Egypt pt 3

After a good night’s sleep we woke up and ate some breakfast, and then got on another train down to Aswan. 3 hours later we arrived and found our taxi and hotel pretty easily. We took the suggestion of the man behind the desk and went to a restaurant where for 10 bucks each we got enough food to feed a small army. I ordered stuffed chicken and quite literally got an entire chicken, stuffed with rice. Robby ordered pigeon (a local delicacy) and Sarah some lamb. Our meals all included lots of hummus, salad, bread, and even desert. The guy came by 20 minutes later and we admitted defeat and asked for a bag. He laughed at us, and brought our desert out ‘to go’. We walked back through the market (with surprisingly little harassment) and spent the rest of the night on yet another amazing roof, this one with a POOL!! Which we swam in (at least Sarah and I).
The next morning (I use that word loosely) we were woken up at 2:45a by a wakeup call from the hotel staff. We dragged our tired behinds out of bed, zombie walked down the stairs, grabbed a boxed breakfast (who can really eat that early in the morning??) and climbed onto the Egyptian version of a marshutka (15 passenger van). We (or at least I) slept pretty soundly through the next 3 hours…only being woken a few times by the force of the sand storm winds pushing our van a few inches to one side. Sadly, we missed the sunrise by half an hour…but we still arrived to Abu Simble Temple around 7 in the morning, and it was absolutely amazing. I was surprised by the number of tourists there, but not sure why I was…since on the way there we were in a ‘caravan’ of at least 30 buses and vans. The temple was incredible, the scale was amazing, and the inside of the temple was in great condition. It was hard for me to believe that not only had the temple had been around for almost 3000 years, but it had been completely relocated in the 60s to make way for the high dam! Yes, an entire temple built into the side of cliffs had been relocated and moved, and you really could not tell. We spent 1 ½ there, and it was worth the early morning wake up and fairly steep entrance fee. After Abu Simble, we continued on our way to the high dam, which in all honestly was not worth the money to get it. The view was blocked by the sandstorms that had rocked our marshutka earlier, and we stayed for all of 5 minutes. Philos Temple, next on the list, was a bit better. We paid to get in, and then had to haggle (turns out pretty unsuccessfully) for one of the 30 private boat captains to take us over to the island that the actual temple is located on. This temple too had been moved, and a new island (exactly replicating the original, including foliage) was rebuilt for it to sit on when the dam waters started rising. This temple was cool…but by this time they had all started blending in with one another! After almost leaving a couple behind, there was a brief and mildly heated exchange with the driver over whose responsibility (not mine!) it was to count heads…then it was more sleep on the 3 hour ride back to Aswan.
We bought our train tickets pretty quickly (thank you Muslim country with female only lines : ) ..and then it was relaxing (read: nap) time for the rest of the night. The next morning Robby and I went off to explore Elephantile Island (named for the rocks on the end that supposedly look like elephants bathing, I don’t see it though), starting with a half successful haggle for a reasonable water taxi. The island is not a big one, and in just a few minutes we made our way to the Aswan Museum. The inside of the museum was not that impressive, but we did have our own tour guide (mandatory guide, mandatory tip) which was ok. Then we went to the outside bit, which is an active archaeological dig site. SWEET! This bit also required a mandatory tour guide, and this one was a touchy one (see Facebook pictures)…but it was worth it, since he decided that the ‘do not enter’ signs did not apply to us. It was cool, we walked on the walls of old Roman houses and held thousand year old pottery. I loved it! There was one scary bit though, the man asked to ‘pray’ with me, and I reluctantly agreed and listened to him chant for a solid 3 minutes while holding his hands over mine, the whole time hoping that he was not binding us in marriage in some ancient Egyptian ritual. My fears were eased though when he repeated the same process with Robby. After catching the local water taxi back to mainland Aswan, we had some pool time, and then got on the train for the 16 hour ride to Alexandria.
I should mention here that for the first 2 hours of our train ride Sarah read to me. Yes, she read to me. Stories and tidbits and tips out of one of our guidebooks. It was fantastic, I forget how soothing it is to have someone read to you, and Sarah kept it interesting with voice changes, strategic editing, and eternal patience for my lack of attention span and ‘rewind’ requests. Thanks again Sarah! After that we ran into some obnoxious Australian people. No offense to any Aussies out there, but damn, these people were no good for your image, no good at all. In fact, they pretty much plagued the rest of the train ride, with their loudness at ungodly hours of the morning and constant complaints and trips to the bar. LAME. No worries though Mum, I embraced your patience and lack of temper genes, and successfully avoided causing the scene that I imagined in my head so many times that night!
After switching trains in Cairo (seamlessly, I might add), we arrived in Alexandria around 2pm. After showering (a must after an all night, crowded train ride) we went off to explore the streets in search of a bar that sold beer. Specifically a bar that served beer AND seafood. For those of you that know me well, you must be wondering, why?? I don’t like beer, or very much seafood for that matter. Robby and Sarah, the other 2 volunteers were just so excited for it though, and I had to try some seafood in Alexandria, even if it was just a little bit. We ran into a few issues though. A) We could not find the place to save our lives. After finally stopping for directions at a tourist information center, we walked in the general direction and stopped when a man on the street pointed out the fact that we were all about to walk right by the place we were looking for. Whoops. At least the lady at the tourist place had thought to call ahead and tell the owner to be on the lookout for 3 lost-looking American tourists! B) We assumed that like in the States, a restaurant would offer options other than seafood. Not so much. So I ate some salads (hummus, etc) and had a few pieces of calamari. The salads were disappointing, but the calamari was wicked fresh and pretty delicious. Not delicious enough that I could eat more than 4 or 5 pieces, but delicious enough for me to not cringe and stop mid bite of the first one. We hit a Pizza Hut and Baskin Robbins on the way back to the hotel. Oh my goodness, how could I forget? Our hotel was just one teeny, tiny block away from the sea. The Mediterranean Sea. There was even a breeze coming off of it! It felt so good to be that close again, breathing in the salty air!!!! I could have sat there staring at it for hours and hours…
After our dinner excursion, we called it a night. The next morning we set off to find the catacombs of Alexandria. Being too cheap to pay for a taxi (remember now, we don’t have real, money making jobs!) we decided to walk. Not such a good plan. We got lost and (Mum, close your eyes here) ended up walking through not only the industrial part of Alexandria, but also the slums and shipping areas. Awful, but interesting at the same time. After near constant harassment, we ran into a few gregarious little girls that pointed us in the right direction (thank you mandatory English and hand gestures!) and not 3 minutes later we were there. The catacombs were pretty sweet. They were built during the Roman times, and had a crazy mix of Roman and Ancient Egyptian influence on the art and architecture. Prime example, the Egyptian god of death all bulked up and dressed in Roman army garb. While it was cool to walk around and explore, the pull of the beach won out and I was anxious to get back and be on my way to the white, sandy beaches.
After some running around and unsuccessful haggling with a mean taxi man, Sarah and I finally made it to the ONLY affordable beach in Alexandria…well, the only affordable beach where it would be ‘acceptable’ for us to walk around in our Western style bathing suits. As we walked in we noticed a group of other Western women (they were speaking English, and did not have their hair covered) and decided that we were going to sit by them, just for safety in numbers. Turns out they were a group of Canadian Airline workers on vacation, and they were hilarious. No sooner had we sat down though, did things turn a bit to the worse. We were surrounded, quite literally, by Egyptian men. The men openly stared, whistled, and snapped pictures on their phone. This lasted for hours, and at times there were at least 50 men all around us. It was ridiculous, and further tainted my view of Egyptian men. If I was not a little bit used to extra attention like I get in Armenia, I probably would have snapped, and someone would have left the beach hurting. While the water was nice, and the ocean beautiful, the audacity, ignorance, and lack of respect of the men sort of put a dark ring around the cloud that is Egypt…while men in Armenia have never been obnoxious in such large numbers, at least here the women would have shamed them.