Inshallah...let my people go
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Aksum, Ethiopia
March 5 - March 21 2010
Route Traveled
Egypt
Cairo - St. Katherines - Dahab - Cairo
"We live in an infinity of infinities, and we reshape our lives with every passing thought and each unconscious action, threading an ever-changing course through the myriad possibility of existence."
After being told that I would have to wait until Sunday to apply
for my Sudan visa, I had a Saturday to relax, so I didn’t really do
much of anything except what I did mostly in Cairo, which was to eat
falafel and smoke sheeshah. In Cairo every corner you turn there are
sheeshah (hookah) cafes and almost everyone seems to be smoking it.
It probably wasn’t the best for my lungs combining the pollution of
the city and the smoke of the sheeshah. However it was a great way to
relax and have a cup of tea with the sheeshah was really nice. It was
also a great way to meet locals and to pass the time. I also loved
the food in Egypt, I couldn’t get enough of the falafel sandwiches,
koshari, and I also bought pita bread and made hummus and halawa
sandwiches my whole time in Egypt, so delicious, mix in a handful of
oranges everyday and my stomach was happy. On Sunday I walked to the
Sudan embassy after getting $150 exchanged and ready for my visa.
When I arrived I asked the guy at the counter if I could apply for a
visa. He asked my nationality, and I told him American, he then told
me that it was impossible for me to get a visa. I asked him why this
was, he just told me that I had to get it in my home country, I told
him this was not possible, and if there was any other way. He in a
laughing way told me that there are some people we approve for a visa
and there are some people that we deny, and I am denying you for a
visa. Amazed at this I asked what else I could do, he told me if you
have a friend invite you from Sudan and apply for a visa in your name.
I shrugged and was basically laughed out of the embassy. Discouraged
I walked back towards my hotel weighing out my options for what I
should do next. I decided I wasn’t ready to give up without
exhausting all my possible options. I went to the internet and
started writing people on couch surfing and hospitality club and also
a couple of hotels in Sudan, to see if anyone was willing to help me
apply for a visa to Sudan. The idea to skip Sudan and fly straight to
Ethiopia was also stirring in my head, because that seemed to be my
only other option. Went and ate some falafel and to the sheeshah
cafe, and pondered what I shall do.
The next morning I checked my email to see if anyone had
responded, and I found that one person had, but didn’t know how to
help me. I decided that this way would be very difficult and while I
wait to see if I get anymore responses, I figured I my as well get my
visa for Ethiopia prepared while I was waiting to see my fate for
Sudan. I took a nice long walk to find the Ethiopia embassy crossing
a long bridge over the Nile River, after over an hours walk I couldn’t
figure out where the embassy was, so I got a taxi who took me all over
the city aimlessly before he actually found the embassy. Everything
went good, they took $30 for the visa and said to come back tomorrow
to pick it up.
On Tuesday morning I made the walk back to the embassy but this
time I knew where it was so it was no problem, I picked up my visa
which was for 3 months multiple entry. I then decided instead of
staying in Cairo and wasting time trying to figure out what I should
do about Sudan, I will instead head to the Sinai Peninsula, and if I
get any luck for help on my visa then I will come back and take care
of it in Cairo. So I walked to the bus station and booked a ticket to
St. Katherine’s, where Mt. Sinai and the burning bush are located.
That night as most nights I went to relax in the sheeshah cafe. The
unique thing about the hotel I stayed in was that it was in a circle
in the middle of the city, and in the circle there were 6 streets
sprouting out around the circle, so every time I left my hotel I could
choose one of these streets to wander down, and every time I was ready
to come back it seemed every street lead back to this circle, but it
was so hard to remember which place was on each street. I also made a
walk to Islamic Cairo, where the huge market is, and that was an
assault on the senses, just walking through the narrow ways was
difficult because everyone was blasting by me and I was just slowly
meandering lazily.
Wednesday had come around and I had already spent over a week in
Cairo, and it was definitely time to head out, the honking of the
horns and all the smog, it was time to head out into the nature and
get away from the bustling city. I walked about a half hour to the
bus station and was off. It took over an hour just to get out of
Cairo, because it is so large and the traffic is horrible. Arrived in
St Katherines at around sunset, and when the bus stopped I met two
girls from England who said they had a reservation at a hotel and
asked if I wanted to come with them. I said of course why not. The
hotel was about 2 km away from st katherines village and it was
surrounded by mountains and open air, and it was a perfect change from
Cairo. I found out the two girls were actually staying at the hotel
for about 4 months, studying for school. One of them was doing
research on the smallest butterfly in the world, that only lives in
the mountains around there, and the other one was doing researching
comparing the atmosphere of Bedouin Gardens and non Bedouin gardens.
After a long bus ride I ordered some sheeshah and relaxed at the hotel
and ate dinner with the girls and I also met an older guy from the Uk.
He told me how he had climbed to the top of mt Sinai the day before
and slept the night there. It sounded like a nice idea and I decided
I would do that the next day.
On Thursday I took it slowly and then went to town and bought some
supplies for my overnight on the mountain. I got some pita and halawa
and biscuits and water, and oranges. At about 230pm I began my walk
to the mountain. It took me about 45 minutes to walk from the hotel
to the base which lies St Katherines Monastery, where the burning bush
is located that Moses spoke to God from. I got an onslaught of guide
offers and camel rides, but I just kept walking and went on my own.
Mt. Sinai is supposed to be the mountain where Moses climbed and got
the 10 commandments from God. This is a huge pilgrimage site for many
people, and most people climb and night to make it for the sunrise.
Before I got very far I was invited to drink some tea with a young guy
and his younger brother before I started the climb. There was two
ways to climb the mountain, which is the camel route which circles the
mountain, and the steps of repentance which is a few thousand steps
that go straight up the mountain. I chose the camel route, and it
took about 3 hours to climb and I took my time taking in the great
sights. Almost to the top I stopped and shared a halawa pita sandwich
with one of the shop owners and he gave me some tea. The last part of
the climb was tough going up a steep part of the mountain. At the top
the view was amazing. Up on the top I met a guy who lives on the
mountain and sells coffee tea and snacks to all the people that come
up there. I asked him if he had any sheeshah, and he said no, and
randomly fishing I asked him what he did have. He said drugs, and I
laughed and so did he. So he invited me into his little enclave on
the mountain to have a smoke of Sinai's finest homegrown. He also
gave me tea and we got to talking and he asked me if I was gonna spend
the night on the mountain. I said yes and he offered me to sleep in
his cave, and I agreed. Enjoyed a great sunset, and hung out with
wolf who the people called my new friend, I can’t however remember his
real name. He shared a lot of food with me and gave me countless cups
of tea. After the sunset there was no one left on the mountain except
me and about 3 other people who lived at the top. I hung out and
smoked with wolf and his other friend who arrived a little bit later.
Wolf told me about these pills he took that made life seem always
beautiful, and his friend was smashing up this substance with a rock,
and he took it all at once in his mouth and slammed some water with
it. I asked what it was and they told me it was the shitty parts of
apium, he didn’t say opium, but it sounded very similar, he said it
was more dangerous than cocaine. I didn’t try these two things, but I
was sky high on Moses’ mountain. A little later I was shown to my
cave, which was perfect, there was mattress layed out inside and a
really warm blanket, and wolf also gave me a candle, I read in my cave
until I fell asleep. Early the next morning maybe around 4am I
started hearing a lot of people talking and praying. At around 530am
I poked my head out of my cave to the sight of a stunning sunrise,
which seemed to be a show just for me, I then looked up and looking
down on me was about 150 people all watching the sunset. What a sight
I must have been to them crawling out of my cave below them. I sat on
a rock a watched the sunrise, and later some Egyptian tourists came
down and talked to me, and we talked for about an hour. I went and
hung out with wolf and his friend for a few hours and then made the
climb down the mountain, this time taking the steep stairs. I made it
just in time to see the burning bush before the monastery closed. It
was a large bush with many thorns. I cant be quite sure but when I
got back to the hotel it seemed that my hair had turned a little more
gray and my beard had grown a little thicker...
anyway I relaxed in the hotel the rest of the night and after
wandering around st katherines village for a while I figured out how
to get the bus to Dahab which is on the Red Sea. Many people had told
me this is a great place to chill out so I decided to go. I also met
a guy in Cairo who had told me about a good hotel to stay at.
On Saturday morning I got the minibus to Dahab, and after driving
for about 3 hours through nice mountain landscapes I arrived in Dahab.
It was nothing like I had thought it would be, it was hotel after
restaurant after scuba diving shop after bar, there were so many
tourist places. It seemed to go on forever. It was really nice tho, I
found my hotel which was called Sinbad’s. This place was awesome; I
got a room overlooking the red sea and the mountains of Saudi Arabia,
which were only miles away across the Gulf. There were also two
really comfortable hammocks just outside of my room. Dahab is
supposed to be one of the best spots for diving in the world and one
of the best for windsurfing and kite surfing. When I arrived the
water was calm and there was barely any wind, and the water was
crystal clear, and I jumped in right away. Took advantage of the
hammock for most of the day reading and relaxing.
On Sunday I was just waking up and hanging out in front of my
room, and 4 newcomers arrived to the hotel and I met trixy alex and
freddie from Germany and also Nick from Minnesota who had arrived on
the bus with them. I read and listened to music in the hammock for
most of the day, and later on got to talking with Nick. He was in the
army and spent some years in Iraq. He told me many stories how
rockets blew up in front of him and he still had shrapnel in him and
how he was part of the squad who busted up a guy who was torturing
soldiers in his house, I guess it was a really big story that made CNN
and all other news channels. He also told me how most of his squad
was pumping themselves full of steroids and marijuana, and how one of
the guys got kicked out for making his own meth, and had blown some
stuff up from the lab. Really interesting stuff, Nick was living in
Minnesota and was plowing snow one day and he said fuck it and decided
to take a trip to the Middle East and Europe. I was really surprised
that he would want to take his first trip after Iraq, and come back to
Arab countries, but he told me that after such a bad experience with
bad parts he wanted to see the good parts of the Middle East, which
actually made some sense. He had flown into Israel and scooted over
to Egypt, and was gonna head up to turkey and over through Europe.
That night nick and I hung out and smoked some sheeshah and drank
some beer, and hung out with the Germans. The next day I decided I
was gonna take a long walk and go to the blue hole, which is a well
known scuba and snorkeling spot, and it was 7km away from the hotel.
I put my headphones on and I was off. I got about an hour away and I
saw a family over a little ways with a fire, and they called me over.
They had just caught a bunch of fish and were eating a feast. They
invited me to share with them, they gave me more food than even I
could handle, and even they spoke little English it was a nice time,
and their kindness was very pleasant. Very full I continued on my
walk. It took me 2.5 hours to make it to the blue hole, and when I
arrived I rented some snorkeling gear and jumped in. The coral and
the fish were awesome, and very colorful, after an enjoyable snorkel,
I walked back another 2.5 hours back to Dahab. After a long but
rewarding journey I was hungry so the Germans and nick invited me to
have dinner with them. We had a nice fish dinner in one of dahabs
great restaurants along the red sea, we shared some sheeshah.
The next day being Tuesday was also March 16th, my 29th birthday.
I didn’t have any plans, so for breakfast I went to see my favorite
falafel sandwich maker who I had seen I at least twice a day since I
arrived in dahab, his sandwiches were so great, and he got to know me
well, and started calling me habibi. After that I ate some nice fruit
and made my usual pita halawa and hummus sandwiches, yeh I was
feasting in Egypt, but it was great. I layed in the hammock listening
to music and reading for most of the day, talking with nick and the
Germans, and than later a guy from the uk who has been living in dahab
for 15 years came over and asked nick and I if we wanted to take a
hike up into the mountains. We agreed and this guy took us on an
adventure through the mountains of dahab, and we had great views
looking out onto the city and over into Saudi Arabia. there was one
part of the hike where we had to do a bit of climbing and it was a
little tough, I was nervous but made it down the hard part, at the
bottom the guy from Uk told me he climbed down this part for the first
time on his birthday years ago, and I said what a coincidence, it is
my birthday today. A little later we all shared a spliff, and the guy
from UK whose name I forget told us stories of dahab, and all the
people. It was like having a guide but for free. Towards the end of
the hike, nick said he wanted to leave and headed back early to the
hotel. After I arrived at the hotel I saw nick sitting there, I think
it was the next day that he told me that he had had a flashback from
Iraq when he was walking back from the mountains. He told me he saw a
truck with the hood open left alone, and this reminded him of how
there would be trucks like this in Iraq that would be set up as bombs.
It really shook him up, and he needed to be alone. That night I went
and had some Egyptian grouper with the Germans, and had a nice quiet
birthday, quite possibly my first sober one since I started drinking.
On Wednesday I did almost nothing except relax and read in the
hammock, eat falafel and pita hummus halawah sandwiches; I did the
same thing for most of the day on Thursday as well. That night I got
the night bus back to Cairo. I had gotten a response from a hotel in
Sudan who had agreed to write a letter to the embassy for me so I
could get a visa. After a few emails back and forth I decided that it
would be too much work and to costly to venture into Sudan. So when I
got back to Cairo I decided to buy a plane ticket to Addis Ababa
Ethiopia. This was Friday morning that I bought the ticket and the
flight left Sunday night at 11pm. So I had almost three more days to
kill in Cairo before I was off to Ethiopia. I was able to hook up my
Archos media player to the Wi-Fi in the hotel so I spent most of the
day in my room on the internet catching up with emails and other
things, eating falafel of course and koshari, and later on that night
I ventured off to my favorite sheeshah cafe. A little event that
happened the first time I was in Cairo at this sheeshah shop was a
little strange. I was just relaxing puffing away and all of a sudden
all the workers at the shop started clearing out all the tables and
chairs from the street very frantically, and they all seemed really
worried, I kept sitting watching very confused, after they cleared
everything out they came to me who was the last one there and took my
sheeshah pipe out of the apparatus and I was left there holding the
plastic tube in my hand, they then slammed the cafe doors shut and the
place was empty, without paying I just walked away dumbfounded with
the tube in my hand. so back to the present, that night I went out to
get some food first and on the street I met a guy and girl from
England, who randomly walked up to me and asked if I knew anything to
do, the girl was actually on the night bus with me from dahab to
Cairo, the night before, so I took them to my favorite restaurant and
we feasted then we went to the same sheeshah cafe I was just talking
about. Hung out there and the funny thing that happened was when I
went to pay the guys remembered me and asked me to pay for the time
before when they closed up show and I was left confused, I said fair
enough, and asked why they so frantically closed the cafe, they told
me that it was because the cops sometimes come and make them clear the
street so cars can get by. Well that didn’t seem to logical, but
anyway, later on the two English and I found a bar to drink a few
beers at. It was a whole in the wall place with only older men that
seemed like all professor types, who just sit around all night
drinking Egyptian brandy and bullshitting with each other. They
thought it was great that we were there and had a good time with us.
There was one guy that I talked with most of the time and he told me
his table was the crazy table, and I told him one day I will sit at
that table.
On Saturday I did much the same as the day before hanging out and
eating and using the wifi in my room, I met a guy who had just spent
three months in Ethiopia and we talked about good places and he even
gave my a little bit of Ethiopian birr that he had left over from his
trip. In the afternoon I went out for a walk and I some how ran into
the guy that I was talking to in the bar the night before. The
chances I walked by the cafe he was hanging out were slim and I
thought it was strange, but we had some sheeshah and he invited me to
drink with him that night in the same bar. At 8pm I met him in the
bar and ordered some Brandy. we had a great time hanging out for a
few hours and laughing with all the guys in the bar, I was feeling
tipsy and it was time to head back to the hotel.
On Sunday it was time to leave Egypt and head to Ethiopia, I
checked out of the hotel and figured I would hang out in the airport
all day till my flight. I went and ate my last falafel which was very
sad indeed, and headed out to the airport. During my time in Egypt I
was able to learn the Arabic numbers 1-10 so finding the bus to the
airport was not so difficult since this time I was actually able to
figure out the bus number. At the airport I had about 10 hours to
kill, so I treated myself to some delicious Burger King, and just
walked around the shops and read in the airport till it was time for
my take off.
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