Egypt and the camel caravan in the sand

We arrived early in Alexandria and boarded a coach for our unforgetable 13 hours in Egypt. There are 65 million people living in Egypt and those who live in the country (the peasants) still maintain a traditional lifestyle. They wear tunics and we were told the most valuable asset is a donkey or an ox. The population is predominately muslim. During our 2 1/2 hour bus trip we traveled through the desert, noticing the green patches of cultivated areas back to back with desert. We can't believe we actually saw one of the remaining 7 wonders of the ancient world: The pyramids at Giza. We also saw Cephrens Pyramid, the Sphinx, and the Valley of the Temple. At the Sakkara Country Club we traveled in 4x4 vehicles across the desert to our camel caravan ride. Erik and Dieter were thrilled to race up and down the sand dunes - as far as they were concerned the faster the better! When we arrived at the area where we were to get on the camels, we were worried Georg might have trouble with his allergies but he seemed to survive with loads of antihistamine drugs. The camel caravan only lasted about 30 minutes but it was the highlight of the trip!

Dieter's camel, Martha, had an "attitude" and my camel "Moses" was quite a contented creature. This amused us and we are still talking about Martha and Moses.

We went on to Sakkara, Egypt's ancient cemetary and the Step Pyramid of King Zoser.

I'll post the website for the pictures later, but here are a few.

Many people were eager to have their photos taken with us > then they would ask then demand money. It was a challenge to avoid any eye contact and I seemed to have more trouble than everyone else with this problem. Dieter kept telling me not to smile at anyone.

I'm attaching a picture of our friends Chris, Brad and their amazing children Kelly (Erik's buddy), Tommy (Dieter's pal) and the lovely miss Nicky. We had the priviledge of meeting this Canadian family who have been travelling since August. They will be back in Ottawa the end of August so they're gone for an entire year!