The World in 100 Words or Less

I check my watch just to make sure I’m seeing what I think I’m seeing. It’s 12:40 PM and the sun has set. The stars have come out and there is a 360 degree sunset. This was what I experienced upon seeing my first total solar eclipse. The day before I had left Cairo, drowsily (is that a word?), at 6:30 in the morning to take the 8 hour bus trip to Marsa Matrouh, a beach resort town on the Meditterean. On the bus I met Jean, a 40 year old frenchmen with a soft spot for Scotch Whiskey and stories from his own travels around the world. As we got to Marsa, we decided that we’d share a room after we huffed it from the bus station to the town. We were both expecting to find a sleepy little resort town, but were greeted by a vibrant city. Quickly, Jean and I found a cheap place to stay, had a couple of drinks of his fine Scotch, and headed out to check out the town. We made it to the Sea just in time to see the sun setting, fishing boats fishing, and people swimming in the quiet water. After two hours of walking aruond, though, we were ready to taste some of the fine fish the boats were catching. For 7 bucks you can get a meal of Calamari, Bass, Snapper, Salad, Rice, Pita and Hommus. Not bad at all. Not to mention the fish is freshly caught that day and is expertly prepared by families who have been doing it for generations. After satiating, or rather stuffing, ourselves with food, we decided to call the night early as we would have to wake up at 5:15 am for the solar eclipse.

As the people that know me are aware of, I am not a morning person. The sun of course doesn’t give a flying rat’s ass about this. I awoke to sunlight pouring into my window, disrupting my sleep, but also informing me that I had overslept. It was 6 am and we definitely had to catch the 7 am bus if we wanted to make the solar eclipse with time to spare. Jean and I rushed to the bus and luckily found that the 6 am had been running late and was patiently waiting for us as if it was on purpose. THe bus journey took us along the coast, past bedoin villages and army bases, barren desert and giant mountains. As we approached the town, clouds hung over the mountains directly south. It was a frightening sight, not only because it resembled a waiting army, but because clouds are less than appreciated when it comes to viewing solar eclipses. However, the clouds turned out to be the least of our worries.

Due to the popularity of the eclipse, the lovely little town of Sallum took it upon themselves to levy a 100 egyptian pound fee for entering the town (about 17 bucks, a whole day’s budget). Bus after bus pulled up and was told of the exorbitant fee to be paid. There must have been a hundred people yelling at the guards at the gate in Arabic, which sounds ten times worse than swaring in English. It was a ludicrous fee to pay as sitting outside of the town, a mere 5 km away would provide the same eclipse minus three seconds or so. I couldn’t help but laugh at the whole situation as I patiently waited to be let into the city (I might have told one of the military representatives to shove his Gucci sunglasses up his ass, but I think that was only a dream, Grandma). Eventually, all was cleared up. Jean and I found a nice, little cafe to relax at, to smoke some sheesha (flavored tobacco out of a water pipe) and drink some tea, and wait. It was interesting to see the different people that the solar eclipse had attracted. Europeans, Latinos, Africans, Egyptians, Americans, Asians. It was the most diverse group of people i’ve seen in months of travelling. Not to mention all of them there to see what would amount to a 4 minute event. I soon found out that was a somewhat skewed opinion.

The first glimpses of the Solar Eclipse appear as everyone’s heads turn to the sky, glimsping through dark reflective glasses as the lower right portion of the sun becomes covered by the moon. Cheers ring out and people exchange excited looks as everyone without glasses pleads to be given a pair so they can see as well. Glasses begin circulating around the tea shop we’re sitting at. The beuty of the Solar Eclipse is it doesn’t matter where you are as long as you’re within a particular region. Thus, you can sit and drink shai (tea) at a cafe and merely glance up. No big, tall people to look around or man made obstructions, it’s all happening above at high noon.

As the sun slowly is edged out by the moon, a slight darkness can be seen in the surroundings.  The colors are less brilliant and an eerie wind sets in.  A wind in the middle of the desert! It blows directly along the path of the Eclipse bringing in cool air that gives me goosebumps.  Then in the last moments, as the moon has almost completed its shroud, stealing the sun’s light, everyone becomes quiet.  I look off into the distance and in a split second a shadow moves across the desert.  It is simply darkness.  Not the kind of darkness that one finds in the middle of the night, but something akin to two hours after sunset. Except the sun looks like it has set every direction.  A yellow colored haze lingers for 360 degrees, stars come out and it occurs to you that its 12:40 PM and you’re not suntanning.  I look up at the sky, stealing glances at a black circle with a halo of light. Solar Eclipse.  In the distance I can hear as Muslims begin to do a special prayer as I was told later.  They pray to Allah to let the Sun return.  It becomes an experience unlike any other.  Your mind can hardly accept what you have seen and continually see.  A dark blue sky and noontime?  You use your glasses to look at the eclipse and find that it is complete, no sunlight protrudes, atleast none as strong as normal. And like that, Snap! the moon begins to move further left, the sunlight returns and for a split second everyone squints as if we had all been disturbed in our slumber by the sun.  It spells deja vu from earlier in the day.  As the moon finally moves out of view, dissapearing into a blue oblivion as quickly as it arrived, we all got back on the buses and made the 4 hour journey back to Marsa Matrouh.  The rest of the day, Jean and I couldn’t help but exchange smiles and say “Did you see that?” as if the other had been sleeping through it all.  But in the end, it was like a dream.  An event rarely seen, perhaps once in a lifetime had occured and I couldn’t bare thinking I may never see one again.  Am i destined to chase solar eclipses as do many amateur astronomers? Perhaps.  But there is a lot more on the menu to see and do.

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Friday, April 7th, 2006 at 9:52 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.