im in the cairo airport right now, but im like an hour and a half early for my flight (who would have figured that the airport could be the most efficient system in the country??) and i have free internet, so its either write this or go browse the wide selection of cheap alcohol at the duty-free store. ill probably do that later anyway. and plus, it seems like i should write the last egypt entry while still in egypt. it would be a little unauthentic to deliver it from romania or home.
im not sure who reads this; actually to my knowledge, its only mom and dad and luke and lauren (maybe katie and margaret still do?), but anyway, in case you didnt know, im going to romania. and if everyone already knew that then sorry for being redundant.
i left off last entry during one of the busiest weeks of the semester. interestingly enough, the week after proved busier, though in a different way. this last week has been so incredibly jam packed with stuff, and very little of that stuff has been sleep, so ive been hectically bustling about trying to enjoy my last few days in cairo while refraining from failing classes. however! i still havent written about israel, so ill do that first and see what happens from there.
it all started on thursday, the fourth of december. the players are regulars in these tales: luke and chelsea, corina and lauren, and, naturally, me. we planned to leave for taba (the border town between egypt and israel) on thursday night, thus arriving friday morning, but luke and chelsea decided that they needed an extra day in cairo, so we just piddled around on thursday. we went to citystars (the big, hugely westernized mall) with the intention of getting pedicures, but apparently no men are allowed, which i found sexist until i remembered that i was in egypt. so luke and i sat in a coffee shop while lauren and chelsea got pretty, and then we all went to this ridiculous pseudo-amusement park inside the mall. its a really ridiculous place called magic galaxy, and it is filled with janky kids rides that look like they are made entirely of plastic. but everything was supremely colorful, and they have this ridiculous roller coaster so we rode it and yeah. that was that. we slept at chelsea's that night, if i remember correctly, which i usually dont, with plans to leave on the nine o'clock bus on friday.
luke and chelsea were taking the evening bus so that they could do work all day friday (but of course they didnt do any work at all for reasons that i have mentioned before), so lauren and i left without them. first thing, we had to return to citystars to go to the bank; i may have mentioned that the atm in dahab ate her debit card so she had no money, so her dad wired her some and we had to go pick it up. unfortunately, the address that she had led us to a cafe- the bank closed two years ago. then we were wandering and this random nice egyptian picked us up (i know it sounds sketchy, but dont forget that im a highly trained assassin) and drove us back to citystars where the main branch of the bank was located. we finally found the office and knocked and some guy in workout clothes answered the door; we soon found out that this office was only a representative and that they do no actual money exchanges and, in fact, this branch was totally removed from egypt in 2006. bummer. i dont even remember the name of the bank, but i kind of think it was amex. not important. the point was that lauren still had no money, it was 0922 and we were supposed to meet corina at the bus station to catch the 0930 bus on the other side of town. once again, this random egyptian was super nice and told us where a nearby bus station was, so we could wait there for corina, she could get off, give us tickets, and we could go. so thats what we did. on the bus we met marcus, an austrian who liked to talk philosophy (my kind of guy). thats pretty much the most interesting thing that happened on the bus. we arrived in taba and proceeded through customs.
in case you were wondering, in case there was any doubt whatever in your mind, yes, it is in fact difficult to get into israel, especially from a muslim country, and extra especially if you: 1) have a lebanese stamp in your passport, 2) are wearing a bracelet covered with lebanese flags, and 3) are carrying in your bag a Qur'an.
um... they have started boarding. i guess ill go get on the plane; so much for catching up on my blog. i guess i can type it out and then post from germany; ill still be in egyptian air for like the next hour :)
Tuesday, 23 December 2008
Monday, 15 December 2008
this was written a while ago, but i didnt have internet... trying hard to catch up
Picking up again; I figure that I should finish thanksgiving weekend before I go off to Israel, because otherwise it will just be overwhelming and you wont get the full picture. Of course, lots of interesting stuff happened in dahab and most of it I wont be sharing, so you wont get the full picture anyway, but that’s just the way the cookie crumbles. And also, im writing this entry on word because im bored at the mall and they don’t have wireless. I only mention that to explain why this one entry out of all the others has (almost) correct capitalization and punctuation. I haven’t had a change of heart; word just auto-corrects.
Anyway, I believe that we left off after I got back from the desert. I probably did some stuff that week, I don’t really remember, but mostly I just read books for the paper that I had to write. I read a total of four books, more or less cover to cover, so about 400 pages of sufi mysticism, and at the moment I am a huge fan of that spirituality stuff. It all makes a lot of sense. But theology isn’t what this blog is about, so moving on… it was incredibly difficult for me to get work done at home, unfortunately, so I hid away in the library at school a couple of times and I went home with christianna once because for some reason her apartment is really conducive to getting work done. But anyway, by the time Wednesday night rolled around I had 15 (count them, FIFTEEN) pages, single spaced, of quotes for my paper. The paper only had to be 10 pages, double spaced, so obviously I had way the freak too many quotes, and I hadn’t even started writing at all. whatever.
Enter kira and sarah; I don’t know if I have mentioned them before, but theyre two of my favorite people here. The two of them, luke, Chelsea, Lauren and I had made plans to go to dahab on Wednesday night, but then luke and Chelsea decided to stay until Thursday night for whatever reason (they said they were doing homework, but they are both grossly irresponsible so I doubt that happened), so I went with Lauren and sarah and kira and got on the bus to dahab. We arrived at like ten in the morning and got a room at the same place we stayed last time, which I decided I really like because the people were super helpful, as you will soon see. Then we ate and I had to buckle down and start working on that stupid mysticism paper. I sat on the beach and typed and Lauren sunbathed and sarah and kira wandered, and that’s how we spent most of the day. In case you have forgotten, or in case I have never explained this, the beach at dahab is not a beach by any standard definition. Its mostly a rock and mortar wall about 3 feet high and then a rock floor at the bottom, plus water. And coral. And at some places there are “easy entry points” for divers, but those don’t count as beach. That wasn’t particularly relevant.
Eventually Lauren and I got tired of doing work (she had a paper to write in between sunning as well), so we went back to the room and found sarah and kira asleep, which was lame, so we wandered for a while and then woke the puppies up and went to dinner. I saw Muhammad, the guy I met last time with the really cheap restaurant; he was super excited to see me, but he was way more excited to see sarah, whom he hit on outrageously despite the fact that she told him she has a boyfriend. That’s Egypt for you. And then we went back to the room. Lauren went to skype with her family and the puppies and I had a Disney sing along because no one felt like sleeping. And then Lauren and I wandered for a while and smoked sheesha (you will see that this a recurring theme; see a few entries ago when we walked all the way across cairo at four in the morning…), but she was super tired and so we went back to the hostel, but then we decided to go on a walk because she couldn’t sleep, so we wandered some more and swang on swings and smoked more sheesha and played with kittens- there are literally hundreds of stray animals in dahab and theyre all super cute, just wash your hands. We went to a particular restaurant wherein one of the cats had recently birthed a litter, and the kittens were mewing around and they were so incredibly tiny… very cute. And then we slept. At like 4 in the morning. Not very responsible divers.
The next morning we woke up to luke and Chelsea knocking on our door, and then a few minutes later sawwan, our dive instructor from cairo, arrived, so the four of us (luke, Chelsea, Lauren and I, since kira and sarah weren’t diving) headed to the water. We suited up and did three offshore dives, which was sort of disappointing because I was expecting to go boating (I think boating is way more fun than diving, personally), but it was still quite beautiful and we saw tons of lionfish and various other types, and I saw two eels that no one else saw, so that was pretty special.
That night everyone ate together- I guess that would make our number seven. And we played never have I ever. If you don’t know what this game is, go ask someone because I don’t feel like explaining it, but, in short, I usually win (I haven’t done very much of the stuff that generally comes up in that game). But this time I came in second; in the end it was just sawwan and I with fingers up, and he kept pulling out things like “I have never eaten Chinese food,” and “I have never ridden a roller coaster,” and I was like, geeze, you are amazing at this game; you haven’t done anything that an average American has done. So he won that.
As a little side note, we weren’t the only auc people in dahab. Actually, the Wednesday night bus over was totally packed with auc people; I would guess that there were about sixty floating around at the height of the weekend. Our group of six was pretty nice- we fit at all the tables and we could shop without being overwhelming and all that jazz. But there was a group that we saw every night at dinner that was literally pushing forty. they would fill an entire side of a given restaurant with loud white people. I really didn’t understand why they didn’t branch off and go their separate ways, but I guess no one wants to walk away from the cool group. I knew a lot of the people in the giant gaggle, but we tended to avoid them.
Last time I came to dahab I met a man on the bus; his name was… well, I actually don’t remember his name, but he goes by “sheesha man,” and he asked me to come to his shop to smoke with him several times. My hostel last time (and this time too) was right next to his shop, so I passed him standing outside all the time, and every time he would ask, when are you coming to see me? And every time I would say, tonight, later, soon. And I never went, and I felt really bad, so this time when I saw him I said hi and I was like, this time im definitely coming to smoke with you.
Everyone else went to bed after dinner, but I wanted to go to sheesha man, so I called trish, who was also in dahab, and she and Lauren and I went to his shop and smoked the best sheesha I have had thus far in Egypt, which would therefore be the best sheesha I have ever had. This guy had a plaque (from germany) on his wall that awarded him the best sheesha in the world. It was really good. Apple mixed with mint, if I remember correctly. And then we slept, I think. Actually we probably wandered, but we slept eventually.
Then we woke up. And sawwan was calling me telling me that we were late, so we hustled to the dive center and hopped in the car to get to the next dive site, a place called “the canyon.” It is so named because it is, well… a rocket ship. Not really, it’s a canyon. It starts about 16 meters deep and goes down to about 52 meters, so we weren’t actually allowed to go inside (luke and I are only certified to 18 meters and at that time Lauren and Chelsea weren’t certified at all), but we went into some caves and peered down into the gorge; it was really amazing. And then there was coral too. Huzzah for coral. And fish.
Then we came back and I was a crazy emo kid for a little while and I really wanted to write some poetry, and then Lauren and I sat on the roof of the hostel and looked out over the corniche at the red sea and it was awesome. Man, I like the sea. I want to live there. And then we hung out at a random restaurant until it was time for luke and Chelsea to leave. Those two and sarah and kira were taking the afternoon bus back to cairo, but I wanted to stay in dahab to work on my paper, because its nicer to write on the beach than in a dorm, and Lauren decided to stay to work on hers too, so the other four left and she and I went back to the beach to type.
Then at 430 we took a study break to go to this bar to watch the new Zealand all-blacks trounce England in rugby. And then we went back and took a nap, and that’s where the fun began. Our bus left at ten at night, so I set an alarm for nine to give us time to pack and get to the station. But, since im awesome at all things military, I set the alarm for 2300. in case you are slow on the uptake, that is eleven pm, not nine. So at 2202, Lauren woke up and said, hey andy, its ten. And I was like, hmm, I feel like we had something to do at ten, but that cant be right because my alarm would have gone off… ooooooooh. So we missed the bus. For which we had already bought tickets. I went to the office. When is the next bus? Nine tomorrow morning. I went back to the room. Can you ask about a microbus? I went back to the office. What about a microbus? The one to cairo left at eight, another one for just two people costs 600 pounds. I went back to the room. Its crazy expensive. Well I have to be back for my theater class, can you ask him to set it up anyway? Um, yeah, I guess so. I went back to the office. We need the microbus. So Lauren and I, at like 1130 at night, boarded a microbus, just the two of us, and drove back to cairo. So there was a random 275 pounds I hadn’t expected to spend (they gave us a discount just because they were nice. I don’t think that this rendition portrayed the guys at the desk particularly spectacularly, but they were really helpful and understanding and didn’t at all call me an idiot for missing my bus. In case you wanted to know.), but we made it back in time for school.
Hmm. This week wasn’t too exciting, just super busy. I had a physics test, a physics lab practicum, 2 physics homeworks due, an Arabic exam, an Arabic essay due, a philosophy paper due, a Qur’anic studies paper due, and a philosophy test. I think that’s it. Oh, I forgot about the papers… so I had written about seven pages by the time I got back to cairo, and then I found out that, hey! The philosophy paper isn’t due until Wednesday, hooray! So I relaxed on that a bit. Here is how clever I am, though: I had a 7 page paper for philosophy and a 10 page paper for theology, but I got one topic approved for both papers- I wrote them both on Sufism and the mysticism of ibn ‘arabi. That topic really does cover a lot of philosophy and theology both. So I finished the ten page one and turned it in, and then all I had to do was cut out three pages and I was finished with the seven page one. Let me tell you, writing a paper by cutting out three pages is way easier than writing one by adding pages as necessary. And that’s about it. This entry is super long. And tomorrow im going to Israel.
Anyway, I believe that we left off after I got back from the desert. I probably did some stuff that week, I don’t really remember, but mostly I just read books for the paper that I had to write. I read a total of four books, more or less cover to cover, so about 400 pages of sufi mysticism, and at the moment I am a huge fan of that spirituality stuff. It all makes a lot of sense. But theology isn’t what this blog is about, so moving on… it was incredibly difficult for me to get work done at home, unfortunately, so I hid away in the library at school a couple of times and I went home with christianna once because for some reason her apartment is really conducive to getting work done. But anyway, by the time Wednesday night rolled around I had 15 (count them, FIFTEEN) pages, single spaced, of quotes for my paper. The paper only had to be 10 pages, double spaced, so obviously I had way the freak too many quotes, and I hadn’t even started writing at all. whatever.
Enter kira and sarah; I don’t know if I have mentioned them before, but theyre two of my favorite people here. The two of them, luke, Chelsea, Lauren and I had made plans to go to dahab on Wednesday night, but then luke and Chelsea decided to stay until Thursday night for whatever reason (they said they were doing homework, but they are both grossly irresponsible so I doubt that happened), so I went with Lauren and sarah and kira and got on the bus to dahab. We arrived at like ten in the morning and got a room at the same place we stayed last time, which I decided I really like because the people were super helpful, as you will soon see. Then we ate and I had to buckle down and start working on that stupid mysticism paper. I sat on the beach and typed and Lauren sunbathed and sarah and kira wandered, and that’s how we spent most of the day. In case you have forgotten, or in case I have never explained this, the beach at dahab is not a beach by any standard definition. Its mostly a rock and mortar wall about 3 feet high and then a rock floor at the bottom, plus water. And coral. And at some places there are “easy entry points” for divers, but those don’t count as beach. That wasn’t particularly relevant.
Eventually Lauren and I got tired of doing work (she had a paper to write in between sunning as well), so we went back to the room and found sarah and kira asleep, which was lame, so we wandered for a while and then woke the puppies up and went to dinner. I saw Muhammad, the guy I met last time with the really cheap restaurant; he was super excited to see me, but he was way more excited to see sarah, whom he hit on outrageously despite the fact that she told him she has a boyfriend. That’s Egypt for you. And then we went back to the room. Lauren went to skype with her family and the puppies and I had a Disney sing along because no one felt like sleeping. And then Lauren and I wandered for a while and smoked sheesha (you will see that this a recurring theme; see a few entries ago when we walked all the way across cairo at four in the morning…), but she was super tired and so we went back to the hostel, but then we decided to go on a walk because she couldn’t sleep, so we wandered some more and swang on swings and smoked more sheesha and played with kittens- there are literally hundreds of stray animals in dahab and theyre all super cute, just wash your hands. We went to a particular restaurant wherein one of the cats had recently birthed a litter, and the kittens were mewing around and they were so incredibly tiny… very cute. And then we slept. At like 4 in the morning. Not very responsible divers.
The next morning we woke up to luke and Chelsea knocking on our door, and then a few minutes later sawwan, our dive instructor from cairo, arrived, so the four of us (luke, Chelsea, Lauren and I, since kira and sarah weren’t diving) headed to the water. We suited up and did three offshore dives, which was sort of disappointing because I was expecting to go boating (I think boating is way more fun than diving, personally), but it was still quite beautiful and we saw tons of lionfish and various other types, and I saw two eels that no one else saw, so that was pretty special.
That night everyone ate together- I guess that would make our number seven. And we played never have I ever. If you don’t know what this game is, go ask someone because I don’t feel like explaining it, but, in short, I usually win (I haven’t done very much of the stuff that generally comes up in that game). But this time I came in second; in the end it was just sawwan and I with fingers up, and he kept pulling out things like “I have never eaten Chinese food,” and “I have never ridden a roller coaster,” and I was like, geeze, you are amazing at this game; you haven’t done anything that an average American has done. So he won that.
As a little side note, we weren’t the only auc people in dahab. Actually, the Wednesday night bus over was totally packed with auc people; I would guess that there were about sixty floating around at the height of the weekend. Our group of six was pretty nice- we fit at all the tables and we could shop without being overwhelming and all that jazz. But there was a group that we saw every night at dinner that was literally pushing forty. they would fill an entire side of a given restaurant with loud white people. I really didn’t understand why they didn’t branch off and go their separate ways, but I guess no one wants to walk away from the cool group. I knew a lot of the people in the giant gaggle, but we tended to avoid them.
Last time I came to dahab I met a man on the bus; his name was… well, I actually don’t remember his name, but he goes by “sheesha man,” and he asked me to come to his shop to smoke with him several times. My hostel last time (and this time too) was right next to his shop, so I passed him standing outside all the time, and every time he would ask, when are you coming to see me? And every time I would say, tonight, later, soon. And I never went, and I felt really bad, so this time when I saw him I said hi and I was like, this time im definitely coming to smoke with you.
Everyone else went to bed after dinner, but I wanted to go to sheesha man, so I called trish, who was also in dahab, and she and Lauren and I went to his shop and smoked the best sheesha I have had thus far in Egypt, which would therefore be the best sheesha I have ever had. This guy had a plaque (from germany) on his wall that awarded him the best sheesha in the world. It was really good. Apple mixed with mint, if I remember correctly. And then we slept, I think. Actually we probably wandered, but we slept eventually.
Then we woke up. And sawwan was calling me telling me that we were late, so we hustled to the dive center and hopped in the car to get to the next dive site, a place called “the canyon.” It is so named because it is, well… a rocket ship. Not really, it’s a canyon. It starts about 16 meters deep and goes down to about 52 meters, so we weren’t actually allowed to go inside (luke and I are only certified to 18 meters and at that time Lauren and Chelsea weren’t certified at all), but we went into some caves and peered down into the gorge; it was really amazing. And then there was coral too. Huzzah for coral. And fish.
Then we came back and I was a crazy emo kid for a little while and I really wanted to write some poetry, and then Lauren and I sat on the roof of the hostel and looked out over the corniche at the red sea and it was awesome. Man, I like the sea. I want to live there. And then we hung out at a random restaurant until it was time for luke and Chelsea to leave. Those two and sarah and kira were taking the afternoon bus back to cairo, but I wanted to stay in dahab to work on my paper, because its nicer to write on the beach than in a dorm, and Lauren decided to stay to work on hers too, so the other four left and she and I went back to the beach to type.
Then at 430 we took a study break to go to this bar to watch the new Zealand all-blacks trounce England in rugby. And then we went back and took a nap, and that’s where the fun began. Our bus left at ten at night, so I set an alarm for nine to give us time to pack and get to the station. But, since im awesome at all things military, I set the alarm for 2300. in case you are slow on the uptake, that is eleven pm, not nine. So at 2202, Lauren woke up and said, hey andy, its ten. And I was like, hmm, I feel like we had something to do at ten, but that cant be right because my alarm would have gone off… ooooooooh. So we missed the bus. For which we had already bought tickets. I went to the office. When is the next bus? Nine tomorrow morning. I went back to the room. Can you ask about a microbus? I went back to the office. What about a microbus? The one to cairo left at eight, another one for just two people costs 600 pounds. I went back to the room. Its crazy expensive. Well I have to be back for my theater class, can you ask him to set it up anyway? Um, yeah, I guess so. I went back to the office. We need the microbus. So Lauren and I, at like 1130 at night, boarded a microbus, just the two of us, and drove back to cairo. So there was a random 275 pounds I hadn’t expected to spend (they gave us a discount just because they were nice. I don’t think that this rendition portrayed the guys at the desk particularly spectacularly, but they were really helpful and understanding and didn’t at all call me an idiot for missing my bus. In case you wanted to know.), but we made it back in time for school.
Hmm. This week wasn’t too exciting, just super busy. I had a physics test, a physics lab practicum, 2 physics homeworks due, an Arabic exam, an Arabic essay due, a philosophy paper due, a Qur’anic studies paper due, and a philosophy test. I think that’s it. Oh, I forgot about the papers… so I had written about seven pages by the time I got back to cairo, and then I found out that, hey! The philosophy paper isn’t due until Wednesday, hooray! So I relaxed on that a bit. Here is how clever I am, though: I had a 7 page paper for philosophy and a 10 page paper for theology, but I got one topic approved for both papers- I wrote them both on Sufism and the mysticism of ibn ‘arabi. That topic really does cover a lot of philosophy and theology both. So I finished the ten page one and turned it in, and then all I had to do was cut out three pages and I was finished with the seven page one. Let me tell you, writing a paper by cutting out three pages is way easier than writing one by adding pages as necessary. And that’s about it. This entry is super long. And tomorrow im going to Israel.
Monday, 1 December 2008
a ten day break and a twenty page paper, hot damn
i have about 20 minutes until my bus comes. lets pick up where we left off, shall we?
the weekend before thanksgiving i went out to the black and white desert. i was actually in charge of this trip, which was sort of annoying since i had thus far gone the entire semester without planning anything myself, but i got jeeps and guides and stuff and we had eight people who wanted to go and all was well, but then like 3 days before we were to leave, half of our group dropped out and i was left with three people to fill two jeeps... not at all financially viable. but then i went to chelsea's house (this was the day of my date with the subway guy, if you recall) and i was talking with mitch, one of her flatmates, and he was going to the desert that same weekend, so i latched my three on to his group, which was convenient because about half of his people bailed as well. we ended up having seven, but it was a really fun group. introduce mitch, wolf (yes, thats his real name), kasey, chelsea (a different one). lauren and trish, the two who were originally in my group, you already know, i think.
so the seven of us got on the microbus with mahmoud on thursday night and drove until like 4 in the morning when we arrived in bahariya; we crashed in a random hotel that i genuinely thought might be a monastery, and then in the morning we hopped in jeeps and went into the desert.
it was not at all the same as the desert trip in siwa; there was no dune surfing because there were not really any dunes because the desert was mostly rock. the black desert is covered with volcanic ash (so its black), and the white desert is covered with crystal (so its white, eh?); we did do some barefoot rock climbing, though, which was excellent. and we saw lots of fun formations, including random mountains that crumbled like chalk when we climbed them; mushroom-looking towers of stone; and a field of tiny broken rock crystal things that looked sort of like flowers.
we spent the night in the white desert; the evening mostly consisted of sitting around the campfire doing various things, but it also included a pretty good chicken dinner. i gave vegetarianism a break that night because we had seen the chickens alive that morning, so i figured they werent horribly mistreated and factory farmed. i didnt like it all that much, though, so there isnt much temptation to backtrack.
anyhoo, the things i did around the fire (im doing this in bullets because i have to catch the bus soon):
-drank gin (others drank wine but i dont like it so whatevs)
-smoked sheesha when another random bedouin guide showed up with one
-listened to mahmoud play bedouin flutes and the other guy play drums
-danced (slightly drunk and buzzed from the sheesha)
-gave massages to everyone who asked, including a random german girl who was part of the sheesha man's group
-wandered off and peed in the freezing desert
-burned my feet on coals that somehow got buried in the sand
-cuddled (after the fire died) because it was super cold
and then it was bedtime; the other four went to sleep pretty quickly, but lauren and trish and i stayed up and looked at the stars and talked, and i in general bugged them and kept them awake until all hours, and at one point in time kasey woke up and i proceeded to laugh harder than i have ever laughed in recent memory. the guy has this ridiculous southern accent (he is from knoxville, go figure), and... well, there isnt really a good way to explain this without examples and i cant remember any, but he is hilarious. the fact that it was three in the morning might have had something to do with it as well.
and the next day we went home and you will have to get the next chapter whenever i get a chance because my bus is coming.
the weekend before thanksgiving i went out to the black and white desert. i was actually in charge of this trip, which was sort of annoying since i had thus far gone the entire semester without planning anything myself, but i got jeeps and guides and stuff and we had eight people who wanted to go and all was well, but then like 3 days before we were to leave, half of our group dropped out and i was left with three people to fill two jeeps... not at all financially viable. but then i went to chelsea's house (this was the day of my date with the subway guy, if you recall) and i was talking with mitch, one of her flatmates, and he was going to the desert that same weekend, so i latched my three on to his group, which was convenient because about half of his people bailed as well. we ended up having seven, but it was a really fun group. introduce mitch, wolf (yes, thats his real name), kasey, chelsea (a different one). lauren and trish, the two who were originally in my group, you already know, i think.
so the seven of us got on the microbus with mahmoud on thursday night and drove until like 4 in the morning when we arrived in bahariya; we crashed in a random hotel that i genuinely thought might be a monastery, and then in the morning we hopped in jeeps and went into the desert.
it was not at all the same as the desert trip in siwa; there was no dune surfing because there were not really any dunes because the desert was mostly rock. the black desert is covered with volcanic ash (so its black), and the white desert is covered with crystal (so its white, eh?); we did do some barefoot rock climbing, though, which was excellent. and we saw lots of fun formations, including random mountains that crumbled like chalk when we climbed them; mushroom-looking towers of stone; and a field of tiny broken rock crystal things that looked sort of like flowers.
we spent the night in the white desert; the evening mostly consisted of sitting around the campfire doing various things, but it also included a pretty good chicken dinner. i gave vegetarianism a break that night because we had seen the chickens alive that morning, so i figured they werent horribly mistreated and factory farmed. i didnt like it all that much, though, so there isnt much temptation to backtrack.
anyhoo, the things i did around the fire (im doing this in bullets because i have to catch the bus soon):
-drank gin (others drank wine but i dont like it so whatevs)
-smoked sheesha when another random bedouin guide showed up with one
-listened to mahmoud play bedouin flutes and the other guy play drums
-danced (slightly drunk and buzzed from the sheesha)
-gave massages to everyone who asked, including a random german girl who was part of the sheesha man's group
-wandered off and peed in the freezing desert
-burned my feet on coals that somehow got buried in the sand
-cuddled (after the fire died) because it was super cold
and then it was bedtime; the other four went to sleep pretty quickly, but lauren and trish and i stayed up and looked at the stars and talked, and i in general bugged them and kept them awake until all hours, and at one point in time kasey woke up and i proceeded to laugh harder than i have ever laughed in recent memory. the guy has this ridiculous southern accent (he is from knoxville, go figure), and... well, there isnt really a good way to explain this without examples and i cant remember any, but he is hilarious. the fact that it was three in the morning might have had something to do with it as well.
and the next day we went home and you will have to get the next chapter whenever i get a chance because my bus is coming.
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