Egypt December 2007

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I loved Egypt.

I even loved Cairo which is dusty, dirty, chaotic, color it beige and gray, a city of between 11 million and 14 million (each person would tell us something different) with only one freeway. Coming from LA, that's hard to believe. But the traffic was more than a nightmare. I was there such a very short time, on a tour with a friend Rama from Santa Cruz and two of her friends and three other folks, the second formal tour of my life. Before I've always traveled either with friends or alone, or due to work. I recently counted and I've visited and/or worked in 36 countries.

Back to Cairo, like I said I loved it. If I were young, I'd find a way to work there for a while. But alas, new languages don't enter this old brain so easily any more, and my bones are weary. But why did I love it? Although I was only a brief tourist, I could feel it's vibrancy, fascinating culture, intellectual depths, it's venerable age, as well as it's corruption and political nightmare, and it so frustrated me that I was only getting a pasteboard tourist view.

The rest of our trip was spent on the Nile visiting ruin after ruin after ruin, each one fascinating. I'd no idea there were so many. We see pictures of only a few things, the sphinx, Abu Sibel, the pyramids, but there are thousands more. The river life along the Nile was also interesting, a broad green belt back by stark desert terrain and mountains. And the dramatic difference between the Nubian Nile and the Aswan and north Nile was also unexpected. My photos don't do any of it justice so I'm just adding a few.

All I can say is go to Egypt if you ever have a chance.

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Photos

The Nile in Cairo