Day 37: Oct 11th: Rise and shine!

Waking up at 3am was surprisingly easy. Maybe it was because we'd gone to bed around 8pm...

It is required that any tourists going to Abu Simbel travel with the police convoy. We went along with the 430am one. Luckily it wasn't the 330am one!

The minibus was quite full and so we were shoved in the back and in the middle aisle on these tiny fold out seats without much if any back support. Despite the heat and the discomfort of the 3 and a 1/2 hour bus ride, we arrived unscathed and ready to take on Abu Simbel. Abu Simbel is the name of the mountain that holds the Great Temple of Ramses II as well as a smaller one dedicated to his wife, Nefertari. The former was, as promised, very beautiful and impressively large. It was discovered within the last few hundred years (I think) and so was still in very good condion. There were fantastic scenes of the Pharaoh fighting the Hittites in his chariot and of him before sacred boats of the gods Amun and Ra. The reliefs were relatively large, a liberty allowed probably because of the size of the temple. There were many side rooms inside, and it was fun exploring them for scenes we haven't seen before (a lot of things have seemed to repeat themselves throughout all the temples we've seen).

The second smaller temple was also fascinating. The reliefs appeared even larger, but maybe because the walls were smaller. There was a very beautiful and graceful scene of a cow on a boat surrounded by papyrus that caught my attention. Of course Rames was everywhere in this temple as well. He just couldn't help himself could he.

It's interesting to know that in the mid-sixties, UNESCO decided to save the temple from being flooded by the construction of Lake Nasser and cut the temple into 807 blocks and moved them inland. What is very impressive about this is an Italian architect designed a dome that would cover the temple and mimick the original mountain from which it was carved. You can't tell unless you know it's there because it's covered with rock and sand.

We got back to Aswan (having secured much better seats on the bus by getting there early) around 1:30pm and went back to get some koshary were we had gone last night. Our waiter was pleased that we had actually come back as he had mentioned should while leaving yesterday. We'd said "maybe." He looked hopeful that we would be back "maybe tomorrow" but we are catching the overnight train to Cairo this evening. We are both pleased with our visit to Upper Egypt but are excited to get back to Noha's for two more days in Cairo. Hectic!

We wandered around the market for a while after lunch, then settled in a park by the river for a bit. We were joined by two Egyptian ladies who we think moved closer to us just to get a better look, and hear us speak in English. But we didn't mind. And we discovered that Arabic, when spoken by women, sounds much less harsh and more musical!

The sunset was especially beautiful tonight as we caught glimpses of it through the buildings and trees while we passed out of Aswan on the train. It was very orange and red. Hopefully, despite the fact that we got more sleep today than the last couple of days combined, we'll be able to take advantage of our beds on the sleeper train!
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Day 36: October 10. Milking it for all it's worth.

Our last breakfast on board the M/S Nile Symphony (with the Presidential Cruises) was a little sad this morning without Mark and Eleanor, who departed at three this morning to go see a temple called Abu Simbel. But it was delicious as usual, and we said goodbye to the friendly (and trickster) dining staff. They took fun in teasing us. For example, they might come over with a cup of tea and spill it on us, only to reveal that it was empty.

We decided to walk to the souq with Matthew and his family, just to see what the Aswan market was all about. As usual for our bazaar visits, we had to have something to shop for. This time it was traditional Egyptian tunics. Neither of us found what we were looking for, but we had fun browsing and trying them on!

We parted ways with Matthew and family and tried with no avail to find a hotel recommended by our guide book for ferrys to the west bank of the Nile. So we asked the felucca owners where to find a ferry. Eager for business, they of course told us that there was no ferry, so we decided to go back and ask at our ship.

While we were waiting for the hotel receptionist to check on a few options for us, I started to feel a bit woozy, due (we think) to my malaria meds. We decided to change our plans, and I went upstairs to the deck to lay down in the shade for a short while while Karla went into Aswan (don't worry parents-it was safe) to find us a hotel for the evening and get us some lunch from the market.

She returned within an hour, and we had lunch on the ship deck. I felt a lot better, so we decided to try to get to the Noble's Necropolis once again. We bartered with the felucca drivers right next to our ship, and got someone to take us across the Nile in our very own felucca.

We were rowed to a small island near the shore in a tiny rowboat, then escorted onto our felucca. Our captian reminded us of a little monkey: he leapt around preparing the ship to sail, and he spoke in an excited chatter in broken English, making faces and using exaggerrated gestures to make us understand. He was very funny.

We got to the other side without a problem (surprising since he let Karla steer and man the sail a bit), and climbed to the middle of a mountain, where we were let into the tombs of Noble peoples (mostly governors) which dated from around 2200 BC to the 1200's BC. They were little caves carved into the side of the hill, and had remained relatively intact. One of the things that we hadn't seen before was extensive heiroglyphics painted in detail. For example, the heiroglyphic character of an owl had a beak, two eyes and feathers! I can't imagine a written language that requires such detail. It was amazing to see the elaborate designs that decorated the final resting places of non-royalty. Cool!

We practically floated down the side of the cliff, running down the sand dunes, and hopped back in our felucca. This time our captain, after he nicely washed the donkey/camel dung that I had stepped in off in the Nile, started scooping out handfuls of water from the river directly into his mouth. He jokingly suggested that Karla and I should drink out of the Nile too, but we inwardly shuddered at the thought. He has a strong stomach!

On board again, we shared a final teatime with some of our fellow passengers, who joked that we would never leave the ship. We were tempted not to as we sipped our tea and watched the sunset one more time. So we re-said our goodbyes, and disembarked (for the last time!), humming the sappy panpipe soundtrack we had been listening to over and over again for the last 5 days. Our favorite track was Elton John's 'Can You Feel the Love Tonight". You can get the gist of the caliber of the rest of them.

We walked a short ways to our new hotel and checked in, before running a few errands, then wandering through the marketplace, looking for somewhere to eat dinner. Just when we had resigned ourselves to eating at a pizza place, we found a very clean-looking koshiri restaurant. It was perfect.

Once back at the hotel, we rounded out our meal with some beef that we had had leftover from Noha's (it had been refridgerated!), eating it with our hands on the only table we had available-the bed, and bemoaning how far we'd come from the luxurious river cruise.

Tomorrow we have to get up at 3 am for a long bus ride down to see the Temple of Abu Simbel. But we'll be ok...it looks like we'll be in bed by 8:15!
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Day 35: Oct 9th: Dam

Today we woke at 6am (its starting to wear on us) to catch the Aswan Dams and the Temple of Isis before the heat could. The dams were quite impressive. The larger and older of the two was 4 kilometers long and 1 km wide! It was built with the help of an English engineer in 1902 and was the largest in the world at the time. The newer one was built with the Soviets in the second half of the twentieth century. Together they produce quite a bit of electricity for Egypt as well as for other countries. They also prevent flooding and make a larger agricultural area possible. It created Lake Nassar, the largest man-made lake in Egypt (most likely the largest in general). They were cool, but the Hoover dam is cooler in my opinion.

After a quick stop at the dams, we made our way to the Temple of Isis (aka Philae), which was formerly underwater, and was moved stone by stone to a man-made island in the 1800's. To get there we had to take a motorized (loud and smelly) version of a felucca (we had taken the real thing in Cairo) to even get to the temple. There were mobs of boats and people and salesmen, but it was still beautiful.

After a quick stop on the Symphony (our boat)we took a group felucca ride around Elephantine Island and the Botanical Gardens (former Kitchner's Island, another Englishman). It was quite beautiful and the breeze took some of the noon heat away.

We got back just in time for lunch at 1pm, which was as always a buffet- and a pretty good one at that. Since we've been feeling so much better these days, we've been able to appretiate the food more (although I'm still relying mostly on soup (its just so gooood)).

Post-mealtime we threw on the old bathing suits (an awesome one-piece for me) and hit the pool deck. We lounged, napped, took a dip, and then awaited tea time at sunset (around 5:10). We were lucky enough to be one of the boats tied on the outside (there were two other boats between us and land). We had an excellent view of the sun setting lazily over the feluccas carrying crowds of people. It was magical. But really.

Just then, one of the waiters (not the one in love with Alicia) came over to the table of Lebanese honeymooners to perform a magic trick. It was pretty cool, but we were skeptical as you might imagine. He held out a napkin and had them put in a wooden toothpick. He folded the napkin around it and then had them break it into pieces while it was in the napkin. Then they blew some magic on it and he unfolded the napkin to reveal a whole toothpick. Amazing! (How easily we are entertained).

Tonights entertainment was the "Nubian party." It was short but very fun and energetic. Not nearly as weird as the last one. They pulled all of us up onto the dance floor to dance to their drums. Then before we knew it, the show was all over and we were sitting in our seats staring at an empty stage listening to Dolly Parton sing/cry. I guess they had another show to do on the next boat.
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Day 34: Oct 8th: Dedicated to the ancient god, Horus

In the night (around midnight) we went through the lock. There wasn't much to look at, but you could feel the boat knocking the side of the lock with a jolt during the hour it took to get two boats through. No wonder we were sitting at the lock for over 7 hours!

In the morning we awoke early to tour the temple of Edfu. This temple was dedicated to Horus, the falcon god. Again, we saw huge statues, colorful decorations and wall reliefs. It's hard to describe because all the temples are so different, but on paper (or in our cyber-world) they all sound the same!

We went back to the boat for a few hours to have a dip in the pool, lunch, shower, and have tea time before heading for a tour of Kom Ombo. This site was also very beautiful and packed with endless reliefs on the walls. It's dedicated to Horus and Sobek, the crocodile god of healing. We were there at sunset and saw the whole temple light up, first with the last rays of sunlight from across the Nile, then with the giant lights from the floor.

We rushed back to the ship to make it back before we set sail for Aswan. We shared yet another lovely dinner with Mark and Eleanor, before heading upstairs for the Galabaya party.
This was one of the weirdest parties that either of us had ever been to. The point was to dress up like an Egyptian. Of course, neither of us had bought traditional Egyptian clothing, and weren't comfortable covering our heads in the traditional Muslim manner, so we just wore shawls and kind of went along for the ride.

So the 'costume party' part did not make it weird. What made it weird was the crazy games that they had us playing. (And of course the fact that everyone spoke a different language). For exanple, one of the games was for the women to dance in a circle, and when the music stopped, to grab a spoon. Of course, there were casualties. Eleanor and I had the same idea to grab a spoon across the way and both ended up sliding for it at the same time...we both got minor floorburn - mine wasn't as bad seeing as I know how to properly slide :) - and I ended up winning some fruit juice. It was very exciting. Another game was "for couples", so Karla and I got up right away. The object was for her to mummify me with TP to the best of her ability in 5 minutes. We tied this game with Mark and Eleanor. We were all pretty proud of our table of champs!

After the Galabaya, Karla and I played ping pong with another friend, Matthew, that we had made from South Africa, and are now looking at very little sleep. Tomorrow's another early day!

We almost forgot to mention that upon returning to our rooms for lunch time, we found a nice surprise in our room. They had made a crocodile out of our towels. They were so proud of themselves when they came over to make sure we liked it. The day before they had made swans. Clearly they have far too much time on their hands.
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Day 33: Oct 7th: How you feeling? Hot, hot, hot!

The wake up call was bright and early today: 5:30am. It would have been fine except that I was feeling quite terrible. Alicia made it down for breakfast, but I only managed to make it to the bus on time. Our first stop were the Colossus of Memnon. They were quite splendid and impressive, and reminded me of the sphinx the way they were falling apart and all. The birds were happy to call their faces home.

After this, we endured another short bus ride to the Valley of the Kings. We were there quite early but already the sun was starting to get very hot and the crowds were pouring in. After a brief but thorough introduction from our guide, we quickly made our way to the suggested tombs. First stop was Tuthmosis III (step son of Queen Hapshepsut). To get to this tomb we had to climb up a narrow metal staircase of 32 steps. As we waited to decend into the tomb, we saw people come pouring out just exhausted. We took one more breath of fresh air before climbing down alongside the people eager to exit. Upon entering, we crossed over a giant well used to dissuade robbers from entering. Once across this we walked down yet another ramp to get to the tomb chamber. The drawings everywhere were spectacular. They weren't as colorful or detailed as others (in fact most of them were almost stick-figures), but there were so many stories being told. They covered every inch of the rooms. The heat inside the tomb was surprisingly like a sauna. Not cooler at all.

With only an hour left before the bus departed, we hurried out to get to King Tut's tomb. This was far easier to get to and not crowded at all as it cost another 8 bucks to get in (for students). The tomb was much smaller, but the paintings were still beautiful. The scale of the paintings was much larger as well (individual figured covered an entire wall). Also in the tomb was one of the three gold mummy coffin shells and the mummy himself. It was interesting to see how young he looked compared to the ones we saw in the museum. At least he looked relatively peacefull being in his own tomb.

Next came the tomb of Ramses IV. This tomb wasn't too hard to enter, not counting the line. I was too weak to wait in the sun so Alicia graciously waited for the two of us. Once inside, we were greeted with colorful wall paintings and large hallways leading to the end room. The paintings were quite vivid as well.

After this we tried to go to one last tomb but we didn't have enough time and had to get back to the bus. Our next destination was the Temple of Hetshepsut only a short ways away. It was very impressive in size, and was made to look even more prominent with huge cliffs looming behind it. There were quite a few large scale statues still standing at the entrance, and the paintings inside were amazing and very beautiful. We'd say they may have been some of our favorite yet. It was amazing that as many colors had survived exposed to the sun for thousands of years. The story behind the temple was especially interesting. The queen wanted complete power in Egypt and so claimed to be the son of Amun-Ra instead of the Daughter of Ramses II. It was here that Tuthmosis III had defaced her image within the temple in order to claim it as his own. But even in its damaged state, it was a incredible temple.

Of course we couldn't go the whole day without being taken to a market where there was free tea, clean bathrooms, and of course an onyx and alabaster shop. While we took advantage of the two former, we left the latter to the adults. Whilst they were purchasing, we chatted with the Egyptians outside "working" the alabaster stone. I asked if they were actually making something or if they were just chipping away. Sure enough, they were just chipping. The next logical (to them) question to ask was of course if we were married. Alicia said yes as she had her "wedding ring" on and I said no, adding that I was worth over a hundred camels. We all laughed, knowing that everyone on the street trying to sell you something will often compare a woman to how many camels she's worth. Its of course completely ridiculous and quite disturbing, but you've just got to laugh. We ended the conversation with one of the demonstrators pulling out a picture of his wife and daughter. It's all a show, with a little truth behind it. Sadly.

We got back to the boat to do some relaxing by the pool. As you might imagine, this was a rather foreign concept to us, but we quickly settled into the routine and awaited tea time at sunset. We were sailing towards Aswan at this point, passing amazing scenery and small towns. The setting sun over the Nile is unlike any other sunset for sure. Especially when you catch the occasional nude bather (they were really far away don't worry) and the teenager washing his clothes (strange!)

Right around sunset we arrived at the lock in the river. There was quite the backup of boats and the Egyptian boat salesmen were benefiting. It was quite the spectacle. These small boats would come up right next to the ship and from way down below they would yell up trying to sell their shirts, scarves, and carpets. When they thought (it didn't matter if someone was or not) that someone was interested, they would put the item in a plastic bag and chuck it up on the sundeck. They even got one in the pool. Then it would be thrown back down to them after someone had looked at it and decided they didn't want it. We don't know how they would have ended up getting the money as no one on our boat made a purchase. It was very fun to watch.

As it was bingo night after dinner, we opted for the cozy bed (they are awesome!). Until tomorrow!
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Day 32: Oct 6: Luxor

Today we arrived to Luxor via overnight train. We got in at 6:30 after a light breakfast of tea and cake. We both felt a little ill but we got everything together in time. I guess we didn't look ready because the guy kept coming back to make sure we were ready. Once off the train we were groggy and still waking up. Immediately upon stepping out of the station, cab drivers were basically at our throats like never before. We were not in the mood, and so put our angry faces and voices on. It didn't help, but we finally got someone to take us for a reasonable price to the Symphony cruise ship, one of many kilometers of boats along the banks of the Nile.

We arrived at our ship and checked in, trying to gather energy to explore Luxor. We grabbed a bite of apple and bread and headed towards the Luxor museum. It was really cool to see: there were dozens of statues recently excavated (within the last 50 years) from the Temples of Luxor and Karnak. There were also two mummies (!), one of Ramses I and one that we'd never heard of. It was cool to see the mummies, especially Ramses, who still had hair! But we weren't sure how we felt about putting someone's body in a glass case for everyone to examine, no matter how long he'd been dead.

After a couple of hours in the museum, my illness and fatigue started to hit me again, and we had to take a cab home. A nap before lunch did us well! We both had a very plain lunch, and felt a little better after eating. Thankfully, we were both feeling up to the afternoon's tours!

We boarded the tour bus (feeling a little out of place as we normally do all we can to avoid the big tours!), and made our way to the Temple of Karnak. The scale of the temple complex alone was impressive. It was massive! For example, in the entrance hall alone, there were 134 colossal columns in the shape of palm trees, which once supported the roof. There were hundreds of inscriptions and painted carvings on the walls, as well as 2 obelisks (thery're always made in pairs!) and a Sacred Lake where battles and performances were staged.

We left the Karnak Temple as the sun was setting over the Nile, and arrived at the Luxor Temple as dusk was falling. This was guarded by two gigantuan statues of Ramses II, and was the temple of his wife (whereas Karnak was his temple). As was traditional, Ramses II's temple was facing East-West, and his wifes was facing North-South, running along the lines of the Nile, representing fertility, and together forming the shape of a cross. The temple was especially cool to see as night fell and the lights were lit - it gave the place quite a magical feeling.

We climbed back on the bus and had a little time to kill before dinner, so Karla napped again, and I went off in search of electrolyte powder. (Successfully I might add...there must be a lot of sick foreigners in Luxor!)

Dinner was appetizing for me, but not so for Karla. It seems like she has the extended version of this thing. Poor kid. We made friends with this lovely Irish couple, who are also in our tour group, then met them upstairs after dinner for the bellydancing show. The first act was this man wearing a sort of hoop-skirt that remained suspended in mid-air, who spun continuously for 20 minutes. It made us dizzy just watching him! Next was the bellydancer. Despite the fact that neither of us has ever seen a live belly dancing show, we thought she was sub-par. At least she succeeded in making our new Irish friend dance, and we thoroughly enjoyed watching her boyfriend laugh at her. We didn't have enough energy to join in. Hopefully tomorrow we'll be well enough to fully participate in Bingo night. Who knew that we'd be on the senior citizen's cruise? Haha, not really.
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Day 31: October 5. The Pyramids.

Today we got to see the pyramids! Karam took us to Giza (only stopping to ask directions twice!) and we wandered around the complex. The sphinx was really cool, although we all decided that its head is too small for its body, and his feet were way too big as well.

We of course can't leave out the fact that Alicia accidentally got on a camel as it made barking noises. At first of course he said to take a picture of him. Then he made the camel sit down and then through a series of hilarious events, Alicia was suddenly up in the air hanging on for dear life. All I got on film was her saying "put me down!" And when he did and we walked away, he wanted baksheesh (tips). Of course we didn't because he said it was free! Oh well, it wouldn't be a complete day without some Egyptian yelling at us.

We wandered around the three big pyramids in the complex. Strangely, it was only crowded around the Great Pyramid and the Sphinx, and no one really ventured over to see the smaller ones. It was really hot, and kind of windy, so I guess people just didn't want to cross the sandy desert to get there. That didn't faze us! We even got to see a mock horse race in the sand.

We left Giza, stopping to buy two large, cold waters, and got driven to Suqqara, which was another temple and pyramid complex-the largest in Cairo. We saw the Step Pyramid, which was the first pyramid ever built! We also got to look into the tombs of some servants of the pharohs, which was cool because even they, while not nearly as large or imposing, are decorated with intricate carvings and colorful depictions of life and the after-life. It was very cool to see. Unfortunately we didn't get to see everything but we had to get back for the train (at least it was free to walk around).

We left around 4 and went back to Noha's house. We had a snack (and realized that we'd forgotten to eat lunch since it was so hot!), and packed up. Kit and Karam dropped us off at the train station (we will miss having Kit around), and now we're on board the sleeper train to Luxor. The car is very cool - we have a private room with 3 seats which pull out into bunk beds, and a little sink and table. This should be a much more comfortable way to travel than the night busses!

Tomorrow we will tour Luxor...
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Day 29: October 3. Welcome to Egypt!

We intended to make an early start to the day, but got quite distracted by a pleasant breakfast and great conversation (Noha is so interesting to talk to!), and before we knew it, it was 10:00.

Noha allowed us to borrow her personal driver for the day to go practically anywhere we wanted to go. Amazing!!! Our only time contraint was getting back to Noha's house in time to meet Kit at 1pm (and for lunch of course) who was getting there from the airport. For those of you who don't know Kit, he was a classmate of ours at Wesleyan (also played baseball) who had studied in Cairo (actually happed to live right down the street from Noha in a dormatory (it's a small world!)). The plan was to go to the Citadel as well as the oldest mosque in Cairo before he arrived. The Citadel had a really great view of the city (you could even see the pyramids!) And housed a beautiful mosque, a lovely open-air mosque, the military museum, and Muhammad Ali's throne room inside the palace museum.

After this we made our way in the car (stopping often to ask for directions) to the Ibn Talun mosque, the oldest but not the biggest mosque in Cairo. Unfortunately we got there during the call to prayer and we couldn't wait to go in because we had to get back to meet Kit. We decided to go back later.

We got back to the house to find Kit having already arrived. It was a joyous reunion. We had a lovely home-cooked lunch of a traditional Egyptian soup, then were off to try to visit the Tulun mosque again. Unfortunately our driver, although extremely friendly and well-intentioned, has a terrible sense of direction, and doesn't know his way around Cairo all that well. At least he's not afraid to stop and ask for directions, something we did often.

When we finally made it to Ibn Tulun, it had closed for the day. We got ushered into a small mosque next door, fending off demands for baksheeh (tips). We stayed in there about 5 min, then asked our driver (whose name is Karam) to take us to this area of the city where the people sort the trash that comes in from all of Cairo, called Zuberia.

Karam really didn't want us to be there. We tried to explain that we were interested in seeing how garbage was sorted, but he didn't understand, and got pretty upset. He told us we had 5 minutes, and he wasn't happy about it. It turns out that he just gets very sad to see his fellow egyptians living in such poverty. Who can blame him?

We started walking through the Zuberia, watching the people literally sitting on top of garbage and sorting it to be recycled. They make a living selling the stuff they sort to be recycled, and they live there amongst all the flies, dirt and animals.

Karem drove through less than 3 minutes later and told us to get in the car. We drove through the main street, and he tried to explain that it made him sad to see people living like that, which is why he didn't want us going there. The whole experience was very enlightening.

At this point it was too late to go to Old Cairo, which had been our plan. The traffic was atrocious, and everyone was leaning on their horns, but we got the full Cairo experience! Karem still seemed to feel bad about Zuberia (as well as the fact that he got lost every 2 seconds!), and offered to take us out to dinner.

We tried hard to refuse, but he wouldn't have it, so he took us to...KFC! We think he thought that's what we would want, but when Kit pointed out that it was more expensive than some other restaurants, we explained to him that we would prefer to try Egyptian food.

We walked to a foule place (beans), and Kit and Karla tried sandwiches, while I had a dish. It was delicious! Since foule is not necessarily meant to be a main meal, we went to another restaurant to grab some koshiri. Koshiri is a delicious concoction of beans, rice, macaroni and tomato sauce. Karla and I loved it!

Next we went to a cafe right on the Nile to have tea. We watched to feluccas moving by and the colors of the boats and hotels reflected in the calm water. It was beautiful!

Because it was a nice night, we decided to walk back to Noha's. We're currently in the middle of the festival that comes at the end of Ramadan, so the streets were packed with people of all ages. It's amazing - we were treated like minor celebrities! Despite our attempts to blend in, we still stuck out, and people would stare at us as they passed (especially children!) and many many people yelled at us, "Welcome to Egypt!" It was kind of cool. One group of teenagers even asked to take a picture with us! It seems quite bizarre to me that in a major city with one of the ancient wonders of the world just minutes away, they would still make such a big deal about seeing a white person. But I guess a lot of people just take big tours, and don't really walk around much on their own.

Regardless, we enjoyed our little walk and got home virtually unscathed, except for Kit who got his butt pinched twice. But actually.
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Day 30: October 4. Walk like an Egyptian.

We woke up early again this morning and had another leisurely breakfast with Noha, before setting out again. We decided this time to forgo the car, and take the metro. We rode it down to Old Cairo, which is the Christian area of the city. Along our way, we went into a Chrisitan graveyard, where I was quite surprised by the size of the tombs (more like mausoleums) and the number of epitaphs written in French. Kit gave us a brief lesson on how to read Arabic numbers, and we carried on to Old Cairo.

This area of the city, also known as Coptic Cairo, had a very distinct medieval feel to it. We wandered around for a while, poking our heads into churches and whistling through graveyards before wandering back towards the metro.

We were looking for a juice stand for some fresh-squeezed juice, but were unable to find the one we had passed on our way there. We ended up drinking some cold sugar cane juice, which was surprisingly delicious (despite its greenish hue), and tastes exactly like you would imagine it to taste.

Just as we neared the metro, we saw a mecca sent from the gods: a juice stand. We got aome mango juice, and the kind propriator found us some chairs so we could sit down and enjoy it. Because we weren't that close to Coptic Cairo at this point, we were an anomoly there too. Kit even noticed that a guy pointed us out to his wife so she could see the Westerners!

We took the metro back up to the main square, then took a cab to the souq (market). We decided to go to the Al -Azhar mosque first. As we were sitting outside reading about it in our book, an older man approached us and told us that he had taught there for many years (the mosque is also a learning center for Islam), and that he was a direct descendant from Mohammed. He told us about the history of the building, then invited us for tea. After tea, he showed us his friend's spice shop, and taught us quite a bit about all the spices and what they are used for. And then (we should have known this was coming!) he showed us his work shop where he and his son made boxes inlayed with mother-of-pearl. They were beautiful, but Kit and I were kicking ourselves a little bit for not anticipating the hard sell.

After this little diversion, we got into the mosque and looked around. It was actually quite different from the other mosques we've been to: instead of being a big open square space, it was more rectangular, and littered with columns. There was also a surprising number of men taking naps there, which I found bizarre, but it's apparently socially acceptable. I believe that we forgot to mention that we had to put on full robes in yesturday's open mosque. There are pictures.

Our next stop was lunch, and we had it at this "Egyptian pancake" restaurant...it was a cross between a crepe and a pizza. But quite good. After lunch, we wandered around the souq for a long while, each of us putting our haggling face on, and looking for presents for different people. The whole time we were there, people would shout at Kit "Two wives? Very lucky man!" One guy even shouted "I would kill my wife for you!" It's hilarious what people shout as they pass! (This last line is definitly up there with Turkey's "hey woman" and "yes please 1, 2, 3, 4" comments) We've also been "welcome(d) to Egypt" by just about everyone.

The souq had a very different feel from the bazaars in Turkey, but the bargaining was the same. On our way back to the center of town, we saw some sheep in the middle of the road, and as we turned our heads, we saw a man holding down one sheep, while it was twitching. We noticed that the street was dark with blood: we were watching a sheep be slaughtered right in the road!

We caught a cab to the heart of the city, and grabbed some koshiri (it's the new Greek pita!) for dinner. Soon, we met up with Karam, and he took us north to find a felucca. We ended up paying 70 Egyptian pounds for all 4 of us to rent out the boat for one hour. We spent a very peaceful hour watching the party feluccas and the Nile go by. By this time, it was quite late, so we called it a night. Pyramids tomorrow!
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