Cairo and the Ancient times

We traveled yesterday to Cairo for a 13 hour tour. Once again we had to gather the buses and the private vans with the police trucks filled with young men with rifles to accompany us. We had security person on each bus and in each car plus the three vehicles filled with police. The Department of Tourism pays for this security indicating how very important tourists are to this area. Each time we stopped the guys stood around and watched the vehicles and us. They were terribly obvious as the only people dressed in coats and ties and with strange things sticking out from their back pockets and under their coattails. The police around the pyramids were on camels.

The city of Cairo is big with the same kind of unfinished housing that we saw in Luxor. We also saw lush farmland connecting right up to huge apartment building. The Nile River runs through the middle of town. The population is 17 million and increases 1 million people every 10 months. They are struggling to gets folks to move outside of the city the creation of lovely neighborhoods in irrigated land. As we drove to the city we were along the Suez Canal and we saw lots of neighborhoods under construction. We also saw ships moving along the Canal and they looked like they were sailing in the sand.

It was just mind-blowing to stand here and see these ancient monuments and statues. People had told us that it was really in the town area but I was still surprised to see that actually the town had grown up around these old, old structures. We wandered around the pyramid complex and we visited the Solar Boat of Cheops-which was quite a sight and an engineering feat. We kept saying that in the US we cannot even build a road without having big rock sldies and here these piles of rocks and stones have existed for centuries.

After our lunch overlooking the pyramids we headed to the Cairo Museum and saw the unbelievable things recovered from the tomb of King Tutenkhaman. The two solid gold coffins and the gold mask- all encrusted with semirecious stones- were just wonderful. The jewelry from his body was so fancy and intricate. As our guide said-King Tut was not the Pharoah for very long and really did nothing so imagine what must have been in the tombs of the long reigning Pharoahs like Ramses II. Grave robbers really must have made off with tons of valauable things. We just wandered in the museum with our mouths open as we said, "Wow- look at this." The museum was worth the whole day.

We once again formed into a convoy and headed back to the ship and made our way through the vendors to a cool ship.

We leave tomorrow so now begins the careful packing. This has been such a wonderful trip. We are ready to come home....but we could stay on longer....and we are sad because we know we'll never experience a trip like this where we have seen such ancient and modern amazing cities. Travel is a wonderful experience for us.

Our Suez Canal Transit

On April 2 we spent 12 hours sailing in the Suez Canal- actually we spent more time than that. We were to begin at 7:00 and it does take 12 hours to go from the city of Suez to the city of Port Said, but the convoy was about 4 hours late getting started. WE were number 6 and we followed the ship in front very carefully.

There are no locks on this canal; because the water levels are the same, but it is a one way passage with a couple spots where ships can wait for the other direction convoy to pass. Each day there are 2 convoys of about 20 ships that pass north to south and one that gose south to north. It costour ship $300,000 to travel the distance. This canal is the major income generator for Egypt- 22 million dollars a day. Tourism is their second industry.

The canal has functioned since 1869. There is a tunnel under the canal but as the commentator said, "It leaks water, which causes problems." Thought that was quite an understatement.

We were amazed that from the portside of the ship which is on the African continent we saw lovely resorts, residential neighborhoods, commercial buildings and from the starboard side which is on the continent of Asia we saw desert, remains of buildings, lots and lots of military outposts and much sand. In the 1967 - 6 Day War- the canal was closed and did not reopen until 1975. There was also fierce fighting in 1973. There has been a UN Peacekeeping Force stationed in the Sinai Peninsula since 1974. We saw friendly guys waving at us from the shore about every 1/4 mile along the way. It was a facinating day.