Good God, Greece has Great Greasy Gyros!

Santorini
Originally uploaded by camandkristin.

Well, the temperature in Greece is definitely cooler than Egypt, and then some! We arrived at the Athens airport at 2:30am and immediately froze to death. The thrill of being cool wore off quickly, and we started pulling out all the clothes, socks, toques, and shoes that have been buried in our bags for months. Much of the initial shock was probably just an acclimatization problem, as after a few days it either warmed up considerably, or we just got used to it!

We started our Athens tour by working the bus and metro system to arrive at our hostel at 6am, after having been up for about 40 hours straight. They kindly told us we could not check in until 9am, and that we could wait over in the corner on the freezing cold cement floor, by the drafty window until then. Which we did.

After getting warmed up, and getting some sleep, we headed off to explore Athens. Our pre-Olympics guide book indicates that the city isn't anything special, but it has clearly had a facelift and, in the touristy Plaka area in particular, it is very nice. The backdrop of the Acropolis is tough to beat, of course. We visited the Acropolis and all it's surrounding areas (Parthenon, Erechtheion, Propylaia, Temple of Zeus, Theatre of Dionysos, and countless other Greek sounding things) where we were overwhelmed by the number of people doing the same thing, and who were all being controlled by Greek "guards" and their ever-blowing whistles. The sites are spectacular, even with all the people, and it was one of those "I can't believe I'm at the Parthenon" kind of things. We then ate some gyro-pitas. Did you know that "gyro" just means "big hunk of meat on a spinning stick", and that the actual thing you order to eat is a gyro-pita? Ya, neither did we. We are now well versed in gyro-speak, as that is pretty much all we ate for 2 weeks. It's the Greek equivalent to fast food, and is the cheapest option by far.

From Athens, we caught an overnight ferry to Santorini- one of the most popular Cyclades islands. We spent the ferry ride with a bunch of other Canadians- we seem to almost outnumber even the Greeks here, and we have certainly met (or seen) more Canadians than any other nationality in Greece. We stand out, with all our MEC wear... On arrival we were met by a Greek-Canadian (from Nanaimo, no less) who took us to his hotel just outside of the main town of Fira. Our guidebook warns "watch out for hotel owners who sell you places just outside of Fira, after claiming they are IN Fira". We figured that the question "Is it in Fira?" (answer= yes) would clarify it for us, but clearly not. We decided to stay, and as it turned out it was a great option. The surrounding restaraunts were cheaper and the area was just a little less touristy.

Anyway, Santorini is a gorgeous island- it is really a flooded volcano and all the cities are built on the rim that pokes up from the water. It makes for pretty spectacular scenery, especially with the classic Greek whitewashed buildings clinging to the edges, with tiny little sidewalks wending their way around. No car access in these places- you drive up as close as you can, and then walk. We spent an entire day visiting the whole island by scooter, ending up for sunset at the northenmost point in a town called Oia (ee-ya). Oia is the epitome of all things Greek- it is probably overrun in the summer, but right now is pretty quiet and is just beautiful.

After finishing with Santorini we headed to a second island- Paros. Paros is much the same, but a little "less". It's a bigger island, and less dramatic than Santorini, but still beautiful. Again, you can tell it must be packed in the summer, just based on the sheer number of restaurants that line the water- when we were there each one had ony about one table occupied, if that. We spent a day exploring on scooter, and then headed back to Athens where we slept the night and then jumped on the first bus to the northwest part of Greece, to a city called Ioannina.

A short walk around town revealed that there weren't a lot of options for sightseeing except to rent a car and head out on your own. So, we found a car that was available for the next morning (tiny little 2 door, 900cc, Fiat Seiciento, or somsing...) and then bought ourselves some sleeping bags. We figured we'd sleep in the car to offset the cost of the rental. So, where do you go to buy a sleeping bag? Why, the supermarket, of course! We got two sweet bags for 10 euro each, and were on our way! Slept like babies in the little Fiat for three nights in a row, thus paying off both the sleeping bags and the car rental :) In the car we explored the Vikos Gorge and Meteora regions, which were not landscapes we expected to find in Greece. Our first week here was exactly like you would imagine (just like the pictures on the Odyssia placemats, for those of you from Sidney!), but here we discovered snow capped mountains, huge deep gorges and ravines, rivers, forests... except for the little signature Greek villages, it looked a lot like home! Meteora is an area where these huge pinnacles of rock jut out of the ground, and they have built monasteries on top of them. There are only 6 remaining (out of 24), and they are quite a sight!

We returned to Ioannina, dropped off the car, and jumped on a bus to Thessaloniki and then immediately onto a night train to Istanbul, Turkey. The train was a vast improvement on any we've been on yet- we had our own little cabin, complete with two beds, a sink, and a locking door! Except for the multiple wakeup calls of "Passport" during the border crossing (and shelling out 90 euro to get into the country) it was quite a pleasant trip!

We are now in Istanbul and exploring here before we head off for two weeks around the rest (or at least the west...) of Turkey!

Hello to everyone at home!
Bye for now,
Cam and Kristin

Out of Africa...

Pyramid Mountain
Originally uploaded by camandkristin.

Well, the last 6 days did turn out to be uneventful, as far as terrorist bombings go, but nothing in Egypt is ever completely uneventful. After 15 days here, we have travelled practically from one end of the Nile to the other, spent time in the Libyan desert, and "experienced" Cairo- the busiest city in the world.

The basics on Egypt- there are around 70 million people living here; the population has doubled in the last 20 years or so. Over 20 million of these people live in Cairo, and another 5 million people come to the city to work each day from the areas surrounding it. While Mexico City is larger in terms of population, the smaller size of Cairo makes it considered the busiest city in the world. It doesn't take long to get that feeling. The guidebooks say that Cairo is a city that will either seduce or appall, but in our case it has done both. The pollution and smog get so bad it blocks out views of the Pyramids only a few kilometers away, in many areas the Nile is so solid with garbage that you feel you could walk across it, the streets are so congested with cars (mainly taxis) that you close your eyes and simply hope you survive your trip and that you don't kill more than one pedestrian while enroute, and the heat is so intense that it can get difficult to get a full breath- and everyone keeps reminding us that it's not even summer. But there is some magic to Cairo that is hard to explain- it must be experienced. There are more impressive buildings in only a short drive across town than in the entirety of Canada. The significance of religion is apparent in everything- from the way the people dress, to the sheer number of mosques around town, to the 4am wake up call to prayer that you will hear from anywhere in any main city as it is blared over loudspeakers. Almost all the women cover their heads with a scarf- in some cases the rest of their clothes are completely westernized, and in some cases the scarves are only a part of the full costume that covers all their skin but their faces. In many cases, even the faces are covered and only the eyes show through.

We started our time in Egypt in Cairo, and after sleeping until noon the first day to recover from our 45 hour journey from Thailand, we ventured out that night to the Khan Al Kalili Bazaar to see just how many scams we could be offered in only a few short minutes. The market is spread out through a labyrinth of streets, and each shop has a million things to offer including elabortate sheesha pipes, silver or gold jewelery, papyrus artwork, spices, and clothes. It's probably the worst place in Egypt to buy anything, unless low quality at a high price is what you're going for. We just looked around, but did manage to be latched onto by a "photographer for a local newspaper" who wanted to show us around, although he "would not ask for any money". It's amazing how fast these guys get you, and how hard they are to get away from, and after he had taken us down a series of alleys that we weren't sure we could ever find our way out of, we started to get nervous. But, nothing came of it and we learned to keep our heads down and not answer any questions!

Our first full day in Cairo was spent visiting the pyramids, which turned out to be one of the more disappointing sights in the country. The Great Pyramid of Giza is the last remaining "Wonder of the Ancient World", but it is treated like a back alley side show. There is no organization, no cleanliness, no brochures or signage, nothing. The passages down to previously excavated tombs are used as dumping grounds for broken chairs, tables, and other garbage. Even the ticket sellers tried to rip us off, and when Cam went to buy the tickets our guide warned us "Don't talk to anybody. Treat these people like shit. They are shit." Of course, this is not the case with most Egyptians- just the ones trying to get your money...

The next day we spent on a city tour of Cairo, visiting many of the mosques and buildings in the old Islamic section of Cairo. At one mosque we climbed the tower and overlooked the city; it happened to be noon and when the clock struck twelve the entire city came alive with music and prayers being chanted over megaphones. It was quite an experience to sit and watch the city from that viewpoint- it was probably the most culturally different experience we have had in the last 7 months. As I said, you really cannot explain it in words...

The last stop on our city tour was the Egyptian Museum, which feels more like a storage room for artifacts than a museum. The museum itself doesn't even compare in quality to, for example, the Royal BC Museum at home, but the artifacts are still impressive. The highlight was the King Tut exhibit.

From Cairo we headed south via police escorted convoy and eventually reached Abu Simbel- only about 40km from the Sudan border. Abu Simbel is one of a few temples that was moved brick by brick and reconstructed so as to not be destroyed by the rising Nile after the river was dammed at Aswan. The Aswan dam was, for a long time, the largest in the world but has since been surpassed by the Three Gorges Dam in China. If the dam breaks, the entire country of Egypt will be flooded in 14 days.

After visiting a few more sights in Aswan, we boarded a felucca and headed north up the Nile for two days. A felucca is a tiny sailboat with absolutely no amenities. There is simply a flat surface covered with a thin mattress, and that is where you spend all day and all night. Food is cooked by the "cabin boy" on a tiny little fire which cooks so slowly that he starts lunch immediately after breakfast, and dinner immediately after lunch. There is no bathroom on-board. There is no bathroom off-board, either. For two days and two nights we did not see a conventional toilet. Bathroom breaks consisted of pulling over at the bank and wandering off as far as it took until you could find the tiniest scrap of foliage to hide behind. This became useless, however, when the 30 Egyptian kids that come running from all directions when they see your boat, follow you out in the hopes of glimpsing a bare white bum. We learned to hold it until the sun went down. Felucca trips are certainly not for everybody, but if you can get past some of the inconvieniences, there really is something special about sleeping under the stars while drifting down the Nile.

Once we disembarked the felucca we visited the temples of Kom Ombo and Edfu, and then travelled further north to Luxor. At Luxor is the Valley of the Kings- once the Egyptians decided that building a pyramid for every dead King wasn't feasible, they started a "cemetery" of sorts beneath a pyramid shaped mountain which became known as the Valley of the Kings. This is where King Tut, and Ramses, and all the big names of Egyptian history were buried. Today you can see inside their tombs, but one tomb really just looks like the next, and the thrill wears off. There is also a Valley of the Queens, where the wives and children of the Kings were buried.

We visited a few more temples in Luxor and then headed north to Cairo. We had originally intended on going to Dahab at this point, but the bombings there caused us to reroute. From Cairo we headed west out to the Baharia Oasis, in the Libyan desert. We took a Jeep out into the desert and slept on the sand under the stars. While the desert itself doesn't compare with the one we saw in Bolivia, it was pretty cool to get to camp outside in it. At night when we were getting ready for bed it started to rain (yes, in the desert, it rained) and then there was a spectacular lightning storm which was awesome to watch. The next morning we woke up to a fox skulking around for our leftovers, and then found a scorpion under our sleeping bags! Apparently it wasn't posionous, but our guide tossed it into the fire pretty quickly anyway...

Anyway, now we are back in Cairo, and have spent the entirety of the day burning CDs, uploading pictures, and trying to get our heads wrapped around the fact that we will be in Greece tomorrow... We are looking forward to the change, primarily the food and the 15 degree drop in temperature. We are not looking forward to the increase in price...

Until next time!
Kristin and Cam.