In-between

This is the part of traveling that gets me down -- that in-between nowhere-ness. I'm not where I was and I am not yet to where I am going. Taxis, airports, planes, buses, trains, metros, funiculars, and marshutkas - those will be my interior spaces for two days. We left Luxor at 10:30 last night (Sunday) and I should be in Shamgona by Tuesday evening. And I am going to have been on all of those modes of transportation by the time I arrive home.

Home is something that feels far away when I am "in-between." Where I am headed right now is not really home, but then, I don't really know where Home is right now. So I guess I'll have to differentiate between "home" = temporary and "Home" = permanent. Permanent Home will have to wait.

Being in-between is rough on the psyche. Carting around my belongings from one place to another while in transit is work. My bag seems to get heavier the longer the day wears on. There are no Sbarro Pizza places in the airports here (the ones I love to encounter in airports....). My mind is tired of thinking and my eyes are tired of looking. Processing all I see that is different is past being fun while "in-between."

So Turkish Airlines is calling our flight to board and I won't have wireless access until I am in Georgia at 3 a.m. Tuesday morning. I may or may not post then depending on whether or not I can find a quiet enough corner in which to catch a few hours sleep before finding a bus to get me to Zugdidi.....

Until then.... I exist in-between.

The daily call

Several times a day it happens. The first is before the sun comes up. Then a few more times throughout the day, the sound breaks the constant clamor of the traffic and other sounds on the street. Eerie. Haunting. Beautiful.

Traveling in Islamic countries for almost two weeks, I have come to not only enjoy, but also expect the call to prayer, (adhan). Five times a day (more sometimes.... not quite sure why the extra ones happen) the call goes out from the minaret for prayer time. The call is heard most clearly from the closest mosque, but with every mosque in the town or city sending out its own adhan, the sound echoes in layers across the space. Right now I am in Luxor (with James and Katherine), a town in the Nile River Valley. The hostel we are staying in has an open roof-top cafe and lounge area. From there the minarets all across town are audible. The layers of voices overlap in harmony and discord all at the same time. Everyone is singing the same thing, but they don't all sing it the same way. Some muezzins have great voices, others not so good, so we focus on the ones that we like. In Istanbul, the call from the Blue Mosque was my favorite - it was the one we could hear the most clearly, too. We heard from someone that the muezzins in Istanbul had to take singing lessons not too long ago because they weren't very good. With so many tourists in Istanbul and the adhan broadcast from loudspeakers at the top of the minarets, the city felt that the adhan should be nice to listen to! The lessons worked! The callers in Istanbul sing with haunting lilts and beautiful tones.

Hearing multiple adhans is an experience that touches the soul and stays in the mind. In Cairo, the evening that we were aboard the felucca, prayer time came and the call went out from a thousand minarets. As we floated on the river, the cacophony of voices reverberated off the buildings and water, back and forth across the river, all around us, echoing and replying in what seemed an endless wave of sounds. Near, far, faint, loud, bold, quivering -- in every possible tone, the call sounded. The sound was so spectacular, we stopped mid-conversation and had to listen. We were spellbound. It is an experience I will not forget.

I've been thinking a lot about this adhan - this call to prayer -- being in this part of the world, it's hard to ignore. I'm not converting to Islam anytime soon, but I like the public call to prayer. My own faith does not have this prevalent a reminder to turn my thoughts to God. The closest we get is a church that may ring its bells on Sunday morning. Other than that uncommon occurrence, there is no obvious admonition broadcast publicly. Even though the adhan is not calling from my religion, it reminds me to thank God for the things He has done for me - every day, many times a day.

I'm leaving the predominantly Islamic world, so I won't be hearing the call to prayer anymore. I'll have to find something new and tangible that will remind me to talk to God. I always mean to pray, but I forget. Maybe I should pick up some prayer beads before I leave....

Proof

I'm tired today. Maybe I'm just road-weary. Maybe it was the hours of sun and walking at the Temple of Karnak. Maybe it was the interrupted, bumpy sleep on the train last night. Or maybe a combination of all three. Regardless, I don't really feel like writing tonight. The post I wanted to write is going to require a decent amount of time to compose well, and I know I won't do it justice tonight, so I will write instead about a comment that I made today.

The morning was spent at the Temple of Karnak - a temple complex built over a few hundred years dating back to around 1500 BC. Several Pharaohs added to it over the centuries during their reigns. It is a huge complex of red and gold sandstone that is in the process of being restored. Almost every square inch of the walls and columns and doorways are covered in hieroglyphics or figures carved into the rock. In many places the paint is still visible, too. The main hall called the Hypostyle Hall in the Precinct of Amun-Re is a forest of 134 massive stone pillars. This was my favorite part of the temple complex. No matter where I looked, there was a series of pillars receding into the distance. The light changed the colors of the columns from every different angle, sometimes more golden, sometimes more red, sometimes a little gray. But always gorgeous!!

While we walked around and looked and shot photos, James (facetiously) made a remark about the importance of having a photo of himself in the space because "you aren't really there unless you have a picture of yourself there." To which I replied, "Yeah, the proof is in the photo, not the pudding!" Although I don't really believe that, I do like having photos of myself in the places that I go. I shoot so many photos of everything and everyone else, I have to be deliberate about having a shot of me wherever I have gone. When I go back and look at the photos later I know that I really was there -- I didn't just dream it! Often, after I've been someplace really amazing the memory of it feels a little surreal -- like it may not have really happened. It was just a virtual-reality dream or something intangible. But then I look at my photos - of me in the space interacting with the place - and I remember the look and the feel and the smell and the sense of it. Then I know it was real.

So, here's my proof for today....

Me next to the columns in the Hypostyle Hall, Karnak Temple, Luxor, Egypt

A day of non-tourism in Cairo

Two days ago I had a thought while walking around Cairo: This whole city could use a good power-washing! And it could - Dust and dirt clings to everything dingy-ing up every surface. The closer a surface is to the ground, the darker the dingy-ness gets - like everything is painted with a gradation to mud-brown. Well, today the city got the closest it will get to power-washing -- it rained! 

The rain had a couple of effects that were immediately apparent. First of all, everything moved off the street to the indoors. Normally the sidewalks are littered with small stands or blankets spread on the ground covered with whatever wares the sellers have that day. But as soon as the first few drops started, everyone packed up and moved....someplace that wasn't the sidewalk. When the drizzle began, Katherine, James, and I were at the main train station finally procuring overnight train tickets to Luxor which we had attempted to get yesterday, but couldn't, because we couldn't find the right ticket window amid the unbelievable construction happening in and around the station and the complete lack of English signage. Once we had our tickets, we dodged the raindrops to a bakery for some chocolate croissants and a fig-filled pastry and dropped down into the subway system. We only went a couple of stops up, but it must have poured while we were underground. The streets and sidewalks were drenched and there was standing water everywhere. Where the sidewalk merchants had gone was anyone's guess, but they weren't around. Everyone was in the business of cleaning up after the rain. Shopkeepers had out long-handled squeegees vigorously sweeping the muddy water away from their shop doors. That's the other thing that changed about the city post-rain: mud. 

When the city was dry, the dust was bad enough - once it rained, oh my -- all that dust turned into a slimy sludge caking everything on the ground. And I think the dust that had been clinging to all the vertical suffices washed down to the road (natural power-wash). We made our way out to the bazaar section of Cairo - the non-touristy bazaar that has been in existence forever where people who live in Cairo shop. Most of the roads were not paved, so the way was nothing but mud. We picked our way along through the stalls and stands and shops dodging scooters, motorbikes, and people carrying packages of all shapes and sizes. We attracted a lot of attention - I don't think too many Westerners frequent that market area. It was difficult to look at everything there since we had to pay such close attention to where we stepped. I stepped as deliberately as possible avoiding any large globs that could squish up my boots and pant legs. It was tricky going!

The bazaar area was entertaining and visually stimulating. I loved the colors and textures - pyramids of ripe oranges with some leaves still attached, stacks of stick-crates full of leafy heads of lettuce, more stacks of crates full of live chickens or rabbits, rows upon rows of fine-thread scarves in every pattern and color (my weakness), shiny leather hassocks stacked up in descending order, buckets of fresh, shiny eels in front of trays of fresh, shiny fish, burlap bags bull of powdery spices glowing in reds, oranges, and golds, piles and piles of fresh pita bread waiting to be filled with baba ghannouj or falafel (another weakness), and everywhere, people, people, and more people.

I had the opportunity to spend about an hour watching people today. After we had meandered through the bazaar, we passed a barber shop, and James decided it was time for a haircut. So Katherine and I sat in a couple of chairs beside the road to watch Cairo go by while we waited. We saw some crazy things pass by. Aside from the myriad cars, trucks, minibuses, buses, scooters, motorbikes, taxis (white - metered, black - unmetered, so you have to bargain for the fare), cats, merchants with goods for sale, shoppers, men out for a stroll, and mothers with children in tow, I made a list of the things that I found unique or interesting:

 - a car with a large, rolled-up carpet sticking out of the sunroof

 - a man walking along the road carrying a twenty-foot long ladder 

 - a man pushing a massive cart piled high with whole loofahs

 - a turbaned man walking along texting

 - a woman with a bag balanced on her head running to catch a bus

 - a man riding a bike while carrying a large (at least 6' by 4') tray piled with a mountain of pita loaves, smoking a cigarette (now that's talent!)

 - two guys on a motorbike: one driving, the other holding a rocking horse up on his shoulders so that the horse stood over his head 

 - KFC delivery motorbike

 - Pizza Hut delivery motorbike

 - mini flat-bed delivery trucks carrying various things: mountains of empty stick-crates from the bazaar, bananas, furniture (four layers high), garbage, boxes, crates of oranges, crates of rabbits, sheets of foam-rubber, and rolls of carpets with a few people on top. Each load was ratcheted-down as tightly as the ropes would go so that (hopefully) nothing would fall off the tower of goods.

The rain certainly changed the look and feel of the city today, and it was nice to be in the middle of it all, seeing how those who live here deal with it. I liked being in Cairo-proper, not touristy-Cairo -- seeing where and how everyone lives on a daily basis and goes about business. We were more of a spectacle for them today than they were for us!

Everyone has to do something.....

.....but why do some have to annoy me?

Today James and Katherine and I went to Giza to spend the day at the Great Pyramids. The weather was perfect - not too hot, not too cool. We found the right bus to take, no thanks to a local with ulterior motives who took us away from the right place to catch the bus to show us a "better spot" for the bus, but really he wanted to try to get us to go to his shop. We finally realized what he was up to, extricated ourselves from his manipulation, and made our way back across several lanes of traffic to the road-side where the bus to Giza would pass. Thanks to James who learned the Arabic numbers yesterday while at the Egypt Museum, we flagged down bus #357, and spent all of 35 cents for the 45-minute bus ride to Giza.

The pyramids are a true wonder of this world. I think I prefer the Mayan's pyramids (the jungle is more mysterious than the desert), but these were pretty fantastic! We had nothing else planned for today, so we were able to take our time as we worked our way around each pyramid, wondering at the size, the perfection, the engineering marvel, the durability, and the sheer mass of each one. I was fascinated by the way the perspective changed as we came closer to one and then further away.

This is not high tourist season, so there were not too many people around to be able to enjoy the view..... well, not on account of the number of tourists, anyway.....

The park is swarming with merchants trying to coerce tourists into buying postcards, beaded headdresses, statues of the pyramids and sphinx, head scarves, horse rides, and camel rides. I would have loved to ride a horse - at a full gallop across the dunes with the wind flying through my hair - but there was no way they would let me do that! Over and over and over again someone approached us on horseback, on camel-back, or with arms laden with goods, offering us "good price" for whatever they had. At first it was easy enough to be polite and smile and say, "No, thank you." But as the day went on, and the same approach was used time and time again, our patience wore thin. The drill went something like this:
"Hey! Hi! Hello! Where you from? Hi! Hello! Where you from? English?"
"No, we're American."
"Ah! Obama! Good man!"
"Yes, he is a good president."
"Where in America you from?"
"Pennsylvania and Colorado."
"Oh? I have cousin in New York! New York is great place!"
"Yes. Yes, it is."
"I will give you good price to ride camel. You want to ride camel? I take you to panorama and Sphinx on camel. Good price. What price you want? 40 Egyptian pounds."
"Thank you, we don't want to ride a camel today."
"No? I give you good price. Good price just for you - 35 pounds. Good price. No one give you better price."
"No, thank you, we don't want to ride a camel."
"Okay, you nice person. I give you good price. 30 pounds Egyptian. For 30 pounds I take you and your friends to panorama and Sphinx on camel. No one give you better price."
"No, thank you."
"Okay, maybe later. Is this first time in Egypt?"
"Yes."
"Welcome! Welcome to Egypt! How long you been here?"
"Three days."
"And how long you staying?"
"One week."
"Just one week? That not long enough. There is much to see. And to ride a camel. I give you good price. Just for you - 25 Egyptian pounds......."

And over, and over, and over, and over, and over....the entire day we repeated this conversation. It felt so rude not to answer them when they came trotting up on their horse or camel, so at first we answered their questions. Eventually we figured out that ignoring them was the best way to get them to stop pestering us. If we continued the conversation, they kept badgering us to ride their camel. It was difficult to enjoy what we were looking at while being hounded for business. After several hours of this, it became extremely annoying.

Then I had a thought: these guys are just trying to make a living. People do pay them to ride their camels and horses. People do buy their plastic pyramids. People give in to the badgering, otherwise that wouldn't be their business tactic. Just because I don't want to ride their camels doesn't mean that other tourists don't want to either. Everyone has to do something to make a living. These guys have camels and live in Giza. So why wouldn't they spend their days around one of the Wonders of the Ancient World talking people into riding their camels? That's not a bad way to spend one's days! It's not a job I'd want - I'm not business-savvy nor a good salesperson! But it works for them. So I was less annoyed when the hounding started anew. I ended up telling the last few that we were not going to change our minds, so they were just wasting their time trying to sell us a camel ride and that they should try someone else. That worked!

"No" may not mean "no," but "wasting time" is not good business, and the camel-ride sellers know it!

Floating down the Nile River on a felucca is not only a leisurely way to spend an evening, but also a good way to gain a new perspective on the importance of the river. Water is vital for survival (of course!), and here in Egypt, where there is little other water, life revolves around the river. 

Before arriving, as the plane flew into Egyptian air, I was amazed to see how brown everything on the ground looked - the color of mud everywhere. Well, everywhere except for two thin strips along either side of the river and where irrigation canals had been dug. Aside from those few emerald-green squares the vast expanse of land was brown, brown, and more brown. As we flew over Cairo, the brown remained, changing only in texture - instead of brown ground, I could see lots of brown roofs and roads. Everything is dirty, dusty, and dry. Yet here in the desert thrives a metropolis - one that has been here for thousands of years. Without the Nile, Cairo would not exist. The water has been used for everything throughout history: for drinking, for washing, for cooking, for watering crops, for transportation, for fishing -- and although the way of life has changed dramatically over the millennia, the river is no less important. 

Tonight while Katherine, James, and I were walking to the felucca docks in Maadi (a suburb of Cairo) we passed a church with a sign out front that said that when Joseph, Mary, and baby Jesus were fleeing from King Herod, they came to Maadi and got onto a boat to float down the river to safety. It was interesting to think that this evening we boarded a boat onto the same river in the same place. Was the river as calm then as it was tonight? Was the moon just as beautiful? Did the cool night breeze comfort their fears? If this was the place that the holy family floated to safety, I feel blessed to have experienced the same thing that they did - not under the same circumstances, certainly - but on the same line of life-giving water that threads its way through the sand.

Blessed? Yes, I am.

Turkish food

Maybe I shouldn't try to critique the food in Turkey since I don't eat the majority of the most common foods - namely, "Kebaps." Being a vegetarian is a little difficult in Istanbul, but, as always, I did find some great things to eat and drink in restaurants, in dessert shops, and on the street.

One of the restaurant foods that I liked the best is Pide. It is like a pizza, but boat-shaped. This one (on the right) had some veggies and cheese on it, and the crust was sprinkled with sesame seeds. I had another one in another restaurant that had spinach and egg - it was interesting - kind of like a quiche.

Another spinach dish I had was something like Greek spanikopita - layers of spinach and filo dough.... baked with some crumbly cheese sprinkled in....

Yogurt is a main ingredient is many dishes and drinks. I had some wonderfully velvety yogurt soup that had a little rice in it. The fresh mint leaves gave the soup a nice fresh flavor.

The strangest-looking thing I had was a pillow of bread with yogurt-dill sauce. The "pillow" was essentially a large pita that was puffed up like a pillow. Dipped in the sauce, it was delicious.

I could subsist exclusively on Istanbul's street food. Every food-group is covered! Simit is what I ate the most on the street. The simit carts are always close by, no matter where in the city one goes. A ring of bread crusted with sesame seeds, baked until it is almost toasty. That's it - basic, but delicious!

This photo (to the left) shows one of my favorite street foods - on the pier these guys fry up fresh fish filets and put one in a long crusty bun with fresh greens and lemon juice. It's way better than a hoagie!

Corn on the cob is another staple of street food. The corn is yellow, but not sweet - more like Mexican corn (elote).

Another Mexican copy - churros..... sort of. I don't know what the Turks call them, but they look like a churro in a ring and they are soaked in honey. Yum.

Speaking of honey, baklava is to die for! I sampled several different kinds, but this (in the photo) was my favorite - with little bits of crushed pistachio layered into the pastry and honey.

Another amazing dessert is called profiterol - a mountain of creme puffs smothered in dark chocolate sauce. Katherine and I went to a dessert shop called Inci to try some. Inci is the oldest dessert shop in Istanbul and was the first one to create this sinfully delicious concoction!

The first time I remember hearing about Turkish Delight was in my childhood - from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe - Edmund's fixation with Turkish Delight was his downfall. I never knew what it was -- now I know what it looks like and tastes like, but I still don't know what it's made of! It's sweet. There are kinds with nuts and without. It's coated in confectioner's sugar. It's cut into little cubes. My favorite is rose-flavored. That's all I know. (The photo is rose Turkish Delight.)

Turkish beer is decent enough - there aren't micro-breweries like in the States, but their national brand, Efes is pretty good. I tried both the pilsner and the dark - I like the dark the best - creamy, a little bitter, but with a good, rich flavor.

More people drink tea than anything else. The photo to the right is Turkish tea - or, rather, çay. Tea is served in little glasses set into a little saucer with a little spoon on the side and two lumps of sugar. I always wanted to say, "One lump, or two?" every time I was served one of these Turkish teas. I'm not an avid tea-drinker other than herbal tea, so I can't really compare the Turkish tea to anything else. It's hot. It's bitter without sugar. It's tea!


What I loved more was the coffee - not all the coffee, and not even Turkish coffee (thick, sweetish mixture served in a tiny mug). No - I loved that I was able to get the kind of coffee that I love - Americano! This final photo was the most delicious cup of coffee I have had since I left the U.S.! Not that the beans were anything special.... I just miss that certain flavor. In Georgia all they have is instant coffee and Turkish coffee - not my favorites. But when this particular cup of coffee arrived at my table, I breathed in the hot, familiar scent, closed my eyes, and smiled! Then I snapped a photo before enjoying every single drop --- all the way down to the last one!

Anybody hungry?