Cairo

     At 9am we arrived in Cairo, it was hot, believe it or not. Our taxi ride from the airport was quite possibly the most chaotic driving we have seen since Albania, lanes have no meaning, every car wears the visible scars of the aggressiveness of Cairenian driving. The sound of horns honking is constant at all hours of the day or night throughout Egypt. We found Cairo, inviting, exciting, and for the most part friendly. It was most refreshing to walk around the city streets at any hour without feeling uncomfortable, or worrying about stepping in some unseemly pothole in the road. 

     We wandered around Cairo for days, eating up the culture, history, and deliciously cheap food. Our days started early until we felt like a lengthy afternoon nap was in order, then we would return to the streets to join up with all the Caireninians at night in their respite from the sun.

We went to the Cairo museum and wandered around for hours admiring all the artifacts strewn about the floors. We especially liked the Tutenkamun exhibit, we have been to the travelling exhibit in the US and it does not compare, they kept all the cool stuff here.

Chelsea getting her bargain on. She is quite talented at getting a good price. All these guys like to try and impress Chelsea until they find out she is married, then they just get weird.  

View from our balcony at night. You don't see that many people out during the heat of the day, but after dark the city lights up and the shops open their doors. Everything keeps going until late in the night. It is a lot of fun, the ice cream stands are plentiful, and the streets are lit up like Vegas.

Standing over the Nile. It is the life blood of Egypt, it is really interesting to see such greenery, then to look further to the east or west only to see an endless expanse of inhospitable desert. 

Drums in the market. 

A great big mosque in "Islamic Cairo," It is an interesting medieval style neighborhood.

One of the smaller temples in Saqqara, just out of Cairo. It was fun going around here because there were only a few other tourists. There are a ton of tourist getting bused around Egypt, looking disorientated, and tired.

We crawled down into this room in one of the funerary temples, there was this giant sarcophagus that smelled like death. Supposedly this was were they did the actual mummification. 

Outside the great pyramid. It is gigantic. 

Great pyramid

They let us climb up part of the pyramid. Chelsea is making the "baksheesh" signal with her hand. Most of the guards and the workers would ask for tips for letting us into "secret areas" or "closed areas". At one point we climbed up a dirt hill and apparently we were not allowed up there and the guard told us to get down and then asked for Baksheesh! We just laughed and walked away.

Chelsea in front of the great Pyramid, these structures are colossal! The outside used to be covered in limestone, so it was very smooth and obviously nicer looking.

This was the second biggest pyramid called the pyramid of Khafre, you can sort of see at the top how smooth the whole pyramid was.

These guys on camel would walk around and say take a picture of me, of course for a baksheesh. Sometimes they would step into our shot and not move and then ask for baksheesh. Rusty sneaked this shot of the camel just to spite them.

Rusty and the smaller pyramids: Khafre, Menkaure, and Queen's Pyramid

Another sneaked picture of a baksheesh demanding camel man.

Interesting hieroglyph, not quite sure what it is depicting.

We were involuntarily escorted to this "secret area" where "there are no photos allowed." We were asked for money by the police officer who took us there. We gave him like 15 cents, he seemed happy.

The sphinx and pyramids in the background. The sphinx is enormous, as you can kind of see from the small people standing hundreds of feet from it. 

Funerary temple 

This looks like a baby hippo is being born into tribulation- right into the crocodiles mouth

Rusty in front of an interesting Hieroglyph. Throughout the pyramids and tombs we noticed that people would touch the walls and the paintings! This made us so irritated, it's one thing to touch the stone work without the paint, but so many people are touching the painted work. People are dumb, this is not Disneyland...these are 4000 years old...come on!

Inside the pyramid at Dashur. It is supposedly the oldest "true pyramid" (meaning smooth angled pyramid) and we got to crawl through it. The angle that we were climbing at made us incredibly sore the next day. It also smelled terribly of ammonia. There were these long claustrophobic passage ways that opened up into these vaulted chambers. Really kind of small considering the size of the pyramids. We had a great time.

We went to a free show where they had traditional Sufi dancing. It was super cool, these guys would spin around in their fancy dresses for a long time.

Twirling sufi dancers. They must have been spinning for at least a half hour.

Another funerary temple. 

The pyramid at Saqqara. It is one of the oldest surviving pyramids, it was built in steps, before they started making the smooth sided pyramids. 

A sad looking donkey at Saqqara. There were people that hang out at all the sights and try and get you to ride around on some sort of four legged beast. The donkeys tend to be the cheapest, but are a real thrill to ride. Chelsea thought someone would see her taking this picture and ask for money. 

Hieroglyphs

Sufi dancer playing the castanets. He was so much fun to watch, super animated and talented with those little things.

One of the drummers showing off. 

We stopped for a cold drink in old Cairo. Chelsea got this strawberry drink that was essentially pureed strawberries (delicious) and I got a mint lemonade (incredible).  We drank so much fresh fruit juices in Cairo, usually from some stand on the side of the road, I wish we had that in the USA. There are no advertisements, no claims to health benefits, just some guys with a juicer and some empty glasses. They are like bars, on your way home from the office you walk in...ask for a juice...stand and chat with whoever is standing next to you...pay your tab...then walk home. Who doesn't want a part of that?

Outside the pyramid at Dashur.

The long and steep passage in the pyramid. 

As we were walking down the street in Cairo we saw this little barber shop, I was hot, so a shave sounded nice. For the next 30 minutes this man kneaded my face, applied smelling lotions, and gave me the closest shave I have ever  had. 

You can see the barber looking off in the distance as he shaved me. It was a bit frightening.

The finished product, hair nicely quaffed, chin cleanly shaved, and pathetic sideburns to boot.

Standing in the false chamber in the pyramid. This was the first chamber, followed by a larger chamber through that little passage at the right. Then there was another hidden passage up near the ceiling that led into the main burial chamber. The other chambers were just to throw thieves off.  

Uganda, or... "Mzungu, who are you."

               Winston Churchill called Uganda the "Pearl of Africa." I would call it the beating heart of Africa, pure and absolutely charming. We spent a couple of wonderful weeks bumming around and can't wait to return. 

                Unassuming and quintessentially African, Uganda has had a past, but seems to have moved on with her best foot forward. Walking down any street in any town, we would be warmly greeted with toothy smiles and "Mzungu (whitey), who are you." We were never hassled by anyone on the streets for the usual touristy stuff, we felt incredibly safe and welcome. Our pictures are limited for the amount of time we were there, some of those memories are just ours... in a special place in our hearts.

We first went to Jinja, a town on Lake Victoria at the source of he Nile river. This is the Nile at Bujugali falls where we went white water rafting for the day. It was exciting knowing that when we fell off that there were crocodiles in the water when the water calmed.

 

Fishing boat sitting by the Nile. I couldn't figure out if this boat was not in use anymore or this was how they anchored the boat. I couldn't get an answer from anyone, they would just say it was a perfectly good fishing boat.

Ghandi's Ashes were scattered here at the source of the nile 

Us at the nile

Playing around a broken bridge by the Nile

More Nile

Bicycles are very popular here in Uganda. Gas prices are quite high, so everyone seems to have these Chinese bikes. These guys have a whole bunch of chickens on their bikes, walking though town.

They had some incredible fruit in Uganda. There were these pineapple carts all over town, where they would slice up fresh pineapple and sell it by the slice. It cost us like 35 cents for a whole pineapple, we ate a lot and it was super good.

This guy wanted his picture taken, so we obliged. People were quite excited to talk to us.

These were carryover from Tanzania. Everything was named after Barack. I had to buy some of his underwear, it cost me like a quarter.

This is the view from our hotel in Kampala, Uganda. The streets of Kampala are like nowhere else. just bustling all the time. People are just cluttering the streets, the city has this great energy, and it is very safe. We loved it because we could walk everywhere without worrying about being in a bad area and we could walk around at night. We hadn't really been able to do to much at night for a while so this was refreshing.

Street-life below our hotel. Dusty red streets, people hanging out, and people working.

Giant mosque that towers over Kampala. It is enormous.

All the walking left our feet somewhat dirty

Motorcycles are used as taxis in Uganda. They are called boda-boda's, we would hop on the back of them and defy death all through town. Each ride was a roller coaster of excitement and fear. As you can see in the picture the roads aren't a;ways the best and the drivers like to drive fast and recklessly.

We love the warnings on cigarette packages in other countries.

Chapatis are like a thick tortilla that they love to eat in east Africa. They make them on the streets and sell them for next to nothing. We ate them a lot.

In Uganda they made these omelette's and would roll them up in chapatis and we would eat them. They called the rolex's. we could buy 2 for like 50 cents and they were filling.

We hung out with one of my mission friends, Jacob, and his family in Jinja. We really had a great time with them, they are such a happy family and made us an incredible dinner of fresh tilapia from lake Victoria. 

Thomas, Jacobs son, in the front. And his cousins. Families tend to live close and spend a lot of time together. 

On the back of a Boda-boda. you can see the look of concern on my face.

We did a little volunteering in a orphanage in kampala and Chelsea fell in love with this little guy.  We would love to take him home, unfortunately we don't have a home to bring him to.

Chelsea spent a lot more time at the orphanage than me, I was working on grad school apps while she was serving. She spent a lot of time with the teachers at the orphanage, trying to help them get organized and giving them teaching tips. She wasn't allowed to take many pictures otherwise we would have more.