Today is our last day in Hurghada. Really, if you aren't diving there isn't much to do here at all. The city itself thrives on tourism and we are in winter here. That means that the daytime temp is only about mid-70s. The city is full of unfinished construction of what seems like will be hotels. Apparently there is no property tax on unfinished buildings, so there is not a large incentive to finish them. The touristy part of town is a little sickening and I am glad I have spent most of my time here looking at fish instead of shops!
We finished our SCUBA certification yesterday, and I can see where the addiction comes in for being a diver. Rahima was more than happy to spend the day sleeping in. After four days of being up and out by 7:45am and then being in either a classroom or underwater practicing skills for 8 hours a day, she really wanted her sleep. As for me, I wanted to do a day of diving without any skills, practice exercizes or tests. So I did a half day, two-dive trip this morning. In contrast to my travel buddy, I was picked up at 6:50am and was on the boat and moving by 7:05am. Urgh. But it was worth it. It was amazing because there were no other boats at the dive site when we got there and went in. When we got out (about an hour later) there were a total of 11 boats, gearing up and ready to jump in. We had it really good. :) We did a second dive at another site about an hour and a half later, and the boats that were there were happily taking a lunch break, so we once again were the only three divers on the reef (me, another diver, and Hilde, my instructor/guide).
We saw tons of cool fish, and when I say tons, I mean literally thousands of fish. A few times there were schools of hundreds of fish and you could just swim right through them, or float along with the current beside them. We saw a HUGE feathertail stingray yesterday when diving, at least a meter wide and probably a little bit more than a meter long (not icluding the tail!) Today we saw a giant clam, probably about a meter wide and a half a meter tall. It was indigo, and really, really neat! We saw two different kinds of poisonous lionfish and two VERY venomous scorpionfish. We also saw lots of "Nemos" (clownfish), angelfish, butterfly fish, mantarays, and a pretty interesting looking crocodile fish to name a few. I wish I had an underwater camera to be able to post some pictures, but that will be in another lifetime, with a substantially bigger budget!
So tomorrow we will leave the Red Sea and head to Luxor. I can't wait to see what is in store for us. Although I have only seen a very small part of this country (and almost nothing above water), I have to say that Egypt sure holds a lot of treasures, and I have just begun to explore them.
where i've been...
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Sunday, January 11, 2009
SCUBA in Egypt
I can't really begin to describe how much fun I am having with this whole SCUBA thing. :) Yes, my big brother was right, and I should have done this long ago. But really, learning to dive in the Red Sea (warm even in winter) really is a lot better than Monterey (cold, all year round!)
We have been doing our SCUBA certification for three days now, and tomorrow will be the final day. The first two days really consisted of a lot of theory (classroom) and some confined water dives, in the shallow water right off of the shore. All went really well, I just needed to get used to taking off my mask underwater and not breathing suddenly with my nose. YUCK! After a few tries, and a throat full of yucky salty water, I figured it out.
Today we got to go on a boat and do two open water dives near a coral reef. I know it is just the beginning, but it was SO neat. It is really cool to be able to just wander around underwater and look at things, without thinking about needing to breathe. I just love it. We saw a bunch of parrot fish, which are just like rainbows under the sea. It is amazing how colorful they are. We also saw a bunch of clown fish (Nemo) and even baby ones maybe only a few centimeteres long. We saw a huge moray eel, peeking out of some huge coral, but it must have been at least 1-2 meters long itself. Very neat. And the amazing part to me is that when you are down there, the fish couldn't care less about you. When I snorkel and dive down, the fish always scatter a bit, but when I am diving the fish are actually curious about what I am and so they swim right next to you. So tomorrow we have another two open water dives and then we will be officially certified. I can't wait to do a real, full dive. :)
Rahima and I all geared up.
Here I go! Look how blue the water is!
Just before we go down. That's me attempting to give the "okay" sign to Jenny on the boat.
Aside from that, the town we are in (Hurghada) is really a large tourist area, mainly for divers. There is a big touristy center with two McDonalds about a block away from each other, followed by a Pizza Hut, Burger King, KFC, etc. There isn't much else to do here, so we will probably leave right after we get certified and maybe do another dive in the Red Sea in another town. Amazingly, it's not just a Cairo thing to drive with your headlights off after dark. When we were coming back from dinner last night we took a taxi back to our hotel. A man followed us out of the restaurant and asked if we needed a taxi because he was a taxi driver. I asked how much to our hotel (we knew it should be about 15 Egyptian pounds). He said "How much for you?" I said "15 pounds". He said, "20 for all three of you". I said, "No, that's too much. Let's start again. I'll go 10 pounds, then we can negotiate up." He laughed and said, "Fine. Let's go." Then he played Egyptian (I think) pop music all the way back to the hotel, turned it up really loud and encouraged us to clap along while he danced/drove. Happiest cab driver I will ever meet I think. :)
Our hotel is really nice too. Relatively speaking of course! We have had a few bumps with things such as hot water, or water pressure. Getting the two at the same time seems to be asking a little too much. Yesterday I literally had to get down on my knees in the shower to get enough water pressure to rinse the conditoner out of my hair! But the hotel staff is really nice. When we came back yesterday the towels had been folded in the shapes of hearts and flowers on the beds. We thought that was a nice touch. Then today, we returned to find one big blanket folded into the shape of a big fish, with Rahima's eye cream bottle as the eye, and the other towels were in the form of an alligator, wearing my Brazil soccer jersey which I had left out! It even had little paper teeth and eyes and nostrils and everything. Some people really do have amazing talents.
Our towel alligator.
Look how cute the teeth are!
We have been doing our SCUBA certification for three days now, and tomorrow will be the final day. The first two days really consisted of a lot of theory (classroom) and some confined water dives, in the shallow water right off of the shore. All went really well, I just needed to get used to taking off my mask underwater and not breathing suddenly with my nose. YUCK! After a few tries, and a throat full of yucky salty water, I figured it out.
Today we got to go on a boat and do two open water dives near a coral reef. I know it is just the beginning, but it was SO neat. It is really cool to be able to just wander around underwater and look at things, without thinking about needing to breathe. I just love it. We saw a bunch of parrot fish, which are just like rainbows under the sea. It is amazing how colorful they are. We also saw a bunch of clown fish (Nemo) and even baby ones maybe only a few centimeteres long. We saw a huge moray eel, peeking out of some huge coral, but it must have been at least 1-2 meters long itself. Very neat. And the amazing part to me is that when you are down there, the fish couldn't care less about you. When I snorkel and dive down, the fish always scatter a bit, but when I am diving the fish are actually curious about what I am and so they swim right next to you. So tomorrow we have another two open water dives and then we will be officially certified. I can't wait to do a real, full dive. :)
Rahima and I all geared up.
Here I go! Look how blue the water is!
Just before we go down. That's me attempting to give the "okay" sign to Jenny on the boat.
Aside from that, the town we are in (Hurghada) is really a large tourist area, mainly for divers. There is a big touristy center with two McDonalds about a block away from each other, followed by a Pizza Hut, Burger King, KFC, etc. There isn't much else to do here, so we will probably leave right after we get certified and maybe do another dive in the Red Sea in another town. Amazingly, it's not just a Cairo thing to drive with your headlights off after dark. When we were coming back from dinner last night we took a taxi back to our hotel. A man followed us out of the restaurant and asked if we needed a taxi because he was a taxi driver. I asked how much to our hotel (we knew it should be about 15 Egyptian pounds). He said "How much for you?" I said "15 pounds". He said, "20 for all three of you". I said, "No, that's too much. Let's start again. I'll go 10 pounds, then we can negotiate up." He laughed and said, "Fine. Let's go." Then he played Egyptian (I think) pop music all the way back to the hotel, turned it up really loud and encouraged us to clap along while he danced/drove. Happiest cab driver I will ever meet I think. :)
Our hotel is really nice too. Relatively speaking of course! We have had a few bumps with things such as hot water, or water pressure. Getting the two at the same time seems to be asking a little too much. Yesterday I literally had to get down on my knees in the shower to get enough water pressure to rinse the conditoner out of my hair! But the hotel staff is really nice. When we came back yesterday the towels had been folded in the shapes of hearts and flowers on the beds. We thought that was a nice touch. Then today, we returned to find one big blanket folded into the shape of a big fish, with Rahima's eye cream bottle as the eye, and the other towels were in the form of an alligator, wearing my Brazil soccer jersey which I had left out! It even had little paper teeth and eyes and nostrils and everything. Some people really do have amazing talents.
Our towel alligator.
Look how cute the teeth are!
Pictures!
London from the Millenium Bridge, coming back from the Tate Museum, which was great.
The giant pigeon-eating pelicans in London. Serioulsy. Aren't they huge?
Us in front of Big Ben.
Why French women really don't get fat. We solved this mystery when we were stuck in Paris for a few hours in our long journey from Edinburgh to Barcelona. We had to wait in a train station for a few hours, but all of the train stations are open, so they are just like being outside in the freezing cold. We went inside to eat (and mainly to get warm) This is their actual "normal" sized cup of coffee. Think of that...then a venti from Starbucks. Little bit of a difference, huh?
Me riding a lion statue in Barcelona.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Made it to Egypt!
I realize every now and again that when I don't have the chance to update the blog, some people get worried that I'm not okay. :) Sorry bout that!
We did finally make it to Barcelona and had a great few days. We stayed with Maria Rosa's cousin, Silvia, who welcomed us with open arms and made our stay really comfortable. We ran around Barcelona seeing as much Miro and Gaudi as we could, which I enjoyed more than I can say. The last night we were there, it even SNOWED up on the hills. Crazy.
We are now in Egypt. We arrived late last night, waited at the airport for Rahima's friend Jenny, who is traveling solo for six months, and then headed to our hostel to sleep for about four hours before getting up today and on another bus to head to the city of Hurghada. It is on the red sea, and if all goes well, Rahima and I will begin our SCUBA classes tomorrow. The weather is heavenly, in the mid 70s, a welcome change from Europe's winter!
So, I have one quick anecdote for you all to ponder before I have to run. When we went from the airport to the hostel last night, via taxi (about 3am) we noticed something very odd about driving at night in Egypt. That is to say, cars drive with their headlights OFF and use them to only flash each other when they want to pass. Hmmm...not quite sure about this system, since they already don't follow any coventioinal rules of the road. I'll keep you posted. Oh, and their horns are seriously wired louder than any horns every should be, and they are constantly honking. At everything. See a car: honk. Pass a car: honk. Want to pass a car: honk. See a car wanting to pass a car: honk. Sitting in your car: honk. The list is endless...let's hope I can sleep through it. Listen to that...someone just honked. Seriously.
We did finally make it to Barcelona and had a great few days. We stayed with Maria Rosa's cousin, Silvia, who welcomed us with open arms and made our stay really comfortable. We ran around Barcelona seeing as much Miro and Gaudi as we could, which I enjoyed more than I can say. The last night we were there, it even SNOWED up on the hills. Crazy.
We are now in Egypt. We arrived late last night, waited at the airport for Rahima's friend Jenny, who is traveling solo for six months, and then headed to our hostel to sleep for about four hours before getting up today and on another bus to head to the city of Hurghada. It is on the red sea, and if all goes well, Rahima and I will begin our SCUBA classes tomorrow. The weather is heavenly, in the mid 70s, a welcome change from Europe's winter!
So, I have one quick anecdote for you all to ponder before I have to run. When we went from the airport to the hostel last night, via taxi (about 3am) we noticed something very odd about driving at night in Egypt. That is to say, cars drive with their headlights OFF and use them to only flash each other when they want to pass. Hmmm...not quite sure about this system, since they already don't follow any coventioinal rules of the road. I'll keep you posted. Oh, and their horns are seriously wired louder than any horns every should be, and they are constantly honking. At everything. See a car: honk. Pass a car: honk. Want to pass a car: honk. See a car wanting to pass a car: honk. Sitting in your car: honk. The list is endless...let's hope I can sleep through it. Listen to that...someone just honked. Seriously.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
almost there...
Well, since my last post, we have made some progress. And by some, I mean a little bit. :)
We caught an 11:10 train from Paris to somewhere in the southwest of France, where supposedly we could catch a train to Barcelona. Sounds good, right? It was a sleeper train, so we did get to lay down and sleep for about six hours. YIPEE! Unfortunately when we got off the train, the blackberry somehow stayed nice and warm somewhere under Rahima´s covers. Apparently it did not want to get up yet. So after a few hours of using our impeccable command of French, we were able to find the phone, in another town, and we went to claim it. From there we took the train just over the border to Spain (yes!) and now officialy have tickets that will take us to Barcelona, arriving at 10pm tonight, almost exactly 60 hours after this journey from Edinburgh began. So we are killing some time in an internet cafe (obviously) and I am trying to upload some pictures. :) It is pretty cold here, and it is hard to believe that in a week I will be learning to scuba dive in the red sea. The thought of weather warm enough to wear a bikini in is delightful.
We caught an 11:10 train from Paris to somewhere in the southwest of France, where supposedly we could catch a train to Barcelona. Sounds good, right? It was a sleeper train, so we did get to lay down and sleep for about six hours. YIPEE! Unfortunately when we got off the train, the blackberry somehow stayed nice and warm somewhere under Rahima´s covers. Apparently it did not want to get up yet. So after a few hours of using our impeccable command of French, we were able to find the phone, in another town, and we went to claim it. From there we took the train just over the border to Spain (yes!) and now officialy have tickets that will take us to Barcelona, arriving at 10pm tonight, almost exactly 60 hours after this journey from Edinburgh began. So we are killing some time in an internet cafe (obviously) and I am trying to upload some pictures. :) It is pretty cold here, and it is hard to believe that in a week I will be learning to scuba dive in the red sea. The thought of weather warm enough to wear a bikini in is delightful.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
fall from travel grace...
Well, for all of the good luck we had traveling up to Edinburgh for New Years, we are now paying the price. Granted, we did NO advance planning to get us to Edinburgh, and even less for accomodations, which were running about 65 pounds a night with a minimum stay required of three to four nights. So when we got a last minute couch through couchsurfing we were more than grateful. We stayed with a few Polish guys and one Argentine gal and really enjoyed ourselves, until we realized that we somehow needed to get from Edinburgh all the way down to Barcelona, and we fly out of Madrid on the 7th to meet a friend of Rahima's in Egypt.
So we began to look for flights, but being last minute we weren't coming up with the deals we had hoped for. The cheapest option was a day bus (9 hrs) from Edinburgh to London, then keep ourselves awake there from about 8pm until 4am, head to the airpot for a 7:30am flight and be in Barcelona by 11am the 3rd. Well, this is where it begins to go amok.
After arriving in London, we find out they only check bags (storage) until 11pm and don't reopen until the next day at 7am.
Problem 1: we are stuck with all of our bags
We called the Australians who we met in Dublin to possibly leave our bags at their place for a few hours, (E5, laugh here) but they live a bit outside of the city, and the tube closes at midnight, so getting back would be an expensive ordeal.
Problem 2: we still have our bags, and a lot of time to kill.
We go to a pub, get some food and decide to go to a movie to pass the time. We take a cab to the theatre only to realize we read the times wrong and there are no more movies that night.
Problem 3: it is another 8 pounds just to return to our starting point. And it is cold.
So. We decide our best option is to just go to the airport. We pay 10 pounds for the hour and a half ride, to get there and be denied entrance because the fire alarm is sounding. It is freezing outside, and I secretly hope for a fire inside. My basic instincts tell me fire=warmth. Sadly, there is no fire.
Problem 4: pretty sure that one was obvious
When we finally get inside it is about 1am. I find a freezing spot of floor (reminiscent of the Madrid airport exactly one month prior) and sleep for two hours. Those floors literally suck any and all body heat right out of you. I countered my impending hypothermia with a few cups of tea and sudoku.
Problem 5: I am now cold and tired. I am no longer a fun travel buddy.
At 5:45am we go to check in, only to find out that the airline saw a possible fraud alert from my credit card company (with whom I had spoken and they had authorized the transaction after verifying my identity two days earlier) and cancelled the ticket. Easy jet shows they have refunded the money, visa shows they haven't. Welcome to my hell. It froze over, and it's called London.
So, instead of getting the next flight for about 175 usd each, we began the budget travel option instead.
Problem 6: this takes WAY more time.
So we went from the airport back to the city (1.5hrs), then to the coast of England (3hrs), then on a ferry to France (1.5hrs), then a train to Paris (3.5hrs) and are most likely going to miss the connecting train to Barcelona tonight.
So, lessons learned? We should not be in airports on the 2nd of the month. (Our first flight leaving LA was also on the 2nd, and was delayed over 8hrs). Shower and sleep well when possible...you never really know when the next chance you will have to do either will be! Be grateful for a travel partner who manages to make all of this "fun". As she pointed out, at least this way we get a France stamp in our passports. I'll be tearing out that page and framing it.
So we began to look for flights, but being last minute we weren't coming up with the deals we had hoped for. The cheapest option was a day bus (9 hrs) from Edinburgh to London, then keep ourselves awake there from about 8pm until 4am, head to the airpot for a 7:30am flight and be in Barcelona by 11am the 3rd. Well, this is where it begins to go amok.
After arriving in London, we find out they only check bags (storage) until 11pm and don't reopen until the next day at 7am.
Problem 1: we are stuck with all of our bags
We called the Australians who we met in Dublin to possibly leave our bags at their place for a few hours, (E5, laugh here) but they live a bit outside of the city, and the tube closes at midnight, so getting back would be an expensive ordeal.
Problem 2: we still have our bags, and a lot of time to kill.
We go to a pub, get some food and decide to go to a movie to pass the time. We take a cab to the theatre only to realize we read the times wrong and there are no more movies that night.
Problem 3: it is another 8 pounds just to return to our starting point. And it is cold.
So. We decide our best option is to just go to the airport. We pay 10 pounds for the hour and a half ride, to get there and be denied entrance because the fire alarm is sounding. It is freezing outside, and I secretly hope for a fire inside. My basic instincts tell me fire=warmth. Sadly, there is no fire.
Problem 4: pretty sure that one was obvious
When we finally get inside it is about 1am. I find a freezing spot of floor (reminiscent of the Madrid airport exactly one month prior) and sleep for two hours. Those floors literally suck any and all body heat right out of you. I countered my impending hypothermia with a few cups of tea and sudoku.
Problem 5: I am now cold and tired. I am no longer a fun travel buddy.
At 5:45am we go to check in, only to find out that the airline saw a possible fraud alert from my credit card company (with whom I had spoken and they had authorized the transaction after verifying my identity two days earlier) and cancelled the ticket. Easy jet shows they have refunded the money, visa shows they haven't. Welcome to my hell. It froze over, and it's called London.
So, instead of getting the next flight for about 175 usd each, we began the budget travel option instead.
Problem 6: this takes WAY more time.
So we went from the airport back to the city (1.5hrs), then to the coast of England (3hrs), then on a ferry to France (1.5hrs), then a train to Paris (3.5hrs) and are most likely going to miss the connecting train to Barcelona tonight.
So, lessons learned? We should not be in airports on the 2nd of the month. (Our first flight leaving LA was also on the 2nd, and was delayed over 8hrs). Shower and sleep well when possible...you never really know when the next chance you will have to do either will be! Be grateful for a travel partner who manages to make all of this "fun". As she pointed out, at least this way we get a France stamp in our passports. I'll be tearing out that page and framing it.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Happy New Year!
This will be quick because we are on a bus, but we had a wonderful New Years in Edinburgh, Scotland. We watched the fireworks go off over Edinburgh Castle up on the hill and I think it was my favorite New Years ever :) I can't wait to write more about Scotland, but I have to run now. We are in London for the next 11 hours or so before we fly off to Barcelona. Hopefully the eurail pass will be better once out of the UK! Sure can't be worse!
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