Cairo & Sharm el-Sheikh

Hello again,

I have now been in Egypt for twelve days. I arrived in Cairo at 1.30am on the 18th December, sixteen sleepless hours after waving goodbye to Korea. My rather naïve plan was to find a bench in the airport to kip on until a reasonable hour, then to head off sightseeing. The consideration that I was coming to the Middle East, and that the airport building would likely be smaller than your average Korean jjimjilbang, hadn't crossed my mind once. So I was left to the touts in the balmy early hours; I relented to being ripped off and caught a taxi to the driver's mate's hotel.

The following day I agreed to an express tour of the Cairo area. I hired a taxi driver for the day and went first to Saqqara – home of the famous Pyramid of Djoser. I was then taken to the driver's mate's papyrus museum (anyone see a pattern emerging?) for 'just look no buy', then to Giza. I hired a camel and guide at the entrance and spent a couple of hours riding around the Pyramids and the Sphinx – constructions that I suspect would be awe-inspiring if they didn't already feel so familiar. Saying that, I had no idea that the Sphinx was carved from a single stone – I had to tip a bloke for telling me that. I decided to go back to the hotel as the noise and tourist traps were stressing me out. Plus the camel ride had seriously bruised my nadgers. I actually spent the next couple of days walking like John Wayne...if someone had kicked John Wayne in the bollocks. As it was the middle of the Eid-el-Kbir festival and all the buses were booked out I was forced to take a ludicrously expensive overnight taxi to Sharm el-Sheikh. I arrived at the hotel at 5.30am and was told I would have to wait until mid-morning for a room. Fortunately the receptionist seemed to resent a dirty, smelly, bearded gypsy asleep in the five-star lobby so sorted me out before the other guests woke up.

I spent my solo day either asleep, ordering room service or watching obscure 80s B-movies. I also considered why I'd had such a miserable day yesterday – the traffic, noise and hassle are certainly no worse than Thamel, yet I couldn't relax all day. The fact I hadn't slept for 48 hours probably didn't help, but I think the main problem was that I hadn't mentally prepared myself. I didn't consider how easy Japan and Korea had been, and I needed to realise that everything in Egypt (besides finding people who spoke English) was going to be tougher. I spent the day giving myself a serious talking to! My parents finally arrived in the evening; it was odd to think that it had been four months since I last saw them, though the stress of the previous day had made the chaos of Nepal feel like an awfully long time ago. Luckily they brought a Cadbury's Selection Box to soothe my bruised backpacker ego.

The next few days were mostly taken up with underwater activities. Mum really got into her snorkelling while dad and I booked into a recreational SCUBA course. It was run by a group of Germans so was suitably detailed and overcautious…we were even lumped with homework (boo!) The course gradually progressed from the swimming pool to confined water, then finally into the Red Sea where the coral is breathtaking. Unfortunately by this stage the instructor and my dad had come to the mutual agreement that he was rubbish, so I did the last two days of the course myself. I finally got my Open Water certification on Boxing Day and I'm already itching to get back to the coast for my first qualified dive. Though diving took up the days we were still able to go out in the evening, either to the extremely tacky Na'ama Bay or to the fractionally less tacky Sharm Old Market. We managed to get some decent food here (I had roast pigeon on the first night!) and on Christmas eve we were treated to a festive dinner at the hotel...namely cold meats, salad and potato croquettes. I even managed to squeeze in a shave and a haircut, though I wish I hadn't; after the normal routine the hairdresser whipped out a long strip of dental floss, held it taut and proceeded to rip the hairs out of my cheeks and forehead by the roots. He even tried to shape my eyebrows but as I already had tears in my eyes, and had a level of resistance to looking like an utter idiot, I managed to dissuade him.

On December 25th we ventured into the desert – first to St. Catherine's Monastery at the foot of Mt. Sinai (that one's for you bible fans) then to the Coloured Canyon, where you hike through a narrow passage between the rock, often blocked by ancient fallen boulders for which the guide claims ignorance. The tour stops were beautiful but the jeep was ridiculously uncomfortable and our lunch stop in Nuweiba didn’t come until gone 5pm. It was dark by the time we got to the supposed snorkelling spot of Dahab. The whole day was really the antithesis of the normal British Christmas; instead of frost we had desert; instead of Christmas lunch we were starved; instead of peace and goodwill to all men I was stuck in a confined space with a Frenchman. Dad summed it up concisely: "great sights, shit tour"*. Incidentally, Christmas dinner was a tuna baguette in the hotel at 10pm. As for presents, lots of people had contributed to the fee for my diving course (many many thanks) and I also got some new clothes and trainers, as well as Lonely Planets for the foreseeable future. Exactly what I needed.

On Boxing Day I said goodbye to my parents. It had been really nice to see them over the festive period but I was now ready to start slumming it again (so long as I had the Egypt guide nestled comfortably at my side). I stayed for an evening in Old Sharm with couchsurfer Jay, who I will hopefully dive with when I return to the area en route to Jordan, and the next morning I jumped on a bus back to Cairo. It cost less than a tenth of the taxi to Sharm. The bus was surprisingly comfortable and the journey pretty uneventful until twenty minutes after the brief lunch stop, when the driver got a call saying he'd left somebody behind. He did an immediate U-turn but as soon as he hit the desert beside the road the bus sank. We spent an hour trying to dig it out with our hands before a tow truck came to our rescue. The bus immediately took another U-turn and we set off for Cairo – never mind the bloke at the lunch stop. We arrived two hours late, despite only having stopped for an hour, and I checked into the hostel. Brown walls, hard beds, the subtle waft of effluent from the unflushable toilet – bliss!

Since then I have been exploring Cairo with some fellow travellers. The Egyptian Museum has some exceptional exhibits, but after three hours you get serious Pharoah phatigue. The museum is a bit of a mess, with exhibits like Tutankhamun's Gold Mask hidden amid some nondescript pottery, but that's part of the charm. The fact that you have to try every room means you find some real unvisited gems, such as a beautiful rock carving from 5000 BC! I have also been to Coptic Cairo, Downtown, Garden City, Midan Ramses, several mosques and (my favourite place) Islamic Cairo. It's no more Islamic than anywhere else in Cairo, but it is absolutely crazy! It houses the notoriously chaotic Khan al-Khalili bazaar – best experienced from a nearby sheesha café. I think if I had been taken here on my first day I would have had a meltdown.

So I'm in Cairo for one more year, then I have an overnight train to Aswan on 1st January. I'll figure out the rest at some stage.

Have a fantastic New Year,
Joe x

PS. I've decided that the most annoying things about Egypt are the computer keyboards – some genius decided to put an ‘off’ button right next to ‘delete’. I’ve accidentally rebooted the computer three times since I started writing this entry. Oops, four...

* Mum, you can't have a go at me for swearing as it's a direct quote from your husband! Never Mind The Bollocks...