An open memo to all Egyptian Store Owners

To: Egyptian Store Owners (and Camel Owners as well)

From: The Western World

Subject: Stop Harassing Us!!!

Seriously, we appreciate it that you let us know everything that you have in your shop. It makes the shopping a lot easier for us. And we do appreciate it that you all are friendly enough to strike up a conversation. But seriously guys......the Used Car Salesman thing doesn't work! The constant hawking gets a little old and quite frankly, you're losing money by harassing us the way you love to do. We know you see us coming. We see you lining up in the streets with that greedy look in your eyes, the kind of look that's lit up by the green of your money. But if you seriously want our business, I'd suggest the following:

a) Back up and let us look in peace. If we have a question, we'll find you.
b) Don't tell us everything that you have in your shop. Looking is half the fun.
c) Drop the used car salesman talk. "How can I get you to spend your money" is never a good opening line.
d) For you camel owners, if we didn't want a camel 5 feet ago, do you really think we want one now?
e) Seriously, we know you have a camel after the first time you ask, after the 5th time, it gets annoying.

Follow these rules and you might get more business from us westerners instead of the bad looks that we give you.

Until the next time I'm in Egypt.......

Love, peace, and soul.

Egyptian Blunders '07!

Okay, confession time. I'm an idiot. While sitting on the roof of the Hotel Odeon with Bones smoking our last shisha and having a beer last night, I accidentally reformatted my memory card and lost all of our Egypt pictures! DOH!

Yeah, I know, I'm pretty upset about it as well. Bones took it a lot better than I did though. Fortunately for us, not all was lost as we made a DVD of our pictures in Aswan. So, we still have all of the pictures up until Aswan. And looking back, we didn't take too many pictures the rest of the way. I've already contacted some of the other members of our tour to see if they can help me out. Hopefully, they'll come through in the clutch.

Egyptian Blunder #2- I seem to have left my jacket on the bus back from Mt. Sinai. Yet another reason why I wasn't all that enamored with Mt. Sinai. This is not good for a guy traveling to the Southern Hemisphere during winter. The weather is going to be chilly enough to where I'm going to need a jacket, which is a welcome change from the Egyptian heat, but not for a man without a jacket. So, looks like I'll be spending time looking for a jacket when I arrive in Johannesburg.

At this point, I'm just trying to make it out of Egypt before committing any more blunders.

Until then......

Love, peace, and soul.

The Master and his pupils

After a morning dive for me and a morning bicycle ride for Bones, we made our way to Omar's Shisha shop. Omar is, for those not in the know, "The Master of Shisha." He's for real and he's on YouTube! Of all the shishas I've tried in Egypt, his are the best.

After smoking for a few days, I finally decided that I needed to go ahead and buy a shisha. When else am I going to have the opportunity to buy a working piece of art? So, Omar helped me pick out one and showed me how to clean it and take care of it. We sat down and smoked my shisha together. It was pretty awesome. Afterwords, he packed it up for me and Josh is going to take it home, where we can all enjoy the shisha together!

After hitting the shisha, we rested and then hit up some quad biking in the late afternoon. It was pretty amazing to go 4 wheeling in the desert mountains and then down by the water. What an awesome experience!

Later in the evening, we went back to Omar's to hit the shisha again and just to chat with Omar. For a man of only 31 years, he seems so much wiser. There's simplicity in his thinking, but in simplicity, there is clarity. With clarity......peace and happiness. Truly a happy, wise, and peaceful man. Can't you just tell by his picture?

Until later.

Love, peace, and soul.

Mt. Sinai.......definitely an experience

Okay, so, excuse me if this is just a bit blasphemous, but I was a bit turned off on the whole climbing Mt. Sinai experience. I know, I know, Moses wouldn't be proud, but Moses didn't have to deal with "Camels! Camels! You want Camels?!" or "Camel coming!" or "Turn off light, Camels can't see!" or "Do you mind move to take picture" (in Korean/English). Seriously, how many camels can fit on the side of Mt. Sinai? The answer......250!

Josh and his buddies flew up the mountain on the 3000 "Steps of Repentance" and didn't have to deal with any of the camels at all, they just had to keep up with their Bedouin guide who practically ran up the mountain with no water and no flashlight. He must have been part mountain goat!

The sunrise in and of itself was amazing to watch. From darkness, we saw the mountains and valleys turn from black, to dark blues and black, then to slowly some orange began to fill the sky until bright yellow filled us all with warmth.

The way down we all took the "Steps of Repentance" and it was even more strenuous going down than it was going up. No wonder Moses dropped those other 5 commandments!

Until later.......

Love, peace, and soul.

Dive Bones Dive!

For a minute, I thought he wasn't going to do it. I wasn't going to press, but if he was truly having problems breathing, then he shouldn't do it. Then, our instructor said we were going to go for a short dive at water level and see how it works out. We both put our masks in the water and Josh was doing alright. I must admit, the first time I went down I had a tough time breathing myself, but then I turned to my left and saw the deep blue and then the fish......and then the colors. It calmed me down a lot. While doing the short swim, our instructor did the best thing possible.......he let us continue down towards the reef. The colors became even more brilliant and drew us nearer and nearer. We were under water and diving in the Red Sea. It was truly amazing. After it was all over, Josh told me that he said he was going to just throw himself into it and see what happened. I was glad he didn't let his fears get in the way as we both had an amazing time.

Our afternoon was spent snorkeling around the Blue Hole, just north of Dahab. Amazing corals and amazing colors! Unfortunately, the end of my snorkeling experience was ruined by the groups of Brits, Italians, and who knows STANDING ON THE CORAL! I kept telling them to get off it because it's a living thing, but they just thought they were rocks. I wish that someone was there to help protect the coral reef, but even the locals didn't really care that much. Once again......so beautiful, yet so sad. It seems to be a running theme in Egypt.

Until later........

Love, peace, and soul.

Ahhhhh, Dahab!

After checking out the Temples of Kom-Ombo, Edfu, Luxor, and Karnak, as well as checking out the Valley of the Kings & Workers, it's safe to say that Josh and I are pretty templed out. We caught the convoy from Luxor to Hurghada and then the ferry from Hurghada to Sharm el-Sheik this morning. A quick one hour climb along the coast and we have arrived at Dahab, on the Gulf of Aqaba. From the roof of our two story hotel, we can see the coast of Saudi Arabia as it's only 17 miles.

What used to be a true backpackers village, has now grown to a small little town with some nice restaurants just off the beach and reef, the mandatory shops (along with the requisite hagglers), and a few straggling loafers who need to undo the dreads and wash their hair! Seriously, who thinks......"yeah, I'd look good in dreads and not washing my hair for like 5 months." Anyway, that's a whole other blog entry in and of itself.

We've got big time plans for this small little town. Tonight we're headed to climb Mt. Sinai in time for sunrise. Josh is taking the......uh.......strenuous/insane way of over 4000 stone steps/boulders, mind you in the dark. While I'm taking the more relaxed way of the camel trails (sans camels). Should be a fun experience and we're bound to get haggled all the way up the camel trails by people wanting us to buy their things. And of course, they'll be looking to prey on the people making religious pilgrimages.

On Thursday morning, Josh and I are heading to do some diving off the coast of Dahab. The coral is not very far off the water's edge and the water is supposed to be really clear. I didn't think that Josh was going to do it, and I'm still a bit doubtful, but after some financial backing (from an unemployed guy, no less) he's going to do it. We'll see if he follows up on it......

Until then.

Love, peace, and soul.

Feluccas!

Let me just tell you that the only way to travel down the Nile is in a felucca! As I've just spent two days watching the 'posh' travelers sit in their Nile cruise boats, I can tell you that they missed out on all that the Nile has to offer. A felucca is sail boat used by the Egyptians to travel up and down the Nile. When the winds are too strong you just let the current take you down the river. Josh and I just spent two lovely days traveling down the the Nile from Aswan to just north of Luxor. It was indeed the best way to travel as you have absolutely nothing to do but relax, rest, sleep, read, play cards or converse. When you get hot.......you just jump in the Nile to cool down. When you need to stop, you just pull over and stop. It truly was the best way to slow down after a couple of hectic days seeing the temples of Abu Simbel and Philae.

We are in Luxor for the next couple of days and should have updates on the Luxor Temple, Karnak Temple and the Valley of the Kings and the West Bank of the Nile.

The one thing that Josh and I have noticed is that the lifestyle really caters to the heat. Most shops shut down for several hours during the middle of the day, only to stay open late into the night to avoid the heat. Kind of like the Mexican culture of taking siestas....we've gotten used to our middle of the day naps!

Until later......

Love, peace, and soul.

So beautiful, yet so sad

We went to check out Abu Simbel this morning. The temples are down near the Sudan border and so we were up early to reach them and stay out of the heat. Josh saw an amazing sunrise over the desert, while I slept. Abu Simbel was beautiful.....google it and you'll see the pictures.

While we've been truly amazed at everything that we've seen, but it's kind of sad in a way. The Egyptian people haven't really given much thought to their actions and what will happen down the road. For instance, they built a high damn at Aswan and a low damn at Aswan to harvest the power from the Nile and build a hydro electric power facility, but in turn flooded a bunch of villages and ancient temples, one of which was Abu Simbel. So, they have power, but no preservation of ancient human kind history. It's just sad to think that they've had to move and rebuild these ancient temples because they didn't do the proper planning in the first place.

Josh and I swam in the Nile last night......freaking cold! When we dove in from the top of our boat it was like hitting an ice wall. Still, pretty neat. The water upstream is pretty clean and we decided to take a dip before having dinner in a Nubian village.

We'll be on the felucca for a few days, so the next post may be a while. Until then.......

Love, peace, and soul.

WOW! Just WOW!

After spending the morning in the Egyptian Museum and seeing all of the mummies and artifacts, we stopped off at a place that specialized in essential oils. Neat process and while giving the explanation, we got a free lunch. But of course, nothing is truly free, as there was shopping to be done by the tour group.

Soon we were off to the Giza Plateau and to see the Great Pyramids. Absolutely amazing! We got lots of pictures and as soon as I can load them up, I will. We saw the Great Pyramid, the smaller pyramids and the Sphinx, but for Josh and I the highlight of the trip was either the camel ride or the journey to the deep dark depths of the second pyramid. The journey was long, small, and hot, but well worth it to see the inside of the burial chamber!

We're off to Aswan tonight and to explore Upper Egypt and all it's wonders......and of course, the HEAT!!

Until later.....

Love, peace, and soul.

Egyptian Birdie Club

It was a hot morning in Giza, but luckily Bones and I were drinking plenty of water. Our caddies, Sayed and Alli, were keeping watchful eye over our errant shots, few as they were. The rental clubs were awkward, but it didn't matter, as everytime time we looked up, we could see the great pyramid of Giza! Under such conditions, Josh and I battled it out through 18 holes of pure heat. I was founder of the Egyptian Birdie club at #6 and ended my day with my second birdie of the day to shoot 74 (par 68). Alas, Josh shot 72 and while he was separated by only two strokes, there was not much else to separate us this morning.

The afternoon was spend with Faraq, our crazy and exuberant cab driver, who took us to Saqqara to see the step pyramid. Faraq was very funny and sang to us in the car. He also drove like a maniac, but I think that's just normal for the cab drivers here in Cairo. He was very gracious and quite the funny man. He would flirt with women at dangerously high speeds and swerve to scare little kids in the streets. In all, I can say that spending time with him, was an experience in and of itself.

We met the tour members today and they seem like a nice bunch. We are the only U.S. Citizens and surrounded by kiwis, brits, and aussies. Should be a fun drinking crowd! Josh and I tried our first sheesas, or water pipes, and I think it's fair to say that Josh is hooked. Apparently there's a guy in Dahab who has apple mint tabacco. Can't wait to get a puff.....that is, if Josh will let me. Apparently, he's never heard of "puff, puff, pass!"

Until later......

Love, peace, and soul.

Constant Stares....and requests

The one thing that Josh and I have noticed is the constant stares that we get. There are very few, if any other, white tourists and they all tend to be from Europe or Australia. The kids in the street always want to talk to us and practice their English. We try to oblige as much as possible, but can't help but think that there's inevitably going to be the question of money. Almost every cab that rolls by us honks his horn as if to ask if we need a cab and we get hawked constantly to stop in shops. In short, we are just one big money bag to a lot of these people!

We're in Alexandria today to see some Museums, see some Roman catacombs and to chill out on the beach. If they stared at us with our clothes on, I can't imgaine the attention when Josh takes off his shirt and shows his whiteness!!! YIKES!!

Unitl later....

Love, peace, and soul.

NYC ain't got nothing on Cairo!!!

I'm gonna tell you that I thought my first night in Cairo would be my last night in Cairo! As we cleared the airport, we found our guide to take us back to the hostel and after waiting and waiting and waiting for his guy to come pick us up, we finally just all jumped into a cab to the hostel. Josh and I sat in the back seat in amazement as the taxicab driver literally dodged traffic and got so close to tour vans that we could reach out andtouch them! It was hands down the scariest, most thrilling cab ride I've ever had in my life! The guy would get to situations where you were sure he was going to slow down, but no, he would speed up and dart in and out of traffic. Seriously, the lanes had no purpose whatsoever!

First night in Cairo was fun as we tried to find a bar, but then found it to be closed for the night. Then we went to another bar at the top of a hotel and had a few beers while overlooking the Cairo skyline. Pretty damn awesome!

Until Later.....

Love, peace, and soul.

It's Egypt Day! It's Egypt Day!

The excitement has finally kicked in! Like a 6 year old eagerly waiting to come down stairs to open up his presents that Santa left him.....I woke up at 6am and was wide awake. It's here and it's finally going to happen. In a few hours, Josh and I will board a plane and head to Frankfurt and then on to Cairo. After almost 2 years of saving, getting multiple vaccinations, visa applications, reading like a fiend and surfing people's travel blogs.....I hope I'm semi-prepared for what life throws me?

In a couple of hours.....I'll find out.

Until then.....

Love, peace, and soul.

Mixed Emotions

As I sit here and type a my dad's computer, I can't help but have a few mixed emotions about my upcoming trip. Everyone's always asking me if I'm excited and I am, but I've been so busy trying to make sure I have everything that it's tough for me to sit back and be outwardly excited. I'm sure on the plane ride tomorrow afternoon it will hit me and I'll be so excited that I can't sleep on the way to Frankfurt. Still with all the excitement, I can't help but feel a bit of sadness for leaving the people that mean so much to me. This type of trip is one of those things that you're just never quite sure what will happen to you and I just hope and pray that nothing but good things will happen to me and that I will come back to the ones I love. There are just so many thoughts swirling through my mind that it's tough to find the words to express them.

Until next time......

Love, peace, and soul.