Italy und Innsbruck.

WiFi has been spotty at the hotels and pricey elsewhere, so I have a bit to catch up on.  The Cinque Terre were beautiful and mostly restful.  As it turns that chapel at the top of the hill is always MUCH further away than it appears.  We were hoping to snorkel but woke each day to the waves crashing spectacularly on the rocks in precisely the way we do not want to dash. Our ample free time also allowed us to perfect our Wine Pong. The rules are the same as ping pong and wine drinking, only observed simultaneously.  Also, whoever is ahead when you begin forgetting to keep score wins.
We were sad to leave, even sadder when we got to Florence and discovered that our 'guesthouse' was very much a random apartment building with no one to let us in and a conveniently disconnected phone number.  Equally worrying was the fact that every room in the city was booked for the night.  This was probably due to the presence of Paulie D and the Situation of Jersey Shore fame, whom we saw huffing it down a narrow cobbled street with their camera crew apparently in search of a laundromat.
We had to stay in Pisa instead, which we found much more pleasant on account of it not being an oven full of grumpy tourists.  No one spends longer in Pisa than is needed to photograph the leaning tower, so we had it ourselves by late afternoon.
Venice was nice, but the climate is a bit sticky this time of year and we choose mostly to walk after seeing the official $140/hr rate for Gondola rides.  We did take a lovely moonlight cruise but that didn't leave much in budget other than several lemon slushes a day to keep cool.
We were very relieved to reach the more rarefied atmosphere of Innsbruck, Austrian which advertises itself as 'The Capitol of the Alps'. Not that I've ever visited the Alps before, but so far it has my vote.  Our first day we took the tram from town up to just above tree-line and hiked down.  The mountain ie dotted with little cottages which spend the summer serving beer and delicious homemade traditional Tyrolean dishes to hikers. How civilized. Time to catch up, Sandias.
Today we went Canyoning, which is basically hiking down a narrow mountain stream.  Of course the water is glacially cold so you've got to wear a wetsuit. And its a bit steep so you have to rappel and/or slide down waterfalls.  Oh, and you start by being lowered by rope from a bridge into a raging ice-cold stream.  Scary, but very, very fun. And beautiful, this is the Alps after all.

Santorini, Rome, and the Cinque Terrestrial

The pictures took so long to upload last time that I didn't manage to write anything.  Our stay in Santorini was lovely, the islands were beautiful and the food was delicious.  We took the place on headlong.  Our first full day involved several stomach twisting rides across the island's sinuous roads, snorkelling, high-speed water tubing, and parasailing. We were well exhausted by the time that we had returned to the hotel. The snorkelling was surprisingly good given the rather chilly water in the caldera. I'm not sure if tubing really describes our second activity, but it's my best guess.  Essentially we held onto a giant inflatable sofa while it was dragged across the ocean behind a motorboat, thus being made to do its best Brahma bull impression. Despite the deathly grip I felt I was maintaining, at one point I noticed that I was up in the air, sofa nowhere to be seen. Shortly thereafter I landed in the ocean. A good time was had by all.  Undeterred by our epic day we undertook even more the second day, climbing a volcano, a harrowing donkey ride, swimming to a hot spring, and probably most difficult of all, the sunset viewing.  The tourist life of Santorini centers around sunset. Every restaurant, gyros stand and souvenir shop advertises the magnificence of its sunset view. A dozen different sunset cruises and tours cqn be booked on any given day.  So we were determined to experience the ultimate Santorini sunset, and the town of Oia, we were told, is the place to do it. Unfortunately, our boat dropped us off, already hot and tired, about 3 hours early at which time the sun is still very much the enemy. We were also a bit over budget and couldn't afford to stake out in one of the many sunset themed cafes of Oia, known for their 9€ Orange juices and we had to scurry from one patch of shade to another for what seemed like days.  The sunset ultimately was beautiful but we were mostly just glad to be rid of the sun. We also learned a valuable lesson, that this is a honeymoon, not The Amazing Race, and we get to keep going even if we do not complete every possible activity before returning to the hotel.
Our Santorini-Rome flight gave us one last taste of the chaos that is modern day Greece. At the airport we were dismayed to see a fairly long line spilling out onto the curb. Naturally, I went in and established that yes, this the line for our flight.  The line showed very little sign of moving and our neighbors all seemed think it was a different flight, so I went to check again, only to discover that, while the tail had stayed in place, the head had moved and we were now in line for a completely different flight that none of us wanted. Luckily we managed to catch the flight. I have been in many lines in many places on earth and so far I have been able to count on the principle that however slowly and erratically it may move, once get into the right line, you will continue to move towards your goal, but Greece has proved me wrong.
Rome. Our time in Rome was probably about equally divided between eating Italian food, waiting for public transit and viewing old buildings.  Of course there is a lot of variation within each category. Some sights are fantastic, some meals make us wonder whether the Boyardee family is Roman, some trains are air conditioned, etc.  The colliseum for instance, is a bit run down given that for 85% of its life its major purpose was as a combination stone quarry/stocky. The pantheon has, rather ironically, been kept in good repair by the Church. Our favorite was probably St. Peter's.  It simply is amazing what you can do with all the money and power in the world. But that's a bit trite.  The harmony that the half-dozen lead architects were somehow able to maintain is dare-I-say miraculous?  The food was good, but frankly not quite our style. Romans seem to enjoy sweet tomato sauces and thin pizzas that neither Kathy nor I prefer.
Onward to the Cinque Terre.  These five ultra-quaint, once-rustic villages hang off precipitous slopes running into the gulf of Liguria, also called Golfo de las Poetas, for the leaders of its first wave of tourists, Keats and Byron.  The whole area is a national park now, but not a barren wilderness park, a suntanning and souvenirs and charming little restaurants park. We've opted to stay 4 days to really get to know it. Sadly, the most picturesque of the picturesque, the foot path from Vernazza to Manerola, which is generally listed in the top 10 walks in the world is closed due to a landslide.  We've had to console ourselves with too much foccacia and gelato.

Adio Greece, Ciao Roma

First kathy pose


















church at mt. lycabetta


















view from the hotel in Santorini

Santorini Sunset

The town of Fira.












In the volcano.













In Europe, even the lizards smoke.













I'm ready for my donkey ride!

Obligatory colloseum photo.

Kathy bursting with divine glory, or perhaps flames.

Greece

It's been a while, went to Turkey, but skipped the blog, went on some other little trips too. Oh, and I got MARRIED.  The honeymoon is a simple 5-week tour of Europe.  We're starting off in Greece.
Athens is an interesting city, but I would say we missed the best time to go by about 2 months, give or take 2000 years.  The humidity and the long flight force me to coin a new term to describe our stay there: sweat-lag.  That's when you're not sure if you're exhausted because of the nine timezones you just crossed or because all of the water is leaving your body.
Greece has had some hard times and the amount of unemployment, graffiti and general unrest give Athens a pre-riot Los Angeles vibe. When things turn around someone is going to be spending years erasing political slogans from marble. The upside is that its cheaper than expected.
The acropolis and the Parthenon are nice, or will be in about 20 years when the reconstruction is completed, as it stands you can't find an angle without a crane in your view.  Our favorite part was actually climbing a hill up to a little church above the town.  Great views and great relief to be above the chaotic snarl of traffic that is day-to-day Athens.
An even greater relief to reach idyllic Santorini.  Originally Santorini was a mid-sized island in the south Aegean but around 600 BC it blew up Mt. St. Helens style and became 5 smallish islands.  The main island, where we're staying is composed mostly of the rim of the crater left by the eruption and is shaped more or less like a crescent.  This means that about half of the real-estate is cliff-front, or just the side of a cliff.  A forbidding place to live, but the perfect spot for a sunset-view cafe.  This being the Greek Islands the architecture is very blue and white.  From the air I imagine the island looks like a giant basalt croissant frosted with bright white hotels and gelato stands.  From the ground it looks like someone made it up for a spectacular movie. Pictures later.

Vietnam + Laos

Just a quick update. The fact that this post covers two countries and only six days will tell you something about the trip so far. We've been moving around quite a bit, which is okay, because I can't really get around the countryside on my own so seeing it from the window of a bus is the closest I'm likely to get right now. As you may know I injured my ankle in New Orleans during a night of carousing as exciting as it was enigmatic. The details are hazy, but probably awesome. Anyway, this limits my mobility just enough to be annoying.
We got into Saigon Saturday night after what seemed like a week in the air but still managed to drag ourselves out just long enough for one beer and to notice that certain Vietnamese women can be very forward. Very. We managed to both get back to bed alone and spent most of the next day wandering around the city sweating. We also visited the old presidential palace, which was very sixties-spy chic and the war remnants museum, which despite it's name portrays the war as a serious of brutal massacres of innocent civilians by America soldiers who somehow died in vast numbers(did you know 1 million Americans died in the war?). The food everywhere was plentiful and fantastic, but we decided to make the most of our time and move on to Laos.
Vientiane was fairly nice, as fair we could tell, but we were bound for Luang Prabang, which is one of those rare cities that just feels nice, like someone had layed it out for you. We saw a lovely cave and some waterfalls, and met what was probably the drunkest American in southeast asia(but friendly) and now we are on to Vang Vien for some tubing and a Beerlao or two.

NZ Pictures

Beach fire.












Franz Josef Glacier. Will look more intrepid when I photoshop out the other tourists.











View At Murchison Lake.



















Milford sound. Small cruise ship included for scale.




















Sheep stares at penguin.



















Sunset on the Otago Peninsula.















Above Lake Tekapo.




















Ukelele lessons, with my backup dancer, Randall.

Lately

Been a while since I posted. Made it to Nelson, where I stayed with family friends Randall and Lisa. It was nice to take it easy for a few days. The area they live in is extremely lovely. I'm sure it has it's problems, but they are hard to imagine. They were charming hosts and stuffed me with sausages and wine, and feijoa cider whatever that may be. We drove up along the coast of Tasman Bay and Golden Bay(tragically renamed from Murderer's Bay, but better for real estate prices no doubt) to Wharariki Beach which has some pretty good dunes and crazy sea caves. The tide was low enough that we got into one about an arms breadth wide and 25 feet high that twisted down to the ocean. For one second in the middle there was no light, just ankle deep water running down . . . somewhere. Exciting.
We were going to go boating on the Abel Tasman the next day but we decided to stay off the open ocean due to the Tsunami, which failed to materialize. Still, it was fun to get out on Nelson harbor in Randall's jetboat.
Lisa advised me to head down to Milford Sound as quickly as possible in order to try and catch a patch of sunlight predicted at the end of the week, so I raced down the coast. Stopping only to visit a brewery and a glacier. The brewery was a bit lame, but the glacier was amazing. The Franz Josef glacier receives 20-80 meters of snow at its head every year and so plunges down towards the ocean at speeds that can scarcely be called glacial, managing to dip into the temperate rainforest before it can melt. I only had an afternoon to hike up on to it, but it was definitely impressive. I'll have to rely on pictures to tell the rest of that story.
Got into Queenstown fairly late but still managed to hit the club before my 7:50 am departure to Milford Sound. Despite the weathermen's assurances, it was a grey, dismal morning, spitting rain all the way. Lots of low clouds as we pulled into Fjordland National park. We saw the mountain range cast as the Misty Mountains for the upcoming Hobbit films, but it was more mist than mountains. Just as people started grumbling about wasting their time and money the mists slowly began to part like a cotton ball be teased apart, lingering in shreds here and there throughtout the rest of the day, but letting plenty of sunshine through. The rain meant that some of the small waterfalls along the steep glacial valleys were running at full force. The scenery was literally mind-blowing. I had seen pictures, but I guess I've never really believed that any place like this existed, but it does. Somehow, the guy behind me managed to snore loudly through the whole ride. The sound(actually a fjord) is equally impressive. Ringed by snowcapped peaks, its steep sides are covered with a rainforest that just barely clings to the rocks in a mat of intertwined roots. Strong rainstorms occasionally cause whole sections of it to slip loose and plunge into the sea. A number of water falls plunge what seems like hundreds of meters directly into the ocean. To top it all of, our boat was greeted by a pod of bottlenose dolphins. Even the bus driver was impressed by our luck.

Pictures

Auckland

Maori Ceremony














Tongariro crossing, dawn.












Tongariro crossing, volcanic lakes.











Forest near Wellington(bus stop #5219).











Sea plane landing near interisland ferry.

Tree Ferns

New Zealand has been awesome so far. The major challenge so far has been not to spend all of my money. I have a ticket on a backpacker bus, which is probably good given I'm travelling alone. They pick us up at various hostels and show us a standardized itinerary of sights and offer a tantalizing menu of activities. Occasionally they steer us into a blatant tourist trap with a knowing wink, but otherwise no particular complaints. The bus is mostly filled with people from various parts of the British Isles and Germany, although there was a Canadian once.

I started off with a traditional Maori feast in Rotorua after a brisk departure from Auckland. There was a bit of a staged ceremony complete with traditional Maori guitar and then we ate a bunch of food cooked in a hole in the ground. It was suspiciously like Thanksgiving dinner, even including traditional Maori cranberry relish.

Rotorua is the geothermal capital of New Zealand as well, so I spend a day walking around looking at the vents spewing vaguely sulphurous steam out of people's backyards and the boiling mud in the park. Went out to the bar with a group of English people, largely from Newcastle, and met a Canadian valley girl. At least as annoying as the American variety.

The next day we stopped off at the Waitomo caves on the way to Taupo. Opted for the deluxe "black water rafting" trip. This involves getting into a wetsuit and caving helmet and hiking across a large cow pasture and into a hole in the ground. The cave itself is not particularly impressive, although we got very close to some formations. The real draw is the river. When the river flows into the cave, it carries with it a variety of gnats and mosquitos that are then too dense to fly back upstream. Instead they fly towards a bright spot on the ceiling that turns out to be a glowworm surrounded by sticky filaments waiting to eat it. In order to visit these worms, we put on our wellies and climbed into inner tubes and then into the chilly waters of the river. They say there are more glow worms visible in the cave than stars in the sky, but I don't think that is true at any one point, still, the eerie blue-green light they put out is quite impressive. Truth be told I enjoyed paddling through the cave at least as much as the glow worms.

At Taupo I undertook the Tongariro Crossing, which essentially entails hiking over a large active volcano. Mt. Ngaruhoe, which flanks the trail played the part of Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings movies, and it is quite impressive. To say I was out of shape from being sick lately would be to put it mildy. On the approach to Ngaruhoe at least one Australian fairly yelped "Blimey Mate, yer steaming!" Sadly not a comment on my good looks but on the fact that I was literally surrounded by a cloud of steam from my exertion. I decided to attempt the ascent of Ngaruhoe, which is an cinder cone and essentially offers no purchase anywhere on its slopes. Frankly, Frodo made it look easy, and I had to turn around or risk missing my bus. Still, the scenery is amazing on the hike, alpine meadows, steaming moonscape, emerald lakes and a bit of jungle just at the end.

In Wellington now, which is lovely, although I'm given to understand that's something of an exception. The climate is described this way in my guide. "125 days per year of rain. 64 days with winds gusting to at least 50mph." The city is quite beautiful and surrounded by an impressive collection of forests, including an 80 acre patch of untouched original broadleaf podocarp forest, which basically is transplanted from Gondwana land and includes treeferns up to 20 meters tall. 20. Meter. Ferns. Feel like I might be eaten by a 3 m dragonfly any minute.

Tahiti pictures

No time for captions.

Most of Peru

We´ve been travelling pretty quickly trying to complete our loop around Southern Peru and it just occurred to me that I haven´t actually written anything for several weeks. From our camp in the jungle we took a boat, a bus, a plane, a taxi, a bus, and another taxi to Puno, which is on the shores of Lake Titicaca, the world´s highest navegable lake. The border with Bolivia passes through the lake and apparently the Bolivian side is pretty neat but it costs mucho dinero to get into Bolivia so we stayed in Peru. Apparently five days down in the jungle cost us our acclimatization and so the 7 hour bus ride uphill from Cusco was demoralizing. We could scarcely think straight whne we got in so we spent most of the next day remembering how to breathe. We decided to take a two day tour of the lake starting with the Uros Floating Islands. The islands are actually rafts made from reeds in the lake. Each one is home to 5-10 families and lasts for 40 years. Originally the Uros people took to the lake fleeing the Inca and lived on fish and foul from the lake but now they mostly live on tourist dollars because exotic species are leading to the collapse of lake fishing. The families on each island work together and defer to the president of the island. If there is some dispute, they simply cut the island in half and shove them apart.
Later we went to another island a real one that can´t be moved around. We stayed with a local family for the night, Gregorio and Andrea. They speak Quechua at home but Gregorio knows a little Spanish so we could communicate somewhat. Andrea cooked our meals in an adobe stove with a woodfire in the kitchen, which made things rather smoky. At night they dressed us in traditional clothes and we went to a dance with the rest of our tour group. Andrea showed me the steps but she kept trying to spin me and since she´s only about 5 feet tall it didn´t come off well.
From Puno we took a late bus to Arequipa, which is on the dry west face of the Andes underneath a couple of very large volcanoes that haven´t destroyed the city since 1979 or so. The city itself is very beautiful and we got to visit an old convent that seemed rather cheery except for the statues of Christ on the Cross and Our Lady of Misery everywhere. From there we went up to the Colca Canyon and saw a totally bewildering number of terraces, and a condor that couldn´t have been more than 5 miles away. We also ran into what seemed like every other tourist we had met so far. They call it the Gringo Trail and I guess there´s a reason. We went back to Arequipa, headed down to the pacific to visit the ¨poor man´s Galapagos¨ where we saw a completely unfathomable number of birds(including some lost-looking penguins) and some lazy sea lions. The town we stayed in, Pisco, was hit by a level 8 earthquake in 2007 and none of the roads had been resurfaced which gave it an eerie feeling.
In Lima we mostly just hung out at the hostel with some people we met there, although we did manage to do some salsa dancing. Now we are in Santiago, Chile, staying with my friend Carolina. So far the city seems very nice, and is framed by snowy peaks. This morning we saw a large parade or demonstration which was very interesting, though mostly lost on us. Someone was demanding justice, self-determination, and territory, but we couldn´t be sure who or from whom it was being demanded. Nor could we determine whether they were also demanding socialism and anarchy or whether these were separate groups. There was also a feminist contigent whose flyers admitted that although this wasn´t really a feminist issue as such they didn´t want to feel left out.

Peru photos.

Some photos. Left the memory card from the first half in my hotel room. I can´t flip the last one but I still like it.

Island children in traditional dress.

Amantani Island in Lake Titicaca.

Our tour group beat our guides in a football match at 3900 meters above sea level.

The Uros floating islands are large rafts constructed from reeds where people live most of their lives.

Before the rains on the Altiplano.

Boat ride along the lower Rio Madre de Dios.

Tarzan.

¡El Peru!

I´ve been in Peru a week and a half so far and this is first chance to sit down with my blog because we´ve mostly been in one wilderness or another. After a number of mechanical problems my folks and I managed to get into our hotel in Lima at 1 am, which luckily was just when the party was getting started at the bar around the corner. We managed to stagger onto our plane for Cusco and spent most of a day laying around wondering where they keep the air. The next morning we left for our 4 day hike of the Inca trail to Macchu Picchu. We were in a small group, Sharada, myself, mom and dad and 5 Argentinians who spoke varying levels of english. Mom and Dad had decided to go first class and hire porters to carry all of our gear for us in addition to tents and a whole portable kitchen and dining room complete with chairs and a table where they served lovely 4 course meals. It was a bit old-empire and Dad kept calling me bwana, but we were definitely secretly thanking god that we didn´t have to carry our own bags once we got up relatively high.
According to the Incas apparently Macchu Picchu and the passes we hiked over(13,880 ft) are in the lower-middle region of altitude, but it seemed pretty rarefied to us. I thought that at those alitudes we would be watching llamas frolic in the snow, but I had forgotten that we were subtropical and actually we saw a lot of corn and bromeliads on the way up and came down through the cloud forest. The second day is usually the hardest, crossing the first and highest pass, but I followed my guide´s instructions and chewed plenty of coca and felt like whistling the whole time. Obviously that would have required oxygen, but it was the thought that counted. Possibly due to altitude or a very cold shower, or bad chocolate I felt very sick most of the next day and could not eat until the late evening. Somehow I shambled 16 km to camp. We passed mostly through jungles that I tried to remind myself were very beautiful, but mostly I was thinking how nice it would be to lay down. I felt much better after that and was able to really enjoy our walk down through the cloud forest to Macchu Picchu, which although very short on llamas and snow was very beautiful with large number of bromeliads and orchids growing on every available surface. Unfortunately it was a bit heavy on the clouds, and the rain, and the fog. We missed the agency-poster view from the sun gate because of the weather, but just as our guide more-or-less predicted, the clouds opened just as we arrived outside the site and we were treated to a theatrical view of Macchu Picchu through the mist. The terraces also had a few scattered llamas grazing just to make up for all that cloud forest. They were probably city llamas paid to act like incan ones but we could hardly tell the difference.
Probably the most amazing thing about Macchu Picchu is that it was lost. No one knew about it for years and years, because, and this may be more amazing, it was abandoned. In terms of the amount of man-hours committed this place ranks with anything we´ve seen except the pyramids, but they never quite bothered to finish it and they left the hundreds of houses and acres of farmland bitterly carved out of the jungle and the rocks totally empty. I´m sure they had a good reason but they don´t seem to have mentioned it to anyone at the time. Probably just said they were going out for a pack of smokes.
After we got back to Cuzco I mostly needed to rest and complete the incredibly complex process of booking our stay in the jungle. After 5 or so visits to the rather fly-by-night travel agent (whom we had selected on the basis that he was open on sundays and didn´t bother shave) we finally received some concrete evidence that we would not simply be left on the dock at Puerto Maldonado on arrival like a bunch of bananas awaiting shipment. In fact we arrived at a grandiose camp surrounded by alien-looking tropical flowers and eccentric tropical birds who had taken up employment there. It was rather like being at camp again except that the older guests made no attemtps to haze us. We were rousted from our beds each more at an hour dictated by the arcane calculations of the camp manager and escorted on a wilderness adventure of some sort before being brought back to the cafeteria where we were organized by table so that they could keep track of us. For the first two days we were attached along with a dutch couple to a large group of polish people who spoke neither english nor spanish making them the only people in the entire place we could not communicate with. Despite their lack of understanding they were sure to crowd around our guide at all times to soak up his wisdom(delivered in english), which they were unable to pass along. Still, the jungle was very exciting and we saw lots of animals that were very difficult to believe. I would say offhand that the average tree in the Amazon has more species living on it that the state of New Mexico. I felt that I had to move briskly to prevent myself from becoming equally encumbered with lichens, vines, mushrooms, lianas, parasitic trees and bird´s nests. Overall it was very nice, and spending four days in the same place seems to have allowed me to fully regain my health before we head into the high plains and Lake Titicaca.

Welcome to Jordan!

Every single person I've met since coming to Amman has said "Welcome to Jordan." People holler it at me as I walk by on the street. I suppose they are just very friendly, but it's starting to seem like some sort of vast conspiracy. Maybe I just have a sign on my back that says "Welcome Me."

We spent a few more days in Egypt around Dahab. We decide to climb Mt. Sinai for sunrise, which meant that we left at 11 pm and stumbled up the mountain rather than sleeping. It was surprisingly hot despite the altitude and almost total darkness. The trail ran through a camel holding area(for tourists too smart to walk up) in the moonlight and it was kind of surreal to be surrounded by an unknown number of mostly very sleepy camels. In fact the whole experience took on a kind of drugged feeling. Maybe I just wasn't drinking enough water. In fact I know I wasn't because when we got to the top, I was soaking wet from the effort and it became surprisingly cold. We had to rent a blanket that looked like it had been stolen from one of the camels to see us through until dawn. We were awakened by a choir of people with mostly Castillian accents singing in Hebrew "Shima Israel . . ." which made sense given the location. It felt very old testament and I was happy to discover that I would not have to carry any stone tablets down to the bottom. It made less sense when we discoverd that the choir was actually a group of Catholic seminarians, but the music was nice at least.

We did a jot more snorkelling and finished most of our winnings at the pub, although we did leave with 6 liters of drinking water, and headed towards Jordan. It took only 10 hours longer than expected. The bus ride was 90 minutes as advertised, and the ferry took only 3 hours instead of 2, however there was the small matter of the 5 hour wait before the ferry and the 2 hours after it arrived. If that doesn't add up, you more or less understand how we felt during the 12 hour, 120 mile journey. On top of it, I dropped 10 Dinar($15) on the ground getting out of the cab and our driver skillfully made it disappear.

Jordan has been more expensive than anticipated, but mostly worth it. Petra, which I had never heard of before planning this trip has been totally fantastic. The verse, which we see EVERYWHERE runs "The rose-red city half as old as time." In fact the city is only about 1900-2100 years old, which on this trip just qualifies it as oldish. However it looks incredibly ancient on account of being carved from soft sandstone. I was thinking I would like to see a convincing TV recreation of the place at it's heyday, but upon further consideration I've decided that it can't be done. I scarcely believe the real version. Rose-red also give the rocks short-shrift. They are mostly red but swirled with psychedelic tiger stripes of orange, brown and yellow. I continually found myself having to touch them to believe that they weren't painted on, but they are not.
Unfortunately the ancient Nabateans did not build any escalators, or if they did they have been lost to the ages. Consequently we had to do a rather ludicrous amount of hiking to see it all and I have gotten leg cramps that make me feel half as old as time myself(I'll be 25 this week after all). I also took a rather ludicrous amount of pictures, none of which will see the light of day until I get my camera cable from home.

More Egypt

Keep getting further behind, for some reason. I still haven't gotten up to the current time of my first entry. After Abu Simbel we spent the better part of the day sleeping because we had to get up at 3am for it, and then we took a cruise down the Nile to Luxor. My original plan had been to take a felucca, which is more or less the aquatic equivalent of a VW van, but with fewer amenities, but my companions prevailed upon to see reason and we took a cruise ship, which I had never done before. There was no shuffleboard, unfortunately, but we did have an ondeck pool, which was good considering that it is generally unsafe to swim in the river on account of "Snail Fever" which is even less fun than it sounds like.

With the exception of three other people, no one on the boat spoke English, so we were seated at the English only table, where they did their best to keep us comfortable. We met a very interesting Ethiopian lady who was on R&R from the UN in Sudan, and a Norwegian girl travelling with her grandmother. The grandmother was at the English table mostly because there wasn't a Norwegian table. The banks of the Nile were much lusher than I had imagined, and there's few better ways to see them than from a nice cool swimming pool. We also got to see some amazing temples along the way, including Kom Ombo at night, when it was lit up like the set for an opera(which thankfully failed to occur). The guard insisted that I take a photo of the forbidden mummy which no one is allowed to see unless they have three pounds to give him and his boss is on break.

We got to Luxor after two days. Actual sailing time was about 6 hours, but that would have cut into the buffet, so they stretch it out a bit. Luxor has an overwhelming concentration of sites, and we did our best not to see more than we could appreciate, but I still may have sprained my sense of historical perspective and wonderment. It helped that it was 114 degrees most days. The valley of the kings was amazing. One of the tombs still had all the original paint, which frankly, makes the whole affair a lot cheerier. I'd like to see a temple restored to full technicolor glory. Just one, they've got thousands. Unfortunately, the sheer number of people, even at this offest of seasons, who are willing to sweat their way up and down the stairs to the tombs means that the atmosphere inside is just beyond lockerroom and well on its way to sauna. I'm sure this isn't good for the paitings, so most of the tombs are closed. Also notable was the Karnak temple, which is apparently the biggest temple, anywhere, ever. The columns are huge and decorated with a bewildering array of people with silly heads and/or silly things on their heads. That was a big deal for the ancient Egyptians, I guess. When we occassionally splurge on a guide, they attempt to explain the deep significance of these heads, but I usually get distracted by minutiae like the fact that everyone keeps marrying their siblings, and then marrying their offspring to other siblings. At some point they started carving their names really deep so that their horribly adjusted son/nephew/husband wouldn't erase it when they died. That's most of what I got out of the carvings, which are quite beautiful and much more interesting than Jesus over and over again.

From Luxor we took the bus to Hurghada, which was another clothes-on sauna experience. I'm not sure how these women can wear a head scarf--I keep having serious doubts about the wisdom of wearing pants. Hurghada is a gaudy tourist town on the Red Sea, which is, as the guide book informed us, totally swarming with sunburnt Russians. I don't think anyone can enjoy a good sunburn the way Russians can. I know I can't, but I gave it a try when we went snorkelling. The contrast between the unbelievably barren land and the teeming reefs of the Red Sea boggles the mind. On our ride to Hurghada(6 hours) we saw at most 12 plants and animals. In 30 seconds snorkelling, we saw at least that many species, if not many more. Unfortunately the sunburn was quite bad and I had to spend most of the next day in the room wondering just what had made me remove my shirt in the first place(it was the devil) and whether I would ever be able to use a chair again(any day now).

Cheryl left us in Hurghada and we headed across the sea to Sinai. Since Moses wasn't with us we had to take the ferry, which was rough, but probably faster than walking in any case. Then we took a taxi and a bus and another taxi just for good measure to Dahab, which is consistently described as a backpacker's paradise. The Lonely Planet was a bit bored with it, and to be fair, we're not exactly encountering another culture here. In fact, everyone is exactly like us. But the other fact is that it is just a very nice place, with beautiful waters and teeming reefs(spitting distance from the bar) and a great view of Saudi Arabia, which looks just fine from a distance. We even played the pub quiz last night--in which we dominated the less experienced to win 100 pounds of free drinks that we have, so far, been unable to finish.

Some pictures--I only have the cable for my phone camera, so the selection is a bit random.

The girls appreciate the Cairo Art Scene.

The copts have weathered the tests of time with their dignity intact.

I see the light.

Nubian Village.

Felucca on the Nile at Aswan.

Mosque in Luxor. All of the surrounding structures were razed for some reason.

Columns at Karnak.

We've been a bit busy and the internet has been a bit slow, so I've already been here over a week. Egypt is hot in the summer. I knew that, but somehow the actuality of it never really sunk. I've been hot before, and it sucks. Okay. The discomfort really hasn't been so bad. But the sheer effort involved in keeping body and soul together while wandering around outdoors in 105 degree weather never really occurred to me. And to top it off the Pharoahs had the lack of consideration to build all of their monuments outdoors, without any shade. We've been drinking what seems like 30 bottles of water a day, but somehow it's never enought. I swear they sell them to us with big holes in the bottom and our heat-curdled brains aren't able to notice.
Otherwise, things have been lovely. The heat means that a lot of the attractions are nearly empty, especially early in morning before the package tours can stumble out of their hotels. We try to see as much as we can before we have to retreat to somewhere dark with cold beverages. The pyramids are really impressive. Nothing I build is going to last 3000 years. I built a rack for the VCR that has lasted almost three, but I'm not hoping for much more, really. At the same time, I have to say, I'm much more impressed with the temples. They show some aesthetic judgement at least as opposed to just building the largest possible pile of stone on the backs of thousands of laborers. The pyramids seem like pre-modern brutalist architecture.
The mosques have also been quite impressive. Mostly the girls have not had to wear head scarves even there, although almost(but not quite) all of the women on the street wear them. They're an essential part of every outfit it seems, and many of them are quite stylish. We also saw a woman in a burka which completely covered her face(quite uncommon) sporting gold-rimmed Dolce & Gabana sunglasses over it. We had a lovely tour of the Blue Mosque and adjoining palace all to ourselves. Our guide even let us into the work site, which he claimed he wasn't supposed to do. Apparently Obama and Mubarak opened it to the public during his recent visit and our guide new precisely where he had been and how long. "Obama, he sat here 11 MINUTES and he drank coffee!" The whole visit seems to have lasted either 18 or 25 minutes, but he's a busy fellow. Obama seems incredibly popular, especially among salespeople who are trying to win us over. Some people do seem to be generally very happy about him though. "Obama #1. Clinton, Good. Bush, no." They're also not fans of Bush the Elder, whom they call "Abu Bush" or "father of Bush."
Another thing I've learned is that I don't speak nearly as much Arabic as I thought. I can say a lot of lovely impressive phrases like "I dislike Cairo due to the humidity and overcrowding." and "I sometimes have feelings of loneliness." But when it comes to asking when lunch is, I'm out of luck. Or counting above 100. Also the dialect is taking some getting used to. Luckily almost everyone speaks some English. Mostly they employ the language to tell that(since I'm travelling with two women) I am a very lucky man to have two wives. At first I thought they were joking, but it's becoming harder to believe. The jeweller assured me that although I might say they were my friends, they were surely my wives.
After 4 days in Cairo we took the night train down to Aswan, which used to be just below the first cataract, until the falls were removed. Being far south, it is much hotter, but not nearly so humid. Mostly this means that we don't notice how much we're sweating until we start getting dizzy. The city is right on the river, which is full of traditional sailboats which tack picturesquesly across the water in front of palm trees. The captains of these boats would be happy to take you for a ride. In fact they insist. Good price though, Egyptian price. Our hotel was fairly nice, if noisy and had an adorable pool with a decent view of the island and the minarets of the city(outnumbered only by cell towers. I suppose there must be some kind of moratorium on putting cell receptors on the minarets, but I think it's a brilliant plan.
From Aswan we went even further south through the totally barren Sahara to Abu Simbel, which happens be on the shores of the world's largest manmade lake in the middle of the world's largest (arguably) manmade desert. The temple has been moved uphill 200 ft to prevent it being submerged. Unfortunately it has to be visited as part of a police convoy(to make us feel safer, which it does not) and means that it's incredibly crowded as everyone who wants to see it has to do so between 7:30 and 9 am each day. Time running out, more later. Eventually.

Africa Wrap-Up

When we last saw our intrepid hero he was in Gaborone, Botswana waiting for the rain to clear. Obviously that was some time ago. The storm did finally pass in time for one nice afternoon in Gaborone. We visited a village nearby which has an interesting museum covering the history of the village in incredible detail. We mostly went because it was essentially free, but the attendant stood next to the donation box and gave me dirty looks, so I had to leave my smallest bill, which was supposed to buy me breakfast the following day. We met up with Sean and his classmates that night for drinks and dancing, which actually started at 10 p.m. as advertised. At 9:59 the patio cleared out and by 10:01 the floor was packed. Unfortunately the idea of a night club opening when it says it will open was lost on our American colleagues who arrived at an appropriate 11:30. Frankly it never would have occurred to me, but we were already there for dinner.

The drive back to Joberg was mostly uneventful except for one thing. Why do guinea hens cross the road? Apparently in order to steal license plates. One stumbled out in front of my car at 120 km/h and not being terribly familiar with the local fauna, I could only hope it would fly off. It didn't and I ended up hitting it square. The noise woke Sharada up, thinking we had lost a muffler. As it turned out, we had lost the license plate from the front of the car, which we noticed just 200 km later just before a Traffic Control Officer waved us to the shoulder to ask about it. She let us off with a warning instead of an R600 fine. I promise not to do it again.

We mostly just hung around the hostel in Joberg, but we got some good intelligence about the financial situation in Zimbabwe, which resulted in our bringing just barely enough US Dollars instead of almost none. We were also given a pair of glasses and a letter to deliver to various people in Victoria Falls, which hopefully worked off some one my karmic debt for the return of my camera equipment.

Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe is a clean and welcoming tourist town that offers a wide range of accomodation, none of which is more than 5% full at the moment. Sharada and I slept in a 15-bed dorm all alone. Someone told us that there is some law in place to prevent any hotel booking more than 10% occupancy(in order to spread the small number of visitors evenly) but I'm not sure if that's true. We stopped at The Castle resort, hotel and casino because it seemed to have only restaurant on the side of town with power one night(there's a rotation system of scheduled black outs). It would have been more at home in Vegas except for the warthogs fighting on the lawn. The main floor of the casino was lit up with flashing lights beckoning to gamblers, but was completely silent and empty except for 4 black jack dealers all sitting at the same table chatting quietly to each other. We opted to eat in the dark at the hostel instead because it was less eerie.

The falls are mind-blowingly amazing, especially for a desert rat like me. According the info at the park during peak flow(which I think we were fairly close to) 550,000 cubic meters of water pass over the falls EVERY SECOND. This is 145 million gallons, or roughly the amount of water that Albuquerque uses in a day, which means it takes a whole 6 minutes for a year's worth. The falls are formed when the Zambezi river spills into a gorge. Above the falls it forms a large wetland area, so when it hits the gorge it is over a mile wide. More or less as though the Mississipi river suddenly fell into the Grand Canyon. The Zambezi Gorge is not as deep as the Grand Canyon, but it's almost impossible to tell as the cloud of mist generated not only prevent the bottom of the falls from being seen but also extends a further 500 ft above the rim of the gorge and can be seen from 20 miles away. This is a lot of numbers, but it's difficult to describe the falls without them. They are simply so huge and powerful that the human mind can't really grasp them. The spray completely envelopes you in a way that makes it impossible to see more than a tiny portion at any one time unless you charter an aircraft. The falls form part of the border with Zambia, and the Zimbabwe side(across from the falls) supports a small rain forest in a relatively arid region just from the costant spray which completely soaked us.

We also went to Zambia for the afternoon, where you can get closer and see the top. The two are joined by a bridge which was designed in 1902 by a Brit who had never been to Africa, assembled in England and shipped in chunks to Zimbabwe. It seems to be holding up pretty well. I paid $105 dollars for the privelege of jumping off while connected to a large elastic band. This is the world's second highest bungi jump at 111 m(under a dollar a meter). This was terrifying and so exciting that my adrenal glands didn't shut down for almost two hours, making me panic about nothing for the rest of the afternoon. Also, it's hard to beat the view of the falls with a 300 degree upside-down rainbow that can probably only be achieved this way.

On the way back to the hostel from dinner some locals stopped us in the street which was a bit arresting as it was quite dark. As it turned out, they were merely trying to prevent us from wandering into the path of a group of five wild elephants that were crossing the road about 50 feet ahead of us. "We are scared of them. They are quite dangerous," the woman said. The elephants were on their way in a minute or so, as were we. Apparently the elephants usually take an evening constitutional in the area. In fact the cross street they had come from is named "Elephant Walk."

For whatever reason I scheduled a full two day in Joberg after Vic falls, which sadly was not enough time to leave. We got a bit cheated on our outing the first day(although this was conveniently no one's fault). Which put me in a sour mood, and made me that much less excited about the city. I just went on a long walk the second day and watched movies in the hostel. I was in a fairly nice part of town, and it wasn't unpleasant, but the place has got to be one of the least pedestrian-friendly cities on earth. Even many well developed areas lined with shops and coffee houses don't have sidewalks. This creates the paradoxical situation of extremely posh neighborhoods where one still does not feel safe on the streets. I don't think I'll be moving there any time soon. Also we were gridlocked on the freeway on the way to the airport for 90 minutes until our driver pulled a u-turn across the grassy ditch that separated the traffic. The van could barely make it up the opposite side in the loose soil but we somehow managed to merge into the passing lane. Otherwise I would almost certainly have missed my flight. The flight was not too bad, as far as 28 hour flights go. And I ran into my 7th grade humanities teacher in the Atlanta airport who was on his way back from Macchu Picchu and the Amazon. Small world. Really really small, provided you travel in a straight line at high speeds.

Africa Pictures

View near Nelspruit
















Swazi cultural dancing.















Rhino--Cape Vidal.





















Beach--Cape Vidal ~30 minutes later.





















Coy Hippo--St. Lucia Estuary
















The beer and the boat and awesomeness.





















Victoria falls--Zimbabwe
















Victoria Falls--Zambia





















Boldly forging ahead.















The quick way down.