Spring Break in Egypt
Our Spring Break began after we all finished with Humanities on Thursday at 3:45 pm. We all relaxed for a while after finishing class, some people packing for the trips, but mostly just doing nothing and enjoying the freedom. That day was Alex’s birthday, so like 15 of us went out to dinner at Tiajuana’s a Mexican food restaurant here in Florence. From there it was out to a club and then back home to get some rest before the service project the next day.Since all of us going to Egypt were around on Friday, we helped out in our house’s project serve. We made food and went to a home for mentally handicapped people and fed them and taught them some English and games while practicing Italian ourselves. It was a pretty fun afternoon, and it was easily the most I’d used Italian outside of the classroom in quite some time. That night I tried to get all of our things together to leave the next day. I packed and double checked that we were all set to take off before getting some dinner and going to bed.
On Saturday morning, I got up and had Café Liberta before doing some last minute errands and things around the villa before we were off to Bologna to catch our flight. We made it to Bologna and from the station to the airport without any trouble at all. When we got to the airport we saw that our flight would be an hour late, so we had plenty of time to go check in and hang around the airport to get some lunch before going through customs and boarding the plane. I slept for almost the entirety of the three and a half hour flight and before I knew it we were landing in Sharm el Shiek. When we got off the plane, I noticed that everyone on our flight was Italian, something that was rare, usually flights in Europe were pretty mixed in terms of nationality but not this one. We got off the plane, found the representative for our travel agent and got our visas taken care of with no problem at all, but then came the customs line. It was a huge line, and as it was after one am local time, there were hardly any people working in the booths so it took so long to get through. We waited in a line of mostly Russians and Italians for a good ninety minutes before finally getting through collecting our baggage and getting on a bus to the hotel. After a short bus ride to the hotel we were there, checked in and off to bed as we were all exhausted from traveling all day long.
I got up pretty early the next morning and went to get breakfast. It was one of the best breakfasts that I’ve had since being in Europe. They had great pastries and omelets so I was content every morning I got up for breakfast. After that I walked around the hotel to check it out as it was dark when we got in the previous night so I hadn’t seen hardly any of it. It was a real nice place. There was a main building with the reception, about 30 rooms and several bars, and then about 15 other smaller buildings- most with rooms, but also the restaurant and other buildings like that. There was an upper pool near our room, a lower pool near the beach and then the beach front with a volleyball court, tables, a bar, another restaurant, and a dock going out past the hundred meters of coral out into the sea. From the beach we could see across the sea to Saudi Arabia. I spent all morning lounging in and around the chair, playing some volleyball, but mostly relaxing. We all went to lunch together and then Alex, West, Liz, Richard, and I went into Naema Bay, Sharm’s downtown area. We took the hotel’s bus that left at about five, spent several hours looking around the very Americanized downtown that included a Hard Rock Café, TGI Friday’s, Baskin Robbins, KFC in one block. Around the corner a Starbucks and Coffee Bean were under construction. Apart from the stuff we recognized, there were hundreds of little cafes that jutted out into the pedestrian walkway with everything from Russian food to Egyptian souvenirs. We looked at all we could handle, met some interesting people, and realized pretty quickly that we were the only Americans that Sharm had seen in quite some time. Most people took us for Russian, so as we walked up to most stores, we were greeted in Russian. At seven or so we took the bus back to the hotel and had dinner. Both the lunches and dinners were pretty good. There was a buffet that had a different theme each meal, and while it was an Egyptian take on whatever they prepared, it was still pretty good for the most part. I ended up eating a ton of fish this week, along with rice, and whatever else I could find that looked halfway decent. That night we all went into Naema Bay which was a blast. Several people wanted to watch a basketball game, but we couldn’t find it on anywhere so we just walked around the downtown area once again and I noticed that it seemed a lot like the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica. Another thing that struck me was how long everything was open- it was one am before things began to close. We got back in the taxis and headed back to the hotel and bed.
Monday was a lot like Sunday, but without the trips into town. We ate breakfast, lounged around the pool in the morning, in the early afternoon we played volleyball at the beach, ate lunch, and then spent all the afternoon at the beach. We went swimming in the Red Sea, which was real nice, but incredibly salty. We wasted the afternoon away on the beach lying out and then jumping in the sea when we got hot or bored before heading back up to the upper pool when the sun went down. We got some snacks there before getting cleaned up and going to dinner. We relaxed around the hotel as we had an early flight to Cairo the next day. We went to the Coffee bar/club in the hotel where they were doing Karaoke in Italian, Russian, and English. We sang a lot of songs- all in English until I finally tried on in Italian. It was Bella by Jovanotti, a song that I know pretty well, but it was still pretty tough. But at least now I can say that I’ve done Karaoke in another language. We all went to bed pretty early that night.
We were up early, ate a quick breakfast, and then off to the airport on Tuesday. We made it to the check-ins and to our boarding in plenty of time, but like every other flight this trip, it was a bit late, so we had a while to wait before getting on the plane and making the short trip to Cairo. We got to Cairo a bit before midday, met Mustafa, the travel agent Elizabeth had set us up with, and got on our bus to go pick up our guide for the day. As we drove through Cairo, we learned a lot about the city- it has about 18 million people, making it one of the biggest cities in the world, and the biggest that I’ve visited this year beating out Istanbul. We drove through the city, noticing certain things about the city and people, and all realizing that this was our first time on the continent of Africa. We picked up our guide, Frank at the Egyptian Museum and headed out to Giza and the pyramids. On our way out to Giza, Frank told us more about Egypt and its history. It was easy to tell right away that Frank really knew his stuff, and in fact, he turned out to be one of the best guides that we have had all year long. We got out to Giza, and as we drove up to the Pyramids, we had a view of downtown Cairo on one side, and the great Pyramid on the other. We parked our bus and walked out toward the largest pyramid. It was kind of a surreal moment because all of us had seen pictures of the pyramids since we could remember and heard all about them, but none of us had really thought that we would ever be standing in front of them like we were then doing. We walked up and sat at the base of the pyramid while Frank told us all about the area and the history. We then got to climb on the pyramid a bit, take some pictures and then made our way around the biggest pyramid onto the second. At one point in time, all the pyramids had a smooth quartz outside that made them pretty white and brilliant in the sun, and on this second pyramid a bit of the outer layer is still visible on the top. We walked up to the base of this pyramid and heard all about it. If this second pyramid, and second biggest pyramid was built by the father, then the Great Pyramid, the largest was built by the grandfather, and the last which we would see in a few minutes was built by the son. We bought tickets to go inside the pyramid, and took the very short (about 50 inches tall) passage way down into the heart of the pyramid. As we kinda crawled/walked down the passage way we felt the air getting warmer and more stale, we reached one room and went down another passage into the main burial chamber where we saw the place where the king for whom the pyramid was built. After that, we walked back down the passages and got on to the bus heading to the third and much smaller pyramid. We heard about this one and took some pictures before heading down to see the sphinx. We walked through the ruins of the temple that was immediately before the sphinx, and rather suddenly we had a view of the sphinx with all three pyramids in the background. It was quite a bit smaller than I had pictured it, but it was still very impressive. We walked around there, and then down to get a panoramic view of the area before going to lunch at a café near there. If initially seeing the pyramids was a surreal experience for us, then lunch was quite a few steps above that, not because of what we ate, but because of where we were. We ate outside on a patio that overlooked the pyramids, sphinx on our left. On our right was downtown Cairo (although not visible), and behind us was the Sahara desert. It was probably the coolest location in which I’ve ever eaten. After lunch we went to a perfume store where they gave us samples of their products and some Egyptian tea. From there it was off to a bazzar where we found a lot of silver products, papyrus, and other typical Egyptian products. We spent the late afternoon there, and as it approached dinner time, we headed back to the airport. The drive back to the airport took much longer than coming from it did because of traffic, but we still made our flight on time, and even had enough time to get some dinner before hand. We made it back to Sharm safely and were back at the hotel near midnight. I went straight to bed as I was pretty tired after the long day.
The next day was another one at the hotel for the most part. We ate breakfast, lounged around the pool for most of the morning, played soccer and volleyball a bit before lunch, ate, and then headed down to the beach. We got some snorkeling equipment from the hotel and went around in the Red Sea for a good part of the afternoon. Seeing the coral reef was pretty cool, and there were a ton of fish to see. I saw some vibrant blue fish and orange fish that I’d never seen before as well as lots of others. It was pretty cool so see all that stuff, I just wish that I had a wetsuit because after about half an hour, the water began to get to us. We called it quits about mid afternoon, relaxed on the beach for a while and then went to get cleaned up before dinner. We all ate a light dinner as we were planning on going into Naema Bay that evening and to go to the Hard Rock Café as it was dirt cheap. We ate, got on our bus and after waiting at the Hard Rock for a bit got our table. All I got was a milkshake which was great. After a long meal during which we watched some soccer we left the restaurant and went to an Egyptian club that was pretty cool. We didn’t stay all that long as people were sunburned and tired in general, so we headed back to the hotel before it got too late.
I slept in on Thursday so I missed breakfast and just got up in time for lunch. After eating we went snorkeling a some more and then headed into Naema Bay to plan some excursions for the next few days. It wasn’t hard to find places that set up trips to Mt. Sinai or dirt biking, so once we found a cheap place that looked reliable, we booked a Quad trip for the next day, and a trip to Mt. Sinai for the next night. After that we went to eat at TGI Friday’s before heading back to the hotel. That night we set up a soccer game in the passage way from the beach to the hotel. It was a long tunnel that was probably fifteen feet wide and about eight feet tall. It made for a cramped and confused game, but it was fun while it lasted. We had our game broken up about half an hour after it started because we were too loud. We then went to the beach and played some capture the flag. After that it was up to wash all the sand and sweat off before going to bed.
I was up early again on Friday, ate breakfast, lounged around until lunch, took a nap and then went on the dirt biking trip. The eight of us who went drove about twenty minutes out into the desert before getting on the quads and heading out into the desert. We were all following our guide and riding single file which was fun, but I got bored and passed people when the opportunity arose. We got the quads up to about 60km/hr, got a little bit of air on the small jumps and terrain that we went over. After about a half hour of riding, we stopped at an echo canyon for a few minutes, made echoes and then went back on our way. We rode back in the direction we came and went down another canyon and made a stop for the bathroom, and a good panoramic view of the desert around us before getting back on the bikes and heading to a Bedouin tent village where we got some tea before heading back to our starting point. It was easily one of the highlights of the trip. Once we got back to the hotel we all ate dinner and got cleaned up before getting on our bus to Mt. Sinai that left Sharm at about eleven pm. We got to the base of the mountain at about 2am and began the hike up the mountain in the dark. There were thousands of people making the hike along with us so the trail was pretty crowded. We had some portable speakers so we had music as we went. We climbed for a good hour before stopping at a place to rest for a bit. The path wasn’t all that tough up to this point, it was just dark and hard to see where we were stepping so we tripped quite a bit on rocks etc. After a short break we continued up and hiked for another hour or so until we came to the base of the stairs that led up to the top of the mountain. We hiked up the 750+ stairs and at about 5:30am we made it to the top of the mountain. We found a nice big rock on the East side of the mountain where we camped out to watch the sunrise. The sun began to rise a little after six and by six thirty, it was fully in view. It was really cool to see the sunrise from the top of the mountain, and see it light up the mountains and valleys as it continued to rise. After it got light on the top of the mountain we began to take pictures of everything up there before heading back down the path we had just climbed. We made it to the bottom once again at about 8:15 and went to get breakfast before going to Saint Katherine’s monastery. The Monastery was pretty cool. The we saw a well that Moses used, the Burning Bush, and the only place in the world that is a Church, Mosque, and Monastery all in one. Our visit at the Monastery was pretty short as none of us had slept the night before and were all dead tired from the 8+ miles that we had hiked that night/morning. After seeing the church and all that the Monastery had to offer we got back on the bus and headed back to Sharm. We all slept a bit on the way back, but it was tough as it was hot and very uncomfortable on the bus. We made it back in time for lunch, all ate and then got cleaned up. Most people took naps, and I tried but was just not tired so I spent my last afternoon around the pool and beach before going to get all my stuff together to leave after dinner. We all ate our last meal at the hotel, got our last things to drink at the bar, said by to the staff and got on our bus to head to the airport. We got checked in with no trouble, made it through customs much faster than we did the last time and spent the last of our Egyptian pounds before getting on the plane, which would turn out to be late like all our other flights on the trip. I was asleep on the plane before it even took off and was out until we were about ten minutes from Bologna. We landed, got through customs and got taxis to the station and were in plenty of time to catch our train at 4:25. We were back in Florence at Campo di Marte at about 5:45 and got back to the villa shortly after 6. I showered and went to Café Liberta before coming back and working a bit, taking a nap, working some more and then writing this. Now it’s almost dinner time and tomorrow back to class.
(The group in our hotel's lobby)
(All us guys with the pyramid in the background)
(Me on the great pyramid)
(The group infront of the great pyramid)
(West, Alex, and me in the second pyramid)
(Me infront of the Sphinx with the great pyramid in the background)
(The Sphinx with the two larger pyramids)
(The two larger pyramids at sunset)
(A view from our hotel room out onto the pool)
(the entrance of our hotel)
(A sunset in Naema Bay)
(The beach at our hotel)
(Saudi Arabia from the dock at our hotel)
(Me and Alex on the Quads)
(Keith, Brie, Steven, and Lindsay relaxing at the Bedouin village on our bike trip)
(Matt hiking up Mt. Sinai in the dark, the faint lights in the background are other people making it up the trail)
(The sunrise from the top of the mountain)
The little tabernacle at the top fo the mountain)
(Keith and Alex on a ridge of the mountain)
(A view of a canyon from the mountain)
(The Burning Bush at Saint Katherine's moastery)More pics to come.
posted by Daniel Williams @ 01:29
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