Ain Soukhna

Last weekend we traveled to Ain Soukhna, a resort on the Red Sea. We went with three other couples. Ain Soukhna is a golf resort, spa, as well as a beach resort. Seeing as we don't golf well enough to travel with golf clubs, we opted for the spa package. We spent hours in the salt-water hot-tub, the sauna, and at the beach. It was a very pleasant weekend.

One of the pools looking out at the golf course.

Crissie wading in the Red Sea. You could see the Sinai Peninsula just peeking out of the haze on the horizon. You also saw ships heading up to the Suez Canal, about 60 miles north.

Another pool at one of the hotels built to resemble an Italian Grotto, complete with wading area for small children and waterfalls.

Insets are a problem. Each evening the resort fumigated the area spraying insect repellent. Everyone ducked indoors for that. But during the day these interesting contraptions were all around the resort. The hanging ropes contain insect repellent that dangle in the breeze and spread the repellent.

We had a very pleasant and relaxing weekend. We enjoyed the sugar sand beach, which was more the color of ripe sweet potatoes--a reddish color, but no stones--just pure sand; very nice to walk on.

These resorts are very popular. Lots of Europeans out playing golf and enjoying the beautiful weather. Egypt seems to have found a tourist niche with these resorts on the Red Sea.

Dust to Dust

Boy do we have dust!

I used to think that I lived in a very dusty place. My little house in the north of Michigan, heated by wood, generated a lot of dust. But that is nothing compared to the dust and blowing sand that Eyptians live with here on the edge of the desert.

This picture is taken from one of the highest points in Cairo. Twenty-two million people live here but you can't see a thing for the sand in the air. This was a particularily windy day which kicked up lots of sand air, creating the haze.

Every morning the building caretakers are out washing down the tenants cars. They do this for a fee, of course, but also the consequences of not cleaning off the cars is a car so thoroughly dust covered that you could not see out the windshield.

This dusty car hasn't been washed in a few days.

You need to dust at home regularily because the fine sand and dust accumulate at an alarming rate. We have someone clean for us weekly, mostly to keep the dust down to a manageable level. When there is a dust storm the fine particles seep under the doors and windows settling everywhere. It is easier to sweep up the sand from the floor instead of going over it with a dustmop. Sweep first, damp-mop second.

Our dining room table after the patio door has been opened for a while.

We are told that when there is a particularily bad sand storm, the halls of school collect little piles of sand in the corners. We have yet to see it that bad. Spring seems to be the time for the worst storms so we shall see.

The Camel Market at Birquash

We went to the camel market in Birqash, a town about 20 miles NW of Cairo. It is a major camel market for the country. Camels come in from all over, are bought and sold, and then trucked all over the country.

Camels are an interesting animal. They have the most ungainly look. At the market all the camel were hobbled in some way, so they couldn't go very far, very fast. They have the longest, lucious, thick eyelashes, and the sweetest doe-eyes--the only sweet looking part of the animal. I took an up close picture of them. They also have the ugliest teeth you can possible imagine.

Camel eyelashes

Smiling camel? Look at those teeth.

Prospective buyers would come by a group of camels and start to look them over. They would pull down the camels lips and look at those ugly teeth to see how sound they were and if the gums were healthy. I have no idea what healthy camel gums look like, but their teeth are huge, mostly stained brown, and rather buck-tooth looking. The back ones are flat for grinding and the front ones are sharper for cutting up the grass they eat.

Youngster whose father was an owner with camels for sale.

Buyers would run their hands all over the animal, especially the hump. When camels are healthy and not malnourished the hump is firm and large, almost engorged. Then buyers would have the owners get the animals up and have them run around as best the hobbled beasties could. The owner had wranglers that kept the animals in check and didn't let them get mingle with other herds. If there was such mingling, the wranglers easily cut out the camels because they were all branded and painted with distinctive markings for the market.

There was much haggling over animals and arguments over prices. Mind you we only surmised all of this because we could not understand any of the conversations. However body language is fairly easy to read, and handshakes are unmistakeable. We knew when a deal was consumated.

Loading the camels into trucks was a hoot to watch. Camels can be notoriously uncooperative. We saw one small truck pull up to a loading area. The truck was just a bit short so the camels had to step down about two feet into the truck. For the most part most camels did not have a problem with this. They stepped down into the truck then settled themselves down. They sit down awkwardly, from my point of view, but once settled they are fine. The getting up and down is interesting to watch because it seems so awkward, but the camels seem to do it with ease. Well, this one large camel stepped down into the truck, and settled his front parts down, leaving his back parts up in the air on the loading dock. No amount of cajoling, on the part of the wranglers, could persuade that camel to move his back parts. He was stuck, or so it seemed. Finally the camel settled his back parts down on the loading dock and couldn't move. The wranglers folded up his legs and tried to push him into the truck. This was a big camel and was resisting the pushing. So finally the wranglers go a stout rope and put it around the camel's rump and pulled it into the truck. The next camel walked in just as nice as you please, settled himself down nicely and the wranglers finished their job ad were off. It was a strange sight to see the truck going out of the compound with the camels heads sticking up over the cab of the truck.

This is the camel that had a bit of trouble loading into the truck. Camels all loaded and ready for transport. The market was a facinating excursion. We were very glad we went. Never again will I ever see so many camels in one place at one time. The sounds and smells were ---undescribable. It reminded me of a n enormous corral full of sweaty horses. Camels make a braying sound, not unlike a donkey. They brayed and bawled when moved about, when getting up and down--they grunted then too. They brayed when they were made to do something they didn't want to do, like get into a truck. I am told they spit, but we didn't see any spitting camels. It was one of the most interesting days I have had in Egypt so far.