EGYPT  2001:

The first set of pictures below were taken after visiting the Step Pyramid.  We stopped at an outdoor restaurant for some authentic Egyptian food.  We saw how pittas were made in a stone oven by a little old Egyptian woman.  We had some pretty good lamb, chicken, and steak kabobs with many Egyptian side dishes that I can not remember.  Our last stop for the day was rather disappointing.  It was called the Pharonic Village.  This place was geared more towards younger children because the artifacts were all fake.  I guess after seeing so many amazing real artifacts at the museum, the fake ones were not too impressive.  The place did have little skits of what ancient Egyptian life was like while you take a boat tour in front of the set up stages, but I was more interested in the strange kinds of Egyptian fish I saw swimming around in the river near the boat.

The next day started very early in the morning for our group.  We woke up at 4:00 in the morning to get an early start to go to Alexandria.  This day was jammed packed with activities including taking plant tours at different factories and seeing the Alexandria Library which is under construction.  We visited a small factory that made kitchen cabinets out of recycled material, a factory that made stainless steel sinks, a research facility shaped like three pyramids, a food plant, and a huge steel plant.  Our group asked how much money the average laborer in a factory makes at a few of the factories.  We found out that a entire day of hard labor will make them only five US dollars.

The tour at the food factory ended in disaster for me.  The workers at the food factory were so glad to have visitors that they offered us free samples.  This was late in the day now, and I haven't eaten since 5:00 in the morning, so I was hungry enough to eat almost anything.  One worker was holding a plate of chicken lunch meat for our group to try.  I saw some people in our group taking samples off the plate, but when the food guy walked over to me, he handed me a piece with his hands.  The mistake I make was taking the meat from the hands of a guy who had been touching raw meat all day long.  Although at the time I didn't think anything of the situation, I ended up paying dearly for this mistake.

The next stop was the steel factory.  Here is where I began to get real sick.  The factory guys suited us up in long trench coats and hard hats for a plant tour.  I noticed that I was feeling a little dizzy and different, but I thought it was because I haven't eaten much all day.  A small tour bus dropped our group off at a very large, hot, and noisy building.  I was really starting to feel strange at this time.  As I walked inside, welding fumes hit me in the face, and ten seconds later I had to vomit.  I ran into a corner in the factory and made a big mess.  I walked up to Dr. Wahby and told him I felt a little sick and needed to go out for some fresh air.  He said okay and I went outside to finish where I left off in the corner.  I felt a little better after the second time but I still hung around outside for about ten more minutes.  All of a sudden I realized that my tour group had left to go somewhere in the gigantic building we were in.  I came back inside and started wandering around the noisy, hot, and fume filled building.  I realized that I was lost and nobody in there spoke english.  I wandered past a worker who realized I was lost and pointed up a narrow metal staircase.  I figured the group was somewhere upstairs so I went up and wandered some more.  Finally, after what seemed to be over half an hour, I found the end of my tour group.

I desperately wanted to go to our hotel in Alexandria but there was no chance of that happening until our day of sightseeing was over.  We loaded up on the bus and headed for the Alexandria Library which was under construction at the time.  During this time, I became sicker by the minute and very disorientated.  Although I asked to stay on the bus, I was told that I would have to get off.  I found a place to sit and waited outside for the group to finish their tour of the library.  The library was a very nice building, but I was too sick to stand up, let alone take pictures.  The tour ended and we hopped back on the bus and headed for the hotel.  On the way to the hotel, I thought for a while that I was going to die.  My eyes were open, looking towards the front of the bus, and everything began to turn red, and eventually black.  My eyes were wide open and I was completely blind for a whole five to ten minutes.  I was way to weak to move or say anything to anyone.  Somehow I reached down for my bottled water and found it.  As I began to sip the water, my vision slowly returned to me.  The next thing I knew, we were at the hotel an everyone was getting off the bus.  I found the energy to stand up and bashed my head on the bus doorway on the way out.  I entered the hotel and almost immediately began vomiting in the lobby full of people.  People in my group helped me out and lead me to my room where I slept until the next morning.

The second half of pictures below were taken the next morning.  I think I got rid of the poison in my stomach and felt much better in the morning.  I knew I would be disappointed if I did not take any pictures, so I grabbed the camera and took some out of the hotel room and the hotel sign.  The last picture in this set is of the Alexandria Library taken the next day from a far distance.  I also took many pictures from the bus of people fishing with very strange large fishing poles.  The stone building near the bottom is King Farouk's Palace.  This is the site where the famous Pharos Lighthouse stood until the great earthquake crumbled it.  Many stones from the lighthouse were used to build the palace.  The pyramid building earlier in the set is the Mubarek City for Scientific Research and Technological Applications, and there is one picture of Dr. Wahby and his family who live in Alexandria.  Also note the truck with the small army in it.  This truck drove in front of our tour bus from Cairo to Alexandria to ensure our safe arrival, because you know how valuable tourism is to the Egyptian economy.