Weekend Trip to Egypt

This fall we had a baby. He's real cute and we love him. But as a result, we have been somewhat cooped up since then. This isn’t to say that we aren’t living our lives as we are. Harris is a flexible and chill little guy who behaves well wherever we take him. Rather, this is more of a statement on the kinds of things, and the timing of things that we can do. One of, if not the number one reason to work overseas is the travel. We travel to a new place 3-4 times per year. It allows us to take advantage of our wanderlust and our location. Due to how fresh and raw he was during our November break, we did not travel anywhere. Due to family visiting and Harris’ lack of a passport, we only traveled for a few days to Bahrain for the New Year. For teachers, it’s a long stretch between the start of the second semester and Spring break, so Shannon and I decided that we needed to break up the monotony and get out of town. So we planned a weekend trip to Egypt this past weekend.

We chose Egypt because it’s always been on my list of places I wanted to go, and it’s a short, direct flight from Riyadh. We wanted somewhere close to see how Harris would do on his first flight, and it doesn’t hurt that we had a chance to visit a continent we had never been to before, and to check off a bucket list location as well. Prior to going, we asked around for advice from some of our friends who had been before. The only bit of advice we heard from everyone was to make sure we stayed in a nice place. We were told of horror stories about hotels that looked amazing online and were terrible in person. So we decided to heed that advice and book a stay at a location whose reputation we trusted and we booked at the Four Seasons.

Since it was a three day weekend, we didn’t have to worry about rushing out of town to catch a night
flight and arrive all crazy late. Harris is just now developing a routine so we didn’t want to stray too far from that. So, we booked a flight that departed at 12:00 to make it easy on him and us. We figured if he was going to scream on the flight, at least he wasn’t going to keep anyone awake at night. We packed light, shunned the stroller, and brought the baby backpack instead with the intention of checking nothing. Somehow, despite all of the baby accessories that need to be accounted for while traveling, we pulled that off too.

We got to the airport and walked around a bit. We waited in our line to board when a nice Egyptian grandmother gestured to Shannon that she wanted to hold Harris, to which we politely smiled and said no thank you. Needless to say, this was going to be a theme for the weekend. When it was our time for our flight to take off, we were a little nervous about how he was going to react to the pressure change, but as we were taxied to the runway, he fell asleep cold. He took a 30 minute nap that conveniently got him through the ascent and we played until it was time to land. We made our way to our car after customs and immigration and we were told by our driver that we could and should anticipate many other kind grandmothers attempting to steal our baby for cuddles. Our driver was among the most skilled I have ever seen. With Cairo being a city of 20+ million, and our arrival at 4:30, we were in for some rush hour action, but he bopped and weaved his way through everything with the skill and precision of a surgeon. There were a few times where he pulled his car into a makeshift fake “lane” and we were so close to the cars next to us, that I would swear we could have put an index card in between the cars and it would have stayed pinched between them.

Once we settled into our rooms, we fed the baby, got his crib set up, bathed him, and put him to bed. Our hotel was beautiful and overlooked the Nile, which prompted some great dad jokes on my part. I’ll let your imagination run with that one. Then we had some delicious local food called koshery delivered to the hotel on a recommendation from some friends who had lived in Cairo. Koshery is delicious, and it is cheap. We ordered two medium orders and a small desert to split. Each order was essentially two KFC buckets worth of fried onions, and like five kinds of noodles with a tomato sauce, garlic oil, and chili sauce mixed in with chickpeas. It was absolutely incredible.

The next day we set out on our tour and brought some lunch. The ride to the Great Pyramid was less than a half hour. It was absolutely stunning. Shannon had been before so it was less of a surprise to her, but I was in awe by how big they were. I had obviously seen photos before, but I had no idea they would be so big. It stood at about 455 feet! We took some photos and climbed on the pyramid a bit and wandered around a bit as we took in the history from our guide.

After we left that site, we went to a beautiful panoramic vista point that showed the three most centrally located pyramids, including the Great Pyramid of GIza and had our lunch and took some more photos. Then we wandered over to the solar boat site, which was pretty cool as well. It’s a boat that was excavated and theorized to have been a vessel for a king to travel to the afterlife upon for his judgement to the afterlife. After the solar boat, we took a short drive to the Sphinx, which was amazing. It was way smaller than I thought though, standing at about 25 feet tall. It would have fit in a basketball court, with room to spare, which was in stark contrast to the pyramids. While we were there, a couple got engaged. (I think we accidentally got in a few of their celebratory photos) I have to say, hats off to the guy who planned that location for the proposal.

When we left the historical sites, we were taken to a essential oil and perfume shop where we were
given tea and shown how people make essential oils and perfumes. It was really cool to see how seemingly odorless liquids can be transformed and made into potent perfumes. At this shop, Harris was taken (gently but firmly) from my arms and played with and doted upon. He was cool with it and while it made me a little wary to have a stranger passing my baby around, it was clear to me that this was not going to be a Liam Neeson ‘Taken” situation so I relaxed a bit. I think I realized it when I was handed an iPhone and asked to take her photo, with my baby.

After buying some sort of sandalwood and eucalyptus concoction, we left and went to a nearby papyrus shop where we were shown how the first paper was made. It’s a pretty cool process and one that was neat to see in person. They start by soaking the papyrus reeds to make
them flexible. Then they split the reeds long ways with a knife, as one would with string cheese, and they soak them again to make them malleable. The thickness at this point resembles a yardstick so I wasn’t sure how they were going to turn that into paper, but they used rolling pins to get some of the water and sugar out of the reed, which thinned it out a bit and allowed it to be even more flexible. Then those strips were woven together and put into a press to create a woven, thin paper. It was really cool to see. We wandered around the shop for a bit until Harris decided that he was ready for a nap so we took him back to the hotel and got him situated. It turns out historical adventures are the secret key to getting him to sleep through the night! The poor, exhausted little man slept for the next 12 hours until it was time to get him up for our flight the next morning. Prior to the trip, he slept through the night one time. On the weekend of the trip, he did it three nights in a row! It’s a big world out there, there are a lot of new things to experience, and it can be exhausting.

After an uneventful flight back, we made it home in time to unpack and do some weekend errands before we went back to work for the week. I’m incredibly proud of our little trooper who hung in there for a big adventure and of us for taking the chance to travel with him. I’m glad we got to check out some really amazing sites and get out of our compound bubble for a little while. We enjoyed Egypt very much and we thank all of the kind grandmotherly women who were gentle and loving while snatching our baby from us and who treated him like a tiny pharaoh.