Cairo June 29,2008

Back again. So odd to use this internet. Nearly all of it is in Egyptian and you have to do everything from right to left. Their letters resemble squiggles and ,to me, are indecipherable. So I was talking about yesterday and our time in old Cairo. We also saw a water buffalo tied to a fence in the middle of the city (produces milk for the street). Everywhere you look there are minarets and mosques, apparently over 10,000. The streets in the old part are cobbled and sandy. Nearly every women wears a veil. The egyptians have become much more fundamentalist in the past 20 years.
After lunch we toured the Egyptian Museum. The most extraordinary artifacts stored in an unairconditioned 110 year old building that looks like something from an Indiana Jones movie. The whole 2nd floor contains the trove from King Tut's tomb including his 200lb. solid gold sarcophagus and the famous gold mask. We also saw 12 royal mummies, some pretty gruesome, as well as some animal mummies. One of the queens even had her pet mummified baboon by her side. The new museum opens in 2011 "inshallah" - Egyptian for God willing. Really it is deesperately needed- a crime to keep these priceless treasures as they are now. Sat evening we flew south an hour to Luxor-ancient Thebes- home of the Valley of the Kings.On the way to the airport we stopped at the site of the assassination of Anwar Sadat and his tomb across the street. sad, he held a lot of promise for Egypt. It was 27 years ago, doesn't seem that long.
Luxor
We are staying in the Winter Palace Hotel, the "grande dame" of Luxor and the nicest hotel in this city of 200,000. We have a large balcony with rattan chairs overlooking the palm garden. Cairo temps are cool compared to here. Today the temp is 116. Somehow, though I was very careful, I have developed the Pharoah's Revenge aka Mummy's Tummy. Fortunately I was able to get a magical Egyptian potion- Antinal- which seems to be helping. This AM we spent the day at the Karnak Temple- remember Johnny Carson? I cannot say too much because I was overwhelmed by the heat, feeling ill,etc. I learned a bit about the Pharoahs but pretty sure I won't remember much. This afternoon we rested beside the pools with some of our new friends.They actually have to cool the water. The pool is 79, outside 110.
By 5:30 the temp had cooled to 102 with occasional breezes off the Nile. An hour tour of the Temple of Luxor was enough to "temple us out" for the day. Some guy in a tunic singled Bert out and spirited him away to a hieroglyphic wall indicating that he would get a special blessing by touching his hand to his head and then the wall 14 times. This info cost him 1 egyptian pound- 18 cents. Cheap price for good luck.
In other news, we signed up for a hot air balloon ride over the Valley of the Kings in 2 days. Already I am a wreck but we paid for it so I am going this time. Our wake up call is for 4AM for a breakfast at a farm village on the other side of the Nile so I am off to bed.

Egypt June 27-29,2008

Going to Egypt in the summer is a little crazy- no that isn't the right word- maybe insane. But here we are on another OAT trip with 18 fellow crazies. We all fell prey to the extraordinary low prices and great value. Nonsto to Cairo from JFK- 3 hours on runway then 10 more in the air. I have never seen so much luggage anytime,anywhere. The few Americans on the plane basically had little more than backpacks, but the Egyptians! Each and every one had the most gigantic cases imaginable. Even the 20 babies had them. I really feared wo wouldn,t get off the ground. However, cramped and old he plane, we did make it.
First night in Heliopoulos in a beautifully landscaped hotel near the airport on the edge of the desert. After too short a sleep we rose tofollow our leader Ghadda to Cairo 20 miles away. 18 million live in this 1000 year old city. We toured 2 17th century homes- not really typical as the had 100 rooms each/ Women lived in the harems unseen by the men. Tiny airless rooms. Did I mention the heat? OMG- in the 90s, sultry, dusty. A busy ancient city with too many cars and smog. Still though, there are donkeys and horsecarts. Back later off to the temple!

Ponta Delgado, San Miguel, Azores, April 22, 2008

We couldn't just go straight home without stopping to see this lovely island. Sata Air flies directly to Boston through the Azores so I arranged to have a 9 hour layover. I had rented a car and came prepared with a map. What I wasn't prepared for was the beauty of this island out in the middle of the Atlantic, one of about 8 that belong to Portugal. Ponta Delgado is the capital and about 3 miles from the airport. The island can be covered in a day or two but ideally a few days to savor would have been better. We saw few, if any, hotels and no tourists. It is lush green with a riot of flowers everywhere. Hydrangeas of many different colors grow wild. The eastern side of the island contains the collapsed volcano that gave birth to San Miguel .We walked around the bubbling hot springs and vents. There were large cooking pots in several of them. The locals use the vents to cook their stews- nature's crock pot. There seemed to just be a slower pace to life here. It reminded me of Ireland 25 years ago. We watched as a farmer hitched his horse to the milk wagon to bring his jugs to market. He must have thought we were crazy as we kept snapping his picture. As we were driving we came upon a herd of cows moseying along. There were hundreds of them blocking the road. I honestly think there are more cows here than people. We found ourselves thinking that this was like the garden of Eden. One of our favorite stops on a trip which was so diverse.