September 15, 2000

Patrick, Jon and I headed onward to Aqaba to head to egypt next while Krissy was able to stay longer and meet another Beduin family in the desert. Aqaba had scuba diving options, but we wanted to get to Dehab in the Sinai to chill out and dive in the Red Sea (coral gardens galore!). We tried to convince Patrick to dive in Dehab too, but the costly ferry trip and visas and his time didn't allow him to continue with us. We ferried over to Nuweiba port on the Sinai on the slowest ferry ever with mostly men on board (where were the women?) and arrived at night, our passports were in"immigration" on the ferry then on land, but we had the hardest time getting directions from the men with the machine guns hanging around outside. finally found the unmarked office and watched them very slowiy put two little postage-size stamps on our passports, scribble a line through them all while an arabic man was praying (kneeling and standing repeatedly) in the corner of this dingy florescent room. Then finding a taxi was the hilite of the evening.

Had previously met a couple who said they would get a taxi hold it for all of us to more cheaply get to Dehab. Couldn't find them in all this port sprawl and ended up sharing a taxi with this Korean girl who just enjoyed 2 months on a Kibbutz in Israel, we bargained hard and still payed a much higher price than we should have but it was late and wanted just to get there, so, as a consolation for the low price we got the sleepy reject driver! halfway up the steep desert mountain road he stops at "Beduin Bob's'' and proceeds to take a knap while the engine "cools down", he speaks no engiish and played loud bad house techno music on a tape player that is about to eat his tape! inside. we are having a aood political discussion with this Sudanese man while trying cooking of some sudanese tomato dish over candelight. we finally wake up our driver and "yella, yella !! lets go." we arrive in Dehab after midnight, which kind of looks like a wannabe Ko Samui of Thailand, with all the tiedye clothes and tacky belly dancing dresses all over the waterfront.

We got a cement block room at Auski camp (we were looking for Oasis Fighting Kangaroo Camp partly because it had a great name, but couldn't find it) and went searching for a diving deal for the next few days. We hooked up with a new piace with new equipment (!) and dived for an abbreviated few days due to jon's ear infection. but even the snorkling was great right off our hotel. Otherwise we had a chance to chill at the Laughing Buddah with Bob Marley in the background and drinks at Tota boat hotel watching the olympics. At this point jon's ear was healed after the strong doses of drugs here and we dived in Hurgada, for a last Red Sea treat.

Pressed for time, we belined it for Luxor and saw the Vailey of the Kings and Queens and the Karnak and Luxor Temples. These were the zeniths or ancient egyptian spritual centers and lived up to it. Getting to Karnak temple was a challenge in itself by standing in the middle of ihe street and yelling out our destination to passing minibuses. none stopped for us. got frustrated and somebody finally said "Just walk down there past the soldiers and they will stop" and it worked! Karnak had a massivly tall collinaded room all covered with heiroglithics and some paint on the upper capitals, we spent our final hours at the Luxor temple all dramatically lit up over the sunset going down over the Nile. which happened to be our 2-year anniversary. Coincidently, where 2 years before we were in Las Vegas and stayed at the Luxor Hotel. Being at the real thing made it even more special.

Took the overnight train to Cairo and arrived early in the morning to the smoggy filled madness of a modern arabic city.Fortunatly for us, there was a sane metro underground that we took to the vVindsor Hotel, that incidentally was the former Britsh Officers Club that has still retained a colonial era atmosphere about it. We were treating ourselves to the same place Michael Pailin had stayed in on his "Around the World in 80 Days" journey. Tired and all, we ran to the Indian consulate to get our visa to fly in 3 days. but, to our surprise, we couldn't get our visa for another 6 days later because of an Indian holiday! We begged and said we confirmed our flight reservation, but they have their procedures they had to follow, so the rest of the day was spent scurrying around to change our flight to a later day. so now we are flying to Bombay on October 3rd instead of New Delhi. We were glad we hadn't made an itinery for India yet. (so now maybe we head to southern India first!). We ended the long day with an anniversary italian meal at "Da Marios" in the Nile Hilton Hotel. (pasta seems more popular than "egyptian food").

The next morning, we had a classic english tea and toast breakfast complete with a snotty Brit loudly requesting "a bloody tea strainer" to the very confused egyptian staff! (most egyptian teas allow the leaves at the bottom, like a turkish coffee). Headed off to the Egyptian Museum with hords of tour bus-groups trying to get through the many armed guards who wanted to keep x-raying our cameras and confiscated my jacknife. after walking in circles finding tickets, camera check-ins and x-rays, we had entered the largest collection of ancient egyptian artifacts in the world besides the extensive Tutankamen collection. We saw royal mummys and a mummified dog and alligator greco-roman mummy-case portraits made of pigments of paint and wax. huge stone statues and pretty much anything else related to royal and common life in ancient times.

The next day we made our first "attempt" to go over to the pyramids in Giza. we shared a taxi with this German couple and had a very happy driver who kept on telling us his wife was "going to have a baby". he said this was why were getting a "deal". Alas we found ourselfs in the shadow of the great pyramid of Khufu, but not without our driver stopping at his "brothers" papyrus factory were we had to sit through a demostration of papyrus making and then the obligatory tea, as we just sat and stared looking at our watches and explaining that the pyramids were about to close our taxi driver finally dropped us off at the Sphinx entrance and we sudenlly found out that we only had about an hour to go through the site as the armed guards Joked with us to "yalla. yalla" get going, we knew we would have to make another trip back before we left Egypt. We met up with a friend of a friend and had breakfast together which was great to get the inside on expat-life in Cairo.

We decided to head out into the western oasis town of Bahayria, where we knew we could take a short desert trek and escape the chaos of Cairo for the weekend. We took the afternoon bus out and watched spectacular sunsets through the windows of this bumpy locker room smelling bus, complete with the old man and his wife vomiting next to us. When we arrived we were swarmed with touts but we had already decided on going out to "Ahmed's Safari Camp'', out there we ran into 2 other Americans from California ("where are all the Americans" was a frequent response we heard). We spent the next night under the stars of the White desert listening to our Bedoiun guide's political and social commentaries, smoking sheesha, and drinking tea and eating pita. the landscape was extremely remote and we had a flat tire on the way out. Comming back we ran out of gas near the Safari Camp but still got the afternoon bus back to Cairo. This bus also "brokedown" as we immediatly had a flat tire and battery problems all to the curioisty of the locals who came out to watch.

Back in Cairo we tried to send a package of our nick nacks and had an interesting experience doing this. One has to go to all these "special rooms" where lots of people who are just sitting around drinking tea have to approve your customs forms, stamp them and then send you to another unmarked room where this one guy opened up my CD I bought, popped it into the CD tray and played it all while listening to my Turkish cassettes on a warbly cassette deck!. We guessed that he was trying to see if they were counterfiets!, later after paying the packing guy to tape up our box. it's weighed and sent. took about an hour and a half, I think we are getting better at this shipping thing now!

We headed back over to the pyramids for one more attempt and this time we were able to get into the great pyramid of Khufu and clambor up into the hidden chambers later we took a horseback ride out past the pyramids into the desert after the sunset and had fantastic views trotting through the sand. as the light show was warming up, I guess I needed my final pyramid fix.