lucienneandpaul

We stayed in Cairo for 3 or 4 days just getting ready to end our trip. It sounds funny, but its true. All of our old clothes, the ones we used for backpacking, had to go and we needed to find replacements and warm clothes for Europe. We also visited the Citadel and the famous Muhammad Ali mosque, the street of the tent makers and finally got to see the mass at the hanging church in coptic cairo. The previous time we had gone to coptic cairo we actaully visited a greek orthodox church, which we thought was the hanging church. We only found out after looking at a tourist pamflet with pictures and lables in english. So we had to go back to see this church. It was incredibly old (15c I think) and filled ... read more

To not say anything if you don't have anything nice to say. We are in Luxor, the apparent hassel capital of egypt. I'll give some highlights and maybe when I am less jaded and less pissed off I'll write more about our experineces. We went to Aswan via train, the train was ok and we had the entire compartment to our selves. It was a night train so we even got to sleep a little. Aswan was, by far, the place closest to hell that I have ever been. Nothing terribly wrong with it except its occupants. The nile is quite pretty down south. We hiked in the desert and booked a trip t Abu Simbel, very close to the sudanese border. Abu simbel was as touristy as it gets. But for very good reason, the ... read more

Yesterday, our first full day in Egypt we met up with a friendly edmontonian and went walking in Islamic Cairo. As the guide book says, Islamic Cairo isn't anymore Islamic than the rest of Cairo except of course, coptic cairo. We visited old mosques (here women are aloud into some mosques) gateways, markets, toilets and of course restraunts (coffee houses). One of the incredibe things about Cairo is that it is safe I hope I haven't jinxed myself, but we walk a night, go to the bank, ride the subway and just generally forget we are on the same coninent as Africa. Infact I can say that it feels safer here than my 'hood in Vancouver. People are incredibly nice and welcoming, particularly the vendors and young men ;-) I've been groped a few times in ... read more

the safari was awesome. but I say that everytime. The maasai mara is not a game park, but an area of land just north of the serengetti. It is not fenced and the animals wander freely. The land used to belong to the maasai people who are mainly pastoralists, but the government approached them and asked if they could relocate so that tourists can use the area as well. suprisingly they agreed (or were forced to) and today the villages of the maasai are near the mara but not in. the maasai take their cattle to the water sources in the evening and then allow them to grase where ever. On the way to the Maasai mara we saw goats, zebra, giraffe, cows and sheep. The first day we arrived around 4 pm and immedaitly went ... read more

lets all clap our hands, I recovered the pictures. It turns out, that the pictures are still on my memeory card, it seems to be broken. I bought a new one in Arusha, and am taking the old one back as is to canada in hopes that someone there will be able to extract the missing pics. but, never the less, paul and i decided to make the trek back to Dar to check and see if the pics are here. THEY ARE!!!!!!!!!!! I burned a cd (which cost me a bloody fortune $9) and right now the only ones missing are the ones from zanzibar and olduvai gorge. The safari was excellent, that has been covered... lets see.... on monday we stayed an extra day in arusha to visit the un tribual on the rwandan ... read more