Full Circle, Literally?

6/17/10: Luxor, Egypt

We’ve come full circle, literally. Our trip started in Africa and now we’re back. We’ve circled the globe (take that, for those of you who still believe the Earth is flat), and now we’re back where we started. Sure, we’re a bit further north, but a few days ago we finally said hello again to Africa. But we’ve changed so much as travelers since then that it hardly feels like the Africa we grew to love during the first 50 days of the trip. I’ll let Zhou tell you herself, in one of her “I hope Kevin’s not writing today’s blog” moments.

Z: “You know what this feels like here? Africa.”
K: “It is Africa.”
Z: “It is? Oh yeah, it is.”

Yes, it’s still the same continent. But the way we’re experiencing it is in stark contrast to our days as wide-eyed traveling rookies.

When we first came to Africa, everything was planned out for us. We never had to worry about where we’d be each day, never had to worry about where we’d sleep each night. Dinner was always made for us, the sights we’d see were always set. We loved it. We loved being able to focus on meeting new people and soaking in the new scenery. And those two things were almost too much for us.

Now though, we could hold a traveling conversation in our sleep. We no longer have anyone to tell us what to do, and we like it that way. Our hostel in Cairo said they’d book our train tickets to Luxor for us, for a $10 fee and we laughed (not literally) and headed to the train station ourselves. We got lost about three times on the way there, but we pushed on and found the train station without too much difficulty because we’re even experts at getting lost now. (Don’t confuse this to mean we’re experts at getting LOST now, because I still haven’t got the DVD, so I’ll repeat my threat to everyone not to tell me what happened.)

We can also now talk to people in languages we don’t speak, as was evidenced by our finding a recommended restaurant in Cairo by talking to locals in Arabic. We also strongly considered piece-mealing our Pyramids and Valley of the Kings tours together by ourselves rather than hiring a driver for those days. But we have to draw the line of independence somewhere. (As you’ll also see in Zhou’s post about what we’ve signed up for tomorrow.)

During our overland tour through Africa, one person did all the negotiating. As Shaggy would say, it wasn’t me. Zhou and I each have our comparative advantages. She is a better negotiator, a better planner, a better learner, a better listener, a better photographer, a better person, a better napper, a better looker, a better Scrabbler. I’m a better eater. And I don’t mind looking stupid. For a long time in our travels, we each stuck to what we’re comparatively better at, and it worked well for us. Now we often try to do the things we’re each comparatively worse at, and for me today it was the negotiating.

We had received quotes on the objects we wanted (up to 175 EGP for one)and headed to a shop after dinner with the intent to buy three. Zhou left me to work my magic, but I started off by asking her to tell the shop owner what we’d pay for the three. She said 75 EGP. The shop owner looked shocked. After a little back-and-forth between him and me, here’s what happened:

K: You know what, we’ll give you 70 for all three.
O: But she said 75?
K: Yeah, but I don’t want to pay that much. We’ll give you 70.
O: Ok, 110.
K: 70.
O: 105.
K: Zhou, let’s head out and look around the market, then we’ll come back.
O: Ok, ok. 90. But I can’t go lower because I bought them for 85.
K: Ok, we’ll just go look around for a bit. (I turned to walk away.)
O: 85.
(I started walking.)
O: Ok, 70! 70!

I don’t know if we got a good deal or not, but that’s not the point. The point is that not only did I do the negotiating, but I reverse negotiated. I got it for a lower price than our first offer. Nine months ago Zhou let me negotiate once, and I bought something for over twice as much as others in our group bought it for, and mine was a crappier quality. Now I’m reverse negotiating.

In addition to that, I’ve been doing much of our Egypt planning and doing it with confidence. Zhou, on the other hand, has been carrying the heavier bag for the past couple weeks. (I’m not sure how that happened, but she hasn’t complained at all.) We’ve both been avoiding foods we can get at home, whereas the first time in Africa all I wanted were foods I recognized.

So perhaps saying we’ve come full circle isn’t entirely true. Sure, we’re back to where we started in a geographic sense. But as travelers we couldn’t be farther from where we started, and that’s a good thing.
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Picture of the Day: Sunset over the Luxor Temple.

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Not Just a Hotel in Vegas

6/16/10: Luxor, Egypt

I’ll admit that before we came to Egypt that when I heard the word “Luxor,” I, like Google, first thought of the glitzy hotel in Vegas. Having been to Las Vegas before and now having been to the real Luxor in Egypt, I can say with confidence that they are quite similar. Except the temperature here is twenty degrees hotter than in Las Vegas, there are some magnificent ancient Egyptian tombs and temples and there are no slot machines. Otherwise, they’re exactly the same.

We started off our day tour with a visit to the Valley of the Kings, which is the main reason most people come to Luxor in the first place. The Valley of the Kings is where kings and nobles from the New Kingdom were buried. (Don’t I sound like I know things? It’s a farce; I actually don’t.) These include such celebrities as Ramses II and of course, the boy king himself – King Tut. The complex is huge, containing 63 tombs, some of which are open to the public. Most of the tombs have been completely emptied, their contents on display in various museums, with a few exceptions. King Tut’s mummy is still in his tomb, and you can pop in for a visit with him for 100 EGP. So those are the bare facts; now, what was it really like? Well, let’s just get this first part out of the way. It was HOT. Really, really hot. In fact, when you picture us wandering around, always picture us completely dripping with sweat and on the verge of fainting and that’ll be about right. Got that picture in your head? Good.

Ok – so the tombs themselves. We visited three tombs, and all three consisted of a hallway and several empty chambers (that’s not the cool part). The walls of the tombs are completely covered with carvings, some with the original paint intact (that’s the cool part). It was amazing to see the amount of effort that must have gone into these tombs: the shaping, the sanding, the carving and then the painting of every single square inch. But what was really mind-blowing was imagining all of the relics that we saw in the Egyptian Museum piled into those tombs. Just completely mind-boggling. I’m shaking my head in disbelief just thinking back on it.

There was usually quite a lot of space in the tombs, and although most were underground, the halls were generally short. Walking around in them wasn’t nearly as scary as the Dahshur Pyramid (no tears today!). The only thing that did make me feel uneasy was thinking about poor Tut in the afterlife. It had probably been one big long party for him until Howard Carter discovered his tomb and carted all of his treasures away. And now Tut’s stuck in the afterlife all alone with nothing. I mentioned this to Kevin, who replied sagely, “Yeah, but Tut’s young. I’m sure he finds something to occupy himself with.” I suppose this could be true.

After we visited the Valley of the Kings, we drove over to the Temple of Hatshepsut. I’d like to tell you some interesting facts about it, but I was so occupied with trying not to melt that I couldn’t pay attention to our guide’s explanations. Hopefully a few pictures will make it up to you. (Just FYI – no cameras are allowed in the Valley of the Kings; hence, no photos.)

The temple in all its dusty glory.

Some of the carvings have held up pretty well.

Apparently Hatshepsut liked strange arboreal activities.

We then went to the Valley of the Queens, which was much like the Valley of the Kings, except(shocker!) the tombs were quite a bit smaller. The day ended with a visit to the Colossi of Memnon, which are, oddly enough, two statues that depict Amenhotep III. I’m not sure who that Memnon guy is.

This view of the statue reminds me of Iron Man.

I’d say that today was our best day in Egypt so far. Better even than the Pyramids. And you know the best part about it? Now that the day’s finally over, I will never have to be this hot – for this long – again. Ever.

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Picture of the Day: Disney World-style trams take you from the parking lot to the entrance of the temple – 100 yards away.

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Our Last, I Mean First, Temple at Night

6/15/10: Luxor, Egypt

I believe it was the great Confucius who once said, “Sometimes you just gotta see temples at night.” So we did.

In order to avoid the oppressive heat of the midday Egyptian sun, we didn’t emerge from our air conditioned room until dinnertime today. (Have you noticed the heat theme of all our posts from Egypt? Sorry to keep bringing it up, but it really does hang over everything we do as if it were that obnoxious friend who never understands when he’s worn out his welcome.) But there was another reason we waited so long: at night they turn on the lights as the Luxor Temple. I don’t know if there’s any science behind this, but we finally discovered that temples are way cooler under the lights at night.

That’s all I got on that subject. Let me turn to something that I do much better: reflect. I could reflect until my mirror breaks from boredom, and over the next couple weeks you’ll discover that this isn’t an exaggeration. For example…

I remember when Zhou and I were planning this trip – it was Spring last year and she was spending every day at work working on the details, and I was spending every day at work thinking about it. We would talk each night:

One of us: Do you realize that one day we’ll be in a plane flying over the Atlantic, not to come back again for almost 11 months?
The other: No, it’s not going to happen. That life is too different and we’ll never actually live it.
The first one: You’re right. It’s all really just planning – there’s no way it’ll really happen.

And for about ten months, that’s what this trip was to us: an unrealistic, unachievable figment of our imaginations (despite how much money we had already put into plane flights and the African tour and gear and who-knows-what-else). The idea that we’d be living on the road, hostel to hostel, not knowing when we’d be able to shower again, eat food we know again, sleep in a comfortable bed again – that idea just didn’t jive with the lives we were living. Investment banking. Working 16 hours a day, and spending the other eight hours worrying that the Blackberry would go off and I’d have to go back to work. The trip would never happen.

I also remember the night before we left. There was so much rushing around and finishing our packing, and Zhou was busy giving me a haircut at 2am. There was really no time to be nervous, or anxious. Then we were on the plane flying across the Atlantic. It was the same as any other plane flight I’d ever taken, except we had to fill out customs cards and we lost a Scrabble tile. Then I remember sleeping in Heathrow, starting our overland tour in Nairobi, flying off on our own to Nepal, taking the train up through Southeast Asia… what I don’t remember is that first moment of, “Wow, we’re doing this. We’re leaving everything behind and traveling the world.” All of a sudden the trip just happened, as did our traveling education. We got used to pitching our tent throughout Africa. We got used to hiking 5.5 hours per day in Nepal. And we got used to hopping on hostelworld and booking our next temporary residence a day or two before we moved on again. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had more moments filled with a kind of awe that I’ve never had before. But those were all just part of this new, incredible life we had, and still have, for now.

Today, for the last time, we booked a hostel. Who knows when we’ll ever book another. (Side note: We love the hostel way of living that we’re planning on continuing to travel internationally this way even when we have enough money to afford nice hotels. There’s just no substitute for the friendly atmosphere and the helpfulness of the staff.) It’s just one more thing that we’re doing for the last time.

It’s impossible not to get caught up in them, the lasts. This really was a trip of firsts, and the firsts are still happening to this day. It’s funny though, the dichotomy between the firsts and lasts. It’s as if we’re the nerdy kid watching the Miss America pageant for the first time. There’s so many beautiful women, and you don’t necessarily take any of them for granted, but there’s just so many of them! Then this bully comes into the room and starts punching you in the stomach, and gives you wedgies, but lets you continue to watch. The firsts are still there, but this bully of lasts really kind of gets in the way. It’s a shame.

So my goal, and Zhou’s as well, is to try to push these lasts as far away as possible and enjoy the rest of the trip as if it were not going to end. Then one day we’ll be home with family, and that will be nice. But not today. Today we’re traveling the world.
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Picture of the Day: The view from our hostel’s rooftop, with Zhou in her camouflage shirt.

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Cairo: First Impressions

6/12/10: Cairo, Egypt

Traffic
A lot of the places we’ve been have had insane traffic. Kevin, fearless and long-legged, adapted to this very quickly, and he was pretty much immediately able to cross crowded, eight-lane streets with ease. I, slow and panicky, took much longer to adapt. But by the time we got to Vietnam, I could generally cross a street without panicking, though Kevin usually had to wait for me for several minutes on the other side. It’s funny, because we had heard so many horror stories about crossing the streets in Hanoi, but by the time we got there, we had had so much practice that we were pros. Now fast forward five months to today. We walked around the city of Cairo, and I can say that this city is hands down, the absolute scariest place for pedestrians. It’s not because the traffic moves so fast (which it does), it’s not because pedestrians never have the right of way (which we don’t) and it’s not because no one follows the traffic “laws” (which they never do). The thing that makes Cairo ten times scarier than any other city is this: the cars don’t care if they run you over. They cut so close to you that even our no-fail method of crossing streets – following closely behind a local – well, it failed. Doing that here could get you run over. The cars – even when they see you, maybe especially when they see you, never slow down and never stop. There were at least two instances today where I saw my life flashing before my eyes. It’s like a really intense game of Frogger. Except you’re the one who might get smushed.

Isn’t it Hot Under There?!
Being a predominately Muslim country, I’d say from what we’ve seen, about 90% of the women in Cairo hijabs to cover their hair, and maybe another 5% wear burqas. I’m amazed by this. I just can’t fathom how hot it must be under there. This is Egypt. In June. It is NO-JOKE hot. It’s so hot I’m dreaming about cold showers. I’m sure they must be used to it, but to me it still seems crazy.

Kevin Can’t Stop Speaking Spanish
It’s not his fault. But it is pretty funny to see the look on an Egyptian’s face after having an entire conversation with Kevin in English and then at the end hear him casually say “gracias” and wave goodbye.

Aren’t Our Numbers Arabic?
We don’t have internet right now, so I can’t check up on this, but…I’m pretty sure I’ve been told before that our numbers are Arabic. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0. Arabic. So I was shocked today to find out that there are other Arabic numbers. Are these the new Arabic numbers and ours are the old ones? Are these the real Arabic numbers and our numbers not Arabic? Did Dan Brown LIE to me? There’s no end to the questions. But what makes this even more confusing is that some of these numbers look like our numbers, but they don’t symbolize the same value. For instance, a backwards three is our 4. Five looks like our 0, and six looks like our 7. As I learned this, my head immediately started swelling to the point of exploding. So I gave up learning the numbers and passed the sheet to Kevin and told him to memorize them. Hey, that’s what he’s here for.
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Picture of the Day: Our only picture of Cairo thus far.

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