"Ain Sukhna" or "How I Got My Sunburn"

So, Jake and I went camping on the shore of the Red Sea with troop 701 last weekend. Here are some pictures:

First, for those of you who care, here is a map of the area--Cairo on the upper left, and Ain Sukhna (Hot Springs), a tiny town about 80 miles southeast of Cairo.


When we got arrived, we snorkeled with friends from the branch, Jake's first time I believe. If I had a waterproof camera, I could show you the variety of small tropical fish, just 15 feet off the shore.

Jake and I had a great time in the water, and only swallowed a little saltwater.

The waves were not big, but made a spectacular spume as they splashed off the rip-rap on the shore.

This is a picture of a highly developed eco-can, that has evolved to blend in with its natural environment. No, really.

There is nothing unique about scouts hovering around the fire, but I liked the way the fire cast a spooky shadow on the wall.

Jake and I slept under the stars on top of our sleeping bags. The cool breeze that blew throughout the night died down about 5:30 and flies landing on my feet woke me up in time to see the sun rise over the mountains of the Sinai peninsula.

The water was quite calm and the waves were rolled ashore smoothly.

Jake was up early enough to start a fire and wait for everyone else to wake up.

After breakfast the scouts took to the water on their canoes and with masks and snorkels. A pod of dolphins appeared and swam around the scouts inquisitively for about 5 minutes before continuing on. Note the tanker on the horizon, 30 miles or so out of the Suez canal.

This is the only shot I got of Jake in the same frame as the dolphins. You can't tell, but that's him in the front of the canoe on the left. They got about 10 feet from the dolphins before they lost interest in the scouts. One of the young men in the branch snorkeled out to them and touched one with his hand as they swam past each other.

Jake collected paddles after a swamped canoe drill. Who let Dad in the canoe?

Jake and some other scouts lashed two canoes together--a catamaran experiment--but too many chiefs, as they say, made the experiment less than successful and the fun slowly dissipated.

The terrain reminds me of central Utah. Here's a road blasted through rock,

and here's a mound of two-tone desert rock with traces of iron, one of the only colorful parts of the drive.

The whold drive reminds me of the road between Price and Monticello in central Utah. The area is so sparse, you can never be quite sure if the power lines were built next to the road, or if the road was built to maintain the power lines.

This is representative of most loads in Egypt. There's always room for more, whether driven by a camel, horse, or combustion engine.

Approaching the eastern outskirts of Cairo, you can see the two most prolific types of buildings. Mosques and concrete tenements.

Khaaaaaaaaaaaaan!

If I were slightly less lazy than I am and/or I cared, I would put up a picture of Ricardo Montalban to go along with that title. But, well, lazy, don't care, the end.

The same day we went to The Citadel, we also went to Cairo's main/infamous/crazy shopping market Khan al-Khalili. That place is a trip, to put it mildly. We only spent a couple hours there, but I imagine that if you looked long enough, you could find pretty much anything you wanted. We weren't looking for anything in particular--we just wanted to check it out--and I think that made it easier to deal with it all. I think the term "sensory overload" originated after a visit to The Khan.

This is a shot of one of the eleventy-billion alleyways, each one crammed full of tiny shops, and each one of those crammed full of everything you never knew you needed. My take on most of the wares for sale (again, though, we really only scratched the surface and clearly never made it into the section where the locals shop) was that most of it would be made exponentially better by the absence of all the pyramid-sphinx-scarab-random-Egyptian-symbols that Prove You Were In Egypt And That You Appreciate Their Culture Thank You Very Much that seemed to have been put onto everything. Pure kitsch, baby. But maybe that's just me. Not that I expected much more, but wow. I think anything and everything that held still long enough ended up with Nefertiti's head stamped on it.
When we first got there, a shopkeeper was trying to get our attention/business, but we just kept on walking. This guy's particular brand of luring customers (as we soon discovered was quite a popular one) was trying to identify their nationality. So he says as we go by, "You British?" We ignore. "You American?" Still nothing from us. "I know, I know, German!" Nada. And then, "Japanese?" That did it, and we all just cracked up. Kevan and Shon started laughing and talking with him, confirming that why, yes! We are Japanese! How ever did he know?! That then became the boys' go-to comeback the rest of the time we were there whenever we encountered shopkeepers who were into that same game. Kevan and Shon particularly liked the split-second shock they'd get when some unsuspecting shopkeeper would say, "Where you from?" and then one or the other of them would happily offer, "Japan!" It was made even better by the fact that they would conduct these conversations in Arabic, but Kevan's not here right now to help me with the transliteration, so you can just imagine. I think the shopkeepers liked it just as much, as they would then start laughing and joking with them.

Besides the crazy, there was also a lot of pretty. I loved all the old stone, the colors, and, prepare yourselves for shock, a lil bit o' symmetry. This series of pictures is from one of the quieter alleys we found.







When we were done wandering, we stopped for lunch. This is Shon, with his faithful companion cat. This little kitty, along with several of its friends waited very patiently right next to us our whole meal, just hoping for a dropped morsel.
The picture I'm not showing you is the one Kevan took of Shon with the remnants of Kirsten's meal. She ordered the stuffed pigeon. And that's exactly what she got--a whole pigeon, stuffed and fried. Kevan and Shon, I guess in an attempt to recreate an Ozzy Osbourne concert or something, took a few pics of Shon and the bird's head. You may remember that Shon is also the one behind the pictures of the dead shrimp from the day we went to the fabric market. The lesson here is that I need to stop giving up control of my camera when the triple threat of Kevan, Shon, and meals-that-include-carcasses come into play.

To tide you over

Until I can get around to a real post, here's a little cuteness.

Jess helped Sam with his bath and then got him all fixed up afterwards.
He thanked her by promptly getting into the girls' stuff, but his brand of cute makes most anything forgivable I suppose.

My Favorite Place in Cairo

Show of hands who thinks this is going to be about a donut place.

Yeah yeah, y'all can put your hands down now. Because you're, surprisingly, wrong. I know! Go figure.

Saturday, Kevan, Shon, and Kirsten and I went to the Citadel. And guess what! I still don't know much about it. We weren't interested in hiring a tour guide. We'll do that another time or read up on it before we take the kids there. No sending me hate mail about my missed educational opportunities; it's not my fault tour guides are boring.

So as I was saying, we went to the Citadel, home of the Muhammed Ali mosque (see! I learned something!)(just don't ask me who he was)(though I'm pretty sure it's not the boxer). He has a really cool mosque. Really, it was just gorgeous. I am a fan of great architecture.

This is the front of the mosque:
And one of the sides of it. Aren't those columns beautiful? I love me some good columns. And those round lights hanging down? So pretty.
This is a close(r) up of one of the many intricate iron windows:
And a shot of the ceiling inside one of the arches with the chain from the light hanging down from it:
A view of downtown Cairo from the outer wall of the Citadel. Hint: not fog. The Citadel is on a hill just outside of the downtown area. That narrow tower you can kind of make out just left of center (no singing Suzanne Vega, please)(ok, you can if you want, but don't make me hear you doing it, please)(and no need to tell me about it either)(please) is Cairo Tower, which is on an island in the Nile right in the main part of the city. It's maybe 2 1/2 miles away. Looking out over the city, it really reminded me of San Francisco, except colorless.
This is an umbrella from a snack cart just outside the mosque. I was thinking maybe Utah could adopt it as their slogan.
In order to go inside the mosque, you go around the back and enter a courtyard to get to the entrance. This is the clock tower over the courtyard. Kirsten showed off one of the two facts she knows about the place when she told us that they (I don't know who "they" are, probably the people who say you can't swim for an hour after eating) got the clock from the French in exchange for the obelisk in Paris, but then they never could get the clock to work. Pretty though.
This is the courtyard from the entrance to it. The structure in the middle is where worshipers can wash before praying.
I looooove this picture. Clearly, I am enthralled with symmetry. This is looking down one of the walls inside the courtyard:
To provide a little scale (Kevan's six-feet tall)(when he stands up straight):
The back of the mosque from inside the courtyard:
Another corner of the courtyard:
Sigh. So delightfully symmetrical:
Ok, fine, I'll stop with all the pictures of basically the same thing. Now we go inside the mosque. Look how well the lights are all lined up! Symmetry obsession aside, aren't those lights cool? This is taken from just inside the entrance, looking towards the front of the room:
Another shot of, er, basically the same thing:
A look up at part of the ceiling:
One of the stained glass windows :
The main chandelier in the middle:
And another look up towards the ceiling:
When I took this picture, I was sitting on the floor just past the middle of the room, over to the right, and looking back towards the entrance:
And this is zoomed in on the door more:
As we were stepping back outside, I was approached by one of the many souvenir vendors, and when I told him, "La, shukran" ("No, thank you"), he said, "You speak Arabic bery {sic} well!" Again proving my theory that an extensive study of the language is completely unnecessary.

Anybody who's coming to visit, listen up: we're going to the Citadel. And if you get the chance, see what you can find out about it before we go, 'k? Thanks.

I think I'm glad

that I don't have any pictures to go along with this post.

Yesterday's Quote of the Day (I'm sure you'll be shocked to know that Megan's the one that said it):

We're sitting at the dinner table, eating (yes way!), and I was asking the kids about their day at school. One of the things I asked was if they had made any new friends that day. Complete silence. Everybody just sitting there, blinking at each other. And then Megan pipes up.

"I got to know the boy I been kissin' at school! His name is Gabriel!"

The conversation that ensued included but was not limited to topics such as Limiting Kissing to People to Whom You Are Related and Saving the Kissin' for After You Get to Know Someone.