Sand, pancakes & gin, marshmallows and the Sea; A Twenty day recap

I apologize to everyone out there for my lack of blogs over the last month. In the past twenty days, I've trekked to the desert (twice), completed my midterms (ilhamdulillah!), and celebrated my birthday by going on sail on the Nile (and boy am I getting close to my 25th b-day, which is close to... well, old age and death). I've also been having some computer issues that have hampered blogging and emailing, but hopefully they will fixed in the next couple of days.

My first trek was to a town called Marsa Matruh which is on north coast of the Mediterranean, and to the Siwa Oasis, which isn't far from the border of Libya. It was a school sponsored trip, and a little over fifty of us went. We all piled onto a huge tour bus and settled in for the four hour ride up to the coast. It was the first time out of the city for me, and I was really excited.

Our first stop was a rest stop/gas station/mall/restaurant/petting zoo combo straight out of Middle America. It was a visual feast, full of Egyptian tourist kitsch, screaming small children, electric palm trees, stretching drivers, and my personal favorite, the aforementioned petting zoo. It consisted of two large Jersey cows, and a bunch of ducks. I did not pet either. However, I did enjoy the sight of several women in high heels wading through the field to for a photo-op with the cows. All parts of Egyptian life collided in the several acre facility, and it had the atmosphere of a county fair. I could have happily spent several days there, just watching everything. Alas we had other things to see, so we hit the road again.

Slowly, the nasty traffic and pollution gave way to scrub brush and sand. After about an hour we were out of the urban sprawl that surrounds greater Cairo and I could feel my lung capacity expand with every breath. Then there was nothing. And more nothing. All I could see for miles was a flat rocky plain. Finally, signs of human living starting appearing (I saw trash, lots of trash), and we started to head west instead of north. We crested a hill, and suddenly there was the deep cerulean blue sea. In that moment I came home; I could taste the sea salt, and could feel the pulse of the waves echo in my bones. My face was quite literally smashed against the window in hopes of getting a better view.

We were in the coastal town of El-Alamein, the site of one the largest tank battles in WWII. We stopped off at the Commonwealth Cemetery, where over four thousand Allied troops were buried. It was a sobering and moving experience for me, and really made me think about the lingering price of violence and war. Most of the men buried were in their early to mid twenties. Several men were the same age as I am. One man even shared a family name with me (S. Sgt. B.W Beck, age 39, Died 26 October 1942, from the Australian Imperial Force). Like most things, we weren't able to spend much time there, so I'm hoping to head back during one of my breaks.

From El Alamein, it was about a forty minute drive down the coast to Marsa Matruh. We got there just as the sun was setting and hit the water until the cold chased us off the beach. I was really tempted to just stay in Marsa Matruh rather then head to Siwa the next day, but my common sense finally overruled my emotions and it was back on the bus for the two hour ride to Siwa.

Siwa is part of a large oasis in the Western Desert, and has some truly amazing scenery. There are large salt lakes, camels, amazing rock formations, thousands of fresh water springs, Roman, Pharonic, & Greek ruins, and palm trees galore. Siwa also has a language and culture that is quite distinct from the rest of Egypt because of the strong Berber and Bedouin influences.

Siwa can only be described as "chill". Donkeys are the major form of transportation (as well as pollution, but I'll take that over Cairo's kind any day), and the people were relaxed and super friendly. Best of all, it was quiet. There were no car horns, no sirens, nothing to mar the sounds of a country night. We watched the sun set over one of the huge salt lakes, and slowly the stars came out. There were so many that I couldn't pick out individual constellations. It was quite a treat considering that I hadn't seen a star since I had left Seattle two months earlier.

The next day we toured around the area, and saw lots of mummies, temples, and even the Oracle where Alexander the Great was crowned King of Egypt. Because it was the end of Ramadan, all the local children where dressed in their Eid best. The girls had long brightly colored dresses covered with gold thread and embroidery, and even the boys had bright galabayyias. They were a cheerful and raucous bunch, just as curious about us as we were in them.

We stopped by a small Bedouin Village in the afternoon and wandered through the small cement huts and corral areas. As soon as we piled off the huge, air condidtioned super lux tour bus (feeling very conspicuous) the women and children came out with all sorts of handmade goods. I ended up buying a three meter long woven camel hair rug for the ridiculous price of 50 pounds (almost ten dollars). We also got to see some real camels (rather then scary tourist kind by the Pyramids), one of which was a rather frisky semi-wild baby camel. A bunch of wandered over for a closer look, which just made him all the more excited. Suddenly, and without warning, the baby camel started danceing and kicking, and I found out that my safe distance wasn't quite far enough away. He shuffled up to me, and kicked me. It didn't hurt, and was really nothing more then a glancing blow, but still, I had just been kicked by a camel. It made me laught pretty hard, and one of the group got the whole "attack" on video which I will post as soon as I can.

That evening, we went into the Great Sea of Sand for a dinner and Bedouin folkloric show. The desert was just like I had imagined, huge great white dunes that were constantly shifting in the light and wind. We got to the dunes just as the sun was sinking below the horizon, and climbed up several dunes to a plateau of sorts. We had dinner under the stars on large carpets, and afterwards sat around a huge campfire listening to music and generally relaxing. The only downer was that we had a campfire, but no marshmallows. I vowed that the next time I would come prepared.

I was greeted early Friday morning in Siwa with the athan, or call to prayer, coming from what sounded like hundreds of mosques. It was a little after 5:30, and the morning air was damp and heavy as the first mosque broke the dark silence. Slowly, mosque after mosque joined in until I could no more tell apart the calls then I could understand the words of the prayers. One by one the calls finished, until there was again a lone muezzin's voice coloring the gray dawn air. Finally he too finished, and I slowly drifted back to sleep.

We spent the morning wandering around the town proper, and around lunch hopped back on the bus for Marsa Matruh. I was impatient, and couldn't wait to see the beach again. I spent several hours swimming around and goofing off, and felt truly clean and loose in the way only a long swim can make you. That night I wandered down the beach and found a spot to just sit and think. There was an offshore storm, and the waves had a deep roar behind them. Perhaps it's part of being a Seattleite, or perhaps it's just a part of my character, but I'm most at home when I'm by the ocean. It is one of the few places that I can feel God, and the only place that makes me happy regardless of reality. I thought about my home, and I thought about my family. I came to term with the negative aspects of my life in Cairo, and banished the lingering homesickness that had been dogging me for several weeks. Finally I just sat, silent in voice and thought. I went to bed that night with the balcony doors wide open, the pounding roar of the waves my only music.

The morning dawned cloudy and cool, but myself and several other women spent the morning and part of the afternoon in the water again. I couldn't have stayed away to save my life. Finally we had to pack up and head back to Cairo, tans and spirits much improved.

Around eight o'clock, we stopped off at another rest stop/gas station/mall/restaurant/petting zoo combo. I'm not sure why people here are so compelled to have a petting zoo in the middle of nowhere, but whatever, maybe it's an Egyptian thing. This rest stop was done in a very tasteful Islamic manor-house style, and had an awesome candy shop that had all those little goodies that I still haven't found in Cairo, like Japanese jellies. In the complex there was also a music store that was blaring obnoxious middle eastern pop music. It suddenly changed into obnoxious eighties pop music upon our arrival, and a familiar tune drove us out of the candy store and into the plaza. It was incredibility surreal; I was standing in the Egyptian desert, at a rest stop/gas station/mall/restaurant/petting zoo combo listening to "Eye of the Tiger" with a bunch of other American students. A few brave souls broke out some dance moves, and we finally piled back on the bus full of sugar and laughter.

The following week I had midterms. There were three exams over the space of the week. I had two written tests (one went well, one not so much) and a spoken test (it also went well). Looking over my piles of notes and flash cards, I was amazed at how much ground we had covered in such a short time. I was also a bit freaked out, because at this point, I know enough arabic to know just how much I don't know, and how much more work I'm going to have to put in before I'm even close to being fluent.

My birthday fell in the middle of my exam week, so I postponed my party until the weekend. Still, my birthday wasn't a total wash. My classmates surprised me with a card and a cute little stuffed dog (I'm guessing that I talk about Buddy, my border collie, way too much) and I even got flowers and chocolates. One of my teachers taught the class the arabic equivalent of the happy birthday song, and then made them sing it for me. I found it highly entertaining, although a bit painful. My classmates turned what could have been a bummer day into one of my better birthdays, and I hope that I can reciprocate in return.

For my birthday shindig, a bunch of classmates and I grabbed some dinner, and then headed down Nile, where we rented a felucca and went for sail. It was my first opportunity to go out on the Nile, and I quickly decided that it would become a more regular occurrence. Once you get about twenty feet off shore, the sounds of the city fade away. From that distance, the city takes on a glow and flare that is hard to see when you are in the middle of the whole mess. We got to the docks a little after sunset, and sailed for a hour. One of my classmates invited us back to her flat for an after party, and provided us with great spring rolls and even greater booze. Ahh, the joys of alcohol. We ended up doing a lot of B.S.ing, but later in the evening had a surprisingly thoughtful discussion on social welfare and prison reform.

Alcohol played another important role in the following week. Several of my classmates went abroad during the Eid break, which meant that they went through the duty free at the airport and were able to pick up plenty of the good stuff. Being good college students, we took every and any opportunity to imbibe.

For one of my classes, we went to a flat close to school and made banana-cinnamon-chocolate pancakes. We were learning the command form of conjugation (ie, add this, do this, ect.) and so I got to tell the class what to do in order to make the pancakes (big shocker, me telling people what to do). Despite my role, it went surprising well, and the pancakes were rather tasty. Then the outing took a strange turn. I'm still not sure how it happened, but at some point the I found myself flipping pancakes over a hot broiler with a gin and tonic in hand. It was a rather strong gin and tonic, and it was barely past noon. By the time I got a cab home, I was more then a little tipsy, and it felt really, really good. Sometimes, you need to be a bit subversive to make it through life abroad. I sure was that day.

Fast forward a week, and I heard from one of my fellow students that there was going to be an overnight trip to the desert. At the last minute, I decided to go, and remembering the lessons I had previously learned, stocked up on marshmallows, got a pointy long handled fork (for roasting) and rum (for warming purposes only).

The trip was a desert safari to the White and Black Deserts, which are in the same general location as Siwa. Twelve of us students from ALI ended up going, and we packed into a minibus early last Friday morning. It was definitely a step down from the "super lux" tour bus that I had gotten used to for the school trips. It was all kidney jarring fun as we hurtled down the desert highway in what amounted to a tin can with no seat belts. Ahhh, Egypt.

After the painfully long four hour trip, we made it to the jumping off point. After a quick lunch, we exchanged the micro bus for three Land Cruisers and headed off road. We drove through the Black Desert, which gets it's name from the black basalt that covers the ground. Some seventy million years ago, the black desert was the bottom of the ocean, and had many magma vents which deposited the basalt. Nowadays, the magma vents form small mountains, and the landscape looks like a cross between the surface of Mars and a burnt snicker doodle (Thanks Nicola!). After about two hours, we crossed into the White Desert, which is a bit younger at forty million years, The White Desert gets it's name from the large limestone, salt and chalk towers that rise out it's sands. It's possible to find fossilized seashells (I even found some small shark teeth) and other marine animal fossils among the monoliths. Truly, it's comparable to the Grand Canyon in awe factor, and I'm going to try to make a longer trip at some point.

The sand proved to be a hedonistic pleasure, and I ended up going barefoot for most of the weekend. We set up camp right before sunset, and our guides had a perfect marshmallow roasting fire started in no time. I whipped them out, and started talking orders (rare, medium brown, or well done) much to the amusement of the guides (but they enjoyed the marshmallows along with everyone else). Dinner followed, and we spent the evening talking around the campfire (and yes, there was drinking involved). We were visited by a really cute desert fox; I got to know some really great people in the upper levels of ALI. There were even two other girls from Seattle in the group. It was a really good mix of people, and I was thankful that I had decided to go.

By the time bedtime rolled around, it had gotten rather chilly, and as I result I had on all of the clothes that I had brought. We curled up in sleeping bags under the stars and drifted off to the lovely sound of the wind and silence.

The next morning we broke camp and did a bit more walking and driving through the desert. I took plenty of pictures, and I'll be posting them in the next couple of days. My pictures will do a far better job of showing the desert then I can.

Finally we got back to the base camp, piled back on to yet another micro bus (this one a newer vintage, but still tin can-esk) and began the journey back to Cairo. It was just as painful as the first, but this time I was dusty and ready to get home which made the ride seem that much longer. As per normal, traffic was hideous from the burbs all the way into town, and we saw some serious characters in the cars around us.

So that's been the last month. I didn't mean this post to become quite so epically long, but I had quite a bit catching up to do. Thanks for sticking through it ;)

Being the American University in Cairo, we have Thanksgiving off this week. I'll be talking yet another trip, this time a Nile Cruise to Aswan, Luxor, The Valley of the Kings, and Abu Simbel. Hopefully I'll have a chance to post before I go, but if not, I hope that all of ya'll back home have a great Turkey day!