Box of Crayons

Egypt is like a box of crayons.

Cairo is the smaller package of crayons that you get that are specific color themes. These existed when I was a kid, don't know if they exist anymore. Anyways, you could get them in packs of 6 crayons and they would all be the some shade or tone theme. Well Cairo is the skin tone theme, the one that had the white, black, brown, tan, yellow, and peach in it. Why? Well that is pretty much the ONLY colors in Cairo, and that pack would be colorful. You could exchange the yellow for a grey one for the sky (due to pollution, not cloud coverage). Ivan and I frequently discussed how someone needed to come in with some colorful paint and paint the city colorful. Out in Giza there were a few (probably 3 or 4) buildings that weren't mudbrick tan. We were excited. Oh and the Egyptian Museum (which, YES we DID NOT visit - lynch us now)was pink and red.

When I first arrived I LOVED Cairo. IT was exciting. I felt like I was in China again. Pollution burning my nose, mayhem on the street and sidewalks. Yelling, honking, smells everywhere (good and bad), people hacking their lungs out, and all the other exciting life of developing countries that I LOVE. I guess when you add in all the people and cars you could add a few streaks of color from the crayon box (yellow, blue, red, a tinge of green).

Once I had checked into the hotel, I decided to head out for a bite to eat while waiting for Ivan to arrive from Alexandria. The guy at the sandwhich shop was nice and threw in a drink for free. Nice man.

Apparently, nice man didn't get nice meat.

About 16hrs later, this was proven by my developing illness that followed me for the next near 48 hrs. Sadly, this illness did not add much color to the monotonous box of crayons of Cairo.

I am impressed that out of the list of people involved (Ivan, the train steward, janitor, people next door, all those walking by our cabin) not one had that reaction that you saw in the Junior High Locker Room after someone threw up. (a chain of puking). Kudos to all those involved and those who dutifully cleaned up after me. Poor, sweet, older, janitor guy.

Our attendant, for some reason was convinced I had been drinking too much. He kept doing the drinking sign and saying, "no, no". At first I tried to convince myself that he was talking about the bad water, but then I realized he wasn't when he pointed to Ivan's beer. I guess he assumes all foreigners are drunks. Note - I still don't drink and I didn't like our Cairo attendant.

Aswan, Luxor, Kum Ombo, and River Nile Cruise.

These places can be compared to the super duper huge coloring box with the built in sharpener. (I loved those ones and always envied the kid next to me who somehow was able to afford one and NEVER used it. Jerk. Did he not ever notice my craving, pitiful, jealous eyes?)

River Cruise - The colors from the box that first come to mind are green, blue, tan, sky blue, and white. Basically these are my favorite colors. So calming. The river was so blue and there were islands of green grass rising in the middle of the river. Green was bountiful on both sides of the Nile with mudbrick homes mixed in here and there. The homes had yellow fences made out of dried palms and papyrus. (This is me guessing - I'm no botanist.) The sky was also sky blue with the occassional cloud. I'm relaxed now just thinking of it.

Aswan, Luxor, Kum Ombo - All the colors, but the ones that come first to mind are red, gold, tan, green, blue,and white.

RED - my anger when I got completely fed up with the "baksheesh" people. These color would change to Beat Red when we returned to Cairo and I had a very splendid conversation with our Tour Agency.... Red is also a very common color on the temple and tomb walls.