonstrate amazing history, the Pyramids at Giza sure made for a tough act to follow!

We had our driver drop us off at the Khan al Kahlili market where we intended to do a little shopping. Unfortunately, the market was not a pleasant shopping environment as the shop owners/workers were aggressive and extremely annoying. They would say things that they thought would get us into their shop but instead angered us to the point that we wouldn’t do business with that person, regardless of whether they had something in their shop that we wanted. We left empty handed and irritated, hoping that we come across better markets in Istanbul.

Leaving Lagos

Leaving the airport in Lagos was very stressful. Carrie’s company had arranged for an “expeditor” who met us and his job was to help us get through the exit process in a timely fashion. We still aren’t sure if he made matters better or worse. The guy greeted us then took our passports and tickets and cut in front of the line of Nigerians. TJ and I were approved to move forward to the security check but they wouldn’t let Carrie in because apparently her ticket had been cancelled! Carrie waited while TJ and I proceeded to where the armed guards normally rummage through your bags to make sure you aren’t A) carrying on explosive or other dangerous materials or B) trying to take any Nigerian souvenirs out of the country without a certificate from the museum. I was a little bit nervous because we had quite a few new purchases, including rolled-up artwork, that I stealthily packed amongst our clothes. I told the scary looking men that TJ and I were in Lagos for our honeymoon and loved their country. The fellas were amused, told us we are going to have 2 healthy boys, and sent us to the check-in point without opening our backpacks. Phew!

While TJ and I were checking in the expeditor took Carrie upstairs to try to get her ticket problem resolved. They entered a room packed with people who also had problems. Again, the expeditor made his way to the front of the line despite the comments from the angry crowd. The airline rep said Carrie’s ticket was cancelled because she hadn’t re-confirmed. Carrie had confirmed online and on the phone and her e-ticked said “confirmed”. Eventually the guy said she could make it to Ethiopia but her ticket from Ethiopia via Sudan to Cairo was cancelled and that flight was already full. This was bad news because we knew the next flight from Ethiopia to Cairo wasn’t for 2 days!

To make a long, very stressful story short, the three of us eventually made it to Cairo together, but were sweating bullets along the way!

Lagos Guidebook

I was perusing through a Lagos Guidebook and found a few things amusing and/or interesting:

"Nigeria has a quota system for expatriates and the government will stamp most expat spouses' passports "Employment Prohibited." Interesting!

"Police roadblocks are common in Nigeria. Usually foreigners are simply waved through and not asked to stop, but occasionally police like to chat with you. It is best to stay cool, calm and collected..."

"Opening hours aren't strictly adhered to; they're merely guidelines."

"Check the expiration date on goods: you'll find that most price reductions are because the 'use by' dates have come and gone."

"There are several options to paying cash, if you don't want to carry naira around. Some vendors will accept your spouse's business card and allow you to send your driver with money the next day."

"As with any nightlife in a big city, Lagos has its fair share of prostitutes ('nightriders')..."

"Shopping from the car is a common Lagosian phenomenon: a result of the horrendous 'go-slows' (traffic jams). You'll see many young people hawking their wares in amongst the traffic - a seemingly precarious profession but they are very adept at escaping injury. You can buy the most unbelievable things: cheese and butter, net curtains, men's underwear and inflatable Santa Clauses."

The book gives guidelines on how to hire a maid, cook, steward or stewardess, nanny, gardener, guard and driver.

"At the time of writing, the Lagos State Government minimum wage is N5500 a month."
this is $46.66 dollars a month!

I wish I still had the book about how to treat medical problems when you can't find a doctor! Half of the book would probably fall into the interesting or amusing categories!

$$$

Did I mention that food and real estate are really expensive here? A piece of property in Lagos costs approximately 2 million dollars and once a nice home is built it is worth $3,500,000 or so! An average dinner (nothing special) will run around $25 and a local beer will cost you $5. This is pretty high considering that locals here don't even make $5 a day! Can you imagine spending 2 days worth of pay on 1 beer at a restaurant? You could try the local cuisine but I'd make sure to stick close to the bathroom! And, everyone is only allowed to buy 3 rolls of toilet paper at a time so that could be a problem as well... :)


Pictured here is my $12 box of raisin bran!

You'd think things would be less expensive but it is all imported. A British couple we met had a crate of frozen meats and seafood flown from England here. I have no idea how much that cost but after 6 years of living here that is what they have resorted to. It is a bit of a risk buying meat and dairy products here because the power/refrigeration goes out so often it is hard to know if it has been spoiled.


The power outages are so bad here that the people who who can afford it have a generator. The generator here at AIS (American International School) runs an average of 23 hours and 44 minutes a day! This means that the power would normally be off almost all day every day. We still lose power from time to time when there is a problem with the generator or when it needs a break. We've heard the cost of oil to fuel the generator is $60,000 a month!