10-11 July: Luxor

Leaving behind our faithful felucca and taking once more to travel by land, we followed the path of the Nile north, reaching Luxor by midday. Formerly the ancient capital of Thebes, Luxor maintains a sense of power and regality through the magnificent temples, tombs, and monuments that it still hosts.

We started at Karnak Temple. If Abu Aimbel had seemed to me the impressive embodiment of authority, Karnak was even more so. Massive stone pillars, towering obelisks, kingly statues, and a fantastic wealth of hieroglyphics all paid tribute to the god above all Egyptian gods, Ra. I couldn't help but be held in awe.

(At times, though, I will note, my awe was mingled with immature amusement, as I also couldn't help but snigger at the many representations of the fertility god Min, who as a result of having impregnated the entire female population of an ancient Egyptian village, is always depicted in an…aroused state.)

The next day, we traveled to see the Colossi of Memnon and the Valley of the Kings, similarly constructed to honor, inspire, and exalt. The ravages of thousands of years gone by had diminished the effect very little.

Lunch that day was served to us at a home off the back streets of Luxor. We had been invited by the wife of the brother of the owner of the hotel at which we were staying – an incredible show of hospitality on her part to invite 12 foreign strangers into her house. We sat on cushions around a long, low table in the living room and ate savory chicken broth and pasta soup, stuffed peppers, fresh marinated tomatoes, baba ghanoush, dense bread, and the best fried chicken I've tasted since leaving behind the American South. After the meal, we sat together with the family and sipped mint tea, while the two little daughters constructed cars and boats out of the couch cushions.

Throughout all this, there was an element of the Luxor leg of our tour that felt like the beginning of the end. During group meals, our tour guide made speeches about how much he enjoyed his time with us and how leaving was the hardest part of his job. Email addresses were exchanged, along with all the usual, "It's been nice meeting you," "Safe travels," "Keep in touch." Boarding the night train back to Cairo, though, sparked the formal goodbyes. We took our goofy group photos in the station, we played our last hands of cards together on the train, and finally in Cairo we said hurried goodbyes to those who were rushing off to make morning flights. The organized portion of our trip had come to an end, but Suzanne and I were just on our way to a new (disorganized?) portion on our own.

7-9 July 2008: Aswan

The city of Aswan is gorgeously situated on the banks of the Nile at the point of some of the clearest waters. From the balcony of our hotel room, Suzanne and I had a stunning view of the blue flowing waters, the vivid green waterside palms, the canvas sails of the wooden feluccas.

The two of us began our stay in Aswan by exploring the area around our hotel, and we eventually found ourselves inside the large, open-air Nubian bazaar. The experience was pretty much the same as inside Khan al Khalili, but the wide, bricked streets and the reduced number of tourists out in the heat of the afternoon made it a little more comfortable (other than, of course, the heat of the afternoon that most other tourists were smart enough not to go out in). Vendors attempted to draw us in by asking us where we were from, and I confused them terribly by answering, "Ethiopia."

Joining back up with our group at the hotel, we took a boat out to Elephantine Island, home to the oldest extant Nubian village. In ancient times, the region of Nubia consisted in all lands south of Egypt, including Ethiopia. As a result, the commonalities between the Ethiopian and Nubian cultures were striking, in the relaxed pace of life, the conventions and expectations for showing hospitality to a guest, the colorful ceremonies and celebrations. I felt comfortably at home in a way that I had not in Cairo.

We were invited into the home of a Rastafarian-leaning Nubian gentleman who went by "JJ", seemed to know everyone on the island, and could have easily passed for the Nubian Godfather. We drank fresh, chilled mango juice and saw photographs and video from his wedding. One posed photograph showed the groom brandishing a large whip in front of his bride, who faced him with palms pressed together in front of her heart, as if in prayer or plea. Our uneasiness over this picture was only slightly allayed when our guide explained that the whip pertained to a traditional Sudanese wedding dance between groom and best man.

We trolled around the Nile upstream from Elephantine Island, eventually taking to shore at a scenic outdoor café on the riverbank. There, I got my first chance to swim in the Nile. I use the term "swim" loosely in this case, since the currents toward the middle of the river were far stronger than I wanted to really test. But I did have my entire body immersed in the waters of the Egyptian Nile, which was enough to validate the experience for me, anyhow. I saw no crocodiles, unless you count the small one kept in a plastic bucket by the owners of the café gift shop.

After several minutes in the chilly water, I joined the others on shore for shisha and Nubian coffee, which was not quite as bold as Ethiopian coffee but beautifully and piquantly spiced. Then, once we had dried off, we hired camels and rode inland over part of the Sahara to Saint Simeon's Monastery. Sitting atop my tall, white camel named Leon, it was a plodding, bumpy, but rather soothing ride through the vast and desolate stretch of sand. Between the Nile, the Sahara, the camels and the shisha, it felt a thoroughly stereotypical Egyptian experience.

That night, we ferried out to Philae Temple, built to commemorate Isis's sacrifice of love for her murdered Osiris, which restored the waters of the Nile. (Perhaps ironically, considering the temple's mythological origins, the temple was flooded in 1906 after the construction of the first Aswan dam, and it was only through international efforts during the 1970s that it was saved.) We watched a "sound and light show" that walked us through the temple's complex five-thousand-year history and demonstrated the dynamic lines of history, mythology, religion, and politics converging and running through it. It was a vivid reminder of the richness, depth, and intricacy of all the things we were seeing in Egypt, which offered even more beyond the beautiful architecture noted by casual observation.

We returned to the city late at night and, sadly, were forced into supporting the intrusion of American fast food abroad, since the only place to grab a quick dinner at that hour was the McDonald's. Maybe I was just paranoid and self-conscious, but I swear the Egyptians we passed on the street were laughing at the Americans carrying their red and yellow paper sacks of greasy, supply-chained, ultra-standardized, factory-produced fast food.

Aswan had come alive at night, after the harsh sun had plunged below the horizon and given way to the cool darkness and a brilliant starry sky. It was exciting and invigorating for a girl used to being locked indoors for the most part during the night hours.

Suzanne and I stopped in a little shop to buy a couple bottles of water. As we were walking back to the hotel, we began to hear offensive catcalling behind us. It started as kissing noises, and then we began hear an Egyptian voice calling, "Hey! Hey! Hey, girls! Hey! Want some company? Hey, girls, want some company?" It followed us for about a block, after which I turned to Suzanne, and I believe my exact words were, "I'm gonna punch this guy in the face. I'm gonna kill someone." We heard the pace of the footsteps behind us quicken to catch up with us, and the next "Hey!" came from just behind us. I whipped around. I was angry. I was ready. It was our tour guide. Our lanky, goofy, mischievous Egyptian tour guide was screwing with us. He laughed and laughed, hugged us, and made fun of the infuriated and indignant expression on my face. It became a favorite joke between us for the rest of the trip. Perhaps nine months of harassment as a foreign woman in Ethiopia has made me just a little bit touchy…

A late night was followed by a very early morning, as we had to join the police convoy at 4 AM in order to travel southward to Abu Simbel. Abu Simbel consists of two giant rock-hewn temples, constructed under the Pharaoh Ramses II in the 13th century BC. Built into the side of a limestone mountain and transferred in the 1960s (again due to the construction of the Aswan dam) to its current waterside location on the banks of the artificial Lake Nasser, it is a massive structure, obviously meant to convey power and invoke awe. An intimidating lineup of four giant statues guards the entrance to the larger of the two temples. But for me, the most incredible aspect of Abu Simbel was the wealth of hieroglyphics adorning the walls in the extensive network of internal chambers (which, unfortunately, tourists are prohibited from photographing).

I had passed out on the back seat on the bus ride to Abu Simbel, which was uncharacteristic of me, as I'm usually one to enjoy watching the scenery flying past me. I was woken up just briefly by the "oohs" and "aahs" of my tripmates on the bus, and I sat up groggily and stared out the back window to see a dazzling sunrise over the vacant desert landscape. For the most part, though, I slept soundly, and seeing all the desolate nothingness through which our path took on the way back, I didn't feel like I had missed much.

Back at the hotel in Aswan, Suzanne and I slept and showered. There was a confusing and rather frightening moment in which an Egyptian man in a possibly uniform polo shirt showed up at our door holding a knife. He made signs and gestures that suggested he was there to fix our air conditioner, but as the air conditioner was working quite nicely, I didn't feel compelled to invite him in. I'm sure he and the rest of the hotel staff of which he was likely a legitimate part had a great laugh at me later, but I sure wasn't going to take any chances.

We spent the next day on the water. It was a day of complete relaxation, a leisurely boat trip on a bright, lazy day that recalled time passed on the lakes at home on beautiful, muggy summer days. We read, played cards, drank cold beers from our cooler, and napped under the canopy of our canvas-sailed felucca. Stopping every so often to swim in the cool water, we inevitably drew a crowd of curious Egyptian boys with whom we threw Frisbee. Good alumni that we are, Suzanne and I made sure to fly our Clemson flag from the stern of the boat. It waved proudly in the breeze and glinted vivid orange under the splendid sun.

At night, we docked at a little sand beach with two other tourist boats. The boat assistants built a campfire, Egyptian drums appeared out of nowhere, and suddenly the quiet beach was transformed into a spirited circle of singing and dancing. We spun, stomped, stepped, clapped, kicked, swayed, and shook to the lively rhythms until guides and guests alike were worn out. We settled ourselves down on blankets around the fire, and the smell of sweet apples filled the air as the shisha pipes were fired up. A demonstration of the traditional "haka" from the New Zealanders launched a sort of nationalistic talent show, in which a song was demanded from the citizens of each country represented there on the beach. I led my countrymen in a rousing rendition of "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling," which might not be quite as cultural or historical as the hucker, but surely won a special part in the American tradition after its prominent appearance in Top Gun.

We slept on the deck of the felucca. When I awoke the next morning and rolled over on my stomach to peek over the side of the boat, I was greeted by the sun rising brilliantly over the water, lighting up the Nile like fire.

5-6 July 2008: Cairo and Giza

We began our sightseeing by walking to Al Azar mosque in the heart of Islamic Cairo. We strolled around the large open courtyard and tried to take in the towering minarets, the smooth curved domes, the intricate Arabesque arches. Inside the mosque, we wandered through a forest of wooden pillars and the many young men dozing up against them, sheltered from the intense afternoon sun. (Our tour guide remarked of the men napping in the mosque, "This is a bad habit.")

Our next visit was to Khan al Khalili market, the noise and bustle of which provided a stark contrast to the solemn serenity of Al Azar. I wandered with Suzanne up and down the aisles and aisles of stalls selling traditional clothing, scarves, papyrus paintings, wooden instruments, silver jewelry, intricate boxes inlaid with mother-of-pearl, carved statuettes, and fragrant spices. We were bombarded on all sides by the insistent sales pitches of the merchants, the forceful proffering of items, the assurances of "top quality" and "honest price", the shameless flattery and even several offers of marriage. I have experienced the haggling culture of several different countries now, but in my opinions the Egyptians have thought up the wittiest lines. My favorites included, "I don't know what you're looking for, but I have exactly what you need!", "Ninety-nine percent discount for beautiful girls!", and "How can I take your money?", which I found rather refreshingly honest.

From Khan al Khalili, we went up to El Azar park, which overlooks the city from the top of a hill. We watched the sun set over a hazy skyline, surrounded by happy Egyptian families and small boys flying colorful kites. Then, in the evening, we watched a traditional Sufi dance show. White-robed musicians played cultural flutes, drums, tambourines, guitars, bells and cymbals while Sufi dancers in gigantic, round, rainbow-colored skirts whirled and twirled, sometimes, amazingly, for up to half an hour without stopping. It was a fantastic display of color, motion, and sound.

At the end of the day, the group gathered back at the hotel bar and swapped travel stories over local Stella beers. Suzanne and I really hadn't STOPPED talking since our scene in the lobby, but in spite of this, and despite some serious jet lag on her part coming from India and then the States, we stayed up late into the night catching up on everything from our nine months of separation.

Fortunately, it wasn't TOO terribly early the next morning when we set out for the pyramids at Giza. (The city has encroached much further into the desert since ancient times, such that the Great Pyramids are now only about a twenty-minute drive from downtown Cairo.) Our second day was filled with ancient wonders: the Great Pyramids, the Sphinx, King Tutankhamen's gold head mask and golden sarcophagi, and innumerable treasures housed by the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Seeing all these iconic marvels from ancient Egypt, I felt an extraordinary connection to peoples and civilizations of the past, as well as to the millions and millions of others throughout time who have seen and been held in awe.

After a free afternoon (mostly spent napping) we boarded our sleeper train to Aswan. I passed the night playing Texas Hold'em and slept on a bunk bed above Suzanne. It felt just like college again (except that a leak in the piping allowed urine to seep up through a spot in our carpet and stink up our small enclosed car, which only reminded me of isolated moments of college).

5 July 2008: Arrival in Egypt

In my first steps off the plane, I was met by a thick desert heat that even at 4:00 in the morning was oppressive. I had arrived in Cairo to begin a ten-day trip that would show me architectural wonders of the ancient world, provide me first first-hand taste of an Arabic nation, reunite me with my dear friend and four-year roommate from college, and expose me to a quite different extreme of weather from the Ethiopian rainy season.

Aside from all that, though, it would be the first time in nine months that I would have to consider myself merely a tourist in a foreign country. I felt all the uncertainties of that long-ago flight to Ethiopia, except that the inscrutable chatter around me was now Arabic rather than Amharic and produced not by an old tattooed woman but by dozens of senior Egyptian men dressed in their grayish galabeyas. Most of all, I felt clumsy, timid, and ignorant, having come from a country in which I had amassed now nine months of language and culture proficiency, to a country in which I was armed only with a phrase book and a booked tour itinerary.

The flight had gone smoothly, albeit mostly sleeplessly. On any other airline, one could expect a flight departing at 10 PM and arriving at 3 AM to pass quietly and rather uneventfully. But Ethiopian Airlines is not like any other airline. And so it was that my "red-eye" flight was filled with the constant glare of the artificial overhead lighting, the loud and jovial chatter of Egyptian men, two in-flight movies, two drink services, and a 2 AM dinner, for which occasion the flight attendant felt compelled to forcibly shake me awake. After now two international flights with Ethiopian and having been woken up for every snack, meal, and other offered service, I am beginning to think that they take sleeping on their flights personally.

After deplaning, I mentally braced myself for my first set of challenges. Buy visa. Exchange money. Pass customs. Find taxi. The first three were much simpler than I had envisioned, as the entire procedure for obtaining an Egyptian tourist visa consists in handing 15 USD through the money exchange window. (I was thankful that I had not bothered to complete forms and submit pictures beforehand to the embassy in Addis.) As for the taxi, I found myself apprehended by a small, wiry man at the airport information desk and shuffled upstairs to "an honest government tourist car." I'm sure the wiry man was simply a taxi operator, and I'm sure the driver was simply a friend of his, and I'm absolutely certain I paid double the normal going rate, but as a rather clueless tourist showing up alone in a country where I speak almost none of local language, I'm going to have to expect to get ripped off a little bit initially. The driver asked me if I would like to listen to Egyptian music, then asked me how much I would pay to hear it. He also told me several times during the drive that he hoped I would not forget his tip.

On the drive from the airport through the city, I felt like a little kid, wondering at the beautiful domed mosques and soaring minarets, the intricate palaces, the imposing stone citadel. I caught my first glimpse of the Egyptian Nile lying serenely between Cairo and Giza in the pale morning light.

I was staying with a friend of a friend of a friend, who was kind enough to offer hospitality to a total stranger (outside of the all-important Facebook friendship) for the several hours I'd have to myself in the city before meeting my tour group. When I opened the door to the flat, I was struck immediately by the wood floors, which I had seen in Ethiopia only in the Ambassador's residence. This shock was immediately supplanted in my mind, however, when a glass of ice cold filtered, REFRIGERATED water was placed in my hand.

I slept through most of the morning and took a cold shower upon waking in order to relieve the heat. Then I strapped on my pack and hit the streets.

For a large capital city, it seemed a relatively calm Saturday morning. Families strolled together in residential areas. In the commercial districts, business owners watched people in the streets from the cool shade of their breezy shop doorways. I stopped at a small snack shop and bought some coconut-flavored biscuits to get change for the Metro. Being confident in only three words of Arabic (the common two-word greeting and, thanks to watching Al Jazeera in Ethiopia, the word for "soup," which is the same in Amharic) and being unfamiliar with Egyptian currency and pricing, I handed over my purchase and a 50-pound note and hoped for the best. I'll never know if the wad of colorful bills I received in return was correct or not, but the elderly woman behind the counter seemed nice enough. Her son in the store with her asked me in English where I came from, and though I answered, "the United States," they somehow heard "the Ukraine" and seemed pleased by this.

Half an hour later, I found myself standing in front of my hotel, feeling quite proud of myself for having successfully navigated the Metro and city streets to arrive there. (I chose to ignore the fact that I had stood with my back to the door for about five minutes, looking undecidedly at the large stone building across the street, before the doorman told me to turn around because my hotel was probably right behind me.)

I had made it just in time for our tour group meeting. Introductions around the table showed us to be a well-traveled group, all of us coming to Egypt in the midst of larger overseas adventures. We were three Aussies, four Kiwis, and five Yanks, though three of us were living outside the U.S. To my great disappointment, however, my friend Suzanne had not yet arrived. I have to admit, I spent most of the meeting glancing over to the front door in hopes of seeing her walk in, but the meeting ended without her appearing. It was not until we were all assembled in the lobby half and hour later, ready to head out into the city, that I finally saw the familiar face I had been waiting for. We hugged and shrieked and made all the loud, dramatic, slightly teary scene that nine months apart necessitated, so much so that our tour guide ran into the lobby concerned that some disaster had occurred. The moment was finally complete, and I felt ready to set out on this Egyptian adventure.

22 June 2008

If the result of the game wasn’t clear from the triumphant roars emanating from the stadium, if it wasn’t demonstrated in the chanting, flag-waving crowds streaming into the streets, then it could certainly be read unmistakably in the downcast faces and sullen silence of the three girls from Mauritania who had been sitting in the row behind me.

The World Cup qualifying match between Ethiopia and Mauritania had packed an impressive crowd into the Addis Ababa stadium. A reported 13,000 people were in attendance, and yet we still managed to seat ourselves in front of the handful of Mauritanians – dignitaries, officials, and their families – who had flown across the continent to see the game.

The first half ended in a 1-1 tie, an Ethiopia goal off a penalty kick in the 38th minute and a quick answer by Mauritania. But Ethiopia ran away with it in the second half and went on to claim a punishing 6-1 victory, with 3 goals coming in the last 10 minutes. I don’t know much French, but I do know enough swear words to recognize that the Mauritanian teenagers in the stands behind me were using a dazzling array. When the sixth Ethiopia goal found the back of the net in the 90th minute, though, all other sounds were drowned out by the screaming of the host country fans. Hordes of ecstatic fans poured over the chain link fences to greet their team on the field – only to be chased back over by a menacing sea of blue camouflage and brandished clubs. So the energy, noise, and mania diverted itself outside the stadium and spread out over the city, and we were swept up in it. All the way back to our hotel, we waved the little paper Ethiopian flags we had pilfered from deserted seats in the stadium, and sang along with Amharic chants that we at least mostly understood.

People sometimes ask me why I like sports. I think one of the most interesting things about the world of sports is how it provides a common ground, where people from different cultures, different backgrounds, different situations in life can meet and engage each other. The rules and goals are clearly defined and universal, the environment is familiar and controlled, the competition connects people from all over the world. I might not understand all the joys and pains associated with being an Ethiopian child growing up on the streets of Addis Ababa, a working Ethiopian father having lived through the desperation of the 1984 famine, an Ethiopian mother striving to raise her family of seven. But watching that game today and taking part in the celebrations, together we could all share the joy of victory, even if only for a moment. And had the result been different, we would have shared the ache of defeat. The distinctions of nationality, ethnicity, class, gender, and skin color that too often erect barriers between us are trumped by our loyalty to a common side. Perhaps the context seems trivial, but the connection never is.

The triumphant clamor that stretched out over Addis Ababa today rose up from a crowd of businessmen, bus drivers, and beggars, priests and politicians, soldiers and students, rich and poor, male and female, young and old, literate and illiterate, black and even a handful of white. Their song was communal, their joy was shared, and the crowd was one.