From Egypt, December 9, 2008
(The post below is from a group email I sent to my friends and family while traveling years ago. I include it in this blog as an archive to my travels. It remains in the the raw state that I originally sent it, foolishness of younger years intact, typos and sics untouched.)
We arrived in Alexandria today after an overnight train ride and a 3 hour bus journey. Vin and others were up until 3am playing "Oh Hell", but Wendy and I were more sensible and got a good amount of sleep in. Wendy's been good, but just started spewing from both ends this afternoon and is now resting. I think she's a bit overwhelmed at this point but I figure a few days in the desert will rebalance her.
Tomorrow morning we head out for the western desert, a part of Egypt that despite its extreme isolation, has had human history for 5,000 years in its trade routes and oases. The coming days will bring Celopatra's Bath, true oases, exotic fruits like dates and figs, and a night of camping in the White Desert. It also means a lot of sand, and driving...
We've just come from Luxor and Aswan where we saw many of the big sights of ancient world. It has been intriguing to see in person these monuments to time, history, engineering, civic solidarity, etc etc that I had once studied in school.
To compliment this we spent 2 nights on a felucca on the Nile. These simple, flat decked sailboats have huge triangular sails set at a strange angle that help them to tack their way back and forth down the Nile. We spent the days cruising and taking in the sights of the shore and the nights banging drums and dancing around a campfire. Really don't know how I'm gonna go back to work!
Is also been interesting because today is Eid, a big holiday in the muslim world that is similar in concept to Thanksgiving and close in popularity to Xmas. The shops are mostly closed, but everyone is out in their finest clothes and the kids have been approaching us non-stop to practice their English and have a laugh (so much so that we've retreated to the balconies of our hotel rooms that face the open Mediterreanian Sea). We've also seen several animals being slaughtered right on the sidewalk with blood running down the streets to the gutters! Quite fascnating all this, and we're not sure what to expect when the night comes.
