Egypt: Insha'Allah

Egypt is a trip! "Insha'Allah" or "God Willing" is the mantra. Taking a taxi, crossing the street, riding a camel. Insha'Allah, Insha'Allah, Insha'Allah. Our first stop here, Cairo, is the loudest and wildest city that either of us have experienced. We heard that the common conception of rules (especially road rules) are that they are only discussed as punch lines in jokes. There is a country-wide drive to enforce one road rule: do not drive into oncoming traffic. We haven't noticed much compliance with that or any other rule.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------On our first full day in Cairo, we took the suggestion of our pension owner and old friend Marshall and hired a personal taxi driver for the day to see the pyramids. First stop was the grand daddy of all pyramids: the Giza Pyramids. The air was slightly smoggy and the pyramids and sphinx were so surreal, that it was almost like looking at them on TV. The pyramids and the sphinx were grand and meticulously built. It is amazing they look similar to how they did 4,000 years ago. The only difference is that the shiny limestone facade has been eroded from the facing and 18 feet of the tallest, Great Pyramid, has been lost from wind erosion. The next stop on our pyramid quest was the Saqqara Pyramids to see the oldest pyramid: the Step Pyramid. Then we headed off to Dashur, where there were no other tourists about since it is about 30 miles from Giza . Here we descended into the huge Red Pyramid. This included hiking about four stories up the outside of the pyramid, paying a random guy baksheesh to turn on the lights, then squatting to a height of about 3 feet to fit into the passageway and hiking down about 10 stories beneath the ground to the depths of the pyramid, which opened up to a tight, tall room with a tiered ceiling. It was dark, damp, and about 100 degrees F in the eerie depths of the pyramid. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The next day we took a locals bus to St. Catherine`s located on the Sinai Peninsula. It was suppose to be a comfy, air-conditioned, fast bus. It was not. Oversold by 20 people hanging out in the aisle for nine hours with no air conditioning, a broken seat, and being yelled at a regular intervals by the mean bus driver for opening the windows, trying to leave the bus during gas fill-ups and people sneaking a quick smoke at the back of the bus. To top off the day, I was also suffering from terrible pains in my quadriceps from the trek into the pyramid the day before. We felt more like hostages than passengers, but hay, we lived through it and we have a good story, Insha'Allah.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------St. Catherine was a small village with a nice Bedouin camp and yummy cheap food. After a couple days in Egypt it became normal to see Bedouin people riding camels down the street. Every night we would get a 5 E Pound ($1) Kosheri - rice, noodles, red sauce, hot sauce, fried onions. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------We woke up at 2 AM to walk to the St. Catherine Monastery and hike Mt. Sinai for the sun rise. St. Catherine is famous in the three monotheistic religions (Christian, Jewish, Islam) for it being the place where: a) Catherine was carried to the mountain by angles after being tortured and beheaded for her faith in Alexandria, b) Moses received his 10 commandments, and c) the descendant of the original burning bush is living for all of us tourists to touch and get poked by its holy thorns. Since my knowledge in the history of religion is meager, at best, I kept having to ask Braden, with his numerous years of Catholic school what it all means. For our hike to Mt. Sinai, we had to hire a Bedouin guide to lead us up the stepped trail in the dark. Muha, our guide, was a sour 17-year old, that was on a mission to pass everyone on the trail (about 400 tourists, 100 guides, and 100 camels that night). His technique to get tourists to squeeze to the right was to imitate a gargling camel. It worked like a charm. At the top, we watched the brilliant red sun rise over the rugged mountains at 5:30 AM. On the hike down we stepped down all 3750 steps of repentance - signifying that every step is to repent for a sin. Braden commented that I may need to do the hike at least one more time. After a visit to the monastery at the bottom of the hill we slept for the rest of the day.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Other Egypt idiosyncrasies include the money. At times, places do not accept the Egyptian Pound and only take Euros or US dollars. Generally, we have to be very keen on the amount of change received - Braden had to ask three times for correct change at the Giza Pyramid ticket office as the lady started giving him change of a 50 fil note (20 cents) rather than 50 pound note (20 dollars) . Often, the price of an item varies to how suave the store owner thinks you are. All the time, you have to dicker, dicker, dicker. Insha'Allah.