to the nile!

APRIL 9: A SERIOUS TREK TO ASWAN

waddling away from the breakfast buffet for the third day in a row, we were happy to see our newest friend, wafeek, who came to see us off.

our driver took us one hour southwest to a meeting point. here, we met up with several other vans to be flanked on all sides and separated by police vehicles and armed guards. such was the police-escorted convoy from hurghada to luxor! zoinks.

lucky us, our friend wafeek didn't stop looking after us. he called a friend in luxor who took good care of us. he set us up in a five-star hotel lobby with couches and crystal chandeliers for our "layover." he went to the train station, bought our tickets and delivered them to us in the lobby. he didn't fail to offer us camels, either. (thier edition of a marriage proposal) but we had places to go...

a few hours later he took us to the train station. unfortunately, the trains don't exactly respect a timetable. so we waited two hours for our train to arrive. the worst part was that sheena had a stomach bug and she had the entire egyptian army force across the tracks watching her be sick. although we were the main attraction at the train station, we did have a silent guardian angel. one train station guard kept walking past us and giving us evil eyes, but he stood next to us when a train passed us slowly to defer some of the cat-calling, he was shooing young boys away when they got to close, and he helped us find our seats when the train finally arrived. hours and hours later, we arrived at the aswan train station. luckily, a man from the hotel was waiting for us. we practically ignored the front desk, walked to our room and crashed. somehow, it was an exhausting day.

APRIL 10: CRUISE, DAY 1

as it turned out, we had another travel agent we didn't know about. he picked us up at the hotel and took us to the cruise boat! he bought us a drink in the bar while our rooms were prepared and left us to enjoy the sun deck! at lunch we met the couple we would spend the next four days with. they were a young couple, taking a vacation from their studyies in florence. teddy was an english bloke and beth is from milwaukee!! what are the chances?!

after lunch our tour guide, mido, took us to the high dam and philae temple. we realized quickly that he was a dipshit, but didn't have much of a choice, we were stuck with him for four days. his stupid jokes and arrogance aside...

the high dam, built in 1899 and rebuilt in 1958, caused the creation of a large reservoir called lake nasser. the dam is the most significant source of electricity in egypt and has mitigated the effects of floods in the region. philae temple, built from 380-30 BC, is located on an island in the nile river! we took a boat, captained by two young egyptians, to the island and explored the ancient re-built temple, built for the goddess isis.

back at the boat we had another welcome drink before dinner. we jumped off the boat to walk around aswan and through the markets. we were looking for alcohol to take back to the boat, but an hour-long walk was totally unfruitful. turns out it is hard to find alcohol in a muslim country!

APRIL 11: CRUISE, DAY 2

after breakfast we enjoyed a two-hour felucca ride on the nile! we sailed around a large island which used to be a british army camp but has since been transformed into a botanical garden. we rode past a nubian village where two young boys paddled out to us in a misshapen boat, using pieces of driftwood just larger than their hands as paddles. they grabbed onto our boat and sang us songs as we floated along, hoping for baksheesh, a tip. we also sailed past a mausoleum, a camel trading post, and several ancient watchtowers.

the sun deck was calling our names, so we abided for the whole afternoon. until we arrived at kom ombo, the city where they used to train elephants for pharaohs. we got off the boat to visit the temple of kom ombo. it was built between 180-45BC - half of it is dedicated to horus (the god of protection) and the other half is dedicated to sobek (the crocodile god). in fact, we got to see three ancient mummified crocodiles! yikes!! this was also the only site where you can see elephants carved into the hieroglyphic stories. as well as male organs. ha.

walking back to the boat, we saw our first good african sunset. just how i imagined it -- a golden sky with an orange sun setting on a dusty horizon, falling behind several palm trees. when it got dark we found our way up to the sun deck to watch the stars, smoke cigars and drink beer. at the end of the night, we were walking back to our rooms and one of the housekeepers stopped us to tell us there was a problem. he accompanied us to our room and let us open the door to find.... a hostage bound on the floor! in fact, they made a very realistic person out of our clothing and the fresh towels! holly screamed and i ran away. i almost had a heart attack. they got a good tip.

APRIL 12: CRUISE, DAY 3

we were disappointed to have a 7am wake-up call. is this vacation, or what?! after dinner we walked off the boat and onto a horse-drawn carriage to the edfu temple. there were horses and carriages everywhere and i thought the smell would knock me over (nice aroma after breakfast). anyway, edfu temple is the second largest and the best-preserved temple in the whole of egypt. if that is important. the temple is dedicated to the falcon god horus and was build between 237-57 BC. unbelievable.

the rest of the day was ours to enjoy! we spent most of it on the sun deck. we relaxed, bonded with our new friends, and watched our cruise boat go through some locks at esna. after dinner we went back to the room and found another surprise -- an alligator wearing sunglasses with an orange in his mouth! we crashed early to prepare for our last long day in egypt.

APRIL 13: CRUISE, DAY 4

our day started with a 6am wake-up call. we took our bags to the lobby, ate our last buffet breakfast and met mido to explore luxor and its surroundings. our fist stop was the valley of the kings where they have found 63 tombs of former egyptian kings and nobles who lived from the 16th to 11th century BC. some of the tombs were breathtaking. the pharonic artists used semiprecious stones to color the walls and ceilings of the tombs and some of the colors are so vibrant they look like they were painted yesterday.

because guides love to take us to government-run and monitored stores, we had to make a stop at an alabaster store. we learned about the sculpting of alabaster goods and how it was used in ancient temples and tombs. ramses, the owner, took a liking to us and he offered each of us a scarab, a sign of good luck. then he offered me a proposal. since we hadn't had much time to get to know each other, i said i would think about it. to show me he was serious he offered me a chunk of alabaster and told me to come back, that he would be waiting. i wonder if he is still waiting...

near the entrance to the valley of the kings is queen hatshepsut's temple. she was Egypt's only female pharoah...self proclaimed, about 1460BC. well done, lady. we visited this site in the sweltering heat of mid-day. next, we stopped quickly (not daring to be out of the ac for too long!) to take a few pictures of the statues of memnon. they are the only remnants of the temple of amenophis III.

our drive back into luxor took us past wheat, banana and sugar cane plantations. several fields had straw huts built in the middle of them, suggesting very humble housing. and there we were, driving past in our air conditioned van...

we went to a local restaurant for a quick lunch before we drove to karnak temple. this was perhaps my favorite thing we saw. it is a vast conglomeration of ruined temples, chapels, pylons and other buildings built between the 16th century BC and 30BC. woah. it is a vast open-air museum and the largest ancient religious site in the world. woah. a must-see. finally, we visited luxor temple. not that old, it was founded in 1400 BC. pfah. the neatest thing about this site was that at the entrance we saw a 25 metre-tall pink granite obelisk: it is one of a matching pair. the other was taken to paris in 1835 where it now stands in the centre of the place de la concorde.

plenty sweaty and exhausted, we drove back to the boat. because our bags were in the lobby, we shuffled through them to find our suits, changed, and jumped immediately into the cool pool water! this would have to suffice for a shower. our driver took us to the bus station where we caught our 7pm bus back to hurghada. it was supposed to take four hours, but almost seven hours later we arrived in the downtown. guess who met us at the bus stop?! yes! wafeek! he took us to another bar for farewell sheesha and drinks before he took us to the airport. at the airport all of us had watery eyes. he was a really kind man. i hope to cross him again in this life.

much like the train departure, 3:30am was a mere suggestion. we didn't leave until almost 5am. we were bordering 24 hours of wakefulness. and we weren't done traveling yet... we arrived in paris about 10am and had to part ways. i really connected with sheena on this trip (although we just met in february in munich and had only spent about 36 hours together before we traveled to africa together!) and i will certainly see her again. we're going to see how many continents we can see together! north america is next on the list since she is canadian. anyway, we sent her off with some milk money for the metro and holly and i jumped on the bus to montparnasse train station. we happened to arrive about ten minutes before a fast train home. it couldn't have ended any better.

hurghada, the land of wafeek

APRIL 6: CAIRO TO HURGHADA (bus)

we were sad to leave the city but it was a good day to leave because there were strikes in cairo. the first in 15 years! probably because it is illegal in egypt. the campaign was for a general strike prompted by low wages and increasing prices. we walked past dozens of police officers in riot gear on the way to the bus station. happily. plus, we used the 6-hour bus ride to catch up on journaling and sleeping.

once in hurghada, we headed straight for the fruit section. we fought our way through eager taxi drivers and crossed the street to the grocery store. the most determined cabbie waited for us in the parking lot. he got our bid. and how lucky we were!! he was a riot, speaking broken english (mostly broken by laughter), blaring the music, yelling to other cabbies at traffic lights, pumping his brakes to the bass line... he was too much. we laughed all the way to our hotel!

unfortunately, we stopped laughing the minute we walked in the hotel. the moon valley owner does not like americans. so i inflicted immediate diapproval and bad graces. eesh. i have never felt so pre-judged and i have never been so poorly treated by a reception. as soon as we were in our rooms, i suggested that we change into our suits quickly and get out of there, down to the beach. but, to top it all off, the beach was closed by the time we got there. crap. back to the hotel pool.

a few hours later, on our way to dinner, we had the fortune to run into jamal. yes, the owner. he invited himself to sit down with us and proceeded to tell us all about himself until our food arrived. then he took off, but wanted to come back for coffee after. fantastic. luckily, after dinner we had an "optional" meeting with a travel agent provided by the hotel. we went begrudgingly, but this is how we met wafeek! our buddy, wafeek! we had a quick meeting with wafeek and made a plan for our stay in hurghada. we tried to make the meeting last longer so we could avoid the inevitable meeting, but it had to happen. we met jamal for sheesha and coffee on the terrace. he, again, told us all of his opinions, experiences with women, prejudices towards different cultures, and taught us all about how to run a business. i'm not even sure he knew our names. you may wonder how i could argue a taxi fare with seven men in broken arabic at 5am in cairo, but i couldn't avoid this hotel owner. me too. i guess i felt he was the only person in hurghada who i really needed on my side if anything were to happen while i was there. he was the second person living in the town which now has a population of 40,000. he knows a lot of them... anyway, we eventually got away from him when our eyelids were drooping.

APRIL 7: HURGHADA, ADVENTURE #1

we woke up in time to enjoy the breakfast buffet before we met wafeek in the lobby at 8:30. he took us on a drive out to the pier for our snorkeling trip. much to our disappointment, it was too windy for the boat to go out. luckily, our buddy proposed a desert safari instead! and we had time to relax at the hotel pool for a few hours before we had to get changed for our outing.

he picked us up again about 1:00 to meet our safari jeep. we were in the back of a jeep with three women from bulgaria! we were disappointed that it was a covered jeep.... until we started traversing the desert. that would have been MISERABLE! not far into the desert we stopped to check out a mirage. it really looked as if a swollen river was flowing across the horizon. our next stop was at an outcropping of rocks. sheena and i climbed up for an aerial view. our final stop was at a bedouin village.

the bedouin are a nomadic people, continually searching for fresh grazing for their camels goats and for water for their families. the men and women are both covered in long flowing clothing and they both wear head scarves - his is wrapped around his head and neck to slow dehydration and protect his skin from the sand, she wears a head cover and a veil. bedouin live in tents of goat and camel hair panels that the women have woven on their narrow ground looms and stitched together. they first welcomed us with a cup of tea. they we rode their camels around their village, watched a woman make bread from scratch (and got a taste!), met their big boss and toured his part of the camp, learned about their local herbal remedies and artwork, visited their well, and watched young women weave goat and camel hair rugs and purses. what a simple life. i can't imagine what they must think of tourists who come to their camp. and i certainly can't imagine the lives of the bedouin who have never seen anyone outside of their particular community. it's amazing.

we had time to relax before dinner so we created a type of dart board on the ground and convinced two egyptian men to play dartboard-horseshoes with us! just as we finished our game dinner was served. then we climbed a mountainside next to their camp to watch the sunset. a few of the children came up with us and were happy to have their picture taken. the magic hour followed us back down to the camp where we were all invited to watch a traditional song and dance performed by the young men of the community. laughter and clapping carried us back to our jeep and across the desert, back to the tourist town of hurghada.

back at the hotel we had two rounds of sheesha and talked about life.

APRIL 8: HURGHADA, ADVENTURE #2

we got to go snorkeling! and weren't we glad we didn't go the day before... just outside of the marina we passed a boat that had sunk in the storm the day before. yikes!!

being in a country where the national language is egyptian arabic, but most people we see speak a variety of other languages, we never know what to prepare ourselves for. though we were able to pick up several arabic phrases, important things like:
"we are not stupid tourists"
"egypt is very beautiful"
"please" and "thank you"
"i want a peanut" (i thought i was saying coconut)
"how are you" and "i'm okay" (in slang)
"i love egypt"
"cheers"
"i want beer"
"friend"
"let's go"
"never in your wildest dreams"
"it's okay"
"do you speak english"
"go to your momma"

anyway, everyone on the snorkeling boat was russian so we were nervous we weren't going to understand what was happening all day. lucky for us, the guides all spoke in the worlds language. english. how lucky are we to be native speakers?! we took a boat ride through the magnificent red sea, which is not red at all, by the way. first stop, paradise island where we relaxed on the beach and braved the cool water for a quick swim. next, we anchored and snorkeled along a coral reef. there was a bit of a break in communication and we thought we were swimming to the snorkeling spot so the whole first half of the swim we didn't have our heads under water. plus, the other girls hadn't snorkeled before and they were having trouble with their goggles and tubes and the waves.... it was still quite choppy! back at the boat we had yet another buffet lunch as we motored toward our second dive site. this time everyone had goggles and tubes that suited them better and we took off with the guide. this site was more calm and shallower so we saw loads of colorful fish, corals, urchins, and jellyfish. i asked saïd if the jellyfish were dangerous. his response was to swim away. i also took off, feeling misunderstood, swimming along the coral, until i felt a tap on my shoulder and he held his hands out for me to take a gift. a jellyfish!! a beautiful, purple, soft jellyfish! i was thrilled so he tried to show me anything else he could. he dove down and came back up with a crab in a fist-sized bulbous shell. next was a delicate piece of coral decorated in a pink, spiral pattern which had broken off of the larger organism. on our return to the boat he invited me (in the famous snorkeling gesture language) to dive down with him. on his count of three we dove and he showed me a sea cucumber. of course i love touching new things so i stroked its leathery back, safe enough. my next move was a disaster; i felt underneath and came away with a nasty surprise. my hand was covered with sticky vein-like strings. i mean COVERED! it took me the next two hours to pull it all off! the dive ended with a relaxing swim back to the boat, sheena and i hand-in-hand, pointing out exceptional fish along the way.

back at the pier, wafeek was waiting for us. he took us back to the hotel to clean up for our last night in hurghada. we ordered pina coladas and strawberry sheesha to enjoy until the sun went down. then we indulged in beer and pizza until wafeek came back to spend our last night in town together. he took us to a cotton shop and then to a quiet part of town to enjoy sheesha and drinks. he is a super guy, a real gentleman with a heart of gold.

cairo, my love

APRIL 2: PARIS TO HURGHADA TO CAIRO

first impressions:
-egyptian men are quick to fall in love! i was proposed to twice before i even left the airport.
-no one in the world, including the egyptians, knows where the barbados is. our friend orien is from the barbados and we were stopped for two hours at immigration because they didn't believe it was a country. as if someone (with bad intentions, or not) would make up a passport with a fake country?!
-eyptians are a loud people - they shout at one another across rooms and down halls, they laugh heartily and they are generally very expressive
-the landscape is bright - the desert, the mud and brick houses, the constant sunshine
-the red sea is one of the most beautiful bodies of water i have ever seen and it is a stark contrast to the dirt-dry landscape it borders
-men dominate public spaces. very few women were in coffee shops or on the shopping streets and even fewer were working
-egyptian muslims are a very religious people. in a very pious and respectable and endearing way.
-the streets are very littered in some places, other places are very clean
-i was surprised to see wind turbines - a whole lot of them - along the red sea
-EVERYTHING is under construction. i imagine this is because there isn't a lot of money in the country so they have to start working with what they have and build on to it as they have the money. but i don't really understand...
-egyptian music makes me smile!
-i love falafel!!
-i also love sheesha!!
-roads seems like more of a suggestion than a requirement - there are paths everywhere through the desert

APRIL 3: SAQQARA, MEMPHIS, GIZA

WOW are egyptian people friendly!

our guide and our driver picked us up from the hotel lobby and walked us to our van. on our drive to saqqara (which is a farming community) we saw donkeys pulling 'trailers' and people walking with carts. it was such a simple, sustainable way of life. i felt a bit envious, and i wondered how we can make that simplicity available to people in the states again. on the other hand, the traffic is terrifying!!! imagine a herd of bulls all trying to get into a pen at the same time. got it?! that is what the traffic is like in egypt! except that the cars never touch, of course. there are no lines on the road, there is no pre-determined number of lanes, and i am sure everyone drives with one hand on the wheel and the other hand on the horn. or maybe one hand on the gear shift and the other on the horn! i have a video of us making our way down the street and i'm sure you will not believe your eyes. donkeys, bicycles, trucks... everyone edging their way forward and people walking across the street between them. and i only saw two accidents the whole time i was there. if you would believe it, they were both in places where there weren't many cars at all!

egypt is dry. dry, dry, dry. bet you wouldn't have guessed that! my hair dried in about ten minutes (it usually takes a few hours) and no matter how much water i drank i only had to use the bathroom once per day. yes, mom, i was drinking plenty of h2o. ;)

anyway, saqqara was a wonderful first site to visit. it is an ancient burial ground -- the site of the first step pyramid along with 16 other pyramids. here we learned why the first pyramid was built, an interesting evolution. kings used to be buried in deep shafts. above this shaft there used to be a "bench" of stones to mark the tomb. kings hired people to dig the shafts, decorate the shafts and build the benchmarks, if you will, while they were ruling. well, king djoser (2667-2648 BC) wanted his people to be able to see his "bench" from the town -- it had to be tall so he asked imhotep to design a series of benches, one on top of the other, in descending size. thus, the step pyramid was born. neat, huh?!

next, we visited memphis, the ancient capital of lower egypt. we visited the open air museum and then went for lunch. on our way to giza, we stopped by a papyrus shop. perhaps i am ignorant, but i had no idea how amazing papyrus is... in case you are in the same boat i will explain the plant and its paper because i was blown away. at the end of the day, it is still one of my favorite things i saw in egypt. first of all, papyrus is a marsh plant (a sedge if you want to know), a triangular stalk at the top of which there is a green willow-like flower blossom. when you peel the thin green rind off you are left with a white pith, a foam-like material. in order to release the starch (which will be useful later) you use a mallet and a rolling pin to pound and roll the strips. these flattened strips are then left to soak in water for 6 days, changing the water as frequently as you like - the less often you change it the darker the papyrus paper will appear. when you take the strips out of the water you lay them out one-by-one, on top of each other, in a weaving pattern. the starch that was pounded out of the plant now acts as a natural glue to hold the paper together. this woven sheet is put under a press to dry for the next 6 days. after six days, it is left in the sun for an hour. now you have papyrus paper!

okay, doesn't sound that fantastic?! at this point we were asked to wash a piece of papyrus like we were hand-washing a t-shirt. we submerged and scrubbed the paper and took it out and rung it dry. it was totally unmarred. after another hour in the sun it would be good as new! next, we each wrote our name on a dry piece of papyrus. he took one finger, dipped it into the water bucket and used his wet finger like an eraser! so if a transcriber or artist makes a mistake they can undo it quickly. a third piece of paper was brought out and he showed us that it is water proof - this is why they could make papyrus boats, because water can't penetrate it! finally, he took hold of a strip and started to tear it away from the sheet. he did this several times, and then showed us that if you use a little water you can repair the papyrus because of the starch. what an amazing plant?! who do you think was the first guy to think, "huh, maybe that plant could be a new kind of canvas." unreal.

finally, we went to the pyramids of giza and the sphinx. very impressive, to say the least, although the sphinx was significantly smaller than i imagined. it was amazing to see the great pyramid - the only remaining monument of the seven wonders of the ancient world! i was astounded to see how close it was to the city, though. it is on a cliff, and just at the bottom of the cliff is the city. not at all how i imagined it. it was interesting to see how the site is dealing with tourism; there are policemen on camelback and guards in traditional clothing but there are also tour guides in western clothing and young men selling postcards and statues.

when we got back from our full-day excursion we were starving. we asked the hotel owner to point us toward an egyptian-style restaurant. we went to GAD. we had three sandwhiches each (one with babaganoush, one with falafel and one with refried beans) and we shared a pickled vegetable appetizer. all of this cost 2 euros. total. 50 centimes for a big dinner. i love egypt! because it was a type of free-for all restaurant, we were struggling to figure out who wanted to take our order while we were being oogled by plenty of men. fortunately, we met a man who spoke perfect english so he helped us order and then took us to a cafe next door to eat our food and order drinks. unfortunately, he invited himself to sit with us and ordered himself an apple sheesha. he was a bit awkward, but he was teaching us a lot about egyptian culture and he ordered us two different egyptian drinks (which we continued to order for the following two weeks) hibiscus tea and sahlab, a coconut drink. in the end, he was a wanker (i live with a brit!) because he sneakily made us pay for our drinks, his sheesha and a significant tip. it only cost us four euros, in the end, but we were not taken advantage of again after that.

on the walk home we figured out what we had been hearing. five times per day the muslim people pray. the mosques have men praying into loudspeakers and we could hear it wherever we went.

APRIL 4: CAIRO

because we were on vacation, we took the opportunity to sleep in! after we got up, bathed, and enjoyed a 12th-story, balcony breakfast, we headed out to explore the city on our own. we were headed for the nile, but had a young egyptian man tailing us almost immediately. we lost him by stepping into a carpet shop and walking out a door on the opposite street. we were getting closer to the nile when we stopped at a tourist agency to read an advertisement board about a sailboat ride on the river. two of the agents came out to greet us and we refused to speak to them. eventually, we started chatting because we wanted to bargain with them. but in the end we spent about two hours with them drinking tea, sharing jokes and magic tricks, and talking about the meaning of life. great guys. sabry and aladdin. we booked a dinner cruise with their company, made plans to meet after the cruise, and they got us a taxi to the markets. we went to khan el-khalili, the most amazing bazaar i have ever been to. there is so much CRAP there, but the atmosphere is amazing. young men are pushing HEAVY carts through the crowd and somehow everyone manages to get out of the way before of being run over. waiters are walking through the streets with trays of tea but there are no cafes to be seen. i have no idea where they came from! young boys are auctioning goods, standing on piles of the things they are trying to sell. nothing has a price - everything is up for bargaining. they sell food, clothing, statues, lotion, tools, toys, etc. and people are trying their best to sell you things you certainly don't want. or at least to sell you themselves. some of the things we heard:
"today everything is 99% off"
"shakira!"
"if you come back today, you don't pay"
"spice girls!!"
"i don't know what you want, but i have what you need"
"help me take your money"
"you dropped something.... my heart"
"i have discount for beautiful girl"
and my all-time favorite:
"for you, i kill my wife"

after the market we went home to clean up for our dinner cruise. we were picked up at the hotel again and taken to the pier. we had another buffet dinner (practically every meal was a buffet. ah, the death of me!) after dinner there was a live band which player for a a belly dancer and then a sufi dancer. the sufi dancer was awesome!! he turned for about 25 minutes! at the end of his show he took me up to the stage and i got to try it. thank mom, for the ballet lessons. i did alright!! perhaps the best part of the cruise though, was getting off the boat. we had stalled on the top deck long enough that we were the last ones off the boat and the next group to get on was a wedding party! so we go to see a beautiful egyptian wedding, women dressed in their most beautiful scarves and men in suits, all moving to the live music and watching the dancers.

back at the car, the driver took us from the cruise boat to a bar where sabry and aladdin were waiting for us. we had some beer and appetizers before we headed to a club, a very nice club, mind you, until 4:30am. in egypt they bargain their taxi fares before they get in the cab, so sabry determined our fare would be 15 egyptian pounds back to our hotel. unfortunately, when we got home he demanded 30. we all got out of the car and started walking away. he got out of the car and walked after us, yelling and waving his hands, saying in broken english that he would call the police. i decided to deal with this man. i stopped and said in broken arabic that we should call the police. well, as fate would have it, there was a police officer on the street. but, as fate would also have it, he didn't speak english and had no interest in our dispute. soon we were surrounded by seven other egyptian men, all telling me i owed the taxi driver more money. i argued in my best arabic. imagine! did i mention that i also hate bargaining. being a privileged white woman i hate to pay people less than the value of the service or good. in the end, i paid 5 more pounds, for a total of 20. he threw the money on the ground and i walked away. eesh.

APRIL 5: CAIRO, CITY TOUR

a few hours later we woke up for our guided city tour. we reserved this tour with the same guys and they gave us one of their favorite guides, hebah. turns out, she was my favorite too! she was a doll. she met us at the hotel in the morning and we went straight to the cairo egyptian museum. founded in just 1835, it houses over 120,000 objects from the pre-historic era to the greco-roman period. so it is like the louvre, too rich to see everything in one visit. so we saw the highlights. first, we saw the tutankhamun (1333-1323BC) section -- he was a boy-king who ruled in the eighteenth dynasty of egypt. so he lived a while ago. and his tomb was just discovered in 1922, exceptionally well-preserved. an amazing exhibit. the second half of the museum tour was a whirlwind of history including names of pharaohs, kings, queens, gods, goddesses, stones, and hieroglyphics translated to arabic and then to english. hebah was one of our best teachers of the egyptian arabic language!

lunch was yet another buffet. but this one was on a docked boat on the nile. i felt like a spoiled queen. too good to be true!

after lunch we went to the citadel, a beautiful monument in the city. inside is the muhammad ali mosque the mosque of al-nasir muhammad and the gawhara palace. we were humbled to take our shoes off and walk into the muhammad ali mosque. here, hebah really shared a lot of her personal story and taught us a lot about the importance of religion to her as a muslim woman and to egyptians as a muslim nation.

at some point during the day, hebah and i made a real connection - we walked everywhere together talking about culture, travel, religion, traditions, education, language, everything.

after the citadel we went to old cairo. here we saw the hanging church (built on ruins of the babylon fortress), ben ezra synagogue and st sergious church (where the virgin mary and the baby jesus are said to have taken refuge at the end of their journey to egypt). at the end of this holy street we got back in our modern van and drove back to reality. hebah had a surprise for us! she took us back to khan el-khalili (markets) to look meet the artist of her necklace which we had complimented all day. we spent almost six hours with this man and we all had a life-changing experience, if i can be so bold to speak for all four of us. i will have to write more about this on a fresh note...

we spent our last night in cairo exploring... looking for fruit, really. unfortunately, we went home with a bottle of lotion and some peanuts. we discovered a new part of town and, in turn, that young men who are selling goods illegally on the streets are a riot to watch when the police arrive. they must think the police don't know what is happening when two men take ahold of each side of a long board and start running down the street, shouting for people to watch out. other men try to thrown a cover over their display tables and walk down an alley, carefully so as not to disturb the layout. the smartest ones are selling out of their cars, but then they must be the richest ones as well.

i love egypt!!!

i decided that my new sign-off for e-mails must be:

i love egypt!
molly

because i said it so much during the past two weeks. beyond the pyramids, sphinx, temples, nile river, and snorkeling in the red sea, we were totally blown away by the people. they were young-at-heart, kind, and generous. i learned more about culture, religion, and friendship in the past two weeks than in any fortnight before. what a life-changing vacation!

unfortunately, my waterproof camera got swamped in the red sea, so i can't share pictures until i get home and get it all sorted out. but i will certainly post some when i can!

salam,
molly

cairo

i have never fallen in love with a city so quickly.
the people are too generous, too young-spirited, and too relaxed. what more can you ask for?! i have felt more and more blessed every day i have been here. no. every hour i have been here. i cannot wait to come back already. and i haven't even left. we have learned a bit of egyptian arabic, we have boated on the nile river, we have seen sufi dance and belly dance, we have eaten too much egyptian falafel and desserts, we have fared the bazaars, we have visited the pyramids and the egyptian museum, we have smoked sheesha... and much more. there aren't words to express how happy we are and how mush we love egypt.

i can't wait to see what we will discover tomorrow!
salam,
molly

quelques secondes en retard.....

what would you do if you missed a train? and this particular train was supposed to take you two hours north where you had to catch an airplane to a different continent?!

this is what i did tonight....
holly and i walked onto the platform as the train was pulling away. $&*#@! naturally, i ran toward the train going in the other direction. of course i thought we could go an hour south to le mans and catch a fast train to paris. turns out, there were no more trains going to paris tonight. so we got off at the next stop. at this point, holly and i were no longer in nogent and there were no more trains in either direction. the perfect storm. not to worry. i called nicolas and he agreed to come pick us up and take us to chartres to try to catch the last train. by the time he got to taille rouge we all realized there was no way we would catch it.... &@#$! again. being the great man that he is, though, he offered to pick us up at 3am and take us all the way to the airport in paris. this way, we won't miss our plane to egypt. good man.

the thing about french people is that, although they are reserved at first, once they call someone their friend, they mean it. they will die for their friends. or rescue them from emergencies such as this.

everything always works out....