Cairo, Egypt

Our blogs are going to be out of order since I'm posting Egypt before Norway, but I have to get the Norway pics from Alex's camera (which we recently broke when we had the grand idea of taking pictures while swimming in the ocean in The Seychelles). No worries, I'll get them off the memory card in the next couple weeks and post those as well.

Anyway, we went to Cairo the first week of April. Let me just say that there are some locations which make blogging easy. You post the photos and they can pretty much speak for themselves. Egypt was NOT that way. These pictures are the best part of the trip. They are going to be your best bet if you would like to see the Giza Pyramids of Cairo. I hear the south of Egypt is better, but Cairo was a hard pill for us to swallow.

Where do I start? Lucky for you, we have had a couple months since the trip, so our emotions have calmed a bit.

A week before we left for Cairo, Alex says to me, "Honey, the driving in Cairo is absolute chaos and I know how you hate that so you are going to feel like you're in hell when we're on the roads there. If you think Dubai is bad (number one cause of death here in Dubai is road accidents), then you're in for a stressful ride." But he then adds a welcome caveat that the traffic is so bad no one can drive fast so whereas accidents happen all the time, death isn't the usual outcome. Whew! I'm feeling better, right?

So, we land at the Cairo airport and our driver is there to meet us. Another car is blocking his and he can't get out of the parking space so he proceeds to lay on the horn for a good 2 minutes all while yelling at the other man (who is frantically trying to get his guests luggage in the car and move out of the way) and making wild hand/arm gestures. This is before we have left our parking spot! I promptly look over at Alex and ask him if they sell Valium anywhere in this country. Sadly, he says they don't. Finally, we're out of our parking space and on the road toward the hotel (about a 30 minute drive from the airport). Well, as luck would have it, we have come to Cairo on a Friday morning. Friday is the Holy Day here in this region and everyone is at morning prayer as we make our way to the hotel. This means there isn't the promised traffic and we are going at least 100 miles an hour weaving in and out of cars, using the almost non-existent shoulder to pass people, even using the oncoming lanes to pass people. In between my constant prayers, I again ask Alex if he's absolutely SURE they don't sell Valium here. I'm not sure if he heard me over the ever present horns honking and the morning sermon in Arabic blasting on the radio.

Once we arrive at the hotel, the driver looks back, smiles and says in broken English, "I do good driving, we get here very quickly, you tip me nice?" Right. I leave Alex to fork over the money and head straight for the nearest place to sit and catch my breath.

This photo shows the taxis. Yes, those ancient black and white cars with the white racks on top are the taxis!

Our hotel was situated right on the bank of The Nile river and our balcony looked over the famed river. It was really an awe inspiring sight.

We put down our bags and went down to meet yet another driver and go see the Giza Pyramids. This driver was much better I am happy to report. Our knuckles were still white from gripping the door handle, but we were able to look at some of the sites as we passed by at least!

The Giza Pyramids and the Sphinx take your breath away the minute you lay eyes on them. They perch above the south side of the city up on a hill. The contrast between the new modern city so close to an ancient, historic site is striking.

Keep in mind we are being driven by someone who works for the agency that Alex's company ARC contracts with in Egypt. So, this is a man who knows his job is on the line as he takes one of his clients and the client's wife sightseeing. He is the one with me in the photo below.

As we pull up to the entrance to the pyramids, an Egyptian man opens the passenger door (Alex and I are in the back) and gets in the car. He says in broken English that he should be our tour guide. He will show us all around the pyramids and tell us all the history for a small price. Our driver all the while is yelling at him to get out of the car. The man just yells back. There is a lot of back and forth yelling in arabic with hand motions to boot. It doesn't take a genius to figure out the gist of the conversation. It takes our driver about 5 minutes to get the man out of the car. Alex and I are sitting quietly in the backseat with our huge round eyes wondering if that really just happened.

We park and get out of the car. This is some sort of signal that we are prey and it's open season. The local Egyptian men swarm around us, each one saying that we should hire them to be our tour guide. None of them are associated with the government or the site itself. Apparently they show up every day to badger tourists and hope someone will pick them to be their "tour guide" and then pay them, of course. Alex and I are ignoring them as we walk to buy our ticket from the counter, which is outside in the sand. They try speaking to us in Italian since we aren't responding to their English pleas, then French, then Spanish. At this point, I am thinking "wow, these men all know at least 6 languages! Why don't they have corporate international jobs? Why are they peddlers here at the Pyramids?!?" Maybe it's the flexible work hours...

Anyway, the men are becoming more and more insistant even when we tell them no. Alex is telling one man to go away as he is pulling on Alex's shirt. Different men are starting to pull on my arms trying to get us to go with them. We are LITERALLY being pulled in all different directions. Well, as most of you know, I am married to one of the most laid back men in the world. It takes A LOT to rile Alex, but I can see steam building and his face is turning red. He pushes one man off of him who is still pulling on him. I kindly ask Alex to refrain from getting too worked up as I would really rather not have to figure out how to bail him out of an Egyptian jail. Our driver is a cool cucumber, he sees this every day. He helps us, but apparently knows there is going to be no reprieve, no matter what you tell these people. It is just a part of the Giza Pyramid experience. As I look around I see a group of Spanish college students running away from one of the men because they have become so annoyed. He is smiling and assuring them in Spanish that he is the best tour guide around. Below is a pic of some of them on and around their horses.

Once we get nearer to the pyramids and away from the entrance area, the crowds of men seem to thin a bit, but they are still present everywhere. One of them wants me to get on his camel and take a ride. I tell him we have lots of camels in Dubai and I don't need to ride one again. He is persistant but I am not giving in on this one (although it's tempting just to get him to shut up). It is clear these are wild camels and they don't have spit guards on. The man takes his head scarf off and wraps it around my head before I know it. He then takes my camera and starts taking photos of me. When he's done he promptly puts out his hand and says "those are good photos you will treasure forever, you can pay me whatever you think is fair." Alex is a few feet away and I think I hear whistling coming from his head as the steam continues to build. Although he is eventually persuaded to get in one of the pictures with me! We walk away, but we just want to go back to our hotel and hide! Which is exactly what we did after we got our obligatory photos of the pyramid and the Sphinx.

Look at the person riding the camel above. He is a boy aged maybe 8 years old I would guess. I'm sure he already knows at least 3 languages. :)

Had we been with an organized tour group and not on our own, we would have been shielded from this chaos somewhat. Not completely as you cannot totally escape, but if any of you think about going, you NEED to go with a company who offers large group tours. The locals tend to know they don't have anything to offer those people and stay away from them for the most part.

Alex and I agree that this was one of the most intense experiences of all our travels so far. It is the only time I have been genuinely scared and felt so vulnerable. We usually sight see on our own with our nerdy Lonely Planet book as our only companion and we do just fine. Had we looked into this a bit more, perhaps we would have known not to attempt Giza outside of an organized tour (we usually prefer to stay away from those). Bad mistake.

Above we are squeezing our way through the narrow passages to the Sphinx.

We return to our hotel and order some Stella beers. This Stella is only brewed in Egypt and it's better than any Stella I've had in any other country. Maybe that had something to do with our long day, but really, it's great beer!

On the other hand, the National Museum in Cairo was absolutely more than we could have ever expected. Egypt has such a long and rich history. It is one of the most preserved and well documented histories in the world. Archeologists and historians can specialize their career (Egyptology) to focus on just this one country. This museum is so packed with artifacts that they have run out of places to put everything. Some items are stacked on top of other ones! The mummies are fascinating and they also have all of the tomb contents and sarcophaguses (sp?) of the royal mummies on display. I'm sure many of you went to your local museums when the King Tut exhibit went on tour. I saw it in Denver as a kid and Alex saw it in Dallas. It was even more amazing to experience all of it in its home country among all of the other royal mummies and artifacts. Unfortunately, cameras are not allowed inside so you'll just have to take our word for it! Here is a pic from the outside though!

Don't get me wrong, Egypt was in some ways more than we expected and in some ways, less. We would love to go back to Egypt but our itinerary will be vastly different. We have heard great things about cruises down the Nile. We would really like to see some of the tombs and pyramids that are in Southern Egypt such as Luxor. Cairo, however, has been checked off the list for now!

Maiden Voyage - India

On March 17, 2008 the good ship MV Freedom made her maiden voyage into Mumbai, India. She was the first vessel in the ARC fleet to ever make a port call into India. Needless to say, there was a lot of work put into the voyage to see that it went off well.

Mumbai is a huge city of over 15 million people. The city is a constant scene of commotion and the crowds are are difficult to describe. It is the only city I've ever been to where the port complex is actually less chaotic than the city proper. This trip to Mumbai accompanying the MV Freedom was my second time to the city with the first being just a few weeks prior in order to lay the ground work for her arrival.

After two days of meetings with partners, agents, and customers in Mumbai to be sure that everyone was where they needed to be, we were anxious to get the ship along side and operations underway. The weather was on our side and the MV Freedom berthed right on schedule during the early morning hours. We had the ramp down and lashing gangs aboard for an 0830 start. With ceremonial flowers hung on the stern ramp railing (an offering to the Gods in thanks for the vessel's safe arrival), we were ready to get to work.

The first order of the day was to discharge the cargo that we had loaded at the port of Jebel Ali in the U.A.E. With the minor exception of a finicky crawler crane whose transmission seemed stuck in reverse, the operations went well with a mix of heavy equipment and steel plates all brought off by late morning.

With discharge complete it was time to get started on the one thousand cars and buses to be loaded. It was critical to get the loading operations underway as soon as possible so as to be able to make our scheduled departure of midnight.

Tradition at the Indian ports is that prior to the first cargo being loaded, a coconut is smashed at the base of the vessels ramp and the first vehicle loaded is driven over the broken shell to ensure a successful and safe operation. With the remenants of the coconut at the ramp, the longshoremen got down to the business of loading and lashing the vehicles.

With the last vehicle securely lashed down, the MV Freedom was ready to sail by late evening. With the ramp up and the pilot on board, the line handlers cast off the Freedom's last line at 2330 hours. A course was plotted out across the Indian Ocean, through the pirate infested waters off the coast of Somalia and into the Red Sea. The next port of call will be Jeddah, Saudi Arabia followed by Alexandria, Egypt and Gioia Tauro, Italy. Upon completion of operations in Italy she will sail out of the Mediterranean and across the Atlantic Ocean bound for the United States of America.

Athens, Greece

Okay, I know...it's been too long since our last post, but we're back and we have lots to catch up on. We'll try to keep it in chronological order, so we start here with Greece.

Alex had some business meetings in November in Turkey and Greece, so I flew out to meet him in Greece and we spent a long weekend in Athens!

Athens is a HUGE city of 7 million people. It feels like a big city with crowded streets and a certain buzz of energy. Since the city hosted the 2004 summer olympics, you could see there were some recent upgrades and overhauls. Their new subway system is awesome. We went everywhere on the train (we even took it back to the airport while toting all our bags!) and it was very easy to navigate.

There is so much to see and do in Athens that 4 days was barely enough to scratch the surface. We managed to see the most famous landmarks, but there is so much more to see in Athens. I'm not sure an entire week would be enough time to get through all of the ruins, museums, temples, and parks.
In one of the parks we walked through, we looked over and saw something straight out of the movies, a group of old men sitting around playing chess! You've got to just love that about this culture!

I will say that climbing up the Acropolis and seeing the Parthenon perched atop the hill was one of the most memorable moments of our travels so far. This structure is depicted in history books, plays, movies, pretty much every aspect of our cultural lives so to see it in person was an absolute thrill. The parthenon was undergoing restoration when we were there. Even with a bunch of scaffolding this was one of the most amazing sites we've ever seen! The detail and technology that went into the structure is unbelievable.

It is lit up at night and this is the view we had of it from our hotel balcony. Since it's dark, you have to click and enlarge the photo to get a better idea!

We also went to the National Archaeological Museum and saw more famous relics from the region, including ornate marble statues, the celebrated mask of Agamemnon, the bronze statue of Zeus or Poseidon, statue of Aphrodite, the famous "horse and young rider," and much more.

We went on a "walking tour" of Athens guided only by our Lonely Planet book. Needless to say, we got lost somewhere after the temple of Zeus (which was supposed to be just the 2nd stop on the tour). After improvising, we still hit all the suggested sites the book mentioned- it just took us 6 hours instead of 3-4! We did stop along the way for some fabulous local greek wine and gyros (come to think of it, this may have been the reason we got a little "off track").

Below are some pics from our walking tour which includes the changing of the guard at Parliament and views of the Acropolis from the city below. Oh, there's also one of Alex at a local cafe waiting for his wine. :)

The temple of Zeus is almost as impressive as the Parthenon. It is in an open field area which enables you to really get a feel for the size and scale of the massive columns.

At the entrance to the temple of Zeus is the Arch of Hadrian.

Photos below are also from the Acropolis--amphitheater and Keratides (the building with the female stautes). Keratides is beautiful!!!

It was amazing to be in Athens and see all of this history in front of our own eyes. This was one of our most memorable trips (I say that about them all, don't I?)!

We hope to be able to get back to Greece during some of the warmer months so we can island hop. We really want to see Santorini!

Honeymoon

Alex and I finally took our belated honeymoon at the end of September. However, it was well worth the wait!

We went to Croatia and stayed in a small seaside town called Cavtat. It is just a short ferry ride from the larger and well known city of Dubrovnik. The view from our villa was unbelievable! See photo below. And that's Alex lounging on the front patio.

Dubrovnik is probably the most visited city in all of Croatia and is also where many cruise ships in the area dock. We actually saw a cruise ship come in one day while we were in Dubrovnik and it was quite a sight. The water is too shallow so the ships drop anchor off shore and then ferry all passengers to land in these big, futuristic looking boats that they lower from the side of the cruise ship. We were tempted to try and sneak on once we saw it's next port of call was Venice!

Croatia is known for it's beauty. We were in awe with one look at the red-tiled roofs and the translucent, turquoise water.

Dubrovnik is a very old fort city on the Adriatic. It is surrounded by huge, dramatic walls to protect it from invaders. These actually came in handy again during the 1991 conflict between Croatia and Serbia. Most people sought refuge inside the old city walls. There are places in the stone where you can see the walls were shelled in 1991.

Everything about the Old Town is beautiful. Marble streets are lined with old baroque style buildings and shops and cafes line the quaint alleys. The main street in Old Town is called Placa. It is marked with a clock tower at the end and Pile Gate is the entrance. There is a walkway on top of the city walls. Alex and I walked the entire length of the walls and admired the ocean on one side and the city on the other. There are many steep hills in this region (being from Colorado I just cannot call them mountains) so there were more stairs than we have ever seen in our lives. Alex and I climbed and walked off most of the calories of delicious food and wine that we consumed (most!). The local wine and seafood was amazing!

We had rain for the first 3 days we were there, but since we don't see that in Dubai we didn't mind too much. We actually had a waterfall coming down the back stairs in the villa we rented!

The last few days we had sun and warm temperatures. We got the best of both worlds while were were there. You can see from the pictures what a pretty place this is. There are even "swimming pools" that are literally just walled in areas of the ocean.

To get from Dubai to Dubrovnik, we had to layover in Vienna (I know, poor us!). We stayed the night there on our way to Croatia and visited the main street in Vienna. We were so excited to see some changing leaves and fall colors!

This town is very proud of it's musical heritage and being the home of Mozart. Mozart statues were everywhere and even kleenex for sale had little music notes on it. The other thing Vienna is famous for is chocolate. It was delicious! So, naturally the city combines its two main attractions and what do you get? Mozart selling chocolate! Mozart is on the wrapper of every piece available in the city!

Vienna is a typical beautiful, old European city. The lifestyle is very laid back. People seem to sit in cafes and drink lattes all day while their dog roams the streets or shops nearby. Even the McDonalds was in an ornate historic building!

Even though we only had one day in Vienna on our way to Croatia and another day on our way back, we managed to hit the highlights. We saw St. Stephens cathedral (a.k.a. Stephansdom - see pic below), we ate bratwurst and sauerkraut, sampled the famous chocolate, and sat at cafes drinking coffee while watching the horse drawn carriages trot past.

This is a city that would be very easy to live in. I didn't want to leave!

We had a wonderful and very memorable trip. I think we took a million pictures, but I somehow have managed to get it down to about 200. Click on the link below to see the entire album of our amazing honeymoon! The album starts with Vienna photos and then continues on to the Croatia pics.


www.vivianalex.shutterfly.com