Tuesday, February 13, 2018

New Year's Eve in Egypt: Yes or No?


The Great Pyramids of Giza
I had been thinking about Egypt, the Pyramids, the Pharaons and the Red Sea for a while now. In the past few months, I also had decided that I would travel less and invest more time in my city, in my friends and local activities, in order to discover my own territory, from which I had been far away for so many years and longed for too long. As often happens, things don't exactly go according to plans...It is a cold winter evening of early December, and I have invited my best friend over for dinner. We start talking about NYE, what shall we do, where shall we go, what are the options in Naples (where we both live), and, between one idea and another, we sip, slowly but surely, a very nice bottle of red wine. And...here we go again! We start fantasizing about a trip together, how nice would that be to go to a warm country, maybe somewhere where we wouldn't necessarily travel alone AND...here I am with my credit card in one hand and a glass of wine in the other, booking a ticket to... CAIRO! It's official, we are spending NYE in Egypt this year!
We leave in the morning of December 29th from Rome and arrive in Cairo in the late afternoon, in a deserted!! airport. We think that it must be because of the arrival time, but we will soon realize that in Egypt there are no tourists, or almost none. We grab a taxi from the airport, after endless negotiations with, at least, 3 different men, desperate to take us to the city center. When we finally pick one, or better, when the most tenacious of them, finally manages to convince us, we get into the car and to our guesthouse, which is VERY central but also very VERY basic, we quickly change and decide to go towards the Ramses station, as the day after the plan is to take a night train and go down south, direction Aswan. 

Remarkable things that happened in Cairo during the evening of December 29th, 2017

- Once at the station, we are the only foreigners in sight. Stations are usually doggy, the one in Cairo is extra-doggy and, in addition, nobody is able to understand us. English is not spoken and apparently they're not so used to dealing with tourists. Once we make it clear that we want a night train to Aswan, they send us from a guichet to another, and when we are finally about to pay (apparently, we can only pay in EURO for that "VIP" train) they tell us that they don't accept coins, so basically how do you pay 77 euro (quite pricey, isn't it?!) if they don't accept 2 euro in coins, nor exchange 5 euro, nor accept the 2 euro in local currency? Exhausted, we decide to give up, we would try again the day after.


Ramses Station - Cairo
- We are starving and decide to try some street food in the street behind the station. The food is not that bad, a pita with fried aubergines and felafel - not that bad, if you don't look at the hygiene, or, better said, the non-hygiene of that little truck and the filthy street where we stand. The food truck is very nice though, adorned with nice colors and baskets full of vegetables, so I decide to take a picture of it, God forbid! People start shouting at me in a very scary way and although I didn't have any human beings in my picture, they want it removed from my phone instantly. Welcome to Cairo!


Food in Cairo
- After eating and having a quick tour around, we decide to head back to our guesthouse, as we are quite tired after the trip and all the impressions of that evening. I propose to take the metro, and so we do. Once we sit, my friend looks at me and says:"Have you seen how many women there are in this coach, and look at how many more are getting in!" Three minutes later, a lady sitting in front of us, with her basic English, asks us "Are you tourists?"  "Yes", "From where?", "Italy", "Well, you have to get off as this is a female coach and your friend can't be here!". It is the first time in my life that I have experienced metro segregation between male and female. At the next stop, we get off and get into another coach, obviously the men one. There is no way that I would separate from my friend, so there I stand, the only woman among a river of men, looking at me like I am an alien. Finally it's time to get off, we walk 5 minutes and are back to the guesthouse.

- At the guesthouse, we ask to the reception guy if the day after he could book for us the famous train tickets to Aswan and, with a big smile, he says:"Sure! And you will only pay 30 euro each with me, not 77 as they asked at the station, for the exact same VIP night train". Of course, we immediately agree, anything in order to avoid the hassle of going to the station again! We just don't know yet that he will book for us a 2nd class ordinary ticket in a train with broken chairs, broken windows, broken toilets, where once again, we will be the only tourists for a 15 hours ride to Aswan (a single ticket costs 55 Egyptian pounds, equivalent to 2,50 euro - so they made a profit of 27,50 euro on each one of us, well done!). 

Welcome to Egypt!  

December 30th, 2017 - The Pyramids


Finally the big day has arrived, we go see the Pyramids today! We get a car from the guesthouse early in the morning and in about 1 hour drive we arrive at the first site on the list, the Pyramids of Saqqara

I don't want to spend time in describing how amazing this site is: what mostly shocked me is what I saw on the way there. From Cairo to Saqqara, all you can see are destroyed buildings, where people actually live, dirt, rivers completely covered in trash, kids playing in dumps, people walking barefoot, roads that can't be called roads, military forces and all sort of armed groups every 50 meters or so. Even when you get at the Pyramids, they check your car with metal-detectors, ask questions about you, your nationality and the reasons why you're there...not the best way to start your sightseeing day! 


Saqqara Pyramids, Laughs and Friends Love 
After Saqqara, we head to the Great Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx. After being checked once more, we enter into the site and decide to take horses to visit the entire area (quite huge and tiring to walk, being all desert and sand dunes). We finish the visit almost at sunset time, and seeing the sun going down behind the pyramids was just beautiful! Of course, this is a must see site, being one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World ❤
Once we are done with this amazing scenery, we head back to the guesthouse, take a shower and get ready for the night trip to Aswan.
Once we step into the train, we immediately realize that we have been scammed: no sleeping VIP train for us, just an old, dirty coach with old, dirty, non-reclining chairs. Oh well, what can we do? We try to sleep, rest and, most of all, we laugh and make the best out of that crazy trip, where people jump off the train while it still moves, till the morning, when we finally get to Aswan, where we have decided to spend NYE ☺☺☺


The Great Pyramids of Giza
December 31st, 2017 - NYE Party   

We arrive in Aswan by lunch time, and head straight to the hotel. We have booked a very nice hotel for just 25 euro each and I have never been so happy to find a clean room with a clean bed, after 15 hours journey. We eat, spend some time at the swimming pool and head towards the colorful souk, where you can find any sort of local goods, from spices to carpets, from traditional baskets to talismans. In Aswan I bought the cheapest souvenirs and also the tastiest mint tea ever! In the late afternoon, we head back to the hotel, as we have booked ourselves into the NYE party organized at the hotel premises and we want to rest and look pretty, for the last night of 2017 💖
At the party, once again, we are the only tourists among locals. We have bought 2 very expensive beers in a hidden bar down-town (come on, what kind of NYE would it be without bubbles!) and I have dressed up with a skirt and a t-shirt, making of me a rebel for a night and also the in-discussed guest star, so much to deserve an interview by local TV!  
After the buffet dinner, we wait for midnight, surrounded by laud Arabic music - which I always loved, to be completely honest - and once midnight comes my friend and I hug and kiss and we realize that we are the only ones doing that, even wife and husband don't touch nor show in public any signs of affection to wish each other all the best for the new year who has just began.Traveling teaches you so much, these people were there just like us, on holidays, having fun, listening to music, caressing their kids, appreciating good food, celebrating life. At the same time, they seemed so far away from us, in terms of freedom, attitude, and beliefs. As they would say in Asia:"Same Same but Different" and this is the entire beauty of this world.        


Drinking Mint-Tea in the Souk of Aswan
January 1st, 2018 - Abu Simbel Temples

We wake up early and get a car to go the magnificent Temples of Abu Simbel, among the most beautiful creations that I have ever seen in my life! From Aswan is about 6 hours drive (3 to go and 3 to come back) and for the entire journey there is pretty much just the desert surrounding everything with its beauty and immensity. We were lucky enough to have full moon and sunset on the way back, immersed into desert and silence! This day was just perfect, even though I could not quite get why our driver was always asking us to keep the curtains of the car windows closed the few times that we saw other people on the way...later we will realize that it was to protect us from the high risk of kidnapping in that specific area of Egypt...



Abu Simbel Big Temple 


Abu Simbel Big Temple
January 2nd, 2018 - The fight!

We wake up quite early again, as today we head towards our next destination: Luxor. We don't know yet how we will get there, however we have met an Egyptian girl at the hotel that offers to bring us to the local bus station and negotiate a good price with the local drivers that leave to Luxor. Once we get there, and after about 20 minutes conversation, she comes back to us telling us that they do not want to take us on-board, as crossing the desert with two foreigners is too risky, as the probability of getting stopped to kidnap us is high! Oh dear! So, now, how the heck do we get to Luxor, which is about 5 hours from Aswan?! The girl starts negotiating with a guy that could bring us there, we agree to go with him only if he can find a newer car - the one that he has will not even get us to the gas station in front of where we are. He tells us that another friend is coming with a new car, and naively, we pay. While we wait for his friend to arrive, the driver that brought us yesterday to Abu Simbel appears and we immediately decide to go with him - he had been very nice to us and his car was good! So, I go to the guy which was still holding my money and tear off the money from his hands before he can even realize it. In a split second we are into the other car, secured and with the curtains closed. Unfortunately, we underestimated the reaction of the guy and his friends: they start assaulting our car from all sides, even the Egyptian girl that is with us in the car is scared, as they shout against us and our new driver, the car bounces left and right, and the worse is when I glimpse from a small fissure and I see people with guns in their hands! The worse goes thru my mind, however, we manage to escape and arrive in Luxor safe and sound (including our Egyptian friend, who came all the way to Luxor with us just to escort us, as she felt somehow responsible for what had just happened). 

Once in Luxor, we say good bye to our heroes (the driver and the girl) and we go visiting 2 of the most important temples of the country: the temple of Karnak and the temple of Luxor. That evening, in the hotel, we meet a very nice Egyptian tour guide from Alexandria that has been living in Luxor for the past 10 years, and she's bored and kind of depressed, due to the fact that in Luxor there is nothing going on and she's 40 and still single. I tell her to come to Europe, where she will find new opportunities, new challenges and new excitement. She looks at me with a resigned face and with a big sigh she tells me: "If only it were so simple..." This is when you realize how lucky you are to have a certain passport, to be born in a certain country rather than another and to be free to decide of your own life, where to live, where to go on holidays, who to marry, and if to marry, at all. 


Luxor Temple

January 3rd, 4th 2018 - Finally at the beach! 


Once again we wake up super early - Gosh, this holiday is killing me - and we go to the Valley of the Kings, to visit the famous tombs of the Pharaons and the Colossi of Memnon. After this sunrise experience, we finally head to a beach destination: Hurgada! Not before 5 hours drive into the desert, of course...In Hurgada we manage to get a 5 stars resort for 25 euro each, ALL included. This is the best deal that I have done in ages! The day after I book myself into a full day on the boat, including snorkeling in one of the most beautiful coral reefs in the world and island hopping. I have to say that December is not the best month to go to Egypt nor snorkeling or diving there, as it is quite chilly and the wind blows strong and cold! The snorkeling was great though, as were the people that I met on the boat that day ☺



Hurgada
January 5th, 2018 - Back to Cairo!

We leave from Hurgada at 2pm with a local bus - this time they let us on-board! - and arrive in Cairo around 8pm. We quickly grab an Uber, get to the guesthouse and hop into the car of the reception guy, as there has been a mistake and there is no place for us where we booked. They have upgraded us to another roof-top guesthouse of the city center (God only knows the name), so we quickly check in, get out to have dinner and go to sleep. Tomorrow we fly back to Italy.     


Somewhere in the Egyptian Desert
Interesting people that we met in Egypt:

The Egyptian girl who saved us from the fight and traveled with us till Luxor just to make sure we made it there safely. 
A polish girl that I met on the boat in Hurgada, living in Scotland, converted to Islam, she had bought a house in Hurgada and used to spend there her holidays with her little kid (she was divorced and not well seen by her family back in Poland, because of her faith and social status of single mum). She wore a long hijab and I found her so delicate and elegant! 
Two Australian sisters of Egyptian origins that I met on the boat in Hurgada and again on the bus back to Cairo. They spoke fluent Arabic and managed to get us cheaper stuff, Orthodox, they offered me a bible hoping that I would become a better person under God's guidance.
  
Facts that you might want to know about Egypt:

1) Is it safe to go to Egypt now?
If I had to go back soon, I wouldn't, to be completely honest with you. The situation is very unstable and you can see it and feel it pretty much everywhere. 
2) Is it safe, as a girl, to travel alone to Egypt? 
Personally, I couldn't have been happier to be traveling, for once, with a friend of mine (guy, even better). So, no, I wouldn't advise girls to travel alone, especially if moving a lot thru the country. 
3) Is it safe to travel without an organized tour? 
You can, as we did. However, if you go with an agency, you might save yourself some stress due to finding out how to get to a place, where to go and to whom to rely upon. At the same time, our adventures were the best thing of this trip and the memories that I will keep with me for ever. 
4) Is December/January a good period to travel to Egypt?
Yes and No. Meaning that in this period is not too warm and places are not too crowded. However, for swimming,diving, snorkeling, sunbathing, wearing t-shirts and bikini it was a bit cold, especially in the night.
5) Do they try to rip you off? 
Yes, constantly. Always negotiate, at least, half of the price for everything.
6) Is Cairo the best place to buy souvenirs? 
Nope, buy stuff in the local markets of smaller cities. Cairo is expensive and there is very little choice. 
7) Despite all the above, is the country worth visiting once in a lifetime? 
Definitely yes, where else can you see the Pyramids?!?!

Where to stay and where DO NOT! 

Cairo: My Hotel Hostel → Very basic, kind of dirty, especially if you book a room with shared bathroom (which we did not, however they still gave us a room without private bathroom, as there was a "mix-up" in the bookings). In addition, they scammed us with the train tickets, letting us pay 4 times the normal price. Wouldn't stay again nor advise people to go there. The only plus is the location, very central and in front of the metro.

Aswan: Citymax Hotel Aswan → Excellent hotel, central, clean, great view on the Nile, great breakfast. Totally recommended! 

Luxor: Iberotel Luxor → Good old-fashioned hotel, central, great buffet and breakfast.

Hurgada: Desert Rose Resort → Excellent resort, with all inclusive formula as well, food was good as well as the entire structure. Clean, relaxing, with a nice beach and big swimming pools where to relax. Totally recommended! 

Where to eat:

Cairo: Felfela
Aswan: Makka
           

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