About david

I am a world citizen wondering at everything it has to offer.

Visa extension

Posted on April 28, 2006 by david

On Thursday, I took care of my visa since it was more than 25 days I was in Egypt and IÂ got a 1 month automatic visa when I arrived on the 2nd.

I went to the Magoma. It isÂ huge building housing around 20 000 state employees that is located close to my hotel downtown on Al-Tahrir square (very close from the Egyptian museum).Â It went better than I hoped.

I had some trouble finding the right window spending some time in the wrong line first. But I finally made it to the right place. It is window 12, 13 or 14 on the second floor. The information in English over these windows is not helping.

Buying the necessary EGP11.10 in stamps was a bit more chaotic since Egyptian peopleÂ are even less respectful of lines than French people and one has to police a bit if he does not want to get trampled. I had Karim demonstrating the first day I was in Cairo when we bought my train ticket to Aswan so I knew it was not just because I am a foreigner.

Anyway, I finally got my stamps, filled the application, stapled a picture and submit the paper alongside my passport.

I got my passport back 1 hour later at window 38 with a new visa valid until October 1st! Well, I had asked for 1 month, they gave me 6. And allÂ for the great price of EGP11.

I thought this madeÂ my day and the rest of it was spent taking it easy and recovering from my trip to Bahareya :).

The Bahareya Oasis and the White Desert

Posted on April 27, 2006 by david

I took a short trip to the Bahareya Oasis with the intent to go see the White desert.

I left on Monday morning with the 8AM bus from the Turgoman station in Cairo with the intent to find a safari to join once in Bahareya (Winging it!). Unlike the other times I had taken buses, the proportion of foreigners in this bus was quite high, maybe 25 or 30%. As I cannot read the ticket, I sat where I could thinking it was my seat and ended up talking with a French man on a 2 weeks visit.

We talked for a bit before I got asked to move to my real seat and I ended up close to a young white man. I had seen him enter the bus with his 2 friends and he was sporting some purple colors mired on his face in a tribal way and one of his friend had an eruption of pimples all over the face and body. As he asked me later what I thought when I saw them, I replied I thought someone had a crazy night and the girl had quite a case of Acne!

As it is usually the case, and got reminded once more, things are usually not like they appear. Crystal (the woman) had contracted chicken pox while setting foot in Egypt. She had been taken to the hospital where they had prescribed her a purple cream she had to cover most of her body with. And as a sign of support, Alex (my neighbor) had put some of this cream on his face. The third person in their party being Andy. We had a nice conversation with Alex and we decided I would try to join their tour once in Bahareya (Translation: I kind of sneaked in on these poor American fellows that would learn to regret to have accepted me joining them.. ah ah ah!). For the little story, Alex and Andy are actually volunteers with the Peace Corp in Bulgaria helping with different projects. Is that not cool or what?

Anyway, I negotiated the price for the tour with the guys at Ahmed Safari Camp once in Bahareya. I ended up paying less than the guys since I jumped the middle man…

We got served lunch (Tuna with some soft cheese with tomatoes and cucumbers as every lunch we had at the Camp from that point forward!) and then checked into our rooms.

We then got a car and a driver for the rest of the afternoon that took us to an oasis garden (some palm trees and fruit trees fighting their way through the sand) then we went to one of the oasis hot springs. It was actually a sort of pool with water at 30C flowing from a pump. Most, if not all, of the oasis springs are hot with temperatures ranging from 20C to 90C. Dipping in the spring was very nice. You just have to not mind the locals checking you out. Women should wear full bathing suit with a dark tee-shirt so as not to offend them (or not attract their attention if you want to see it like this).

After the hot spring, we got invited to a Bedouin tent that, accompanied of his kids, served us Bedouin tea. It was quite good (laziza) but still not as good as Raphaele’s! (Note for later: Get Raphaele to make some tea for me when I am back)

We then went to some sand dunes close by to play with some kids before finishing by catching the sunset from the top of the local highest pic called the English Mountain. It also gave us an opportunity of really seeing how the oasis is surrounded by the desert.

The evening was nice with a good dinner and some dancing with the Bedouins. I spent some time playing ping pong with the locals and Ahmed, an Egyptian teenager in vacation at the camp, whose younger sister Nehmet had shown being a great dancer.

We ended the day by going star seeing away from the lights of the camp since Alex had brought his star map. It reminded me of some trips to Yosemite I did in the past years. I learnt some cool stuff and am more than ever into learning more about Astronomy.

The next morning, we got the car and the driver again to go see the local monuments. We first went to see some of the golden mummies of the 26th dynasty that were recovered lately in the oasis. Then we visited two nice tombs with some great murals including a part similar to the famous weighting of the heart. The driver took us to another place that was not worth it and we ended up back at the camp to see the ruins of Alexander the Great’s temple that is situated 5 minutes away walking. Nothing very interesting for the non-expert I am though. The tombs and the mummies are more than worth the EGP30 ticket after all.

I then spent some time around the fountain located in the entrance hall of the hotel. I just dig the whole thing made from stones recovered from the desert. I want the same one for my home.

The main reason you come to Bahareya after all is to go in the desert so it is what we did in the afternoon. We got joined by an Indian man that had met the 3 guys in Cairo and the 5 of us packed in the Toyota 4×4 (For the story, Bahareya is nicknamed Toyota land due to the high number of Toyota 4x4s. The only other ways of transportation being donkey carts and bicycles.). Our goal was to reached the White desert and camp there.

On the way to the White desert, you go through many different landscapes.

The first one is the black desert that is quite a sight. We climbed to the top of one of the black mountain to check the surroundings and appreciate the warm wind blowing in your face.

The next stop was at the Crystal mountain where you can see quite impressive formation of crystals. I searched the sand for some cool samples and had some good finds. Some people not understanding preservation of sites were knocking directly on the crystal formations in order to get their own first grade pieces. No comment!

We also had some cool off road driving in the sand but no jumping of dunes as I was hoping for ;). Maybe you need to go to the Sahara to get limitless stretches of sand dunes.

We had some additional stops before reaching the white desert. It is actually a landscape of white rocks surrounded by sand. The white rocks have been eroded by the wind and sand over many centuries creating a landscape of funny shaped white sculptures. Quite impressive!

We finally settled a bit further in the white desert after some haggling with Mohamed (the driver) that had intended to join us with another group from the same safari camp while we wanted to be alone to enjoy our own piece of desert! Mohamed setup a camp and prepared some yummy food while we were roaming around. I set up to search for fossils that are plentiful around here since the whole place was once underwater. The sunset was hidden by clouds so no luck on that one. Dinner was great. Definitely the best Egyptian dinner I had since I am here. Mohamed cooked some great rice Middle Eastern style as well as great chicken and yummy vegetable stew. We were not the only one to think it smelt good since we got joined by a little fox after a while. Sadly, this little fellow was not afraid of us at all showing the effect of mass tourism on the ecosystem. Well, I was part of it!

We had a campfire and shared some campfire stories. Then Andy and I went for some star watching. It was really cool and I caught 4 shooting stars :).

The night went well. It was a bit windy at times but I was comfy in the sleeping bag with my clothes and fleece. We all woke up very early to catch the sunrise. Quite nice :).

We then made our way back to the oasis stopping in the garden desert where you can find flower shaped rocks. I think they are fossils of vegetation.

Some more ping-pong and pool playing before catching the bus back to Cairo.

This part of the trip was definitely very cool. Being the desert for one night was quite a feeling. If you come here, I definitely advise you to do the safari. It can be done in 2 days from and back to Cairo if you are in a hurry. The camp I ended up going with is recommended by the guide books and is good in my opinion. You just have to be careful with the price they want and make sure you are persistent with the different things you want to do and see.

[Edited on 5/17/2006 to add pictures]

Safe

Posted on April 26, 2006 by david

A short post to let everyone that reads my blog know that I am safe and sound (as much as usual at least).

As Ledi wrote and Jacques-Alexandre confirmed thanks to Karim, I left Cairo Monday morning to go to Al-Bahareyya, an oasis of the western desert. I was then more than 1000 kms away from Dahab when the bombing happened.

One thing is that I did not learn about the bombing before Tuesday morning from an Italian diplomat that was vacationing there too and another thing is that I had no way to call or access internet from there.

IÂ came back in Cairo 1 hour ago and am still learning about what happened. I will react about that as well as report about my trip in the desert later.Â

Thanks for all the comments and private emails everybody sent me. It was very heartwarming to read all of them.

Egyptian Food

Posted on April 23, 2006 by david

Someone said that “to keep your readers, you should keep them happy” so I will try to do exactly that by replying to Siegfried’s request to talk about the Egyptian food.

I have been in the country for more than 3 weeks now and have tried many restaurants. First thing first, the restaurant industry is not extremely developed here. I see the restaurants as basically fitting 3 categories: the fast-food restaurants, the “traditional” restaurants and the high-end restaurants. Some people might find this reductive but sorry, this is my blog. You can also post a comment if you have something to say ;).

For reference, $1=EGP6 and E1=EGP7.

The high end restaurants usually offer European style foods geared toward tourists. The food is usually very good and you can find some places that don’t cost you a limb. You can have a great French dinner for less than EGP100. Something that would be 2 or 3 times more expensive in Paris. but this is still way out of reach for most of the Egyptians so you will not see them there.

The restaurants from the fast food category are not the McDonald’s or KFC or Hardee’s (Carl’s Jr here) that we can also find here. They are kind of expensive for most of the people (around EGP20 for a meal). In place, Egyptians have their own kind of fast foods with some restaurants or food stall busy with long wait from morning till late night. Some of these fast foods serve very distinctive dishes: Kochery, Foul and Taameya. They also serve more usual staples of Middle-Eastern cuisine like Shawerma.

Kochery could have been called the “Egyptian kitchen sink” since it is a mix of things you would not have thought to put together: rice, lentils, macaronis, some spaghettis, some fried onions and sometimes some chick peas covered with tomato sauce. Restaurants are usually specialized and offer different level of qualities based on the amount of good stuff in the plate. I have been eating it several times and I really like it. You would not think that from the list of ingredients but It is quite tasty! It costs from EGP1 to EGP5.

Foul are brown beans that are marinated in a mixture of oil and herbs for quite some time before being cooked. Very very cheap. A large part of the population seems to be surviving from that and bread. It is quite tasty and filling but I would not advise to go on that kind of diet… It costs maybe EGP1-2 for 2 small sandwiches

Well, actually, maybe a Foul diet would be ok if you have to choose between Foul and Taameyyas. Taameyyas is pureed Foul that is then deep fried! You also eat that in a bun bread. Quite tasty too but is it because of the beans or because of all that grease? Same kinds of prices.

In more traditional types of restaurants, you find the stapples of Middle-Eastern cuisine: Tahini, Hummus and Babaghanouj as well as shish and kofta kebabs or shish taouk. The big novelty is the Pigeon that you can find in many restaurants. I don’t know if it is as much appreciated by the Egyptians than Cuy (Guinea Pig) is by the Peruvians but it is everywhere. Maybe it is why you do not see any pigeons in the street of Cairo! Well, at least you do see many cats in the street and thinking about it, it is reassuring 😉 (OK, if you are Egyptian and are reading this, I am joking!). A dinner of a plate of babaghanouj, shish kebab or pigeon and some vegetables will cost you between EGP10 and EGP20.

Finally, you also can find some restaurants that are specialized in Egyptian pizzas and large sweet or salted kind of crepes called Fetir. The Egyptian pizzas I tried with Karim were quite good. It is really different. Nothing spectacular though.

To tell the truth, I am a bit disappointed with the food experience. I have heard many good things about home cooked meals but I did not get the opportunity to try yet so I cannot judge that. The restaurant industry is just underdeveloped here because most of the Egyptians do not have the means to eat out often or at least, not in fancy restaurants. All the travelers I have met that visited the rest of Middle East rave about Jordan and Lebanon. I will report later about that ;).

Alexandria the Mediterranean

Posted on April 22, 2006 by david

I know, the title is not that great but it describes this city the best! It is just open towards the sea.

I have been in Alexandria for 2 days. Karim kindly offered to take me here on Thursday evening since he was coming for his sister’s wedding. Karim is a great driver and I felt very secure in his car but this was quite a ride. All of you that think I drive aggressively should come here for a week and I am sure you will change your mind! ;). I hope to write something on driving in Egypt later so we will keep it at that for now.

Alexandria was built by order of Alexander the Great after he conquered Egypt. It became the capital of Egypt soon after and gave it an important opening on the Mediterranean sea so much important to the Macedonian empire.

After Alexander’s death, his general Ptolemy inherited the country and initiated a new dynasty of rulers known as the Ptolemaic dynasty whose rulers were known as Ptolemy (I, II… XI) and wife as Cleopatra. The last, only female Ptolemaic ruler and the most famous Cleopatra of all was Cleopatra VII.

Alexandria has inherited this Greco-roman feel from that period as well as a cosmopolitan feel from the late XIXth and early XXth centuries. Nice pastry shops / salon de the are still here as a legacy of better days. They do serve great stuff though :).

Walking on the cornice or in the streets close by has quite been refreshing compared to my experiences in the other cities I visited. The haggling level is way down and it is very rare that people notice me at all. Since it is the weekend here (Friday and Saturday), I had the opportunity to see people enjoying it by walking in the streets in family window-browsing. The streets have actually become a huge open air market with people setting-up stools to sell whatever from fruits to cellphones!

Of course, I visited the major monuments.

I started by the Alexandria Museum that has been installed in the former American Embassy. Quite a nice building with anti-atomic bunker where the museum presents some sarcophagus and canopy jars (quite fitting!). It is a very nice museum with very nice and well presented collections on ancient Egypt, the Greco-roman period and modern Alexandria (Coptic and Islamic periods).

I then walked to a Roman amphitheatre not so far. Excavations are still going on around this very nice amphitheatre. Nothing very special about it though.

I then walked all the way West to Fort Qatbay that is built where the lighthouse once stood. They actually reused rocks from the lighthouse to build it. I really liked the place actually. Quite simple but very nice and soothing (as much as a fort located on the sea shore can!).

Since it was not that late, I then decided to walk all the way to the other side of the port to take a look at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina built where the great library was once standing. It took me around 1/2 hour walk on the cornice to get there but the view was cool so no issues. I think they did a great job with the building. It is hundreds times nicer to the Mitterrand library in Paris. Comparing might even be an insult to the Alexandrina! Really, the outside is slick and the inside is just great. They have some museums inside including yet another archaeology museum. I personally think it was not necessary to have a second museum in town since most of the items have equivalent in the Alexandria museum except for some very important pieces like a gorgeous chest of Isis in black Granite. But well, as the sucker tourist I am, I once more shelled out the money and visited the place.

This morning, I went to see Pompeii’s pillar that is just an humongous pillar carved off Aswan. Imagine that: 30 meters high, 9 meters circumference!

And then, I visited some Greco-roman catacombs. Some very interesting sights. No traces of bone though.

I am not sure where I will go next. I was thinking of going to Siwa and try to get to the Oasis of Bahareyya by 4×4 but it is not sure that I would get the authorization to do it and I am not sure I want to spend that much more time before going to Dahab so I might just go back to Cairo and organize a trip to Bahareyya from there before heading to Dahab.

30 Wonders

My little window on the Big World

Author Archives: david