Entries this day: AM Bus_convoy Bus_to_Cairo Great_Pyramids! Hello_from_Cairo! bye_Cairo souvenir_shopping

AM

6:12am AST Sunday 19 June 2005

We're awake, about to bus into Cairo!!!

Gotta be on the bus at 6:30. I can't seem to find sunscreen, but I won't let that stop me. I'm wearing shorts, long sleeve shirt, and red & white checked towel cover hat thing.

Bus convoy

6:40am AST Sunday 19 June 2005

Amazingly, all the streets are blocked in Port Said so our convoy of busses with police escort can leave the city together.

It's kinda spooky to me; I want to apologize to all the traffic we are going past. Some buildings are destroyed, but I can't tell that they are directly destroyed by war. There is a cop on the bus for security. This was explained that tourism is the most important industry, so they want to keep us safe. Awesome.

Bus to Cairo

7:00am AST Sunday 19 June 2005

Now we are passing endless fields. We could be in West Texas. Shrubs, grass, power towers.. Occassional old buildings.. a stadium. We are going along the Suez Canal, I imagine. I saw a ship in a rice field and thought it's more likely that there's a canal going through the rice field with a ship in it, than a ship in a rice field.

I just took pictures of everyone on the bus. Everyone is sleeping except for Katt, who is putting on eye makeup. Angie's borrowed-from-Petra camera battery is dead.

I took many pictures through the window, but most of them turned out poorly. Here is one that is sorta neat and representative of 'normal' architecture in Port Said area.

7:18am

We are about to go under the Peace Bridge.

8:04am

Some people are feeling sick on the bus. I'm thankful that I'm not.

9:39am

We are in Cairo at a stopping point that includes a view over the treetops of the pyramids. There's a horse carrying water down the street.

Great Pyramids!

10:02am AST Sunday 19 June 2005

We are now near the pyramids. They are big. If I look at they pyramids, I'm like, "they're not that big." but if I look at the people along the bottom of the pyramid, I'm like, "woah." cause I realize each rock is big. About 4 feet tall.

Holy fuck that is a lot of rocks.

10:19am

I'm standing with Francois.

In Egypt.

On (the first step of) the great pyramid.

People are milling around like little ants. I look up, and the stones just disappear into the distance.

There is an opening that is not exactly an old school opening, with steps carved into each stone to allow non-climbing people to ascend. The hole was blown into the side of the pyramid in like the 1800s by some guy with dynamite and a desire to enter.

There are cables that snake their way into the hole, providing lighting.

As usual, we don't have enough time; we gotta be on the bus in 4 minutes. I am wearing a skirt/dress thing that I bought in Port Said, so I can't jump around like a monkey. But I made it back to the bus on time.

We are headed to see the pyramids from a parking lot with camels available for rides and photos.

Now we are headed to the Sphinx.

12:06pm

A guy said it's easy to climb the pyramids, but really hard to climb down. I would still like to try. We are at lunch now, being fed a feast and a half. We all agreed, though: we would prefer to be a bit hungry and have had more time at they pyramids. Maybe just have a little lunch instead of a feast.

Cool. I got a picture of Francois flying over the pyramids.

It took me several tries to get this self portrait.

Hello from Cairo!

At the internet cafe was a cat named The Orange One. He had long Egyptian cat ears and a relaxed demeanor having a guest in his chair. This particular internet cafe didn't have the ability to use my USB.

Cairo!

Hello from Cairo!

I've gotten a bit of a chance to catch up on email here: I have foregone the
opportunity to see the Cairo museum; we only had 2 hours of freetime in the city,
so I didn't want to pay full price for a museum that I couldn't possibly see in an
entire day, much less 2 hours.  Plus, I wasn't listening when they told us where it
was.

We visited the pyramids today!  They seemed bigger than I thought they would be. 
Each block is like 3 feet tall, and there are ...... many blocks.  Like 2.5
million.  The pyramids really are astonishing.  I like to imagine what they were
like originally, with smoothly covered surfaces reflecting the bright sun for
miles.  I was a bit sad to see stairs cut into the blocks.

We saw the Sphinx as well.  It was smaller than I thought it would be, but
otherwise looked just like all the pictures suggest.  I got a few pictures of
Francois between the sphinx and pyramids, and some that I hope to edit so the
sphinx has a rabbit head.

Yes, Francois is the name of the stuffed bunny given to me by a certain person
named Colleen..  (Thank you!!!).  He hung on my wall for two years before I came to
a critical decision:  should I throw/give him away when I get rid of all my stuff? 
Or should I take him around the world?  I voted for the latter, and in Al Aqaba,
Jordan, a woman named Ai suggested the name Francois.  The bunny didn't have a name
before that, but now he does, and is becoming a bit of a star on PB!   I'll
have a bunch of pictures of Francois in various countries around the world.

Al Aqaba, Jordan looks like a well loved old town.  The buildings are basically all
small and weather worn, but still lively and welcoming.  The Gulf of Aqaba is a
small little splash of water compared to the Red Sea: we can see across it from
Jordan to Egypt (and Israel next door).

From there we drove a few hours to Petra, by way of Wadi Rum.  Wadi Rum looks
somewhat like west Texas, but without the cactus.  There's just miles of red sand
and some rocky outcroppings painted in various shades of limestone layers.  I
climbed barefootedly up some rocks and got pics of Francois there.

(uh oh gotta be fast)

Petra was made famous by Indiana Jones And the Last Crusade movie.  It's the rock
facade in the last scene, (and it's called The Treasury because it's believed the
city's wealth was kept there.)  Have you been there?  Seen the movie?  Well, it's a
bit different now: it has recently been discovered that the well-know facade is the
*second* story (at least) and there is an excavation project working to reveal a
whole new room below the one that's there.  The first story has been covered and
forgotten by the centuries....   Wow!!!

Okay, gotta go!!!

      Love Love
       - Rob! 

On the way out of the area, we scoped the group photo of us with pyramid backdrop.

This is what it might look like to live a few kilometers from the pyramids.

bye Cairo

5:57pm

I didn't walk around Cairo at all. Just uploaded a blob of entries that I may or may not try to chop up later. We will be back in Port Said in a couple or three hours. Bye, Cairo!

There are guys in white suits with pistol grip machine guns. I just waved Francois at them.

Cairo traffic is messed up, but an effictive way to get away from people I don't want to talk to. One cat kept trying to be all, "hey, my friend where are you from?" and I felt kinda uneasy so I stepped suddenly across the street using the traffic to block him from following me further.

It seems that everyone we see has been or knows someone who has been anywhere we name as our home.

"Hello, my friend! Where are you from?"

"I am from, uh, Fastidia."

"I was in Fastidia for two weeks last year, studying geometry. I lived just north of Fastidia."

"Really? You lived in the acid wasteland? That's amazing!"

7:11pm

I'm back, safely in my room. It's kindof a trick to get past the vendors who all have something for sale for a dollar. I wanna go back out and get some ice cream or food, and maybe some souvenirs.

Speaking of ice cream, I saw this on the way home.

souvenir shopping

1:32am AST Monday 20 June 2005

This evening before departure, some of us walked around in search of foodage and fruit and souvenirs. I bought some shampoo (Head and Shoulders with Arabic instructions) and drinkable yogurt (got two because they need to be refrigerated, but I could have easily consumed three tonight. Probably four).

Was unable to find the cafe where Natalie saw a guy and told him she'd be back later, but we did find some rather large and disconcerting inflatable Christmas decorations in a street intersection with music playing loudly.

Bought ice cream on the way back and I bought my dad a cat for $7 plus a few Egyptian pounds. The guy had started at $20 and I had started at $3.

Tonight after departure we hung out in Sunshine Bar telling stories as some of them smoked a hookah pipe. Shawn ran from the cops; Greg knows what happened to the cricket field, I jumped my dad's truck, Elat learned about music boxes, Natalie knew her brother was okay, Matt used his ex-work truck to get to Japan, and I can't remember Brandt's story.