To Africa and Back

Thursday morning we leisurely went about our business getting up, checking out and making arrangements to go to Larnaka Airport(half way across the island, since there don't really seem to be trips to Cairo from Paphos Airport). The pace was not hurried. We took a bus.

Thank goodness for British Imperialism. There are real roads in Cyprus. Now typically, in Greece, when you look at a map and see a distance of 130 km, that trip can take a whole day if you travel by bus, at least a few hours by speeding car. Somebody thought it would be a better idea to build thousands of extra miles of road winding up and down and around mountains and valleys and so on. And if you have even once experienced motion sickness, get ready for a real treat. Sure, Cyprus has its mountain roads. But we took a clunky bus, and it was a smooth straight shot WITH three midway stops that took under two hours. Oh yeah, and it was air conditioned and we weren't crammed in like sardines.

Needless to say, our unexpectedly hasslefree ride got us to the airport about six hours earlier than we needed to be there. It worked out perfectly though, as we camped out in the food court, read up on what to expect in Cairo and the Turkish side of Cyprus, ate pizza, figured out rental arrangements for when we would get back to Larnaka, and took our sweet time.

Egypt Air introduces you to another world, before you even take off. For one, they showed up late (a running theme in Cairo). Also, the majority of people waiting for the plane are, of course, not tourists. Our soon-to-be co-flyers were chatting up a storm from which my smattering of Arabic phrases could only help me make out a few "I"s, "Egyptian"s ("Mosri"), "you are"s, "hello"s and "goodbye"s. Finally, we boarded and even got food (unique stuff) on this very short (one hour) flight. Even though the flight is pretty much South and slightly East, you actually GAIN an hour when going to Cairo from Cyprus. Weird. We decended into the endless night lights of Cairo around 8pm.

Cairo is huge. Geographically, I've never seen a city this big. Population-wise, at 20 million plus, it beats the STATE of New York. Buildings sprawl out in every direction, none particularly tall, as far as big cities go... maybe 10 stories on average. But many are apartments, partially finished (missing walls), with inhabitants!

Cairo Airport - Let the Dance Begin:

We go to exchange money. The teller ignores us for a minute or two. We insist he recognize us. He tells us this line is "closed." We wait in the line next door. We get up there. We get about 1,100 Egyptian Pounds (L.E.) for 200 American dollars. I ask the teller about this "Visa Stamp" I see signs about. He tells me we don't need it. We wait in line at customs. We get to the counter. The guy tells us we need to go to the bank to get our Visa Stamp. We go back to the bank in the jerk's line, because the liar's is "closed." The line is at a dead stop. Finally, the "liar's" window opens. We PURCHASE our Visa Stamp. We get back in line at customs, which now has doubled in size as people scramble from all over the world to get through the shuffle we just participated in. We get through.

Before making our way to luggage, we make a side trek to the bathroom. Egyptian bathrooms are different. And not in the way you're expecting. In fact, as far as cleanliness and "Western" feel go, Egyptian bathrooms are much better than A LOT of what I've seen in Greece and Italy. They're quite nice actually. However, as you walk up to the stall or urinal someone accosts you, trying to give you a towel. Nice attendant, right? Then you go to wash your hands and they're at the ready to squirt some liquid soap on your hands. Full service, yes? Want to dry off? Guess what? They EXPECT a little baksheesh (tipping). It's dubious any of these people work for the place that has whatever bathroom you're using, because towels, soap and the like are already available for you to use on your own. I found you have to give a pretty firm, and perhaps repeated "la, shokran" (no thank you) to pee without pay.

Then we waited for our bags. And waited...

What Cairenes lack in administrative efficiency and speed they make up for on the road. Our chaperone, Kareem, directed our every step for the evening. And our driver, Samir, transcended time and space in our private Shuttle. He made it to our Nile Cruise on time, somehow, when our airport experience easily took an hour longer than it should have.

On the way, the two men updated us on all things Cairo. We chatted politics a little bit. And then the Nile.

The Nile where we were carried a little less mystique than one might expect. With all of the buildings and bright lights, it looked more like Tokyo waterfront than ancient riverbanks. Nonetheless, the cruise was superb. It was a few days from the end of Ramadan, and all but the most piously devout Muslims will break their fast at night time on a daily basis. So this was the BIG show. Banquet Feast, I think, is the most fitting title. Every possible dish you could never think of, piled high. We didn't know what any of the food was. All of it Egyptian, some of it somewhat recognizable, had an accompanying 20 foot spread of sweets and treats.

And that's just the food. The entertainment was something incredible. There were singers and dancers and a rather scantily clad buxom belly dancer; and then the infamous whirling dervish. In Cairo they call this Tanoura. It's actually a mainstay in a hippie branch of Islam that severely frowns upon all demonstrations of violence or even displays of anger (including facial expressions). From what I've read the Cairene Tanoura is significantly more showy than what people typically think of as whirling dervishes. Ours certainly was anyway. This guy poured drinks while spinning rapidly. He had layers upon layers of clothing that stripped away (don't gasp - it was all G-rated) making all kinds of colorful patterns. He spun objects in his hands, wrapped himself into an inverted cloth top and even arm wrestled me with one arm while spinning a giant piece of his garment with the other.

After more than our fill of food and fun, our private entourage shuttled us to our hotel, The Triumph Hotel. We were guided around and attended to every step of the way. Welcome to paradise! This was hands down THE nicest hotel we've ever stayed in. As far as what we've come to expect overseas, it made everything else feel kind of "roughing it." Giant two story high floors. Grand marble construction. Eighth floor cityscape view. Soft beds. Oh yeah, I don't know if I mentioned, but the beds pretty much everywhere we stay are like wood blocks. The rooms are closet-sized. The bathrooms are literally closets. Showers are pathetic. Not so at the Triumph. This place would be 5 star in the states. The bathroom was big, FOR ME. The towels didn't feel like sandpaper. And they were taller than me. Because we decided to walk around the city a little we didn't get to sleep until around 2:30am. But 5 hours of luxury sleep left us feeling more rested than any of our 8-10 hour slumbers previously.

The Triumph Friday morning:
Can you guess what the continental breakfast looked like. Let me leave it at this: the breakfast area was inside the reception hall they use for lavish weddings. On our way back to the room to pack up, we checked out the workout room. It was laid out like a large Anytime or Snap Fitness. It was not, by any means, the hole in the wall, crap-treadmill and no weights that you see pretty much everywhere. This hotel had EVERYTHING.

We then checked out and waited for Jusef, our private guide. He was very friendly, very fluent, very attentive and very fast. He took us on a whirlwind day tour of Cairo to see the city in a day. And I think we pretty much did.

First stop: Egyptian Museum. Our driver watched our bags. Unfortunately, we had to check our cameras at the door. Nonetheless, we got a few shots outside. Jusef took us to the highlights, which in many ways was better than kind of moping aimlessly around a huge museum. From the get go, Jusef tried to get us to pay attention to details you don't normally think of when you're looking at the Egyptian statues, steles, and ingravings. I don't want to bore you, but a few great insights to keep an eye on were the differences in headwear and beards. A curved beard meant the figure was made after the death of its subject; a straight beard during his life. Different "hats" had a connection to either Upper Egypt (the South because the Nile runs northward) or Lower Egypt (the North). We saw the stele of Narmur to start (dating back to about 2700 B.C.); and the rest of what we focused on was pretty much the contents of King Tut's tomb, sans the actual mummy which is at its original location (in Luxor?).

After that fantastic voyage, our driver flew (yes he actually got air time twice) through Cairo to a Bazaar (fancy name for market). I'll spare the details. We got sold. I mean, you can't go to Egypt without getting an authentic cartouche with your own name in hieroglyphics can you? We picked up some other souvenirs. We saw the real process for making papyrus scrolls and purchased a few.

Then we went to the scent shop, where Tina went wild. Basically, the story goes that this famous oasis or oases in Egypt provide the most famous perfumes and colognes with their integral parts. Then perfumiers in France and Italy and the like dilute them with water, chemicals, alcohol, etc. and then sell them at astronomical mark-up. I believe it. Scent shops supposedly carry the pure extracts, the same ones found in tombs of Pharaohs and their queens. Our scent shop even had the Commerce Ministry's papers of approved business practices. We sampled all these pure scents (lotus and jasmine to name a few). And I actually have to admit, though it's quite a racket, it is quite enrapturing as well.

On to the Pyramids:
Well, what is there to say that hasn't been said? They loom. They stand proud. They're ancient. They're huge. They're ponderous. They're in the middle of the desert. They're a bit overwhelming. We came. We saw. We rode camels, snapped pictures and got taken for a ride metaphorically as well. FIFTY EUROS for a camel ride! That's like 80 dollars for about 10 minutes of work. Who would've thunk that a camel driver makes as much as a trial attorney. I'm in the wrong business. After that we headed down to the sphinx. It was more than a little surreal.

Wow. The Reader's Digest version of Cairo. Our private tour carted us back to the airport for some more hijinks. You have to go through security before checking in for your flight. Oh and then you have to go through security. And then customs. And then security.

And then B.O. I'm not talking about that-one-kid-in-junior-high-gym-class kind of B.O. I'm not even talking Euro-unshowered-pit-hair B.O. I had a Turk on one side, Tina had five guys from Tanzania on the other, and the rest of plane was jammed full of unknown others. I don't know how to properly describe this punishing flight. Imagine, if you will, someone having a newspaper drawn from the back of a dumpster, mixing it with fermented baby diarrhea and a whiskey sour and then whacking you in the face with the newspaper... hard... repeatedly... for an hour as you fly from Cairo to Cyprus over the Mediterranean Sea. Yeah, that's about as close as I can get.

Larnaka Airport marked the end of a full and very long day. We felt kind of energize though, having seen so much. We picked up our car, which was actually a very nice, new, though small, Honda Jazz with moon roof, and headed east.

While tooling around hotels who refused to bargain with us, our license plate fell off. Mind you, it was nighttime, dark and the drive from hotel to hotel was starting to tire us. Finally, Super Glue came through for me.

We decided to let the touristy hotels not have our money and continued east. Finally, the guide book steered us straight and we happened upon a smaller village, Protaras, and picked up an apartment, called Andreotis, for a few nights for only 40 Euros. Nice! The day ended with a visit to a local taverna where Tina got her favorite Kouneli Stifado. We were beat, but it was all worth it as we ate and drank under a myriad of huge bunches of grapes before turning in for the night.

To Africa and Back.