Our next destination was Dubai, so intentionally choosing a long layover in Egypt might seem foolish, but there is surprisingly no current flight between Istanbul and Dubai. How about that? Also, Nicole wanted to see the pyramids, so away we went.
We got bounced around between three check-in counters in Istanbul, had to show our covid results three different times, and walked briskly through the terminal to board our flight. Two hours later, we landed in Cairo. The time was just 830am. We cleared customs, got our visas-on-arrival, and picked up our bags before meeting Mona, our guide for the day.
Nicole had specifically requested a female guide, which I think is a smart move in a very male-dominated culture. It gives a fresh perspective on things and improves everyone’s comfort level. We learned our lesson after witnessing how Nicole got treated in India. Example: Nicole is carrying 40 lbs of luggage and men rush to me to assist with my 15lb backpack.
Our first stop was the pyramids. When we first began driving, the sky was quite overcast and hazy, but it had cleared up about the time we arrived in Giza. We walked a little bit around and briefly on the pyramids of Khafre and Khufu. Mona gave us some background on ancient Egypt and how the pyramids were built as we walked away from the tourists who wanted to pay to go inside the shaft. We declined a camel ride as well. I do not have fond memories of riding on camels. Once I was hustled by an Egyptian boy for tip money that I didn’t have while he knocked the camel’s legs out from underneath to make me more uncomfortable. The second time, I was sharing a camel in the Negev desert with a girl named Julie who I knew very little about other than that she had a pet lobster. So in conclusion, no camels.
The van came around to pick us up and take us to the next vista, which was a panoramic view of the three main pyramids. Here we assisted Mona with some promotional materials. Not surprisingly, tourism has been quite slow in Egypt, and she was hoping to use us for the website, which we agreed to do. She said we were lucky since there are normally hundreds of people at that viewpoint, but we observed just a dozen or so. No massive tour buses were parked in the area.
After taking some more photos, we continued on to the Sphinx. Again, we didn’t have to jockey for position to get any photos, which was certainly more relaxing than being penned into narrow ancient pathways in the times of Covid. Our tour of the pyramids ended after we finished taking pictures of the sphinx.
We got back in the car and went to lunch. Enroute, we discussed all kinds of things about our different homes — the weather, living situations, how she eats breakfast at our lunch hour, and lunch at our dinner, and ultimately politics. It’s unavoidable. But since the so-called taboo topic was opened, I asked Mona what she thought of the changes since Mubarak was ousted. She said she did feel a bit more free, but alluded to some things that Sisi was doing that were a bit reminiscent of previous leaders such as extending his own term limits. It basically sounded like most people were ok with Sisi because you knew what you were getting, and there is a bit of anxiety about who might come next if there were to be another revolution.
We got lunch at a place called GAD, which was a sort of low brow Egyptian version of Au Bon Pain. Mona explained the menu options and I went with chicken shawarma. She got the same, told me that the side of rice I ordered was very popular with Egyptians, and even got the same soda as me. We are basically twins. My family may remember the infamous chicken shawarma incident of 2007. It was a hot day in Karnak, Egypt. The temperature was probably in the triple digits. Chicken shawarma was consumed. Hours later, while in an enclosed vehicle, I let loose the most foul smelling gas that has ever escaped my body. For thirty seconds, nobody even acknowledged it. This only made it worse. Eventually, it became too much for everyone and the car erupted into insults and questions as if something had died. The fact of the matter is that the hotel shawarma that I ate had created a very painful gas bubble in my stomach, and a silent bomb was my only relief. Flash forward nearly 14 years, and those that were in the car that fateful day might believe that ordering a chicken shawarma in Egypt is a terrible mistake. And yet, I am here to tell you that I enjoyed my shawarma. Better yet, I am feeling well post-shawarma.
From lunch, we lurched along in heavy and chaotic traffic back toward downtown Cairo and the Nile River. We rode around in a felucca. There were virtually no other boats in the water, but us. A felucca is basically just a sailboat, and we made s-turns by some fancy riverside hotels and the Cairo Tower. It was nice to slow down a bit and chill on the river after a busy day. The sounds of horns honking feverishly along its banks reminded us of the chaos that would greet us again upon our return.
From the river, we trudged on toward the airport, passing by Tahrir Square on the way. This square was the location of many of the protests of the Arab Spring back in 2011 with protesters numbering in the tens of millions. Now it’s relatively calm in comparison if you disregard the wild traffic.
After dealing with all the usual airport obstacles, we did some souvenir shopping in the terminal before boarding our Emirates A380 to Dubai. Despite there being some 200+ open seats, the Emirates staff decided for whatever reason to stick everyone in the rear of the aircraft on the lower level. I was watching the moving map while we made our way toward Dubai. Two takeaways: Israel doesn’t exist on any zoom level, and once we land, we will only have five hours until the Fajr aka our alarm clock.
We arrived in Dubai around 1 am and were very efficiently processed and given another covid test, but then stood in line for over an hour for passport control. We arrived at our apartment downtown after 230 am only to discover the room we thought we had booked with a balcony didn’t actually exist, so that was a bit of a letdown. The gentleman working reception at these wee hours of the morning was very helpful in finding us a room with a balcony — just 31 floors lower than our previous room. While this may all seem trivial over a balcony, we are in mandatory quarantine until we get our test results, and we thought it would be nice to sit outside tomorrow. And as it’s now 3am, we very much look forward to sitting around and doing nothing tomorrow/today.
passports & pepto bismol 