Choose another map, showing:

• The Nile
• Mediterranean
• Africa
• Eurasia
• Eurasia, Africa & Pacific
• The World

Other entries in Luxor

PBS Frontline, Travel Research, Too Hot

I have to say that the climate was starting to get to me. I knew that I would be in lower Egypt towards the hottest part of the year. What can you do but flex your muscles, laugh little bit and guff it up. I hadn’t had a wireless connection in ages, and while checking my email I remembered my love for the Public Broadcasting Service’s (PBS) program, “Frontline.” Its always a bit dramatic, often critical of the US government and its many departments, and it makes you think. I sat watching it for hours and hours. For lunch we had chicken shwarma, which is something like a chicken wrap. Its usually pretty cheap and good. What was funny is that neither of us wanted to deal with Luxor so we gave the guy from our hotel some extra money to get us some food. He was happy with that. He also bought beers from the store and made about 30 cents selling them to us. But they were convenient and cold. When it was time for dinner I walked back to the same place that was selling half chicken dinners for 2 dollars. So being Egypt I couldn’t just eat there again without asking the price which had magically increased to 3 dollars. So I left, I could have negotiated, but I felt frustrated that I needed to, and who wants to reward that behavior. In the end I settled on a new place with a menu. I took an Arabic menu and the English menu and caused a bit of panic when I started reading the Arabic menu. While it was not easy to go back and forth I was able to figure out that most of the prices were very similar except the drinks. So when I ordered, and the man said how about something to drink, I made a quip about how foreigners have to go thirsty because the prices for drinks are crazy there. But then I said that’s ok because the weather is quite nice. It wasn’t and I didn’t go back to that restaurant. I was starting to miss Dahab. Sure the restaurants there were pricy, but at least they treated you nice. It wasn’t a zen thing to say, but you have no idea how many shopkeepers talk about starving sisters every time you haggle over a bottle of water. The ones who are the worst are the richest ones with the biggest shops. So yes Egypt always felt a little bit like battle zone. That nagging feeling. In the evening I spent a few hours researching my travel options. I had too many places to visit and not enough warm weather time. I didn’t want to hurry and I didn’t want to cut locations out, it was something that stayed on my mind in Egypt. I spent most of the time looking into possibilities for my short trips to Armenia and Georgia. Both of which are small but quite interesting countries with a lot of history.

Add to del.icio.us Add to reddit