I'm getting too old for this...

I spent half of the day searching for candles. I figured there has to be candles in Egypt somewhere, and one of the hotel staff says that I can find candles anywhere. Well apparently anywhere accept for the 20-30 stores that I asked at LOL. I did get to haggle up some indigo though, very good quality indigo, unlike that found in Aswan. However this wasn’t a tourist market so I think that helped. I could only get the guy down to $5 per lb though. He also offered me candles, but I didn’t like the price of $2 for 10 little ones.

For dinner I had kashiri, an Egyptian takeout dish which is basically rice, pasta, seasoning, and I think a tiny bit of meat and tomato sauce. A huge dinner for $1.50 is always good, and the food tasted better then the restaurant I tried the other night. I then got back to my hotel complaining to the staff about how I couldn’t find any candles, so one of the staff offered to take me to find some in an hour, I agreed thinking this was a nice offer... Meanwhile, we went on his motorbike! If you recall my mentions about driving in Egypt in previous posts, you can see why I was more then a bit nervous. Also, you take something small like a motorbike, and for some reason the driver thinks he can go around anything, and the most narrow of places. Fortunately it wasn’t *too* stressful.

So we finally find a store that sells candles. The guy told me 18LE ($3) for a pack of 3 and a candle holder! Talking about highway robbery! The guy that took me told me I would get the Egyptian price, bullshit. I think the guy that took me got a hefty percentage from the sale :P. Then he talked me into going out for a drink. I insisted that I don’t drink alcohol, so we went out for a juice. I told him about my husband and my two sons so he didn’t get any ideas. He wasn’t as talkative after that. I did get back to the hotel no problem though. I again did another search for candles to no avail, and had planned to go back to the $2 for 10 guy. I went to sleep nice and early since I was meeting my driver and guide at 7:30 in the morning, and by now you know how long things like breakfast take in Egypt.

Later I had asked my guide why it was so difficult to find candles in Egypt. She said nobody uses them! She went on to say that they are only used during romantic times, and that isn’t very often LOL. It might have also helped if I had known the Egyptian word for “candle”.