Egyptian Wrap Up

Monday, June 14, 2010 (Ras Garib, Egypt) – Darren, Calvin, Sammy and I spent my final three days at their beach place on the Red Sea. I had gone to the Citadel on Friday and quickly realized that I had hit my threshold for tourist attractions (although the impromptu tour of the History of Torture in Egypt by an Egyptian policeman at the Citadel was a fun treat – the photos are on Facebook, and I will look for somewhere else I can post them to make them easier to get to).

I went scuba diving in the Red Sea, which is considered by many as the greatest place in the world to dive, other than perhaps the Great Barrier Reef (which I was fortunate enough to dive in college). However, all of those legendary dives are across the sea closer to Sharm El Sheikh, which is on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula. We had talked about going to Sharm, but we decided the trip to Siwa was a better option, and none of us regretted that decision.

We went to a reef about 20 miles from the Stella Di Mare, where Darren has his condo, but the visibility was fairly weak, and my mask constantly leaked from the upper right side, which was somewhat annoying. I saw a couple of rays and several fish, and my tank ran out of air on the first dive, but other than that, it was pretty uneventful.

I could try to rehash our other activities at the Red Sea, but “going to the pool and the beach” pretty much sums it up. Therefore, I figured I would touch on some things that I may have forgotten to mention before.

• I was a bit nervous about traveling to the Middle East. I’ve always kind of doubted the accuracy when Darren tells me that Egypt is really safe. What I found surprised me. I never once felt at risk. In fact, I felt safer than I ever do in cities in the U.S. Most police officers don’t even have cars, and it seems they don’t need them. There seems to be very little crime, especially violent offenses.

That said, I walked through metal detectors everywhere. And, no matter what, they always went off, but the guard inevitably waved me through without a second glace. After a while, I stopped bothering to take things out of my pocket. In fact, I rarely paused when it beeped. I asked Darren about this, and he said he hasn’t bothered to take things out of his pocket in years. It’s just too much hassle to remove a cell phone from all the way in his pocket and put it through the x-ray machine.

• While eating lunch at McDonald’s in Marsa Matruh (on the Mediterranean while traveling back from Siwa), the speakers around the “restaurant” were playing Radio MTV. Seriously. Forget the fact that it stands for “Music Television,” which generally applies to nothing they air. We had to listen to Paris Hilton doing commercials in the middle of an audio-only version of Pimp My Ride.

• It may surprise you, since the country is 90% Muslim and fairly conservative, but there are at least three Egyptian beers. There may be more, but I tried three, all at the Red Sea because it was just easier to find there. Many people in Egypt don’t want to appear to drink, but the actual beach at the resort looked like Panama City Beach during Spring Break, and smelled like any given fraternity on a Sunday morning. Because many people don’t want to be seen at a liquor store, the shop nearby delivered. And it was called Drinkies, which may be the single greatest liquor store name in history.

Stella, Meister (Egypt’s attempt at a microbrew) and Sakara – in descending order on a scale of moderately mediocre to almost undrinkable – are all brewed by Ahram Beverages, which translates to “Pyramid Beverages.” I wonder what inspired that name.

• I ate lunch alone in downtown Cairo one day. I wanted the true Egyptian dining experience, so I went to KFC, of course. I was just digging into a piece of finger licking good, when a random guy sat down across from me. There were no empty tables, so it made sense. But I think somebody who tries that in the U.S. has a high likelihood of getting punched (unless it’s at my table, where everybody is always welcome). Needless to say, the conversation was fascinating – and in a language I did not speak. Shokran, my friend. Shokran.

• Speaking of speaking, my foreign language skills wanted to emerge constantly. However, I only threw out “muchas gracias” a couple times. They resulted in blank stares. What? Arabic speakers to innately understand Spanish?

• Every highway has elaborate Pharaonic tollbooths with huge Greek columns and King Tut statues. They are really nice looking. But they’re all in completely random places. Translations: the middle of nowhere with nothing around but sand (and possibly camels). And they are not tollbooths, exactly. They’re patrolled by cops and/or military guys who want to hassle poor people (from what I could tell) and fish for bribes.

When Darren drives through these things, he speaks English like a hick, because it usually prompts the guy to wave him through, especially those guys that don’t speak English. One guy, however, accused him of speeding earlier in the trip. Trust me when I say there was no way a cop with a radar gun was hiding behind anything in the desert – unless maybe he had an invisible car. Darren’s car also has this incredibly annoying contraption that buzzes whenever he reaches 120 kilometers per hour (about 75 mph). After a heated discussion that lasted all of about 30 seconds, the guy waved us through and waited for the next car. I’m sure another one came along within 2-3 hours.

• Why doesn't anyone sell mango and/or strawberry juices in the United States? They’re ridiculously tasty.

• We caught a few games of the World Cup on Al Jezeera Sports. For some reason, I found that at least slightly amusing, especially when the announcer broke his fast-talking Arabic with phrases like “God save the Queen” during the U.S./England match.

• Apparently, most people who own scuba operations in Egypt are foreigners. The one we used was an Italian, who made it perfectly clear that he hated Italy with a passion. He likes Spain.