Salam

We left our hotel in Nairobi at 2 a.m. last Sunday to catch our plane to Cairo. With such an early start, we decided we'd just do a bit of wandering and maybe catch a movie on our first day in Egypt. It took almost no time for us to fall in love with the city! Trying to cross the street here can be quite a challenge. There don't seem to be any traffic laws. A two lane road can easily have five cars across, but we quickly figured out how to use the Egyptian pedestrians as shields. There are people sitting around drinking tea or smoking Shisha all the time. The stalls selling food look and smell amazing. There are endless stores with glass vases and perfumes, paintings on papyrus, western clothing stores, car parts, and anything else you can imagine. We'd heard Cairo was very dirty, but coming from southern and eastern Africa where you're never more that 100 yards from a dirt road, this place is "very cosmopolitan!" As we were walking around eating ice cream and french fries from McDonald's (first in over 5 months), we met Abdul. He invited us into his shop and gave us a cup of tea. We chatted for a while and Abdul suggested we share a taxi to the pyramids at Giza. He said he'd introduce us to his friend Mahmoud, who owns some stables, and then he'd have us over for dinner. It sounded like a great plan to us. We ended up riding camels to the pyramids and watching a beautiful sunset.

The dinner at Abdul's house was delicious, and we felt so honored to be invited!

The next day we went back to Giza and went inside one of the pyramids and got a better look at the Sphynx. We also got to see the Red Pyramid at Dashur--the first true pyramid, and the Step Pyramid at Sakkara.

Then Mahmoud had us over for dinner two nights in a row! Mahmoud is a really funny guy, and his family situation was interesting to us. In Egypt it is legal for a man to have four wives, and Mahmoud is working on getting number four. His father picked out the first one for him, and they're not a good match. He picked out the next two. The second is beautiful, the third is a good match mentally, but he's pretty sure he has the whole package in wife number four. He has six boys, one girl, and one of his wives is pregnant. Each wife has her own house and he spends two nights a week with each, and the whole family gets together for a big dinner on Fridays.

There is a lot more I could write, but we're taking the night train to Aswan in about an hour. We've uploaded more pictures. Click on the link to the left if you want to see them. We also updated our phone number, so feel free to call or send an SMS any time.