So, last time I wrote, I was really annoyed at the grossness of the men in Egypt. I do want to retract some of it. Not everywhere is gross, and in fact, the smaller the town, the better it all is. We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time...
Truthfully, there are a few beautiful things here, like The River Nile. In Cairo it's quite dirty, but that's only beacause of the size of the city. In Luxor, the Nile was peaceful and beautiful. Not clean enough to swim in, but certainly not coated with floating garbage like in Cairo. Making it look more like a freshwater lake than anything else. It is quite wide in a lot of places. Everyone hears about the Nile and how it's an important source of water for people here and blah blah blah, but seriously, you can see a clear cut line from where the water stretches underground to where it cuts off. There is Tropical Palm tree jungle..and there there is desert. No small shrubs in between. Like Night and Day. It's really cool to see. From high places, you can see the far desert, the valley of the Nile, and the next desert, and the Nile part looks more like a green road with a river in the middle than anything else.
While in Luxor, when we went to Banana Island, we were able to float back down the Nile and watch the sun set, and it was a really lovely time. We were really glad we'd come to Luxor, just for that. So, no, not all is bad.
anyway, We got back to Cairo from Luxor on an overnight train, and everyone was sick. Hurrah! Bradley and Bethany were super queasy. I was mostly ok. It was off and on queasy for me, but I came out rather unscathed in retrospect. Bethany was the worst. We had planned to maybe see the Egyptian Museum that afternoon, but we actually spent the whole day in Bed with Beth throwing up anything she took in, and Bradley sleeping a lot, and I just read a book, all day. By the evening we'd turned on the tv and started watching tv movies as our only source of entertainment. However, it was really important that we took that day to rest, and not just fight it off because the next day, early early in the morning, we had a bus which was heading to Barrea (Bah-ray-ah).
Barrea is an Oasis. So in the middle of the desert, you will find a nartural lake, and some channels to spread the water. so, basically there are tons of plants and palm (date palms) trees all over. Very interesting. but just as soon as the foliage starts, it ends, abruptly and there is nothing left but desert.
So, we arrived and were escorted to our Hostel, I think it was called the Ahmet Safari..and seriously it was the greatest place we've been in Egypt so far. The man in charge, whose name I forget, was really quite nice, and told us all of the costs way ahead of time, and then our schedule. He included that for a day in the desert we had to tell him in advance how much water we'd like and that we could order pop and the like but it was an extra charge (water and meals were all included in the fee). He told us right away what the important things to buy were, so that we didn't have to figure out what was a good deal (and we did get a few things, like Camel socks!!! and olive oil). And was really honest. We appreciated his honesty, mostly because there is so much corruption so far in this country. OUr rooms were really funny. WE got our own building, with a sitting room that you enter when you get into the door, and then on either side, a bed room with two beds in each, and an attached bathroom in each. The beds though, were covered with bug nets suspended from the ceiling, but they were bright pink. So, the room looked a lot like a princess style bedroom for a little girl than one for three young adult backpackers. WE loved it!
Anyway, day one was basically a tour around the city. We went with a driver who spoke little english and he took us to some of the main sights. Included were a hot springs and a cool springs, so Beth and I wore bathing suits...but we were fairly ignorant I guess because the hot springs were really just a place where the hot water came, and they keep the water contained in a high walled tub, and then it is channeled out, because they need all the water they can get. So, we touched the water (and it was quite warm indeed, especially when outside is 38 degrees), and then we got back in the car and drove away. You wouldn't have wanted to swim there. Next, the cool springs, which was actually the lake. It was a little dirty though, and so we didn't swim there either. Although we might have been able to, we didn't think it was what we were suposed to do. So, mostly we took a bunch of pictures. We then went off roading in the desert that surrounmded the oasis. It was awesome. Up and down hills and scidding around stone hills...super fun! We stopped at a high hill that overlooked the whole desert valley and then you could see the oasis and the trees beyond that, and it was marvellous, plus the sand was so very soft and thick, and we really should have thought to bring tobbaggans for such a hill....ohwell.
On the way back, we stopped at our owners house and he invited us in for tea...which is what anyone will invite you in for. WE enjoyed meeting his small family and his little boys, and they taught us how to say 1-10 in Arabic. I remembered how to read them from my lessons, but couldn't for the life of me remember what they sounded like, so now, that I do know, I"m feeling pretty good. It was Friday (therefore holy day) and so there were frequently sermons coming from loudspeakers all over the city (these same loudspeaker/towers that they sing the cool to prayer on every day several times). The sermons (which were also going on the WHOLE 5 hour Bus ride) sounded like two things. 1. A man singing in all sorts of notes, that didn't sound like a melody at all, and had no background music....the way that someone who is pretending to sing and you know they can't might sound. and 2. Someone shouting. Sounding an awful lot like someone shouting propaganga would be. Secretly it reminded us of what Hitler might have sounded like, based on the insensity, but obviously, it couldn't be more than someone telling people to do what Allah says and be faithful.
That day we got to watch the sun set again. Watching it set in a desert setting is that much more peaceful than anywhere else, mostly because there isn't any sound anywhere. NO animals, no cars, no generators, no lights, nothing. It's perfect quiet except for you and your friends.
That night we slept in the hostel and were ready to go bright and early for our trip into the desert.
We began the journey with a new guide, named Mohammad, who drove us right out into the black desert. Our first stop, was a large hill. fairly high compared to some of the hills covering the landscape, and he pointed to it and without even getting out of the car told us to go climb it. Of course, thinking that he was supposed to be a guide and then was making us do things all alone, we were a bit confused, but it's not like we couldn't handle it. The drive out took wuite a while, so when we arrived, it was about noon, and therefore, quite hot. NOt the hottest yet, but I"m thinking about 36 degrees. So we climbed straight up this hill, and were really sweaty and gross when we finally reached the top, not to mention that our lungs were burning because of the intense heat adn the dryness in every breath. But, when we caught your breath a bit, and your body relaxed and you looked around you....the view was breathtaking! It was the entire black desert. For miles you could see nothing but desert. The black desert is basically a bunch of hills made of basalt, that are covered in smatterings of sand that has blown in, making it look very two-toned.
Fnally when we were had taken in the awe enough, we went back down and joined our guide who took us then to a realy Bedawan village. Of course, most of the people in Barrea are Bedawa, so the village looked a great deal like the town itself, but there was a second hot spring inside, and a few of the typical buildings that you'd see, they are made of qhite brick, with dark gray cement grout, and none of them are finished. Most of the streets have small piles of white brick to finish projects with, but there are so many piles of brick, it makes you wonder if they ever will finish them at all. Anyway, another thing that they do both in the town and the city is use thick reeds from the oasis, and pieces of both trees and grain to make bundles and create thatched roofs and also fully thatched buildings. The thached buildings are used as what we like to call "nap shacks". The hours of 2-5 are just so hot that people can do little else but relax and sleep. We ate lunch in the nap shack and ended up staying there playing cards and dozing right up until5. Of course, we did not know that a 3 hour break was part of the tour and were a little confused at first, but we realized that it was probably so common sense to them, that they expected us to know that we don't do anything at that time. The people in the village use the natural hot spring water, when cooled as their water, mostly because they live quite a ways from the actual oasis. Though, now there are so many shops with bottled water, I'm sure most of them use that, and then just use the natural water for their animals (everyone and their dog has a conkey and cart here) and their gardens. It seemed like Onions and dates were the big ticket items here.
Stop number three, once the sun was a little cooler, was the white desert. This desert, again, covered in white stones and rocks, and then a topping of some golden sand was huge and for ever you could see the stones. much like a never ending garden. The black desert had hills like small mountains, but the white desert, in stead had little thin hills that looked like triangles with slightly rounded tips, or else like big random stones and skilny bases, much like the look of a mushroom. But enormous and made of rock. We didn't find out what the white rock was called, but it was fairly chalky and so I called it chalk rock.
We took some pictures, and then drove through to the "new desert" and it looked quite similar to the white desert, but the stones may have been a little different, and then the "old desert". I could not tell you the difference between the new and old. In fact, I didn't know that we'd switched deserts at all. But, in the old desert, we were setting up camp. So that's how I knew we'd arrived.
WE stopped the car and unloaded everything. Making camp was quite fun. They have a huge colourful fabric tarp with sticks attached to it. The sticks stab into the ground, but the funny part is that the other side of the stick is attached to the land cruiser (almost every vehicle here is a Toyota land cruiser or a motorbike), and then when you've covered the length of the vehicle, you turn it away from the car and stick a few more sicks in so basically, you've got a right angle of wall. That small corner is your wall. They they lay a carpet down that fits the dimension and then mats and a table so you can eat. Mohammad made a fire and once the fire burned down, used the coals as our cooking surface. We cooked potatoes, made rice and soup and "chicken on the fire" which is just checken wrapped in tin foil with a marinade. Cudos to the company though, no canned food. All of it was fresh and cut up in front of us, and the food was really really nice. They have a ton of soups here, and I have enjoyed each of them thougougly, and I'm a little picky, so that's a big thing.
Anyway, during dinner, the sun set, and little desert foxes began coming out to play. I have never seen these creatures except in elementary research things on animals, and so it was awesome to see them so close. They have bldies like cats, tails like dogs and tiny dog faces, but huge oversized ears that make them look disproportioned. At first they were really sciddish, but we gave them some bones from our chicken and they started getting really close. In fact, they offered us entertainment the whole night.
After dinner we walked a ways into the desert night, and the sun had set so it was dark now. With nothing but the small light from our camp attached to the battery of the car. We layed in the sand, (after I'd done a thorough bug check with my little flashlight (thanks Jordan)) and we star gazed. I could have sat there for hours. In fact, I'm sure we almost did. There is nothing like lookingt up at a sky filled with stars having No sound but silence around you. The sky as a background was so black it was frightning, and the amount of stars was about twenty times the amount we'd see at home. Even in the Elk Island light sanctuary...this was amazing! They even trinkled (finally giving meaning to the song!). We could see very clearly the musky waves of the milky way and we were in awe. We picked out the little and big dippers, and orion's belt (but the NOrth star was surprisingly dim), and enjoyed looking at how they had moved around in the sky from home. We also couldn't find the moon yet, and I knew it was supposed to be about half way full, and it turned out to have come up far later at night for some reason. I was glad the moon didn't come out though, bceause it was so bright when it did come, that it took away the light from the stars. So, it is better to star gazwe without them. We did see severl shooting stars and I may have made a wish or two.
We slept under those same beautiful stars and I couldnt' even tell you how awesome it was. Though I was a little scared of scorpions so I didn't sleep a lot. And in the morning, packed up and left back to Cairo. It was incredible. And it is the reason why we travel. It makes all the bad fall away as you see something so beautiful, you won't even forget it.
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