Alexandria-ish

This weekend was Eid, which marks the end of Ramadan. To celebrate, Roommate 1, S and I went to Alexandria.

Kind of. To be completely accurate, we went to a beach resort an hour or so outside of Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast called Borg al-Arab. Our hotel was the only tourist spot amidst myriad condos and villas, including a huge compound that apparently belongs to President Mubarak.

Wondering what the Mediterranean looks like in Egypt? It looks about as you might expect: beautiful.
I put my pictures in one document. Nice, eh? White sands, blue skies and turquoise water. What more could you want?

Getting there was not nearly so idyllic as the beach itself, however. The train from Cairo to Alexandria was fine, but the taxi driver we convinced to take us to the resort was a smidgen craptacular. He agreed to take us for only 100 pounds, half what the resort charges for transportation, but he never did get us all the way to the hotel.

Here's what happened: We had already gone through one police inspection and were nearing the hotel. In fact, we'd just passed a sign claiming that we were within 1,200 meters of our destination when the cab driver spotted another police checkpoint. This one, unlike the first, was a big problem. The driver pulled over and refused to move forward, and as a result he couldn't move forward because the car conveniently broke down. We three clambered out as he tried, unsuccessfully, to restart the car and Roommate 1 called the hotel to see whether they could send a car to get us, mere moments from their door.

The hotel wanted 75 pounds to pick us and the cab refused to restart, so we set out walking:

It's a long, hot highway.

When we got to the police inspection point they were quite confused as to why we'd gotten out of the cab in the middle of the road (incidentally, this is a highway on which the opposite directions are divided and turning around is allowed only once every long while). We looked back to the cab and he had somehow, miraculously restarted his car - and started driving rapidly away in the opposite and illegal direction! The flustered police radioed someone who I hope picked up the scoundrel (yes, I went there), and then were very very helpful.

This is a nice Egyptian police story. Apparently there aren't many of those. The kindly officers flagged down a minibus and instructed the driver to take us to the hotel. He obliged, even sending out his previous passenger with a promise to pick him back up later and off we went.

But he drove right past the turn, despite our attempts to communicate, "Here! Turn!" so we had to drive in a long circle.

A very long circle because, as I mentioned, turn-arounds were not abundant. Finally, as you have certainly already concluded, we made it. We turned some hotel heads in the process; I doubt it's common that guests pull into the resort in run-down minibuses.

Here's the hotel.

There were more than a few gigantic jellyfish on the beach:

They looked very neat (blue guts!) and produced only miniature stings on swimmers' legs, surprising considering their size.

The rest of the weekend was spent on the beach (in the shade for those of us who happen to be sadly pallid) trying to read and or study and succeeding mostly in napping.



Much time was also spent in eating various buffet-style meals among tons of Egyptian families (and one German family).

We saw a belly dancer perform, and heard what claimed to be live music but what seemed suspiciously lip sync-ey. And, when the musicians were taking a break, the Dj (or whatever it was) not once but twice played Daddy Yankee. It was the same song both times, but I'll take it.

Have I mentioned that Roommate 1 is a wee bit shorter than I? I tried to get down to her head level in this photo, but I was unsuccessful and at risk of collapsing into the sand.