Day 6: Hakuna Shida

A little bickerson action this morning but only about 5 minutes.  I think the girls are catching up on sleep still.  We kind of missed the bickersons, for about 1 minute.

The four kids have been getting along famously.  When we got back to the room late last night Robin said "how do I call their room?".  Classic.  She didn't do a repeat performance of the night before where they both clambered onto our bed and we sang Survival much to Beth's chagrin, then Robin unleashed the sisters with a repeat performance of her Mercy dance before they retired to their room.  Last night, she just wanted to call the boys.

The kids are like cousins.  They've been getting along great - they want very little to do with the four adults for the most part.   Yikes.  They are growing up.  It's great to see how independent they are, but it also is scary.

We checked out and were picked up in time by our two guides, Grayson and Tom.  When wee booked with Amanda a year ago, we scanned trip advisor and the top guide names that always popped up were Tom and Grayson.  We'd all learned the importance of the people taking care of you are veery important.  Both us and the Versly have had very good and very bad guides and this was not the trip we wanted to take a chance.   

So here we are a year later and both guides show up with 2 8-person Toyota Land Rover and Tom and Grayson are standing there in front of us.   We'd heard Tom was a little pudgy and he was - very easy to pick out with a kind face.   Grayson is handsome and looks to be in tip top shape.   The kids had figured that they were going in one car together and the adults would go in another....so be it.    They took Tom and we got Grayson.   The Land Rovers were modified.  They have ceilings that pop out into covered sky windows, seats that fully slide back and recline, full windows - so cool.  

The adult car was led by Grayson.  He lived in Arusha whereby Tom lived in Moshi.   You could tell right away that these guys were seasoned, professional and great.  As soon as we got in the car, we peppered Grayson with questions.  Every once in a while we would hear them radio back and forth, but generally we followed Tom's car as we crawled along the main road from Moshi to Arusha.

Grayson was married, with a five year old daughter and a three and a half month old son.  He explained that getting a guide job was not easy, especially nowadays.   It sounded like looking for an entry level job back home where everyone is looking for a minimum of three to five years experience.  To be full time with a touring company was the pinnacle of the profession, while many guides have to be freelance for many years.  This was Grayson's third company and he loved it.  He repeated the mantra that Amanda was great, and that their big differentiator is that they were relatively small and that the owners were constantly in touch with the guides to make sure their clients were happy.  In other companies, he said, it was common to only see the owners once or twice a year.  Amanda also handled bookings mainly from here (with the exception of one Turkish booking agent).  This keeps clients costs low since clients aren't paying for a local rep to come over with them to join together for a free Safari.  This seemed pretty common with some of the US based companies I had researched.  

Just before we got to Arusha, we loaded up on snacks and some other provisions, then continued into town.  The kids report was that Tom peppered them with questions, taught them a song and some Swahili and then they all fell asleep except Matt.  

Arusha was a town of half a million, and it was bustling when we got there.  Our destination was a place to check out Tanzanite.  We were dropped at the Cultural Heritage Center (http://www.culturalheritage.co.tz/) which had my eyes rolling at first, until we met the owner.  The place was huge, with tons of different rooms and entire building dedicated to art - paintings and sculptures.  When we got to the tanzanite section at the back, we met the owner - a crazy energy,  3rd generation Indian-Tanzanian guy who was pretty open about his operation.  I asked him some questions and suddenly Alex and kids and I were taken on a huge cultural tour of the place.  He basically said that he makes shit loads of money on tanzanite (mainly from Chinese and Russian investors) and that he used the profits to build the largest African art collection in the world.  The art side of things is all consignment based where he takes a commission, while tanzanite is his real business.   He employs lots of local people and I later confirmed with the guides that he has a really high standing in the community.  His wealth of knowledge was certainly huge, and you'd be hard pressed not to spend a ton of time and money at his place.  

We had to force the girls to buy some tanzanite, so they both bought rings, and I got a mask too which I thought would be hanging in my man cave but Beth liked it so I will need another for sure!

After downing our boxed lunches, we hopped back in the jeeps.  The drive out of Arusha was immediately different terrain - more savanna like.  I could see why the "winter" season was best here for animal viewing.  The grasses, normally tall and green were all low to the ground, and it would be easier to spot animals.

We saw lots of Masai (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maasai_people) along the road, either tending to sheep or cows some ways off the road, or standing by the road in hopes of exchanging photo ops for money.  We saw groups of Masai boys in black, who apparently were on their three month post circumcision journey to manhood.  They were also photo opportunists along the side of the road (apparently this is a modern edition of achieving manhood).

Eventually, we turned left and into the outskirts of Tarangire National Park (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarangire_National_Park), named after the river that crosses through the park.  We would be staying here for two nights, and because it was mid afternoon, as soon as we checked into the main gate, we started our first game drive.

The boys flipped the roofs of the cars open, and we suddenly had a covered little lookout spot where we could all comfortably stand.  Though the cars have 6 seats, I can't see it being comfortable with more than four.

As soon as we got into the park, we started seeing birds, zebras, giraffe and wildebeest.  It wasn't long before we spotted a few elephants not far from the road.  We were definitely in Africa now!

Just before dusk, we arrived at Tarangire Lodge, a beautiful camp with full service restaurant and pool and permanent tented rooms lined up along a c-shaped crest of a hill on either side of the lodge.  The view was fantastic.  We had a briefing from the front desk on how to stay safe as well as the timing of everything at the resort/lodge, and then we had what Tom called, some "blah blah blah" from the guides.  They asked us what we wanted to do the next day, and we agreed we would do a post breakfast morning game drive, come back for lunch and rest, then do a late afternoon game drive tomorrow.

The tents were very cool.  A large A-frame tent on a concrete slab, with one or two beds just inside on a kind of rattan floor, with a secondary tent section behind with a full change room and two little rooms for a shower and a toilet.  The place was immaculately clean.

Dinner was amazing - it seems nobody will starve on our trip after all!  The view at dark was pretty cool, because we could see the burning grasses of the savannah (they periodically burn the grasses to prevent the common creeper grasses from suffocating out the other plants)  on the horizon - it almost looked like a permanently setting sun.

We hailed the night guard who escorted us to our tents.  The boys were between the adults, and the girls were next to us.  As per the norm, the adults hit the sack and the kids congregated in the girls tent to play cards and laugh.  Eventually, the boys hailed the guard to escort them to their own tent. 

As I retired under the warm sheets next to an already dozing Beth, I could hear a ton of sounds from the plains below.  The stiff breeze trying to blow right at us through the screen was refreshing - like spring or fall camping in northern ontario.  The fresh air was certainly an elixir for deep sleep.

The famous line from Lion King, Hakuna Matata (kind of meaning everything is good) is actually a change (maybe to fit the song lines better) of the original Swahili term.  I can assure you, using the original expression, that everything here in Tanzania is Hakuna Shida. 

Day 5: People Safari

This was the best day of the trip.  Sounds funny when I write and read that back... we've only just begun, but today will be hard to beat.

You know those perfect days that just happen with very little influence?  I remember having the perfect pickup basketball game or flag football game when I was kid... we would play it forever and it was so fun....yet, you would try and repeat the magic the next day with all the same variables and inevitably something didn't work - people didn't show, or something else was just off.

I remember taking Tracy, Beth's friend, in Japan for a day and even though I had planned it and knew it well we had so much luck that it was the perfect day - we saw everything including all of the lucky things you can't plan for.

Today was kind of like that.

Ema, it turns out, is the logistics manager for Scenic, and in his spare time, drives for them.   He has been with them for 8 years, so what we were seeing so far is that they were good employers.  Check check.  We learned that they had 7 full time Safari guides and 8 Kilimanjaro climbing guides.   Climbing was a big thing here - Kilimanjaro is on a lot of people's bucket list.  We had briefly considered it, as it sounds like it's not overly tough, but it takes 5 or 6 days to slowly acclimate and enjoy the climb up and down and it was an easy one to trade off for more Safari days.

So we opted to drive to the base of the climb and check it out a bit more closely.  Ema drove us on the "highway" which was a one lane road each way with a speed limit of about 50 (assuming kph).  Again, the colours and displays of the boundaries of human ingenuity were on display.  It was beautiful.

The temperature was about 25 with very little humidity.  A nice refresh from Cairo.  Along the way, we saw lots of tiny kids in school uniforms who could do nothing but smile and wave at the animals inside our jeep :-).  Eventually we hit a sloped road and we were on the base of Kilimanjaro.  The weather quickly changed to foggy and moist.  I noticed a nice little valley view and asked to stop.  When we got out, I noticed five little dots down the slope of the road, moving quickly towards us.  They were little school kids.  I started to mock run towards them and they stopped running.  I ran backwards and they smiled.  I knelt down on the pavement and waited for them - they were so small.

We ended up spending twenty minutes with the cute little pack.  I gave them my phone and camera and let them take pictures of us, which they thought was pretty hilarious.  It ended up being a pretty good ice breaker.  We kind of wanted to package them up and take them home with us!

Ema had a beaming smile when we got back in the truck.  We drove another few minutes to the gates of Kilimanjaro national park, and that is as far as you could go without a permit.  The vibe was very much "big climb" like the feel you get in Pokhara or Kathmandu where everyone is gunning for adventure.  There was gear, guides, porters and a couple of trekking outfits.  Alex and Robin stepped through the area where you needed a permit to walk and made it about 5 steps up Kili before getting yelled at.  We have found a lot of similarities between Alex and Robin: they both skirt convention when it makes sense, they eat anything and they both have a certain joke de vivre or what I like to call a certain "I don't know what" (Dr. Evil) (and yes I,realize it's joy of life).

Apparently this was the "easy route" starting area, with a string of huts at logical stopping points, no camping and relatively easy ascent.  The camping routes were on other sides, and these were considered the "technical routes".

It was lightly raining on the mountain, so we left and I asked Ema to find something cool - a market or something.  Turns out he was from the town at the foothills of the mountain, so we went to a small market where we ended up running in to his sister in law.    We bought veggies and fruit and spent a while in the market.  It was fun.  I had dried fish and Kim bought a wooden spoon.  We've noticed the people are very camera shy, so if you asked they would usually say no.  But sometimes we had these golden moments.

We drove to lunch.  Ema dumped us at a tourist spot in the Center of Moshi and we proceeded to have lunch.  The lunch took some time, so we played Presidents for a while.   We are a loud group, but fun loving.  In retrospect, we should have gone to Raj's in town Indian restaurant.

After lunch we had another stop... to the huge central market in Moshi.  I heard later that the kids were rolling their eyes and asking how long we were going for.  An hour later, time had flown and they had barely noticed.  The market was fascinating.  Setup like many Asian markets, but different.  The cacophony of colours, sites and sounds was unlike what you would see in Asia, or India for that matter.  And the people were so engaging and beautiful.... at one point Alex was talking to somebody, and I was chatting with some kids I'd met, and Abby and Robin were buying stuff and Matt and Jeff were browsing around.  Poor Ema was trying to keep us all corralled but it didn't work.  The market was huge, safe, amazing and full of everything you could think of.

We left and drove on.  The girls (Beth and Kim) wanted to check out some tanzanite rings.   Ema took us to a tourist shop specializing in all things tourists should be interested in - trinkets, t-shirts (got one), masks, statues, paintings....Beth and I and the girls are so still kind of shopped out of the small stuff.  I prefer to buy bigger, more expensive things as we've all thrown out a ton of trinkets.  I kept asking Abby if she wanted to buy anything, and she said she wasn't interested.  Kim and Alex are not so jaded and picked up a few things, though they will be looking for bigger and better as well.  I felt there was more to come in Zanzibar. 

Outside I engaged with a man who was trying to sell me antique items - hand wound phonograph.  He was elderly and handsome - a bit of alcohol smelled on his breath, but he seemed fun.  Once I politely refused what he was offering, we sat down on a bench together and he opened up his case of photographs.  He had a ton - antique cars, some other junk, but he also had a few of himself in there.   He was a cute guy - a soldier turned antique dealer. 

Ema  was done for the day - we were on our way home when someone mentioned seeing Kilimanjaro potentially for the last time.  He took a turn up a dirt road, taking us to a lookout spot to see Kilimanjaro emerge from the clouds when we saw...more kids!  A batch of small kids came out of a nearby farmhouse running and yelling "hi!".  The seven of us were all entertaining the kids when Alex came up the road holding a little toddler, and he was saying "I got one!". Oh my god... we laughed, after it was clear that the toddler was safe back on the ground.  

Beth later said "can you imagine what would happen in our society if a black guy went in to a farm and grabbed a white toddler and said "I got him!".  Wow Alex, wow.  Too funny.

We finally got home at 6:30pm - Ema was great.  He dropped us off and we ran into an expat from Pennsylvania - a young student actually  doing an exchange and volunteering at an incubator project.  She gave us some great advice for Zanzibar.  We heard Robin say "I'm doing that!".  We have no doubt Robin will travel and live abroad at some point....sigh.  What have done?

More Indian and a lot of wine for three, and we were invited to play Presidents....the kids were laughing at all of the adults..they were in such a great mood.  At one point the three drunks were down in three of the last four positions and Matt looked and shook his head muttering something about drinking....

We all concluded it was the best day of the trip....I know - sounds corny.  As Beth said, we came to Africa for the animals, and we love the people.

Day 4: Into Africa

Well... we boarded our little plane that took off at 3:30am for the first leg of the trip to Tanzania and it was the beginning of another long day of travel.  But, the destination was Africa (that's what we were all saying...sounds corny but although Egypt and Tanzania are part of the same continent, we kind of felt differently.  More on that later...).

Ethiopian Airways felt a little like Air Canada circa 1990... I'm sure the Boeing planes used were of that era, and probably purchased used from some Western airline years ago.  Everyone in the group seemed to crash immediately, but I was right next to the washroom doors and had a nervous nelly stranger sitting next to me so I did not sleep at all.

We landed in Addis Ababa about 4 hours after leaving Cairo, and with a clock change it was close to 8:30 when we got into the airport.  I'd read that the airport was a work in progress, and parts of it were a disaster, but for some reason, we felt more at home there.   We realized later that the sense of comfort may have been because it was so multicultural - there appeared to be people from every country in Africa, as well as Asians, Europeans, Westerners and people from the Middle East.  It was more like Toronto there, and it felt great.

The "London Cafe" was really great?  Hummm...no!

After a few tense moments trying to get to our gate (Kim's golden ticket to lounges and great "priority" boarding and security clearance held no water here - they were quite insistent that they knew the Aeroplan regulations better than Kim), we scrambled onto a gigantic Airbus plane.  Ethiopian Airways it seems, had a modern side to their fleet. This plane was headed to Zanzibar, touching down at Kilimanjaro International where all the tourists including us would probably get off.

Having not slept on the first flight, I was looking forward to a little sleep.  As soon as we go on board, the kids were trying to elongate the flight: "this is awesome!" I could hear - each seat had a huge screen and big selection of movies.  They now wanted longer flights?  I guess the in-trip tech ban was making their minds crave data.

I was now in the throws of full on insomnia, so I turned on Inception and watched it until we landed a couple of hours later...such a good movie.

We landed at about 1pm, and as we got out, we had to show our passports and yellow fever clearance cards (thx Dr. Wise!).  Luckily, we all acted as a team for the next part... we had to fill out immigration cards, line up for visas, then line up for customs before the hoard of travellers coming off the plane.  We got through in about 30 mins, and as I looked back after getting out, there were hundreds of people in line - wow, team-work!

As promised, we were met outside by a driver from our Safari Company.  We chucked our bags on top of the vehicle and got in while getting to know our affable driver Ema(nnuel).  We would later learn that he worked for African Scenic Safaris - our tour company - he wasn't just a driver.  

The hour drive from the airport to the town of Moshi was very cool.  We were definitely in a different world now.  The kids remarked that it felt a little like The countryside in Barbados.  What I noticed right away were the colours - while Egypt tended to have a sandy palette - buildings, streets, air, clothing - the people and buildings dotting the "highway" were bursting with a thousand different colours here.  There was a lot to take in, and it was filling us with a shit of adrenaline.

Our hotel was called Ameg, just outside of the town of Moshi, which was a medium sized town sitting on the foothills of the tallest mountain in Africa, Mount Kilimanjaro.  While the now inactive volcano was quite shy (it was mainly covered by clouds during our stay), we had glimpsed it from the windows of the airplane just before landing.  However, you didn't have to wait too long to see references to the mountain on signs, tee shirts and logos around Moshi - it was clear what was the economic driver for this relatively well off area of Tanzania.

We checked in to the hotel in the late afternoon and headed to the local restaurant which was - sweeeeeeet - mostly Indian.  We later met Raj, a third generation Indian Tanzanian who owned the place, which was lucky for us.  The food was amazing.   The whole set up of the place reminded us of the open concept lodging of Mulu National Park in Borneo where we had had a famously good time.  

Amanda, the Aussie co-owner of African Scenic Safaris, came up and introduced herself while the kids were goofing off in the pool.  She was just as great in person as she was leading up to this adventure.  It turns out she had moved to Tanzania ten years ago with a charitable organization, met and married a local and started this successful little business.  We had found them through a cool coincidental cross section of friend referrals and Trip Advisor reviews, which was nice, but planning a very expensive adventure and wiring money to a remote part of Tanzania was still off putting - however Amanda's professional and quick responses sure had made the process reassuring.  It was great that she'd stopped by, and we decided to arrange a day trip with Ema for the following day to explore Moshi.  

My riding mate, RTD (Rob The Dentist) would have loved how tonight unfolded.... more food, beer (well, one for me), wine, laughter then settling in at a bonfire that the staff had prepared for us.  Kim had hit the sack early, but I was somehow getting my on fumes... I think other than a little dozing on the second flight, I'd been up for 40 hours in a row, but I was in my happy place. This part of our trip was going to be great.

When we heard references in the museum in Egypt to the political factions and how Egypt had formed, they often referred to "defending themselves from Africa".  When we'd told our guides or other people our itinerary, they'd remark that it was cool that we were going to Africa.  I guess I realize now more fully why they use the term Middle East to describe a set of countries that sit on the shoulders of Africa and Asia.  While Egypt sits on Africa with a bunch of other Arabic countries, the Africa that we Westerners have as an image burned into our brain from movies, books and stories is the Africa we were now in.

Day 3: Treasures of Egypt

While today was a great day, I can't help feeling a profound sadness for Egypt.  It doesn't seem fair that a country this rich with history, culture, sites, food and incredible people has to suffer so much.

Not only did people say we were crazy to come here, most people looked at us in horror when we said we were coming, and advised us to "get out" as fast as we could.  One guy I ride with said Cairo was just ok...he'd seen it on a stopover between flights one time.  When I pressed him on details I eventually found out he had 5 hours starting at 5pm to drive the hour and a bit to the Giza pyramids, check it out in the dark, then head back to the airport.  He said the drive there and back was pretty unimpressive.  I tried to think what someone would think of Canada if they did a similar trip to Niagara Falls.... "the trip on your Queen Elizabeth Way was not impressive... and everywhere you looked you could see the shops of Tim Horton's and lots of highways.... besides, everybody stayed in their lanes on the road which was verrrrryy unnerving".

Sure, we got a lot of stares - they really don't see a lot of our folk around here.  Yes, the girls got a lot of stares, from boys and men for sure, but also from the girls.  I tried to imagine what the reaction would be if someone walked topless down Yonge Street in Toronto... would they get similar stares?   I realize seeing legs and arms isn't the same as seeing someone topless.... to our western brains, but to them, maybe it is.  Anyway, I'm not female but the girls definitely felt more uncomfortable earlier in the trip.  Gradually, you get used to it.  I think?

On the other hand, we've found people to be very polite - never pissed off when you reject them, always greeting us in a friendly manner.  The people we've asked for help have always been very good and we sure get a fair number of smiles and greetings from strangers.   I have been a little surprised with the lack of proficiency with English.  For a country that relies on tourism and generally studies English as a second language throughout school, it's not working very well (I guess my French level could attest to the fact that they may have learned from Canada??).  

But I digress... we had another long day to go, but we were all in sync to the time zones so we felt ready to go.  Laila met us at 10am and we packed all of our stuff into the car and said goodbye to our hotel.  First up, the Antiquities museum of Egypt and a meeting with King Tut... we'll sort of.

It was a hot day... already 42 degrees when we started at the museum - d'oh!  The whole place was really fantastic - the kids actually had a great time and we ended up spending about two and a half hours there.  While the first floor was filled with artefacts, statues and artwork from various ages, most of the second floor was all about young King Tut.  Many people know the story of King Tut - his main reason for fame was that his tomb was intact when discovered in the early 1900's.  He wasn't the most famous pharaoh of the time, not even close, but because all of the other "known" tombs of the great kings had been robbed, he moved up to become the number one draft pick in the NPL (National Pharaoh League? No?  It's really hot here...).

King Tut's treasure was stunning.  I can't really do justice to how in awe we all were at the volume and magnificence of the find.   The mask itself was amazing, but all of the other things were incredible.  I can't imagine how Carter must have felt when eventually realized the magnitude of his find.

Another main point of interest was the actual mummified remains of famous kings.  To actually see a five thousand year old body in front of you in pretty good condition was a bit surreal.  On the other hand, if you spent too much time in the sun and heat, I could see how easily we could end up like that!

After gorging on a ton of local food (we feasted like pharaohs?), we strode through a market with a huge concentration of tourist oriented shops.  The vendors looked a little down, though they did come up with the occasional zinger "hey mister, how can I help your wife spend all your money" or "hey sir, everything 50% off just for you".  Again all with good humour.   We weren't big purchasers - dates and saffron for us...that's about it.

The highlight was when Laila continued to lead us down a cobbled street and we turned onto Muizz Street (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muizz_Street), a collection of streets that make up one of the oldest streets in the world.   A lot of the buildings there were made from facade rock taken from the pyramids, and they were quite beautiful.  There were a few pockets of younger people enjoying the scene, but it was mostly empty (Egyptians simply don't hang out in the sun, and I don't blame them!).   The street really reminded me of old sections of Jaisalmer, though this was a more substantial street with far fewer cows :-).  

By around 4, we were all done.  The van picked us up and after settling with Laila and giving her an eye opening tip (I don't think it takes much here), we said our goodbyes.  The driver crawled through the packed avenues until we finally got to the small bit of highway leading to the airport.

Our plan was to stay for a "night" at the Meridien airport, which was a short bridge away from terminal 3 where we were flying out at 2:30am!  Another long day indeed.

We made a big splash at the pool, trying to beat our record of keeping a beach ball aloft, until we were kicked out at the pool closing time of 6:30.  What?  Just like the Novotel, the pool closed today at 6:30... so weird.  

We managed to stay up long enough to see the end of this day....and we are now walking over to our Egyptian Air flight that stops in Addis Ababa then down to Kilimanjaro airport for the start of the big leg of the trip.....safari!!! 

Day 2: Nothing is Free

It feels like we've been in Cairo a week - and I mean it in a good way.  Last night we went across the bridge to the East bank of the Nile and hopped on a small boat for a little Nile cruising.  I continue to be surprised at the slightly run down feel of most of the buildings in the city - it's much poorer than I thought, and it really seems to have hit 
hard times.  Laila later confirmed this.

After a really nice Lebanese dinner at a high end hotel last night (they really were bending over backwards to make us happy, and it's really looking like there are very few tourists here), we walked home in the early evening.  Wow.  The city had come to life.  It seemed as though everyone had been hiding indoors during the day but they were all out on the streets now.  We saw a ton of young families and groups of young girls and boys congregating around the Nile in celebration of a drop in temperature it would seem.

We hit the sack pretty early and we all slept like rocks.

Laila, our young guide from Egypt Tailor Made tours, met us promptly at 8am.  The plan was three main stops - the pyramids of Giza, the first ancient capital of Memphis where there was an open air museum, and Saccara - another pyramid group.

The streets were relatively calm... we really planned well (or luckily) to come on a Friday/Saturday.  We crossed to the West Bank and merged onto a highway, where we noticed that red brick tenement after tenement lay half finished and completely unoccupied.  Laila referred quite a bit to 2011 being a major turning point for Egypt.  With an economy highly dependant on tourism, the revolution in Egypt in 2011 known as part of the "Arab Spring" in the area caused a power vacuum which was filled by the Islamic brotherhood for a year and then replaced with a military government.  Things went to pot during the Brotherhood's brief reign, and the occasional flare up since then has caused the world to generally stay away from Egypt.  This has really hurt the country - with really high inflation and unemployment rumoured to be over 60%.

I'd heard a bunch of a people saying they were disappointed with the pyramids of Giza; that they'd thought they were in the middle of the Sahara; that they were not all that impressive etc. Etc.  Wrong, in my opinion.  As we passed through the suburbs of Giza we could see the pyramids silhouetted in the distance and I could already feel that excitement building.  When we got through the front gate, Laila got our tickets while we adjusted to the heat....or hid like cockroaches in the shade in reality.  The sun reminded me of Vegas - not too much humidity but when you were out in the open you fried.

Coming through the gates, I was actually surprised at the impressive size of the pyramids.  Built almost 5000 years ago - you're kidding me!  Amazing, huge, a feat of engineering, impressive, beautiful...I think you would have to be pretty jaded not to look at the pyramids with anything but awe.  Maybe people get sunstroke and it sways their opinion :-)

Laila did a great job buffering us from the vendors, and continually reminding us that "nothing was free!".  We've traveled a bit and are not very susceptible to the little scams and annoyances, but the way she intercepted the touts and warned us about tipping scams and more was really nice.  We did notice that even though there were a few touts and the usual souvenir vendors, their persistence seemed half hearted - like they'd been through years of not selling much and they had lost hope....and that was a bit sad.  Laila confirmed the drop in numbers - from 10,000 plus visitors a day to just "a couple of hundred", tourism had shrivelled up to barely a blip on the radar.   She said without the Chinese tourists and the occasional Spanish or German group, they would be totally dead.  We may have seen a handful of visibly "western" tourists the whole day.

Most of us opted to go into the man-made shaft that goes up and into the heart of the large Ramses pyramid which is the only intact structure remaining of the 7 Ancient Wonders of the World (there was a lot of talk about this, and we've concluded there must be a few lists of "7 wonders" out there....https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonders_of_the_World).  The tunnel inside the pyramid climbed upward in a tight box shaped tunnel about 4'x4' until it opened a little bigger halfway up.  Eventually, we got to the top and saw a big empty stone coffin.  Not a big deal to miss this part but still the size of everything when you were inside was magnified and made the whole thing that much more impressive.   Squeezing back down the tunnel while others were coming up, I couldn't imagine what it would have been like with thousands of visitors were there that day....yikes.

Next up was the obligatory camel ride into the desert, which I initially balked at (been there, snobbily done that) but it turned out to be pretty fun - especially watching Alex ride the camel like it was a bucking bronco...including a loud, one handed "yes haw!"

On the way out, we stopped briefly at the Sphinx.  So cool - we couldn't believe that it was carved out of one solid piece of stone.  It was interesting seeing the "casings" (or what I like to call "facades" (builder lingo I guess..).  All of the pyramids and temples etc were all clad with stone (limestone, granite, alabaster etc) to make them totally smooth back in the day, and the sphinx was no different around the body area.    Most of the facades had fallen off the structures, and not having the knowledge to put them back, they were taken over the years and used to construct buildings in the city.  

We stopped for some felafel and babaganouj on the way to Memphis...my god the food is good here!  So far we'd probably managed to drink five bottles of water each.  The drive to the ancient capital area was really marred by streets lined with garbage, still rivers filled with garbage and obvious poverty and disrepair everywhere you looked.   We were pretty shocked with how bad it was....I never imagined they would be this destitute.  Laila kept talking about 2011 as the beginning of the decline, but it was clear that things were not fantastic before this either.  

Memphis was now the site of a neat little open air museum, including a huge, nicely intact statue of a king that was unearthed after laying buried in a small lake for hundreds of years.   The heat was getting a bit much and we were continually scrambling for every scrap of shade we could find.

Last stop, Saccara (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saqqara), and we got the usual warnings before getting out of the van.. "remember everyone, nothing is free, someone wants to take your picture, not free, someone wants you to take a picture with their donkey, not free, ok?".  Thanks for the reminder Laila...note to self, no donkey pics!

Saccara was really interesting - a large pyramid that was built much earlier in a stepped shape rather than what we picture as a triangular pyramid.  We ventured down another tunnel to the inside of one of the tombs... a nice respite from the heat.   That tomb had a ton of hieroglyphics and a repeating cartouche (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartouche) representing the name of the owner of the to,b.  We got pretty good at recognizing cartouches! 

We were really melting, so it was time to bid adieu to Laila for the day and take a long dip in the pool.   We have been so impressed with the kids on the trip so far (I realize it's been 2 days...but they've been very long days!).  They are so mature, yet childish in the best of ways possible.  They all get along famously as if they were cousins and they've shown a real acceptance and willing to learn and try pretty much everything put in front of them.  We need to remember this for when we are back....lol.

We walked down to the Sofitel for dinner...finally deciding on a Moroccan restaurant as our choice (I think there were 5 restaurants there...all mostly empty).  The kids again opted to sit on their own, order on their own...and just generally 'be' on their own.  Well, they did better than the adults.  While there were quite a few groans at our table after eating way too much delicious food, the kids were very smart about what they ordered.

I'm not sure any of the adults had any more energy by the time we stumbled back to the hotel.  We closed our suite doors, leaving the 4 clowns playing cards for god knows how long.  Eventually we woke up and sent the boys packing down to Kim and Alex's room.  What a day.  

Seeing the pyramids was definitely a dream come true.  So was recreating that feeling that we were back on our big trip... maybe this really was Day 188?  Maybe the trip never ends?  With days this long, this three week part of our 'big trip' may continue for some time. :-)

Day 1: Putting the Frick in Africa

Here we go again... from Day 185 to Day 1.... well, I needed somewhere to record my thoughts, and why not on a two year old blog that nobody reads anymore...

It seems weird to be back to Day 1.  Our adventure is much shorter this time, and more crowded - in a good way.   We are off to Africa with the Versly family (we don't use their real name any more).   We had such a good, compatible time with Alex, Kim, Jeff and Matt when we travelled for 3 weeks with them in Borneo back in 2015, that we thought we'd jump back in the saddle again.

First up....Cairo!  While the main destination was ultimately a safari in Tanzania (the other choice was Botswana), it turns out getting to The East side of Africa is not as easy as it sounds....actually....it doesn't even sound easy.  We could have gone through Europe, with an all day airport transfer, or Abu Dhabi, but any way you sliced it, it was a little complex to go "direct".  So why not do a whirlwind weekend in Cairo....direct flight, pyramids, pool.

Egypt Air was pretty nice.   The food was pretty good (we're not sure why, but they kept throwing sandwiches our way after the main meal was served...so Alex ended up with about 7 in his lap before long.

I discovered a little 'seat-to-seat' chat tool so we could all chime in and it would show up on our little TV screen...which was fun....then annoying.

At the break of dawn-ish....we touched down in Cairo (4:45am local time...already 26 degrees!).  We had arranged a tour and transport through Tailor Made tours, and so far so good.   Our escort, Mustapha, picked us up inside security, sped us through getting on-the-spot visas, then accompanied us all the way through to pick up our bags.  Before we knew it we were loaded into a big van and Mustapha and the driver were speeding the 22km into town to our hotel.  

There was zero traffic as it was so early.  The sky was really hazy but soon cleared up a bit.   Along the way we could see countless hundred, five-hundred, thousand year old buildings and monuments.  Mustapha gave a nice little connecting story to each borough we passed through.  Cairo, while boasting some say a population of 25 million plus, seemed mostly to be a sprawling, relatively low rise, sand coloured city.

Our hotel was on an island in the middle of the Nile, which essentially separates Cairo and Giza (separate cities in name only).   We were way too early to check in, so we ditched the bags and took to the streets.  

The Nile is fantastic; the whole scene along the Nile looked like Ho Chi Minh City, only 20 years ago.  Most of the buildings looked pretty worn, and the city was still waking up (on rest day Friday) so it was pretty dead at...Jesus...it was only 7:30am!  I was reminded of a time at a party when we all drunkenly looked at a clock amongst cries of "more frozen drinks!" to realize that it was only 6:30pm!

We eventually made our way to... lunch? at a local place across the river that Mustapha had recommended.  He was spot on...falafel, amazing babaghanouj, chicken shawarma....oh man.

We just seemed to beat the heat after that, walking back and jumping in the pool at the hotel.   We didn't get our rooms, which they upgraded to a suite which was nice, until 2pm.   Different people are adapting to the time change in different ways...

I was determined to try and get a ride in so I headed to the rooftop gym.  Robin, on the other end of the scale, was so dead we had to peel her of her chair in the lobby, drag her up to her room and drop her on a bed where she collapsed.

Ah, Robin.  The little Frick.  For some reason, every time we've mentioned Africa, we kind of chuckle.  One of Robin's nicknames is the little Frick.  When she was about 3, she showed early prowess with toeing the line with her "adaptive language skills".  She would do something that crossed the line, and I would chuck her on her bed, pin her down and threaten to tickle her to death if she didn't apologize, and she would look at me with a smile and say..."so....soo...soooapy" and burst out laughing.  She wouldn't say sorry, but got as close as possible to it...the little $h!t! She was THREE!  Lol.   

Since then, she's been, let's just say, pushing the envelope.  On language...on just about everything.   She's been known to use Frick as a replacement for the F word quite frequently (I'm quite sure only when amongst adults!), but really, when you say "Frick no!", or "who the Frick..."., you'd me hard pressed not to know what word she's replacing it with!  So...she's our little Frick.  And we're putting the Frick in Africa...