hi again kids. today my story starts way back on september 23rd, when we originally applied for our visas to sudan. we went to the sudanese embassy and were told to go to the american embassy to get letters of recommendation. of course, the american embassy refused, saying that we should have gotten our visas in america and that they hadnt given such letters since 1997. our explanation that we had not seen american soil in over 2 years fell on deaf ears and we were shoo'd out of their oh-so-nice waiting room to make room for some other poor saps who wouldnt really be helped that day.
so off we went to the sudanese embassy. we turned our applications in, in a crush of other people and were told to wait 5 minutes. 7 hours later they told us to come back in 2 weeks to see how our applications were doing in khartoum. the whole time people stared at us as if we were a sideshow act and asked us repeatedly if we REALLY were going to sudan for "tourism".
in the meantime we decided to go to luxor for a change of pace (and to be honest a change in expenses). we wandered down to the train station around 8 for the 10 o clock night bus. this is one of the only buses that foreigners are allowed to take here. so jenny walked up to the ticket man and asked for two second class tickets to luxor. the man refused, saying that there were only first class tickets. instantly following this he sold 2 second class tickets to the man over her shoulder. when she insisted on second class the man told her there were no tickets at all and turned his back on her, holding up the entire line just to prove his point. one helpful soul saw all of this and tried to buy our tickets for us, but only succeeded in getting the ticket man to refuse to sell him a ticket as well. we waited and watched as our train left us in the station. our new friend tried several more times to secure us tickets on the trains to follow and was finally kicked out of the ticket office by the man on account of us being foreigners. around midnight we took our complaint to the tourist police who took our money, walked around the station for an hour with it and then returned the money saying they could do nothing to help us. in a final fit of desperation we just hopped on the train that was on the platform. we were directed to first class because there were no more second class seats. however, just as we had settled into our luxury accommodations a hoard of foreigners in a tour group got on and told us that we were in their seats. so we were bumped to the ground of the "smoking car" (aka the space between train cars). so we sat on the floor while the men who were getting their nighttime ramadan nicotine fix marveled over the strange foreigners on the ground and ashed in our "seats". eventually the ticket man came around and asked whether we wanted to pay for first or second class tickets for our fine lodging. we asked if we could pay for third, but he was not amused.
Luxor was hot, and there is not much to tell. our biggest adventure was sneaking into the roof pool of the absurdly expensive semi luxury hotel.
after a week or so in luxor we headed back to cairo for more waiting. we went back to the embassy and were ushered behind the scenes to talk to the head man in charge. once we got back there we could see that all of the computers at the stations at which people were so busily working weren't even plugged in. our hopes of ever getting a visa were somewhat dashed and we started planning just exactly how we might sneak in to sudan. back behind the scenes we patiently waited our turn while the biggest jerk in the world yelled and screamed at the embassy. he was a canadian and had gotten his visa that day but was angry that there was handwritten information on it and that it had cost so much. apparently he had never seen a visa before and was really angry that he'd had to wait 4 whole hours for his visa. the big boss, apparently overwhelmed by the assholeness of this man, gave us his number and told us to call on sunday.
and back to the hotel for more waiting.
one night during our seemingly endless stay in our hostel, we decided to take ourselves out to a bellydancing club for a treat. initially we expected it to be some touristy sort of place, but we bargained down the cover charge and hoped for the best. once inside we saw, through a haze of shisha smoke, that we were not only the only foreigners there, but except for one woman and her children (?!) we were the only girls there. the rest were egyptian businessmen, mostly of the middle aged sort. and the venue was a mostly empty old dancehall with a tiny stage and about ten fold out tables. what followed ended up seeming more like a strip club than anything else. occasionally one of the men would get on stage and dance with a girl with a handful of small change. and whenever he was particularly struck by the moment he would throw the bills, one by one, so that they rained down over the girl's head. the effect was somewhat like one of those gameshows where the contestants stand in a plastic box while money swirls around them in a windstorm. and the short old man who was singing into a microphone turned up to the maximum amount of echo would shuffle around the dancing girl and pick up all the tip money. as the night got later the girls got, well, bustier and the amount of dancing on tables increased. all the while, the woman with her children in tow would encourage her own 20 something daughter to get up on stage and shake it for the whole club to see. almost like an audition. the effect was a little creepy and david lynch wouldnt have had to change much to use it in a movie.
so. fast forward past more waiting and cheap food to thursday. we decided to call the embassy man just to remind him of our existence. he told us to come down to the embassy. so we shook off the sleep and hustled down there. one hour, eight stamps and two signatures later, to our shock and surprise, he handed us our passports, complete with sudanese visas. he had bypassed khartoum and just given us the visas because jenn had told him that her father was meeting us there and was getting angry with us. a month of waiting and all we had ever needed was this guy's signature. so, we ran out of the embassy clutching our more precious than gold visas before anyone could change their minds, packed our bags and hightailed it to the train station.
realizing that we were destined for the floor we just settled into our between car seats straight away. and by our seats i mean an empty closet and a luggage rack. only this time, we were ushered by four police into the sleeper car without paying a penny more, because girls apparently should not have to sleep on the floor. however, as they escorted us through the entire train, a policeman on each side and all our bags with us, i am sure that it looked like the poor, dirty foreign girls were being arrested as stowaways.
and that brings us to now. we are in aswan, tickets in hand. our boat for sudan leaves tomorrow and should take about a day. i just hope there is no luggage rack this time.