TURKEY/ EGYPT- 2005

Subject: the middle east Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2005 00:36:09 +0200 (GMT+02:00)

aaaahhhhh!!!!!! i just wrote a huge email in regards to my last 2 days of travels and for some unknown reason the computer erased it. aahh!!! okay well i am here in istanbul where things are going great and this place is going to be amazing. my trip here was fine and i am staying in a room with a fellow canadian from the yukon. yeah! he just arrived today from australia where he was for the last 2 weeks coming back from a trip traveling across asia for 4 months. damn! meeting people like this is...... amazing to say the least..... i hope that same day and who knows it may be soner then later that i can/ will say fuck it and travel the world completely but who knows. anyhow i dont want to keep typing because i just did and i lost it. i am fine and everything is going so so good. i wish it was a little warmer but ill wait to see if that happens tomorrow. turkey so far is amazing and seems like its going to be incredible and i think i am now going to extend my trip in egypt for a little while longer. anyhow i am gong to go get some sleep so i can have a nice long day tomorrow. be safe and have fun stop the war in iraq free palestine a big YEEHAAW!!! from the middle east/ turkey

jan 16. Istanbul

this is day number 2 for me here in the beautiful city of istanbul. its actually colder here then it was when i left richmond?? interesting seeing how this is the middle east or what some would consider eastern europe which is another interesting topic. i still dont know what turkey is considered so until i find an official answer i am going to consider it the middle east for selfish reasons of course. shit i have been to europe however not to eastern europe but still i find the middle east term to be a little more fascinating/ exotic. ha ha. i guess the only reason i would be inclined to consider this part of the world eastern europe would be due to the weather however the culture/ people seem more middle eastern then eastern europe but then again how do i know how the people of eastern europe are seeing how i have never been there. ha ha. oh well. okay well today was my first official day here. i woke up to a freezing room which kinda sucked. last night i definitely went to bed wearing all my clothes plus a hoodie and toque. booo. its suppposed to be warm here. i was pretty tired and i thought i actually woke up pretty late however it was only about 10 in the morning. jameo had been up since around 6 from what he was saying due to his 20 hour flight yesterday. him and i went downstairs to get some breakfast which consisted of bread and jam for me due to the ole diet. then we cruised out into the rain to explore the day time of central istanbul. although we are in the middle of the city it doesnt really have any tourist feeling at all. today really consisted of us walking around random streets checking random things out. the rain pretty much put a damper on checking out most of the city. there was a huge bazaar we checked out which was nice to be in to get some shelter from the rain. everyone inside knew we werent from the area so left and right we had people offering us bootlegged brand name socks. jeans. sweaters. and cologne. ha ha. seeing how i have enough socks. jeans. 1 nice sweater i just recently bought ( i am sure some out there know of this sweater ha ha ha. i love it), and how i dont wear cologne i had no need for any of it. this was quite a neat experience to see this big bazaar type market. tons of products like the ones mentioned above plus carpets and water pipes. we cruised around here for awhile and headed back to our hostel to look into some food. jameo has no problem finding food however due to my diet i am starting to find it difficult which sucks. last night i had some soup and a salad and ended up eating the same today. i was expecting a lot of falafel however i havent found one stand to sell this at all. the next couple days may be interesting when it comes to my eating. we are staying on the 6th floor of our hostel with our own balcony which is nice. we happened to be on our room when the muslim prayer chant was happening and i have never experienced anything of the sort. we opened our window and stood on the balcony to listen. from every direction you could hear this chant which was so so amazing and crazy. hearing these chants. at different times. from different directions. while the whole time we were over looking the whole bay/ city was such an incredible feeling. WOW!! this is something i will never ever forget. our hostel is located near 2 huge mosques onebeing the blue mosque which is such an amazing structure with 5 huge pointed towers. after our little eating excursion jameo and i ended up going to a water pipe/ tea garden which was another crazy experience. we walk into a huge huge room with tons of people in it sitting watching a soccer game and smoking water pipes. we were given a pipe and some flavored strawberry tabacco so we joined in. i dont smoke tabacco but was willing to give this a try for the experience. it was nothing like smoking tabacco at all due to the sweetness and flavor. we stayed here for about an hour trying to finish off what we were given which was a normal amount but for us was way to much. we met some fellow beside us who comes there everyday to smoke and the person to our left was a police officer who was in uniform just smoking away. i would say there was around 40 people in this room playing chess. some other board games and watching the soccer game. a very very social thing which is what it is supposed to be from what i gather. we then game back to our hotel where we ahve been since. i managed to get some heat in our room and am hoping that it will be warm by the time i get up there so i dont have to sleep with my toque and hoodie. earlier today while on some search for some food for myself we came across another hostel which we plan on staying at. the rooms are dorm rooms however are completely heated and the social atomsphere seems a little better then here. more of a travelers enviroment. tonight i just watched the bbc downstairs and caught up on the most recent current events the main one being the swearing in of the new palestinian president which is big news and interesting because i am so close to this area now. actually in 5 days i will be alot closer. anyhow who knows whats going to happen to the palestinian cause now that there is a whole new president who from what i hear is a little more tilted towards the west. again i dont know much about him but it is yet another crazy event in that whole sitaution. well that was pretty much my day. wet but fun and hearing the muslim prayer chant was...... wow!!!

Subject: my walks through the bul Date: Jan 19, 2005 5:16 PM

well i have been meeting alot of fellow travellers recently and its so nice hearing their stories and adventures. most people i have met have been travelling for months and some a year or so. anywhere from south america, south east asia, and i met someone who is heading to egypt in a coulple weeks via syria and jordan. thats so so cool and very inspiring. hearing all of their stories makes me want to just continue on these travels. there is so much out there and so many people to see. thıs traveling culture is definitely interesting and fascinating. all these people have so many amazing stories that i wish one day i will have or at least similar ones. who knows. well the last 2 dasy have rocked. all they ahve consisted of is walking and walking and walking. i have covered tons of ground and the whole time had my trusty headphones with me which made the treks that much more enjoyable. yesterday i walked to the 2nd bridge down the bay and crossed to the other side where i came to this weird hardware district. nothing but tools, pipes, metal, etc etc for block and blocks. i obvioulsy had no use here so i headed down the bay towards where i was earlier in the week and just kept walking checking things out. the bladder was starting to act up so i started heading back towards the hostel and decided to instead walk along the coast. this walk ruled. first i found a spot to relieve my bladder and walked along the coast for a good couple hours. the water in the bay was a deep shit brown but once i got to the sea of mıramar the water turned back to its normal sea green color. once you get to a certain point along this coast you either head back because you cant find a street back into the city or you just keep on trucking hoping to find a road back. i kept walking. yeah! i came across this huge tanker ship that was turned on its side and jsut laying against a wall which was quıte neat to see. this whole coast is just covered with boats/ tankers etc etc hence the shit brown water. i then found a road back into the city and headed back just cruising around different streets checking things out. once i got here i headed further into this part of town and walked around the univerisity area for awhile and decided to head back. on the way back a bought a bunch of figs stuffed with nuts and some other fig type bar with with nuts and coconut. delicıous. this city is lıned with vendor after vendor after vendor. seriously this part of the city thats all there is. i headed back to my hostel and played hearts with some people, snuck inot our room for a beer, read some, and eventually crashed out. this morning i woke up from sleeping in pretty late after laying in bed last night listening to some tunes. also i was kept up from an insane amount of garlic i consumed last night and it doing a number on my stomach. this plus others consumption of garlic last night left a not so good odor in our room. its okay because its all dudes anyhow. so i woke up this morning and caught the tram into the city to check out these extremely old walls that are hundreds of years old. i am still not sure of the name and ahve tried to look them up but to no avaıl. the tram was packed and i eventually found my stop and got off. getting off was for sure something i completely crazy. i seriously felt like i was in a war zone but i am not sure what that looks like. i would imagine it would look something as such. the train stop was completely run down and for blcok and block all there was was rubble and destroyed buildings. there was a main road with buses etc but the surrounding roads wre just mud. it had a sort of very eastern europıan or even eastern russian feel but again i am still not sure what that feels like. its all assumptions. anyhow you walk out of the train stop and down these wood stairs to this weird lot where there is another market set up in the middle of mud and rubble with people burning fires to keep warm. a sight to see. you cant miss the wall seeing how its right in front of you so i head over there and walk through the market and rubble. the wall was huge and pretty destroyed. i guess it is where archers would sit to guard against an attack. there were kids up inside the wall running around and a few of them said some things to me but i couldnt make them out due to the language and my headphones. due to what i saw and the surroundings it didnt seem to sketchy but also not completely comfortable so i headed back. the ride back was okay and i got off pretty far from my hostel to go to the turkish airlines office or what i thought was their office. ha ha. no luck so i just walked back and bought some postcards to send out. the weather today wasnt bad at all and didnt rain once which was nice. tomorrow i dont know what i have planned but maybe it entails starting to refresh myself with egypt and figure that out and possibly find this turkish airlines office to hopefully switch my tix to a lter date. i get a little self conscious with these emails because i am not a very poetic fellow and feel i am not good with words. i wish i was. for example all i do is write about my day not really my thoughts etc etc or the beauty behind them. i feel since i write about my days always i am just continueing the process of repeating myself. maybe maybe not. its something that i think about alot even when writing for myself in my own journal. maybe ill try and work on this. who knows.

Subject: my trukish bath Date: Jan 20, 2005 2:37 PM jan 20th istanbul

so todat i had another relaxing day here in this city. the good thing about today is that the sun was out and the skies were clear however you still needed to bundle up due to the cold weather. i woke up pretty late and hung around the hostel for a little bit before leaving on my walk. today was a main holiday here in turkey called bayram which i have been told is would be the equivalent to christmas back home however non of this consumer crap and gifts involved. so the city was pretty dead and most of the shops were closed. i just sat in some square watching people walk by and listened to the ole head phones. i headed back to the hostel to catch up with jamo before he takes off this evening. i decided then to head to a turkish bath whichi had heard about and was quite curious about. you walk in, pay your money, and then you get your own room to put your belongings and ditch the clothes. once you are ready you go downstairs and walk into a sauna type room and then into a huge marbled, dome type room where in the mıddle there is a huge octagon shaped marble table or so where everyone is laying. if you are male you get teh male room and if you are female then you get female rooms. the main room was so incredibly hot, very humýd and i wasnt sure how long i would last in there. i layed down and wasnt sure what to do next because no one really instructed me on what to do so i layed there and just relaxed. after awhile i was still laying there and wasnt sure what was going on so i went back into the first room and inquired about my massage. a fellow said he was the one and to give him a second to finish his smoke. ha ha ha. obviously not to health oriented. well he came in and instructed me to lay down which i did and then poured extremely hot water over me. damn! he then used this sort of rouch glove and rubbed my body with it. it kýnd of had a sand paper feel to it. after this was done he started massaging me but it was more of a rub. i get a lot of massages back home and this wasnt anything like of the sort. he then proceeded to wash me all over and give me a good cleaning. ha ha the first time some one has washed me in years and years. YEARS!! a different experience. after my washing/ bath i then headed over to a sink where i sat in the hot ass room and just poured hot water, then warm water, back to hot water and so on all over me for a good 20 mins and then headed back up to my room and layed down. this was pretty much my turkish bath experience. i wasn hoping for a little more of an actual massage due to my back starting to become a little tight but again beggars cant be choosers. oh well. after my bath i bundled up and headed back to my hostel to eat some food and hang out. i found a seoul restaurant next door to my hostel so i managed to order some rýce and vegies which was nice and added a little variety to my mostly pasta diet that i have hads the last 5 days. tonight i plan on reading some more and hang out with the people at the hostel and then get ready for my flight tomorrow over to africa ( egypt but i like saying africa. ha ha ). i think tomorrow i will spend most of my day researching my trip and trying to figure out what i will do while over there. oh yeah! i will also have more of a food choice while over in egypt. the last 5-6 days there hasnt been anything really. i have been surviving off of pasta, olives, figs and bread. ha ha. falafel and hummus here i come!!!!!!! yeehaaw! rock on

Subject: cairo egypt Date: Jan 22, 2005 2:39 PM

holy smokes!!!! i am officially now in country #20 that i can add to the books. cairo, eygpt!!!! never ever would i have thought even 4 months ago that i would be sitting here. never ever. my grade 6 teacher actually lived in egypt for awhile and taught us somethings about this country. things obviously i have since forgotten. anyway i remember doing a report on egypt and my father helping me build a model to go with my report of the pyramids. we sat in our basement a couple nights building this thing. thanx dad. back then i was only in grade 6 so its obvious why the thought never would have crossed my mind but still.... i am now here. okay so i left istanbul yesterday which was fun and interesting. it was day 2 of the major 4 day holiday so the tram- metro were free which was funny. i had only 2 pounds left in my wallet for my journey and then arriving finding out it was free was a little nice. on the tram i realized how crazy this first leg of this adventure was. when i first arrived in istanbul i had no clue of where i was, where i was going etc etc and looking at all the train stops last night i realized how crazy that was. everything totally worked out for the better and then some. i didnt even have a book on istanbul and did no research at all. yeah! well i arrived at the airport and checked my cute little canadian butt in. i then went over and payed 30 euro to switch the date of my return to egypt which means now i will be here until the 13 of feb. yeehaaw! my flight over was okay and quite typical. i dont mind flying but i find myself now days while i am in the air telling myself that i really dont like this at all. flying that is. well my flight left at 11pm and didnt arrive until 130 am here in cairo so i missed all the scenes from the air. oh well coming into cairo you see how huge the city is with the lights but i still wouldnt say that is a good judgement due to not knowing how many lights were off etc etc and how many places just dont ahve lights. we touched down and i looked out the window and could see faintly the color of sand and browness. ha ha ha. egypt!!! i got off the flight, exchanged some cash, bought my visa and did my best not to get swindled/ ripped of from a taxi. i think i did very well. some one approached me and quoted me 35 pounds and i walked away. then 2 mins laster he came after me and quoted me 25 pounds. well then there was a korean girl also looking for the cab so he took us together and chraged us 20 each which was nice. it works out to be around $4 for about a 20 min ride. we dropped her of at her hotel and i went to some hostel i had looked up in my travel book not knowing if i cold stay there or what. turns out they ahd room but it was in a triple bedroom with just me i was charged less then the triple price but more then a single room. 40 pounds so around $8 or so. it was 230 am so i didnt care. tonight i have beeb moved to a dorm with a bunch of awesome travelers and am paying about $3 okay well i woke up this morning with no clue as to what i am doing or was going to do. i hung out in the lobby for a little bit and met some people staying there which ruled. it was planned that this new zealander named frans, argentinian named diego and myself were going to go get student cards which would give us discounts everywhere. this fellow named tom from cork ireland had told us this is the first thing we whould do and to make up some story about our schooling. ha ha. so we headed out. this city is nuts. the drivers here seriously dont care about nothing. my cab ride last night from the aiport to hostel was INSANE!! there are painted lanes but i have no clue why. so we caught this metro and got off into a more buys area. the weather was a lot nicer then turkey which ruled. we found the cairo univeristy to get our cards, got our pictures taken, and we were set. i told them i left my card in europe and i went to the university of british columbia and studied agriculture. ha ha. saving some money we then headed back to the metro to go to the egyptian museum. what an experience this was. when we got onto the train some lady said and motioned something to me. i had no clue what it was and smiled to her. a second later an english speaking lady comes up to us and says "you are not supposed to be in here. its a female car only". wow! everyone was staring at us and it was a little weird but entertaining. so we got off at the next stop and tried to run to the back but missed it so we waited for the next train. ha ha. never went through that before. caught the next train and headed to the museum. the museum was cool but i am finding out that i like museums for a certain amount of time. we saw all teh old/ new kingdom things and everything involving egyptian history. tutankhamuns head piece and coffins which were pretty cool because you see these pcitures your whole life but now its right there in front of you. we saw some mummied animals and tons of coffins, egyptian art etc etc. it was cool to see all these things but i am glad we left. we then went to eat some food and i ordered about 3 falafel sandiches for about $1.25 or so total. they were okay. we then tried to catch a bus to head up to the citadel where we were going to check out an old mosque and watch some sufi dancing later in the evening. this was another crazy adventure. first i have no clue how there bus system works and dont realize how it works seeing how chaotic it is. fortunately diego had been here for a couple days and rode them prior. if i was by myself i can comepletely guarantee that it wouldnt ahve happened and in fact i dont even know if i would ahve tried. its that crazy. a huge parking lot filled with people and bus after bus after bus. no signs, no numbers and where there were these things its all in arabic. well we managed to get on the right bus and head up to islamic cairo. crusiing the streets of cairo is...... um..... no words to descibe really. to be honest i guess the words completely crazy, chaotic and insane somewhat sum it up but again its no experience you can describe. damn! we arrive in islamic cairo and head to an exteremy old mosque which was completely crazier then the mosque i went to in turkey. in fact cairo is 10 times crazier then istanbul. again its not at all negative its just a way different experience. this mosque ruled and we sat on the carpet for awhile just chatting away. we then had some time to kill and diego wanted to take us to some fruity desert place to get some drinks. this was like no other. we seriously walked through extreme ghetto areas that are completely completely destroyed. maybe destroyed isnt the right word because maybe they werent even developed. donkey running around pulling carts. etc etc. buildings completely in shambles and falling apart. i was told by my studly friend phyte that when in egypt everyone stares at you and comes up to you. like you are a celebrity. well bud. ha ha your right. everywhere we went people were chasing us, coming up to us, etc etc. ha ha well we cruised around these areas for awhile, got our desert drink, and headed to the citadel to watch sufi dancing. fortunately this was all still with some light because i think if it was dark we would have been walking in the same streets but they would have been covered in dead animals. today is kinda the same holiday as they had in turkey and after the sun goes down its the ritual to sacrifice an animal. we definitely passed a couple places where there was huge pools of blood on the road and legs of animals in the roads etc etc. well we arrived at the citadel and they were closed due to the holiday so we caught the most close- call taxi rdie i ahve ever had. i was waiting for a THUMP and us either hitting someone or something. nuts. i couldnt stop myself from laughing. we came back to our hostel and i have been talking to people since then until i came here. i am going to go continue my visiting now. eygpt is nuts and i am still in complete AW that i am here. i plan on being here for at least 1 more day and then maybe heading west to the desert with frans and an irish couple if we manage to get tix tomorrow morning. o yeaH!!! tomorrow after buying tickets i am going to see the last of the 7th wonders. the pyramids!!!!!!!!! yeeeehaaaw!!!

Subject: the pyramids Date: Jan 23, 2005 2:27 PM jan 23rd, 2005 cairo egypt

well it seems like most of my trip is going to be go, go, go. which isnt a bad thing but seeing how i want to do so much i am going to be pretty busy. i was up this morning around 930 and had some breakfast before i was to catch our cab to the pyramids. frans (new zealand dude), tim (american dude), another fellow who we met this morning from austrailia named josh, and myself had a cab outside waiting for us at 10. we quickly went to by 2 falafels each for the day due to there being no food at the pyramids and off we went. our cab driver took us the "back way" through cairo to get to the first destination which was the saqqara pyramids. driving the "back way" was passed tons of farm fields, donkeys/ wagons pulling carts with produce and tons oif shanty type places. on the way we could see the giza pyramids which were huge, in complete form and the first time i had ever seen the pyramids. wow! there they are!!!! this is for reals!!!! i have seen all the pictures and now here in front of me (still aways due to us driving) they are. so we arrived in saqqara which was cool. the pyramids in this section were not quite complete. i mean they were pyramids but most had started to deteriorate and fall apart. this group was about 7000 years old. damn!!! its crazy looking at this things and thinking "how in the hell did they do it?". i mean the angles are completely straight and its a perfect pyramid structure. humans did this without non of the technology we have now days. its so so unreal. the calculations must of been intense plus you have to take in account that all the pyramids had tomb areas, and hallways running through them. so they also had to calculate all of this as well. humans made amazing stuctures such as this and now days we build nuclear bombs and millions of other things that are destroying us and everything else on this planet. so we walked around this set for awhile and acutally went into the titi pyramid which was fun. you walk down this extremely steep, long staircase and through a huge small tunnel to the center. once you get in there you are just in this huge room where the coffin would be etc etc. the room was pretty much just a square room BUT inside a pyramid. ha ha. after staying in this area for a couple hours and talking in amazment about "HOW? etc etc" we found our cab driver and headed to giza where the main pyramids are. again we took the back way which was fun and completely chaos. the outside of cairo is nothing but shantys that i would have never thought people live in but they do. they have no choice. again its my western thinking. the roads, or what should be roads were pretty mangled. we arrived at giza around 2 or so and had planned to stay there for a couple hours so our driver took off to get some coffee. we all had decided that it was a good thing to do giza last due to the first set being a little smaller and falling apart while the giza pyramids were alot bigger and still completely intact. giza is also where the sphinx is which ruled. you have th spinx in the middle with the 2 huge pyramids to either side which makes for a great photo op. ha ha. there are touts left and right trying to sell you camle rides, postcards, statues and palesinian scarfs. i was thinking about buying one of these palestinian scarfs due to my support for that cause but after seeing all of these tourist buying/ wearing them and touts trying to sell you them i turned away. it was a little sad. it was a little weird because i am sure most of these tourists were buying them for their "desert safari to the middle east etc etc" which sucks because there is a whole story behind that cause. i dont know maybe its just me and my crazy thinking but all in all i decided not to buy one. so back to giza. ha ha. these things were huge and the one pyramid on the right still had a cmpletely smooth top. when i saw smooth i mean completely smooth. you could see the water stains running down the thing. the other was also in complete form and had its top as well but wasnt as smooth. it sucked because while out here my batteries had died and i had bought some new ones yesterday which i tried to us but these bastards didnt work. damn! i was hussled. oh well. i ended up squeezing a little more juice out of the old ones after letting them rest for awhile so i got a couple pictures from this set as well which was nice. this is the big attraction here in cairo and which is completely understandable so there were tons of people and buses. also i have noticed that there are police and guards everywhere here in cairo and i mean everywhere. they also carry huge machine guns. whats also funny is around the pyramid area the cops ride camels. i got a good pic of a cop, his machine gun, and his camel. nice!! we left the pyramids, payed our driver, and went to our hostel. i have had 5 falafels today and probably will get another here in a minute. tomorrow frans and i plan on getting up at 530 (go go go) and trying to catch a bus that takes us into western eygpt into the desert. rumor has it that we are going to ahve to fight to get onto this thing and since i may need some hussle in me i think i am going to go and get some sleep. who knows when i will write again but from the pyramids and cairo take care. yeah!!

the last couple days in egypt Date: Jan 28, 2005 11:33 AM

warning this is going to be a little long because i just went through so so so many extremely amazing experiences that i want to capture the best i can jan 28. aswan, egypt hello. i guess the only place to begin is where i left off huh. the last 4 days have been filled with so so much and i would say about 99% of it i will never be able to describe in words but i will do my best. so about 4 days ago - jan 25th- this fellow frans(kiwi) and myself had planned on catching a bus to the bahariyya oasis in the desert in western egypt. the night before we had talked to tom, and hanna (irish coule who rule) about trying to meet up with them in the oasis. frans and i wake up around 530 in the morning to catch a cab to the bus station to try and get on a bus. there were 2 buses leaving in the morning. one at 7 am and another at 8 am however we were under the assumption that the 8 oclock bus was sold out so we were going to try and get on the earlier bus. the thing is was that this bus you just show up and try and weasle your way on hoping to get a seat. we arrive around 6 and try and buy tix to no avail. this was the main bus station in cairo and was a total wreck. a couple seats outside and thats really it. nothing at all to tell you times, no signs, nothing. just seats and a couple buses in a beat up parking lot. we wait in line where people are cutting in front of one another to get up front to buy a ticket and the window opens. i ask the dude about tickets and he said "no". again super super disorganized then you have the whole language barrier. so we ask some people and find out where the bus is and just sit and wait until the driver arrives. the bus opens and we just walk on and grab a seat. very very chaotic. once the bus started moving we just sat back and prepared for anything but were relieved that we were moving which meant a possibility. well we were able to stay on this bus and take it to bahariyya oasis which was about a 5 hour drive in the middle on no where on a one lane road. seriously there was nothing around and not a single car on the road which didnt stop our driver from honking at random intervals. weird. we arrive at bahariyya and head to the hostel we had planned on meeting tom and hanna. they were supposed to arrive about an hour later so we cruised through the villlage and when i say villlage i mean a complete village in teh middle of the desert. ha ha. in fact as soon as we arrived another back packer was getting on the bus while we were getting off and said "this place is a shithole im getting outta here". well to be honest he was correct. there was nothing. an hour later we meet up with tom and hanna and try to figure out some plans for the next couple days. the hostel we were staying at was supposed to be "nice w/ lush garden etc etc" from what the guide book said. ha ha. yeah right and they still charged 10 pounds. no hot water. 4 toilets with only 1 working. ants everywhere. sheets with who knows what smeared on them etc etc. a complete dump. well the hostel dude who was 22 named waheed was pretty cool but definitely would try adn get $$ when he could. that after noon we all sat with him discussing a desert safari we wanted tpo go on. after much discussion about the price we had decided we would try him out and take a trip. we checked a couple other places which werent any better so what can you do. its interesting walking around these villages when just average people are cruising around with machine guns. wow. so later in the day it was arranged that waheed and our future driver cuka (older egyptian) would take us to some srpings to "shower" and then to english mountain for the sunset. what an experience. we were all pretty excited and i had a certain picture in my head when i hear "hot springs". boy was i wrong. we were taken to 4 different springs that were basically metal pipes leaking water into a cement dike or so. the water was WAY to hot to get in and all 4 of the places were extremely dirty. oily water, garbage and in one case a dead bird in what is supposed to be these exotic hot springs. yeah right! well after we ended up settling for one of these cement dike things where the water was alot cooler but still very warm and was actually near english moutain. we took a quick soak in the sulfur filled water and then quickly dried off for sunset. sunset was exactly what you would expect being on a mountain in the middle of the desert. clear blue sky and the horizon completely in front of you. after our first sunset of another to come waheed had invited us to his house for dinner with his family. holy smokes! i think we were all super excited because we are going to have this sort of real egyptian experience. so we drive back to house or shall i say mud hut and his mum had food waiting for us. i dont really know what i ate but i will say it tore me up. it was bread which is plenty here and some sort of spinach dip and others that i couldnt eat. we sat there for awhile talking to him and taking it all in and then headed back to the hostel to get some sleep before our journey the next day. we wake up the next morning and go out to get some falafels for the road and head off. cuka and waheed had packed the jeep the night before so al we had to do was put our bags in the jeep and take off. this day was another clear blue sky in the middle of the desert with nothing at all around for 100s of kms. about 30 mins into our journey we stop off a some moutain in the black desert to climn and check out the views. you could see as far as the eyes could see nothing but sand, black rock and moutains. chilled up here for about 30 mins and walked back down. we then continued on our way checking out some random sights. we stopped off at a moutain called crytal moutain which was just all crytal. i have never seen such a thing but again i had never seen anything like most of what i saw on this journey. i am not a rock collecter at all but i did take 2 crystals. we then entered the white desert which was breath taking. nothing but white really with the most amazing rock structures, hills etc etc. i think about 1000 years ago or so this place used to be a sea. we found some fossils which were shells and some other random things which resembled an ocean. the white desert by far was ......... so so intense and unbelievable really. natural structures that are unlike anything i have seen.(how many times can i say that?? i need to find more words ha ha) so once in the white desert and cruising around all day we stopped and set up camp. the cool thing was that cuka and waheed did all the work because thats really what we payed for and we just hung out and prepaed for sunset. basically we were in a place that would resemble the ocean with tons and tons of icebergs. instead the ocean was sand and the icebergs were rock but still huge and white. we found a good vantage point for sunset and prepared. total tourists with our cameras. i mean thats all i have been doing while here is pix pix pix. the sunset which was incredible with the sunlight, the horizon, the light bouncing off the structures and us taking it all in. so this is where things got awesome. about 10 mins later we then turn 180 degrees aroudn to catch a full moon rise in the middle of the white desert. UNBELIEVEABLE!!! breath taking and nothing but complete silence. i will never forget this day and night we then make a fire and cook dinner or shall i say eat dinner that was cooked for us. we ate a monsterous amount of food with beer and water. once it got dark you could see way in the distance some random other camps and waheed actually knew one of the groups so onc food was somewhat settled we walked about 1 km in the clear blue night in the middle of the desert to some random egyptian party. IN THE DESERT IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE(EGYPT!!) this was unreal. about 30 people singing and dancing. there were 2 drums and a whistle which were getting played and sounded great. the whistle player was unreal and the way this whistle works is it is constantly making noise. who knows how considering you have to breath. well the group was a bunch of kids from cairo univeristy and i ended up meeting 2 kids who were somewhat (not really) into the same sort of music as myself. WEIRD! they were in some metal band in cairo so we talked about bands, their band and playing shows in cairo. this country is so so SO conservative which i have known before this night but hearing their stories made it hit home. basically there are no shows really in cairo and if there are shows where their band would play there would be big trouble. the police say its "satanic" and arrest and torture everyone. so crazy hearing this from people who say they love playing music but cant really do it because of the country. we stayed at their camp for a good couple hours drinking, sheesha and conversing. we then cruised back in the freezing cold back to our camp, stayed up talking about politics (ireland, new zealand, canada) and sat by the fire. it was so so cold but there was nothing you could do. we each had 3 blankets and layed down on our mattresses with the full moon and stars above us all night. not much will be able to top this. we wake up in the morning and head to farafara where we had planned on getting dropped of in the desert. all these towns are just 2 or 3 block villages where it seems like no one really works a job but more works self sufficiently. theres nothing out here. we get dropped off and meet up with a couple other backpackers and decide with them that it would be in the best interest to catch a cab to the next oasis which was dahkala. this trip took another 4 hours in the middle of the desert and cost only $4 US. crazy. we arrive in dahkla and check into a hostel that hanna had called earlier that morning and that some other travellers recommened a couple days prior. another village in the middle of the desert but this town had an older part which was the old city. the old city was a huge maze of mud, dirt buildings that have been around for 100s of years and are still standing. UNREAL. its this weird city that its really just all connected through a maze of sorts. another thing that i have never seen. the hostel dude cooked us dinner that night and we hung out with some other travellers all night. the plan was that we would leave tomorrow from dahkala towards aswan. we then woke up yesterday morning and got a bus to asyut where we were to catch a train. the bus drive was again another bus ride in the middle of the egyptian desert. arrive in asyut was pretty amazing and a first ever. we arrived at 4 and were met by a police convoy. asyut a couple years ago erupted into islamic violence so i think nowadays all travellers coming through have to have a police convoy. if a tourist was to get killed , kidnapped etc etc you could imagine what would happen to tourism here. so we were met as soon as we got off the bus. the police walked us to the train station with one in front and another from behind with machine gun and once at the train station we were "forbidden" to leave and placed inside the cafeteria with a guard watching us from 4 until midnight when our train arrived. holy crap. my first time ever getting guarded by machine guns. damn! we then catch our train and head to aswan where i currently sit after arriving here this morning. my day today was pretty amazing as well. we took a boat across the nile to an island where the nubians live and walked around, came across a party, were invited in, my cute butt danced and got to hold a crocodile. damn! still from day 1 my trip has been go go go go go and its ruled so so much. this country is completely crazy and exteremly under developed. its still non the less the coolest thing i have done. in the next couple days we plan on staying here and then taking a felluca boat down the nile for 2 nights to arrive in luxor where we will stay for a couple days. then we head to dahab and possibly some of us may go to jordan if we have time. im crossing my fingers.

Subject: last days in aswan Date: Jan 30, 2005 7:14 AM jan 30th aswan egypt

so here i sit on another hot hot afternoon in aswan. this morning frans, tom, hanna and myself woke up around 3 in the morning because we had arranged for a bus to take us down south to a village named abu simbel where we were going to check out some pharaoh statues/ structures and some temples. we had arranged for the short trip due to us doing everything yesterday that would have been included in the long trip. the ride was another 3 hour ride through the middle of southern egypt towards sudan. abu simbel is located on lake nasser which feeds the nile. the temples/ statues we saw today were discovered around the 50s-60s and were at the time under lake nasser. so once they were discovered a major excavating event took place where they blocked up the lake and moved the entire structure out of the lake and onto a mountain. seriously its weird thinking about. its one thing building these amazing structures/ temples but its a completely different thing actually "moving" them. from what i read it took them around 10 years to completely move them onto land and rebuild them to what they used to be. crazy!!! the structures were huge but they were also part of a whole mountain which needed to be moved. we were only here for about 2 hours and then headed back to aswan and this is where i find myself now. i think today we are all planning on taking it easy because tomorrow we are heading off on a felluca boat for 2 nights down the river towards luxor so we have some things to buy and errands to take care of. yesterday we hired a cab all day which cost around $4. i must say this is the cheapest country i have ever been to. currently i pay $1.50 for a hotel room and can buy falafels for $.20, fresh squeezed sugar cane juice for $.20 and kashari for around $.50. so so crazy. anyhow yesterday we went to the high dam which dams up the nile and supplies electricity to bascially all of egypt. its a pretty amazing dam and worth checking out. from there we took a boat to some island which i forget the name of but it was similar as todays adventure. there was an island with a huge temple that was dicovered underneath part of lake nasser when they started flooding for the dam so the island/ temple were actually moved block by block to higher ground. its one thing loooking at the amazing pieces of art and trying to figure it all out and how they constructed such a thing. then you find out it was moved block by block which is another crazy thought to think about. i have never seen such temples/ engravings/ hieroglyphics/ statues as i have in egypt. its unreal and completely amazing. a must see. most of these things are about 5000 years old which is crazy. its going to be good to get oout of aswan just because seriously when you leave your hotel there are people at you left and right trying to sell you things for as much as they can get. fortunately we all know whats going on and stick to our cheap guns and will only pay what we think is right. i think we are all doing pretty good and compared to your "normal" tourists i think we are doing great. it sucks because i think the average tourist is the cause of this prices increase and trying to take advantage. i feel your average person would just say "okay" and buy whatever they are trying to buy. i would say that every single purchase i have made here in aswan people have tried to screw me and i think 50% of the time i am still getting screwed but at least i am aware and we have a sense of how things work. its going to be nice to have 2 good days of just relaxation and checking out the nile. ha ha. a good example of being cheated was about 10 mins ago we went to buy 2 boxes of water and the dude tried to charge us 48 pounds for 1 box. not much seeing how its only around $8 US. NO WAY! we managed to get 2 boxes for 36 pounds total which is what it should be. we are not trying to rip anyone of and no one would sell us something if they are loosing money. the person was just trying to take advantage of us foreigners. not us. this may be cool and interesting but the talk in my group is possibly trying to go to jordan to the city/ town of petra where there is a huge city carved into a mountain. i guess its on one of the indiana jones movies. anyhow we are all looking into it to see if its possible. i guess you can get visas at the border but we arent sure about when we come back into egypt. who knows but from what i hear it would be amazing and i get to go to jordan. yeah!! rock on

Subject: on stable ground Date: Feb 2, 2005 12:48 PM feb 2 luxor egypt

we jsut arrived in luxor about 3 hours ago after a 90 minute train ride from edfu city. i still can not get over how cheap this trip has been. to take the train 120 km it cost me about 50 cents. seriously!!! insane. we also just checked into a hostel here in luxor for about $1.30. so the last couple days have been pretty amazing. 2 days ago frans, tom, hanna and i took a felluca boat trip with about 8 other people. we woke up around 1030 in the morning and headed down to the docks where we ended up sitting until around 2 pm due to our boat driver. i wont go into our issues with our boat driver here because that may taint your views of my trip. my trip ruled hard. basically all we did for 2 days was sit on this sale boat, relax and cruise down the nile river from aswan to what was supposed to be edfu village. the nile rules and being on a felluca makes it rules that much more. we had bought plenty of water and plenty of beer for the trip which was a good call. ha ha. it was pretty funny but the night before we left we went to the egypt free shop to get cheap beer and bought 2 flats (48 cans) of beer and had to walk about 2 kms back to our hotel through the city with everyone laughing at us. funny. on the boat we were joined by 2 italians, 1 canadian, 3 germans, and an aussie named sean who is now part of our travels for the next couple days. our group is getting bigger. this is the best trip i have ever been on guaranteed. i never would ahve thought that i would have done something as this and am very proud of myself. i dont want to sound cocky here but i also think that there are not to many people who could go through something as this. meaning being in this 3rd world country. cuba was 3rd world but i fell egypt is a little less developed still then cuba. i would still suggest that everyone needs to experience egypt but there are crazy things out there. having a female in our group has been interesting because you get a look and feel about the women are treated here. they are treated like crap. most egyptian men have anywhere from 1 -4 wifes and that not illegal like it is in our parts. if a male is with a lady (#1) and has a child who is not a boy then the male gets another wife and tries again until he gets a boy. up to 4 wifes. all the makes here say and do things to hanna which sometimes us males notice but most of the time we dont because its all behind our backs. the ladies we see here all dressed in black from head to toe are most likely widows which is something new i found out about the dress. also another interesting thing is that if there is a female who lost her virginity before she was married and her father/ brother find out about this then they could potentially kill her. this still happens from what i hear. all over religion. boooooo! the people i am traveling with are all absolutely amazing and now friends who i will always keep in touch with. we have seriously all experienced crazy crazy things that non of us would have gone through by ourselves which rules. it seems like everywhere we go something crazy is bound to happen. word has it that we actually were the talk of aswan for a couiple days. all the locals new us and talked about us. funny. today or shall i say last night we ended our felluca trip. it was a blast but we were fed s abunch of crap which we al expected but you still give the benefit of the doubt. our boat captian named bob was just like most of the other sales people here in egypt where they really dont have the best business skills at all but really do want to get as much $$ as possible. i do understand that they do live in a 3rd world country but its is weird knowing everytime you make a purchase that the first price they usually always quote is completely ripping you off and they do it on purpose. you cant let it get to you and if it was to get to you then egypt by far is not the place to travel at all. you do get used to it and i feel i as well as the group i am with we all have very good street smarts and nkow what is good to pay and not good. this is one thing i am very fortunate for. this morning we were all pretty frustrated with our situation with our captain and the bad vibes were carried over from last night when we all got into a heated argument with him. anyhow it was agreed with everyone that when we leave we will not pay him the full amount and we all decided to hold back 5 pounds($1). he flipped which was obvious and we were in the middle of some little village where last night we were told "dont go to the right of here because there are alot of guns in this town". ha ha you dont really want to get into a argument with a local and in a town where everyone has guns. fortunately the other crew members of the boat understood our arguments and were on our side so things didnt get to crazy. we managed to find a ride out of edfu village and into edfu city where we checked out edfu temple which again was another amazing huge temple. it was one of the better temples i have seen so far and tried to take a couple picutres to capture it. the nezxt couple days are going to be pretty action packed... temples and the valley of the kings... and then we head towards dahab to do some scuba diving and possibly off to jordan. i dont want to be on this thing much longer so i will start to end. i do wish that i had a video camera on 24 hours a day to capture all the events, situations, and scenery because its been so so crazy and insane and its been so nice to take it in with others and have someone to talk to about the events. yeah!!

Subject: temple of karnak/ luxor Date: Feb 3, 2005 3:55 PM feb 3 luxor, egypt

okay i am a little tired which has been the case from the start of my journeys due to the go go go so i wont be writing much. whew!! today we all chose to sleep in somewhat to give ourselves a little break. i went to get some falafel for breakfast while the others ate breakfast-which i couldnt eat- on the roof terrace at our hostel. after we were set we headed out to the bus station to purchase our tickets to take the bus tomorrow to dahab. after our purchase we found a cheap mini bus to transport us all to the temple of karnak which is the largest (hypostyle) temple in the world. its huge!! and amazing!! its still such a crazy thought thinking about how long and what it took to build such a structure. i guess this karnak temple took around 1300 years which is ........ nuts. one thing that was cool was on the ride to this temple the side of the street was covered in sphinx's. every 4 meters or so there was a sphinx statue all the way up until we came to the temple. it gets better but ill come back to this. this temple had pillar upon pillar all with cravings and stories ingraved into them. the obisks(spelling?) where unreal. such a huge pieces of granite rock, completely straight/ smooth, with carvings all over it, and super super tall. who knows how they were made so straight and smooth? its unreal. we took our time checking this place out and then headed back to town to get some kashari. yeah! after we ate we walked through the streets in search of a place with cheap beer. i will say that one thing that i am not going to miss at all is walking by dead carcasses of animals hanging on the outsides of shops in the middle of the streets. we found some beer on top of a roof terrace and we were the only people in the place so they put on some bob marley and we all just chilled for a little bit before heading to the luxor temple. beers are done so its off to the luxor temple which is just a walk from our hostel. this is the first temple we have visited during the night and we had heard that this was the time to visit this temple. the sun had just set and there was still a nice ornage tint to the coulds and sky. walking up to the temple you just see this huge illuminated orange temple. i will say this is the coolest temple i have seen so far and i think seeing it during the night made it that. to the right of me you had a huge walled temple with pillar upon pillar and to the left you had the alley fo the sphinx which again was a spinx staute every 4 meters or so. whats unreal is that this alley of the sphinx was actually connect to the sphinxs we saw earlier. the 2 temples were at one time connected but they are about 15 km apart. CRAZY!!! seeing the alley of the spinx with each sphinx lit up in the dark was great. on both sides of you there must be a least 20 sphinxs lined up on both sides which illuminate the walk way. this by far was a very photo op place so i was taking pictures left and right. we stayed hear for a good hour or 2 just sitting on some rocks talking and taking in the sights after we had walked through them all. very relaxing. we then cruised back to get some more ashari and that was pretty much it for the day. still going going going. still getting ripped off. ha ha. oh well. tomorrow we have a very long day in front of us. we are waking up at 630 in the morning and heading to the valley of the kings/ queens where we will be until around 3. come back to our hotel and then catch a bus at 5 where we have a 12 hour night bus ride to dahab where we plan on doing some major relaxing, scuba, and climbing mount sinai. i seriously cant wait to relax. this is the first time in my life where everyday has been go go go and i enjoy it alot but i am looking forward to chilling for a couple days. should be fun. well rock on

Subject: DAHAB!!!!!!! YEEHAAW!!!!! Date: Feb 7, 2005 12:18 PM feb 7th-dahab egypt

dahab! wow. we arrived here 2 days ago after what was supposed to be a 12 hour bus ride which turned into a 17 hour bus ride. i managed to get some sleep which is a little unusual for me since i can never really get sleep on buses, planes etc. we got off the bus at were total bombarded with touts trying to sell us hotels/ hostel. i had heard of a place to stay named 7 heaven and there was actually somewhere at the bus station from this place so he brought us here. this place rules so so much. to be honest i am living one of my dreams currently. i have always fantasized about going to a little beach community and just chilling out and relaxing. well here i am. the last 2-3 weeks have been go go go so i am so glad that i decided to do dahab last. the others i am with feel the same. seriously all there is to do here is sit on the beach, look across the bay to see saudi arabia (12 km away!!!)read, and relax big time. dahab is an exteremly small village in a very small cove. the town is about 1 km big with one sidewalk on the coast. at both ends of the cove is nothing but one of the worlds most famous coral reefs. i have heard recently from some that this is the best place in the world to scuba dive. the last 2 days all i have done is wake up, get falafel or kashari, and go sit on the beach all day and snorkel. the first day i think we had all planned on sleeping after our crazy bus trip but once arriving here and seeing this picture perfect settting the sleep disappeared. that night we went to watch a rugby match (my first) on the "telie" with a bunch of english and aussies. good times. yesterday was another day of the same. relaxing in the sun, reading on the beach and snorkeling on the reef. we as a group decided that we arent going to climb mount sinai however i am thinking about doing it in a couple days if time permitting. from what i hear there is snow up there and i dont know how i feel about sitting on a moutain all night in the freezing cold. every person i have talked to say its something that needs to be done so we will see. it depends on my dive schedule because you need to have at least 12-24 hours after diving before climbing due to nitrogen. today i did my first scuba diving adventure in 11 years. i had to take a check dive which you just go out with a instructor and do a couple skills (fin pivit, mask clearing, and release/ retrieve regulator). this took about 3 mins and then we started our 35 min dive along the reef. we went down to 18 meters and saw so many amazing colored fish and an incredible reef. A DREAM COME TRUE!! swimming arms length from stone fish, lion fish is pretty insane. stone fish is one of the most venomous fish in the sea and lion fish have a stong venom as well but due to my age it most likely wont kill me but would call for a quick doctors visit. now that i am re-certified i am going to go out and do 2 more dives tomorrow which i cant wait for. i am still in shock. 2 months ago i never would ahve thought i would be scuba diving at a reef that some say is more amaziong then the great barrier reef. this trip is by far the best thing i have ever done and then to end it here in dahab is unreal. whats also cool is this village is just filled with backpackers, divers, windsurfers and not your typical tourist type plus all the stores and sales people are completely honest. its kinda like its not egypt. the whole vibe is completely different then the last 2 weeks. then i think about everything that i have done in egypt in the last 3 weeks. i have been across the whole country on buses, trains, cabs, boats, and foot and it has been so so incredibly cheap. i am still in complete aahh with my little dive today and the sights i saw. i would say that today is a day that will be with me forever. but then again who knows how the dives will go tomorrow.

Subject: dahab-"islands" dive Date: Feb 8, 2005 12:58 PM feb 8th dahab egypt

woke up this morning, bought some falafel for breakfast and hung out until i did my second dive of the trip i had planned on doing 2 dives today however i had a late lunch which needed to digest so i only managed to get 1 in today and i will do my next tomorrow,. the place i chose today was a place called "islands" which is 10 times more the reef then i saw today. its a beach dive so we got ready on shore and walked into about 1 meter of water to start our dive. very shallow. we swam out a bit and came across our entry to the "islands" to get underneath you go through a crevus which is seriously just big enough to fit a human body with walls on all sides. you then go through a cave which was interesting going through with tons of gear on your back. after some manouvering i was through and into the "islands". i am assuming the reason it is called islands is due to coral reef structures with passages everywhere that looked like an underwater set of islands. the dive wasnt that deep at all. the maximum depth was 15 meters and the shallowest inside the structures is about 4 meters. before my dive someone had told me that this place is like the labryinth. its bascially a huge underwater maze. when we arrived there was 3 divers who had just came out of water and then when we first began we ran into 3 coming back out of the maze. its funnny running into people underwater. you cant really say hello so you just look them in the eyes and kinda nod which is even hard due to all the equipment on your back. i was amazed yesterday with my dive however todays edive puts that one to shame. there was coral everywhere that has been there for who knows how long. there was a huge piece that had fallen off in 95 due to an earth quake so passing that and seeing it re-grow was something. the thing was about 2 cars in size. the wildlife on this dive was very similar to yesterdays but i think there was alot more due to being farther away from shore and then yesterday i was pretty concentrated on my check dive that i probably missed some things. we came across a huge school of baracuda who were jsut in a huge group. i would say about 200 of them right in front of us and they jsut chilled there. it looked like an underwater cloud basically but made with fish. i came across a bag and at first thought wasa jelly fish but upon closer review knew it wasnt so i grabbed it to do my part on saving this amazing sight. i did end up coming across a jelly fish that was extremely bright blue which you could see through. jelly fish are amazing. you know they are there from the color but then you can see all the way through them. we came across a huge piece of coral that resembled a human brain and had these bright colored yellow/ ornage fish all around it. this thing must of been about the size of an average bedroom and didnt really seem like a rock but more of a soft, spongy like structure. we were down for about 53 minutes due to the shallowness of the dive and from my "good air intake"(my guide dives quote). once our air was coming to its limit we headed back through the cave and up the crevous back to shore. by far my coolest dive so far. from what i hear though is tomorrows dive is supposed to be even better. my guide dive told me "not to tell anyone" due to us going past my open water limit. i am only open water which takes me to 18 meters but tomorrows dive we will be about 23 meters which will bring us through an actual cave. yeah! cant wait. i think one day i would love to get my teaching license and move to a place such as here or thailand and teach diving for a season or 2. good times.

last days in dahab Date: Feb 10, 2005 12:18 PM feb 10th, dahab egypt

well tonight is my last night in paradise which sucks seeing how the weather today was the best it has been in 7 days. oh well. todayall i did was sit on the beach and read. i watched what i thought was an emergency with some diver getting pulled from out of the water and given cpr however it turned out to be people training to get there rescue dive certificate. also today i was quite tempted to do another dive because i was told that there are 2 manta rays about 10 mins from here feeding on the plankton and have been for the last 2 weeks. why i wasnt told this yesterday i dont know? there are a bunch of divers i know heading there tomorrow but unfortunately ill be squeezed on some bus for cairo where i depart from. yesterday i dived a place called "canyons" which was another amazing dive. my deepest to date. 24 meters inside a huge cave. the dive i did the day before was cool because i had never dived in a cave before but now that i think of it that one was more of a quick dive through an opening. yesterdays dive was definitely inside a huge huge cave with monstrous walls on all sides and pretty dark towards the exit. to be honest i had to keep it held together due to just being inside a huge whole with immediate exit plus i think i could feel the depth as well. i just concentrated on my breathing and everything ran smoothly. upon exiting we came into a little hole where there was a photo diver in there taking pictures. this person had tanks and takns upon gear and cameras. a definite pro. it was quite cool being in that cave and having 1 huge fish in front of you just cruising around paying no attention to us. we also managed to see a nice octopus as well. i was wondering if we would see a shark or not. i guess 3 months ago here in dahab there was a grrl snorkeling and a tiger shark took her hand off and then her mother came to her rescue and from what i hear she was also bitten but didnt loose anything. the last 2 dives have been incredible and i am not sure which one was better. islands you just have structure upon strucutre of reef. canyon you have to one side of you a huge canyon wall of reef. on the other side you have open ocean but then there was that cave that we were completely inside of. the thing must have been a good 15-20 ft tall and who knows how long it was. yeah! thats really been my last 2 days. tomorrow i wake up and head back to cairo. tom and hanna left today so i have been solo but we are meeting up in cairo for some lunch and probably to hang out that day before i get on my plane. egypt has ruled and dahab has been the perfect way to end it. i cant wait for my next dive expedition

bye egypt hello.... Date: Feb 12, 2005 2:37 PM feb 12th cairo egypt

well i am here in cairo. i arrived here yesterday evening, ate, cruised around for a it and went to sleep. yesterday was mostly spent on the bus which wasnt to bad seeing how it was only 8 hours instead of 12. driving along the coast was nice because it has a pretty tropical feel. bright green/ blue sea. about an hour away from cairo you pass the suez canal which was neat seeing all the ships evenly spaced out passing through. to get from sinai peninsula you have to drive underneath it. today i woke up, got some food and went to wake tom and hanna in their room. they ahd arrived this morning from dahab and we had panned on meeting up today to spend my last day with them. we cruised around coptic cairo which was okay then went to get some tea and my last sheesha. tonight we went to some sufi dancing which was incredible. tons of drumming and dancing. there was seriously a guy who spun around for at least 30 mins and then stopped completely on a beat and was fine. last time i tried to spin around i lasted no more then 30 seconds and fell on my ass underneath the effiel tower. ouch. i leave here in about 1 1/2 hours to for a long 24 hours of traveling where i will end up in luxembourg staying with a friend. good times. i was planning on staying there awhile however there is a big chance now that i will be coming back to rva for probably 24 hours at the most and then leaving on tour if everything goes smoothly. damn! go go go. its all good and will be exciting if i get this tour but a little stressful getting from the eastern hemisphere, to home and then off to the west coast. we will see what happens. my trip ruled hard was filled with life experiences/ adventures that i will never forget!! i plan on making another trip very shortly once the funds are there.