Ana_Ethiopia (Day 1-6)

June 7 – June 20
Amazing place! I’m behind with the blogging since internet sucked in Ethiopia. Now we’re in Tanzania and finally I have access to a decent internet connection. By I don’t feel like writing. Tim is next to me typing away and he told me to just write.
So here we go…

Ethiopia was a wonderful experience. It started out really sucky. We arrived at 3am with no reservations. We thought of waiting at the airport for sunrise but instead we took a taxi that ripped us off and took us to an expensive hotel for our budget. He first took us to the hostel we had in mind but when we knocked on the door the guard told Tim it was full. Then the meannie taxi driver said it was not a safe area and we should go to Yordanno’s at this time we agreed since it was late at night and we didn’t know of other options. Then he wanted to charge us 60 Birr more to takes us down the street. But of course since we didn’t how far things where we had no choice. We ended paying up like $15 USD for a 20 minute ride all together. And then he had the decency to ask for more. I was so upset. It’s the principle! Just because we’re tourist he was charging like 4 times the actual price we later found out. The hotel ending costing $37 USD. I know American prices it’s really cheap but for our travels we can get way cheaper. Oh well it was one night!

Next morning I woke up still upset from the taxi driver taking advantage of us. I called the hostel we wanted to go and they had rooms available. We switch immediately price this time it was 1USD for both us. That’s more our price. Still it was more expensive than in Egypt.

Then next fun part was trying to figure out what to do. We only had time to do either the north part or the south. Everywhere we go usually the first two days is figuring out all the details – getting money, what to do, how much it’s going to cost and all that good stuff. We asked in the reception area and they were recommending doing the south part since its more cultural stuff and we’ll be able to see more tribes. They said it would cost us $120 USD a day just to pay for the 4WD. We wanted to ask other travelers to see what they were doing. Luckily we found Nirr and Santi who were planning to do a trip down south the next day. After talking for a while Nir invited us to go with them. The price was $90USD with another company split between the four of us. We went for it. It sounded really cool and they seemed really nice.

Now taking money was a nightmare. MISSION IMPOSSIBLE!!!! No ATM machines only one that takes VISA only, and of course we have a MASTERCARD. We were able to pull out a cash advance and cash almost all of our travelers check. I’m kicking myself for not bringing more travelers checks. I hate to admit Tim told me so. He was right, for once! Hahahaha…

Anyhow we managed to get money and off we were to the south.

Day 1 (June 8)
Headed south to Omo Valley
We took off to the south at 7am. The driver, Bahilu, coolest guy ever, took us to the supermarket to buy some water and any other snacks for the trip. At this time I was still nervous about the trip. Not knowing what to expect about anything the group and what were going to see. We had the itinerary but that was it. I didn’t read much about the area I knew we were going to see three tribes Hamar, Erbore and Mursi.

The drive was beautiful. Amazing landscape – lush desert, beautiful trees, people walking on the streets. Nothing like I had in mind. I thought I’d see starving kids everywhere in pure desert. It was much greener and unique scenery, tons of farmland. People along the way would wave good bye with a huge smile. The kids specially had a marvelous glow to to their greeting, so genuine. I loved it!

I was surprised to see so many people walking carrying stuff on their backs, especially women. We passed so many little towns. Saw tons of cows and goats. I mean tons. Our first stop was at a market it wasn’t in our itinerary but Bahilu asked us if we wanted to see it for few minutes. Here in the smaller towns they have one big market day when people from nearby villages gather at one place to sell all sorts of stuffs from food, cattle, spices and even clothing. We got out of the Land Cruiser and it was like being in the movies. It seemed fake. A different world completely – tents everywhere, donkeys, fruits, spices, clothing and people everywhere. We stood out like crazy. The only faranji’s insight. They call all foreigners faranji. As we walked around we had an entourage behind us. People were just curious to see us, specially the kids. Some knew enough English to say things like “hello” “where from you” or “what’s your name.” Great experience! A lot of the locals would look at us and just laugh. Not a mean laugh, more of a curious, your different type of laugh.

We drove like for 10 hours. I was happy to arrive in Arba Minch. The hostel we stayed at was decent. The bathrooms here are not my cup of tea, hole on the ground. Along the way I had to pee like the boys on the side of the road. A lot of times I had Tim come with me and just guard the area. For the guys it was so easy just whip it out facing a bush and done. I preferred peeing behind a bush than in some of the whole toilets. NASTY and SMELLY! Sometimes I had to hold my breath since it was so stinky.

It’s part of the fun. =)

Day 2 (June 9)
Our first national park in Ethiopia. Bumpy roads but beautiful landscape, green and vibrant. The first thing we saw was baboon monkeys along the dirt roads, just hanging out. They were cool looking some had really red butts. Cool little guys. We kept driving for like an hour before we saw beautiful zebras. It was so peaceful to see them in the middle of the road so close to us. They’d starred at us and slowly run away. It’s funny to know they’re scare of us. We manage to take some really cool shots. I wanted to stay there and just starred at them. We did see some other animals not sure their names. But the seen the zebra’s was the highlight of the park.
In the afternoon we went to the lake at the same park to look for HUGE crocodiles. I mean 6 meters longs. And look for hippos. Good thing the boat was bigger than I thought. I kept thinking it was going to be like in Bolivia a long, 10 inch above the water canoe. Not the case. It was bigger and made out of metal. Along the way we saw some beautiful birds. Seeing the hippos was INCREDIBLE. It was the first time for me to see them in the wild. It was really need to see their head peeking out of the water. They’ve tiny ears compare to their big mouth. It was also cool to hear them breathing. They’re really loud. We saw a whole bunch, at one point I counted like 30 hippos. Some were playing with each other, others just bathing. AMAZING!
As we turned to the corner to the crocodile market they called it. We saw a few crocodile just bathing on the shore. We kept getting closer and closer to the shore enough to scare them away. We saw one MASSIVE one rush to the water. We were all in awe. It looked fake. It was so HUGE. Tim was holding the camera and just heard him say “Holly shit.” I second that. I didn’t think the existed that big. I mean it was like 18 ft. long. It felt awesome and scary to be in the water with them. Around the boat I counted like 20 crocodiles. Quite an adventure!

The day ended having authentic Ethiopian food. Not my favorite so far. The main dish consists of a huge pancake-crepe like bread (injera) with some sort of meat in the middle. You eat with your hands. The meat is usually goat meat, not bad. It tastes like regular cow meat. All the food is spicy. It’s not Mexican spicy, it’s stronger I think. A lot of times I’d feel the food slowly burning my stomach, it doesn’t burn you mouth. I felt spiciness when I swallowed it. I had to get use to it, otherwise I’d starve. Good thing the bread was really good and I lot of times I’d meat with bread not injera. The few things I learned how to say in Amharic, one of their official languages – dabbo: bread. Very important word to know. Most of the time it wasn’t a problem ordering since we had Bahilu at our side or the waiter knew enough English to order food. =)

Day 3 (June 10)
I had yummy, fresh mango juice for breakfast. By the way I really enjoyed having access to so much mango and banana. At least I had a break from the spiciness and it was really cheap. A juice cost like $.50 cents.

The boys went to the crocodile farm near inside the same park we saw the zebras and crocodiles. I didn’t care to see it. I saw enough crocodile in the wild. I stayed outside reading the guide book.

On our way out of the Arba Minch we saw more baboons. This time we fed them some peanuts we had bought for snacks. They loved it! Of course we didn’t get off the car. There was one male dominating the area. He wouldn’t let the other come near the car. Too cute!

We drove for around 2 hours until the next city, Konso. On the way we saw a lot of kids dancing for an empty water bottle. They kept shouting highland, highland and some ran after the car. Bahilu explained they get .75 cents of 1 Birr for each empty bottle, a good incentive for recycling. Too cute! I didn’t get tire of looking outside the window. The between the scenery and people watching I was in awe pretty much the entire ride. But here and there I’d fall asleep. I napped a lot. The boys would laugh at me.

The people I found really beautiful both men and women. Some are really tall and slender with very refine features. The color of the skin is beautiful just like honey-brown. The eyes so expressive, long eyelashes with almond eyes. Some had a special glow. Can’t explain it but when I looked at them it seemed that they talked to me without saying a word. I genuinely felt some just wanted to say hello with no strings attached. A lot of times they’d ask for a pen or the girls would ask for my shirt. Just driving down the rode was quite an adventure.
It would touch my heart to see a lot of the women carry lots of firewood on their backs. I went back and forth on feeling bad. I know that’s just what they do, but it makes me sad to see them work so hard and here I was riding in a car, no hassle. In a lot of the villages and tribes in Ethiopia the woman does most of the housework, while the husband drink tedj (honey wine) or the local beer. Also really young kids carrying stuff on their backs. When we made a pit stopped we saw a brother and a sister walking carrying sorghum stocks (which is like their flour). They stopped to talked to us, well ask for money and the older kid no more than 10 years old, wanted a pen. I managed to find one. That was also the hardest thing for me. I wanted to give to everyone who asked for stuff. But I know I can. The cute young girl couldn’t be more than 6 years old. Her feet look worn and she had little muscles. They said they’ve been walking for an hour. They look in her face said so much. She looked old and tired. I gave her a pack of cookies. I couldn’t believe how far she had walk. Bahilu said it’s normal for village people to walk for hours. Usually they have farms far away from their villages. The roads looked desolate, fields on the left and fields on the right, and people along the way all the time. Even at night time. Beautiful country side!

Before arriving to the next town, Turmi we ran into a minor problem, the guards didn’t want let us through. He said we needed special permission to go through. Technically we didn’t, with the visa is enough. But of course he wanted money. Bahiru spend like an hour discussing with the guard which had a gun hanging of his shoulder, which was a bit scary for me. Bahiru was not communicating to us what he wanted. I figured he wanted mula. Then we saw the guard getting on the car with us and Bahiru drove to the nearby “police station” to speak with the chief. It didn’t work. After shouting for a little bit. Bahiru got on the car and off we went. He didn’t tell us much just that we were going back to Konso, 62 km away about 2 hours driving. He said he wanted 400 Birr which about $50 USD. Not much, but you can tell it was the principle for him. He couldn’t understand. He went through with no problem just two weeks before with another group.

Interesting! While we waited for him to discuss with the chief, the locals kept starring at us. Of course we had people come near the windows to talk with us. I some times would not know where to look. It was interesting all around. What caught my attention this time it was this old man sticking his tongue at us, very funny expression. He kept making and upward movement with his tongue. Tim and I couldn’t help but laugh. What a character and to top it off he had an army had. Weird!
We finally made it back to Konso. What a day!

Oh yeah, can forget in the hostel seemed we either had water or electricity not both at once. But for the most part it was OK! We managed to shower pretty much every day and had electricity for longer hours thanks to the World Cup. Surprisingly in every little town you can see the games.


Day 4 (June 11)
We stayed at the hotel having breakfast while Bahilu went to get “the special paper” saying we can go through. He said there was a tourism office in the town, but it was Sunday so it was close. He managed to find the person in charge. In the meantime I fell in love with 10 year old Uri. He kept starring at me and smiling. He just sat there while I had breakfast. Every time I’d made eye contact he’d giggle, so innocently. I had my picture taken with him, another angel I meet. What a surprise! It’s not hard for me to find kids adorable and in Ethiopia especially.
Two hours passed and we finally got the special paper. It took another two hours to reach the point where the guard was. This time had nothing to say. He looked at the papers and immediately let us through. He had a big frown on his face. He was not a happy camper. Bahilu said he couldn’t believe we drove back to get the paper. He was expecting the money. I don’t think so BUDDY!

We stopped for lunch at place next to the police station we stopped the day before. For lunch we had rice and vegetables, a special order. Tim asked and they made especially for us. Santi had rice too. I was getting tired of goat meat with bread. It was yummy! The best meal I had in Ethiopia. I’m hungry just thinking about. =)
After lunch we had the privilege to see the first tribe, Erbore. We were told they expect faranji’s to pay “1 Birr” per photo. When we arrived they all came out to the car. Good thing it was a small village. Just looking at them was amazing, so different from us. The women topless with colorful necklaces, no shoes. The old ladies had really saggy boobs I mean really saggy boobs and wrinkly. The kids with wraps as skirts and some had cute helmets on. We had to pay and entrance fee to the chief guy of the village to walk around. So cool to be in another person’s world. They live in huts and pretty much have no furniture. Everything they have the make with nature stuff, very basic. We got invited to one of the huts to see where they sleep. I kept starring everywhere, couldn’t help to be distracted by them saying –photo, photo, photo. Tim kept asking which photo I wanted. I wanted to take photos with everyone. The smell of them was quite peculiar. They smell dusty. It wasn’t a BO smell just dusty. Can’t explain it! The amusement was mutual they’d look as us as if we were from another planet. I had a lady just touch my boobs and then laugh. I guess I wear a bra and they don’t. I had few kids just poke my veiny hands and squeeze my finger nails and see it change colors. I know we were entertainment for them as well. They even got scared to see the flash of the camera go off. Not use to that. We’d show the picture of them after taken it and they’d find that funny to see themselves I mean they don’t even have mirrors. How crazy is that. It hard to imagine people still live so primitive, with the basic and they’re happy. They just know the can make a little more cash when they’re visited by faranji’s. It would crack me up when they’d repeat what you tell them. NO PHOTO and they’ll repeat NO PHOTO.

The man who invited to see his hut was negotiating with Tim for me to stay with him. He kept making hand gestures that Tim would leave but I’d stay with him. I didn’t have slightest idea what was going on until Nirr, mention “hey, I think you’re up for sale.” Pretty funny!

Not sure how long we were there, but long enough to get tired of them asking for a photo. They’re cute and everything but you can’t take a photo of everyone. Also some of the ladies wanted my shirt. They wanted to literally take it off and give to them. I had to say nicely NO to them. It’s amazing how I was communicating with them just with hand gestures. They didn’t know English other than “photo, photo.” WOW! The best experience I’ve had with people in a while. It was so hard for me to digest everything at once. We all got back in the car and said that was a neat experience.
We made it to Turmi right before sunset. I took the coldest and smelliest shower yet. It was a common shower in front of the whole-in-the-ground toilet. I literally had to hold my breath while taking a shower. Good stuff! On my way had there was a group of local ladies just hanging out, one of them wanted my skirt. She pointed at my skirt and asked me with hand gestures if I had another one. I literally felt like giving it to her, but the other ladies wanted it too. Good thing I got distracted but the cutest toddler who just grabbed my hand and starting walking with me.
That night we managed to get rice with goat meat. Yummy stuff! Of course it took forever. Didn’t care!

Before going to sleep I took another shower with repellent. The mosquitoes were out of control. I kept thinking I hope is not the malaria mosquito.


Day 5 (June 12)
We drove 2 hours south from Turmi to see another tribe, Hamar. This tribe is known for the embellished use of jewelry and the ladies put mud on their braided hair. When we got there it was more expensive than expected, but not bad. It’s funny how you adapt to the local currency so fast and learn what’s expensive for that place. We had to pay a separate fee to be allowed in the town another fee for the boat made out of a big log, another for the guide that had to come with us and separate fee to enter the actual village and finally any additional 1 birr for photos. What can you do, just pay.

Crossing the river was interesting. This log seemed that it was going to tip over any minute. Good thing it was hallow but we couldn’t sit down since the bottom was dirty. I’d never forget the two kids that took off their raggedy clothes and cover the privates to swim across the river with us. They accompanied our guide. Good thing it was a short right to the other side.

When we got off had to go up this muddy hill, right away some of the Hamar people started approaching us as we walked closer to them. This village was huge compare to the Erbore tribe, it was like a city of Hamar people. The kids looked really dirty with buggers stock to their noses. Some cute little girl was holding on to Santi’s hand. He was walking in front of me. Soon I had kids holding my hands too. I had a least three kids on each hand. The older kids were delegating which fingers the other kids can hold. Some would wipe their runny nose and then continue holding my hands. It did grose me out but I was trying just to be with them. Some were getting really annoying if you didn’t take their photo. I was getting claustrophobic at times. I had to stand on a ledge to get rid of some. It was hard to appreciate the village this time so much nagging. It was still cool to see. But I was not left alone one minute. As we left the village we had an entourage of Hamar kids. They’d not let us go without insisting for more photos, even if you already took their photo. I finally starting saying BIRR FINISHED! The two teenage girls I was walking with understood me and kept repeating BIRR FINISHED. It was tiresome to be with them, still amazing!

In this village some of the older ladies had some serious saggy boobs. They just looked beat up. The look on their faces was really intense. You can tell they’ve worked really hard. Tim has a picture of a few ladies. Again unbelievable experience!!!


Day 5 continued
Side note: I’m really behind catching up with the Ethiopia stuff. It took me like 15 minutes to catch up reading my notes. It sucks that we’re so behind with our blog. Enough complaining here we go with more of Ethiopia…

After the visit to the village we went back to Turmi for lunch. It was a nice break from the crowd. Lunch the usual goat meat with bread. I do have to say by this time I was just eating because I had to but I was sick of the same food, same taste.

We stopped at the Hamar market in the city of Turmi before leaving to Jinka. To this market all the Hamar locals come to trade goods. I mean the walk for hours to come to this market. They trade spices, milk, cotton and jewelry. It’s a market full of Hamar people only. Walking around I felt like not welcomed at all. Some wouldn’t even bother to look at us. I felt like we were intruding their business. We did buy some crafts. We had a teenage boy walk we us that spoke English. He said he is Hamar but you can tell is modern, he dressed with a tank top and had tennis shoes and jeans shorts on. He was nice enough to just walk around to tell us a little more about the culture. He did help us buy some crafts. One of the things we bought was a rolled cow skin necklace with metal and only the first wife gets to wear it along with two other metal necklaces. These looked heavy we only bought the first wife one. By the way you can tell it has been worn before it had that smell. The teenage guy about 17 years old also told us that it was a privilege to wear this necklace. He kept bugging me that I was lucky that I’ll get to wear it. I can’t remember his name, but he also pointed out the girl he liked. He said one day he’d hope to marry her in order to do so he has to give the dad like 40 cows and jumped 10 cows in a ceremony type thing. It’s a tradition for a guy to prove himself in front of the future father-in-law he is brave and strong enough to jump from the ground up to one cow and the in a continuous stride walk trough the top of 10 cows and from the last one jump down. If the guy fails he has to wait two years to try again. Poor guy!


We were at the market for like 40 minutes. Tim also but a wooden stick use for fighting, pretty neat!

Off we were to Jinka. We had some issues selecting a hotel. The first one Bahilu took us to we felt it was a bit pricy. But the end of the selection process we chose a different one but only 10 birr cheaper. Oh, well! One thing I’ve learned so far about this trip when they
tell you there is hot water there is 80 % chance is not true. I’m so use to cold showers. I don’t mind when is hot outside, but Ethiopia it has been pretty cool weather overall. The worst is when I have to wash my hair. I feel like I’m going to freeze. I just take a big breath and just soak myself. Part of the fun!!!!

That night we had some fresh mangos from the trees outside, so good. The mangos here are pretty small but still good. For dinner we had omelet with bread. Great diet I tell you.


Day 6 (June 13)
This day we woke up early to go see the Mursi. Finally! It seemed they’re the one of the most well-known tribes because of the clay disk the women wear on the bottom lips. The roads were pretty bad. Bahilu warned us it was going to be a bumpy ride. He said it took him one time 24 hrs to get through the park with another group. We were lucky it was not rainy season. He estimated it should only take like 3 hours there and 3 hours back. Along the way we picked up a guard with a gun to accompany us. I guess the Mursi have the reputation of getting aggressive and they too have guns. So the government requires having a guard with a group of faranji’s that visits them for the price 50 birr in addition to the park entrance and the village entrance. Money and more money!

The road was really bumpy, we were going real slowly. At times we had to reverse and try it again. Tim said I was definitely getting use to off-roading I wasn’t even scared. I even managed to get my daily nap. We made our usual pit stop. This time I had the best bush to hide. I remember it was around a curb and I could hide really well. I was to have some privacy. Not so bad after all. I felt like a pro. =)

Right before getting there Bahilu made a slight sharp turn that took us to some tall grass. He started driving along like nothing and then he said “Oh, shit” we had come to a big puddle and when he tried to go back the back tires got stuck. Him and the guard got off and started walking away from us. After like 15 minutes he came back with some logs. Him and the boys we trying to get the car unstock. At that point a stood outside and just let them try. I was just like the typical woman let the men do the work. I had the camera and was just taking pictures of the boys. Soon I hear voices and Bahilu said quickly “lock everything up, the Mursi are coming.” I saw two Mursi men approach us. The Mursi are known for stealing stuff, in the culture it’s OK to do so as long as you don’t get caught. So to be honest I was a little hesitant when the approached us. Tim whispered hold the camera tight. At the same time I was trying not to show I was scared or nervous. I was trying to act cool. But I know I have the biggest poker face every. I can’t hide my emotions very well. I tried! Anyhow, the two Mursi guys tried to help move the car with the other boys. I actually got a great video of them. I think by the time they were able to get the car out like 4 Mursi people were around the car. In the meantime I had another offer to leave Tim. One of the Mursi guys stood right in front of me. For a while he just starred at me. First he smiled, but then he was just looking at me, with a very intense look. Shortly after he pointed with his finger that I was to go with him away to his village. I nodded my head no that I was with Tim. So then he asked Tim the same thing. I Tim laughing said no too. This guy spoke no English so it was funny to do sign language with him. After my interaction with him a teenage Mursi girl approached me. She was just a curious cat. She looked at me and started talking in her language. I understood zippo! But she kept talking to me. Then she tried to grab the camera from my hands but I didn’t let her. I showed her the view through the view finder she wanted to take a photo and I let her do so without me letting go off the camera. Then she left me alone for few minutes, she came back for more. This time she was playing with my $3 dollar watch, which is falling apart but still works. She was very curious to see me, poor thing she kept talking to me but I didn’t understand.

Finally after like an hour the boys and the Mursi crew got the car out. We drove to the village which literally was around the corner. This village was rather small, Bahilu decided to stay there instead of going any further. I was glad. They didn’t seem that intimidating. I think mentally I was prepared specially Bahilu telling us they can get really aggressive with the tourist if you don’t take their picture. I also read in the guide book to always stay calm, be firm and be nice at all times. So I had that in mind walking around the village. They started coming out of their huts. Some of the ladies started to put the clay plates on, which was amazing to see. I was trying so hard not to starred, but I just was so curious to see how they did it. They cut their bottom lip, it looks like a circle and then they stretch it by putting small round things, at the end the end up with a clay disk some of them a size of a CD. Unbelievable! They do take it off to eat and stuff. The reason they do this is actually not clear. Some thing is for the woman to look ugly and no other men will look at them. We asked the driver and his theory is that the Mursi men actually find that attractive. Only a married woman wear this plate. I actually saw two old ladies that had their lip infected. They looked beat up, their whole body was wrinkly and their bottom lip look distorted. I was hard to walk around without having someone asking you to take their photo. My easy way out was that I didn’t have the camera. I’m glad Tim took the camera I didn’t have to worry about it. I was approach with one of the chief guys from the village, he just put his arm around my shoulder and said “photo” to Tim. Excellent business man! He wouldn’t let go. I told Tim just take a picture he had a gun plus his pit was smelling pretty bad. I couldn’t hold my breath any longer.

There was cute girl following me around. She kept saying playfully “PHOTO, PHOTO, PHOTO…” It’s funny they barely knew what they were saying. This group asked for 2 birr a photo. This girl kept grabbing my arm and repeating herself. She was being very cute about it I started being playful too. At the end I was making her laugh with my head and eye movements. She even was imitating what I was doing. Too cute! She kept coming back to me. I kept saying “no photo.” In one of those instances she just stood in front of me and freely poked my boob. Then she giggled! I think it was funny to see boobs covered up. Mind you she is like 15 years old. I guess it’s weird to see boobs covered up. She couldn’t stop laughing. What can I say my boobs entertain even the Mursi girls!

Tim here and there kept checking on me making sure I was staying calm with all the hassle for a photo. We even bought some clay plates to bring home. We bought like three. I still can believe they wear that. To have seen it in person was something else. Unreal! I look at the photos now and it seems fake.

We left after 40 minutes. Good thing it was a small village, it was really nice to see everyone and they were actually not that bad. Between the four us we were able to take almost everyone’s photo, so everyone made a little bit of cash off the faranji’s.

We drove back to Jinka. This time we didn’t get stuck. As we got in town it started raining. Lucky us it didn’t affect the driving. Driving through Mago Park was a

I was hoping for some lukewarm water, but no, cold it was. Oh well, I felt pretty dirty from the day. Afterwards we met with Santi, Nirr and Bahilu after a cold shower. Bahilu took us to a local place for some tedj(honey wine). When we got there the power went off. Fun! Another fact that seems to happen is either you have water or electricity hardly ever you have both at the same time.

The honey wine was a bit watery but definitely can taste the alcohol. Basically you pour some in a small jar and you pass it around, so everyone drinks from the same glass. We walked back to the hotel. Oh yeah, before doing so we stopped to have dinner again goat meat with dabbo. By this time Nirr said you guys don’t eat too much. Tim and I would always split a meal. I think one we were not that hungry and too we where not loving it. I kept feeding us multi-vitamins from back home.

That night we fell asleep around 10pm. =)

Tim & Ana_Egypt Pics.1

First night in Cairo. View from the lovely balcony.


Tim getting off from the camel, Mickey. Yikes!
Giza, Egypt.


Had the pyramids of Giza at our fingertips.
Giza, Egypt.


The famous sphinx guarding the biggest pyramid.
Giza, Egypt.


Tim puffin' on the sheesha with Asam to the right and Ahmed sitting across. Memphis, Egypt.


Us in front of the Queen Hathsomething in the Valley of the Kings.
Luxor, Egypt.


Some of the writing we saw at the Valley of the Kings. It even had some color. Luxor, Egypt.


Tim what are you doing? Luxor Temple.


Cool obelisk at the Karnak Temple in Luxor.


Ana with the cute kids at the internet cafe in Luxor. To her left is Ahmed, can't remember the other two kids name. Oops! Luxor, Egypt.


Yummy apricots in Luxor!


In front of Abul Simbel in Aswan.


Captian Ahmada,sailing down the Nile River. Aswan, Egypt.


The bread guy in Aswan. Tim told him Ana thought he was cute. He got all shy!

Tim_Day 138 - 149 (Egypt)

Day 138

We woke up after a restless nights sleep to get ready to head out for the airport. Both I and Ana have had a weird feeling in our guts about the next part of the trip. Africa is so different and potentially dangerous that it is a little scary. We've been fighting and agitating each other all week. That usually happens when we are both off. I tried to keep my distance and just let her be. That way we can avoid and conflicts. I think I'm starting to get this marriage thing down. Just stay away from your wife and there's no fighting. What a concept.

Anyway we got ready and packed our damn bags again. I say damn and not darn because darn just doesn't express how tired of packing my bag I truly am. I'm sure by the end of this trip it won't be damn but that "f-in" bag. Anyway I took the last shower I will enjoy for the next 5 months. I didn't have to wear my flip flops in it and the water was hot and plenty of it. Man it's really funny how much you can miss a simple nice everyday shower. Another thing I absorbed like the sun for the last time was order. Simple people all working together and thinking together in an orderly fashion. Man even that will dearly be missed. Ok enough with the goodbyes.

After one last American breakfast at Denny's we headed to the airport. Just our luck it was poring rain and tons of traffic. Stressful but we did make our flight on just on time. We got there just as the final passengers were getting loaded on the plane. Our first leg was to New York. There we had to run to get our bags then check them in at the other side of the airport. Again we were under the gun. We went through about 48 metal detectors. And just made it to our 777 flight to Cairo.

I could fill things starting to change at the ticket counter in NY. All the people checking on were wearing funny cloths that covered their heads and each of them was caring about 20 large bags a piece. A true sign of a third world country. Bags as high as the ceiling and only one guy checking them in.

One thing that I remember was truly a sign we were entering another world was the fact that they spoke Arabic on the announcement and we were in a huge plane full of babies and people dressed like terrorist. We were taking off from NY as well to top it off. I keep waiting for the guy to stand up screaming and showing off his chest full of dynamite. But all went well and we sat on the plane for another 11 hours to Cairo. I sleep most of the flight and that was nice.

Coming into Cairo was really interesting as we broke land I saw Alexandria the first part of Africa. Was nice to see and I've been waiting a long time to see it. Rather than be pure sand which I expected the land was really fertile. In fact all you could see was miles and miles of farmland. Very interesting and it seemed to be well organized. I remember the lands along the Nile were fertile but I didn't think it was so massively fertile.

Right before landing I got my first glimpse at the pyramids. Very cool. Massive and on the west side of the Nile. Behind them was the massive desert I imagined in my head. This was a moment I've been waiting to experience for a long time. I actually was going to buy my tickets to see the pyramids on the morning of 9-11. Ever since then the desire to go was burning even stronger.

We got out of the plane and got our baggage. Ana was acting a little scared at first. I think this was the first time she had really experienced a culture so far from what she knows. We headed outside and picked up some friends who were going to "help us". They say "My friend where you from, blah blah..." then BAM they hit you with I have a taxi right outside. I didn't want to get the first taxi since I'm sure we would be ripped off. After fighting off a few people I found the way to the bus stations. Ana by this time was looking at everyone like they were terrorists. Was pretty funny but I tried to assure her that not every Muslim is Osama's follower.

In time I found a guy who would give us a ride in his beat up old car for 35 pounds (Pounds are what they call their money - different than England's money). Ana trusted me and we headed off in the beat up car with a guy who new about 2 words of English. Enough to fool us into thinking he knew where we wanted to go. I should haven't been surprised when he pulled into the center and said "downtown". That was the second word he knew. I said I needed to go to x hotel and he looked funny at me. Luckily there was another hostel right outside the door and they had available rooms. I told him thank you and he smiled. Nice guy even though we couldn't communicate.

We decided to get the room with the air-conditioning. We got worked on the price of the room. 20 American dollars. Those bastards. Oh well. I thought the AC was important since our sleep schedule was so far off and we would probably be falling asleep in the middle of the hot day. By the way the weather was smoking. I'm sure it is around 95. Nice thing though was that it is a dry heat. The nights are not too bad and even the shade during the day is tolerable. In the sun though you burn. I already am showing off my roots with a nice red colored neck.

We settled into our room and hit the AC. We walked around town and checked out where the museum was. Pretty close. Ana got us sucked into a couple scams. Were learning though. The one thing that is sly about the people selling is that they are very nice. You actually think they are trying to help you out. In fact they are so polite you can't tell they are trying to sell you something till about 5 minutes into it. They ask where you are from and they say great. Then continue to ask you how long you're staying and where you're from... Then would you like to see my shop. It's hard to say no because they are so nice. We went in one shop and spent about 15 minutes before we could get out. The guy though was really nice and at no time did we feel like he was offended by us wasting his time. Very cool and not what I expected.

In fact the people have been wonderful. There is a peace and truth I didn't ever experience in South America. In fact I don't know if I've ever experienced so many nice and genuine people. The people talk to you with there eyes open. When they say welcome to Cairo I feel it is from the heart and not just a repeated phrase like hello. Being here has definitely changed how I feel about Middle Eastern people. Or more specifically Egyptian people. I still have some trouble with the Israel people I've meet on my trip. Most of them have been a pain in the butt. Maybe the country is different though. Who knows?

That evening we ate a chicken sandwich and had a coke at a local restaurant. Was $1.25. Super cheap. We found another hotel also that was WAY cheaper than our current hotel. It was only $6.00 a night for both of us. Really cheap. I think cheaper than Bolivia. We bought some fruit also. They have a bunch of apricots which I though was unusual. Seems like a staple fruit here. I love them so I bought a few and ate them despite the potential lethal action they could play on my stomach.

After that we went to lay down and ended up falling asleep around 6:30pm. We were exhausted. Our sleep was about 7 hours off. So of course we woke up at around 11:00pm and were wide awake and really hungry. We ended up eating a ton of our snacks. I keep telling Ana we need to ration our snacks like were going to war. There like gold here. No amount of money will bring them back here.

We were wide awake for about 2-3 hours before we got back to sleep. We both took some sleeping pills from the 99 cent store in America. I didn't know you could screw up a sleeping pill but you can. I guess that's why products end up at the 99 cent store in the first place. Eventually we drifted off to a kind of restless sleep.





Day 139
A couple hours after we fell asleep I woke up again at 4:30am in the morning. It was now officially 9:30pm in Florida (the sleep schedule we were on). At this time the mosque around the city all started blaring some prayers or chants not sure which one. The sound was actually really cool. Just as I had imagined in my head. Because we were on the 4th floor we were above the city and you could hear every one of the mosque talking at the same time. The words were Arabic and were dragged out in a sort of singing chanting like way.

It's really amazing to see how integrated the religion is with daily life here. 4 times a day the churches belt out calling people to come and pray. Prayer is integrated into everyday life. It's like eating 3 times a day. People stop and pray on street corners and in the bus stations. You see them everywhere. They are on a little piece of carpet and they take off their shoes. Then they stand up and kneel down putting there faces to touch the ground. They seem to get back up and repeat that several times. I can't imagine anything like that in America. Imagine tons of churches belting out prayers at 4:30 in the morning all together. Then everyone who wanted to pray would stop and take there shoes off and pray. Whether there in Wal-Mart or 7-11 they stop and pray. Weird concept for America. America is too diverse for something like that to ever exist. There would be law suits galore.

Anyway I managed to close my eyes for another few hours. My stomach was feeling upset from the lack of sleep and irregular schedule. We finally got up at around 8:00 or so. I was finally starting to feel sleepy but I wanted to get up go to the museum. We forced ourselves out of bed and got our stuff packed and ate breakfast. The hotel had a free breakfast that was pretty good actually. Couple of eggs with some bread and instant coffee. Was enough to get us started that day. Both I and Ana were starting to fall asleep at breakfast. Got to love the time change thing.

We walked over to our new hotel named Dahab Hotel. It has a funny old elevator in the lobby that must have come from the early 1900's. It kind of scary actually. It is all windows and you need to close the gate and doors before it will work. Then it takes you up to the 7th floor where our hotel is. By the time you get to the top you are more than happy to step off. You can see the two small cables in the back pulling you up. There all dirty and rusty so those made me feel a little better.

We checked in our new room with a great breeze and view of the city below. Cairo is a pretty big place and it is nice to see it from high up. We showered up and knocked a little of the stink off of us. Then we headed out with one of the guys from the hotel to get our student cards. That was interesting. We jumped in a 61 Puget taxi (You can imagine how that is) headed out to some weird building about 15 minutes away. The guy from the hotel helped us and we were able to get our international student cards. I'm sure it was some kind of scam and our guy said he forgot something and had to go back quick right when we left. I'm sure he went to go get his cut of the money we paid. Oh well. The student cards will save us more than we paid for them easily.

After our criminal activities we headed to the museum. Our driver didn't speak English and tried to rip us off for more money but in the end I just laughed and joked with him and we paid him the right price. Even the old guys will try and rip you off. Funny little cultural thing.

The museum was interesting. From the outside there are tons of guards with machine guns. You walk past all of them and get the tickets. We started saving money with our student cards right off the bat. Once we entered the museum it was really an incredible sight. Tons of artifacts everywhere. All the pieces were laid out in a half hazard fashion. But none the less they were impressive.

We spent about 4 hours in the museum walking around and seeing everything. Trying to figure out what the hell we were seeing. The organization so stupid. All the books say it and I agree with them. We finally made it to the top floor where the Tutankhamen collection was being showed. It was really impressive. No wonder he is so famous. The artifacts were amazingly well kept. Even wood sculptures lasted for 3,000+ years. That is so amazing. The colors were vibrant and the gold still gleamed. The head mask of Tut was also really amazing. 30 pounds of gold to make it. It was really spectacular.

I also got to see the box that held the canoptic jars. It is a gold box with 4 golden women figures surrounding the outside of the box. It brought me back to my 4th grade years. I remember staring at a picture of this box for hours. I was so amazed that the whole thing was gold. It was so funny because I didn't remember that memory till I saw here. The one figure I remember looking at had a bird on her head. Was a really nice moment for me. Made me feel like a kid inside as I remembered the magic I felt thinking about opening a tomb and finding this massive gold box.

We also paid to see the Royal mummy museum. They had about 7 mummies on display which were all pretty important kings of the time. Funny to think that they were treated as gods in their time much like how we would treat the body of Jesus if we still had it today. They were laid to rest in a tomb and to live the afterlife forever in there. But now there they were shriveled and pruned in front of my feet. Kings in their time but a 5 dollars fee to see them in my time.

After leaving the museum we went to go get our train tickets. That was interesting. I fought with the taxi drivers to get price I wanted (which took about 10 minutes and walking away from 2 taxis) but we finally got in. The driver dropped us off short of the station and we had to walk about 500ft since the cars were jammed tighter than sardines in front of the station. We paid the guy and walked around like idiots trying to find the window to buy the tickets. Of course things are laid out in the local language so it took about an hour to just locate the right window. We got the tickets and were set to leave the next day on the overnight train to Luxor.

We headed out and got a taxi back to our hotel. The taxi guy ended up being a really nice guy. I was joking with him about the price and he said I should drive and he will pay me 20 pounds to go to the hotel. He also offered to take us to the local sights the next day for 20 pounds less than the hotel said they would do it for. So we said good and he agreed to take us to the pyramids and a couple other sights the next day. He would pick us up at 5:30 in the morning. I wasn't sure he would be there but what the hell. If he didn't make it we would take another taxi.

After being dropped off at our hotel we went to go eat more Falafel for dinner and get some food and water for the next day. We've been eating allot of Falafel and I'm glad Ana likes it. In America she won't even get near it. But for some reason here in the desert heat far away from home she likes it? Women. Can't live with them - can't shot them.

We went to sleep in our little perch above Cairo early that night because we knew we were going to be getting up early the next day. I think we fell asleep around 6:00 or so. I was dead tired. My schedule was so screwed up. Ana seems to be adjusting a little faster. I was getting used to staying up about 5 hours later than here so it's taking me a little longer to adjust. I was really tired of being tired. The good thing was I'm sure I would have no problem getting up since it seems like I get up around 3:00am in the morning these days.






Day 140
As usual I woke up around 4:00 in the morning. Just early enough to hear the sirens on mosque blaring their prayers. I still love that image. The air from the squeaky dirty fan above us was almost cool on your skin this early in the morning. The night is still dark and has a green tint to it from the city lights. From our room perched above the city all the mosque as almost timed perfectly together start blaring there drawn out chants. The language has such a Middle Eastern feel and it's quite romantic. I won't forget that sound and those feelings. They will always remind me of Cairo.

We got up and I ate a few apricots for breakfast. They were good and we dragged ourselves out the door and down the 7 flights of stairs to the hot smelly street below. Just going down the stairs was enough to make us start sweating. Our taxi driver Asum wasn't there and I was wondering if he was going to make it. It was 5:20am. We were a little early so I said we would wait a little longer. Sure enough right at 5:30 he shows up smiling.

We got in and headed out to the camel market to pick a couple camels to ride around the pyramids. The morning had a layer of thick clouds to it which felt unusual. As we got down the street in the car I got my first glimpse of the pyramids from the ground. WOW is all I could say. They were huge and rose strong and aggressively on the horizon. Towering over the 3 and 4 story buildings on the street. They were truly the size of mountains. Not a hill but a mountain. It was so amazing to see history dwarfing the current structures. Something I've been wanting to see for a very long time. My heart was happy. I'm glad to have lived long enough to see them.

The one thing that really stuck out for me in my mind was how steep the pyramids were. The angle seemed so much sharper than what I had imagined in my head. They say the angle of the pyramids is 51 degrees. It seemed like much more looking at it from the window.

We turned and went through a few back roads past people sleeping on benches and all over the place. Allot of people just seem to sleep anywhere. I think they can afford beds but just chose to sleep outside on the bench rather. Interesting.

We got to a camel and horse ride dealer Asum our taxi driver recommended. I trusted him so I didn't feel like I needed to check out any other prices. The guy seemed ok but after getting us on the horses he started changing up the price we had agreed on before. Fucker. Sorry but that's how I felt. Most guys are pretty nice but he was a dirtier and under handed. I should have gotten off at that point but we fought some more and when I started to get off he changed his mind on the price. I hate that about some of these Egyptian people. Our driver was fine with leaving but it was getting late and I wanted to get to the pyramids to see the sun rise. We finally paid and left.

We started down an alley way toward the pyramid. We stopped to change my horse with a camel that was sitting there tied against the wall. The camel looked pretty beat. But not to bad. I'm sure they don't treat there animals like there a living thing. I'm sure they just see them like they are money makers.

After I got off my horse the guide made the camel get down on the ground. Which was really interesting because the camel first put it's back end down, then the front then the back all the way to the ground then the front all the way to the ground. It took 4 separate movements for the camel to get down onto the ground low enough for me to jump on. As soon as I jumped on the camel started to get up. The guide said hold on and lean back. That thing almost threw me off. I didn't think it was going to be such a ride but it was. Like riding a bucking bronco for a couple seconds. Pretty fun.

Once up on the camel you felt like you were on top of the world. Pretty tall creatures. Ana looked pretty far down from me sitting on the horse below. The camel made some noise and the kid who was also with the guide grabbed the rope and pulled the camel along in front of me.

We headed out along an alley way to the pyramids. There were plenty of people's homes with horses all along the alley. Some people awake, some waking up and some still sleeping on benches and old couches. Seems like not allot of people sleep in doors during the summer.

We walked for about .5 miles with the animals till we could see the pyramids on the horizon. The whole time our guide was trying to be clever and funny but he was actually more of a pain in the ass then anything. We tried to just enjoy the ride and the pyramids and forget about being overcharged and the annoying sleazy guide.

I must say it was pretty easy at times to ignore the conditions once you saw the pyramids. They were amazing. I have so much more respect for the Egyptian civilization now. I also understand why our culture is so fascinated with them. They were a really amazing culture.

We crossed a part of the broken down fence and our guide went over with the horse and paid off the guards to let us wander around inside the large gated area.

We stopped and took some photos and enjoyed the scenery. The guide wanted to change the horse Ana was on with the one he was riding. We did and as soon as Ana got on the horse it took off and started galloping away. Ana was pulling on the reins but it wouldn't stop. Was pretty funny and as soon as the guide caught up with her and stopped the horse she said she wanted off that horse now and she wanted her other horse back. The whole thing was pretty funny to watch on the back of my mellow camel. Ana wasn't too happy though.

Ana got her old horse back and we were off to the pyramids once again. Soon as we were under way the guide insisted that Ana run some with her horse. So he grabbed the reins and started running with the horse alongside of his. Ana wasn't to happy about this but keep smiling while burning inside.

I could see it in her eyes she didn't like this a bit. But then he would stop and say you need to lean back and ride like this with the horse. Then he would make a noise with his mouth and they would be off again. I could see her anger even though she was riding away from me. All of this was pretty funny riding on the back of my mellow camel.

Eventually we made it to the 3 small pyramids at the base of the third smallest of the large pyramids. We got off again and walked around. It was hard to just enjoy the pyramids with the guide and the guys around trying to sell you stuff. But I tried to just ignore them and enjoy the history and beauty that was right before me. It truly was amazing.

By this time the sun was starting to break the early morning cloud cover and it was starting to get hot. We got back on the horses and camel and headed out to get closer to the large pyramids and the sphinx.

We ended not getting too close to the pyramids or the sphinx because our guide didn't actually pay the entrance fees into the park. He was just going around the edges of the park and giving money to the guards to let him pass. Nice. That little sand Niger. He totally scammed us. Then to top it off he was asking for a tip at the end. I was pretty pissed so I gave him some American money as a tip. He didn't know math or really how to exchange the money so I told him it was allot of Egyptian money and he was happy. Punk. At least I got him back a little. He'll find out when he goes to exchange the money.

Man I'm so tired of getting ripped off. I know it's the way of the land but damn it's been months of this shit all day long and I'm getting tired of it. That said I still really love the people in Egypt funny enough. It's a love hate relationship. They can be so much more genuine than most American's but at the same time they can be more under handed than most American's. Oh well I just need to take it in stride and keep going. I won’t remember getting ripped off and haggled. But I will always remember the pyramids. That makes it worth it.

After we completed the ride we meet up and had a drink with the taxi driver. We talked a little and actually had a great conversation. He was a smart guy. He knew that we thought they all were terrorist and we were afraid of people that looked like him. I thought that was very insightful to see. He said don't worry I know you know that we are all not like that it's just the crazy people. I said there are people like that also in America and they don't represent all American's by any means. He asked us to tell the people back home about how the people really are in Egypt. I told him I would.

After the horse and camel ride we felt a little incomplete about seeing the pyramids. We decided to have the taxi guy take us to the official entrance of the pyramids and we would again pay the official entrance fee to the park. We did and I'm glad we did. We got to get up close to the Sphinx and the two largest pyramids. They were even more impressive up close. The thought that keep running threw my head as I looked at them was these are literally mountains. Not buildings but mountains. The other thought that keep running through my head was I wish I had a taser gun or some pepper spray for these damn salesmen.

We spent about 1 hour gazing at the pyramids and soaking up their beauty. The sun was pretty intense and even though we had our little safari hats on and some sun block it didn't stop the relentless pounding of the sun. We decided we were done and headed back to the taxi to eat.

We found a nice little place to eat and the food turned out to be really good. We had shish kabob. Which basically is meat, salad and bread. You eat them together. Pretty good and seemed kind of healthy despite the local dirt, bacteria, and parasites.

After lunch we headed to see Saqqara and Memphis. In Saqqara there was the oldest massive stone structure ever built – King Zoser's step pyramid. I really wanted to see that as well. It was the first large stone structure as well as the start of the pyramids. We walked through the mid day blazing sun and checked out the step pyramid. It was an interesting feat. Really large for how it was build. I guess they did have some trouble with the pyramids collapsing during the early stage of building. I couldn't really understand why it was so hard to build but seeing this one made me understand. They were not that careful with size of the stones they were using and because of that the structure was crocked and moved all over the place as it worked it's way up. It actually looked like one side was ready to collapse.

After roasting at that pyramid we went to Memphis which was the birthplace of the Old Kingdom. Not much to see but some old statues in an open air museum. Got haggled by some guards for some money.

The police guards have a great little scam. They say come here. When they say that it's hard not to say no because they have a machine gun strapped around them. The best bet is to at that moment say no thank you and walk away despite how many times they say "hey" or "mister".

But if you go over to the guard they say look here there is a great picture. It's not a great picture but they want you to take the picture then give them a tip for the great information they gave you. I sometimes would take the shot then pretend like I don’t understand them and walk away saying thank you. Feels a little funny though. I think we have the power in this country because we are tourist but there are times like that that I begin to question it.

After Memphis we caught up with the taxi driver sitting in the shade across the street with a couple of his friends. We decided to sit a little with them and rest before we headed back. The next hour turned out to be a great hour just chilling with the locals. We started talking and joking. The guy who owned the shop was a really cool guy and I got along with them really well.

After about 10 minutes and 2 cigarettes they brought out the Egyptian bong. There basically social bongs that they smoke regular tobacco in. I always wanted to try them out so I said fire it up. I didn't take too much the first few puffs. They were laughing at me and said suck in harder and get some smoke. Ok so I did. I thought that is was just tobacco but man it was a bit more than that. I actually got a little buzzed from it. The guys were laughing when I handed it back to them. They said now you are an Egyptian. Was pretty funny. The buzz didn't last long and kind of gave me a head ach after but it was pretty fun. Our taxi driver proceeded to puff away for about 20 more minutes. I'm sure he was more used to it and it didn't have the effects it did on me.

After a while of relaxing in the shade with the locals we headed back to our hotel. It was a great moment there under the tree with them. It reminded me of camping with my family in the mountains. Everyone had plenty of time to chill and joke around. Stories were told and the simple pleasure of each other's company was enough. I wish we could have more time for moments like that in America. Truth is too many times were usually too busy or thinking about what we have to do next to enjoy just sitting around and enjoying life for a couple hours.

The rest of the evening we didn't do too much. We were basically resting and getting supplies for the night train we were going to take to Luxor late that night.

At about 9:00 we headed to the station to catch the train. It was the usual crazy mess at the station. We made it to our train though and found our seats. We were in second class so there weren't any other tourist with us. We headed out of the station at around 10:00pm to arrive in Luxor at 7:00am the next morning.






Day 141
This day starting off at 12:01 am with me and Ana still awake and people on the train being loud and moving all around as if it were day time. They also never dimmed the lights so it was bright as day all night long and the ac was cranked up so we were freezing even with our jackets on.

In fact we didn't sleep hardly at all that night. A couple small cat naps and that was about it. Our sleep schedules by this time were so far off it didn't really matter. My body didn't know up from down. Overall the train ride sucked.

We got to Luxor pretty exhausted. Ana was on her last nerves when we were tackled by the taxi drivers and hotel guys just outside the station. She about yelled at one of the guys because he was talking so loud right in her ear that she couldn't even hear me right in front of her. Luckily we found a guy who was from the hotel we were trying to go to. He seemed like a nice guy in the end and we followed him down the dirty dusty crazy streets of Luxor.

On the walk you could tell that the sellers were much more aggressive here. To top it off we were there during low season so many of them are fighting for work. We made it to the hotel and checked in. Despite the incredible heat and only a fan we managed to fall asleep for about 5 hours.

I woke up sweating and feeling a little more rested I think? We took a shower and headed out to get something to eat. The town was pretty dead but we ended up finding a restaurant that was recommended in the book. The food was pretty good. Ana ordered grilled chicken and I ordered some local meat. She laughed at me and said at least mine will be good. Famous last words. When the food came out she got a bowl with meat cooked inside with potatoes and vegetables. Not exactly the vision she had in her head. She broke the famous traveling rule. Never visualize what food you think you will get. It's always a let down.

We ate up and paid and decided not to come back to that place again. The restaurant had AC which was nice so we decided we would walk from this restaurant to the next one just across the street called Mc Donald's and have an ice-cream. We did and the ice-cream was heavenly. The ac cooled our burning heads and we got a chance to enjoy the Luxor temple which was just right outside the window. The great kings of Luxor would roll in their graves if they knew a Mc Donald's would have been across the street from their magnificent temples.

After eating we took a horse carriage to the temple of Karnak night light show. We got there a little early and had to wait around for about an hour. We were both feeling pretty tired still but the temple looked amazing and it was worth it to push through.

The karnak temple was really amazing. The light show at night made it really magical. The voices were overly dramatic but it was nice and set an interesting mood. The columns in the large halls were utterly amazing. I just stood there looking up at the more than 150 massive columns. I think that sight was almost if not equally impressive as the pyramids of Giza. It was really amazing and in the night with the lights lighting it up it made it even that much more impressive. I really loved it and convinced Ana we needed to come back in the daytime to see even just those columns one more time.

After the show we headed back to the hotel. We ended up getting a young driver of the horse carriage that was cute but didn’t know his way around the town. After treating to pay him half the price he said he knew where he was. We finally told him to take us to the Mc Donald’s and we could make it home from there. He was a young guy around 14 years old so he was sure to know where the local Mc Donald’s was. He did and we finally made it back to our hotel.

We had our complementary hot tea with the guy who brought us the hotel. Complementary because it was a chance for him to pitch us on the package site seeing tours he had. I trusted him and we set up the tour of the valley of the king, and some other monuments for the next day at 8:00 in the morning.

We headed to sleep after that and surprisingly were able to sleep half way descent that night despite the morning 5 hour nap.






Day 142
We woke up early and got ready to do our tour of the Valley of the Kings, etc. We were promised a free breakfast and it was pretty bad. The kitchen the guy was cooking in was so nasty that I wouldn't even want to touch anything in it. But we ate the food that came out of it and hoped for the best.

Right as we got to the van we realized we had been lied too about the trip. There were about 8 other people riding with us. The guy who sold us the trip said it was only us and 4 other people from this hotel. Yeah right. Fucking Egyptian bastards. I hate being lied too so much. I don’t understand why it's ok to do that so often. I would feel so bad if I did that to people. Oh well I tried to shrug off that and enjoy the trip. It ended up being a total of 12 of us in the van. At times like that I can't wait to get out of this ass of a country. But I made the best of it and tried to focus on the sites and not the heat, or fact that we were being ripped off and lied too.

We got to the first site which was the Valley of the Kings and it was smoking hot at 9:00 in the morning. Our "Egyptologist" guide talked to us a little about the tombs in the valley. Her English sucked and she talked a million miles an hour with a monotone voice. I understood about 50% of what she was saying. Whatever.

We got to check out 3 different tombs in the Valley of the Kings. They were all really cool and the drawing and hieroglyphics were really amazingly well preserved. I couldn't believe how rich the colors were. The colors they used were white as a base color with the people and symbols in either blue, red, green or yellow. The colors were very primary in nature and I'm sure color must have been a really beautiful thing back then since most stuff was colorless.

We walked around the three tombs and tried to figure out the pictures. They had fish, birds, and weird gods. Above the sarcophaguses was a painting of the god eating the sun at night and giving birth to it in the morning. Very interesting idea. I wonder where they got such ideas. I guess it was the only way for them to explain what was happening around them. Someone much greater was doing something to make the sun and moon appear. Either that or the moon and sun themselves were alive.

After the Valley of the Kings we were dragged off to a shop to "See how the local crafts are made". The guide seemed to rush us threw the Valley of the Kings but when it came to the shop she was sitting in the corner taking her sweat time. I was pretty pissed about this but what can you do.

After about 30 minutes we finally jumped back in the van and headed to the next site the Deir-el-Bahri (That famous tomb cut into the side of a mountain). Once we got there our guide did a terrible job of informing us about the site and we headed out to see it ourselves. She gave us 20 minutes to see it. I said screw that and took about 40 minutes to see it. I was so tired of her shit at that point. Anyway we ended up wandering around the site and it was really nice. It was so hot and so many guys messing with you that it was hard to enjoy. I wish the government would do something about that. But they won’t until it actually affects tourism and the all mighty dollar.

After that tour our guide tried to switch up the tour and bring us to another site where the workers had their tombs. She said it was the same price of tickets and it was much nicer. I didn't trust her and I wanted to go to the valley of the queens. We all agreed and she seemed pretty mad at that. I'm sure she could have made a bit of money off the lower ticket cost at the other site.

At the valley of the queens and checked out another few tombs and by then had a good idea of what the tombs were like and were ready to get out of the blistering heat and back into the van. We stopped at one last famous site and we were on our way back to the hotel. The trip was nice and will be much better in hide sight. But at that moment I was pretty let down. Basically we paid way too much to be rushed through the site with a crowded little group and an "Egyptologist" that didn't really give me any good information. So when they dropped me off and expected a tip I gladly shut the door on them and waved good-bye. That moment was worth allot to me. Felt nice to finally get them back.

(Side note Ana once again is really pissed off at the computer next to me. She lost some information earlier then re typed it. Now she thinks she lost the information she just re-typed. I think it's pretty funny but she's not in a good mood about it. I'm trying to just be quiet and not laugh. I've tried in the past to help her and teach her how to not lose information but she's way to hard headed to listen to me. I just have to let her make mistakes like this and comfort her after.)

We went back to the hotel and dropped our bags off and headed to that heavenly air-conditioned oasis in the desert called Mc Donald's. After another lovely cold ice-cream sundae we headed out to check our emails quickly and see what’s going on in the world.

We found a cute little group of boys in an internet café near our place. There were no adults and the price for internet was only 1 dollar an hour. Not bad so we sat down and checked our mail. All the boys were playing a chicken shooting game. They were really cute and keep watching us and smiling. One of them asked me to play the game with them so I did. I wasn’t that good and when I died they were laughing. We had a great time with them joking. They didn’t speak much English but they were kids and like all kids they know how to play and laugh.

After the internet we went back to our place and hung out for a while. We had plans to go out to see some belly dancing that night with the guy from our hotel. We headed out around 12:00pm and walked a ways to one of the local belly dancing bars.

I didn’t really know what to expect. I knew it would be a local thing so it might be a little sleazy. But when we got down stairs it wasn’t too bad. Basically there was a guy on the mic who was also the dj. Then all the men (About 15) sat around the small dance floor and watched the one belly dancer dancing. It was a funny scene and I felt a little weird being there but after a couple large beers I was feeling right at home. I was joking a little with the dancers and the guys around the room.

In the end we stayed at this joint for about 3-4 hours and really had a great time. It was so great to see the other guys in the room dance. They would wave their upside down hands up and down very slowly even thought the music to me seemed much faster and even current in a way. They were pretty drunk and that added to the fun. One guy who didn’t really know how to dance keep getting up in the room and dancing with the girl. He would stand their and barely move but he was having a good time and he made the environment feel very free. All in all we had a great time at this place.

Later in the night a new belly dancer starting dancing. One thing that I found interesting was that all the belly dancers we saw that night weren’t very thin. They actually had little belly’s. Interesting? I just expected they would have perfect belly’s at least. But not the case. They were still beautiful and fun to watch.

The second girl did something that I thought was very unusual. She looked straight at me and picked up both her boobs and shook them? I wasn't sure if she was looking at me but after doing that she pointed to her eyes and then to mine? She had really big boobs and maybe she caught me looking at them? Not sure but during the course of the rest of the night I think she did the same thing about 4 times. It wasn't so much the boobs that were fascinating it was the fact that she gestured so aggressively in a Muslim type environment. Some of the women her wear full complete cloths that cover everything but the two eye holes for them to see. I'm surprised they don't wear glasses so we can't see their eyes. But in a country like this the girl was grabbing her boobs and shaking them at me? Seemed very extreme. Who knows. Me and Ana just laughed at it and keep drinking and enjoying the dancer, the music, and the unusual characters around the room.

I must say it was really nice to spend that kind of time with Ana at the belly dancing place. One of my true passions in life and something that really lights my soul is to find crazy weird and surreal experiences in life that can never be planned and never be prepared. This night was one of those moments that burn into your soul. Before this night the only person who ever really understood this love was my buddy Mark. Now this night I could see how much Ana enjoyed the experience and I could tell I had another friend in life who understood my passion. When she talked about the night I could tell the passion I share was now starting to burn inside of her. I'm so happy to be able to share those things with my wife and so happy she's got the power and determination to find those moments with me.

After the first place we went to another place right across the road to see some more belly dancing. It was fun but not as fun as the first place. The crowd was more serious and the crazy, somewhat dirty and crazy vibe was missing.

After the second place we walked home about .5 miles to our place. It was a pretty cool walk. We were all pretty drunk and it was fun to walk the crazy back streets of Cairo late at night. Not safe but really fun.

We got back to our place and crashed pretty hard. It was 4:00am in the morning so falling asleep meant we only had to lay our head down on the dirty pillow for a second. Even though my pillow was the hardest, dirtiest pillow, made in the time of Jesus pillow I still feel asleep in no time.






Day 143
I awoke around 12:00am with a dry hung-over taste in my mouth and my ear was numb from falling asleep on my rock hard pillow. Both of us were feeling pretty run over in the morning. I ate a couple apricots and threw the seeds at just the right angle to hit off the side of the shutters and fall to the street below.

We had planned on getting up early to see Luxor and Karnak before it got to hot but that was wishful thinking. We finally got up, showered in our more than interesting bathroom outside, and headed out to get lunch. We ate some Falafels for lunch at a local joint and they were pretty good.

After that we headed to the train station to get our tickets for the next day. Oh joy was that fun. We ended up in a line with these little basterds that keep cutting in front of me to talk over me to get their tickets. I couldn't believe how rude they were being. There was only about 5 of us there but the little fuckers keep putting there arm to the left of my shoulder and yelling in Arabic at the guy issuing the tickets. Finally when the 3rd guy cut in front of me I played a football block and shoved the next little sucker out my way from cutting in front of me. Ana said the guy got really mad and gave me a dirty look for stopping him from cutting in front of me. Damn can you believe that someone would be pissed off for not letting them rudely cut in front of you. What a country and what a culture I say.

After our ticket ordeal we headed back to our second home Mc Donald's once again to soak up some ac and splurge on yet another ice-cream sundae. I felt like a total tourist but with Ethiopia just around the corner I felt justified in my actions.

At around 4:00 we got a horse carriage ride up to Karnak and walked around there for a couple hours once again but this time in the day light without a tour group rushing us through. The site was beautiful and really impressive. I had my book and read up a little so it made the experience even that much more enjoyable. Different kings throughout history added to the temple. From large gold platted obelisk to massive sculptures of themselves. All really amazing in and of their own.

After Karnak we headed to the Luxor temple. It was more modest in scale but none the less really nice to walk through and just sit and enjoy. It was evening and the sun was setting making the lights and shadows really beautiful on the site.

After walking around Luxor we went and pulled some money out. Always a nice feeling pulling out money from an ATM right on the main street with ton's of people watching you. Makes you feel like a massive target.

As we were walking home this one kid keep bugging us to take a ride on his carriage. We keep saying no but he keeps asking why. We would tell him them he would say why? So I started to try and sell him back a card that I had in my pocket for 10 pounds. I was using his tactics on him. It was pretty funny. I keep saying "come on it's cheap only 10 pounds". He got pretty frustrated with me and finally left. Ana was cracking up. I was just tired of being sold to and wanted him to experience what I was experiencing. Oh well.

We sat around later and ate some more apricots and planned the next day. I really love the apricots here. There straight from the tree and well worth getting the poppers for latter. But so far so good.

Feel asleep pretty easy and I think I'm starting to have some sort of sleep schedule? Yeah right.





Day 144
Woke up at 4:45 to get ready to go Aswan. Aswan is a city 3 hours south of Luxor that has some other amazing things we wanted to do while were here in Egypt. We ate some junk for breakfast and headed out with our turtle shell backpacks strapped securely to our bodies.

Arriving early at the train station was a mistake. It only meant we had to wait more time for the train that ended up being 2 hours late. Oh what fun that was. The sun is burning even in the morning and sitting there roasting for a train makes even a sane man go crazy.

But the train did finally role in and we were off to Aswan. Good thing the ac broke down or we would have only had 1 thing go wrong with the trip. So the ac didn't work and the windows don't open. That's called a train oven and we were the two dumb chickens inside.

Finally after 5.5 hours we made it to Aswan. Sweaty and worn we grabbed a taxi to our hotel. The one thing that did go right was that the hotel we wanted to stay in had a room with ac for only 5 bucks a night. Can't beat that with a stick. We took it and bathed for the next few hours sleeping and frolicking in the endless waves of cold fresh heavenly air that came from the machine on the wall. By the way I want to send a shout out to the guy or guys that came up with the air conditioner. Man I love you guys. Rock on.

We got up long enough to go catch a mid day large meal. Kind of a "luncnner" thing. After searching a little and looking like tourist asking questions to people who don't understand we found the place. The meal ended up being really good. The chicken was great and right off the grill. The bread, soup and salad were not bad either. Too bad they looked like they were made sometime earlier that week. Oh well we ate down and I prayed to the toilet gods to be easy on me.

After eating we headed back to the ac hotel room with the ac baby. We grabbed some local snacks for the road since we were heading out at 3:30 in the morning to take an armed caravan tour to Abu Simbel. I've never been escorted in an armed convoy before but the next day would be the first.

We feel asleep really easily. One we were pretty tired and two the ac was blasting on our heads.






Day 145
A knock on the door at 3:00 meant breakfast was ready for us. We walked like corpses down the stairs to digest our usual bread, butter, and jam breakfast. Man we had that in all of South America. Now half way across the world were having the same thing. Oh well it's free and who am I to complain when it comes to free food.

We got in our bus and headed out to meet the caravan. I was a little worried about this but in the end it wasn't really anything. There were basically about 10 large buses and 15 smaller ones that all went together to the Abu Simbel site. We took off around 4:00am and drove for the next 2.5 hours to the site. Abu Simbel is right on the edge of the Sudan and it was all deserts everywhere around us. The air was actually pretty cool in the morning which surprised me. It was nice to be cruzing across the desert in the middle of the night. The stars were really spectacular and somehow they felt more real and dazzling knowing that I was seeing them from an African desert.

We sleep off and on then read and little. Finally we got to the Abu Simbel around 7:30. The sun was already getting pretty hot that early in the morning. We got our tickets and checked out the site. The site itself was really cool. The large sculptures of Ramses II were really huge. They were put at that really Southern part of the Nile to make people coming into Egypt afraid. One thing that immediately became present was that the entire mountain and the sculpture had been moved up to higher ground when they built the last damn. What a feat that was. I though they only carried the sculptures up the hill. But in actuality they carved the whole mountain up and dragged it up the hill to avoid having the site get flooded. Pretty cool and I got to give it to the engineers that did it. Only cost 40 million to move it which seems cheap considering the work involved.

Anyway we continued into the temple which was carved into the mountain. Inside were some really nice carvings of Ramses II smashing his enemy. Pretty funny. The color was still really intact and the site looked great. Another thing that was interesting was that the Swiss guy who found the site only saw the head of one figure standing above the desert floor. It must have looked like the Statue of Liberty in the Planet of the Apes movie. That must have been a pretty cool feeling to find that place.

We spent about 1.5 hours walking around and enjoying the site. After we headed back and drove to the High Dam. It was pretty cheap and wasn't much to see. It was impressive that this was the damn that held back the mighty Nile from flooding out all the cities below but all in all there wasn't much to see at the site.

After that we went to another site where we saw some more ruins and finally the final part of the tour was the unfinished obelisk. It was a massive obelisk carved out of the rocks then when a flaw was found they left it there. Tons of man hours spent carving tons of hard granite only to leave it there. They must have been pissed.

We arrived back at the city pretty tired and decided to go lay around the air-conditioner for a while. We ended up getting up long enough to go eat some yummy chicken from the place we ate at before then come back and fall asleep. I was really tired and when we headed back to the hotel around 4:00pm I was dead tired. I feel asleep around 6:00pm and Ana tried to wake me up around 8:00 to go out and do something but I was so dead tired I couldn't get up. Ana finally got tired of me laying there and told me just to go back to sleep. I did knowing I probably would be wide awake at 1:00am in the morning.






Day 146
Much to my surprise I awoke at 9:00 in the morning felling really rested. I finally after 9 crazy days got to sleep in and feel kind of human again. I was running on adrenaline and sleeping pills the last week or so.

We got up and had some breakfast. Bread and jam what's new. They we headed over to the train station to get our ticket for leaving the next day. The ticket line was crazy as usual. But for some reason they had a line for women and a line for men. So Ana was able to get ahead of me in line and get the tickets before I did. Pretty cool. Not sure why they did that but it benefited us.

I got some overpriced Falafel at a local restaurant and we headed out to find an internet place. We should have rented some camels to make the journey across the city to the internet place. But finally after about 20 minutes of walking in the blazing sun we made it. Luckily the place had ac and we spent about 1 hour catching up on our email. Was nice.

As soon as we stepped out the air-conditioned room we hit the heat. Feels like a heater when you come from ac. We were finding it tough to do too much during the day in this heat. So once again we headed back to our cave with our ac to rest up for the evening.

At around 4:00 we headed out to take a Felucca out on the Nile. We found a guy that had a boat and bargained a pretty good price for the 3 hour trip. It ended up being only me and Ana on the boat and 2 other guys to sail the boat. They were really cool and very relaxed. Nice to meet those types of people. Honest and straight up guys.

We ended up sailing around the two islands on the Nile. The first island we got off had a nice little garden area and some shade. We spent about 1 hour walking around and sitting and talking. Was really nice and tranquil. A little punk teenage kid tried to charge us 2 dollars to use the restroom. It was really funny to see Ana get all passionate and say "2 Dollars!" We worked it down to 1 dollar but that still was ridiculous. Little punk.

But what was really funny is that Ana is starting to speak up and haggle with the locals. When we first got here she was really shy. I keep saying come on you try it but she would rather just sit back and let me do the haggling. But recently on a couple different occasions she's fired off at the guy when they tell us an outrageous price. It's pretty funny because she can be pretty intimidating when she's mad. One guy told us 10 pounds for to mangoes (which is about 2 dollars) and she started huffing and puffing and talking to the guy in Spanish. You know she's mad when the Spanish comes in. The guy backed down immediately. Was funny. Good to see her in action. Working together we can get the prices much lower than me alone.

After floating around the two islands for a couple hours we headed back to the dock. It was really a nice and tranquil evening on the Nile. Nice to have gotten to experience the river that fed some of the first massive civilizations in the world. Pretty cool.

We were pretty hot and tired by the time we reached the hotel and life giving ac room. We basically ate dinner at the same local place with the chicken and bought some supplies for the next days 15 hour train ride.

We slept pretty good that night. I keep thinking my ac will be gone in a matter of hours. That made me shed a couple tears just thinking about it.






Day 147
We woke up and had another powerful breakfast of bread and jam. Then headed to the train station. We made it there around 5:30 and were able to get right on the train. The train actually left on time at 6:00. That was nice.

We pretty much spent the next 15 hours bouncing down the tracks toward Cairo. It wasn't too bad of a ride but the one thing that was really annoying was the damn cell phones everyone had on the train. Basically about every 2 minutes someone's cell phone would go off full blast with some annoying Arabic music. Then the guy right across from us would fall asleep and let his phone ring the stupid song for about 10 minutes till he woke up and realized it was him. I can actually sing the song on his phone in my head right now that's how well I know it. Then to top it all off after about 14 hours the guy next us starts going threw his phone rings to try and pick another one. After about 10 minutes of that he finally picks the one he already had. Then a guy a couple seats in front of him starts doing the same thing. I started laughing at that point. You know when you start laughing at something so annoying and so frustrating you just don't know any other way to deal with it. That was me laughing like a lunatic in seat number 23 in train cart 11. The mad white American.

There was one good thing that did happen at the end which was we met our friend Asum at the station while looking for a taxi. We were hoping he would be there and sure enough he was. It was good to see him. He's such a nice guy. He took us to our hotel and didn't even charge us. That was really kind of him. We arranged to have him pick us up in two days to take us to the airport.

Because we hadn't really eaten all day we ran down to the local KFC to grab a nice dinner. But to our disappointment the food really sucked. Nothing like the KFC in America. I was surprised to see that. I just assumed it would be the same but the chicken was ok, there were no sides other than fries and coleslaw, and they had no biscuits just a really bad role. That sucked and I was mad we paid the money for such a crappy meal. I not mad at you Mr. Sanders I'm just disappointed.

Anyway we headed out and tried to find a Mc Donald's for a cone. But we ended up just walking all over the city and having vendors trying to pull us into their perfume shops for free tea. After a little conflict between me and Ana we decided to call it a night and just head back to the room.

I slept pretty good even though the bed more like a hammock than a bed.






Day 148
The pain in my back woke me up around 8:00. I tried to stretch and put stuff under me but not much luck. I decided it was time to get up and start the day crocked back and all. We had planned allot and I wanted to get moving to get things started before it got too late.

We first headed down to the internet shop and worked on our blogs for about 3.5 hours. Then we burned our photos onto a cd and headed out to find the post office. That turned out to be a hike. But in the end we found it and were able to send both our post cards to the kids and our cd's back home.

One thing that happened at the second post office we went to send the cd was that I heard a scuffle outside. Sure enough I look out the window and some guy is beating on this kid at least 10 years younger than him. There was some guy trying to break it up and the police guy just around the corner wasn't moving an inch. It was really funny because I've seen 3 fist fights in the 10 days I've been here. I don't think I've seen that many in the last 10 years in America. But I think here they settle things on the street more than in the court rooms. Kind of old school that way. No one is going to sue you for fighting with them here. You're not going to jail so I think people just feel free to start beating on each other once things go wrong.

Beside the fist fights we've also seen a ton of arguments. I mean people yelling at each others face. I think they just love to argue here. Not sure why but it seems to be everywhere all the time. Crazy towel heads. Maybe the heats getting to them. Who knows maybe me and Ana will start fighting all the time like the locals. I'll yell at her in English and she can yell at me in Spanish. We'll look just like the locals.

After the mail we headed back and did another session on the computer. We're trying to get our blogs caught up and it's taking about 6 hours to do that. That's allot of typing.

I've been feeling pretty sick lately and the symptoms were getting stronger that evening from all the hot walking around town. So we ate some more Falafels for dinner and headed in early to go to sleep. I sleep well again and finally fell like I'm starting to get on some sort of schedule. Nice to feel human again.






Day 149
Woke up feeling pretty bad today. I'm officially sick and the symptoms are to strong for me to ignore. It could be worse but overall it kind of sucks. I lazed around the morning then took a shower. After the shower I was feeling pretty bad so I just went back to sleep. Ana hung around the room and was bored while I slept.

At around noon we headed to the local Hardee's (like Carl's Jr) to grab some lunch. We're killing the fast food because we both think were in for it in Ethiopia and the rest of the trip. Who knows it might be ok but were preparing for the worse.

After lunch we headed back to the internet shop which is where we are now. I'm pecking away at the keyboard and Ana is just to the right of me doing the same. I'm happy to be caught up with my blog at this point. Was a bit of a pain in the butt to catch up.

Now I'm off to go rest up before we head out for tonight for Ethiopia. We are a little bit scared to go. I know in my mind it shouldn't be that bad but I'm still a little afraid. I'm telling Ana not to worry but inside I'm a little worried. I'm not sure what I'm worried about. I guess it's just new and that's enough to worry about. Either way I'm sure well be fine. In a couple days we'll be adjusted to the culture just like we did here and feel perfectly at home.

One more thing I'm not looking forward too is the flight. We get to Ethiopia at 3:00am in the morning. Can you think of a better time to get there. I can't seem to call anyone also to get a hotel reservation. I have a feeling we'll be sitting around the airport for about 4 hours waiting for the light to come up. Sucks but oh well. To top it off I got this great cold which is bound to get worse when I don't sleep that much tonight. Ah the joys of traveling. Times like this make me wish I had a simple predictable 9-5 job and comfortable bed and a home. But for tonight the plane and the Addis Ababa airport in Ethiopia will be my home.

Till the next country.
t*