Straying from the Asphalt

We have now passed through many tourist destinations of the world: The National Gallery in Washington D.C., USA; The Lucy Museum in Changsha, China; elaborate temples and parks in Bankok, Thailand; rock hewn churches and ancient lakes in Ethiopia; a slave fort museum in Cape Coast, Ghana; the Pyramids and Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Egypt; and ancient Roman ruins in Turkey.

We are tourists, oh yes we are.

Much as we like to put ourselves in a different category and call our travels “off the beaten path,” you will sometimes find us alongside the masses. It is fairly difficult for us to place ourselves so fully and intentionally on a path shared by so many people. But we go, for there is something to be said for a site or object that attracts tourists from all of the world: it is most likely remarkable and exciting and absolutely worth seeing.

There are extreme differences between travelers, and visiting tourist destinations highlights and defines these differences in new ways. We see tour groups and independent tourists, guides and translators, drivers and hotel touts, tour packages and buses. We see all different nationalities and hear all varieties of language being spoken.

And to be honest, we are terribly critical of tour groups. We poke unnecessary fun as the accessories of tour groups. Whether matching water bottles or baseball hats or t-shirts or stickers, they bear the club insignia with some sense of pride. I guess that in a foreign land, it feels good to belong to something.

I was stunned by the silent tour groups shuffling through the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Each member of the tour had a headset through which they could hear the voice of their tour guide, standing tens of heads away. Arms folded, faces dour, they all looked bored to death. It was easy to avoid these groups for they all moved as a great amoeba; stragglers were nonexistent.

A few days ago, caught in the tentacles of the tourist-driven Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, we burst (rather frantically) out into the normalness of a city street. There we saw the member of a tour group, a bright number 3 blazing on her shirt, obviously separated from her herd. We were delighted to see that her split was unquestionably intentional as she wandered the street with ease and comfort and interest.

In Ethiopia we saw tour buses speeding through the scorching desert sun of Ethiopia, the windows filled with pasty tourists cloaked in heavy sweaters to combat the icy bus air-conditioning. Tourism in Ethiopia was usually a packaged deal: tour and guide and hotel and shopping were all wrapped together, with comfortable shuttle buses ferrying to and fro.

While in Egypt, we visited the pyramids at Giza. We took the Cairo metro out to Giza Station, then caught a local bus, and walked the rest of the way. Our early morning efforts were rewarded when we arrived as the gates were being opened. However, the tour buses moved quickly through the site and soon left us in the dust. I was frantically urging Nathan along, “come on! We have to get ahead of all of these people!” I probably would have been running had he not been with me. But in fact, we were surprised not to have much interference from the tour groups at all. You might have been amazed by the lack of other people in our photos from the Pyramids. Want to know our trick? We strayed from the asphalt. Most other visitors to the pyramids drive from site to site in the tour bus, briefly alighting at each stop. We trucked through the entire place in flipflops, though heat and wind and dust. And it was magnificent; we felt like explorers.

While pausing at the ancient theater at Termessos, Turkey, we were joined at the space by a group of ten or so middle-aged American tourists. They were boisterous in their excitement, exclaiming with joy and amazement. We watched them, eating our bread and cheese and tomato sandwiches, comfortable in our distance. Though many members of the group departed after a few minutes, a trio of three woman dismissed the urgings of their guide and steadfastly refused to leave. “You can go ahead, we aren’t leaving yet. We have some chanting to do.“ The tour guide, slightly bemused, left them to their presumed insanity, urging them to catch up soon. The ladies sat together, chatting and laughing for a short while. Then they collected themselves and uttered harmonic chants into the acoustical vastness of the ancient theater placed high up on a mountain. I truly respected their intentions and appreciations of the space and the moment.

The truth is, while I criticize tourists and tour groups, there are always anomalies. And isn’t going to the Egyptian Museum with a tour better than never going at all? I think so. And I must give credit to all travelers, regardless of their style. For it takes work and effort and bravery to embark out into the world, outside of your comfort zone, regardless of the path.

So cheers to the travelers of the world, even though my path takes me off the asphalt.

Read more...

The One Pound Falafel Sandwich

El Alamein would be the perfect vacation spot for many persons seeking the sapphire clear waters of Egypt’s Mediterranean. It had been recommended to us by two different English speaking people we encountered, both of whom we had clearly articulated a desire to spend time in Egyptian communities away from the usual tourist path. We got our usual information on buses and made our way there without a hitch; (1.50 L) for two taxis to Muharambek Station and right onto the minibus to El Alamein (11 L).

The buses make record time along the flat coastal highway and an hour later the first 80 km were completed including Alexandria traffic. However, only 25 km out we began to wonder if the view of the sea was ever going to appear from behind the curtain of master planned communities, condos, and resorts lining the beaches.

Upon arrival in El Alamein our worst fears were realized. El Alamein, historic for its enormous foreign graveyards, is like an oversized truck stop on the wrong side of the highway. We were faced with a dilemma - go on with hope that the resort blockade would eventually end, or turn back and return to our lovely sea view and Hotel Normandie in Alexandria.

We didn’t want to give up too easily. So, we took a walk circling the town. It was fruitless; that is except for seeing a departure of the afternoon train which we would have run to catch for some variety if it had been a few steps closer and a little bit slower (a good thing too, as we never saw tracks again and now assume it was either direct to Cairo or to some oasis in the heart of the Sahara Desert).

When we got round to the minibus stand we immediately commandeered a front seat on the first bus heading back. Knowing the bus could fill up quickly, we went off to grab a quick lunch of falafel sandwiches and a delicious eggplant, tomato, french fry and onion sandwich. The sandwiches are always accompanied by a variety of spicy pickled vegetables which are too spicy for Brittany (carrots, pickles, hot peppers, cauliflower, etc.)

Ok, so the whole trip there and back was four hours, four bucks (US), and an interesting experience (especially for an urban planner/hotel operator totally opposed to sprawl, unsustainable development, and privatization of public spaces). We certainly would have chosen to spend our day differently had we known better.

Lonely Planet or Footprint Guidebooks would have really helped here. We had maps of the coast, information from locals, a sense that El Alamein was far enough from Alexandria; and, the place had been described as having only old foreigner graveyards of interest; but, a quick Google search (we were on the internet posting blogs this morning in preparation for getting away from civilization) would have probably given us all the information we needed not to go.

So going guidebook-less has its costs. An adventure in the sprawling overdevelopment of the Egyptian deserts spilling into the lapping crystal waters and sunshine of the Mediterranean. Now, we just have to find a local avenue (trolley anyone?), to dip our toes in those alluring silky waters here in Alexandria. There is another hidden cost also, we are trying to green our travels. We took two seats on the local minibus that would have been filled by others. So, we need to use our carbon cost calculator to figure out how many extra trees we need to plant to offset our misadventure.

Moral to the story: People will not make exceptions for their perception of what they think you like even when you explicitly think you are telling them you’re not interested in tourist things. Do your research.

Read more...

Ferenge

Sometimes I am overcome by the exhaustion of being a foreigner. Of always being different and new and unusual. In the lands through which we have thus far traveled, there is no hiding our foreignness. Even if we do not speak, our faces and our eyes and our bodies and our skin speak for us. And we follow in the paths that similar shapes and colors have already laid for us; oftentimes we haven’t the option of choosing a different path, it has already been chosen for us.

First impressions are always based upon appearances, it is human nature. It is human nature to utilize past experiences and knowledge and information to make quick assumptions and presumptions about the people inside of those outward appearances. Humans are categorical by nature, it’s how we make quick decisions that historically perhaps meant life or death: dangerous lion / harmless marmot, boiling water / shade under a tree, armed enemy / smiling friend.

But is it innate human nature to put people in categories of “us” versus “them?”

“Us” versus “them” has proven to be a common thread in our travels, partly because we are crossing such great distances and visiting such different lands. And always there are assumptions and presumptions and sometimes blame or solutions placed on “Them.” But how can this language be bypassed? How can you speak about “the people of Ethiopia” without automatically speaking about “them,” for they are a different people that “we are.” Or are they? More and more I find myself amazed by how un-foreign some of our destinations have been. Have I grown numb or non-plussed by the ability to communicate in my language? Or has it to do with the fact that so much of the world is now connected and shares so much of the same general information and habits? Or is the fact that we are all just people? The world is shrinking and I am wide-eyed with the realization that my comprehension of “us” versus “them” is fragmenting. It seems silly. People are the same. People eat, drink, love, feel joy and sorrow and apprehension. People have friends and families and want to lead happy lives. People have memories and dreams.

Yes, food is different, faces are different, customer service is different, climates are different; we can expound for a lifetime on the differences between people and places. But really, can you believe it, they are incredibly superficial differences. Mostly, when you get right down to it, food is the same. Whether using chopsticks, forks, or your right hand to eat, the food is still the same: your belly rumbles when you are hungry, you look at food, you put it in your mouth, you chew, swallow, and the food nourishes your body. What’s so different about that? Sometimes our tongues and eyes seem stronger than our rational thinking.

But who am I to be a critic. I turned down Sheep Brains Masala at a nice Indian restaurant. I tried my hardest (with no guarantee as to my success) to avoid ordering dog on a Chinese menu, and my entire self recoiled at the story of eating juicy chunks of raw meat stripped from an Ethiopian cow moments after it had been slaughtered. But give it enough time in each of those places, and I might be devouring such delicacies with relish.

People change. People assimilate. Cultures are refigured and forced to evolve, for better or worse. Someday, a ferenge will walk down the streets of Bahir Dar and be as invisible as I wish I were. It seems inevitable. And I bet that foreigner will wish that she were a bit more foreign, that she were a bit more special.

But maybe, at that future point, the world will have shrunk so far that “us” and “them” do not even exist as concepts any more.

Read more...