A brief interlude in the tropics

I went down to PR for a quick jaunt. I was recovering from a weeks-long flu that turned into a sinus infection, so the warm sea air (and the antibiotics) was good for the remainder of my convalescence.

There was not much of note during our trip, although we did get lost one night in Luquillo. We asked many a local how to get to this one restaurant that was written up in all of the guidebooks as good local fare (and we all like good local fare). At one point, we drove by some guy walking down the street with something slung across his back. A minute later we decided he was cute and should have stopped him for directions. Victoria had some concern that instead of what I thought was a yoga mag he was carrying, it could have been a machete, or worse yet, a drum. And then he would have gotten into the car, killed us both with it, and taken our car. So I suppose it is a good thing that when we double-backed to find him he had disappeared into the bushes. We eventually found the restaurant, but it was closed. Alas, we had to drive back into San Juan for our dinner.

El Yunque Rain Forest.


















Gianormous snail in the rain forest!















Rows of food stalls in Luquillo. Mmmmm. Rice and beans.

The LP

We recently went up to Lake Placid again this year, and there was snow this time!

We ice skated:

Aaron shows off his backwards skating moves.

Many angry rounds of Uno (and Taboo) were played at the dinner table.

We even visited the Lake Saranac Winter Carnival. (It's much smaller than the MN Winter Palace.)

But there was the women's Fry Pan Toss competition!

We also attempted, for the second year in a row, to ride the Toboggan Chute, where they push you down this chute....

Onto the frozen lake:




Unfortunately, the lake was not frozen and the chute was closed (and the goddamn Olympic bobsled was supposedly "sold out" for the whole weekend) so we checked out the laser tag joint in town. It was the saddest room we had ever seen.



And so, we resorted to going back to the house to sit in front of the fire, eat way too much junk food, and work on the most evil puzzle ever:

Return from Egypt

And so the journey into Egypt has ended. I am slightly delirious from the jet lag and have been up since 3am.

Some last thoughts:

It was a great trip and it was really amazing to see the pyramids and tombs in person, up close. However, I don't think I would return to Egypt if given the choice. Egypt is a one-time thing.

Also, Americans have a bad reputation as tourists, but during this trip I noticed they were the most polite and respectful of them all. And as poorly dressed as they normally are, at least they were not wearing this (trust me, it looked much worse in person--and yes, that is a man wearing denim short-shorts):





















And speaking of clothing, I'm so over wearing variations of khaki.

One Step, Two Step...

We had a day to ourselves to wander around Cairo, so we went to see the Nilometer, which they used to measure the depth of the Nile and predict how good the crops would be (and thus the amount of taxes that would have to be paid), and back to Old (Coptic) Cairo to look around and do a little shopping. We decided to take the subway back to the hotel--it couldn't be that difficult, right? There are only two subway lines in the city, and it was pretty easy to use (no doubt it simplified matters that we were only going 2 stops.) We ended up on the women-only car, which was much less crowded than the co-ed ones. The real challenge was when we got out of the subway--crossing the street was seriously like playing a game of chicken with the cars. I don't think being a pedestrian in any other city has been scarier. But we put on our game faces and made it safely back to the hotel.

On our last day in Egypt, we took a visit to the first real pyramid at Saqqara: the Step Pyramid of Zoser. This is the one that started it all.

We also stopped by the ancient city of Memphis, which at one point was the capitol of the kingdom. It was considered a sophisticated city, but unfortunately, there is very little left except an open garden with some statues that have been found in the region.

The day's highlight was stopping by a local sandwich joint and having some falafel and shwarma. I think it may have been the best meal we had in Egypt and it cost just a fraction of the price--lunch for four of us was only $10!

Fresh Off the Boat

There is something about a big, crowded city that just makes me so happy. We are finally off the boat and back in Cairo. It's a dirty, overwhelming place (camels were running down the street tonight and I swear we came close to hitting another car/person/animal every 5 minutes on the road) but it is much more comforting to me than a cruise ship. Cairo reminds me of Taipei when I was a kid--before it became rich and modernized, before the Japanese department stores (I heart Takashimaya), and before there was an American fast food joint every block (not that I wasn't a grateful 9 year old ex-pat when that first McDonald's opened...) Of course, they have their fast food here too--our guide joked that KFC here is Kentucky Fried Camel.

Today was Day 7 of the trip and we have finally seen the pyramids at Giza! I'm a pretty jaded traveler, but I was still impressed. It's strange that the only remaining of the Seven Wonders of the World is stuck smack in the middle of a crowded suburb. The pyramids are massive and the Sphinx is smaller (and in much worse shape) than expected. The best part of Giza was climbing down one of the smaller tombs through a very narrow, steep shaft, into the small burial chamber. Unlike the tombs in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, there were no paintings or carvings inside--just plain ol' unadorned stone.


We also visited Old Cairo where we went to Ben Ezra Synagogue, the oldest in Egypt, the Hanging Church (Coptic), and the Church of St. Sergus, where it is said to be built over a cave that Joseph, Mary and baby Jesus were sheltered after fleeing to Egypt. By the way, Coptic Christians follow the Orthodox calendar, so they celebrate Christmas on my birthday, not on December 25th. We stopped by Islamic Cairo to the famous Khan Al-Khalili market and had some refreshment at Fishawi's Coffeehouse.















The afternoon was spent in the Egyptian Museum, which houses over 120,000 relics and many of them not organized very well. I focused my remaining energy on the booty from King Tut's tomb and the mummies. Ah, mummies. I paid a cool US$20 to go see the husks of a dozen dead kings. I particularly liked the information card on Queen Hatshepsut (who you'll remember from previous posts dressed like a man and ruled Egypt for many years): Now known to be Hatshepsut, great female pharoah of the 18th Dynasty, this mummy is of an obese female with bad teeth who died between the ages of 45 and 60. Ouch.


Crocodile mummy. The largest one at the Egyptian museum must have been around 10-12 feet long.

Into the Valley of the Kings

Last post of the day. Sorry no photos yet, since the internet cafe I am in is uber-sketchy and I think the computer I am using is from 1989. There is a large hole where the USB port should be. But hell, what can I expect for $1/hour of internet, right?

Today we went into the Valley of the Kings. It was amazing and I was really impressed. This is the burial ground for all of the New Kingdom pharoahs. So far 62 tombs have been excavated, the most famous of which is King Tutankhamun's. He wasn't actually a great king and only ruled briefly, with no great battles or buildings during his reign. He just happened to be buried with a whole lot of crap in his tiny tomb and the Egyptologist Howard Carter discovered it (after many, many years and sheer luck at a last ditch effort after his funding got pulled) in November 1922. I actually didn't go into Tut's tomb, nor did I see his recently revealed mummified face. I did see a few other tombs of greater kings and they were beautiful and well preserved. Everything inside of Tut's tomb is now in the Egyptian museum in Cairo (where I will be visiting in 2 days).





















Afterwards we went to the Temple of Hatshepsut, which is cut out of the limestone cliffs so that it is partly rock-cut and partly free standing. Hatshepsut was a woman, but dressed as a man (fake beard and all) to rule as a pharoah for 15 years. I need to do a little more research on the logistics on that (did the people know she was cross-dressing or did they actually think she was a man?) and I'll get back to you.




















Back to Cairo (and slightly chillier temperatures) tomorrow.

Cruisin' Down the Nile

Our "luxury" cruise ship is called the M/S Mojito. Apparently the owner is a big fan of the drink (as am I), although I don't think they even serve mojitos on this ship. Sigh.

We've made our way down the Nile and visited quite a few temples the past few days. Unfortunately, they all start to blur together and look the same. I've had the same experience with chateaus in France and cathedrals in Britain. Except now I'm older and have even less brain capacity.

We are now in Luxor, renamed several times (including Thebes by the Greeks.) The Arabs conquered, saw all of the temples in the city but thought they were old palaces, and thus named the area Al-Uqsur ("The Palaces".)





















It is also the hassle capital of Egypt. Souvenir vendors are everywhere and will follow you for blocks. I've seen them throw shirts onto people in the hopes that they will buy them. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. This doesn't stress me out that much though--the gypsy children of Istanbul are much, much scarier. Plus, I'm from New York--I know how to pointedly ignore people and look unfriendly. However, there are a few other things that cause me great stress in Egypt: the first is hoarding enough clean drinking water (I think I'm always thirsty because I know I can't drink from the tap), the second is having enough small bills to tip. There is a huge unemployment rate here in Egypt and people depend on tips for income. You have to tip for everything, including using public restrooms (god forbid you actually want toilet paper.) I'm totally fine with the tipping, I understand people need to make a living, it's just a matter of my having the small bills for it. Nothing makes me happier here than buying a large bottle of water and getting a bunch LE5 bills (=$1) back in change. No lie.

On a side note, I'm sorry to report that the seafood buffet on the cruise ship did not sit well with Mom. She had a bad bout of food poisoning yesterday. She's better today and managed to endure both the Valley of the Kings (awesome!) and the Temple of Hatshepsut.