MIA

Sorry I've been on a little blogger hiatus for the last two weeks or so but it's been busy. I started to type something about Azerbaijan in Armenia but got way-layed by an unfortunate bout with bacteria and spent a couple mornings curled up in bed. And then I was just lazy. Any, there is lots to say about Azerbaijan and Armenia as well as lots of pictures to post but you'll just have to wait a bit until I can find some decent internet.

Currently, Jeremy and I are in a Siwa Oasis, just south of Alexandria, Egypt. We've been in the country for about a week now and plan to leave for Cairo tonight, so better internet is on the way! Actually, I'm quite amazed internet has even made it out this far; appearently most of the oasis' are without.

We've been in Siwa for four days now and spent about 8 hours yesterday on camel out in the Great Sand Sea--over 1,400 km of sand, sand and more sand. It was amazing. Really cool photos to follow. Then we camped on the edge of the desert by candlelight, served a gormet (by camp standards) meal by the fire and afterwards retired to a beautiful hot spring under the starry night sky. Romantic doesn't even begin to cover it. The way back this morning wasn't as nice though as we were both a little sore and a wind storm kicked up a lot of sand in our faces.

Overall, Egypt is wonderful. The people are friendly, the food simple yet filling, the streets a little crazy (think Southeast Asia), and the children more eager to say hello than Korean kids (if you can imagine it). The best part is it's cheap. Dirt cheap. I love it.

We'll probably be in Cairo for a day or two, waiting for a train south to Aswan, then we hope to take a felucca (traditional sailboat) up the Nile to several sites, ending in Luxor where we'll see The Valley of the Kings. It's incredible to think that I'm actually seeing these things. While here in Siwa, we visited the Temple of the Oracle where Alexander the Great went to consult and confirm himself as the divine pharoah of Egypt, we explored tombs built into a desert mountain and gazed on century-old heiroglyphics, biked a treacherous (thanks to shoddy bike construction) 10 km's or so to the edge of the oasis, and I even found a fossilized sand dollar (that's a seashell) in the desert! How cool! Yep, that's right, the desert was once under water.

Oh, and one more thing; remember how I asked several weeks ago, "Who will I meet next?" Well, in Alexandria we came across a guy named Shane whom we met in Kazbegi, Georgia about 3 weeks ago. The world is a ridiculously small place.