Carter. They are big. They are old. They are brown. (Everything in Egypt is brown. If Ireland is a thousand shades of green, Egypt is a thousand shades of brown.) I thought I would want to go inside but I didn’t. Maybe next time. We just walked to a ridge on a dune about a quarter mile away and watched as the Pyramids changed color with the sunset. Then we rode Ali’s camel back to the Sphinx. The camel mounted park police stopped us to make sure we hadn’t ridden in from the desert without paying admission. The policeman with the sargents stripes safety pinned to his sleeve quietly tried to hit Ali up for a kickback on the $3 we had paid him!

Sphinxie, as ML dubbed him, said to tell ya’ll HI! Facing East, Sphinxie has been waking up with the sunrise every day for 4000 years. His beard and nose (now in the British Museum) where shot off by the Turks for cannon practice. He’s had a tough life.

We spent 4 days at Siwa Oasis on the edge of the Sahara Desert, near the Libyan border, 700 KM and 14 hours by bus from Cairo. The area around Siwa has a mesmerizing beauty. Visualize sand and rocks, not cactus. By no means a Hollywood style oasis, the town itself  is something of a kip. Dirt streets, plenty of palm trees, cement block buildings with doors painted blue to ward off  the evil eye, brightly painted wooden donkey cart taxis driven by dirty 10 year old boys, live stock standing in the street, dead stock hanging in the open air market next to the eating place, Bedouin women robed and veiled head to toe, the incessant braying of donkeys and the five-times daily call to prayer all created an exotic atmosphere that was both intriguing and distressing. The hard life these people live hasn’t detracted from their friendliness, however. Smiles and shouts of “hallo” and “welcome to Siwa” were everywhere. We had three nights of accommodation with breakfast and a few postcards thrown in for less than 20 dollars. It wasn’t five star by any means, but