The Four Westerners Appear in Camel-Lot

Not only did we ride the dusty roads to the pyramids of Giza but we did, in fact, find ourselves amongst the camels resting themselves by the big famous rock piles. Then we found ourselves atop the mighty dromidarys, as our true ambitions to rule the world as mighty pharaohs became the better of us. Residents of the area and visitors from afar trembled as they witnessed the mighty four westerners taking rule of the world from atop their beasts. Then my camel spit on the ground, gave me the eye and a frustrated sigh, kneeled to the ground and shook me off. Once we were all brought back to earth, a couple of our group thought it was important to pay the camel attendents every time they asked for a tip, so there was sure to be a lot of celebrating in camel town that night!

The pyramids, a sail on the Nile, lunch and a meeting with Samy at the Y in Cairo highlighted the day before driving to Alexandria and having supper with some Y folk from the City on the Sea.

TUT, TUT, TUT. . . DON'T GO IN THERE!

Yes, a visit to the world famous Cairo Museum was on our agenda, but as the YMCA van slid between vehicles, policemen and hoards of people in front of the pink museum, we were told it was closed today - it was Tuesday! So on we moved. Seeing the museum and especially the mummy room had come to a dead end.
Wednesday, we were hosted by Magda, CEO of the Alexandria YMCA which opened on the holiday for our visit. This is one of the most progressive YMCA's in the world in its leadership role in the community. We visited their resident camp outside of Alexandria itself and joined a rather large group of Christians and Muslims in a good old-fashioned campfire type program. This is one of the first ventures of the YMCA into resident camping . We headed back to our accommodation at the Y residence before being picked up to go to a huge YMCA formal party to celebrate the end of a very successful summer of activity. This kept us goinguntil about 2:00 am when we had to leave the festivities to finish packing to drive back to the Cairo airport just 2 hours later.

Despite several attempts to access the internet in Alexandria, we were unsuccessful as our bloggery has suffered slightly from lack of connectivity.

Thursday and we are now in Khartoum after a smooth process through the Cairo airport, the skies of the Sahara, and the Khartoum airport. We are now set for the second stage of our adventure. A quick rest at the hotel and then off to a reception for us by a number of YMCA and Canadian Embassy staff later this evening. This is the beginning of it all for the four of us.