A Wonderful Experience

My husband, youngest son and I at the top.

This is what it looked like from the top no matter which way you looked. Amazing, huh?

And finally, another picture of me, at the top.

This past weekend, my husband, son and I got to experience something wonderful. If you live in Egypt or plan to visit, one thing that is a must is to be able to climb Mt. Sinai. We have lived in Egypt for 8 years now and have always planned on doing this, but for some reason we put it off till now. I will tell you it was not an easy experience, and along the way I had my doubts I would make it all the way to the top, but I can be pretty determined at times. So, I just kept pushing and pushing till finally, I was at the top. They say, it usually takes people 2-4 hours to reach the top, and it took me 3. Then we spent 30-45 minutes at the top before we began our descent, whick took 2 hours. So all in all it took us about 6 hours. Boy were we exhausted and ready to go to bed.

There are two ways to get up the mountain. One of them is a "camel path" that you can walk or ride a camel up, and we chose to walk. It is a 3-mile long path, with plenty of twists and turns and some obstacles (such as big stones) in your way. Then there is the wind and the cold. The wind, at times, was horrendous, and the farther up you got, the colder it got. The other way to get up the mountain is by steps. We did not take this way, so I do not know much about it, but I do know there are 3,750 steps. Like I said, I don't know much about this way, so I don't know if it would be easier or harder. Maybe, (and that's a big maybe) if we ever decide to go back we will try the stairs and be able to compare the two paths. In all probability though, if we ever decide to go back, we will probably ride the camels. ;o)

For right now I'm just going to post a few pictures of our wonderful experience, and I will save some of the other exciting information about the whole experience for future posts.

The Citadel Mosque in Cairo

The Citadel Mosque is a really neat place to visit when one comes to Cairo. It is beautiful from the inside out.

One of Cairo's most popular tourist attractions is the Citadel which houses a number of museums, ancient mosques and other sites, located on a spur of limestone that had been detached from its parent Moqattam Hills by quarrying. The Citadel is one of the world's greatest monuments to medieval warfare, as well as a highly visible landmark on Cairo's eastern skyline.

Pictures From the Past

An old sausage press.


Can anyone tell me what this is? (Answer on bottom.)





The picture above, that I asked about, is a toaster. Some of you may have known, but it really threw me at first.

These are just some more pictures I took at Wilson's Creek Battlefield.

Garbage Village

There is a place in Cairo that is very interesting to visit. It is called "Garabe Village". At the sound of that you might ask, "Why in the world would I want to visit a place called 'Garbage Village'"? Some, might choose not to visit because it can be a very depressing place, and it can have a very depressing odor as well, especially when the weather is hot. But imagine if you were one of the estimated 50,000 people who lived there, and you really had no choice in the matter.

This area is called Garbage Village because the people who live there are the garbage collectors of Cairo. Some of them drive garbage trucks, and some of them have small carts drawn by donkeys or horses. These people wake up early in the morning, go into Cairo and collect the garbage, then literally take it back home with them. They then proceed to go through it and recycle what they can. Today, there is even a small industry of women who have become something of a cultural phenomenon because of some of their handicrafts using discarded material. The most popular items include paper, greeting cards (especially Christmas), and items such as purses and very beautiful quilts from fabric.

I have been to Garbage Village several times, and the people are always friendly, and usually have smiles on their faces. These are people who have chosen to make the most of their circumstances. The population here is mostly Christian, and there are several churches. These churches are Coptic churches, in other words, the Orthodox Church. The churches there are very impressive. One of the churches "Church Of Virgin Mary & St-Samaan" was built to hold 20,000 people.

Garbage Village and these churches are situated on The Mokattam Mountain. It is considered the only real mountain in Cairo, although to foreigners who visit, it is probably only seen as a hill. Because it is on a mountain, some of the churches are literally carved into and from the mountain. There are also many beautiful Biblical carvings in these churches and in this area. One pictured above is a carving of Lazarus as he came out of the grave after being resurrected by Christ, and the other is of Christ's resurrection.

The people of Garbage Village have recently gone through some very bad situations. The first was several months ago when part of the mountain collapsed on some of the housing. The second has happened recently. I posted on this situation just a few days ago, and that situation is the measures that were taken because of fear of the swine flu. Because most of the people in this area are Christian, there were lots of them who raised pigs, and as far as I know, all of the pigs in this area have been killed.

As you look at these pictures, please pray for these people who have very little and literally live amongst the garbage.

As I said before, some of us may not desire or choose to see a place called "Garbage Village", but if you are ever in Cairo, it is well worth the visit.

If you would like to know or read more about this fascinating place, here's a good place to start:

http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/mokattam.htm

Not Just Your Ordinary Boat Ride

One of the most beautiful things a person can experience in Egypt is a faluka ride on the Nile. A faluka is a special kind of sail boat the Egyptians use to give tourists a ride down the Nile. One of the nice things about a faluka is, you can go on a ride as a small group or on a ride for a very large group. The most recent faluka ride I took was with my husband and two of my kids. If you know anything about Cairo, Egypt, you know there are lots and lots of people. Traffic is bad, there is lots of noise, and lots of pollution. But, when you get out on the Nile in a faluka you forget all of that. It is nice and peaceful, the air usually smells a lot better, and you are able just to sit back in the sun and appreciate you are on one of the most famous rivers in the world. You can also take a faluka ride at sunset or at night, but any time of day or night on the Nile is beautiful. Another nice thing about falukas is that the experience is fairly cheap. I think we paid about $7.00 for a half-hour to an hour. Usually the drivers of these boats are very friendly and funny. Above, you can see a picture of our youngest son Levi helping steer the boat. There is also a picture of some of the students and teachers from my kids' school. I wanted to include this picture to show you just how much room there is in a faluka.