Cairo and a Desert Adventure
Back to Cairo. The Solar Eclipse seems like a distant memory, something that happened ages ago, but seems to linger on the back of my tongue. I just keep wanting to talk about it, but can’t find the words. So instead, I make way for more exploring and new things.
After the Solar Eclipse, Jean and I met some american university students studyting in Cairo, and they invited us to come to a party they were having the next night in Cairo. jean had already decided to head further into the desert (the Siwa Oasis), but I decided i’d join them the next night. When I showed up at their place I was amazed to find 15 foot vaulted ceilings, a spacious wrap-around balcony, and nice bedrooms. “aren’t they in college? how can they afford this?” The beauty of living in a “third-world country” is that living is cheap. So life affords them the ability to live right in the middle of the chaos of Cairo, minutes from the famous Egyptian museum and seconds from the backpacker’s ghetto. The party they had that night made me feel like I was right back at school. Dozens of university students, western and egyptian alike, drinking and talking, having a bloody good time. It was a strange feeling being in it all again. I had forgotten what one of these parties felt like. In the following week or so that I spent in Cairo (I seemed to get a little stuck), the guys that I was staying with and I went all over Egypt. In fact the morning after the party we headed out to a little beach spot on the Egyptian coast with the Red Sea.
The drive to Ain’Sukne was gorgeous. Rising and falling mountains and canyons in the desert, sandstorms swirling in the distances and the Red Sea looming larger and larger as we approached. It was amazing. We spent the day at a nice little resort on the coast, swimming in the water, chilling on the beach and taking down an amazing buffet at the end (my first real meal in weeks). But, as i’ve found in life, everything is balanced. By the time we were ready to go, a thunder storm had set in, blowing sand in every direction and eerily lighting the sky. We had arrived in two cars, one a dilapitated Egyptian taxi, and the other a friend’s car. As I’ve learned throughout this trip, no week, or even day, can be all sweet. So, the windshield of the aging taxi, scratched and dented from a life of servitude in cairo, gave way under the power of the storm and because it’s…well… a pieace of shit window. So there we were, the 8 of us. As the taxi driver feverishly cleared out the shards of glass from the car (this is not American safety windshield glass) we tried to figure out the best way to get home. Luckily, the wind and rain had somewhat died down so it made it possible to atleast laugh at the situation. “DO we turn back?” “Do some of us turn back and some of us leave?” “Who gets to leave?” “The car’s not that small, let’s all pack it in, okay?” No we came up with an even smarter plan. Let three people drive back in the taxi with the driver and the rest enjoy the comfort of the heated (it’s cold in the desert at night), shielded compartment of the other car. I prayed they wouldn’t ask for me to drive in the taxi.
The excitement was over. Now all we had to deal with was the fact that girl whose car it was had to get back home by 10 o’clock and we had to drive 100 MPH to get her home, while in a storm. And she had night-blindness. And she was terrified-you could see it on her face- that her father (strict egyptian, muslim) was going to kill her if she got back late or if he found out she had been sunbathing in a bikini on the beach. With guys to boot!! Needless to say, the nap I had day-dreamed about in the first 5 minutes of our return trip gave way to bone-crushing grips off the door handle. But all was well in the end. We got home safe, her on time, and we even had time to cap the night with a couple of drinks, hooray. Occassionally, of course, the guys who were still suffering in the slower moving taxi would text message us with “We’re Freezing” or “If I were any closer to Billy he would be pregnant”.
The days afterward in Cairo were spent exploring the city. The markets, the coffee and tea shops, or simply sitting on the balcony of my new found friends watching the traffic go by. I felt at home somewhat. It was the first time in a long time I could reflect on things in the quiet solitude of a home without being badgered by anyone. If anything, I was the one doing the badgering. I would constantly ask for things to do and places to see like I was a little kid with countless amounts of energy. And there they were still in University studying for mid-terms and wanted nothing more than for me to sit quietly in the corner. It’s amazing what daiyly activities become, though. You expect to be surprised every day. Whether its the Egyptian museum or the Pyramids of Giza.
Tags: Travel
TravellingJosh
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