Leg 2 - Arabian Nights

---

Salaam Ala Coomb, (for the non-Arabs, Hello)
from the extremely hot jewel of the Nile - Cairo. I am certainly not in Kansas anymore, Toto. I arrived in Egypt Thursday night at 11:30 pm. I guess there is not a lot of people wanting to fly these days, especially to the Middle East. I flew on a Boeing 777, that usually carries 250-300 people. There was maybe 20 passengers on board. I wasn't sure what to expect when I got off the plane in Cairo, other than it was going to be hot. Sure enough it was hot (low to mid 20's at midnight). Lots of guards toting sub machine guns and locals wanting you to buy something or use their taxi. For you people who think I drive alittle fast or maybe alittle extreme at times; I don't compare at all. I don't think there are any traffic laws. People just go as fast as they can with one hand on the wheel and the other on the horn. And for some reason, which I am still working on, a lot of people drive at night without lights - crazy.

My tour starts tomorrow. Friday I just wondered around Cairo trying to get lost. Some strange sites. Mercedes behind a mule and a cart behind a bus crammed with people, that had to be at least 40 years old, bellowing smoke out the back. Security seems to be a priority here. There are sentry posts every 200 feet with 1 or 2 guys with machine guns. I feel very safe. Hopefully they are there to protect me, not shoot me! One thing os they seem to like Canadians.

Today I went to the Egyptian Museum. The impressive display was the artifacts from the tomb of King Tut. Tomorrow we head to the pyramids in the morning and then get on a train for a 16 hr ride to the south of Egypt, to a place called Aswan. I will be back in Cairo a week from Monday, and will e-mail some pictures.

Hope everyone is doing fine.

Take care, ma-sa'el heer

Joel

---