Playing Catch-Up

Phew! I've fallen a little behind on things here. I spent all my time in Egypt writing about Africa I'm 3 countries behind. So, here's what's happening in mine and Shannon's traveling adventures:

We're in Italy now, but we've had plenty of stops before this. The first was Egypt, which was the first Arabic country either of us had ever been to. That place, wow was that different than I expected. For some reason I'd been led to believe Egypt was going to be this slum-like over-crowded India-esque country, where women were treated like 3rd class citezens, and religious dedication took on an eerie cult-like mentality inescapably pervasive in all parts of life. Well, it certainly had a little of all those parts, but at no time was it ever overwhelming or painful to deal with. In fact, most of the time people were quite charming with their unexpected idiosyncracities. Hmm, might have just made up that word. Anyway, thereàs something odd, not disconcerting yet not pleasing, about the religiousness of the place. Men often have anything from slight discolourations to massive bruises and welts on their foreheads from praying to often. Women generally cover their heads, yet other times you can't see an inch of skin anywhere on their bodies including their eyes. While there are heaps of people hounding you in the streets for money, they're usually more than balanced out by people trying to give you tea, help you find directions and show off what's happening in Egypt without asking for a single piasty.

And the sights, and the history, and the prodigious monuments, the place just went on and on with things to do and see. Which of course means that we saw so little and did such a small part of what there is to do, that whatever I have to say about it will only cover a smidgen of what there actually is there. We spent 5 days in Cairo, 2 days in Luxor, and 5 days in Siwa. Siwa was by far the best - a person can only take in so many temples and pyramids and museums for so long, and Siwa was quite the opposite. Situated 10 hours out of Cairo in the middle of the desert, Siwa is an oasis town, where water quite literally bubbles up from the ground in a smattering of cold and hot springs throught the sand dunes, with one giant patch of palm trees and smaller swaths of plant life surrounded on all sides by the empty desert. Just sitting around the town eating Siwan food and biking around the mountains and old forts was a great way to spend the days. We took a 4x4 trip out to the desert dunes as well, which was fan-flipping-tastic. Our guide took us sand-dune boarding on a board with no bindings (like riding a crazy carpet while standing up, very painful), then to an old fossil sea-bed. We were litterally walking on billion (or many million) year old ocean life, strew so thick along the ground, every step felt like another crushing blow to some poor museum curator's depressed heart.

It was tough leaving Egypt, especially knowing there was so much more to see, including traveling to Jordan, the Dead Sea, and even into Israel, but time waits for no traveler. We flew into Athens on the 20th of March, and started the European segment of the trip. After so long in Asian and African cities, Athens was like some kind of amusment park, with everything having such a pristine unused feel to it, it was as though the streets, buildings and even people were that faux-disneyland-molded kind of objects. Financial reality also came thundering down, as we went from paying $5-8 a night to as much as $20 a person. Yeuch!

Money aside though, Athens was pretty cool. The Acropolis is something might awesome to behold, though actually walking around it isn't nearly as cool as seeing it from below. plus most of it seems to have been replaced so as to better preseve it, meaning your not actually looking at it.

From there we went to Delphi, which is a sweet little town in the mountains that holds the old temple for Apollo and had a fairly important Oracle in the mountains around it. We spent most of the time hiking around, saving money and enjoying the cool ocean views.

From Delphi, we caught a bus to catch a boat to Italy. And so, 22 hours later, we arrived in Naples (pronounced Napoli if you're from there), home of pizza, mafia, and mafia related garbage issues. Oh, and Pompei is right next door, which we went and saw, after almost missing it due to not knowing it was so close by. Napoli was great, but our next stop, Nettuno, was far better. Right along the Amalfi coast, this little spot is tucked into these wild and steep sea cliffs, making for some great ocean and mountain walks, as well as some treacherous and exciting bus rides. It's low season there right now, so for less than what we're paying for a crappy dorm room in Rome, we got a tiny apartment all to ourselves. I really dug this place, and it's certainly going down on the list of places to try and get back to again (pretty low down on it, but it's there). Oh, and Pompei - totally forgot to write a bit about that. For those who don't know, Pompei is/was the city in ancient Rome that was destroyed by the Mt Vesuvius volcano explosion in 79 CE. What's cool is that the town was't actually destroyed, just everyone in it died, and the town was actually left to do it's own slow erosion-ing thing, until it was re-discovered and unburied. Now you can basically walk through a 2000 year old city, with all sorts of aspects of it and buildings well labelled so you can see what it is you're looking at.

We're in Rome now, where things are far too expensive for anyone's good, and while I like the place, I think it's very much time to leave for the cheaper eastern nations of Europe. I was here when I was 18, and it's neat seeing all the old sights I saw then again, and comparing my memories with what I'm seeing now, plus catching a few things I missed before. Anyway, next its the Vatican, then back through Greece and into Turkey for some, ummm, well whatever you do and eat in Turkey, that's what I'll be doing. And eating. Areviderchi!