The Belly of the Beast Dehydration sneaks up on you. One minute you are trying not to drink too much water so as not to be inconvenienced by a call from nature, and the next minute you realize your lips are puckering and you wonder if you are becoming a mummy before your time. As our trip to the Levant starts to wind itself down towards our last few days in Jordan, I have a…
The Golden Door There is a spa near us, just down the hill on Deer Springs Road across the highway and towards San Marco. It is tucked away quietly on what looks like a quiet winding country road set between the hills. That road is very much like that except for two times a day when it acts as a shortcut between the 78 and the 15 North and gets jammed for about an hour…
Nothing is EVER Written Today we are all about Lawrence of Arabia. We are in Wadi Rum, which is the central valley of the Erum area of southern Jordan. This is one of the most popular landscapes for moviemaking that exists in the world. Besides movies like Lawrence of Arabia and Queen of the Desert, this is where they film many of the outer space movies like Dune and Martian. I always thought Canyonlands in…
Exodus When Moses said, “let my people go!”, Pharaoh said, “ not so fast.” Today is our last day in Egypt. and strangely enough we are headed in almost the exact same direction as Moses was headed when he left for the promised land. We won’t be wandering in the desert of Sinai for 40 days and 40 nights, but we will be flying to Amman, Jordan in the morning and our first stop will…
The Mysterious Cairo This morning we were awakened at 5 AM for another early morning airport pick up. After the typical Nile cruise line breakfast, the porters hustled our bags up to the waiting van for the half hour drive to the Aswan airport. Aswan is actually quite a pleasant and slightly more modern city than others we have seen in Egypt. The airport was uneventful and efficient with the exception that we still had…
Coptic Coupling Tonight, Mike, Melissa, Kim and I decided that we would do a simple sandwich dinner at the lobby bar. That was a well conceived plan that bore little resemblance to what actually happened. To begin with what we thought was a lobby bar that offered bar food or sandwiches turned out to be a lobby bar that offered a full menu from one of the restaurants. In theory that shouldn’t be a problem,…
Reaching for Africa We have been on the continent of Africa for over five days now and don’t realize it. Africa is a big continent, but at least it’s very well defined unlike Asia or Europe. You know where it starts and ends. But the reality of Africa is that it’s separated into at least two Africas. The first is North Africa, of which we are in a subsection referred to as the Levant. And…
God of Gods Horus was the God of Gods in ancient Egypt. When you think about it, that’s a heavy burden to carry. Being a God is tough enough, but being the God of Gods, seems like an impossible job. As we will see, Horus certainly had his challenges. This morning we visited Horus’ temple in Edfu, which is a small river city here on the upper Nile (a.k.a.- the southern Nile). Our riverboat tour…
Allahu Akbar Anyone who travels to the Middle East has heard the call to prayer many times during their stay. It always begins with the beseeching cry of Allahu Akbar, which means God is greater. It is, perhaps the most succinct statement of the optimism of religion one can hear. It is less about power and more about the importance of the good life and why it should trump all else. It is one of…
Luxor Today we had to start our day rather early. We were to be in the lobby at 4:15am ready to go. We had all the best intentions of going to bed early and getting a solid night’s sleep in the shadow of the Great Pyramids and it started out just that way. Despite a very comfortable bed in the Marriott Mena room, I woke up at 12:30am with some very stiff legs and joints.…