Sudan Hot

Since arriving in Egypt, our tour has kept us quite busy, visiting temples, museums and other non-such things. The extreme culture shock from Cairo that I was experiencing was quickly replaced with triple extreme heat exhaustion. I am never usually one to complain about heat, but it is relentlessly hot, all the time. For example, I have been applying sunscreen at 6am on a daily basis, and temperatures have never been below 40C, unless of course it is first thing in the morning, like today, when it was 38C when we began our Donkey trek, at 6am. My life here entirley revolves around proximity to shade, water rationing, and my newfound reliance on AC to survive. Our tour guide is now completley on my bad side for saying that I am too lazy in Egypt, and for mocking my daily stints with heat stroke. After leaving Cairo, we headed south, via train to Aswan, and spent a lot of time touring the Egyptian temples around the area, including Abu Simbel, which happened to be on the Egyptian/Sudan border, which was disturbingly sweltering hot in every way. It is best compared to when you open your oven to check on your delicious baked goods, and you jump back from the wall of flesh burning heat that wafts into your face.. all the time.

Now.. enough e-complaining for one posting. Last night we took a tour-organized horse-carriage ride around Luxor, and Linds, Cam, and myself squished ourselves into one cabin, much to the dissaproval of the general population. Most locals assume that I have two wives, and continuously give me offers to purchase one of my extras. The highest offer as of yet, for Cam, is 2 million Camels and one fish. I always ask them to bring me the camels, so I can inspect the sturdynes of their physique, and general re-sale potential before I make any rash decisions. This usually puts an end to things. Our carriage cut off the main streets and entered an incredibly busy pedestrian market. It was slightly unpleasant, because all the locals had to dive out of our way clutching their babies and goats and we baracadded down the narrow alleyways, pretty much a scene right out of Robin Hood. Probably the highlight was when a local chicken farmer thought it would be a great tourist moment for us, if he snatched a live chicken out of a cage by its neck, and shove it into our faces. I was first alerted of this crime against the cluckster when I heared it sqwacking a few carriages ahead. As he came running towards me, all I could think of was "Avian Flu!", and burried my face into the lice stained fabric of the carriage. Thankfully our driver whiped him with his horse stick before he could do anymore mental damage to my already fragile state. After this atrocity, we continued to smile uncomfortably to the locals we were displacing, and they simply stared back with their American hating eyes.

Tonight, we are taking a night train back to Cairo, and then further connecting to the Red Sea coast where we were promised an all inclusive resort by our incredibly imcompetant slash racist slash creepster tour director.

B