July 2, 2005

It’s been a good week now since Joe and Jan arrived to the wild country of Egypt. I’ve had only time to post a few pictures, but I thought now that school is finished (Yeah!), I might actually write about what they’ve been up to. I’m certain that they have seen more of the sites in Egypt in one week than we have in a year. They’ve been very busy, but while Joe and I imagine that they are getting burnt out, they just keep on going.

What have they seen? We’ve made it to the Pyramids at Giza where Joe and Jan had their first taste of haggling and harassment Egyptian-style. You can’t leave the Pyramids as a tourist without a picture with a camel and some imitation Pyramids in hand. We got there late and almost had the Pyramids entirely to ourselves.

We made our way through the bustling Khan el Khalili market a couple of times already. Joe and Jan are quite the bargainers. There is just so much to buy, and so many people willing to sell to us. Perhaps we seem a little cheap to them, as we argue and bargain over 10 pounds here and there. As we bargain, I look over at Jan and see a look in her eyes like, “Why are they haggling over $1.67?” It’s hard for us to think in U.S. Dollars. 10 LE is 10 LE here. You can get quite a bit of groceries or a few taxi rides for that amount.

Speaking of taxis, probably hardest to contend with for Joe and Jan has been the taxi rides. Cairo is a city of traffic, and not just your regular traffic. They drive like crazy people here. (Only I’ve figured out that it’s actually quite an organized system.) As we veer through traffic, narrowly avoid pedestrians, and screech to a halt in the heavy Cairo traffic, I look over and see Jan clenching the seats from the middle of the back of the taxi.

Honestly, I don’t know how they are holding up so well. As we were working, we sent them with a car and driver to explore a few other Pyramids at Sakkara and Darshur. They also made it to the Citadel and the Egyptian Musuem without us. The driver of the car spoke English and gave them a tour of the City of the Dead, where Egyptians now live amongst the cities’ old tombs. Joe and I will have to take the same tour. It sounded fairly interesting.

Now that we’ve finally finished school, we are on our vacation as well. Today we are in the Sinai. We took a private mini-bus with a driver. We set out today along the Red Sea heading for the Sinai and St. Catherine’s Monastery. I’m writing now from our hotel. The trip today was, of course, very Egyptian. All was going well, our bus was driving in both lanes, speeding along happily, until all of a sudden the road went out. We spent some time driving slowly over a rocky desert road. The driver got a little frustrated and took us off-road onto a desert path for awhile. We all began wondering if we would have to get out and push if the bus were to get stuck. Who knows if they were doing some sort of construction or if they just never finished the road. One never knows in Egypt!

The paved road finally resumed after we all started to wonder if we would ever make it out of the Sinai. We arrived at our hotel in the middle of nowhere. The hotel itself is not too bad. There is a huge swimming pool (which I won’t swim in for fear of indecency. That’s okay, (big) Joe said it was freezing). The only problem is that we’re here, surrounded by silence in the basin of the mountains with nothing to do! Now, this was just fine with me. I’ve been longing for nothing to do and took a nice, long nap this afternoon. We had a nice buffet dinner this evening, and thankfully another busload of tourists showed up to give the place some noise. We enjoyed a nice evening in the Bedouin tent they have set up on the grounds. We had some tea, sat on cushions and listened to a little Arabic music. Maybe a little touristy, but it’s fun to pretend for awhile!

In two hours, at one a.m., we will wake up and climb Mount Sinai. The debate is whether or not we will take the regular path or whether we will take the 3,700 and some Steps of Repentance. (My) Joe, of course, wants to take the most difficult route, the Steps of Repentance. Apparently, you can take time off a purgatory or make up for your sins if you climb the steps. You get even more “points” for climbing them on your knees. We’ll see. I’m sure I’ll update you after tomorrow and as we enjoy the resort we are going to in Sharm el Sheikh.