A Day in Giza

You can't drink the water in Egypt (or Jordan). Nestle does a huge business there with bottled water. Bottled water is what we drank.

But here is the Nile. Water. And plenty of it.

Wael said he can drink tap water in Egypt, but we can't. People who live on the Nile drink water straight from the river. But he can't.

Tap water in Israel is safe. Nasty, but safe.

We crossed the Nile to go into Giza. Pyramids. Camels. Sphinx.

$2 to get on, get up, get pictures taken, and get off.  $20 to ride fifteen minutes down to the smallest pyramid. Our friends Eric and Juliana paid their $20 and went. Ann and I didn't but kind of wished we had. So when we got to Petra--the last day of our trip--Ann took a short ride in front of the temple.

Eric and Juliana Short--yes, that is their name, Short

Ann and her camel at Petra

Mother, daughter, Sphinx. I am really tired of what I'm wearing here. I did not wear that outfit every day of our trip, but this is all one day. Okay?

Other camel riders at the Sphinx

It's really camel country here. You might drive down the road (say, in Jordan) and see a house with a camel in the yard. The camels in this part of the world are Dromedary camels--one hump, long legs.

I'm not exactly going in order here

The burned Parliament building. "We fired it!" said Wael.

Tahrir Square. Still some people there in tents after a year. Wael says no one knows why.

It's Muhammed (that is his name, but it would be a safe guess for about 65% of the male population) at the papyrus place. That's a lovely thing about going with a tour. They will take you to places where--it is devoutly hoped by the proprietors of those places--you will spend your American dollars.

Muhammed spoke his English very well. I detected a mix of accents--Egyptian, or at least middle eastern--and southern United States. I asked him, eventually getting the truth---well, maybe. Alabama. He says he grew up there, has dual citizenship.

From here we headed to the pyramids.

Okay, yes, I bought a piece of papyrus.

Here is Wael being intermediary for us at the pyramids. We've been out to hang around the largest of the three pyramids of Giza--the one owned by Cheops--and would leave, except for the arms of the vendors reaching in. You can see that Eric has bought the small metal replica of the three pyramids. And someone else on the bus is about to buy one also.

A Little Egypt

Fresh flowers daily, so they told me, in the lobby of our Cairo Intercontinental City Stars Hotel.

So I took a few shots. Replicas of the Sphinx (the wisdom of man, the strength of a lion), an obelisk, a pool, a palm--all parts of the Egypt we would soon see.

This is Wael, our little Egyptian guide, our protector--sort of--from the relentless vendors, our teacher and, soon, our friend. We were a small bus, thirteen of us, and we liked it that way. And we would have taken Wael with us into Israel. Too bad, it couldn't be.

Truly, it was a luxury hotel. Clean and beautiful, a respite and oasis from the city we became acquainted with. But--and have I said this?--Cairo was disappointingly filthy and ugly. But I loved being there.

And here is my bus window shot of the pyramids of Giza. I put it here to show a contrast between the hotel and the outside. You can't really see the extended piles of trash and rubble and garbage that line the streets. I did not take many pictures of what I saw in this great and storied and neglected city. Except at Tahrir Square and at the Museum, where you also see the burned out Parliament building, to which nothing has been done in the year since the "revolution."

Yes, yes. More later.

Learning the ropes, so to speak

It's the eight of us at the airport in Amman, Jordan. We're waiting for our flight to Cairo. We are among the thirteen who did not take the Nile River Cruise and for a while were regarded as somewhat less than legitimate by those who did take the cruise. They got over it, because we are great people, of course.

In this airport you will find restrooms. I used one, and it actually had toilet paper in the stall. In the public bathrooms you don't always find such a luxury. Once you have used the toilet paper, you may NOT put it in the toilet but must deposit it in the small basket next to the toilet. Then the toilet has a chance of flushing, but no guarantees.

Such conditions exist in all public bathrooms in Egypt, Israel, and Jordan. But our hotels were good.

The bathroom I used featured not one, but two "attendants." Muslim women who waited until you washed your hands and then handed you a tissue for drying. I learned later--you know, veteran on the tour--to refuse the tissue and walk out with wet hands. But at this time, I took the towel. The "attendant" held out her hand to me. For money, of course. I had a dollar in my pocket and handed it to her. She then pointed to her friend, meaning I should also give her a dollar.

I had no more dollars and said so, pulling my whole pocket out to show her.

By the way, having "attendants" in the bathroom did not mean the place would be clean. Just so you know.

Ann found another bathroom in the airport. No attendant. So she went free, pun intended.

Now, just so you know, bathrooms were a worry only occasionally. Know what I mean? But they in no way diminished the great fun we had and the wonderful things we saw. I just have to write about them, though. Don't you think?

In the picture we have me, Ann, Karen, Eric, Juliana, Kathy, Deanna, and Jeanie.

Yes, Somewhere in Israel

Here is Ann in a picture I like. Just look at that purely beautiful face.

Brian Johnson took the picture somewhere in Israel. That's safe to say. Brian has sent all of his pictures to all members of the tour. What a guy.

About Ann. I know she missed her boys and Jeremy, but I also know she loved this trip. And I believe she made the most of it, taking notes, keeping up on her pictures, writing her journal when we would get back to the hotel.

In Israel, we ate breakfast at the hotel. Always a buffet featuring typical middle eastern food--chopped vegetables, fish, many breads and rolls, and always several kinds of olives--and food to appeal to folks from the west. That means cold cereals (but never Cheerios, to Ann's dismay), yogurts, juices. Omelets and pancakes and French Toast (sort of), too.

And you couldn't buy a glass of milk. Or get one free either.

For lunch we were on our own. We brought snacks and nuts, but most days in Israel Ann carried a piece of fruit, a roll and butter, and a boiled egg from the breakfast buffet to supplement her lunch. That is until the day she peeled her egg and found--oh, it was an egg, but how old it was we could not say. It was brown. I mean, it should have been white, but it was brown. Don't remember if she brought another egg after that.

Evenings we'd come back to the hotel for dinner, another buffet with foods that looked like breakfast but which were now accompanied by chicken and other meat dishes as well. We didn't always know what it was, but we never went hungry.

Desserts always looked wonderful but seldom were.  No matter how fancy it looked, dessert tasted like not much. Twice, I think, we got ice cream. People spoke of it as if we were prisoners, deprived of anything nice for a long, long time. "Look!" you would hear from more than one person, "We get ice cream."

On the road, people bought Cokes and diet Cokes and Magnum ice cream bars. I liked the popsicles. The best one was a mango creamsicle.

How's this for fun?

Have you ever gone somewhere for the first time and felt like you were home?
Me, too, as in the above picture.

It's the Mediterranean Sea, my first visit there. But it's like home for me, a person who grew up by the ocean. Pacific Ocean.

We are stopped here briefly for a view of a Roman aquaduct and a quick step into the water before going to Caesarea, which Herod, the Great, built on the Mediterranean.

Morning at 1046

There was this squirrel (like that's something new) sitting on the corner of the fence, east of the garage. I walked straight at her--I would normally say "him," don't know why, but after what happened I know it was a woman. Anyway, I walked straight at her, thinking, "I'll scare this one but good."

She seemed fearless, like daring me to come closer. Which I did. She, at the last second, turned and scampered away along the top of the fence.

That is an activity I have seen from my writing room window at least 10,000 times since we built this house--squirrels running along the top of the fence.

I turned to go back inside, but just then a tiny squirrel came almost flopping out of the rain pipe. And then I knew why the first squirrel wanted stay where she was. She was watching.

This little squirrel, I saw his heart pounding, and he was not nimble, not sure on his feet. "You're a baby," I said in a friendly voice, which scared the soup out of him.

I wondered how the heck he got into the rain pipe. Was it from below? Or from above? I looked up to the roof, which is when I saw the mourning dove stepping down the slope. Do the doves have a nest up there too? I hear them every day now. Probably, yes, they have a nest on my roof. There are pine needles gathered where the roof slopes (like that's something new).

Sidebar: There are pine needles everywhere on my property from the neighbor's five--or is it six?--very full-grown pine trees, at least one of which is diseased, oozing something ugly, throwing down its dead needles. My new lawn guy says that is why my lawn is dying. It's the acid from the pine needles.

Back to the squirrel. He went around the corner as fast as he could, which was not squirrel-like fast. He tried to climb up the fence but couldn't do it. Too little, didn't know how yet.

So he started to cry. And it was loud and no doubt a cry for his mom. I said, "Yeah, I know. You are terrified. Poor baby."

Yes, this baby squirrel's predicament and resulting terror softened my heart. Because, if you know anything about me and squirrels, then you know I say who needs them? You know I say they are just rats with fat tails. You know I would like them to go away, stop their running all over my roof. And now I'm thinking they have a nest somewhere up there.

Wait. I said my heart was softened. I'll try to remember that.

So he cried, and I knew his mother would come running, and she did. Right at me while I was trying to seem harmless. I thought she was going to jump on me, but she veered off and went into the nearby pine tree.

Sidebar: I had a squirrel jump on me when we were new to Idaho. My two little boys were in the stroller, and I was walking the mile or two from our house to Isons' egg farm. We saw a squirrel and stopped. I, stupid, ignorant Californian that I was, thought, "Oh, how neat! A squirrel," and held out my hand to it. After hesitating a brief moment, it jumped on my hand, ran up my arm, across my shoulders, and down the other arm. And only then did I think of what its claws might have done to my little boys.

Back to my squirrel. I tried to see where the mother was up in the tree. She was making noise, but I couldn't find her. I moved toward the mailbox, a safe distance, and watched. No movement. No rescue.

That is when the mourning came down from the roof to the driveway and was soon joined by another. They did a little dance and the one flew off and the first one moved onto the side lawn and began pecking around for food.

All the while I could hear the sparrows who do nest somewhere on the roof near my writing room. And maybe the finches, too, are there.

I said, as I went inside my house, "Okay. My home is your home. Obviously."

A while later, the baby squirrel was gone.