Walk Like An Egyptian

I have to say Egypt was fantastic. We decided to go to an all-inclusive since I just had just ran the marathon and so we choose Sharm El Sheihk. Our hotel was everything we needed. Pool, beach, 5 restaurants to choose from, and it was a 5 minute walk from the 'downtown' area. Sharm is built up of resorts, one being The Savoy, which has a little downtown area with shops, restaurants, bars, and supermarkets. They always have shows and entertainers in the streets so it was nice to get out of our hotel to walk down to the bar in the grass and watch the crazy Philippine singers. Best part, they had a popcorn machine. After eating salad, rice, and vegetables for four days I could not have been happier to see that. The entertainment in our hotel was really not great but they did do their best to try to get people involved. Our first day there a women came up to me to ask me if I would like to join yoga. I happy accepted and went to the 'yoga area.' I smidgen of grass. Now this would have been fine if lots of Russian women didn't do yoga in thongs. So after having a few butts in my face the first day I got their early to get in the front. Luke was also asked to play water polo the same time I was asked to do yoga. He decided he would join in as well. 10 minutes later as I was holding a pose I looked to my left to see Luke in a bandanna with 4 other 60 year old BIIG Russians sloshing through the water to try to steal the ball off the other team, shouting and high fiving when they score. It was hilarious.

After our exercise we were just relaxing by the pool. It was really warm and though I had a bit of a base tan from morocco I was constantly reapplying sunscreen, 15 since Luke said reaaally..when I tried to go for the 30. Luke on the other hand who had no base tan, did not reapply and looked more and more like Elmo as the day went own. Once we got back inside I told him how ridiculously burnt he was. He told me he was brown. Two hours later we were on our way to buy Aloe because he suddenly realized how burnt he was. "It feels to tight. I feel like my skin has been stretch and pinned in place."

Even though we wanted a relaxing holiday we wanted to also go on some of the excursions offered to us. Our first one was called the Ultimate Desert Experience. On this excursion we drove quad bikes through the desert to a Bedouin tent. Here got some water and we going to hop on a camel for a little ride. Now hop on a camel makes it sound so easy, it was not. When we first walked over to the camels on of them was going mad. It was growling and making that weird camel noise and looked as if it was going to bite whoever came near it. I quickly exclaimed that camel would not be fine and pushed Luke forward. The Egyptian man yanked at the rope to calm the camel down and Luke got on hoping for the best. I was next. Now I was told I had to wear jeans on this trip because of the warm sun and the sand. I only had one pair, tight ones. It was almost impossible to get my leg, in the tight ass jeans over the saddle of the camel, somehow I managed thinking that would be the worst of it, lord was I mistaken. As I was taking a picture of Luke's camel standing up I suddenly realized I too was moving. (Four camels were connected so they all had to do things together, pulling one another.) The camel got up on to its knees, then onto its front legs putting me at a very awkward angle and smushed my face into the camels back, as I held on for dear life. After what seemed like an eternity, he got on all for legs. All of this was done with me holding on with only one hand since I was stupidly taking picture of how stupid Luke looked for me to realize what was going on. The camel walk was well, slow. We walked up 100 metres and then back 100 metres. The man leading the camels who did not speak any English asked for my camera at one point to kindly take a picture of Luke and I. He kept moving back and forth and was holding up the camera non-stop and so I was smiling non-stop thinking hmm what is going on here. My mouth really started to hurt and stopped smiling after 2 minutes. 4 minutes later I got my camera back and he told me he had taken a video of Luke and I. Awesome I thought. I went to check it out to see that he had not taken a video, only one photo of Lukes camels hooves. Brilliant. After our camel ride we got back onto our quad bikes to trvael 15 minutes to a new Bedouin tents. Here we smoked the shisha pipe, with cherry flavor. We then had some Egyptian tea and waited for the entertainment to start. There was 6 African dancers who came out and performed a song and then my worst nightmare happened. They were coming to choose people to join them. I panicked and tried to hide behind Luke, but we were in a freaking tent so there was no where to hide!!

The next day we were roped into doing a spa Cleopatra sessions. We were scrubbed with coconut and then had a mask put on our faces with cucumber. The people who scrubbed us down left the room and here Luke and I were drenched in coconut with weird paste on our faces not saying anything. Luke?? I finally said as the cucumber fell from my eyes. Haha we both started laughing..what is going on? We then got put in the steam room where I thought I was going to die..so hot...can't breath. Then we got a really long massage where the women cracked almost every bone on my body. Then we got in the jacuzzi...but it was cold!!! It was really relaxing but really weird at the same time. There were like no women workers around anywhere and as we came out men hounded us asking if we wanted another session for half price..we declined.

They next morning we got picked up at 4:10 to go to Cairo. Yes, that is AM. We picked up some more people and then headed to the airport. As we were going through security we noticed the man checking our bags was actually texting..only in Egypt. We arrived in Cairo, where I was surprised by the amount of slums, and went straight to a mosque. My knees were showing so I had to wear a lovely dress that they provided me with. After the mosque we went to the pyramids...How Cool!!! We bought a ticket to go into the second pyramid. To actually get into the pyramid you needed to walk down a very short, narrow ramp with wooden slabs to make sure you didn't just slide down. As you were walking down other people were walking back up so it was very tight. Luke and I were totally bent down slowly making out way down when someone started screaming. It was the girl behind us exclaiming that there was no way she was going down! Her back..she couldn't do it.. it was going to hurt her back! She was holding up the ramp on both sides so Luke and I actually had a very quite nice walk through the pyramid because no one was getting in! We had to walk up another ramp and then we got to the tomb in a small room with very little air...ohhhh we thought exciting. We then were on our way back only to pass the same lady who didn't want to go on! We made out way back out of the pyramid seeing that the line had increased by about 20 people to get in. After we walked around to take some pics with the bigger pyramid. After some time we drove up a hill to a picture point where you could see all three pyramids very clearly. Here we took our 'holding the pyramid' picture. After the pyramids we went to KFC (as if!!)..I mean the Sphinx which is actually across from KFC. We walked up ..took a pic..and walked back down..it was very impressive but it was so incredibly hot and overcrowded and we were starving. We went to my Dad's favorite past time for lucnh, TGI fridays. TGI damn Fridays for lunch in Cairo, good grief. You had a choice of fried chicken, grilled chicken, fish, or fried fish. I got fries.

After lunch we went to a museum to see lots of tombs and animals that had been mummified. It was actually really cool. We saw King Tut's tomb that went in a tomb that went in a tomb and his beds for himself and his daughters. After the museum we went back t the airport. It was swamped with tourists who had visited Cairo for the day and we were all waiting in line to be given our tickets. This is where my flip flops broke, luckily Luke had his Havaianas in his bag so I wore them. and hour and half later we were still waiting in line with no tickets and our flight was supposed to leave in 20. Thankfully no one else on our plane had tickets we were all waiting for them. Finally they started to hand them out. Mary Cuneo...ooh me thanks.. (no passport checked) L. Monuel...Hmm could it be? Lets wait till they go through them all. No one was claiming it. It must be him. I think that's me. Okay here you go, no questioning. We got on a bus and boarded the plane. I kept waiting for Monuel to show up and tell Luke he was in his seat, he never did. The next day we went laid around the pool again, me going to yoga, Luke had given up on water polo. That night we went to the Egyptian restaurant in the hotel. It had really good hummus. Everything was really good actually.

Our next adventure was on Saturday and that was to St. Catherine's Monastery. Again we got picked up at about 5.40. We sat on the bus for three hours. As we were walking up to the Monastery people were walking down. They had stayed the night and climbed Mt. Sinai. They actually seemed to be a decent amount of Americans around. There were tons of little kids running up to you from all over the place asking you to buy books and stones. They were really persistent and were totally putting on an act. They would go up to an old couple like all sad and beg and then go up to a young group of women and be like HIIIII. It was ridiculous. When we got to the top we took a break.. who knows why since we had been on a bus for 3 hours. I decided I really needed the toilet so I got some change (to pay) I went into the toilet handed the man my 1 Egyptian dollar and walked into the stall to see a hole in the floor, then I turned around and walked right back out. 'Its okay, open' he said. 'Are they all like, that one?' I asked. 'Yes.'
'Okay um I'll have my dollar back.'
Our group was finally ready to go and our first stop was The Chapel of St. Triphone also known as the skull room. Inside is a chapel and where they keep the skulls of the deceased Monks of the monastery, no lie they really do. Next stop was the inside the Monastery. Luke and I both had knees showing and I had shoulders as well so we were given things to cover up. Luke had a nice cloth that they wrapped around him as a skirt and I was given a lovely white dress that I don't think had been washed since Moses' time. We walked into the Monastery to see Moses' well, an underground spring that supplies the monastery with water. We then walked around to see the burning bush! It was perched up between the two walls and was only burnt from the bottom. It has never been watered or taken care of and still thrives. Once we saw the bush we walked through the chapel and the church. After we climbed a big hill so we were able to see a panoramic view of St. Catherines and the road to Mt. Sinai. We then walked back down to our bus to have some lunch. We stopped in a really cool hippy town which I now forget the name of, something with a D. We had Egyptian bread and lots of dips, I mainly stuck with the hummus. Then I had a veggie grill and some fresh orange juice. We had another hour and half ride home. That night we went to a Hibachi in town. Luke was not allowed to show where shorts at the place, again, so he was given trousers and shoes to where. Another couple came up right after us and were told the same thing. We went to our meal which was really good and walked down to the English bad after to have a drink. We saw the couple again and Luke actually knew them! One of the girls had gone to Barney and was here in his first year as a sophomore and the other boy he coached in rugby. We ended up hanging out with them for a bit. I think Luke was excited because when the place we were at had last call he wanted to find another and another. We finally left that poor couple on their way at about two in the morning. The next day was our last day so we spent some time by the pool and beach. We packed up and got ready to be picked up at 7 but we had two hours till then so we played some spit (something I introduced to Luke earlier int he week and despite him always losing requested we play it) Every time I won though he would say I was cheating, even though he would play with two hands, turn to many cards over, etc. (I was not cheating, he was just crap.) I had only really played two board games with Luke before on our own. One was scrabble and I noticed he kept looking down under the table. What are you looking at I leaned up to see a pile of letters on the floor...ohh its like that is it? He laughed and put them on the table and then I noticed he was looking in a different spot..more letters. When it came to games..he was a cheater, not me. So we finally got picked up and go the airport with huge lines. We got through security only to find out our flight was delayed. We had some pizza, shopped in the three shops available. One of them was selling pistachios for 14 dollars, do they have diamonds in the middle, Luke asked. The guy seemed really confused. Never mind he said and we walked out. More spit, more bathroom stops. One plane finally, arrive in England 4 a.m. on Monday (work in 4 hours) Holiday finished!