After Egypt, I Realize There's No Place Like Home

Date: July 30, 2008
Location: Alexandria
Lat: 31° 11.6N Long: 029° 11.6N

Well, I have arrived in Alexandria, Egypt and it is quite an eye opener. We aren’t in Kansas anymore. The country is clearly the worst we’ve been to by far. There are a number of things that I have observed about this place that I didn’t care for too much.

First off is the trash. There is trash all over Alexandria. There is an absolutely distinctive smell that one notices immediately while walking around the streets. I can think of a few causes for this. There is an extremely large amount of trash everywhere. In addition, it’s not just rotting garbage, its rotting animals. While walking down a street we observed a decaying dog that must have been there for around three weeks. The skin was barely still on the wretch’s face and the ribs were now exposed to the air.

Another thing is that nothing is well maintained. One can see examples of machinery, such as cars falling apart everywhere. I observed the dilapidated conditions of the houses. It looks like we stepped back in time to observe tenement houses. I guess it would be hard to cope as a civilization when you peak 4,000 years ago.

Finally, I dislike the pushy nature of everyone. I understand trying to make a sell but people hound you a good distance. One can refuse several times and not get anywhere. Everyone’s trying to make a buck off you and you have absolutely no space.

Now I suppose is a good time to walkthrough my day. We cleared Alexandrian Customs around 0900 after docking at around 0600. Some friends and I decided to hit the town. Our first destination was the New Library of Alexandria. We had heard that this was one of the things to see so we headed that way.

Street crossings are a nightmare. In Italy there were painted lines indicating lanes for driving. Now people might drive aggressively and almost hit you, but one had the idea that there was some overarching principle guiding the chaos. In Egypt, all that is thrown out the window. There are no lanes at all. Street crossing is like Italy but only that much more insane. The nature of crossing pretty much works like this; one waits for an opening in traffic, after getting tired of this the person decides to walk out regardless of traffic. This usually causes the oncoming traffic to slow and then work your way further across. Hopefully you don’t get hit by a car; I don’t think they would stop. The whole process plays out like the old arcade game Frogger.

While we were heading to the library, we decided that we were hungry. The whole group had a team consensus that McDonalds was the best bet. The menu was almost identical to the one back home, however there were some alternatives. I went for my personal favorite, the McArabia. This is pretty much a sandwich made on Middle Eastern flatbread. The sandwich consists of two patties, tomatoes, and lettuce. The best part was this divine sauce that was mayonnaise based with some Arabic spices thrown in. I would eat it again, even in America. It tasted absolutely great.

Another funny scene is that one of our crew decided to stop to get ice cream. He paid for it and was walking with us talking about how this was the worst ice cream he’s ever had. The owner of the ice cream cart started to follow us for around 100 yards shouting that he had ice cream for sale. None of us were planning on taking him up on it, but he eventually stopped.

I also walked by a market where I was able to purchase some items. These were pirated DVDs, of course. I just watched The Dark Knight, the sequel to Batman Begins on my laptop. The quality wasn’t that good; obviously, it was a guy standing in a theatre with Arabic subtitles. Thankfully, people only got up like twice so the experience was still very good. I think they cut some violence out for the Arabs, but overall, it was a good movie. I also have Iron Man to watch later.

After the market, we arrived at the Library. This was a really impressive building. The building was an absolutely massive collection of books in every language. They also had some really sweet printing presses. In the basement they had a collection of artifacts. These covered all of Egypt, from the ancient Egyptians, to the Greeks and Romans, up to the Islamic period. These were pretty neat and I enjoyed them.

Next we decided to go see the Catacombs. This entailed essentially making a triangle from our current position which was essentially directly straight from the ship down to the Catacombs and then back. However, this was not to be. The map we had did not include street names. This was not a problem when we were hugging the water, but trying to make it across the city just basing it off the number of turns we made was difficult.

We were doing really well for a while, and then we ran into troubles. We were doing a good job; we arrived at the Roman Amphitheater, which was pretty much the halfway point. This was our last landmark. We took a road that seemed like the logical connector to the Catacombs. Boy we were wrong.

We first got our feeling of being off the beaten path when we started seeing more donkey carts than rusted cars. Our hunch was compounded when we saw the dead dog as previously mentioned. This was even more compounded when we saw the buildings stopped looking dilapidated and started looking condemned. Perhaps the final clincher of our suspicions was the bazaar we wandered into. Unlike the normal bazaar that sells ethnic things and tourist kitsch, this was different.

It is hard to paint an accurate picture of what I saw; a photo can’t do it as I didn’t think whipping a camera out would be prudent there. I will try though. Some of the hot items were spare auto parts; I use parts loosely as most of the items were so rusted it was doubtful they could actually work in a car. Another hot item was loose computer cases that either had plants growing out of them; the keyboards had mold or rather plan-life growing out of them too. There were also loose circuit boards all over the place too. In addition, there were people selling toilets, toilet seats, and other items. Also, there were tire dealers who were selling tires with virtually no tread on them; some were selling massive monster truck size tires. This was not a normal bazaar. People didn’t even have tables to lay their wares on; they just sat them on the sidewalk.

We picked up the pace to try to get through here and only ended up in a dockyard. These docks were both a good and bad sign. We knew we could work our way home based on keeping the water on the left side of us. However, since our group was so large, around fifteen or so, we decided to split. The majority of the group decided to take cabs to try to get out. A friend and I, we were both robbed by the cabbie in Naples, decided that we were going to leg this one out and passed up on the cab ride.

What happened next sort of reminded me of the film Black Hawk Down which depicts the US Army’s experience in Mogadishu, Somalia in 1993. There is a scene where two machine gunners get inadvertently left behind by the column of Rangers and are forced to make their way back to base on their own. That was pretty much our predicament. We had a map which we both felt was probably more detrimental than useful.

We were extremely in the back roads. We were making our way over trash and people who looked like they were at deaths door. Things clearly weren’t too good out there. I guess there isn’t too much to really describe this. We pretty much were walking in the worst area I’ve ever been in. Southeast D.C. may have a reputation, but the Alexandrian ghetto makes Southeast look good. After walking for around an hour we got back to the ship.

I decided to celebrate by taking a shower and just laying on my bed in my room. After a good bit of this, my friends and I decided to head out again. While we were eating dinner, some of our fellow shipmates had native garb of the cotton robes and the headdresses. My friends and I decided that we needed our own so we hit the bazaar right outside the ship. I was able to haggle my way to getting the whole set for just 100 Egyptian Pounds, which works out to around 20 dollars. I think it was a pretty good buy, I’m sure that will be worn at parties.

However, after this we decided to go outside the gates and enjoy some drinks at a local drinking establishment. We were first aggressively hustled by a taxi driver who was discussing that he could take us anywhere real cheap and he knew everything and he would show us everything. We declined as we knew where we wanted to go but he kept following us. Eventually, he backed off and then someone else came up to pursue us.

This guy started badmouthing the cabbies and said he could take us anywhere. He kept pushing us and following us and he asked us where we were from. One of our crew said he was from California and this guy allegedly had a brother in California so that made us all brothers. He led us to the Alexandria Bazaar all the while saying he could take us anywhere. My friend, who I had navigated back to the ship with earlier, and I were wary of where this was going to go. He led my more naive friend to his “family” business which sold pretty ratty jewelry.

He was trying to convince us that these were great and we should buy them. However, my friend didn’t cut him off and say he wasn’t interested. Instead he said he was out of money and he needed to go to an ATM. The guy then led us to one. My friend withdrew money as I stood near the ATM watching the attendants, who were in plainclothes, load pistols.

We then left the bank and we said we were going back to the ship. He kept hustling us trying to get us to go back to buy some of the jewelry but we weren’t having any of it. We kept walking and eventually he left us, which I was thankful for.

When we got back to the ship I decided that I really did not want to go back out there. Pretty much the setup of getting off the ship is like this. One first proceeds down next to where the gangway is located at; here one has to show Egyptian officials your passport. After one does this they can exit the gangway. After walking approximately 30 yards, one has to show their passport again. After one exits the initial terminal you have to walk through the first circle of sharks. These guys are running the bazaar just out of the ship where I got my native garb.

If one makes it past these landsharks, one then faces the next circle. These are the taxi drivers. These guys quote ridiculous prices and boast that they can take you to Cairo to see the pyramids in Cairo for 30 dollars each. These guys are pretty pushy.

After one gets by them, you must cross a bridge that just serves to link the dock to a bit further inland, despite the fact that the bridge is over land the whole time; it is probably a security measure. Once here one has to show their passport again to another official. This leads you to the final circle of sharks, these guys are pretty fierce too. These are another round of taxi drivers who are more local who boast of being able to take one anywhere throughout the city. Then there are the locals who boast of being able to walk one all over the city themselves. If one makes it by all these parasites without one sticking too you one is finally home free.

Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore.

Despite all these things, I’m really looking forward to seeing the Pyramids tomorrow. I don’t think I’d be unfair to say that that’s probably the last thing to do on my list of things to see of Egypt and then I’m fine casting off from Egypt forever.