Egypt - Alexandria

Egypt
Historical Site
City
Author

Oliver Eaton

Published

February 27, 2023

Arriving back in Cairo from Bahariya our next destination planned was Aswan, Egypt’s southern most city. However, Trav & I counted up how many days remained on our visas and re-estimated how many nights to stay at destinations lined up (which was around 3/4 nights each), and it came out that we had about five days spare on our 30 day visas. Because of this, we changed tact a bit and decided to journey to Alexandria, Egypt’s second largest & northern most city situated on the Mediterranean coast. We had originally planned on skipping Alexandria all together. The following morning we went to the tourist intercity bus station (GoBus) and purchased tickets to Alexandria, leaving Cairo at 1.30pm, for £100EGP each ($5NZD).


The bus ride was scheduled to be three hours, but traffic leaving Cairo was nuts so it took more like five. That morning Trav had woken up not feeling healthy and sniffled the whole bus ride. We arrived in Alexandria and caught a taxi to our accommodation (Clement’s Hotel), on the way I realised I had accidentally left my mobile phone on the bus. I was listening to music resting it between my legs, when we arrived I stood up, walked off the bus, leaving my phone on the seat. FUCK! - That’s annoying. We had an early night sleep because we were still a bit tired from the desert and Trav wasn’t feeling well.

The following day Trav was not in a good state, he decided to spend the day resting in bed. I lined up a few sights for myself, they were:

Sidi Morsi Abu Al-Abbas Mosque

The mosque is huge and split into three different buildings all opening up into one courtyard. I’m unsure if that means the buildings are literally different mosques, or they all belong to one. Regardless, the architecture was beautiful. I arrived around midday the same time as the early afternoon call to prayer, which was special because the prayer halls were full, people were lined up in the courtyard with mats and prayers crackled loudly from the distorted speakers. It was an amazing sight to behold, and lasted for about fifteen minutes. I really wanted to snap a few photos but felt it would be disrespectful, so refrained from doing so.

One thing I realised moving on from this mosque is that, in general, streets surrounding mosques is where life happens. The mosques act as a congregation point for locals to buy & sell goods and negotiate trades & services. The street atmosphere after this particular call to prayer was really alive and fun.


Fish Market

Alexandria is on the coast and is built upon a culture of the ocean. An elderly gentlemen I had coffee with this morning (we spoke via sign-language), was a retired fisherman. His walking stick was an old fishing rod. So while here, I must check out and try the fresh fish. On Google Maps two Fish Markets could be pin-pointed, I made note to check them both out. After arriving at the first one, I realised it was actually a restaurant called “Fish Market”, now that’s a deceiving name. It looked like a flash joint, I highly doubt they charged market rates. A bit disappointing, although there is another one just up the road…or, so I thought.

The next fish market supposedly lined the entry to Qaitbay Fort. Sadly, this was just a normal market dotted with touts selling regular, uninteresting plastic trinkets. Bummer! Luckily after my time at Qaitbay Fort I stumbled across fresh fish being cooked and sold on the street. I bought a small red fish (no idea what kind) and two prawns, which were cooked in front of me. I was charged £160EGP for this! I’m unsure if this is the going rate for fresh food or I got totally ripped off, I think the latter. Regardless, the fresh fish & prawns cooked in spices was delicious!


Citadel Qaitbey Fort

On the peninsula a citadel call Qaitbay Fort was built in the 1470’s. Aside from the ocean & city views visible from the fort, there wasn’t much interesting about this place. I think I was a bit put off with all the scam artists hanging around. It was hard to have a moment of peace while being constantly bombarded by people asking if I want a photo (most probably from a stolen camera), or to buy something. Two young men followed me around the fort eventually approaching me to ask if they could hang out and practice English, I had absolutely zero trust in the fact that was what they actually wanted to do. I pretended to take a photo of something and walked away. I left Qaitbay Fort slightly agitated.


GoBus Phone Reclamation Attempt

I was a bit gutted having lost my phone, so I thought returning to the bus station to check if it had been handed in could be a good idea. I flagged down a taxi and tried to explain to the driver where I wanted to go. He understood the word “bus” and started driving in the complete wrong direction, eventually arriving back at Qaitbay Fort, pointing at buses and repeating the word “bus” on the way. This was going nowhere. I was already agitated from Qaitbay Fort so I just got out of the car and made my way back to the Hotel on foot.

I managed to contact GoBus via WhatsApp on my laptop, they told me no lost property had been handed in from my bus trip. So it is now certain, my phone is gone. Luckily it was a cheap, cracked OPPO that I’ve already had for four years. Bloody annoying though!

The Next Day - My Birthday

It is my 32nd birthday today, what an awesome place to be on my birthday! Trav is feeling slightly better so will join me in doing:

  • The Roman Theatre
  • The Catacombs
  • Buying a train ticket to Aswan on the sleeper train
  • Birthday Beersies

Before venturing out for the day we had a quick video call with Mum & Dad, it was great catching up with them.

The Roman Theatre

The Roman Theatre shows a slice of life in 200AD. I liked the way the Theatre was specifically designed for musical performances and serviced the small village directly behind it.


The Catacombs

Artefacts at the Catacombs were interesting, they displayed images showing a mixture between Ancient Egyptian, Roman & Greek religions. I guess the Catacombs were established at a point in time when these three cultures intersected at the same place, Alexandria.


Aswan Sleeper Train

Now this was an absolute debacle! We spent nearly an hour at the station just trying to find the sleeper train ticket office. No-one could give us accurate directions, eventually we asked a pharmacist at the train station pharmacy (pro-tip Egyptian pharmacists speak really good English). We eventually found the ticket office. To our surprise purchasing one ticket required $80USD cash, Egyptian pounds and credit card were not accepted. What the actual flying fuck!? - Why would Egyptian pounds not be accepted in Egypt? So we decided to exchange some cash the following day and return in the morning.

Birthday Beersies

We went out for beers that evening to celebrate my birthday. Drinking in Egypt feels like a sin, the bars (if they can be found) have tinted windows and are dark and seedy inside. We smashed back a few beers and got a burger on the way home.

Aswan Sleeper Train - cont

We set aside a couple hours to sort this out, checking out of our hotel just in case it took a while. Boy-oh-boy, the saga continued! Our first stop was the bank to exchange cash, at the bank we were told no banks in Egypt exchange cash, the only place to do so is at street cash-exchanges. We then ventured to the financial area of town where banks and cash-exchanges are clustered. The first cash exchange only had $140USD, we required $160USD, so we took $100USD and went to the next exchange. There we were told foreigners can only buy foreign (non-Egyptian) currency if they present their plane ticket. We thought that was kinda weird. This was a reoccurring theme at every exchange we went to. They were either out of USD or wouldn’t sell to us because we couldn’t show a plane ticket.

Unsuccessful, we felt defeated and went back to the hotel to reevaluate. Our next best option was to get a bus back to Cairo and attempt to purchase a sleeper train ticket from there. This part of the saga went quite smoothly. We swooped in on a GoBus with minutes to spare, arrived at Cairo train station and purchased a sleeper ticket using credit card and hung out at the station playing cards for a bit. Tomorrow we will wake up in Aswan to begin the next chapter of our travels.