My Exodus Pt. I

There are so many thoughts running through my head in addition to the experiences I wish to share that I can’t seem to find a starting point and am weary of the return of writers block; though not a true viral infection (versus bacterial, after watching House I pretend to know something about medicine) I feel that once affected with blocktitus it is impossible to rid oneself of the disease. But knowing that I have a devoted audience gives me the encouragement to push through and try to punch the computer keys in an order that will produce some story.
Thinking of spring break brings back memories of middle school and high school days, rushing home to see MTV’s lineup of quality shows with half clad collegiate students clutching margaritas and fruit drinks in their hands and having the ‘what happens in Cancun stays in Cancun’ look in their eyes. Trying not to get caught in the plotlines I would wait until the grand moment where two 20 something blonde sorostitutes (try urbandictionary.com for my over 30 readers, also a great reference for picking up the latest street lingo, but I digress) throw their inhibitions and bikini tops, sometimes bottoms if I was lucky, into the wind and make out. But these days have passed and spring break now means a week, or in this years case two weeks, off from school to do whatever I please. My original intention was to wait until I could find a last minute deal to somewhere in Europe for a week and travel there. However, after talking with some friends who where planning to go to Egypt for a week and wanting to see the Pyramids, temples and everything else associated with the ancient Egyptians I decided to leave Europe for a time where my dollar doesn’t buy me half a euro and go to recreate the exodus of my ancient ancestors.
Our group consisted of my two friends Matt, an imaginative Canadian from Montréal, and Ben, a fellow American from Providence, RI who happens to be the first person I met on the entire program (sans Michigan people) and myself. We started our trip Wednesday/Thursday night where we caught a 12:30 bus from Tel-Aviv to Eilat. A bus ride with Israelis is always an experience for people argued over seats and other unimportant things until about an hour into the bus ride. Also, there were other kids from our program on the bus; one of them, Nicole, an Argentinean girl who now calls New York home, happens to be very nice but does not understand subtle hints and social queues. We talked for a few minutes telling each other our plans for break and what not but when I nonchalantly dropped lines and tried to close my eyes she continued talking and complaining about the noise of two Israelis brothers trying to hit on the same girl. After a few more minutes (what felt like forever) of small talk she returned to her seat and I was able to get a few minutes of shuteye. We got to Eilat at 5:00 am and we heard that the first bus from the Egyptian border town of Taba to Cairo didn’t leave until 10:30, so we had sometime to waste. We wondered to the beach where Ben and Matt decided we should take a shot and try to get a room in a hotel for a few hours. The first hotel we got to, La Meridian, also happens to be one of the nicest hotels in Eilat with a private beach, pool and a killer buffet. I was extremely skeptical that this would work, but after Ben’s smooth talking and our luck at having a nice front desk attendant lady who told the security officer that we had a reservation in a few days and to let us sleep on the beds by the pool. Even though not a room like we wanted we were grateful for the mattresses that gave us a view of the sun coming over the mountains in Jordan and fell asleep for a few hours. We milked it for as long as we could even scoring a plate of fruit and brownies from the buffet and headed for the border.
We crossed the border with no trouble on both sides. But we were aware of the fact that the Israeli side is much more serious and observant than the Egyptian side which had two guys where only one was needed and doing nothing more than drinking tea and smoking cigarettes. The bus stop where we were to catch the bus to Cairo was a short walk from the border. We got there at what we thought was 10:00 am, a half an hour before the next bus left, however, none of us knew that Egyptian time was an hour behind Israeli time. We plopped down at a small little shop had a cup of tea and waited the extra hour and some until the next bus left Taba.
The next leg of the trip was another bus ride, this time six and a half hours, through the desolate and sand blasted Sinai Desert with numerous (three or four) Egyptian security checkpoints. These checkpoints like most other things in Egypt were overmanned with people just sitting around. The government hires as many people as possible to say that it creates jobs and keeps its citizens employed but the outcome is a huge waste of money and manpower as most of the police officers and soldiers that we passed are just sitting in the shade smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee/tea. The bus ride was uneventful and we arrived in Cairo about 4:30 and took an overpriced cab from the bus station to the American University where one of Ben’s friends from uni (Australian for university), Jim, is studying abroad.
When I told people that I was going to Egypt for a week there were two types of responses. The first came from Israelis who compared going to Egypt to taking a vacation in Baghdad or Gaza, someplace to stay far away from. The second response was from other students who wished me a good time and thought Egypt a cool place to visit. Anyway back to the story, the four of us, Ben, Matt, Jim and myself, looking like misplaced tourist, started our walking tour of Cairo (city of 20 million people). Cairo is an old city with even an older feel, 90 percent of the buildings were built during the British reign of Egypt and the other 10 percent of the buildings are the mega-hotels where only tourists and very wealthy Egyptians live. The other most striking thing in Cairo has to be the driving. There are no traffic signals, very little signs and no road lines so the driving is a mix of Grand Theft Auto and crossing the street like a game of Frogger. I would have to keep my eyes closed in some cabs just in order to try to keep my heart pressure down and from kicking through the floor panel with the air break.
Our first evening we were introduced to koshry, a mix of noodles, some beans, fried onions topped with a vinegar tomato sauce that cost less than a bus ticket in most U.S. cities. This meal became the staple of our diet for six days having it some days two or three times. So after having our first meal of koshry we took a cab to Islamic Cairo and walked around the outdoor market and to one of the world’s oldest mosque, Al-Azhar (built 970 AD), which also serves as an Islamic educational institution and a magnificent example of Islamic architecture and engineering. After some walking around we went to go meet up with a friend of Ben and Jims from uni in a high-rise hotel located on the bank of the Nile. After snapping some pictures from 21 stories above the city and getting some room service from a butler named Sayed, we went to an outdoor café where they serve fresh fruit drinks and like every other coffee shop in Egypt sheesha/nargila. However, at this point I was getting extremely tired from traveling all day with the only sleep that I was getting was on a bus and outside. We all went back to Jim’s apartment where I crashed for the night while Matt, Ben, Jim and his roommates went to ride horses near the pyramids.