An author's perspective on Egypt and my subsequent tale of my experiences.

A few years ago, an American named Rosemary Mahoney dumbfounded Egyptians by rowing 120 miles down the world's grandest river by herself, traveling in a country where bold women aren't the norm. She told her story in 2007's "Down the Nile: Alone in a Fisherman’s Skiff," which The Christian Science Monitor named one of the 10 best books of the year.

The article is here.

Again, an article obtained from the CSM, this time about this author's views on the riots in Egypt.  Now, I personally had been to Egypt about two years ago now, and I had possibly my worst traveling experience ever.  Of course, we were on our 9th day travelling, fourth time on a plane, and landed in somewhat of a sandstorm.  As soon as we disembarked, we were ushered into a corner, and told that the Egypt customs agents will be horrible to us and ask many, many questions, and then we had a bus tour to do before hitting the hotel.

I was tired.  I got to the front of the line, and a shrewd looking man took my passport, and looked at the picture, looked at me, asked my nationality, and sent me on my way.  Well, that was pleasing, glad to not have to deal with more customs officials, I groupe dup with everyone else, and we were on our way again.  Our teacher guide again took us aside and informed us, repeatedly, that EVERYONE here was out to pick pocket us.  If we saw someone we didn't think had noble intentions towards us, we were to say to the rest of the group "Meerkat".  He told us to keep a constant eye on what was going on, and to never let anyone see where your wallet was.

To say that we got off on rather the wrong foot with Egypt was a bit of an understatement.  But we boarded the bus, and we met our tour guide (a rather nice man, actually, he liked Iron Maiden).  As the driver took us through several strange backstreets in Cairo, most of the people on the bus were going wild with how to locals were staring at us.  To be honest, I thought it was more leering, but we seemed to be the most exciting thing on the block, and many of them followed the bus up the street.  We ate on a boat on the Nile, which was neat, the food was pretty basic.  Boarding the bus again, we went to our hotel, where we were told to avoid showering as much as possible, because there was a parasite in the Egyptian water that burrows through skin.

So now I'm showerless, tired, cranky, and coming down with something (most people on the trip were coming down with something, it was like a chest cold, and in the throat).  My friend and I were put in the same room, and we were both cracking from the sickness.  That's when we found the minifridge.  Now, we were told to only drink a bottle of water if the seal was still intact.  In this fridge, the seal was still intact.  We might as well have found the holy grail.  Between us, it lasted maybe twenty minutes, and we felt a bit better, more on this later, remember it!  Anyway, the next day comes, and we're off to see the Egyptian Museum (Which is an army stronghold now, after Rioters broke several pieces of their nation's history).  Very nice building, although crowded.

I enjoyed the museum, seeing a different culture's artifacts in a bigger setting than say, the ROM.  After the Egyptian Museum, we trekked out into the country side, and went to some ancient Pyramids, of the step stone variety, not the ones that Egypt is famous for.  Amazing sights, I really loved seeing them, and wandering around the site.  The locals who were inside were a little pushy though (We were told not to shake hands with anyone, because they shake, and then drag you away with them) including a man and his camel which someone had to ride a bit.  We left the Pyramid, and we went to a small museum, which was a historical site (I don't remember what it was, though).

For dinner, we went to a fairly nice restaurant, and all got the same chicken dish, with the same sides.  Bland, but alright for the day.  We head back to the hotel, and get told on arrival that we should go straight up to our rooms, and not come out until morning, no visiting one another or anything.  So, sometime during the night, we start hearing strange noises, like the foundations of the building have suddely been knocked out.  But nothing happens, and we go on our next excursion the next day.

This is where all my feelings for Egypt go downhill.  We visit a Mosque first thing, we arrive between prayer, but honestly, you wouldn't know it.  We're trying to move with the crowd, when suddenly a woman steps between my girlfriend and I (not current girlfriend), and smacks her before running off.  Both a bit disturbed by this, we talk to our tour guide, who acts awkwardly, and apologizes to us.  Once in the mosque, we are sort of at a loss for what to do with ourselves.  It's a beautiful place, but positively hostile; we're glared at everywhere we go.

Leaving the Mosque, we head to the Pyramids, those claustrophobic (Me!) get to wait outside while everyone else goes in.  Apparently it was dark, hot, smelly, and genuinely unenjoyable, so I'm just as glad I saw from the outside.  Crossing a bit of a sand plane between the Pyramids and the Sphinx, however, a friend of mine was accosted by a man with a camel.  He made the mistake of shaking this guy's hand, and was suddenly wisked onto the camel, and they began to ride off.  My friend jumped down and ran back after about 50 feet, but yeah, not great.  Sphinx was sketchy as all hell, people constantly eyeing us, watching where we moved, etc.  One small boy, egged on by an older man, followed closely behind us, and made several attempts to get into people's pockets.  We were all so flustered, I'm not sure anyone enjoyed the Sphinx.

After the Sphinx, we were moved to another location, where we were to have our camel rides.  Cool, not a lot can go wrong on a camel ride that was arranged and paid for, right?  The first group went out and came back without a hitch, so my group boarded, and our camels began their galumphing walk around the block.  The Camel guider asks me if I like the Camel, and I reply that it's pretty nice.  The Camel guider then replies that if I don't like it, he'll kill it.  I've seen people joke like that before.  He definitely wasn't joking.  We arrive back, and I dismount quickly, thank him, and hurry off to a group of people that I barely knew, because I just wanted to get the hell away from him.

There's now two problems.  Primarily for me, is that he's following me, everywhere I go, trying to get my attention, because he wants a tip (Which our teacher guide is paying for himself), secondarily (although more importantly in a long term sort of sense), is that two girls from the tour group are missing, and they went out on the same Camel ride that I did.  Eventually I give in and give the guy 20 Egyptian pounds, but he still won't go away.  I'm not sure what triggered him leaving, it might have been when our teacher called the police, but anyway, we all get on the bus, and wait anxiously for word of them.  I witness some boys trying to torture a dog while sitting on the bus, and want to go smack them about.  Then a police officer does my wishes for me himself, waving his bully club at them and letting the dog down.  The girls appear around a corner, scrambling back on foot, relating that their camel drivers dropped back from the rest of the group and took a different rout from the rest, and when they got too far, the two of them jumped down and hauled back.

So we stick around for a little while, and then head to this amphithetre area, where we're to watch a light show (which was awesome, except my girlfriend at the time whined continuously about the cigarette smoke in the air).  After the light show, we headed to the restaurant for our last night in Egypt.  Sitting down at the tables, all of us ravenous, we received bread in small bowls.  The bread in the bowls frmo the table next to us?  Yeah, it started moving, turns out bugs get into dishes often in that restaurant, the management looked like they had no idea why we were upset.  We were taken to the restaurant from the night before, and given dinner, and sent back to our hotels.  Again, no visiting.

We're leaving (Finally!  Shouts a slightly younger Victor), when we all get onto the bus and comfortable, my Teacher looks in and calls my name up to the front, so I head up and back into the Hotel.  Turns out the one bottle of water split between my friend and I?  Had the economic value of three bottles of water, a coke, a root beer, and two sprites, and I needed to pay them around 20 Egyptian pounds to leave.  Guess who was pretty much out of money?  I barely remember how I resolved that, to be honest, I think I threw a five dollar Canadian bill at them and stormed out (Roughly the amount I owed them).

The author of the book talks about how resourceful and friendly the Egytians are, and how nicely they treat foreigners, I saw none of that, to be honest, more a willingness to take advantage, or play on Westerner's emotions.  I won't go back to Egypt, it was my worst travelling experience.