The Ruins of Palenque & the Curse of the Maya

Laura and I were leaning away from making the 7+ hour bus trip from Veracruz down to Chiapas to see the ruins of Palenque. It was a considerable distance out of our way, and time was limited, plus there was the curse.

Palenque is, you see, where my parents had a fight and broke up on their first trip together. (The got back together, by sheer chance, when they checked into the same hotel weeks later in Merida. Thanks to the gods they did, otherwise there may have been no Jesse to write these blogs for you.) As this is my first trip with Laura, and my parents like her a lot, they warned me against Palenque. But, there we were in Veracruz, earlier than we planned, so we decided to go for it, curse be damned.

We had a couple of small fights there; nothing to write home about, despite the fact that I am; so the curse has apparently worn off in the intervening thirty-some years. The ruins themselves have not noticed those years, of course, aside from an increase in the number of visitors. Here are some photos I took, which I suspect, with a few notable exceptions, will look very familiar to Joan and Bill Keller. What may not look familiar is the Puebla of Palenque, which has become a backpacker town like so many others - it could be Siem Reap, or Khaosan Road, or Pokhara. But this is a subject I indend to blog at a later date, in greater depth. Anyway, here are the photos:

Veracruz, Ver.: Music Nerd Heaven

That's what Veracruz has been for me, a dedicated music nerd. It's one of Mexico's biggest ports, on the Gulf of Mexico; it has great coffee and great cafés; the zócalo hums with activity every night; but for me, the great stand out of my visit to Veracruz has been the fact that, in one night hanging around the zócalo, I was able to hear fine examples of no less than five different (fantastic) Mexican music traditions.

I have to admit that, though I have been an avowed music geek for many years, with tastes ranging from metal to free jazz, by way of afrobeat and indie rock, I did not appreciate the diversity and sheer fun of Mexican music until I took Fermin Herrera's Latin American Music class in my final year at UCLA. That class let me into a whole new world world of great music.

Like most people who live in San Diego, I thought I pretty much got Mexican music. There was Mariachi - schmaltzy music by rhinestone caballeros fancy suits, often played at Mexican restaurants - and then there were Norteñas, the oom-pah accordion music that's all over the Barrio Logan and AM radio.

There were two groups of serenading Mariachis in the Veracruz zócalo, each with at least two trumpets, three violins, guitar, vihuela, and the bass guitarron, and competing for the cafe audiences, there were groups of Norteño singers in cowboy hats, with upright bass, accordion, and attitude. Anytime there was a silence, you could also hear marimba bands - Veracruz's native style - plunking out Carribean rhythms, with three guys to a single marimba, handling the bass, melody, and harmony in their turn.

Then there was folklorico dancing and canned Son Huasteco, my favorite kind of Mexican music, with its violin improvs and quasi-yodel falsetto singing (a shame that this was the only one we didn't hear live), and then more dancing accompanied by the energetic, harp-based style Son Jarocho, the tradition that gave the world the classic Mexican folk song 'La Bamba.'

Thanks, Professor Herrera, for expanding my nerddom to where I could enjoy all that.

Me and Julio Drinkin' Tequila

On our second day in Guadalajara, Laura and I spent the morning soaking in the magnificently creepy Orozco murals in the Hospicio Cabañas, and then spent the afternoon soaking in the eponymous export of a little village outside Guadalajara called Tequila.


We caught a comfortable, slightly rickety bus from Guadalajara's Central Vieja, and were dropped off on the outskirts of the puebla de Tequila. It was about a 15 minute walk from there to the cathedral and town square (every village of even moderate size has a cathedral), and a block off the square is the Mundo Cuervo, where you can see the inner workings, and, of course, sample the products, of the venerable Jose Cuervo company.


Laura and I decided that we weren't quite in the mood for the slick, well-produced, and slightly touristy Mundo Cuervo experience, so we decided to find a smaller distillery tour. This was no problem - as we walked we were quickly approached by a guy with a laminated sheet of paper detailing a two distillery program, with free samples, all for the reasonable price of ten bucks. Since he was the first one who approached us, we told him we'd stroll around, and think about it, and maybe get back to him in a bit. We did stroll for a few more minutes before that same guy came clattering by in a bus that had been stripped down and funkily retrofitted to look like some sort of trolley, and pulled up next to us to say that the tour was leaving now. We thought, what the hell, and hopped on, handing over our hundred pesos.


We were the only gringos on the tour - the rest of the fifteen or so guests were from Guadalajara, Mexico City, and elswhere in Mexico. Entertainment on the bus was provided by Kevin, el Voz de Oro (as it said on his business card), an 8 year old kid in full-on mariachi garb, belting out mariachi favorites. While his technique was a bit... unrefined, he made up for this by being incredibly loud.


At the first distillery, we were paired up with an English-speaking guide, Julio, who had spent some time working in San Francisco, and who began each sentence with, "Okay, checkitout." The informative tour took us step-by-step through the process of making tequila:


"Okay, checkitout. This is where the bring the agave, and cook it. You can taste." Cooked agave tastes, and smells, like sweet potato soaked in honey.


"Okay, checkitout. This is where they press the agave."




And so on for the fermentation, in giant bubbling vats, and the distillation in huge metal tanks. Then Julio opened a hatch on the tank, dipped a big graduated cylinder in, and came out with about a fifth of Tequila Blanco.


"Okay, checkitout. This is Tequila Blanco. If you put it in barrels, one month, Tequila Reposado, one year to three years, Tequila Añejo. You can taste. Give me your hand."


He poured tequila into my hand, and watched with a pleased expression as I drank it. Same routine for Laura, who coughed a bit.

Then it was back to the lobby for samples of the Blanco, Reposado, and Añejo. After essentially four shots in quick succession, Laura and I were starting to feel a little tingle. Then Julio asked which was our favorite, and made us have another of those.

Eventually, the tour group got back on the bus, in a much more convivial spirit than when we had disembarked, and started to roll off towards the next distillery with Kevin el Voz de Oro serenading us.


Then next distillery turned out to be less of a tour, and more of an excuse to sit around at tables and drink lots of tequila. Round after round was brought by, and we were toasted (pardon the pun) repeatedly by a family from Mexico City sitting next to us. By the time the bus came back around, everybody was full of tequila and feeling good, and we rode back towards town talking with a woman across from us, who claimed to be related to nearly everybody on the bus, and who lived in the same Raleigh, North Carolina, suburb as Laura's brother. She was just down visiting family in Jalisco. It's a small world, and it seems smaller when you've been drinking tequila all afternoon.

TJ International and Mexican Budget Carriers

Early Sunday morning, my dad drove Laura and me across the Otay border and dropped us off at the Tijuana airport. As he drove, he cautioned us not to be too put off by the funkiness of the run-down TJ terminals. Yes, it was dirty and run-down, but really, you just had to get used to it. He off-handedly mentioned that a Spanish company had bought a lot of Mexican airports several years ago (though he got out of the travel agency business decades ago, he still closely follows things like that) and he wondered whether they had put any money into spiffing it up.

They have indeed. I was last in the TJ airport 8 years ago for a trip to the Yucatan, and it is significantly spiffier now. It´s certainly smaller than San Diego´s Lindeberg, but the inside is clean, with new signage, and your basic assortment of airport food and duty free shops. I´m guessing that this is in part due to the Spanish buy-out, but also in large part to the profusion of new Mexican budget carriers like Volaris, Viva Aerobus, and Avolar - the airline Laura and I flew to Guadalajara.

These new airlines are run on the no-frills model of the ultra-profitable Ryanair and Easyjet in Europe, and the are making the prices of air travel within Mexico competitive with those of bus travel. The TJ airport was absolutely jammed with people - much busier than I had seen it the last time. And I´m guessing that it has something to do with the new affordability of traveling by plane.

There were a few snags with our flight. First it was delayed, then we got on a different one later, which was routed via Queretaro, not the TJ-Guadalajara direct flight we had originally booked. We arrived in Guadalajara a couple of hours later than planned. But really, when you´re talking travel in Mexico, a couple of hours delay is not that bad. And when the ticket costs just a hundred bucks (including all taxes, etc.), it´s something I am definitely willing to deal with. I´m willing to bet that my dad will be dropping me off at the TJ airport for many future trip like the one I´m beginning today.

The United Nations at Muir Woods

Last Friday I used a vacation day and drove up to San Francisco to hang out with my girlfriend Laura, who was already up there on a business trip. We spent a night at the excellent, out-of-the-way Marin Headlands Hostel (Laura works for Hosteling International in San Diego), visited my sister Kate, and did quite a bit of hiking, including a nice early evening walk through the redwood grove at Muir Woods.

Muir Woods is well known for its majestic grove of skyscraper redwoods. The path through it is flat, paved, and easy to walk. It is located in Marin County, just a short drive across the Golden Gate from San Francisco. It is, consequently, jam packed with tourists and daytripping locals on a sunny Saturday like the one Laura and I chose for our visit.

There were kids in strollers, kids walking, kids running, kids yelling. People talking in Spanish, Italian, German, English, and (I'm guessing here) at least four or five South Asian languages. Laura and I observed that the cathedral-like splendor of the grove was difficult to enjoy when the din from a group of fourteen Bengali students was competing with a family of six from Tennessee, with kids arguing about whether they could take their gathered redwood sticks home.

After an hour walk, as it was getting dusky and chilly, we were heading out, and happened to pass a brass plaque side of the path.

"Let's read the plaque," Laura said.

Never one to pass a plaque without reading, I walked over and read the inscription.

It indicated that in this spot, on May 19th 1946, representatives of the newly-formed United Nations came together to honor the memory of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had died a month earlier. They chose this spot because it was so beautiful, and calm, and peaceful, the plaque said - a perfect place for reflection.

A kid shouted nearby as the mobs of people passed.

If only FDR could see this so-called "peaceful" spot today, I thought.

But then I looked around and realized that here, 61 years after FDR's death, which occurred before the conclusion of World War II, I could look around and see Germans, Italians, and Japanese, enjoying the California Redwoods side by side with Brits, Americans, Russians, and probably some French people, too. Not to mention the groups of Indians, Chinese, Mexicans, and representatives of who knows what other nations. And then I thought, yeah, if only FDR could see us now.

The Realest of the Real

It is now totally, 100 por ciento official. I have the tickets and they are non-refundable. So I have to either go on this trip or be out a few hundred bucks and have nothing to show for it. Laura and I are flying into Guadalajara on Palm Sunday - March 16th - and out of Oaxaca on April 6th, the day after Laura's birthday.

That means that we will be in Guadalajara, Guanajuato, and Morelia during Semana Santa - Holy Week, leading up to Easter. Parades, fiestas, and all sorts of good stuff.

A couple of months ago, Laura and I took a road trip to San Francisco, and made a stop at the Mission San Antonio de Padua outside Jolon in the area of central California that always makes me think of John Steinbeck. It was large, well preserved, and spartan. The cavernous, gloomy, wood-and-stucco buildings were home to bats, swallows, and suffering saints. A very unhappy looking Christ hung in the chapel, wonder why God had forsaken him. And Laura got more than a little freaked out. Something about austerity of the place combined with the severe iconography, and hit a chord in Laura, who went to Catholic school. We had to go.

I'm just hoping that all the intensity of Semana Santa doesn't hit the same chord.

Guidebooks, Gifts, and the Reality of a Trip

Alright, I can't help myself; I'm going to trot out the tired old junkie metaphor. I need my fix. Pantomime of slapping the vein. I am badly jonesing for travel. I came back from my last real trip just over a year ago - so long, I fear I may start seeing dead babies crawling towards me on the ceiling.

But I have a hookup! My girlfriend Laura and I have been talking about traveling together for a while now, so for X-mas, I gave her plane tickets to Mexico - into Monterrey, out of Oaxaca. A 3-week trip. Actually, I gave her the promise of plane tickets in the future, once we work out firmer dates and itineraries. And I gave here the Lonely Planet Mexico, and bought the Rough Guide for myself. That's the biggest initial step towards turning travel daydreams into reality - the purchase of a guidebook. Then you exit the daydream stage, and enter the planning stage. Then when you buy tickets, you are officially going. Coming soon...

Ad Hoc Construction by Buena Vista Park

I'm writing this from my sister Kate's basement level apartment by Buena Vista Park in San Francisco. It's a cozy yet bizarre little space on the ground floor of an old Victorian from the 1880s. The apartment is kind of a studio, since there is only one main room, but the main room is large, and broken in half by a big archway that, judging from the hinges mounted on it, contained double doors at some point. The door to her bathroom has about eight inches of space between its bottom and the floor, and, strangest of all, contains only the sink and claw-foot bathtub. To reach the toilet, you leave the bathroom by another door, and walk down a crooked, red-carpeted hallway, that is also the back entrance to her neighbor's apartment. The toilet is in a small closet across this hall. It is not shared - it is Kate's toilet - it is just located across communal hallway.

This place has been around for 120 years or so, and in that time, I'm sure that the usage and layout of the space that is now Kate's apartment has changed many times. Remodels, renovations, reallocations of space - each time one of these is done, you have to deal with the space as it is, and many decisions are made ad hoc. And then, suddenly, a century later, you find that the toilet has to be down the hall and the door doesn't reach the floor. Much as we Californians would like to believe that we can rebuild ourselves as whatever we want, wherever we choose, our choices are necessarily a product of the choices of those who came before.

And in a weird, those-who-came-before-you coincidence, Kate's new San Francisco apartment is five or six doors down from the house my grandmother grew up in. It was the house she lived in when she rode the ferry across the bay to Berkeley, as the Bay Bridge was being built, and the house my dad remembers visiting to see his grandmother after the Keller family moved down to San Diego. But now my sister Kate has graduated from Berkeley, and has decided that she likes the Bay Area better than San Diego, and has made this apartment her little corner of the City. It has taken a hundred years and three generations, but a Keller has come full circle.

I'm still undecided as to whether full circle represents a lack of progress, or an all-is-one sort of transcendence. All I know is that Kate and I are made of the same stuff as our ancestors, but we've also undergone a lot of ad hoc construction.

Creativity

My creative energy has been sloping off for a while now, and this disturbs me. Back in high school, and immediately post-high school, I averaged 4 or 5 plays a year. That's pretty good. Then later it sloped off to two or three. Last year, I acted in one show, and, as I recall, did music for one. Unacceptable. I am in withdrawals from my 5 play a year habit.

Uncle Dave Macon Days

Holy Hell, I love Uncle Dave Macon.

The entirety of what I knew about him was two tracks from the Anthology of American Folk, but I have recently discovered that there is now a 4-CD of his recordings.

His ouvre is about half songs about his love for Jesus, and half songs like Old Plank Road, about cheatin' women and getting drunk. Just fun, energetic music. My favorite Uncle Dave lyric:

My wife died last Friday night,
Saturday she was buried.
Sunday was my courtin' day,
Monday I got married.

An amazing factoid: Uncle Dave began his career as a musician at age 50, in the year 1920. Up to that point, he had been a farm and played the banjo as a hobby.

Do yourself a favor - check out Uncle Dave.

Do I Look Like a Stephanie?

My dad found a badge to the Siggraph convention laying on the sidewalk on 4th ave this afternoon, and suggested that I take it and do a spin around the San Diego Convention Center. So I walked down to the end of the Gaslamp Quarter, put the badge around my neck, and became Stephanie Simpson.

Con-Vis security guards, as it turns out, don't really give a crap whether you look like a Stephanie. They mostly care if you have a plastic pouch slung around your neck.

Holy crap, that thing is cool. People demoing software for designing CG models - one guy was putting the finishing touches on a shockingly lifelike 3D dinosaur man's armor, as fifteen or twenty spectators watched. People demoing mo-cap suits and software (most people, when they get a chance to get their motion captured, do a strange, awkward sort of dance.), including mo-cap that does not require a spandex suit with ping-pong balls on it, since it can capture any motion at all, including the motion of facial expressions. There was even a Lucasfilm booth, with a huge crowd watching a guy explain how they made the Transformers transform.

Wicked cool. Sorry Stephanie.

An Erosion of Interstate Values?

There is a section of freeway in the San Francisco Bay Area that is both the I-80 East and I-580 West. When you drive on this freeway, you are headed almost due North. This must certainly be fundamentally damaging traditional definitions of East and West, and undermining the sanctity of our cardinal directions. Or perhaps the Bay Area should be applauded for liberating itself from the tyranny of arbitrary definitions of directions based on some invisible force. Direction is just wherever you go! Don't oppress me with your magnetic fields.

Best... Cioppino... Everrr...

So, again I have to resist my genetic predisposition towards describing the minutia of my travel day. The way we hit the road from El Cajon at 4:25am. Headed up the 52, to the 805. Then from the 5 to the 101 as we came down out of the Sepulveda Pass into the Valley, 101 up through--

No! Must... not... bore readers...

Fast forward to the afternoon.

We took the 183 out of Salinas. Passed the National Steinbeck Center (they have Rocinante, right there in the building!), into Castroville. Resisted the urge to stop at the Giant Artichoke. Then down to the coast and into Moss Landing.

There are two distinctive features of Moss Landing, CA. One is a pair of giant smokestacks at a power station of some sort. The other is Phil's Fish Market and Eatery. (The snazzy website with flash animation belies the funkiness of the place a bit. Rest assured, you won't need to wear a tie.)

If you don't know where you're going, you have no chance of stumbling on Phil's. If you do know where you're going, you have a chance, but it's a long shot. The road twists through the Moss Landing marina, past all sorts of industrial-looking buildings and boats, with sea lions barking in the background, until finally you see Phil's.

But that is not the right Phil's.

You have found Phil's Lunch Shack, or Phil's Snack Shack, or something like that. Same Phil, different business. What you want to do now is turn down the least promising-looking road you can, and drive past a bunch of warehouses and docks. The actual Phil's is down there, on the left.

Phil's Fish Market and Eatery lives in a big warehousey type building, with a menu on dry-erase whiteboards that stretch all the way to the cavernous ceiling. There is indeed a full-on fish market in the front, and, as with any respectable fish seller, it does not smell remotely like fish. Just kind of briny.

The food is fresh and there is plenty of it. You can't take a forkful your grilled halibut without having a little salad and rice pilaf spill off the side of the plate. At least I can't. Maybe you can.

The specialty is a huge pot of thick cioppino, full of mussels, clams, &c., that looks like a big helping of primordial ooze with sourdough bread for dipping. I am not very good at those food-writer type fawning descriptions of taste, so I will just say that it is muthaf@kin' AWESOME. Worth a several hour detour the next time you are traveling through central California.

Sing, Muse, of State Route 80

Tomorrow, I will get up at 4am, get in my parents' Volkswagen Passat, and head up the 5 towards San Francisco. We'll head up through Gorman in the Tejon Pass, where we will switch drivers, and then cut off the interstate somewhere in the Central Valley - maybe the 46 down into Paso Robles, maybe the 198 through Coalinga to the 25, winding through the San Benito Valley...

Just writing that intro makes me feel like I'm chanting the beginning of some ancient epic. I can almost hear the drumming and the crackle of the campfire.

Nearly every story my dad tells about his youth begins like this.

"We loaded up the '59 Ford wagon and left before dawn. Headed out route 80 through Descanso, and Pine Valley, and had breakfast at the Space Age Lodge in Gila Bend" - my dad remembers things like where he had breakfast on a certain day in 1962 - "crossed into New Mexico, then over the Rio Grande at midnight..."

I'm sure that back in Germany, hundreds of years ago, there was some Keller telling his kids about loading up the old wagon, hitching the mule, and heading down towards Stuttgart. And hundreds of years from now, some Keller will be talking about loading up the old flying car...

Panels! Panels!

Once more, I will attempt to resuscitate this blog. I have developed a bit of a pattern, I must say - one post about every two and a half months. But this time it's different, I swear. Baby, I'm a changed man. You can now expect posts to appear weekly - no, daily! Daily? No, hourly! Why not! Hourly posts from yours truly, about whatever whim strikes my fancy. So. Here's the whim:

Humm... No whim coming... Better improvise-

I know. Random subjects.

I keep a notebook. One of those little Moleskine dealies with the black cover and the built-in rubber band. (Why, you ask, do I keep a notebook? When I seldom if ever write or do anything as a result of those notes? A good question. Maybe one day, I'll write about that. In fact, I'll make a note to do so in my Moleskine right now.) I'll flip to a random page, and write about the note.

Here's the random note:

"I may be imagining this, but I always perceive a veiled hostility in the service in poor countries. Or maybe I'm just projecting my own guilt."

I have no recollection of the specific events that prompted this note.

But I do have a general recollection of... well, not of any specific events at all, but of an interaction which is likely a composite of many actual events I have experienced while traveling.

I am sitting in a restaurant. Its walls are dirty, bare concrete, and one features a poster of a Hindu god, or the King of Thailand, or perhaps a ripped shirtless Aztec cradling a voluptuous woman in his arms. There is a young waiter, and his demeanor (I talk about his demeanor because I can't remember the details. A good writer would describe his face or the position of his shoulders, but I describe his demeanor because I remember my impression of him, but not him actually.) - his demeanor was a strange admixture of obsequious and diffident...

Or it's a hotel. And there is a concierge. Or a bellhop. He wears a dingy uniform, or maybe just his own shirt - one of the two he owns. I know he resents me for parading my wealth in front of him - a backpack overflowing with shirts, ten, twenty, maybe fifty shirts. A shirt for every day of my life, to be used and discarded that evening. This is what he is thinking. I can sense it.

God Bless the Digital Age

One thing about the Digital Age, it allows us to procrastinate to an unprecedented degree.

I just filed my 2006 tax return with a whole 80 minutes to spare. Thanks to the wonders of e-file, I was able to work all day, eat a flank steak, drink a beer, and watch much of "the Waterboy" before finally rendering unto Caesar at 10:20pm on the day it's due. Technology and procrastination - two great tastes that taste great together.

Itchy Feet

I'm getting that antsy, itchy-feet feeling that means I'm going to have to travel again soon. I swear, it's some kind of disorder. I can't stop. Where to this time? I've never been to South America - Argentina, maybe? Or South Africa? There's always good ol' Thailand, never done me wrong before....

I can't go on, I'll go on.

Well, I like the general concept of blogging, but I rarely feel as if I have anything that deserves to be put out there into the great collective unconscious that is the internets, except, of course, for when I'm traveling. Travel days are so rich with stories that it's easy to pick one or two that are interesting enough to share. But what about my prosaic life? I don't know. Shall I report to you that I worked for 8 hours, came home, drank a glass of bourbon and ate some raw broccoli dipped in Hidden Valley Ranch dressing? Is that worthy of putting into type? Who the fuck knows.

But for some strange reason, I am now, two months after the end of my last trip, driven to type words and have them appear on the world-renowned Pomo Boho Hobo blog.

Please Tell Your Friends We Do Not Hate Them

This is what a guy in Old Cairo told me yesterday. He had struck up a conversation with the usual, "Where are you from," and, when I said I was from America, he asked if I liked Egypt and whether I found people to be friendly. I said that the people are extremely friendly. That's when he asked that I tell this to people in America.

"Tell them we do not hate them," he said. "I will be honest with you; we hate Bush. But we do not hate American people."

So today, the last day of my trip, that is what I'm doing. People of America, know this; the people of Egypt do not hate you.

I have had countless random people on the street tell me some variation of this. We hate Bush, but you are welcome to Egypt.

Egypt really is unbelievably friendly. Some of the friendliness morphs into hustle, particularly in Cairo, where your new friend is often trying to get you to visit his papyrus painting shop or craft store.

In Alexandria, however, the hospitality is nearly always genuine, and so omnipresent that I literally would not have had the time to accept each offer.

I was walking by an old tea shop along the Corniche in front of Alexandria's Eastern Harbor, when an old man sitting by the window yelled, "Hello! Where are you from?"

I responded.

"Ah," he said, "America! I have been to Boston, to New York, to Charleston. Come inside."

I hesitated a moment.

"Come inside!" he ordered, obviously impatient with my vacillating.

I went into the tea shop, a large, wood-paneled room with high ceilings, overhead fans, and big, open windows looking out on the harbor. It was full of old Egyptian men drinking tea, telling stories, arguing, smoking bubbling sheesha water pipes, or, often, just quietly gazing out at the water.

My host introduced himself as Captain Sayeed, a retired sailor in the Egyptian merchant marine. He had sailed to ports all around the world, but loved his time in the USA - a beautiful country he said, with wonderful people.

Captain Sayeed had the posture and manner of a man accustomed to giving orders and having them obeyed. But he also listened intently to every word that I said when we were speaking. We sat and drank tea for well over an hour. Whenever something struck him as funny, or when he felt that he had made a particularly trenchant comment, he would throw back his head and laugh a loud, hoarse laugh.

When I finally graciously took my leave, Captain Sayeed demanded that I return the next day. He sat in that spot, in that cafe, every day from about 9am to 2pm. I could find him there. I agreed, and as I am a man of my word, I showed up for more tea the next day. Though, truth be told, my morning tea with the Captain was the highlight of my Alexandrian day. There's no way I would have missed it.

Mohammed Cramps My Bargaining Style

I was having some trouble finding my seat on the bus from Nuweiba to Cairo. The numbers were only in Arabic, which takes me a moment or two to puzzle out, and in my moment of puzzling, a young Egyptian guy with lots of curly hair stepped forward to help me. (This happens all the time - people here are always ready to help a dumb foreigner figure stuff out.)

My seat, however, appeared to already be occupied by some guy's sweater and water bottle. In Arabic, the kid who was helping me told the guy, (I'm assuming here) something along the lines of, "This is the dumb foreigner's seat. Can you move your sweater and water bottle?"

The guy said something which could only have been an answer in the negative, and then turned back to his window. There was more discussion, with a couple of other passengers throwing in their two cents, and the guy giving curt answers and turning back to the window. Maybe he had a friend who wanted to sit there. Maybe he just didn't want to sit next to the foreigner. I may never know.

I glanced back to look for open seats. Two different guys gestured to the open seats next to them. The one I ended up sitting next to was named Mohammed - but he said to call him Moe.

Moe works in Saudi Arabia as the communications manager for a Saudi prince who wants to set up a TV station. He was on his way back to Cairo to visit his family. But the main thing he wanted to talk about was, of all things, his time spent working in Dahab (q.v. my post Dahab and the Egyptian Mafia). This mostly involved detailed stories of his many foreign girlfriends, and his love of tearing around the Sinai in a fast car with a bottle of whiskey and at least one beautiful girl.

As we rolled into Cairo, I asked Moe how much I should pay for a taxi from the bus station to my hotel. An old technique - if you don't want to get ripped off, ask a local how much they would pay.

He said, "I don't know, probably a lot. You're a tourist, so you'll probably have to pay fifty."

Fifty Egyptian Pounds for a cab ride anywhere in Cairo is extortion. A ridiculously high rate. (Nevermind that it's under ten bucks.)

"But," Moe said, "I will help you get a taxi."

We got off the bus, he greeted his family, I gathered my luggage. As per usual, I was beset by offers of taxis. Of course, the first guy wanted fifty.

"Twenty," I said.

"No, no very far away!" It wasn't far away. It was less than 6km. I started to walk to the next guy.

"Okay, thirty-five." Progress.

"Okay, twenty-five," I said.

"Let's go."

Then Moe walked up. He pat me on the back, said how much he enjoyed my company, gave me his cell phone number and said to call if I needed anything in Cairo. He helped me carry my backpack to a different taxi.

"This guy will take you. I've worked it all out for you," Moe said.

I thanked him profusely, and got in the car.

"Okay, you can pay this man fifty when you get to the hotel. See you later!"

And the car tore off into the vicious hurly-burly of Cairo traffic. Moe had just assumed that, as a tourist, I would have to pay tourist rates. I don't know what is the morally right thing to do in this situation. Suck it down and pay many times what a local would, because I'm from a rich country? (An Egyptian guy at my hotel said he would have paid ten, fifteen tops.) Should I try to get the dirt cheapest price I can? Is there, perhaps, a happy medium? I don't know. All I know is that my cabbie, who had overheard my bargaining, was grinning like a madman for the entire drive.