A Salaam Aleikum

I have made it to Egypt. We arrived on time at 1:25 in the morning yesterday. Flying into Cairo was interesting. The city lights were so expansive, the closest thing it reminded me of was Los Angeles. But of course a big difference was observing the bright green lights: these marked wherever there was a mosque, and there were hundreds.

Karim, Roland's friend, met us at the airport. We drove directly to an outdoor restaurant or food shop to drink assab, which is pressed sugar cane juice, it was very refreshing. We also drank a glass of mango juice. Then we went somewhere else to eat some fitir, roughly described as a pizza-like food filled with the ingredients of your choice; I ate mine with sausage.

Because our bus to the east did not leave until 6am, we spent the rest of the night driving around Cairo. We drove by President Mubarak's residence, a section of the city called Heliopolis, which was very beautiful, Nasr City, where we ate our food, and other areas too.

Later after we caught our bus and were leaving the city, and the sun had risen, I saw other areas of the city. The buildings in these other areas appeared as if they had been bombed. There were donkeys on the streets. There were already lots of cars on the streets at 7am. And although there are 20 million people in Cairo, it doesn't necessarily seem that much because everything is spread out. Nevertheless, I only saw this at 7am.

As the bus left the edge of the city, we passed right by the pyramids. It was amazing to see of course. But it was also amazing to realize that they are located right on the edge of the city.

Then came miles and miles and miles of nothing but desert on either side of the highway. The driver was going very fast and weaving from side to side, so it made it nearly impossible to sleep, as much as I desperately needed to sleep.

We arrived in Marsa Matruh at 1:30pm. We checked into a hotel for about $4 per night for both, so about $2 per night per person, and that was about right. Here I finally had a chance to use a toilet (since there are almost never any restrooms in public). I decided not to use the bidet, which nearly touched me when I sat down.

After checking in, we went out for a walk through town and to the Mediterranean coast, only about 6 or 7 blocks from our hotel. The water was a very light blue, reminiscent of the Caribbean. Unfortunately, the air temperature was cool, due to the wind coming off the sea, and the water was too cool as well. So we just walked on to a pier, laid down and slept for a little while. I was awakened later by the calls to prayer from the mosque right on the sea, and by a group of young boys who approached us to say "welcome" and "hello."

We are trying to decide what to do tomorrow. We may take the 5 hour bus ride to Siwa, in the south, to go sandboarding and camping in the desert. But it all depends on it not being too cold at nighttime. If not, then we may head back east to either Alexandria or back to Cairo. We shall see....