"Sorry about that business earlier my friends," the driver, Arabi Shawafah, said to no one in particular.
There was no immediate response. It was 2:00 a.m. And the driver had done a magnificent job of introducing us to Egyptian "hospitality." His reward was silence.
After a few moments, I finally answered.
"An bayah. Col behsehdur." I said in Hebrew, telling the driver that there was no problem and everything was okay.
My Hebrew was intentional. It was designed to offend. He had crossed the line within the first few moments of meeting our group. He would receive no response from me in English, only responses in the tongue of the hated Jews.
The driver looked back at me. I was sitting in the second row next to Stefan K, our German friend from the Hebrew Ulpan at Tel Aviv University. Stefan (the French-Irishman) and Elana sat behind me, huddled together in a vain attempt to sleep. Dustin was laying down in the first row of the taxi van, his Notre Dame hat pulled over his face.
"You speak Hebrew eh?" Arabi Shawafah asked with an arched eyebrow. He knew that there were three Americans, a Frenchman, and a German in his bus. We had had to fill out our information and give it to Egyptian border police before leaving the Taba Crossing. I imagine the sound of an American speaking Hebrew came as some surprise.
"Anahnu medebrim k'saht Ivrit. Ken."
A brief acknowledgment and a grumble on his part was all that passed for conversation between us for the remainder of the journey. We had come to Sinai to scuba dive and relax, not to suffer the intransigence of this man.
When we had crossed into Egypt proper, we had been approached by two Egyptian cabbies. One was a younger looking gentlemen. The other was Arabi Shawafah, an Egyptian version of Borat minus the good intentions and indefatigable cheer. He was in Dustin's face telling us that we would be taking his taxi to Dahab. The young cab driver announced that he would take us to Dahab as well.
A group of three Israelis had crossed into Taba in front of us. One of them, a teen aged girl, approached our group asking if we wanted to travel with them in order to split the cost and pay less.
Arabi Shawafah turned toward the girl and began yelling at her in Arabic and Hebrew. I heard the word nashim (woman) followed by what sounded like an expletive. Judging by her reaction he had obviously called her something akin to a whore. She tried to ignore him and continue speaking with us, but he was in her face and waving his finger at her whilst yelling in Arabic.
We were too shocked to know what to do. Egyptian police stood by and watched with indifference. Elana made the mistake of walking past Arabi Shawafah to find out how much the other cabbie wanted.
Arabi stopped yelling at the Israeli girl, who by then had turned away and run back to her bus, and bolted after Elana, jumping in front of her and yelling in English.
"No! This is the system! You come with me. He goes to Nuweiba. I take you to Dahab for one hundred pounds."
Dustin interjected.
"She just wants to..."
Arabi turned his attention to Dustin, barking at him that "this was the system" and that only he was taking people to "Dahab." Elana used the chance to scamper to the other cabbie. The two Stefans and I looked at each other in annoyance. It was 1:00 a.m. We were in a foreign country with a barely tolerable attitude regarding the country we had just left. We had just finished a five-hour bus ride from Tel Aviv to Eilat and were tired.
"The other guy said he'd take us to Dahab for eighty pounds," Elana announced as she jogged back over to us.
"No! He goes to Nuweiba! Get in the van, now!"
"We're not going with you if you're going to act like that," Elana protested.
He turned again to her and began yelling at Elana in Arabic. At this point, my blood was boiling. I wasn't alone.
"The other van is already leaving," Stefan said in his unique French-Irish accent.
The belligerent cab driver turned back to us and pointed at everyone except Elana.
"You come with me. This is the system. Not her," he said referencing Elana.
"Screw you, man!" Stefan said. "She's with us."
"She's with us, buddy," I fired back at the same time.
He looked at us and started marching toward his bus.
"You come with me," he said angrily.
"Not until you apologize to her," I said sternly.
He stopped walking and looked at me in disbelief; his bushy mustache wrinkled up in disdain.
"No! No apologize."
"Yes you will," I responded.
Gruffly he continued marching toward the van, muttering an indecipherable apology to himself. The five of us followed reluctantly. We had been in Egypt for all of ten minutes.
If this is any indication, the next week is going to be one hell of a headache.
It turns out that that thought was the understatement of a lifetime.
***
Arabic music blared through the van. Intermittent techno sounds burst through the staccato of chants in whatever song our driver was playing.
Stefan K, from Germany, leaned over and whispered.
"Perhaps this is why he is so angry," he said with a grin. "Having to listen to this music."
"You're probably right. This can't be good for one's sanity."
The van soon pulled off to the side of the road. I had been keeping my eyes open the entire ride. I could barely see the landscape around us, but I knew it was desolate. High, craggy mountains and desert were pretty much the only thing around for miles.
Arabi opened the door, turned off his headlights and put the blinkers on. He walked around the backside of the van and looked down the road. A pair of headlights were coming up behind us.
"Why did we just stop?" Elana asked with a rising note of concern in her voice.
"Uhhh," Stefan said with nervous laughter.
"To give us time to take pictures of course," I muttered.
Dustin and I traded concerned glances. I started scanning the outside. It was pitch black in the desert. The driver was still standing there.
First sign of trouble, we're hijacking this van and getting to a checkpoint as fast as possible. Better in the custody of Egyptian police than Gaza gunrunners. Or worse...
Another white van zipped past us. I looked back to find our driver casually relieving himself beside a large boulder. In a sordid way, this also relieved all of us.
We were back on the "Egyptian Autobahn" a few minutes later. The next hour was quiet. I spent most of my time listening to my mp3 player and mulling over the possibility that our driver was going to be an all too typical personality type during our week in Dahab.
We passed checkpoint after checkpoint. I wondered just what purpose they served. These checkpoints were little more than a concrete hut manned by a single underpaid and disinterested guard whose sole responsibility was raising the cross guard by pulling on a string.
At around 4:00 a.m., we passed through yet another checkpoint. This one was manned by many members of the Egyptian military. Our driver bribed his way past any potential hassle by handing the guard a pack of cigarettes. A large billboard to our left welcomed us to Dahab. Byzantine style artwork displayed various sea creatures and men in Arab dress on a beach. In the center of the picture, a large portrait of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak waved at us.
Some originality could really spice this whole dictator thing up.
"Hilton?" our driver asked us.
"Uh, we're staying at the Green Valley Camp," Dustin answered. "It's near Masrat."
"Hilton?!" our driver repeated brusquely.
Babel, you are the bane of man's existence.
***
Arabi Shawafah killed the lights of our van and got out for the second time. He approached a group of men sitting around a table. They were all between the ages of 20 and 35. Their stares did not induce warmth.
"I didn't know Fallujah had scuba diving," I quipped quietly.
There was garbage everywhere. Rubble was scattered throughout the streets and alleys as if a giant child had disassembled his Lego village in a titanic temper tantrum. A pack of wild dogs watched us warily from behind a half-collapsed wall. More than a few feral cats were pawing through a trash bin behind us. And then there were the stares. An older man in a kaffiyeh smoked a cigarette and watched our van with too much interest.
"Seriously, did the Marines just clear this city?"
Stefan laughed.
"It could be worse," he added. "We could have been kidnapped by terrorists back on the highway."
Ha. Ha.
Arabi returned to the van and backed out of the dirt road alley. We had been looking for our "hotel" for the better part of an hour. When we pulled into a parking lot back off the main highway, I found myself enamored with the sight of a camel grazing from a pile of trash on the other side of the street. For a brief moment, my spirits were lifted by the actions of this pea-brained desert bovine.
A teenage Egyptian boy exited a white Isuzu pickup truck and hopped in the passenger side of our taxi.
"What's up guys?" he asked in passable English.
His lucid linguistics would have come as further relief had the young man not been wearing sunglasses at 4:30 in the morning, glasses that upon removal revealed a solid white bandage covering the young man's right eye.
"We're going to the Green Valley Camp now," he announced.
Cool. That must be where we get our eye patches, too.
***
"You have to be kidding me," I said. Incredulity seeped out with every word uttered.
Stefan, always of good cheer, cackled deliriously a few feet away. Stefan, Elana, and myself were in the small hut that the Green Valley Camp offered as a room. The size didn't bother me as much as the the conditions itself. The hut next to us contained Dustin and Stefan K, both of whom I could hear laughing.
Our fan was broken which made the hut unbearably hot. My blue jeans were being used as a pillow due to the presence of dirt, dead skin, skin follicles, and other goodies that the leper who had just vacated my bed felt inclined to leave behind. The hut's roof was basically straw and thatch, portions of which were falling down on my face due to the epic duel two feral cats were having on it directly above me.
Just when I thought sleep had reached the zenith of its unattainable nature, the 5:00 a.m. call to prayer blared through the darkness like a clarion trumpeting its arrival from the underworld. A dismal pall enveloped me.
"Hey Stefan. Elana."
"Ye-yea," Stefan managed to reply despite uncontrollable laughter wracking his body.
"First one to kill me wins."
***
"Wery nice choice, Dustin," Stefan K said in his German-accented English.
We stood in front of the entrance to the Green Valley Camp, an entrance which exited on to the beachfront promenade of Dahab. The water was beautiful. The promenade was extremely nice. Western tourists crisscrossed all around us.
It was as if the previous night had all been a really bad nightmare. It was warm, but the rush of the wind off the Red Sea created a crisp breeze. Restaurants lined the shoreline all the way down the promenade. Shops and lodges comprised the other side.
Our scuba diving course didn't begin until Monday. It was around noon on Sunday. We had all managed to get a few hours of sleep following the call to prayer, but fatigue was evident on everyone.
We spent most of Sunday getting our bearings and looking around. I was immediately struck by the manner in which the shop owners and restaurant owners approached everyone. Brazen by anyone's definition, these men would approach everyone walking by, get in their face, and try to convince them to come inside.
It was always "Hello my friend, come have a look..." or "Sit down. Look at my menu. I'll give you a discount..."
The never-ending barrage of solicitation was intriguing to behold and experience for the first thirty minutes. It soon became apparent that behind their smiles and friendly gestures was a greed that would make Bernie Madoff blush.
We spent the afternoon hanging out at the Egyptian "Captain Ron's" shoreline restaurant. Abu was the most relaxed person I met while in Egypt. He kept his hair long and in a braid, wore a sleeveless shirt, and old shorts. He was the only person who didn't hassle us while we meandered down the promenade, thus winning our instant affection. We ate a great lunch/breakfast. Abu even allowed us to rent his snorkel gear and told us we didn't have to worry about payment until we left.
Having only come into the country with 370 Egyptian pounds ($74) and under the illusion that I would be able to withdraw money via my debit card, I didn't worry too much about my financial situation. The scuba course and diving certification would comprise the majority of the expenses. And with five pounds equal to one dollar, everything else theoretically would come fairly cheap. Unfortunately, I had had to relinquish 175 pounds to our insane cab driver and to the Egyptian government during the previous night.
In the process of trying to purchase a hand-woven rug for Mitch late in the afternoon, I realized that I only had around 30 pounds following lunch, snorkeling, and the purchase of a stuffed camel for Mahal. The tenacious but slightly dim owner of the rug shop didn't quite understand the dilemma.
"You like this one?" he asked.
"Yes I do. How much is it?"
"250," he said flatly.
"200," I countered.
"250."
"Okay. 175," I deadpanned.
He laughed. I didn't blink.
"Alright, see you later," I said as I spun on my heels to leave.
"150," the store owner said desperately.
"Deal. Let me go to the atm and I'll get the money and I'll be right back."
"How much you have now?"
"Not enough. Let me go to the atm and I'll get the rest."
"But how much now?"
"I have 30. If you want to sell it to me for 30, that would be just great."
"Ok. But how much now?"
"He only has 30 in his wallet," Stefan interjected.
"I'll be right back with more money," I said as I backed out of the store.
"He's worried you're not coming back," Elana said.
"You wait?" the store owner asked Stefan.
"Yeah sure. I'll wait here," Stefan said with exasperation. "I'm now human collateral..."
I hustled to a nearby atm and inserted my debit card. Punching through the appropriate procedures, I waited patiently for the transaction to go through. And waited. And waited. And waited. Losing my patience, I sought another atm. Dustin sauntered up and asked what was taking so long.
"It's not going through for some reason."
"Did you call your bank and get them to activate your card for Egypt?" he asked.
I turned my head slowly toward him.
"No, Dustin. No I did not."
"Yea..." he said with a grin.
"Shit. Well, that means I only have $6 to my name. And no one around here takes credit card."
"And Stefan's still at the shop."
"And we need to go rescue Stefan."
Upon returning to the rug store, we found Stefan sitting down and looking as if he would rather have been anywhere else. I tried to explain to the store owner that my card didn't work. He refused to accept this as a plausible scenario and instead walked all of us to another atm outside a branch of the Central Bank of Cairo.
Once again, there was no luck. And once again I tried explaining that my card wasn't working.
"Ok. 125," the shop owner said.
"You can't be serious."
Moments after arriving in our hut...
What would be the high point for the next four days. From Left to Right: Stefan K, Stefan, Me (with camel), and Dustin.
"But how much now?"
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