June 26
So. Where are we up to? I've been on the road for 3 weeks and things are showing no sign of slowing down. The next stop after the cruise and Athens was... Egypt! We caught our flight from Athens to Cairo painlessly and stress free... we are getting good! At the baggage reclaim there was a guy waiting for us, it was so cool and I felt so important. They took us to the hotel where we had a nap before meeting our new group of instant friends. Our guide Marwan took us to a place that had Egyptian food. Most of us had what's called koshary, not sure what it was but it was pretty good.
In the morning we got up and went to the Cairo Archeology Museum. It was really good but we were all so tired it was hard to appreciate anything. One thing I thig I did really enjoy was the part on King Tutenkahmun. They had on display his coffins and the golden headdress that he was buried in. It weighs 11kg of solid gold. Seriously, how could you wear that for any length of time and not have a sore neck? Maybe he was just buried in it. After lunch we moved on to the great pyramids of Giza.
There's really not a lot to say about them, everyone knows what they are, but it was one of those amazing once in a lifetime moments...I seem to be having a lot of those lately. We got to go inside the second pyramid though which was really cool. We walled down this steep narrow shaft hunched over then up some more into the centre of the pyramid where there was an empty sarcophogous and some grafiti from 1818. The sphinx though, was a lot smaller than I was expecting. I thought it was meant to be huge hut probably only stood 10m high, maybe not even that.
On the way back to the hotel we stopped at a place that showed how the ancient egyptians used to make paper out of papyrus plants. They would cut strips of it, hammer and rolling pin each strip to get rid of the fiber, which makes it flexible. Then they'd soak it to get rid of the sugar (I think) and then criss-cross them to the desired size. They had some really nice artworks in here for sale too so hopefully if time and the budget allow it when we are back in Cairo I might get one.
That night we boarded a night train bound for Aswan. It took 15 hours but we got there. I was lucky enough to get a few hours sleep, but they weren't good ones. Once we had dumped our stuff in the hotel most of our group went to the high dam and Philae Temple. The dam was pretty much just a dam but the temple was really cool. After they dammed the Nile this temple was being flooded, which you can see from the water marks on it, so the Egyptian government and UNESCO moved it piece by piece to this site on higher ground. We had the most amazing Egyptologist take us through as well. His name was Nuby, he was about 60 years old and just like an old storyteller. At the temple we all sat around him for him to tell us all about it. We also helped him with his English as he is writing a book. We came and picked up the others and set off for the evening's actvities. We caught a boat almost to a Nubian village then had a camel ride the rest of the way. All the locals were really helpful and were loving taking photos for us. In the village we were shown through a primary school and a Nubian gave us a short lesson in Arabic and Nubian. Then we had for dinner local food in a local's house. It was a really interesting day and so different to the rest of my trip. A real experience of a local culture that I had never experienced anything like before.
June 29
Watch the sunrise over the Sahara: check. Sail on and swim in the Nile: check.
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I want to say the next day but it was practically that night, 2:30 am we got the wakeup call to join a police convoy at 3:30 to Abu Simbel. It was a 3 hour drive there to see 2 temples that, to be honest, probably weren't worth at least 6 hours in a cramped minivan, let alone when spent after getting up in the middle of the night. But it was cool to see, definitely not a waste of time. It had lots of carvings of Heiroglyphics on the walls and such. It was also kinda cool to just be driving through the sahara, but just seemed a long way to go. On our return to Aswan we went straight to the river and got on our felucca, which would he our home for the next 2 days. The felucca is a sailing boat about 10-15 metres long with one massive sail. The living space was just a wooden floor covered in mattresses and this is where we ate and slept... And that's pretty much all we did. The crew of 3 Nubians did all the sailing and cooked all our meals, which generally involved a lot of pita bread and then a rice or pasta with some sort of stew. It was kinda like the budget equivalent of the cruise I was just on, very budget.
We docked for the night on the bank, had a few refreshments and sat around a campfire, but there wasn't much wood, just dead palm leaves. We were very near a little village and a bunch of kids came over to the fire with their drums and sang a whole bunch of Nubian songs and danced. It was really cool, they were obviously all songs they learnt as kids and this is what they do. They must just love it when tourists stop by because they have so much attention.
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When I woke up the thing Emily said to me was 'wanna go for a swim?' of course I did so we went ashore and found a nice spot not far from the boat since others were still sleeping. After we'd done this, everything I needed to achieve for the day had been completed so the rest of the day was my own! We all pretty much just read and relaxed on the boat til lunch. Where we docked there was a group of Nubian teens (I guess locals) having a swim and dancing and singing with drums in the water. Of course we went over and joined which they absolutely loved. Especially the girls in their bikinis. They must have thought this was heaven on earth, all these pretty, white girls dancing with us in next to nothing. They weren't very subtle though, which is a total understatement to say the least. We sailed for about another hour or so and stopped at a place for the night. We played some football with people from other feluccas and it was great to have a kick around. The sand was so hot though so every break in play everyone ran into the water to cool down. After the game I had a beer in the Nile. It was amazing, how many people can say theyve done that? A few more beverages and dinner later and it was night time. We were searching for games and I taught everyone how to play mafia. Good game, fun to play by candlelight on a bed of matresses on a felucca too. After this it was back on shore for some more entertainment from the locals.
July 1
In the morning the crew started paddling as the sun rose which thankfully didn't wake me. I woke up to the boat being in a totally different place as I went to sleep and the sun was not where I was expecting it to be. We boarded the bus bound for Luxor. Once there we had a few hours free time, most of which me and Emily spent on our room as she still wasn't feeling well. Then we went to see Karnak Temple and Luxor temple. We had a guide a who told us so much stuff but have no idea what. He could read heiroglyphics pretty good though. After more Egyptian food for dinner, a walk through the markets (where I swear at least 2 people from each shop invited us to spend our money there), and some shisha it was bedtime. Shisha was another totally new experience for me. As Egypt is a Muslim country you can't drink alcohol (in public) so instead of going out for social beers, people out for shisha. It is essentially flavoured tobacco that you inhale through a long tube. Essentially a massive bong, but you are only smoking tobacco.
July 2
An early start brought us to the Valley of the Kings. This morning was really something special. We visited 3 tombs of ancient Egyptian kings: Thutmosis. No 34, Sethy II. No 15, Ramses III. No 11, and then the one and only King Tutankhamen, who was easily the highlight. When he was buried he was put inside four coffins, I saw 2 in the Cairo museum, the other 2 were in this tomb along with his mummy, which is kinda creepy: I was just looking at a 4000 year old dead guy. After this we stopped at Queen Hatshepsut's (Hotchipsoup) Temple where we just took an epic amount of touristy photos. That afternoon was way more stressful than it needed to be. The other day Mitch told us he couldn't drive us to Pamplona from Barcelona anymore which totally threw a spanner in our proverbial works. I still didn't know what his plan was and it wasn't coming together. Em decided to join most of our little group on the second half of their tour. (sidebar, seriously, how easy is it to make friends, put us in a group travelling situation add water and presto!). I considered doing it too but needed to find out how much it would cost. I decided I would, but then found out about more I'd need to spend and decided not to again. Em still moved on which was a bit sad not to end our trip in Spain together but it worked out best for her since she had money to burn and there was too much uncertainty surrounding it all. Right now it's only been several hours but I do already miss traveling with her. I've just become used to and accustomed to her being there. I'm not romantically interested in her and nor her in me, but this was kinda our trip and it's shame it had to be cut short. But as Katie from our Topdeck tour says: it is what it is, and Spain is still going to be awesome!
That night, those of us that were left, Brian (Argentina) and Cenara (Brazil) caught the night train back to Cairo. I slept a surprising amount which meant I didn't need to nap when we got to the hotel. After they had theirs we met back and caught a cab to some catholic quarter of the city. I didn't and still don't know much about it, but we just saw a few little churches. Nothing like the European ones I had become used to seeing. Our driver waited for us and took us to the markets. I didn't buy anything of great significance, they weren't near as good as Istanbul, and way more intense. Seriously, every shop has at least 2 people asking you to take a look. Those two started talking Portuguese to each other as it's harder for the shop owners to pick up than English or Spanish. I noted at some stage today that I was the English speaking minority of our much smaller group yet we still speak English. Brian's native tongue is Spanish and Cenara's Portuguese but are both fluent in English. They have the cutest story, Brian moved to Dublin to work, Cinara to learn English, they met one day on the street in English, fell in love, and now, in two they months are moving back to Rio to live. Cenara is teaching Brian to speak Portuguese so that's what they speak to each other. We had many good conversations about languages, they said that for them it is easier to understand English that is spoken in a foreign accent (such as Marwan) than those of us who speak it naturally.
That night we watched Argentina lose to Germany 4-0 in the World Cup quarter finals. Don't worry Brian I know the feeling of being beaten by them like that. We then walked to the Cairo tower but was too expensive to go up, so we just sat there and wathced it light up and had dinner at the restaraunt next to it.
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July 4
My final day in Egypt. After I bade my new friends farewell I caught a cab to Cairo citadel, or Mohummad Ali Mosque. This was he most intense cab ride ever. Now in Egypt, it seemed like road rules, and even good driving was merely a suggestion, rather than a law. No one takes any notice of lanes and if you want to turn on to a road you just beep your horn and go. That's the other thing, everyone is constantly on their horn. In Oz, you'll use it rarely, here they use it as they pass just about every car and pedestrian and then some! So, the citadel, I did in fact get there safely (despite my seatbelt also not working throughout that chaos), Brian and Cinara told me to get a guide but I couldn't find any. Didn't matter too much, it was fine just looking at things. Then I went and hung out in Cairo's biggest park for a bit and deadset I don't think I've ever been stared at more than in that park. Seriously, are us Westerners that interesting? Another thing I noticed about Egypt is that obviously all the girls cover up to the max, but none of the guys ever wear shorts either. Which makes it even easier to spot a tourist!
I headed back to the hostel and chilled out there while I waited for my cab to the airport. When I was checking in the funniest thing happened, my bag was a little over the weight limit and the guy working there who put it on lifted up the scales to bring it down to 20 and rubbed his fingers tigether and showed me a €10 note indicating... Well you can probably guess. So I slipped him a tenner and laughed all the way to the gate.
I caught this flight to Brussels to connect to Barca, but in Brussels I learned that I booked my flight for the day before, hooray, there goes another €290!!! Once that was settled I got to Barca fine. I started looking around about 4:00 at the Catulunya Square or something, walked down La Rambla and found the Barcelona cathedral, awesome sweet, another church! That's pretty much what I thought of it. I wandered down to the port and had some dinner and beer then walked back up past the Picasso museum, Santa Maria del mar church and the Spanish's very own Arc de Triomphe. I headed back and watched a movie on my bed to unwind as I slept in the airport the night before (when will this crziness end!?)
July 6
In the morning I got up at a reasonable hour and headed to the Sagrada Familiar, by far my favourite church that I saw in Europe in my entire 6 months there. The church was designed by Gaudi over a hundred years ago and is still being finished. And really, it's not even close. It looks so impressive now but I looked at the designs for when it will be completed and it will look even more incredible. The best thing about this church is that it is totally different to the architecture of every other church I've seen.
Most are designed with baroque, gothic or other popular types though history but this one is simply the style of Gaudi. He was very influenced by nature growing up and this is shown through his architecture. I could go on to explain more about it but the photos will speak volumes more. I got the audio guide and took my sweet time going through it so it took a couple of hours.
As a result this was the only thing I had time for before I went to the bus station for yet another mishap...
So back in Cairo right, I buy my ticket online on a Spanish website with Brian's help. The money came out of my account but I never got a proper confirmation or reservation or anything and I thought "this a bit weird". When I got to the station the driver wouldn't let me on and told me to go upstairs and check. The ticket office said it was fine, I told the driver this and he reluctantly let me on but said buy a ticket at the next place.
Luckily there was a single spare seat on the next bus leaving (probably the one I already paid for, who knows) but I also paid another €20 for the convenience. Go Spain. Once in Pamplona, I got off the bus to find that my luggage was not on this bus. Oh dear. This is bad. The driver, in his limited English told me that there were 2 buses, I was on one and my luggage was on the other because I left it on the bus when I bought my ticket. Unbeknown to me I changed buses. Hopefully the other bus is behind, not in front of us. 20 stressful minutes later the bus and my luggage arrived and shortly after did none other than Mitchell and Daniel Jones, along with Alex Laucht. We had a drink and a feed, bought my whites and headed to the campsite.
About 4 hours later we awoke at the ungodly hour of 4:30 to get the 5am bus in town for the opening run. We waited around for hours and found what we thought to be a good spot. About half way, not far from dead man's corner. It was really funny, Mitch and Dan were quite nervous because they had researched it and knew what to expect. I on th hand was blissfully ignorant as to what to expect so I was on top of the world. Unfortunately, however, we were too far along the path and there turned out to be too many people wanting to run for it to be safe and we consequently were kicked out. Great, we got up so early for nothing. We couldn't even find a good vantage point to watch it from as all the good places were taken by that stage. After a hamburger for breakfast we decided to go to San Sebastian for the day. Pretty much there is a beach there. I fell asleep on it probably for a good hour an a half and I awoke to no one being near me so I joined the boys in the water (which had sand AND waves!!!) And that was Running of the Bulls day 1.
We decided to set the alarm a bit later since we learnt it really didn't matter what time you got there. This time we did run. We decided to start a little bit closer to the beginner to reduce the chances to being kicked off again. So we are on the road waiting, it's about 7:58 and we hear a fire cracker go off. This means start running, we'll give you a bit of a headstart. For whatever reason most don't start running then. About 30 seconds later another one goes off saying the bulls have been released, run for your lives!! You can see this in the video but everyone is jumping to try and see the bulls coming. Once they realize you can't see them we all turn and start running, the moment of truth has arrived. It's all very panicky. You are running trying to dodge so many people, I rounded the corner and noticed everone screaming and moving to the sides, I turned around and saw a clear path behind me and thought oh crap, here they come. Sure enough, before I knew it, about 45 seconds in to the race the bulls run past. My heart was pumping. So I start running again, which turns in to more of a light jog than anything and sure enough, there is a second lot, but they are much slower and seemingly less dangerous. They passed me safely and I though I need to keep up with these guys because the doors to the arena shut after them. I missed out by about 15 metres.
But that was ok, I watched from the arena for a bit and it looks so dangerous. There was one bull in there and loads of people and it was just charging. I must have seen about 10 people knocked around by it in a matter if minutes. Best part was though if someone grabbed on to the horns of a bull (which a few people did) the locals would just attack them. So many punches were thrown, it was awesome. Afterwards we decided we all wanted a nap, but also there's still nothing to actually do in Pamplona, so we went to the beach in San Sebastian again, fully intending to sleep on the beach, which I did, for 2 hours. The next morning we left earlier than expected due to rain but it didn't matter, we were done. We got to Madrid and did nothing. Then woke up, had some lunch and I left for Frankfurt, where I also did nothing. Pretty much by this stage I realised the holiday is done. The dream is over. I'm fairly sick of being an epic tourist, I've seem enough churches and I'm sick of being ripped off. But these last 6 months are going to be hard to top. Take me home.
So. Where are we up to? I've been on the road for 3 weeks and things are showing no sign of slowing down. The next stop after the cruise and Athens was... Egypt! We caught our flight from Athens to Cairo painlessly and stress free... we are getting good! At the baggage reclaim there was a guy waiting for us, it was so cool and I felt so important. They took us to the hotel where we had a nap before meeting our new group of instant friends. Our guide Marwan took us to a place that had Egyptian food. Most of us had what's called koshary, not sure what it was but it was pretty good.
In the morning we got up and went to the Cairo Archeology Museum. It was really good but we were all so tired it was hard to appreciate anything. One thing I thig I did really enjoy was the part on King Tutenkahmun. They had on display his coffins and the golden headdress that he was buried in. It weighs 11kg of solid gold. Seriously, how could you wear that for any length of time and not have a sore neck? Maybe he was just buried in it. After lunch we moved on to the great pyramids of Giza.
On the way back to the hotel we stopped at a place that showed how the ancient egyptians used to make paper out of papyrus plants. They would cut strips of it, hammer and rolling pin each strip to get rid of the fiber, which makes it flexible. Then they'd soak it to get rid of the sugar (I think) and then criss-cross them to the desired size. They had some really nice artworks in here for sale too so hopefully if time and the budget allow it when we are back in Cairo I might get one.
That night we boarded a night train bound for Aswan. It took 15 hours but we got there. I was lucky enough to get a few hours sleep, but they weren't good ones. Once we had dumped our stuff in the hotel most of our group went to the high dam and Philae Temple. The dam was pretty much just a dam but the temple was really cool. After they dammed the Nile this temple was being flooded, which you can see from the water marks on it, so the Egyptian government and UNESCO moved it piece by piece to this site on higher ground. We had the most amazing Egyptologist take us through as well. His name was Nuby, he was about 60 years old and just like an old storyteller. At the temple we all sat around him for him to tell us all about it. We also helped him with his English as he is writing a book. We came and picked up the others and set off for the evening's actvities. We caught a boat almost to a Nubian village then had a camel ride the rest of the way. All the locals were really helpful and were loving taking photos for us. In the village we were shown through a primary school and a Nubian gave us a short lesson in Arabic and Nubian. Then we had for dinner local food in a local's house. It was a really interesting day and so different to the rest of my trip. A real experience of a local culture that I had never experienced anything like before.
June 29
Watch the sunrise over the Sahara: check. Sail on and swim in the Nile: check.
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I want to say the next day but it was practically that night, 2:30 am we got the wakeup call to join a police convoy at 3:30 to Abu Simbel. It was a 3 hour drive there to see 2 temples that, to be honest, probably weren't worth at least 6 hours in a cramped minivan, let alone when spent after getting up in the middle of the night. But it was cool to see, definitely not a waste of time. It had lots of carvings of Heiroglyphics on the walls and such. It was also kinda cool to just be driving through the sahara, but just seemed a long way to go. On our return to Aswan we went straight to the river and got on our felucca, which would he our home for the next 2 days. The felucca is a sailing boat about 10-15 metres long with one massive sail. The living space was just a wooden floor covered in mattresses and this is where we ate and slept... And that's pretty much all we did. The crew of 3 Nubians did all the sailing and cooked all our meals, which generally involved a lot of pita bread and then a rice or pasta with some sort of stew. It was kinda like the budget equivalent of the cruise I was just on, very budget.We docked for the night on the bank, had a few refreshments and sat around a campfire, but there wasn't much wood, just dead palm leaves. We were very near a little village and a bunch of kids came over to the fire with their drums and sang a whole bunch of Nubian songs and danced. It was really cool, they were obviously all songs they learnt as kids and this is what they do. They must just love it when tourists stop by because they have so much attention.
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When I woke up the thing Emily said to me was 'wanna go for a swim?' of course I did so we went ashore and found a nice spot not far from the boat since others were still sleeping. After we'd done this, everything I needed to achieve for the day had been completed so the rest of the day was my own! We all pretty much just read and relaxed on the boat til lunch. Where we docked there was a group of Nubian teens (I guess locals) having a swim and dancing and singing with drums in the water. Of course we went over and joined which they absolutely loved. Especially the girls in their bikinis. They must have thought this was heaven on earth, all these pretty, white girls dancing with us in next to nothing. They weren't very subtle though, which is a total understatement to say the least. We sailed for about another hour or so and stopped at a place for the night. We played some football with people from other feluccas and it was great to have a kick around. The sand was so hot though so every break in play everyone ran into the water to cool down. After the game I had a beer in the Nile. It was amazing, how many people can say theyve done that? A few more beverages and dinner later and it was night time. We were searching for games and I taught everyone how to play mafia. Good game, fun to play by candlelight on a bed of matresses on a felucca too. After this it was back on shore for some more entertainment from the locals.
July 1
In the morning the crew started paddling as the sun rose which thankfully didn't wake me. I woke up to the boat being in a totally different place as I went to sleep and the sun was not where I was expecting it to be. We boarded the bus bound for Luxor. Once there we had a few hours free time, most of which me and Emily spent on our room as she still wasn't feeling well. Then we went to see Karnak Temple and Luxor temple. We had a guide a who told us so much stuff but have no idea what. He could read heiroglyphics pretty good though. After more Egyptian food for dinner, a walk through the markets (where I swear at least 2 people from each shop invited us to spend our money there), and some shisha it was bedtime. Shisha was another totally new experience for me. As Egypt is a Muslim country you can't drink alcohol (in public) so instead of going out for social beers, people out for shisha. It is essentially flavoured tobacco that you inhale through a long tube. Essentially a massive bong, but you are only smoking tobacco.
July 2
An early start brought us to the Valley of the Kings. This morning was really something special. We visited 3 tombs of ancient Egyptian kings: Thutmosis. No 34, Sethy II. No 15, Ramses III. No 11, and then the one and only King Tutankhamen, who was easily the highlight. When he was buried he was put inside four coffins, I saw 2 in the Cairo museum, the other 2 were in this tomb along with his mummy, which is kinda creepy: I was just looking at a 4000 year old dead guy. After this we stopped at Queen Hatshepsut's (Hotchipsoup) Temple where we just took an epic amount of touristy photos. That afternoon was way more stressful than it needed to be. The other day Mitch told us he couldn't drive us to Pamplona from Barcelona anymore which totally threw a spanner in our proverbial works. I still didn't know what his plan was and it wasn't coming together. Em decided to join most of our little group on the second half of their tour. (sidebar, seriously, how easy is it to make friends, put us in a group travelling situation add water and presto!). I considered doing it too but needed to find out how much it would cost. I decided I would, but then found out about more I'd need to spend and decided not to again. Em still moved on which was a bit sad not to end our trip in Spain together but it worked out best for her since she had money to burn and there was too much uncertainty surrounding it all. Right now it's only been several hours but I do already miss traveling with her. I've just become used to and accustomed to her being there. I'm not romantically interested in her and nor her in me, but this was kinda our trip and it's shame it had to be cut short. But as Katie from our Topdeck tour says: it is what it is, and Spain is still going to be awesome!
That night, those of us that were left, Brian (Argentina) and Cenara (Brazil) caught the night train back to Cairo. I slept a surprising amount which meant I didn't need to nap when we got to the hotel. After they had theirs we met back and caught a cab to some catholic quarter of the city. I didn't and still don't know much about it, but we just saw a few little churches. Nothing like the European ones I had become used to seeing. Our driver waited for us and took us to the markets. I didn't buy anything of great significance, they weren't near as good as Istanbul, and way more intense. Seriously, every shop has at least 2 people asking you to take a look. Those two started talking Portuguese to each other as it's harder for the shop owners to pick up than English or Spanish. I noted at some stage today that I was the English speaking minority of our much smaller group yet we still speak English. Brian's native tongue is Spanish and Cenara's Portuguese but are both fluent in English. They have the cutest story, Brian moved to Dublin to work, Cinara to learn English, they met one day on the street in English, fell in love, and now, in two they months are moving back to Rio to live. Cenara is teaching Brian to speak Portuguese so that's what they speak to each other. We had many good conversations about languages, they said that for them it is easier to understand English that is spoken in a foreign accent (such as Marwan) than those of us who speak it naturally.
That night we watched Argentina lose to Germany 4-0 in the World Cup quarter finals. Don't worry Brian I know the feeling of being beaten by them like that. We then walked to the Cairo tower but was too expensive to go up, so we just sat there and wathced it light up and had dinner at the restaraunt next to it.
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July 4
My final day in Egypt. After I bade my new friends farewell I caught a cab to Cairo citadel, or Mohummad Ali Mosque. This was he most intense cab ride ever. Now in Egypt, it seemed like road rules, and even good driving was merely a suggestion, rather than a law. No one takes any notice of lanes and if you want to turn on to a road you just beep your horn and go. That's the other thing, everyone is constantly on their horn. In Oz, you'll use it rarely, here they use it as they pass just about every car and pedestrian and then some! So, the citadel, I did in fact get there safely (despite my seatbelt also not working throughout that chaos), Brian and Cinara told me to get a guide but I couldn't find any. Didn't matter too much, it was fine just looking at things. Then I went and hung out in Cairo's biggest park for a bit and deadset I don't think I've ever been stared at more than in that park. Seriously, are us Westerners that interesting? Another thing I noticed about Egypt is that obviously all the girls cover up to the max, but none of the guys ever wear shorts either. Which makes it even easier to spot a tourist!
I headed back to the hostel and chilled out there while I waited for my cab to the airport. When I was checking in the funniest thing happened, my bag was a little over the weight limit and the guy working there who put it on lifted up the scales to bring it down to 20 and rubbed his fingers tigether and showed me a €10 note indicating... Well you can probably guess. So I slipped him a tenner and laughed all the way to the gate.
I caught this flight to Brussels to connect to Barca, but in Brussels I learned that I booked my flight for the day before, hooray, there goes another €290!!! Once that was settled I got to Barca fine. I started looking around about 4:00 at the Catulunya Square or something, walked down La Rambla and found the Barcelona cathedral, awesome sweet, another church! That's pretty much what I thought of it. I wandered down to the port and had some dinner and beer then walked back up past the Picasso museum, Santa Maria del mar church and the Spanish's very own Arc de Triomphe. I headed back and watched a movie on my bed to unwind as I slept in the airport the night before (when will this crziness end!?)
July 6
In the morning I got up at a reasonable hour and headed to the Sagrada Familiar, by far my favourite church that I saw in Europe in my entire 6 months there. The church was designed by Gaudi over a hundred years ago and is still being finished. And really, it's not even close. It looks so impressive now but I looked at the designs for when it will be completed and it will look even more incredible. The best thing about this church is that it is totally different to the architecture of every other church I've seen.
So back in Cairo right, I buy my ticket online on a Spanish website with Brian's help. The money came out of my account but I never got a proper confirmation or reservation or anything and I thought "this a bit weird". When I got to the station the driver wouldn't let me on and told me to go upstairs and check. The ticket office said it was fine, I told the driver this and he reluctantly let me on but said buy a ticket at the next place.
Luckily there was a single spare seat on the next bus leaving (probably the one I already paid for, who knows) but I also paid another €20 for the convenience. Go Spain. Once in Pamplona, I got off the bus to find that my luggage was not on this bus. Oh dear. This is bad. The driver, in his limited English told me that there were 2 buses, I was on one and my luggage was on the other because I left it on the bus when I bought my ticket. Unbeknown to me I changed buses. Hopefully the other bus is behind, not in front of us. 20 stressful minutes later the bus and my luggage arrived and shortly after did none other than Mitchell and Daniel Jones, along with Alex Laucht. We had a drink and a feed, bought my whites and headed to the campsite.
About 4 hours later we awoke at the ungodly hour of 4:30 to get the 5am bus in town for the opening run. We waited around for hours and found what we thought to be a good spot. About half way, not far from dead man's corner. It was really funny, Mitch and Dan were quite nervous because they had researched it and knew what to expect. I on th hand was blissfully ignorant as to what to expect so I was on top of the world. Unfortunately, however, we were too far along the path and there turned out to be too many people wanting to run for it to be safe and we consequently were kicked out. Great, we got up so early for nothing. We couldn't even find a good vantage point to watch it from as all the good places were taken by that stage. After a hamburger for breakfast we decided to go to San Sebastian for the day. Pretty much there is a beach there. I fell asleep on it probably for a good hour an a half and I awoke to no one being near me so I joined the boys in the water (which had sand AND waves!!!) And that was Running of the Bulls day 1.
We decided to set the alarm a bit later since we learnt it really didn't matter what time you got there. This time we did run. We decided to start a little bit closer to the beginner to reduce the chances to being kicked off again. So we are on the road waiting, it's about 7:58 and we hear a fire cracker go off. This means start running, we'll give you a bit of a headstart. For whatever reason most don't start running then. About 30 seconds later another one goes off saying the bulls have been released, run for your lives!! You can see this in the video but everyone is jumping to try and see the bulls coming. Once they realize you can't see them we all turn and start running, the moment of truth has arrived. It's all very panicky. You are running trying to dodge so many people, I rounded the corner and noticed everone screaming and moving to the sides, I turned around and saw a clear path behind me and thought oh crap, here they come. Sure enough, before I knew it, about 45 seconds in to the race the bulls run past. My heart was pumping. So I start running again, which turns in to more of a light jog than anything and sure enough, there is a second lot, but they are much slower and seemingly less dangerous. They passed me safely and I though I need to keep up with these guys because the doors to the arena shut after them. I missed out by about 15 metres.
But that was ok, I watched from the arena for a bit and it looks so dangerous. There was one bull in there and loads of people and it was just charging. I must have seen about 10 people knocked around by it in a matter if minutes. Best part was though if someone grabbed on to the horns of a bull (which a few people did) the locals would just attack them. So many punches were thrown, it was awesome. Afterwards we decided we all wanted a nap, but also there's still nothing to actually do in Pamplona, so we went to the beach in San Sebastian again, fully intending to sleep on the beach, which I did, for 2 hours. The next morning we left earlier than expected due to rain but it didn't matter, we were done. We got to Madrid and did nothing. Then woke up, had some lunch and I left for Frankfurt, where I also did nothing. Pretty much by this stage I realised the holiday is done. The dream is over. I'm fairly sick of being an epic tourist, I've seem enough churches and I'm sick of being ripped off. But these last 6 months are going to be hard to top. Take me home.
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