With our first long weekend, we finally got the chance to do a bit of traveling. A two-hour drive south from Cairo gets you to Fayoum (or Faiyum) a small-town desert oasis known for its pottery and fruit orchards. It could also be known for its dust, sweat-inducing heat, and thriving ant population (do not leave any food out!). We loved the adventure this trip provided and it was a nice change of pace to get out of the city. I present to you, the top six surprising experiences of our trip.
Surprising Experience #1: Our Airbnb looked like a small Egyptian castle.
Impressive, no? A few times throughout our stay the water stopped working, apparently because we used the air conditioner too much? We’re not really sure. The property manager kept talking rapidly in Arabic hoping (I’m sure of it) that we would learn his mother tongue through osmosis. We never did. Anyway, he eventually taught Kyle how to reset the water pump and we were back in business. In addition to the water shutting off, we also had no working lights in the kitchen, a strange smell coming from the kitchen sink, questionably clean dishes (read: not clean) and one (ONE) bath towel.
It’s a good thing we decided to spend so much time outside because there were lots of seating options to choose from.
In other good news, the pool worked great!
This lot is adjacent to our rental. Egypt has a lot of rubble.
Surprising Experience #2: Despite the issues with the house, Fayoum is charming.
Walking around Tunis Village, we saw lots of brightly painted fences and doors advertising pottery studios, restaurants, or local shops.
The handmade pottery was quite beautiful and the pottery makers were eager to show the kids their process. After honing my Egyptian bartering skills, we came home with two mugs, six bowls, and a platter. Kyle could not have been more excited!
Surprising Experience #3: Fateer is a delicious breakfast food in Egypt. It’s a flaky layered pastry that’s usually paired with honey, molasses, or a soft cheese. When we arrived at our Airbnb, our quick-speaking property manager asked if we would like to order some fateer for breakfast in the morning. Fateer is delicious, so of course I said yes. He asked if I wanted three, and recalling my last fateer purchase (from a neighborhood grocery store in Maadi, where one fateer was the size of a dinner plate) I agreed. Then he said, “Four?” And wanting to support the local economy, I said, “Yes.” Please keep in mind that this entire exchange was completed using Google translate. Anyway, it was very late and I knew it was going to be difficult to find breakfast in the morning. I was totally solving all our family’s future problems.
In the morning, the property manager banged on our front gate at our agreed upon time. I was so excited. Our fateer was here! I opened the gate and there was a woman CARRYING A HUGE QUANTITY OF FATEER IN GIANT PLASTIC BAGS ON HER HEAD. I have no idea what my face looked like but I’m sure it was utter confusion. Each fateer was the SIZE OF A BIKE TIRE. And I had agreed to purchase FOUR. Don’t ever accuse me of not doing my part to revive Egypt’s struggling economy.
Our group ate one fateer. The rest we gave away to random people on the street who seemed to be very excited about our generosity.
Surprising Experience #4: I organized for our group to go on a Jeep tour through the desert, and even though it felt like our 4×4 was going to go careening down a cliff of sand, we never tipped over and the kids loved it!
Loving that 4×4 life!
Having a blast!
This is Magic Lake in Wadi El Hitan. Who knew the desert could be so beautiful?
This is in front of the Wadi El Rayan waterfalls. I would have snagged a pic of the whole family, but 60% of them were melting from the 100 degree heat and they insisted on walking upstream to dip their toes in. Can’t blame ’em.
After so much sweating, ice cream was the only logical next step.
Our Jeep tour took us through desert landscapes and up STEEP sand dunes. Props to my family for handling it like CHAMPS!
Surprising Experience #5: We arrived very late on our first night. We had paid a driver to take us from Maadi to Fayoum in a van, and since we had supplied our driver with an address, we figured we’d arrive at our Airbnb without complication. This could not have been more wrong. First, like I may have mentioned in a previous post, an address is more of a social construct than a physical location. Our driver had a very hard time finding our rental and had to get out and ask many locals along the way. Since we were using Google Maps, this was confusing.
Anyway, once we unpacked and got the kids settled, the adults went outside to sit by the pool. We had been sitting there for an hour or so when a man started yelling from the roof of the restaurant next door. As you know, Arabic is not a language that we understand, so this was also confusing. After a while we started to understand that he was shouting about water. This made slightly more sense considering that we were sitting in front of a large pool, but since it was after midnight we wondered if there was an emergency. We opened the front gate and the owner of the restaurant (who speaks English) explained that he needed access to our driveway so his friend could park his water truck there and pump water into his restaurant. A perfectly reasonable request at 12:30 in the morning.
What is happening?
While I’m at it, I’d also like to showcase one of the rental’s more creative wiring projects.
Surprising Fact #6: Egyptian food is very good. I knew this already, but I wasn’t expecting amazing food on our Fayoum trip because I figured we were in the country and there are far fewer restaurant options. For breakfast one day we visited the Mangrove Camp in Fayoum and it was incredible!
The camp is full of cabins like this that you can rent . It also has a meal space with gorgeous views of the surrounding Lake Qarun and Mount Qatrani.
I spy with my little eye a normal size fateer…
On our last night in Fayoum, we chose to eat at a restaurant called White Horse. We chose this restaurant because it was a one-minute walk from our rental, and we were hot, hungry, and tired after a day driving around the desert. We hoped the restaurant’s name was not indicative of the food it served.
The moment we walked in, a server greeted us and asked, in broken English, do you want chicken or duck? The 10 of us looked around at each other and decided that chicken was probably safer. Hearing that everyone was having chicken, Kyle quickly switched his order to duck. A true renaissance man. We were all very excited about the prospect of dinner and what would arrive on our plates.
The view from our dinner spot. Look at you go, White Horse!
Dinner came. It was delicious! The kids said it was their favorite meal in Egypt SO FAR (this statement had nothing to do with the fact that they were famished). And oh! Kyle really enjoyed his duck!
(I took this photo earlier in our trip, but when Kyle switched his dinner order from chicken to duck, I wondered if this is where said duck came from…)
With dinner they served us molokhia. I had been waiting to try this soup and I finally got the chance! The Egyptian girls in my class have been telling me how delicious it is, but I hadn’t had any before Fayoum. I was pumped when the server brought it out. It was an awesome surprise and a fun meal to end our trip on.
