Well, we made it back from Egypt, safe, sound, and none the worse for wear, other than jet lag and packing too much into a vacation (as I tend to do). It was a very interesting trip, on many fronts. Overall good, and very glad we went. I'll post more later, when I'm not so jet lagged and have some time. But just wanted to check in and let you know I'm safe. In case I was missed..... ;-)


Installment 1 - Safety and Security

Installment 2 - Geography

Installment 3 - Baksheesh

This message has been edited. Last edited by: IntrepidTraveler,

Welcome Back! Now rest up and let's see those pics!

Yes I'm very interested in your trip. Did you feel threatened or unsafe?

We tried to sell your house whilst you were gone. Did you find the squatters?

Welcome back. I'm sure a memorable time.

Pics, need pics.

Welcome back! I am glad it went well.

Welcome back. Looking forward to seeing the photos and hearing the stories.

Welcome back! Can't wait to see your adventure.

Welcome back to the Motherland!

Been almost 24 hours. No pics?

quote:

Originally posted by craigcpa:
We tried to sell your house whilst you were gone. Did you find the squatters?

That cracked me up! I'm afraid that wouldn't be possible though - our attack dog would have protected it. Actually, the dog - an ankle biter - would have barked her head off, then locked your ankles off, then annoyed you to sit on your lap. So I'm thinking we'd be safe.

quote:

Originally posted by slabsides45:
Been almost 24 hours. No pics?

Well, I managed to make a boo boo. Not unrecoverable, just inconvenient. We flew from Cairo back to El Paso. GF then went home to Carlsbad, and I went back to work in the Augusta area. Since I'm going home for Christmas for a couple of weeks, I figured I'd leave the camera at home and just bring the memory card back with me. Well, from the time we got up Friday morning until we arrived in El Paso Saturday evening, we were up for 48 hours. So sleep deprivation led to me forgetting the memory card. Which means no pics.

This also means my calendar will be late this year, later than even expected. Ugh! So you'll have to wait. Stories will come, however. Stay tuned! I'll update this thread, with a hyperlinked "Table of Contents" in the original post.

Safety and Security

This is the topic I think most would be interested in, with a close second of scenery.

Did we feel safe? Generally, yes. The security posture of the country is vastly different from the US. Metal and X-Ray detectors everywhere, and I mean everywhere. To get back into the hotel we had to lass through one. Every archaeological site had one, some multiple layers. Police/ military with guns everywhere.

Guns were of the AK variety, with some shorter sub guns (similar to MP-5s), which I didn't recognize. (I'm not overly familiar with Soviet weapons, other than the ubiquitous AK.) If anyone has an idea about the sub gun, I'd be curious.

As Americans, we were given extra scrutiny. We had guides the whole trip, so were identified as Americans by them. We never had to present our ID. Ostensibly, this was to "keep us safer". I would tend to agree, as the authorities would not look kindly on anything untoward happening to a AS citizen.

Free passage is a right we have here that isn't generally accepted there. This first was shown when we went to Abu Simbel from Aswan. They would not let the tour vehicles leave Aswan until 0430 - the road was gated closed. Then again, when we were driven from Aswan to Luxor - we went through a checkpoint about 1830, 30 minutes later than tourists were allowed. We were talked through by our guide and driver by then saying we were British. If we were identified as American, they would have had to send an escort to us from Luxor, which would have added a couple of hours to the trip. My impression, mostly from later interactions, that Americans are routinely identified as British to avoid the red tape and inconvenience, a sort of wink-wink kind of thing.

We never felt personally unsafe on the street or anywhere we were. On the other hand, shopping was impossible due to the third-world-country mentality ("assault the customer until he buys something"). And baksheesh (tips/ bribes) is a concept that's so ingrained into the culture that it is inseparable from who they are. More on both later.

End of installment 1....

Geography

OK, so we all know that Egypt is at the top right corner of Africa. And we all know the Nile flows through it from south to north into the Mediterranean. And any of us who are biblical scholars (and by that, I mean you've been to Sunday School a few times) also know a couple more facts - that Egypt is a desert, and that the Nile floods. Well, I don't think I had a concept of how true the last two facts were until this trip.

I absolutely love the desert southwest - Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada. I go there as much as I can, and most of my photography, at least my "good" stuff, is from there. It's a desert. but not nearly the desert that Egypt is. In the desert southwest, our deserts have Pinon Pine and Juniper trees, grasses, sagebrush, cactus - all sorts of vegetation. In Egypt, once you get outside the Nile floodplain, there's nothing. Just sand and rock, and I suppose the very occasional oasis.

And it very seldom rains. We asked our guides (all three of them during our trip) when it rained last. Their answer was sometime around 2004. The Nile flooding, which happened yearly and flooded the Nile valley for about 4 months every year, came from the headwater area of the upstream Nile, not from rains in Egypt. Flooding was controlled in the early 1900s with the construction of the first Aswan dam, and later the Aswan High Dam.

So the Nile was a very important part of early civilization in Egypt. Without water, civilization would not have flourished. Without the annual floods, agriculture would not have been possible. This was not evident to me until we saw it firsthand. I just didn't have a firsthand understanding of how Egypt's desert differed from ours.

Personally, I enjoyed the geography write-up more than the security.

For some reason, probably all the photos in encyclopedias etc., for years I imagined the Giza Pyramid complex out in the middle of nowhere, desert.

It was a surprise to find it right there on the edge of town. The Sphinx is sitting there looking right downtown!

Installment 3 - Baksheesh

There were two things that annoyed the bejeezuz out of me. One of them was baksheesh.

Baksheesh has been described alternately as tips, bribes, begging, and I'm sure quite a few other things. After a fair amount of thought, I'm of the opinion it's a integrated combination of all three.

People there expect baksheesh for EVERYTHING. Open a door for you - baksheesh. Carry a bag - baksheesh. Dinner service - baksheesh. Bathroom attendant - baksheesh.

Seriously - if you want to go to the bathroom in Egypt, expect to pay baksheesh (£E2-3 per person). Almost every bathroom has an attendant, including the airport bathrooms. Without baksheesh, you don't get toilet paper. (And even with baksheesh, you don't get a lot.) This is no matter how clean (or not) the bathroom is. (Expert tip - Wet Ones are invaluable.)

This is compounded by the fact that if you look like an American (OK, to be fair, probably a westerner), you are automatically considered to be rich. And do I look like a westerner - lily white, bald, western attire, camera over my shoulder. To be fair, "rich" is relative, and even the poorest of our poor are well off when compared to the poor in Egypt.

Baksheesh is so bad that when I was walking down the street and someone talked to me, just to be friendly, they expected baksheesh.

I think this is such an ingrained part of the culture that it's impossible - unthinkable - for Egyptians to behave any differently. One of many examples: toward the end of our trip, we asked our guide if baksheesh was included in the cost of what we were doing. They assured us it was. This was an unambiguous question, and we received an unambiguous answer. Yet, after the activity, we were advised by our guide that if we enjoyed the activity, the hosts would appreciate baksheesh. So I think it's an inseparable part of their culture.

TO COMPOUND THINGS, there is a conspiracy to keep small change out of the hands of tourists, thereby by default increasing the amount of baksheesh we were able to give. Without significant effort, we were unable to obtain anything smaller than £E50 (50 Egyptian Pounds), equal to just under $3. This "conspiracy" is documented on many websites.

To further compound things, we were not able to get foreign currency ahead of time, as we usually like to do. The Egyptian Pound is not "traded" in the US, at least according to the Wells Fargo foreign currency department.

We had not realized how deeply ingrained the concept of baksheesh was. In hindsight, we would have taken care to get small currency (there are £E1 coins, which would have been perfect) in quantity. Again, in hindsight, I would have figured out how much we might have expected to give in baksheesh, and then at least quadrupled it. At least. And I'm NOT KIDDING about that.

quote:

Originally posted by IntrepidTraveler:
Guns were of the AK variety, with some shorter sub guns (similar to MP-5s), which I didn't recognize. (I'm not overly familiar with Soviet weapons, other than the ubiquitous AK.) If anyone has an idea about the sub gun, I'd be curious.

Likely AKS-74U or, Krinkov; bin Laden alway toted around with one.

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:
For some reason, probably all the photos in encyclopedias etc., for years I imagined the Giza Pyramid complex out in the middle of nowhere, desert.

It was a surprise to find it right there on the edge of town. The Sphinx is sitting there looking right downtown!

The definition of urban sprawl or, shitty urban planning, should include a wide-shot picture of the pyramids and how they butt right up against town.

I've heard the baksheesh story many times, for Westerners, its an utterly foreign concept. When it comes to basic economics, it's short-sighted and ultimately eviscerates any type of trusting social contracts for law & order...not hard to figure why that part of the world struggles. Did your tour guides not inform you to stock-up on small change for this very reason or, are they in cahoots as well? Would you go back but, with a different tour operator?

Interesting and none of it surprising. Glad You had a good safe trip.
I will never go to that part of the world and have no desire too either.