July 1, 2007

Travis' blog

This morning we woke up to finish packing, eat breakfast (where I bravely took 1/4 pill of my knock-off Dramamine with unpredictable results), then carry all of our stuff over to Jaffa gate and to Mazada tours. It's amazing how empty the Old City is at 8 o'clock in the morning. We were there by 8:20, only to sit and wait for a long while for the bus to finally show up. Then, the bus headed up to Tel Aviv to pick up another group and switch to a (thankfully) nicer bus. (Honestly, it seems counter-productive to go from Jerusalem, up to Tel Aviv, then all the way back down to Sinai... but hey, I'm not the one in charge. Shortly before we left Israel, we stopped for lunch. Having nothing written in English, we resorted to pointing to a massive hot dog and hoping for the best. (Sometimes it's nice to live in a kosher world... you don't have to fear what you're eating too much.) Let me tell you, that hot dog was amazingly large. And remarkably good, to be honest, except for the overly hard bread it was encased in. Meh. Beggars can't be choosers. Though... we did pay for it... Beggars don't typically pay for their food.

Next stop—border crossing. Oh my! Was that an experience. It all went well leaving Israel. Nothing went wrong through there. They were a little appalled (as were we) to see how faint Travis' entry visa/stamp was, and thusly made sure to give him a crisp and clear exit stamp. Entering Egypt was another adventure in and of itself. First was getting all of Travis' cameras through x-ray. I'm pretty sure traveling in small groups must be immensely easier if you're not carrying two rather large bags full of expensive cameras, films, and lenses. I got through just fine, me and my Camelbak and large hiking backpack (and by 'mine' I mean, Travis's, but that I get to carry everywhere, considering that he has to carry his nice and heavy camera equipment). I stuck around until he got his shoulder bag cleared, and figuring that was all, I headed over to get my Visa stamps. Having filled out my customs form, I realized that Travis was not with me. Seeing his backpack with all his 4x5 camera stuff open, I realized that I had left too hastily. Oh well. What could I do? So I continued to buy my visa, head over to the tour guide, get them stuck in, and wait for Travis. The last two turned out not to be quite so simple, either. The Egyptian visa is comprised of two stamps (remarkably like postage stamps), an orange and a green. My orange stamp did not want to stay stuck. The guide sat their pounding the counter, trying hard to get it to stick. He finally got it to sort of stay, then took my passport to get it stamped.

Waiting for Travis took awhile as well. I'll let Travis tell his amazing adventure here. It is amazing how at security checkpoints the first thing any guard reaches for is a box of film to see what is inside. It is a really fine line internally as I ponder what is more important, stopping the guard from ruining the film or not getting arrested for tackling a security guard in a foreign country. Fortunately, I walked the line well. (No, I have not been put to work building a new pyramid) Suspicions still ran high so new security guards kept getting called over, I assume they were just working up the food chain, nobody wanting to take the responsibility of letting me into the country. Each progressive guard instinctively wanting to imprison me would quickly reach for a box of film and I would have to start to walk that fine line again. Then, when he finally got through and we got our passports back, one guide came up, told me to come over—singling me out from the rest of the group. Luckily, Travis got there first so the craziness never reached me except in story form. Again, Travis gets to tell this one. I actually didn't recognize him as a guide, I just saw some guy pass by a few people and pull Tianna out. So while Tianna was trying to step over people I cut over to him where he was fumbling through some money and told me he wanted to help somebody out. Memories of long hours sleeping in airports waiting for my next canceled flight because I did something nice for somebody and I quickly nodded no to however he was trying to help us. Luckily another guide came over and grabbed him and gave him a quick talking to. (At least I assume he was chewing him out since in Arabic everybody sounds like they are yelling at each other even if they are complementing someone on a new hair cut) Then he took him over to a sales counter took his money and bought a bunch of cigarettes for him. Now I realize he was going to help us by letting us smuggle cigarettes into Egypt for him. Fun.

Next was the long drive across the Sinai. With the tiny bit of Dramamine kicking in, I easily slept through a large portion of it, which was fine by me. Come twilight, we stopped in Podunkville for a break. Welcome to Sinai bathrooms. No toilet paper, squatter that doesn't flush, rather has a pitcher to fill with water and just pour down. Also, don't forget the inch of standing water from people who missed the pitcher... at least, I seriously hope that's where the water came from. Luckly, my chakos are tall enough to keep me out of it. Then, no soap while washing my hands. All in all, a pleasant experience. [rolls eyes] I got back outside to find Travis photographing the local scenery. Ha! Really, it's something you'd see in a horror movie. Puts Ririe to shame. To top it off, our stop served dinner, but it wasn't anything I would trust with the thought of Ramses' Revenge lingering in the back of my mind, so Travis and I decided to forgo dinner in lieu of health. While he photographed, a few of the girls on the bus gathered round (1 from Mexico, two from South America, and one Palestinian). We ended up having a grand old time putting their tiny little digital cameras atop Travis' massive tripod. It was quite the laugh. Then, it was back on the bus.

We spent a fair amount of time talking to these girls on our trip. Mostly Travis, though. He was in the aisle, whilst I was tucked away by the window. Made for much easier communication. So I mostly just listened. The most interesting of the conversations was when the Palestinian girl (who just got accepted for a scholarship to BYU for fall!) told us about Call to Prayer. Apparently, the one at 4 am basically says it's better to pray than to sleep. (Humorously, when I wrote that in my notebook, I wrote "better to sleep than pray" ... come 4 am, I think that's what I'd probably be thinking anyway. God will listen to me any time.) She also talked about how many times you have to bow for each prayer. Then she refused to talk about it any more. I don't think she wanted to make us accountable or something. :) Our last stop before Cairo was another podunk place, which really was meant to give our driver, security, and guides a chance to get off and smoke and drink tea or coffee. The rest of us, simply eager to get to Cario, never got off the bus. Rather, we stayed on and talked until they got back on.

We finally made it to Cairo, then started the trek to drop everyone off at our different hotels. Turns out, in our desire to stay at a "safe" hotel (and being the biggest suckers in the world), the 5 star hotel we had chosen was stars above everyone else on the trip. Haha! Note to anyone traveling to Egypt, 3 stars is most likely perfectly sufficient to keep you healthy, so long as you're still careful about what you eat. We also chose our hotel for it's location—close to the pyramids—making ours the second to last stop. (It would have been the last, but one girl from Thailand hadn't communicated her destination properly, so they had to take her back to the other side of town when they were done with us.) About an hour drive later, we finally made it into our hotel at 2 am. Even in our exhausted state, we took the time to admire the really nice hotel, especially in comparison to the hostel we had been staying at, but quickly crashed into bed. (Though, I do believe Travis turned on the TV for a bit before going to sleep.)