Hello everyone! We're back in Cairo after quite the little adventure all over BFE and back... We've met a whole cast of characters -- Saeed, Mahmoud, Mohammad, Mustafa, Nova, Kareem, Asraf, Aswam, and have a business card for each. So it took a lot --- a lot -- of bargaining and bribing and arrangments but we managed to get past the 10 odd checkpoints on the way out to the Libyan border to reach our campsite. Apparently it is a big issue for Americans to travel inside the borders of Egypt off the beaten path - so whenever we didn't have to show passports we became 5 englishmen (ingleezi). It worked well, minus the part where we had to indirectly bribe an Egyptian Military General for approving paperwork... We have learned that Egypt is a crazy system of layering bueracracies and middlemen that all want a piece of the tourist money. But we've also seen amazing kindness from strangers, and I feel more safe here than I feel walking around in US city. Egyptians are great, and everyone back home should not worry about our safety.

So our campsite (government run and sponsored) provided all the camping facilities for our stay outside of Sallum. We slept approx 2 km from the Libyan border. Actually our driver missed the turn for the campisite and we actually got a little more up close and personal w/ Libya than I had hoped. But no worries :) The campsite was in wondeful good shape and we even got to see a sweet live band and belly dancer show. Everyone here is covered in cloth from head to toe 24/7 it seems ~ takes a while to get used to.

The solar eclipse itself was AMAZING. I cannot put it into words. The sky was perfectly clear and the whole partial-total time took over an hour! The energy one feels from the cold wind and the approaching shadows is like nothing I've ever experienced before. And when you see the sun turn into a glowing black orb w/ flares shooting off the sides -- it just touches your soul there's no other way to say it. Then the 4 minutes passed quickly. I hope that we get the video taped on Dustin's camera of the period of the totality because that is the only hope y'all ever have of understanding the feeling without actually being there. I'm afraid this probably won't be my last total solar eclipse hahaha.

We haven't gotten to the pyramids yet - or met up with Alejandro and his party of 3 yet. We plan to see the Giza pyramids today, and have dinner w/ them. Scott's phone is working for text messages btw -- awesome! tonight, we are planning to spend the rest of today arranging a night train to Luxor, where we will take some flavor of Nile Cruise down to the historical sites. Also, we want to stop in a city by the red sea for a day or so. That should about fill out the trip -- which will leave us with a couple days (1 day for Dustin) to see the rest of Cairo which we have not really explored -- save the pita sandwich and sheesha shop next to our hostel (still staying at the Meramees). Anyway, that's all for now. Love you all -- Darin