Thursday 11th August.
To the Post office please.... please?!
Today we decided to pack up our stuff that we wanted to send home and find the post office. Sounds like a reasonably easy task right... well, not in Africa.
We came across our first major obstacle of finding 2 taxis that knew what we were talking about, or even one taxi so we could get the other to follow behind us. This task quickly became a comedy or errors being played out charade style on the hot, busy streets of Cairo. A few taxis pulled over (and by pull over I mean suddenly brake right in the middle of the extremely busy road) but took off again as quickly as they had stopped when they realised they couldn't understand us and decided it was not worth the trouble. A few stopped and tried to figure out what we were saying before taking off again. Then finally we got one guy stop and between our flailing arm movements pointing to the boxes and imitating a carrier plane and his very limited English we had a ride to the post office- we hoped.
Me, Alex, Aileen, Marcus, Fiona, and Jan piled into the two taxis and jammed our giant boxes in wherever they would fit. We drove through the streets of Cairo for about 20 minutes. We didn't actually travel very far, the traffic is just so bad. Finally pulling over, the taxi driver pointed us down a small pedestrian alley. Fast forward the 10 extra minutes of haggling the price of the taxi, explaining to the guy that yes- we are white, but no- we're not stupid and won't let him rip us off, and we were on our way.
This is where we came across hurdle numero duo. We were all struggling with our big heavy boxes, dripping in sweat from the intense midday heat, and were caught in some kind of groundhog day nightmare. We circled this one block at least 5 times. At every opportunity we would stop and ask someone where the post office was and they would point us around the block, we would do the same on the other side of the block just to be pointed back to the first side of the block. Finally, we happened upon the post office on the next block along.
Que the third hurdle. Bloody Ramadan. Muchos respect to all that do Ramadan, but it really can be a major pain to everyone else. We finally found this post office, hot tired and getting frustrated- only to discover that it had closed a hour or two early because of Ramadan.
Deep breaths, deep breaths....
On top of that it, it was closed the next day because of mosque, and we were leaving early the day after that. We spied a few men sitting in the very back corner of the post office so Fiona and I approached them and tried to find out some more information. We were told that we could go to the express postal service which was still open and was, wait for it, on the block that we had just circled 5 times. More deep breaths. Fiona and I left everyone and the boxes in the entrance to the closed post office while we tried to find exactly where this express place was. We finally found it. It was hot, dirty, not anything like a post office as you might be imagining it. So we went back to the others and got them to follow us up to the express service.
The next problem occurred here. They wanted to inspect every little thing inside our packages. Jan jumped out of the race here as he had taped his box up so tight it was like forte knox. Then we were told that our box was ok to be sent, well, everything except for a small wooden sarcophagus with a little mummy inside. Apparently it is forbidden to send anything resembling an Egyptian relic until after next Wednesday. Really? This little wooden mummy thing was probably made in Taiwan! Exasperated, Aileen jumped out of the race here as 90% of her things were wooden or stone 'relics'. Next up, they told us that it was going to cost US$300 to send. This is where we jumped out of the race. Leaving just Marcus and Fiona, who had smaller packages and not too many 'relics' so they decided to go ahead and send the stuff home.
Our next mission was getting another taxi home, still carrying our big heavy boxes. Aileen and I left Alex and Jan on a street corner with all of the boxes while we went in search of a taxi. One pulled over and was, as usual holding up traffic, so when he wouldn't answer us when we asked how much it was going to cost we felt pressured with all the honking and committed the cardinal sin-we got in without agreeing to a price first. We continued to ask how much it was going to cost and should have known something was wrong when he just wouldn't answer us, but then again we are females so it was not such a rarity to be ignored. We picked up Alex, Jan and the boxes and continued on our way, still asking how much the ride would be. Finally when he had us all in the car and on the road again he said "50 pounds". WHAT?! We paid 20EGP to get there and THAT was too much! We tried arguing, we tried joking, we tried everything, and when that didn't work I tried banging on the side of the car demanding that he pull over immediately. Soon everyone in the taxi was yelling, and I was banging on the outside of the car demanding that he pull over, he was ignoring everything and just kept on driving. Somewhere in there he finally said "ok, 20" with a smirk on his face, and we all exhaled, I stopped hitting the car door and we all relaxed- just another taxi ride in Egypt! Such a hassle. Everything here is such a hassle.
Finally we were back in our hotel and we hid ourselves away in our air conditioned rooms to recover from our unsuccessful mission. I spent some time looking for places to stay on the red sea. We have decided not to continue on to Jordan for money and time reasons, but will instead see Jordan on our own time in the near future. It is a terribly sad realisation that the trip is almost over- already, but it has to end one day.
At 7pm we met Marcus, Fiona, Aileen, Jimmy, Jan, Farron, Mark, Sheri and BJ at the reception on the hotel and made our way to our 5 star dinner cruise and BJ's last night on the trip. When we boarded the Andrea we found out that they didn't have any tables ready so we waited around up on the roof for almost a hour before the shuffled everyone downstairs. It was a nice buffet style dinner, but the most noticeable thing was that no one asked us if we wanted drinks. Not very smart from a money making perspective, because we all would have bought drinks. After dinner the belly dancer entered and gave us a little show. Then the spinning man came in. He was incredible, spinning on the spot for a good 15 minutes- I don't know how he did it. Then the belly dancer came back and most of us got dragged up on stage for out turn dancing with her. It was a good night, it was nice to be out for a family dinner. We did miss Emma, Bene and Lars though.
On the way back to our hotel the drive pointed out the police and military presence growing in Tahir square. He said that they were gearing up for a protest tomorrow night, but that he doubted the army would allow one to occur.
Friday 12th August.
Demonstration in Tahir Square.
We spent the morning chatting to mum and dad on facebook and we went downstairs to say goodbye to Marcus and Fiona who were leaving for Sharm El Sheikh. Hopefully we will get to catch up with them there.
We went to find somewhere for lunch with Aileen, Jimmy, Farron, Mark, Jan, and Sheri. We sat down at the restaurant at midday and left after 6pm- many many beers and laughs later. It was such a nice day, just hanging out, drinking and laughing. When we left there we were planning on finding the TGI Friday that was nearby, but we got distracted by the demonstration gearing up in Tahir Square. Not too much longer we were standing in the middle of it, we had our faces painted with the Egyptian flag and were given little flags to wave about. Maybe not our brightest idea, but it was good fun! We managed to stay away from the really rowdy crowd, but there was two times when the crowd turned and started swarming towards us, a lot like the scene in Jurassic Park where the stampeding dinosaurs change path- heading straight for us. I saw one guy covered in blood and looking pretty beat up being helped away by two other guys. I can only presume that he was one of the people in the rowdy crowd that were throwing bottles at the military. Apart from that it was a friendly, atmospheric and exciting place to be. After a few hours (5 or 6) we decided that we had seen enough so went to find a shisha bar to relax in before retiring to bed. What a great day!
Saturday 13th August.
Sionara, Cairo.
We were scheduled to leave at 9am but Farron postponed it so that we had a chance to post stuff from Cairo. Attempt two went much better than the first and we ended up leaving Cairo by 11am.
We drove for a while and pulled over at a servo for lunch. Shortly after that we passed under the Suez Canal where there were guys with big machine guns every few meters. Farron found a beach to pull over at and have a quick dip and we went shopping in a small town along the way. We got over a kilo each of potatoes, capsicums, lady fingers,, eggplants, tomatoes, bananas, mangoes, zucchinis, 2 huge melons and a handful of limes for the equivalent of around US$10! We found a bush camp and Alex helped me with my cooking duties because my cooking buddies had left the trip. Alex made a really yummy babaganoush that we had for starters with these gigantic poppadom type things we found in the town and for main we made a minced meat, lady finger and tomato stew with rice. Alex, Jimmy and I had a movie night in the truck and slept in there rather than set up a tent.
Sunday 14th August.
3,000 steps of Repentance.
Alex and I made a massive fruit salad for breakfast and tried the banana coffee that we had bought on Zanzibar island. We left this bush camp earlier than planned for two reasons, one; because everyone was up anyway, and two; because of the random guy that had found us and was sitting with us. Farron found another place for us to have a swim and cool off, and we pulled into the town/national park of Saint Katherine just before lunch. It is a beautiful place set in the valley of these monsterous, rocky mountains- one of which we were here to climb!
We had the choice of either climbing to the summit of Mount Sinai, where according to legend is where Moses was given the 10 commandments, in either the afternoon to watch the sunset, or getting up at 2am to climb it in the dark and watch the sunset from the top. We decided to do the sunset climb so that we werent totally buggered for the next few days. I am really glad of this as well because we basically had the mountain top to ourselves, whereas the sunset group was squished up there with hundreds of other people and they were told to rush down straight after sunrise so as to not get stuck behind everyone else.
The climb to the top can be taken 2 ways. Either the slower and more gradual camel trail, or the steep '3,000 steps of repentance'. I was keen to do the camel trail, but we had left it a little late in the afternoon and didn't want to miss the sunset so we ended up taking the steps. Im pretty sure I went beyond simple repentance and actually died a few times on the way up there. It was such hard work. I have never felt that out of breath in my life. The worst bit was at the start when we had been climbing these steep uneven steps for what felt like and age, and as I stopped to try and catch my breath our guide told us that we were just about to reach the start of the 3,000 steps! We hadnt even started yet- they were just the steps to the steps! It was a very challenging climb, but one I am glad we did. There was such a great sense of acheivement when we reached the top. Or at least there was once we had began to breath again. The view was incredible, and the sunset absolutley breathtaking. It was definatley a once in a lifetime that that I will never forget.
We took the slower and more gradual 'camel trail' back down to the bottom, and didn't even have to use our head torches because the moon was so bright. Once we got to the bottom, instead of go back to camp and curl up and die- which is what i felt like doing- Mark convinced us to go to the hotel which was the only place in Saint Katherine serving beer. He promised that it wasnt very far away, and lured by the promise of beer, we all followed. I could have killed him when he said "its just up and over the other side of this hill'! However, exhaustion aside it felt great to finally get there, order a beer and stick our sore feet in the pool.
Finally getting back to our camp only an hour before the sunrise climbers were due to wake up we set uo our tent as quietly as possible and fell into a deep deep sleep.
Monday 15th August.
A little slice of Paradise.
The sunrise hikers got back at 7am and got a few hours sleep before we left for Dahab at 1pm. We bummed around camp in the morning and walked up the street to get some lunch just before we were meant to leave.
The drive to Dahab was beautiful. After so long of looking at flat sand on drive days it was really cool to be surrounded by tall, ragged, rocky mountains, which gave way to a half built (or half crumbled) resort town where the mountains meet the red sea. From the outskirts, Dahab looked like a 'town of broken dreams', but the real heart of the place was on one main stretch right on the water. Out hotel, 7th Heaven, was right on this main strip. There was a few miles of shops, restaurants, and bars overlooking the Red Sea and Saudia Arabia just on the other side of the sea. Farron announced that he would be leaving in Jordan and not staying with the truck through to Istanbul.
When we pulled into the hotel we found Emma, Benne who had lft before Cairo, and Jerome who we hadnt seen since Aswan. It was like a little family reunion. After loosing some people in the last week it was nice to get some back. We caught up with them and then made ourselves comfortable in our room.
We spent the night wandering the strip of restaurants and bars that would be our home for the next two weeks. Getting to Dahab marked the official end of our time on the truck. It didn't yet feel real that it was all over. Alex, me, Aileen, Emma, Benne, Jimmy, Mark and Farron tried a few places during the night- one that involved fish bowls of cocktails and had a really great night celebrating the end of an era.
Tuesday 16th August.
Damn those fish bowls!
We spent the day recouperating from the fish bowl cocktails from the night before. We went out for dinner and drinks with the usual suspects and Alex, Jerome and I went for a quick fish at the lighthouse. Such a hard life...
Wednesday 17th August.
Just another day in paradise.
Alex got up early in the morning to do an introductory scuba dive with Farron. Alex decided to keep going with it and join the others in getting his dive license. Jan, who had also taken off just as we reached Cairo, reached 7th Heaven and it was really nice to see him again and catch up on his adventures while away from the truck.
We found out that getting a dive license is like a full time job for a few days. Alex had to do another dive at 4pm and had to get in some study and videos before then, so I left him to it and went to find the others to continue eating and drinking. Alex finally finished at 5pm and came and met up with us. We moved to a new restaurant for dinner and had a massive seafood platter that included the squid that Alex and Jerome had caught the night before as well as a small one that Alex had caught while we were sitting at the dinner table!
Walking down the strip of Dahab was an experience all of its own, with people trying to get your attention from every direction. Some of the favourite sayings including: "you primised you would look at my shop" (when you have never seen the person before"; "miss, you dropped something- my heart"; "looking is free"; "promise you will come back later" (NEVER promise anything). It was really fun walking down and having this friendly banter with everysingle person but it could also get tiring when all you wanted was a can of coke from the supermarket! After dinner we made our way back to the hotel so I could relax (because life was so stressful) and Alex could study for his diving licence.
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