The Balkan Yankee

Loading the Car, originally uploaded by garth walker.

We just returned from our two week trip to Egypt where we met up with Jordan to explore Cairo, and the Sinai peninsula. It was great seeing and exploring a new country with an old friend. We spent the first few days sight-seeing in Cairo, and visiting the pyramids at GIza, Saqqara, and Dashur. Our ambitious attempt to see the pyramids at sunrise backfired with shady horse back riders who wanted cash up front to take us to the pyramids without tickets, but we managed to be the first visitors to Dashur to see the Red Pyramid and the Bent pyramid in the distance.

After Cairo we took a bus to Dahab on the coast of the Gulf of Aqaba in Sinai. Dahab was a bit crowded and perhaps too touristy for our tastes, but the reefs were astounding, filled coral and tropical fish of every variety. From Dahab, we traveled to St. Katherine where we did a two day trek with Bedouins through the mountains above the town and monastary. We decided not to climb Mt. Sinai itself which is often crowded, but our trek took us to another high peak with great views. Next, we relaxed for three days in some beach bungalows in the quiet city of Nuweiba, which was a bustling tourist town filled with Israelis just a couple years ago. The recent terrorist bombings targeting tourists in nearby Taba have left this resort town empty now as well. It was a welcome chance for us to have the beach almost entirely to ourselves though. After that it was back to Cairo for a final day of haggling in the Cairo markets for gifts, and a late night/early morning flight.

Overall it was a great trip. The endless confrontations with scam artists and appeals for baksheesh made it frustrating at times, for sure. Jordan’s experience helped a lot, and we managed to sidestep any disasters. I’ll finish by offering a few tips for anyone planning a trip to Egypt in the future:

1) Never ever pay for anything up front. Never. It may be tempting or convenient to do so, or you may trust the person offering you services, but be diligent and pay after, or just move on.

2) It may be beneficial to take on an alter-ego, perhaps that of the citizen of a poor or little known country, like Bulgaria, if you are from a rich or imperialistic super power. You are never given a price quote with first telling where you are from. Americans don’t get the best deals. When a passport is later required, it’s always fun explaining the discrepancy as well.

3) Yes, there are buses, and there are bus stations. Especially at St. Katherine the entire town seems to be in on the scam of telling tourists that there are no buses in or out of town. Extreme patience will pay off, and save you from a 200 £ taxi ride.

Boyana and I will be in Egypt for two weeks starting this Sunday for an adventurous reunion with old friend and traveler extraordinaire, Jordan. Expectations include Pyramid gawking, Camel racing, and the avoidance of scorpions, Red Sea Pirates, and dehydration.

Pictures will follow our return to Sofia, but for exciting play-by-play action, follow me on twitter or check updates in the sidebar.

morestones, originally uploaded by garth walker.

Just a few photos from a trip last weekend to Koprivshtitsa, ground zero for the uprising against the Turkish.

From the article published by Ars Technica, the U.S. has created “a nationwide network of ‘fusion centers’—low-profile, highly secure sites where federal and state officials with top secret clearance meet in order to collect, analyze, and redistribute information on ‘all hazards, all threats.’ ” following 9/11 Commission Report recommendations on increasing cooperation between various agencies….

But now moving through the Virginia state legislature is considering passing a bill that opponents suspect the federal government is pushing the state to adopt “which will render all of the Virginia Fusion Center’s databases and records exempt from FOIA requests. The bill also proposes to make Fusion Center employees exempt from subpoena in civil actions related to ‘criminal intelligence information,’ and it would grant to call-in tipsters immunity to defamation and invasion of privacy claims. “

The really terrible thing about this is the potential for colonial era style “witch hunts” this system encourages by giving cover and immunity to disgruntled or revenge seeking members of the community.

One question I have about the Fusion Center system as it is in place now, is will this or has it already had an impact on California’s (or other state’s) Medical Marijuana Programs? It would be almost irresistible for the FEDs to use local police in disingenuous investigations aimed at sacking patients and providers… ESPECIALLY if they were free from scrutiny under the FOIA.

Last night I went to see a special screening which featured segments of Michael Palin’s (of Monty Python fame) new documentary series on Eastern Europe. After the screening was a Q&Q segment with Jon-Paul Davidson, the film’s director.

The screening, which took place at the Lumiere Theater at NDK, got a lot of laughs from the audience (me included) which featured scenes of Palin drinking home-distilled Rakiya, dancing with pistol wielding gypsies in Plovdiv and hiking to the Seven Rila Lakes at Summer Solstice to see the “White Brotherhood” spiritual gathering. (Note: Not related to White Power or the Aryan Brotherhood). I had a lot of fun watching it despite numerous “technical difficulties” the theater staff encountered.

The Q&A was a desperately disappointing affair, and I felt sorry for J.P. Davidson as the audience showed the depths of their own insecurities and self consciousness about their country and history.

“Why did you show Bulgarian’s drinking Rakiya? The world will think we are all alcoholics!”

“Why did you include such a long segment about gypsies? The world will think we’re a backwards country full of gypsies!”

“Why didn’t you go to (insert someplace here) instead, so everyone could see how great that is?”

 and stirring the most controversy…

“Why did your film give Macedonia credit in the development of the cyrillic alphabet?  That was BULGARIA!!!! ARGHH!!”

Davidson politely listened to question after question like these and answered all in roughly the same way, highly paraphrased: “Every country we went to had complaints about the way we portrayed them, but we were not out to create a fully representational or balanced documentary… we wanted to choose a few things that we as outsiders found interesting and focus on those with the limited time we had. I think you will in fact find that this film inspires more tourists to travel to Bulgaria and discover it for themselves which can’t be a bad thing.”

It may be because I grew up in Southern California in a culture that thrives and churns on constant exaltation and self-devouring criticism, building up and tearing down its own image on a regular basis, but I had hoped for an audience with a greater sense of humor and cultural pride, and not one that came across as ashamed an fearful at what had been swept out from under the rug.