Favorite things....

No...not raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens....but a couple of my favorite things and photos from the trip to Egypt. This is, I think, my favorite photo. It was taken at Giza and just has a feel to it I particularly like. Sort of wraps a lot of it all up...camel, donkey, horse, desert, people in arab dress.....great sky.

I didn't take pictures of some of my favorite things though...like the lavender mosquito netting over my bed. Suspended from a hoop hanging from the ceiling it made me feel part princess and part kid-at-camp. Every night as I snuggled up under its purpleness I just grinned. Strange things please me.



This is another of my favorite photos. Well, it could be one of a million favorites because I could fill entire albums with pictures of the kids that came out to "allo" us as we rode through the villages and farms.



And here is Maryanne...my favorite thing (well..person!...)being blown off a camel. It was really WINDY up there! She may not love this picture but I do. Damn we had fun!

The local tack store...of sorts

One of the major blessings we had on this trip was the company and guidance of two Arabic speaking guides in Maryanne, and her driver/right hand man Mohammed. With them we could go to places western tourists don't generally see...and the mobile horse souk was certainly one of those! It began with Maryanne accosting a carriage driver in Cairo, asking him where he bought the harness decorations and tack on his horse. Horse sales move around, and whether he lied or was just wrong, he did send us in the right direction...a direction that we then pursued with Mohammed at the wheel stopping every few minutes to ask the locals in a very non-tour-type-town outside of Cairo, for directions. Finally, a tuck tuck driver (three wheeled covered taxis) offered to take us there if we'd follow him, and off we went through back streets and narrow alleys until we found ourselves in a sort of vacant lot behind the buildings of the town...the horse souk!



There were some horses being shown for sale, a lot of donkeys, and some sheep. We particularly liked this mare with her mule-son at her side.





Vendors sold harness, the decorations I was looking for, and everything from farm tools to rope on their carpets on the ground.





I doubt that they had ever had three western women poking throught their wares before, and we were a source of great interest, especially when a vendor would start trying to sell us something and Maryanne would respond in fluent Arabic. "You speak Arabic!?" one said in amazement..."yes, I have a horse farm..." "A horse farm!? Where!?" "Near Abu Sir." "You have a horses near Abu Sir?" "Yes...25 of them.." Pure amazement. :-)

In the end, with Mohammed bargaining for us we left with a bag filled with tassles and pom poms and bells and jingly things....silver hands of Fatma, decorations to mount on harness saddles in the shapes of rearing horses and crescent moons...but no...no donkeys or horses or even the adorable baby mule.

Telling our stories

So now at last we are back in the states, with stories to tell and pictures (lots of pictures) to share. Taking a cue from our Egyptian host, Maryanne Stroud, I will post a picture or two every morning with some commentary...and by the way, I enabled the comment field; feel free to respond to my ramblings!

This picture (taken by Mohammed aka The Photography Elf aka Shutterbug) represents a couple of things all at once to me. First of all, Egypt runs on donkeys. Farmers, vendors, the everyday folk, all use donkeys to pull loads, carry items, as riding animals and everything else possible. Sometimes impossible. As Maryanne has noted, if you waved a wand and made all the donkeys disappear, Egypt would come to a total, grinding, inoperable halt. This particular longear is pulling a load of berseem (alfalfa) while his handlers laugh and stand on the shafts for the Shutterbug. Which leads me to thought #2: the country and village women and children are beautiful. In the areas around Al Sorat Farm they are accustomed to seeing Maryanne and her riders, and as we passed through their fields and towns we were greeted with open smiles and friendly laughter. The children call "'allo! 'allo!" By western standards these people are "poor," but look if you will at the faces as I post pictures; they are happy, well-fed and overall healthy people. One needs to put ones "western eyes" away here and see instead, families living lives as they have for generations.

Food part deux

This is us eating in a restaurant. Well..it's Gail eating. I take pictures. We had fattah...rice and bread and lamb with a sort of vinegary garlic sauce...stuffed vine leaves..baba ganough...pickled eggplant (the first fatal taste of the addiction)...tahina, and a sweet, milk and bread pudding desert....and a bunch of beer...and rolled out well fed and infinitely happy.

Tomorrow after riding we will have duck and stuffed cabbage rolls...and knowing Mohammed..there will be all the other things we love as mentioned before!

Food, glorious food!

OK...let's talk about food. We always do anyway right? To begin with you should know that Mohammed, Maryanne's right hand man, driver, farm manager and cook extraordinaire clearly plans to send us both home requiring extra seats on the plane. Egyptian hospitality assumes you will feed your guests endlessly and abundantly, and Mohammed takes this concept to the enth degree. So what are the basics? Fruit and juices to die for. Unsweetened, thick and all taste no water or other agents. We have oranges, bananas, mangos, guava, lemons that are more like the Myer type, apples, tangerines, and grapes...all on plates and in juice combinations. Now I've left one out: pomegranates...not as fruit per se, but as an amazing paste we added to traditional margaritas, and then made more margaritas using the thick juice in place of the lemon lime we figure to be margaritaville....these we have named Pomaritas. Notice we talk about alcohol first. The beer is local, Stella, (not Artois) and very nice, refreshing stuff as you get off a horse after a desert ride....it comes in a can, but that just helps keep it really cold. Mmmm.
Now, food. Our meals have been amazing. We, especially Gail, have developed serious addictions to the pickled eggplant...which is a sort of fried and spiced and pickled version...and the cauliflower that Mohammed makes in a similar fashion that will make you reconsider anything you have ever thought about the lowly plant. He dips it in a highly spiced...not hot...but flavorful egg batter and fries it. Outstanding. Then there is the Tahina...tahini and oil and cumin etc to go with the falafel, and the endless wonderful salads we have with every meal. Tomatos and greens and cukes and all picked by the cook moments before making the meal. And...there has been a lightly seasoned and grilled rabbit and chicken...each served as part of a mulukia...which is a thick soup made of the green by that name, which is served with meat (or not) on a rice and vermicelli pilaf.
We need to go ride now, so we'll continue this gastronomical treatise later and add pictures!

It is interesting riding where human bones are scattered under your hooves. If this were the US it would be a "call the police OMG what'll we do" event...here it is just old...and I mean OLD bones. Strange to see though. Similarly, this is a picture of our group in front of a sarcophagus. Now, in Massachusetts there aren't a lot of eons old sarcophaguses...sarcopohacii?....layin' around on the trails. Old refrigerators sure. Discarded TVs. Yeh...and garbage bags too....but burial chambers? Nuh uh. But here....why not?

Yesterday we went to Cairo where we got a special, private tour of some of the antiquities in the Egyptian Museum. The museum has been developing a corps of blind guides trained to take school children from the local school for the blind, on tours. We were a training exercise. Gail was given an opportunity to play with pharonic toes, explore the regions of a many thousand year old kilt-wearing personage, and handle a black, hard as a rock...because it was rock...snake. We learned about the use and science of an embalming table, and were permitted, contrary to normal regulation, to feel displays, hieroglyphics and...well, snakes.

Cairo. What can you say about Cairo? Here's what: Beeep!beeeeeep!beep!Hooonnk!Hoooonk! See, there are no traffic laws or conventions in this country...cars go wherever they can, when they want to, however they can, and all the while, beeping a code that says "I'm here" "I see you" OK come past" Stay back you asshole" all the while, driving forwards and backwards in traffic, and if it were truly possible to drive due sideways it would be happening. Meanwhile, pedestrians, motorcyclists, and doorless buses with people hanging out of them are part of this ever changing, insane, choreography. The maxim to remember is "In Egypt everything is forbidden and anything is possible."

Pictures to share

Above are the palm-carrying camels, and a woman teasing her son by offering to sell him to us!

This is the sweet potato vendor and his cart, with Gail looking on hungrily.

So now there are 2 of us in front of the pyramid. This is the step pyramid at Sakkara. This morning we joined a lovely English couple on a 3 + hr ride that began in the desert and then wandered through villages and farms. There were camels, some of which resembled peacocks as they carried huge, dragging loads of palm branches...very prehistoric looking. Then there were donkeys by the dozen, a smattering of cows and lots of gamoosas...that's a water buffalo. The local children would run out shouting "allo! allo!" and we would respond with either our own hello or, more often "Salaam Alakem." The village woman would laugh and tease their children by telling them they were going to sell them to us. Frankly, if they HAD been serious...we weren't buying!
At the end of the ride we passed, and then invited back to the farm with his wares, Abu Patata..."the father of potatos..." a vendor selling wonderful roasted sweet potatoes from his donkey cart with and oil barrel oven and a smokestack that would have made a Mississippi river boat proud. Lunch was an extravagant spread of the local Egyptian cooking of which we have rapidly become serious fans. Pictures to post in the next installment.

I think we're on line!

Look! Gail is riding in the desert!
So, to begin with...let us tell you about the airport. Y'know those airport announcements that tell you to be sure to report any abandoned luggage? Well here's what happens when you do. There was a woman....a young arabic woman sitting in the gate, with what we assumed to be her suitcase. She got up, put on her coat and left...for a long time. Like at least an hour, when finally a woman sitting nearby said `'we should report that" got up and went and told an airport cop about it. Time passed. Lots of time. Finally, a man sitting to our left decided to try again and spoke to the airline personnel at the desk. "They'll take care of it" says man to our left. But nothing happened. Nothing happened for a long time. We're coming up to about 2 hours by now...and Man To Our Left has asked another guard and is getting pretty bitchy. Oh, one cop came by and yelled "anybody own this case?" and went away when no one answered...hmmm. So, originally complaining woman sees the pilot coming through the gate and rushes over, cuts him off and says "DO YOU HAVE ANY PULL AROUND THIS PLACE?" "Well, yes m'am" he says "I might." She explains, he makes one phone call and a cop appears. "ANYONE OWN THIS BAG" he yells. Silence. So what does he do? HE LEANS OVER, UNZIPS THE BAG AND TOSSES THE CONTENTS AROUND WITH HIS HAND. Yep, that's right. Safe flight everybody.

Ladies and gentleman...please have patience as we learn how to use this computer which appears to randomly be changing my language preference to Arabic! ~BUT...we are here and have been riding in the desert, on roads with water buffalo and more donkeys than one can imagine, and we have tales to tell! The flight was terrific and the weather is WARM! More soon after a consultation with our hjost whose computer is making me crazy :-)

Luggage Attack!

All ours bags are packed, we're ready to go....

Stand by: this location will soon be activated. Do not step away from the dial. Well, actually, do step away because there won't be much here until after February 17th, 2010...but you can hang around anyway if you'd like.