As our summer vacation, one of my colleagues Sara  invited me and a few people from the lab to come and visit her...in Egypt!  So off we went, Peter, Sabine, Walter and his girlfriend Johanna, Markus and wife Christine, and of course Sara, on an adventure into the land of the Pharaohs.

The first day consisted mostly of travelling.  We landed in Cairo around noon, and after a lovely dinner at Sara’s apartment with her mom, we took the night straight to Luxor, arriving the next morning.  We spent the next four days visiting some of the historic sites of the area, home to Egypt’s ancient Upper Kingdom.  There are too many sites to hope to write about all of them, suffice it to say that we got a good dose of ancient culture, and I started to remember some of the stuff I learned in elementary school history class!  Some of the highlights of Luxor:

·         We rented a cab driver for two whole days in a row, he was a riot! “Seat belts are just for the cops...”

·         Climbing up the pass between the Temple of Hatchepsut and the Valley of the Kings through scorching-hot desert at mid-day...still not sure who’s idea that was

·         Taking a Felucca down the Nile to see “Banana Island” (not a very exciting island), and then getting stuck rowing the boat back because we had pity on the old Egyptian deckhand who hadn’t eaten anything because of Ramadan

After Luxor we spent a few days in Cairo, taking in the sights and life of this giant city (16million..).  I really loved this city!  Cairo has so much life to it, there’s always a million crazy drivers on the road, a million pedestrians walking through them, a million shops where you buy anything you can imagine, as long as you’re willing to bargain for it, and it’s open all the time!  In a strange way I saw a lot of charm to this city, in its dirty streets, double-parked cars and shops with meat hanging at the front window.  Highlights:

·         Of course, a classic trip to see the three Great  Pyramids of Gaza, which happen to be right outside the city...we almost climbed up the back of one of the pyramids, but didn’t want to spend the night in an Egyptian jail

·         Relaxing at Sara’s sports club in Zamalek, a refuge of peace at greenery in the middle of an overcrowded city

·         We visited quite a few mosques, impressive buildings that span centuries of different styles of architecture

On Friday we did a day-trip to Alexandria to check out Egypt’s Mediterranean coast.  The main goal was to see the Bibliotheca Alexandria, an impressive building opened in 2003 and meant to become a centre of world knowledge.  Although the building is quite large, it is still quite empty of books, still building up its collection.  We’ll see if it lives up to the name of the old library...

 After Alexandria we headed back to Cairo, where we spent another two days.  On Saturday night Peter and Sabine left us, not being able to stay a second week, and we were all sad to see them go .  Sunday’s highlight was a haircut and a shave at Sara’s dad’s barber, who did a great job, and they kept my moustache!  Walter and I were trying to look like arabs...Walter was much more successful than me.

Second week was Sinai, but I’ll leave that for the next post.