"Denial isn't just a river in Egypt."
- Mark Twain
Here's a photo of me at the Cave Churches, posing with a bunch of adorable kids.
What a crazy couple of weeks! Right after I finished my final stretch of Arabic courses, I took my Mom and sister Norah on a whirlwind tour of Jordan. We floated in the Dead Sea, wound our way around the hazardous mountain roads, strolled through the gorges of Petra, sang with Bedouins in Wadi Rum, and finally relaxed on the shores of the Red Sea near Aqaba.
Of course, a week of tourism wasn’t enough. As soon as Mom and Norah flew off for home, I was plotting my next adventure. My college roommate Asmaah was visiting her family in Egypt and had invited me to tour the country with them. The offer was tempting, a rare opportunity to see a particularly challenging country with people who knew and took pride in its culture.
So, four days later, I had a luxuriously laid-back day of flying from Amman to Luxor, where I would meet up with Asmaah and her parents. I stepped out of Luxor’s small airport and into the sunny afternoon, complete with warm breezes and Asmaah squinting through the sunset’s intensely orange light to spot me. After heartfelt, hug-filled greetings, we took a trundling van ride over the bumpy streets of Luxor to the grand Nefertiti Hotel. I watched about 20 minutes of reality TV before I crashed, and I didn’t regain consciousness again until the groggy hotel clerk rang me at 4 in the morning to inform me that my hot air balloon was waiting.
I rushed to get ready and ran down the stairs to hop into another van with Asmaah and her Mom, from whence we took a sunrise felucca ride across the Nile to our balloon. We watched in amazement as we approached the take-off field, where a handful of parachute-sized balloons billowed majestically in the early morning breeze as a crew of men ran around and commandeered the machines that blew flames of burning gas into their mouths.
Our guide shouted to get our attention. “Remember,” he yelled, “When we land, you need to crouch low in the basket. Usually, we have a nice, soft, what we call an ‘Egyptian landing.’ But sometimes, we have an ‘American landing,’ where the basket bounces a few times across the ground before it stops. And then sometimes we have an ‘English landing,” where the basket tips over to its side and everyone falls out. So, just in case the wind blows hard and gives us an English landing, stay low in the basket, yeah?”
We all laughed and followed him to the basket that was waiting for us. Once we had all filed in, the guide had us up in the air and soaring over Luxor in a swift, effortless minute. In that minute, I could think of nothing but the view, the powerful expanse of desert divided by the winding Nile River that cradled lush, green fields and ran calmly into the infinity of the horizon. We hung over the basket’s side as we drifted over people’s homes. Families looked up and waved to us. Despite their kind gestures, I couldn’t help but feel guilty as I waved back, that I was getting an unfair view into their lives. The sounds of farm animals echoed up to us as we watched the creatures roam along roofs or courtyards.
“Alright, everyone,” our guide called out, “Get into landing positions!” Before I knew it, we were quickly approaching the ground, gliding over a farmer’s field. “Looks like we might have an English landing.” Some of us laughed nervously as we hastily crouched down and braced ourselves for landing. With the first bam, I knew we would have an American landing, but after some bouncing and skidding we landed right by a roadside. The farmers, plowing their field, only glanced at us once or twice. They must be used to balloons landing in their fields?
After our flight, we toured Luxor and Aswan in record fashion, touring a Pharaoh’s tomb or temple after another. I ran around the temple, gazing at the rows upon rows of hieroglyphs like a 6-year-old in a candy shop, trying to memorize sounds for as many symbols as I could.
When we had to pay an entrance fee, Asmaah’s mother had a fun time trying to get me in for the Egyptian price. Tourist spots usually list three different prices: the unnecessarily high foreigner’s fee, the somewhat reasonable international student price, and the incredibly low Egyptian price. “She’s Egyptian?” the ticketer would ask, gawking at my incriminating, blonde hair. “Of course!” Asmaah’s mother would reply. Naturally, some wouldn’t buy it. Upon further inspection, they would demand that I at least pay the international student fee, but not after Asmaah’s mother had given them an earful about the unfair treatment of foreign-born Arabs (the story we adopted was that I was half Arab). It was great.
Though we were busy, we always found some time to relax, whether on a quiet boat ride on the Nile or a pleasant stroll through banana orchards. I found time to savor the deliciously fresh fruits that gave me an explosion of flavor with each bite.
After our fun but tiring speed tour through the South, we had a restful day-long train ride up to Cairo, where the city’s overwhelming craziness smacked me in the face the moment the train doors opened. Cars speeding by, people yelling at each other, music blaring out of store fronts, children racing through the crowds, all mixing into a cacophony of noise I’ve never experienced before. Sitting numb in the back of an ancient taxi that zigzagged its way through traffic, I found a small part of myself missing the serene atmosphere in Amman.
If Cairo’s insanity lost me, the city’s food brought me right back. I loved it all: the savory, grilled lamb cutlets; the freshly fried falafel, the just-caught and seared fish; the ripe fruits and vegetables.
And, of course, we toured the Pyramids. In a horse-drawn carriage, we gazed at them in respectful appreciation. Occasionally, our guide would stop us for photos, telling us to pose in different angles: “Okay, now crouch down… okay, now pretend you’re putting your finger on the top of the Pyramid… okay, not pretend you’re putting sunglasses on the Sphinx…”
In my last day in Cairo, my mother’s friend Mumtaz toured me around a Coptic Christian area known as Garbage City, thus named because the residents have made an occupation out of sorting through truckloads of the city’s trash for recyclables. It was the first area of Cairo where I saw that most of the women did not cover their head. Parts of the neighborhood smelled of decaying organic waste. I covered my nose, and Mumtaz explained, “Yes, before the Swine Flu scare, pigs used to roam the streets and eat all the extra waste. But the Swine Flu hit and the government killed all the pigs, so now the people have difficulty with getting rid of all the organic materials.”
As we continued walking around, I saw that the neighborhood’s residents lived a hard life. Naturally, sorting through garbage makes a small income. “They live a hard life,” Mumtaz continued, “But they are hard-working, resourceful, and tough.” Every person I made eye contact with smiled, and a stream of children continued to run up to me, shake my hand, and practice their English.
Eventually, we walked through a gate that separated the Cave Churches from Garbage City, and the walls of buildings turned into gardens along a cliffside. True to its name, the Cave Churches is an area that houses a series of Coptic churches in the caves that line the cliff. According to Coptic tradition, a place becomes a church as long as an altar is within the space. Mumtaz showed me every one, each complete with a bedazzlingly ornate altar. It was Sunday, so in one church, over three hundred babies were being baptized at once.
We stepped into another just as the most massive mass I’ve ever seen was proceeding into sharing the Holy Sacrament of the Host. I was trying to imagine how many thousands of Copts were in this one church, lining up for communion. You can only receive communion if you’ve been baptized in the Coptic Church, so we eventually left. At the entrance of this cave, a tattoo stall advertised cheap tattoo crosses. Many of the mothers who had just baptized their babies were waiting in line to get their child’s wrist tattooed. As I saw a child shrieking in pain, I squirmed at the idea of causing a helpless child so much pain, and I had to remind myself that parents cause their children pain in many different cultures, including mine (with male circumcision, ear piercing, etc.).
At the end of the cave tour, Mumtaz put me in a taxi heading for the airport, and I got on the plane feeling dizzy. I had just traveled most of the length of Egypt in less than six days.
