EGYPT

CAIRO, EGYPT - Greetings from the Nile Valley! I'm writing here from the hostel on the 10th floor over the Egyptian Museum, overlooking the longest river in the world and the Cairo Tower, among an obelisk and other monuments. It's 8pm and 75F... beautiful!

Not much time, but in short... our flight was delayed 5 hours, due to the plane we were using hitting a bunch of birds when landing at Heathrow before taking us on. Some of the birds went into an engine, so they had to do a thorough inspection and apparently that takes 3-4 hours, then to load up our luggage and board, etc... it ended up being 5. BUT, the flight itself was good - BMI has a good in-flight entertainment system, and I had a delicious spinich casserole for dinner. We ended up landing around 830pm last night, but the driver had my flight information and was standing right there. The airport was also REALLY nice - like, possibly the nicest airport I have seen in my life, totally spotless.

The drive into the city was crazy... traffic was insane, even at 9-10pm, and there are ZERO stoplights, stopsigns, lane deliniations... nothing. It reminds me of Mexico but at least three times as bad.

The building the hostel is in is garbage, but the hostel itself is VERY nice. It is only 2 years old and everything is spotless and new, and best of all, the people are very friendly and have been very helpful. We are also in a great location, and the view, as described, is wonderful!

Last night after a traditional Egyptian tea welcome, I slept pretty well... though the 5am call to prayer wakeup wasn't so much fun. Oh well! Reminds me of Jerusalem.

Today was a fun day... after our bread and hard-broiled egg breakfast, we headed out with our driver to the Giza Pyramids, then the Sakkara Necropolis (featuring the Step Pyramid), and the Dashur Necropolis (featuring the Red Pyramid and the Step Pyramid). After that we saw historical Memphis (the original capital of the Egyptian world), with a MASSIVE statue of Ramses and the second-biggest sphinx in Egypt (after the one at Giza). We saw many mummies, all kinds of hieroglyphics, tombs, went inside pyramids, hiked halfway up other pyramids, and spent a lot of time in the Sahara desert under the sun! From the pyramid complexes, which are all in the Sahara west of the Nile Valley, you can see clear across the green valley to the East Desert on the other side. To our west, the Sahara extends all the way to the Atlantic Ocean (as the largest desert in the world). To our east, the desert extends to the Red Sea and Sinai Peninsula, ultimately into the Negev in southern Israel.

After all our pyramids (and a 5 min stop at a random falafel stand where we got DELICIOUS hummos for the equivalent of about 40 cents), we headed back into town, and then this evening walked across the Nile from the hostel, had dinner on a river boat (halal chicken sandwich = wonderful), then walked back across the river on another bridge, and here I am!

Tomorrow we are off to the Egyptian Museum, Coptic Cairo, and Islamic Cairo, and then Thursday is Alexandria on the Mediterranean!

That is all for now - more stories and pictures later this week or this weekend.

Have a good week everybody!