Monday, March 26, 2012

Journey through Egypt

In mid-March, Jeremy and I visited Egypt. We had planned to go previously - before the revolution broke out - so we were glad to have a renewed opportunity to go.

First stop, of course, was the pyramids. We climbed on the pyramids, walked the tunnels inside them, took pictures in front of them, and fended off the vendors trying to sell us all manner of souvenirs.


Next to the pyramids is the sphinx, which offered a great photo opp even though the sphinx long ago lost its nose.


Leaving Giza, we headed south to Luxor. Soon enough, Jeremy found a coffee shop where he smoked some shisha. He also couldn't walk away without buying a shisha pipe of his own.


Much of our tour involved visiting temples. Here's a great pic of Jeremy standing on our Nile cruise boat with Kom Ombo Temple in the background.


Our trip ended with one final night in Cairo, including a sunset visit to Al-Azhar park, where I hammed it up for the camera with our fellow traveler Javier.

If you haven't been to Egypt, go now! Prices are low and the tourist industry is hungry for visitors!

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Real big fish... and golf balls

A few weeks ago I went on a guys weekend... Kenya style.  Does that mean going out 4 wheel Driving looking at animals... of course not.  We did not deviate one bit from what we could have done in the states.  We went golfing on the coast with a day of deep sea fishing thrown in.

Seven guys from the embassy, four days, 6 cases of beer, two bottles of bourbon, and some poker chips made a fantastic long weekend. The golf was spectacular, but the highlight was the one day we went fishing (we can't survive on golf alone).

I say the fishing was good, and it was, but it was not what I expected.  My boat caught only two fish, one right after another... after 4 hours of trolling.  I was lucky enough to reel one of them in; a nice size sailfish that was making advertisement brochure leaps out of the water.


The experience was too short lived, only about 10 minutes on the reel, but it was worth it.  It was no marlin but it was pretty impressive none the less.


Yup, check that one off the list.