Hurghada

In transit now after spendng 3 days in Hurghada which is about 6 hours south of Cairo by car. The city is definitely a tourist town. Russians were everywhere in very skimpy clothes. There are about 1,000 hotels in Hurghada and 50% of Egypt's tourist flock there. I spent most of my time window shopping and laying on the beach. There isn't a lot of beach not consumed by hotels. We paid to hang out by the sheraton's beach which was quite clean and provided chairs. The water is multi-colored and amazingly clear. Even in deep water you can see to the bottom. The Sheraton brought in sand as the sea coast here is typically rocky. There are scattered coral reefs near the shore; but I only saw one small, bland fish while swimming. From shore, you can see several little islands where people snorkel and dive. I didn't do either while I was there, but hope to in Dahab. Hurghada has a beautiful new Marina and from it you can see the construction of a beautiful, new beach-side mosque. My Let's Go book said the town was very conservative; but I didn't see much of that. In the tourist areas signs are written in English, Russian, and Arabic. Sometimes the signs won't even have Arabic on them. Skimply dressed tourists and unveiled locals were everywhere. I hate it when a city loses it's initial culture to tourism.

I'm waiting to take the night bus tonight to Dahab. I hear Dahab is much more natural...

Garbage City or Maadeenah az-zableen

Garbage city houses 40,000 people. 95% are coptic christians. In Egypt, the christians are either very poor or extremely rich. The people that live in Garbage city collect the garbage from all over Egypt and bring it back to the city. In the city you can see and smell the large bags of trash piled all over town. In buildings, on top of buildings...everywhere. I've heard the people keep their homes relatively neat and clean, but I didn't get a chance to go into anyone's apartment. The city use to have pigs that ate the trash; but the government killed them during the swine flu scare. It's a sobering sight. There is a monastary at one end of the city built into the cave that overlooks the city. It's an amazing justaposition to see this church in such a destitute place. Inspiring to have it there. I read in my "let's go" book that about 400 people come to the church every week... I'm not religious, but I felt a sense of awe in this place.

Balance

One of my biggest challenges here is finding the balance between not being taken and being human. I feel guilty walking into a restaurant to eat when there are homeless women and children on the street with nothing. It's painfully difficult to ignore the begging children, but I'm told it's bad to give them money because they will learn to beg instead of earn their living and that some of them are not really poor. I buy things..kleenex and bracelets from kids and street people and feel a little like I'm tossing money in the air. I went to buy a homemade instrument from two street vendors. Originally, they asked for 15 pounds. I knew it was worth no more than 7 pounds. One of the men's legs was seriously swollen and pussy. They asked for 30 pounds. I knew it was too much; but was concerned about the leg. 30 egyptian pounds goes a long way here and is less then 10 dollars; so I agreed. I didn't have correct change;so the man took my money and wasn't going to give me change. Instead they were going to give me more instruments. I asked for change in arabic several times. Finally, I put the instrument I'd wanted down, grabbed my money out of the guy's pocket, and left.