Egypt 101: Eat poop drink poop eat poop drink poop poop poop drink poop. That pretty much sums up the food. It was good at the start, but after you 14th day of boiled eggs for breakfast, it becomes a bit monotonous. Everything else is amazing!

Cairo is nuts, I thought drivers in Italy were a bit edgy, it is just a free for all here. Any Canadian driver would be in an accident in 2 minutes here. I have yet to see a car without at least 3 dents…I think they sell them that way. I think they also sell them with the horn wiring backwards…it seems like you have to pull the lever to shut it off; as there is no other reason to explain all the constant honking.

Not being morning people, it has been good for us here as over 2 weeks, we have had at least 6 starts before 5am. The earliest was a 2am start for a hike up Mt Sinai for sunrise. Searched hard but could not find any graffitti left by Moses or the other stone containing the 11th through 20th commandments. I am sure #11 is: If you are German tourist climbing Sinai up a small path, do not hold hands and do not stop in the middle of the trail for a break. Apparently “excuse me” isn’t understood everywhere, I was following so close to this one lady who wouldn’t move on the descent that I think I may have gotten her pregnant. As you may be able to tell, Egypt may be curing my mornings, but not my patience.

So, if you are female and are not confident about your looks, come to Egypt because when a Western woman walks, everything stops. Every man within 50 meters is gawking or blowing you kisses. I think Diana secretly likes it even though she complains about it. I don’t think she enjoyed the walk through the bazaar as much though, at least 10 people per sq meter for about 15 blocks. Then when it became really congested, Diana started to feel a lot of people grabbing her bum…

As per my first line I started popping Immodium like candy for a week or so as we were on a felucca cruise down the Nile for 3 days and then went on a 3 day desert trek. No matter how bad I need to go, it is still hard to poop in the bush…especially when there is a water buffalo 20 feet away looking at you. Or if you are a woman, it is amazing how there is no one around, but as soon as you assume the crouching position, about 10 Nubian men magically appear to watch.

Egyptian people are all very friendly, although 98.763% are trying to sell you something, lure you into there cousins store, or give you useless advice for money. As soon as you tell them you are Canadian, they all immediatley say : aaaahhhh Canada Dry. The guide on the desert trek actually asked me why all Egyptians say it? I tried to teach him the theme song to Hockey Night in Canada instead, but it wasn’t a big hit.

We also rode camels and donkeys to get to different places. The first donkey I had was pretty small, I thought I was going to kill it, but I think it was barely saved because over every large bump my feet would drag, I almost considered picking it up and walking with it, but then I remembered I am a wimp. The camels made you think you were a big fatso, because once you got on they started to groan and holler until they got up. Just to make sure that I wasn’t actually gaining too much weight and being a burden on the beasts, I didn’t get on once and just moved the saddle a bit and sure enough, it screemed bloody murder. I didn’t feel to sorry for them after that.

The desert trek was not what I expected, I assumed all of Egypt would be flat and sandy with a bit of rock here and there thrown in….visions of Lawrence of Arabia. Instead, in the Sinai area, it is all rocky hills and small mountains with lots of sandblasted canyons. The other side (Red desert near Libya) is apparently more of the sand dunes etc.

Spent the last day snorkelling in the Red Sea which was very nice, tons of fish as there was a reef called the Blue Hole, essentially there was a shallow reef (2 feet deep) that went out in a circle from shore, and in the middle is an empty hole that is about 50 feet deep. It also seemed very weird that just across the water you could clearly see Saudi Arabia…didn’t realize that I was going to get that close.

Thats about it for me, maybe Diana will write some more later.

Oh yah, Pyramids, Sphinx etc were all amazing.

Next to India

here we have a lot of time for exploring the Greek Islands and relaxing on beaches.

Diana’s comments: So far, I like what I’ve seen of Greece. In Athens, there is a ton of construction going on - guess they are still getting ready for the Olympics next year. I guess Vancouver will be the same in a few years to come. We did all of the tourist sites we could in one day: the Acropolis with the Parthenon at the top, a few odeons/theatres, temple of Zeus, the changing of the guard. Did you know that the Acropolis is on a mountain that looks like solid marble? All of the ancient buildings look like they are made of solid white marble!

Our hotel wasn’t the cleanest, but it had a balcony with a great view of the Acropolis. I’d show you the pictures, but we still have the upload problem.

On the 14th we took a ferry to Naxos - we picked it because it was the first one coming along the day we picked to head out to an island. Of course it was my overwhelming desire to be on a beach on the 15th (my birthday!) that made us pick the first one… Anyways, when we got off the boat, we were bombarded with people trying to get us to rent at their hotel. One man caught our attention and we decided to go with him. I think it was the fact that he used the word “New” in his description of “Seaside Studios”. Plus, it was a good price for us. We made a good choice - this place had a fridge, bathroom with shower, a private balcony with sea view and air conditioning. And everything only one month old. Once we were settled, we sat on our balcony and watched an awesome sunset.

Of course, I got what I asked for on my birthday - beach, sun, swimming and a good book - thank you Richard for getting me there! A good way to bring in the new decade.

It’s been over a week now, and we’re still staying in the same place. Aside from spending many days laid out on the beach, we have rented a scooter and scooted around the whole island. We found the Aria Cave on Mount Zeus, but we had only a tiny flashlight so we didn’t get far. We spent a day walking around Naxos town and went to the Temple of Apollon (or Dionesis?) that only has an arch left, climbed up to the castle and wandered around its maze-like streets. Today we took a day trip to Paros (1hr ferry) and rented a scooter. We found the butterfly valley, but saw only four butterflies since it is the end of the season. After driving past many beaches, we found a great place to jump off a cliff into the sea, but being chickens that we are, we only jumped off the lower rocks (about 8ft).

We have plans to go to Santorini soon, and maybe another daytrip to Delos/Mykanos.

So I just realized we never finished updating this page with the rest of our stay in Greece. So here is the rest:

We went to Santorini for two nights - we found the view and sunsets amazing! We made the trek down the cliffside to the old pier and took a boat trip to the “active” volcano island and hot springs. The volcano was good with its craters and steaming rocks. The hot springs was disappointing since it wasn’t very hot, and it was very mucky. We jumped off the boat into the cold water and swam to the heat, but felt that it was gross so we swam back almost right away. There were no near beaches, so we rented a scooter and drove to one of the black sand beaches (it was pebbles and not sand) and it was very hot on the feet!

We went back to Naxos and to our favorite Seaside Studios where Vaggelis and his sister kept a room waiting for us (thank you!). In the last five days here, we were beach bums every other day. The day trip to Mekonos and Delos was interesting. Delos, which has nothing on it but a large archeological site was interesting to walk around and see the statues and ruins. We didn’t have much time on Mekonos, but we saw the famous windmills and some pelicans wandering around the town. One day in Naxos we also rented a scooter again and took our new big flashlight and explored the Aria cave again.

Thanks to Vaggelis and his whole family (who by the way, gave us so many fresh tomatoes and veggies that we had Greek salads every day), we really enjoyed our stay in Naxos.

Overall, we left Greece feeling rested and relaxed and ready for our next adventures in Egypt