Snarky in Africa

Hi everyone,

I started this blog almost exactly six months ago. It has covered a few months of pre-trip planning and angst, my actual travel adventures, and then some post-mortem reviews. At this point, there isn’t much more to say, and I think it is time to bring closure to the write-up. I had marked October 1 as my “return to normal life” date, the day where I begin to actively job hunt, to work part-time for my former employer to support me while job-hunting, to begin a strict diet and exercise regime, to do all those new year’s resolutions we tell ourselves we will do, but quite often never get around to.

I had a fantastic time, and I encourage anyone who can make the time and apply the resources to have an adventure like this should do so. Don’t let age, gender, or financial state discourage you, I met people of all walks of life in all circumstances traveling and getting a new perspective on life. We only live once, what a shame to not see what the world has to offer!

For future travelers reading this blog, feel free to contact me through the blog and I’ll answer what questions I can, and feel free of course to contribute comments. For my fan base (and I am still shocked when my friends and family tell me how they actually regularly followed my adventures!), thanks so much for reading and commenting, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

-Snarky

I know I should link these in to their appropriate posts, but I’m finding working on the blog to be more time-consuming than I can handle right now, what with running around the East Coast visiting newly acquired relatives and all. So, you can see links to the Morocco photos, in fact all the photos going part-way through Uganda at the first link below. After that, I link to the individual pages for the photos that are at kodakgallery. You’ll need to sign in to see them, sorry. The baby gorilla videos are really short because they eat up memory. [read on]

We said goodbye to K and B with whom we spent a week in Dahab, and P, M, and I traveled back to Cairo by flying from Sharm el-Shek (I had had enough with Egyptian buses at that point). I am back in Cairo for the day and leave for Morocco tomorrow.

Today P, M, and I meandered around the city and visited two old Mosques. At the first one – Al Ghuri — we had really nice guides who were very helpful and kind. The mosque was beautiful and we went all the way up the minarete and had amazing views of the Cairo, though we didn’t feel like the railing at the top of the minarte — the tiny, ancient pieces of wood stopping from us falling hundreds of feet to our deaths — was all that stable (addendum: P, who works in contruction, has since informed me we were only 60 or so feet up). The stairs were a bit trecherous and at one point there was no light and M and I were not exactly being “mosque-level modest” with our skirts hiked up our thighs to avoid tripping down the steps. Oh, and fashion note, big skirts and headscarfs make you look fat in all photos. Or at least, they make me look fat. [read on]

Not much in the way of new photos. The first in the set is actually moonrise over the mountains of Saudi Arabia, though it looks like sunrise. It was taken from one of the on-the-beach hotels as I’m drinking my strawberry juice. The rest of the photos can be found at the link below

More Dahab Photos

A note about snorkeling. I only do this once a day in the late afternoon as usually wind and the tides make it difficult to snorkel otherwise. Almost each day I’ve gone snorkeling in a different location and I can see why the Red Sea is one of the worlds great dive destinations. Even though I’m not into diving, the snorkeling is wonderful. I like it better than when I snorkeled at the Great Barrier Reef last year because there you needed to go out on a boat for an hour or more to get to locations, here I can just leave my clothes on a chair and walk out to the reef, and come back whenever I want. Of course the negative is you are walking out ON the reef and that is really difficult (and bad for the coral). To get around this, several of us have become masters of swimming in 8-inch-deep water to get out to the reef. The problem with swimming in water that shallow — sea urchins. I have come to dread sea urchins almost as much as my phobia of sharks, except that at least sea urchins don’t come after you… but I digress… [read on]

Sorry for the lack of detail of anything I’ve been doing. I’ve been lazy about keeping my notebook handy which means memories slip through my brain pretty easily. I’ll try to recount events that may (or may not) be of interest, but most of my time has been spent eating, vegetating, or snorkeling.

In case my other posts have been making you jealous, be comforted in the fact that yesterday I managed to sunburn myself possibly to a crisp (I could feel the heat radiating off my skin as I type) and the bottom of my feet my be covered in blisters. So there, paradise has its drawbacks, too. But, I get ahead of myself… [read on]

Yeah, not much to report. If you want your days to pass quickly despite doing pretty much absolutely nothing, Dahab is the place to do it. Here your 12-step program to doing nothing, as I did today:

1: Woke up, 7:30
2. Went down to breakfast 8.
3: Sat in breakfast spot eating, reading, dozing, talking until 11.
4: Internet: 11-12
5: Hung out and talked people: 12-1
6: Ate lunch, read, and talked with M: 1-3:30
7: Napped: 3:30-5:30
8: Snorkled: 5:30-6:30
9: Showered: 6:30-7
10: Internet: 7-8
11: Dinner: 8:30-10:30 (expected)
12: Sleep, time TBD
13: Rinse and repeat as needed.

My friends are going to go hike Mt. Sinai to see the sun rise, which involves leaving at 11pm the night before, driving for 2 hours, then hiking starting at 1am. I’m told it’s amazing and a “must do” while here. Unfortunately, I more “want to want to do it” rather than actually want to do it. Laziness is infectious…

As I indicated earlier, the temple photos and scenes of the nile all blur together. But the Nile scenes from the Cruise really were spectacular. Probably the best thing I’ve seen in Egypt other than Dahab.

Dahab photos

Hot Air Balloon photos, Luxor

Valley of Kings, Valley of the Queens, Temple of Queen Hatshepsut, Collosus of Memnon photos, Luxor

Luxor and Karnak Temples, Luxor

Kom Ombo and Edfu Temples, Egypt

Nile Cruise and Nile Scenery photos

The next morning I did a hot air balloon ride at sunrise. I did this because a) it was much cheaper than the one in the Serengeti ($80 vs. $450) and b) every person who posts to the travel boards that they did a balloon ride said it was the best experience they’d had in Egypt and it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Well, it isn’t. [read on]

Luxor was quite fun, as much from the people I met and hung out with as for the sites the town has to offer. I did do all the usual stuff, which includes half a day on the East Bank seeing Luxor Temple, Karnak Temple, and the Luxor Museum, and the West Bank which included the Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens, Colossus of Memnon, and the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut.

There are people who say “you can spend 2 weeks in Luxor and still not get bored.” I can only say in response “you are freaks.” Having been to the Pyramids and Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Abu Simbel, Temple of Philae, Kom Ombo, and Edfu already, by the end of the few days Luxor I have sworn “As God Is My Witness I will Never See Temples Again.” [read on]

Hi all. Am writing from a hotel in Luxor this is nicer than I expected it to be. They offer internet, which is great, but it happens to be the one computer behind the front desk, so that’s where I’m sitting now, with keyboard in my lap.

I took a 2-day cruise from Aswan to Luxor on the M/S Renaissance, which is a 5 star cruiser, but they are all mostly 5-star cruisers. Within the 5-star grouping, I suspect this was the lower end. But it was nice in many ways. rooms were very nice as were the bathrooms and showers. the food was edible, but nothing exciting. It seems most people got sick, but i think that’s pretty common on cruises. I can feel a cold coming on, but no stomach ills or anything.

Did have a few adventures though… [read on]

So this is what they mean by “hotter than hell” I think.

Despite being told to be ready for the taxi at 3am, we didn’t leave until closer to 4 for a 5:15 flight. I did not sleep, it was too noisy. Got to the airport and had a bit of series of minor misadventures. Taxi driver took me to international, not domestic terminal. He suggested I walk there, I suggested he drive me there. I pay, I win. [read on]

Well, it is 1:30 am and I need to leave for the airport at 3 and sleep is not happening. Friday night in Cairo is NOT a quiet place (neither in the streets nor my hostel). So, I’ll do one last update before I leave. Word of advice, consider the overnight train rather than a 5am flight if you’re going to Aswan or Abu Simbel, I suspect you’ll get more sleep on the train!

T, C, and I (T and C are two of the students studying arabic who want to work for their respective countries’s various 3-letter-acronym government branches) had decided to go downstairs to the shops on our street around 8:30pm for us to shop for more conservative clothes (headscarf for me, long-sleeve tunics for all of us). The only long sleeve stuff I have is really heavy weight and no fun at all to wear in this heat. The shops really get going around 8pm on Friday night. Then we were joined by H, the aussie guy, and instead of walking around we found ourselves in a cab going to the main bazaar, Kahn-El Khalili. H is the kind of guy who fun follows and bad things never seem to happen. Despite my not wanting to go that far because of my middle of the night flight … oh well, we were off… [read on]

Well, to begin. today is not a good day to enjoy much of anything. My body is in agony from doing the pyramids yesterday. Partly, it is a sign of the deterioration of my physical being, and part it was really hard going up tons of stairs and then down long tunnels hunched over practically in half. In any case, pretty much every footstep hurt, and every step up or down stairs agony. So this was not the ideal day to go to the Egyptian Museum which has a lot of stairs!

My original plan had been to go to Islamic Cairo in part because — no steps! But setting out at around 9am on a Friday morning (their “Sunday”), well it was like a post-apocolyptic city, for all there were people around. An empty Cairo is much more frightening than a full one. So I decided to reverse routes and head to the museum. [read on]

Did the whole “Pyramid thing” today. It was cool and surprisingly a little hum-drum at the same time.

The taxi driver who picked me up yesterday at the airport picked me up again today at 8am to begin our tourist-du-jour adventure. I wasn’t sure whether he was the wisest choice of drivers, but the hostel guy (who has been Mr. “let me help you”) said he was trustworthy and other hostel folk said the price (120 EP or about $24) for the day and multiple sites was a good price. In the end, I was very glad to have had him. In addition to lots of good advice, he brought along Sophie, his 12 year old daughter to accompany me to two of the sites (she pretty much got in for free), as she had never been there before. She spoke very little English and was kind of shy, but I liked having her along. If nothing else, it seemed to reduce the number of hasslers I had. [read on]

Arrived in Cairo. Was on a 4:30am flight, so got up at 1:30am. Urgh. Slept most of the way.

It is 90 degrees at 9am. The hostel owner was SO helpful when I arrived, he sent his 17 year old son out with me to help me get a new sim card and money for my phone. Don’t think I would have been successful without him. Today I’ll toodle over to the museum, tomorrow it is “pyramid day”.

Stay tuned.

Hello. My name is Snarky, and I am a travel-size toiletry addict.

One of the many bits of travel advice from seasoned travelers is “don’t bring too many toiletries. There’s almost nothing you can’t buy along the way.” This may be true, but when you’re an addict, there’s a little voice in your head that constantly says “but maybe they won’t have it, and it’s so cheap, and it’s so small how much weight to your pack can it really add, and it’s so cute!” [read on]

What NOT to say when someone tells you they are going on a trip to Africa:

“Are you going to bring home an orphan baby?”

It wasn’t all that humorous the first time, it’s definitely not funny the fifth or fifteenth time and beyond. They’re doing a good thing that most of us wouldn’t do, so they get no snarkiness from me.

So why AM I going?
[read on]