Dream, Plan, Travel, Repeat.

Dearest family, friends, and random readers,

I apologize for abandoning you for the last month. I was caught up in Cairene life, teaching English at a local American school, preparing for graduate school applications, and dealing with day-to-day activities that seemed more mundane than adventurous. But now I’ve torn myself from that somewhat settled life and returned to a nomadic existence. I’m living out of a backpack again (which is much lighter now thanks to the generous offers of closet space by my new friends in Cairo), have clocked a surprisingly large amount of hours on buses traveling through the desert over the last few days, and currently don’t know where I’m sleeping tomorrow night, or the night after that, or the night after that. The traveler in me has returned, and I have lots of new adventures to share with all of you.

Matteo returned to Egypt on Monday after a 5-week stay in Italy, where he had to meet with some doctors for a (non-travel-related) medical procedure. (It’s a long, unadventurous story.) I was thrilled to have my travel buddy back and, on Tuesday, we re-started our journey, going through all of the big sites around Cairo that we put off when we first arrived in the city in August.

Our first stop was the Egyptian Museum, a massive building that I could see from my room’s balcony for the last 2 months. The inside of the museum is crammed with amazing ancient Egyptian artifacts. Unfortunately, while each piece would be incredible alone, seeing thousands upon thousands of haphazardly-labeled statues, sarcophagi, jewelry, and pottery spanning just as many years in dozens of poorly ventilated and ill-lit rooms filled with tour groups from every country imaginable was a little overwhelming. Highlights, though, included seeing gorgeous gold and stone-encrusted jewelry from royal tombs, animal mummies (including a gigantic Nile perch, a crocodile, and a couple of pet baboons), treasures from Tutankhamun’s tomb (each of his three gold sarcophagi are masterpieces), and, of course, the real mummies of a dozen or so Egyptian pharaohs, who, despite their uniformly leathery skin, crumpled ears, and shrunken fingers, and toes, still look incredibly human.

On Wednesday, we took the Metro to the Pyramids. Yes, the Metro. (Without a doubt, the oddest thing about seeing the Pyramids was learning that the sandy, seemingly isolated desert plateau that they stand on is actually smack in the middle of Cairo’s bustling suburb of Giza.) We arrived before the plateau opened at 8, and were among the first people to enter, so we were able to roam the Pyramids and take lots of photos of ourselves looking like we were alone with the ancient structures, millions of miles from civilization, before the hoards came in and ruined the effect. In another stroke of luck, we bought tickets to enter the Great Pyramid of Khufu, the largest of the Pyramids, as soon as we entered (they only sell 150 tickets per day), but didn’t enter the Pyramid until 10:30 or so. By then, everyone else had already been inside, so we were completely alone.

At the risk of sounding totally stuck up, I’ll say this: after seeing some of the most incredible scenery and some of mankind’s greatest achievements over the last 7 months, it takes quite a bit to impress Matteo and I nowadays. But, crawling up a narrow, dark tunnel on my knees inside a totally empty pyramid, knowing that I was inside the only surviving Wonder of the Ancient World, with tons of stone above my head, hearing only the sounds of my nervous, rapidly beating heart and heavy breathing in the poorly ventilated air, was impressive.

Other, random notes on my Pyramids adventure:

* There are lots of touts that hang around the plateau, offering tourists rides on their camels. (I didn’t ride one–they seem like mean creatures, and I’ve heard that they’re an uncomfortable ride. I might eventually do it somewhere else, though, just for the experience.) It’s funny to watch the touts try to catch the attention of tourists– typically, you’ll see a rider and his camel gallop towards an unassuming group of foreigners taking photos then the rider, as if he just came across them by accident, will say grandly: “Lovely day. Camel ride?” (The funniest approach was when one rider yelled out to an Asian couple: “Hey! China!”)

* I cannot believe the outfits I’ve seen women wearing since I’ve re-entered the tourist circuit– tiny skirts, midriffs, spaghetti strap tank-tops with bra straps showing. No wonder Egyptian men think foreign women are so easy. At the Pyramids, posing for a photo across from a Bedouin man and several Arab women in hijab, was a woman wearing a skintight white spaghetti strap tank-top that stopped just inches from her chest and skintight white shorts that showed her buttcheeks. My mouth just dropped open when I saw her. The lack of cultural sensitivity among Western tourists (particularly Italian, Eastern European, and Russian women) is appalling– people just don’t seem to know (or care) that different rules apply when you’re in different societies.

* Another rant on clothing: if tourists aren’t wearing skimpy outfits, they’re probably wearing safari gear. I am perpetually surrounded by a sea of khaki, zippered vests, and Teva sandals. Egyptian men and women, on the other hand, are wearing jeans, collared shirts, and whatever else you see on the streets in your own town.

Next, on Thursday, Matteo and I left Cairo. (I often wondered if I’d ever leave.) Our next destination was Port Said, where the Suez Canal meets the Mediterranean Sea. Port Said was ok, but seemed too quiet after Cairo. Unimpressed, we left Port Said the following day, and headed for our present location of Mt. Sinai, where the Ten Commandments were supposedly given to Moses by God. The bus ride was long and fairly uneventful, but I enjoyed the scenery– along the canal, there were thin strips of green fields with yellow-white sand dunes in the distance and, once, we saw a huge commercial tanker from Asia in a narrow part of the canal, seemingly floating on the desert.

Expect to hear more from Sinai in the coming days!

Today, on my way to a coffeeshop, I passed two Egyptian girls and a boy around 8 or 9 years old. The boy was carrying a fake AK-47 (at least I assume it was fake, given its lurid red and orange painted body). That in itself would be troubling enough, but another element added an extra dose of surrealism to the moment: each of the children were cheerfully waving little McDonald’s flags adorned with a picture of Grimace (that fuzzy purple character) on one side. How disturbing and bizarre.

In other news, as I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, I’m going to resume traveling at the end of this month– probably around the 23rd or so. After then, I plan to regularly post about my adventures around the Middle East, so I hope you’ll return to this blog often!