4/12/07 - Day 2 - On To Alexandria

Early morniing, up at 5 am, bfast at 6, leave on the bus for our 3 hour ride to Alexandria. We are taking the faster road more of a highway because the Delta road (more interesting) will take over 5 hours. Lots of Islamic influence in the architecture here. Many of the dome'ed bldgs but with beautiful designs on the exteriors. We drove through the industrial part of Alexandria large salt flats and refineries. They use 1/3 of their oil and export the rest. We drove by where the lighthouse used to be on the island of Pharos. There is nothing left but a few rocks of this 'one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world'. Most of everything here is from the greek history rather than egyptian or Pharoah times as the is fameous for Alexander the Great and Cleopatra. This dates back to 332 bc. The whole city is designed like a chessboard.very similar in style and architecture of athens greece. We then visited the catacombs. This is where many mummies were buried but mostly romanisque. All was gone only the catacombs and tomb. We also went to king Farouq's palace to see. We weren't allowed inside. It is right on the Mediterrian. We also visited a small museum here in a bldg that used to be the american embassy. That's really all today. We did a lot of bus travel because of the distance between Cairo and Alexandria. Along the way we saw pigeon houses, big ones, many horse drawn carriages on the same highway as us, fully clothed women, faces,eyes,and all. Many did NOT want their picture taken, so we had to sneak pics from the bus. The group e are with is very diverse. First of all I am happy that out of a bus of 48 only 15 people areon this tour. A wide range of ages. Youngest is 8 the oldest is 78. All americans except from 2 Australia and 2 from Canada. Otherwise everyone is nice. I have other notes that will come ina separate email. Our bus driver today cut a corner too sharp and took out a chunk of the side of the bus. These guys are great drivers. I have never seen cars, trucks, busses com within an inch of each other. Its scary. Also there is an armed guard with us everywhere. I crossed the street from the bus today just to look at a shirt and I had the armed escort and a tourist police officer with a mschine gun with me the whole time. Sometimes its a little un-nerving but they are just trying to protect us. When we stop somewhere to tour something we have 5 armed guards surrounding the bus. This is to ensure no one gets near our bus for any reason. One is we have our stuff left on the bus the second I to ensue there are no bombs planted. We heard and read about the bombs in Algiers and Morroco. That is the next country over. We feel safe. The hotels are 5 star and walled and surrounded by armed guards. We are traveling with Globus and I believe they just do this to ensure the safety of their clients. Tomorrow we visit the Grand Museum of Egypt, then a papyrus factory, then fly to Luxor for 1 night. I will pick up again tomorrow. I hope you all are enjoying the dialog. It will make more sense when you see the pics. G'night.
Anna