We're back in the room after a delightful dinner tonight with Manal, Basem and their business partner, Samar. They met us at our hotel and we walked through the attached mall to a wonderful Egyptian restaurant for dinner. We had such fun relaxing and catching up a little with each other's lives. We also had fun reminiscing about the 1998 Egypt trip--when Manal and Basem were both our guides. They remember many of the people who were on the that trip. Yes, we made a lasting impression! Mostly a good one, I think! ;-)

This morning Martin and I did an excursion to a nileometer and museum--both located on one of the three islands in the Nile in Cairo. Nileometers were used for thousands of years (by Egyptians and subsequent occupiers) to mark the height of the annual floods. Based on the height they could determine the size of the upcoming harvest, and most importantly (don't cha know) set the appropriate taxes. This one was built in 861 and the column was made of alabaster. There were steps lining the walls of the square-shaped shaft which lead down to the bottom of the column. Standing at the top and looking down it almost looked like an Escher sketch.

The museum was one of particular interest to me. It was dedicated to the life of the queen of Arabic singing, Egyptian-born diva Um Kalthoum. I first discovered her music when we were here in January. I bought a lot of it to bring home with me and I've become almost addicted to her voice. She's an Arabic cultural phenomenon and her weekly radio concerts united the entire Arab world as entire families all over Arabia would be glued to radios to listen to her sing. There was a video in the museum and tens of thousands of people who took to the streets during her funeral was amazing! Martin didn't seem all that excited about it. I told him I was impressed he did so well considering there were no guns, spears, bow and arrows, chariots or other weapons of war! He laughed! :-)

I tried to upload a photo, but the card reader isn't working for some reason. I hope to get this resolved so I can share some images with you. We'll see.

Thanks again for visiting and I hope you come back soon. Also, please let me know if there's anything that you'd like for me to write about. Thanks! Otherwise, you'll be stuck with my stream of consciousness reliving of the highlights of my day, and you might find that boring.

Thanks and love from Cairo!

Stuart

Greetings from Cairo!

Dearest Friends,

Thank you for all the energy you sent and have been sending us for our pre-trip preparations and our flights to Egypt. Everything went like clockwork and we made it here safe and sound (with all our luggage in tow!).

It's great to be back again so soon after our inspection trip earlier this year. After 22 hours of travel, we're pretty wiped out, but considering how busy we've been and how long we traveled to get here, we're doing amazingly well.

We had a real gift today on our descent into Cairo. This is our 5th trip to Egypt and I don't remember seeing so much of the city as we landed, nor seeing so many landmarks that I recognized. As we were making our approach we could easily see the pyramids from our seat window (we were on the best side of the plane for the views) and then we got see them again as we circled around again a little lower--it was a perfect site for the start of an amazing journey!

As always, the Cairo airport is pretty hectic with porters and H1N1 control personel (a recent addition to the chaos), drivers, etc. We arrived in Terminal 1, and as Basem promised, a representative was there to assist with our VISAs and ground transportation. When we arrived at the hotel, Basem was there to greet us! Such a treat to see him and it was so nice of him to take time away from his family to greet us--way above and beyond the call of duty. Because of Basem, we went right past reception and directly to our rooms! Such service!

Tomorrow night we're having dinner with he and Manal. That will be such a treat for us. They have been angels to work with throughout this process. We're so extremely fortunate that Lea was able to find them again after so many years!

We'll I'm beginning to fade, so will sign off for now. Tomorrow we're taking a short half-day excursion, but nothing too intense. Afterall, we're here to rest and get ready for the group to arrive.

Thanks and Love from Cairo,
Stuart

Packing

We're busy getting ready for our big trip to Egypt! Our flight leaves on Saturday afternoon, Sept. 12. Packing is flowing pretty easily thus far, but there's always the last-minute craziness that happens when trying to get out the door. This may just be the quiet before the storm, but I hope not.

We've made arrangements to have internet access pretty much throughout the trip. Depending on how busy we are, I hope to keep this blog up-to-date. There will likely be some areas in the desert where we won't have access. If posts drop off for a period of time, it's probably because we don't have access where we are.

I'm busy preparing some healthy snack foods to bring and hope that we can fit everything I'm making into our suitcases. I hope I'm not making too much. We'll see.

I better get back to packing!

Thanks for reading this and I hope you come back again soon!

Love,
Stuart