Cairo - sent August 14

Katie´s bag never made it to Cairo. She´s been surprising positive about the whole experience. The upside about flying Austrian Air - free red wine with every meal. The downside about flying Austrian Air - you find yourself trekking the desert to see the pyramids wearing the same yellow t-shirt you have donned for the past three days.

I thought I read it was only a two hour ferry ride to get to Petra. Turns out, it´s a two hour ferry ride, assuming you make it to Nuweiba, Egypt, which is a nine hour bus ride from Cairo. Due to the distance, we had to cut Petra from the trip, which means there is a BFE even when you´re in BFE.

Last night, while wandering through downtown Cairo, we stumbled upon an area of ahwas (sheesha cafes), where Ali the Nubian invited us to join him. Ali owns the cafe and we spent the rest of the afternoon and evening drinking tea and smoking the sheesha (hooka) with him. He then walked us around town, introducing us to his friends. He is pretty much the most popular guy in Cairo. After a while, I got creeped out, especially since Katie told me the plotline to the movie Taken earlier in the afternoon, so we parted ways and ended up not sold into human slavery by the end of the night.

Today, we saw the pyramids. Other events of note, falafels are 1.5 Egyptian pounds, which is about 24 cents. I learned how to say, "I am here to find my ancestors." in Arabic.