In the beginning…

I managed to miss my flight, for absolutely no good reason! Was sitting right there at the airport, happily munching away on my breakfast and completely lost track of time. Not typical Susan behaviour in the least, is this the shape of things to come?

Eventually made it to Cairo, where I am at the moment, about to fly south for the winter…LOL! To Luxor that it, which is supposed to be much prettier than the capital. For those of you that are big fans of Cairo, I apologize in advance, but the place is the pits! In the past 24 hours, I’ve inhaled more dust, smoke and god-knows-what-else ,than I have in the past year;  blowing my nose is not pretty!

The crush of humanity, the pollution, the noise, the corruption all leave me with a less than rosy impression. The history and architecture are obviously fascinating, but could leave the rest, especially the seedy men that openly leer at you, not to mention walking right up to you and would even touch you if you gave them the chance. I don’t feel safe here, which is a first in all of my solo journeys over the years. I’ve always considered myself to be a fairly open- minded traveler, but at the moment am feeling decidedly Western and wishing for my nice, clean, well-mannered life in SF!

I did visit the  Pyramids and the Sphinx, during the day and night, which was very cool when lit up and rising out of the desert. The Egyptian museum was very educational, (thanks to my guide, Dalia, who was very knowledgeable and told me all about the mummification process), got to see King Tut’s sarcophgus (all 4 of them), his golden mask and several mummies, up close and personal! Wasn’t as creeped out as I expected to be, standing that close to a real mummy, shredded linens and all!

Here’s a random, interesting thing about Cairo: homeowners are required to pay taxes on their new houses, but only if after construction is completed (completed defined as painted, apparently); therefore all of the new residential buildings remained unpainted in Cairo. Shouldn’t they charge for ugly and unpainted vs. painted?