Jenyfer Matthews

We stayed the night at a hotel near Lake Qaroun, a large salt water lake. The salt content of this lake is higher than that of the Mediterranean.

Fishermen on Lake Qaroun at sunrise.

The location of the hotel was lovely, as you can see. Though it looked pretty good on the outside, the hotel was a dump. Our room was unusually large - it was apartment sized and we all had our own beds which I wasn’t expecting. We couldn’t enjoy it however because the room was so disgusting. The walls were crumbling and speckled with bug splats, the tub had dried up mouse turds in it, and one bathroom was missing a window pane which allowed swarms of mosquitoes to join us. The housekeeping couldn’t be bothered to tend to any of those problems, yet they left fresh bougainvillea blossoms on our pillows!

As an aside, having had experiences like this before in Egypt, I have a list of things I bring with me when I travel:

Flip flops
Wash cloth
baby wipes
hand sanitizer gel
bar of soap
mosquito repellent (not that they paid any attention this time!)

I may have to add sheets / sleeping bag to this list! Needless to say, none of us slept much at all.

On the second morning we headed out to Wadi Rayan where we were supposed to go and visit an open air museum where there are some 400 fossilized whale bones preserved from millions of years ago. It was in fact the main purpose of the trip.

This is as far as we were allowed to go. There was some mix-up between the bus company and the tour organizer and argue though she did, she was unable to convince them to drive our buses down the gravel road to get to the site. The drivers were concerned they would get stuck and disappointing as it was to miss the fossils I can’t really say I blame them.

The road the buses refused to travel…

While our tour organizer argued, we wandered in the sand near the bus and picked up fossilized sea shells.

So, instead of whale bones, we visited the waterfalls of Wadi Rayyan. They are formed by the overflow of Lake Qaroun flowing down into lower areas, forming two more smaller salt lakes. They aren’t particularly impressive until you realize that they are some of the only waterfalls in Egypt, period.



Close enough to Cairo for a day trip, this is a big picnic spot for Egyptians - and they certainly seem to be enjoying themselves!

The people in the countryside wear much more colorful scarves than the city





The last place we visited was this Greco-Roman temple, with the remains of the city of Dionysias








My son claimed he liked this last site best of all because we were able to climb on to the roof - though perhaps it was the danger of falling through the open pits into rooms below that thrilled him most. That or the bat we saw.

All in all, it was a good trip. We returned to Cairo on Friday evening, tired, mosquito bitten, and dirty. But there is nothing like a night in a crappy hotel to make you appreciate the comforts of home.

I live in an average sort of apartment building in what was once considered the one of the most upscale neighborhoods in Cairo. Once upon a time, the housing primarily consisted of single family “villas” and everyone had yards.

Those days are all but gone. Today, land is at a premium and landowners would rather knock down the old homes to put up ugly apartment buildings (like the one pictured below) where they can charge rent to as many families as they can fit into the space. Few have any yard space to speak of. Some buildings are nicer than others of course, but there are a whole lot that look like this on the outside.

(click any image to enlarge)

There are still a few of the lovely old villas left here and there, like this one

or this one, which was recently restored

or this one, which isn’t looking as carefully maintained but is still pretty

There are even more magnificent examples downtown where the French influence is quite obvious. But many of the villas are just falling down. From what I understand, it costs a fortune to maintain them (and to rent them) and many landowners would prefer to tear down the existing building and build something cheaper, collecting rent from many families rather than try to rent a single space for more.

It seems a shame to tear down these lovely old buildings, some of which must be close to 200 years old, to put up an ugly concrete apartment building. But I suppose that in a place where their own history is so rich, a couple hundred years just doesn’t really signify when other historical sites are thousands of years old.

I was out walking the other day when I saw a new apartment building being constructed, overshadowing the villa standing next to it. The buildings here are often built very close together, but this seemed ridiculous.

Not sure I’d like being overlooked that way myself.

But wait - it sure would be handy if you needed to borrow some sugar or your TV was on the fritz. Just lean step out onto your balcony and lean across!

I can’t help but wonder what they were thinking when they started this project. Does the same guy own all the land and this is his idea of a compromise? Or are there two different land owners? Is the owner of the apartment building simply trying to force the villa owner to back down by making living in / renting out the villa totally impossible? It doesn’t look as if anyone is living in either place at present, but I’m going to keep my eye on this one.

Just fascinating!

getting the message across. You don’t have to read Arabic (or at all) to understand this warning:

No, I don’t smoke - these packs just caught my eye in the store the other day. Never have I regretted not having a camera phone more. Then I noticed that the street was littered with empty cigarette packs. Yes - I picked up trash for you guys, just so I could scan it and show it to you here. What I wouldn’t do for you.

And judging by how many packs there were to choose from, I’m guessing that this warning isn’t working.

There are many things about living in Egypt that are frustrating - like when the water pressure is too low to shower for three days straight or having a birthday card that was send from the US two weeks ago never show up (thanks Mr. Postman) But then there are things like the above that just make me laugh. And lately I’ve been seeing many such things. So stay tuned…

This weekend we had a break from the endless rounds of tennis and soccer. We were invited to go along with a group of my husband’s colleagues to a weekend beach chalet one of them owns on the Red Sea, in Ain El-Sukhna - only about a two hour drive from our home in Cairo.

It was a lovely day, in spite of some threatening clouds and the far off rumbling of thunder. Turns out that while we were enjoying our day at the Red Sea, it was raining in Cairo!

Here I am, strolling in the low tide zone. If you look closely, my children are galloping out to sea behind me…

The sea is not red at all, but actually incredibly clear…

My son at play, in the tide pools.

There were lots of interesting shells and coral pieces to collect at the tide line.

Who needs sand toys when you have a dead fish on a stick?

It’s been nearly two years since we last visited Ain El-Sukhna. We drove out in Friday morning and returned late Friday night, which is doable, but not necessarily ideal. The roads in Egypt aren’t always well maintained or lighted and drivers often “conserve” their batteries by driving with no headlights which makes night travel quite hair-raising! After this weekend, I’ve got new resolve to get to the beach more often - but next time I think we’ll make a hotel reservation and stay overnight. Day time driving in Egypt is scary enough

I said no more pictures, but I lied. A friend invited my husband and I along on a felucca ride (otherwise known as a sailboat) on the Nile over the weekend. Every time I go out on a felucca, I think I ought to go more often. Can you blame me?

Congratulations Lisa - you’ve won a copy of my book ONE CRAZY SUMMER! Drop me an email and let me know what format you prefer and I’ll get it right out to you.

I made it home without any major mishaps - in fact, it might have been my most uneventful trip yet! In the end I had five LARGE bags, but each only averaged about 40lbs so I was well within my limit. It was an incredibly LONG day since I had to wake up at 4am to catch a 6am flight out of Minnesota to make my way back to JFK. My youngest fell asleep on our direct flight back to Cairo before we ever took off and slept all the way back (hallelujah!) but I don’t sleep well sitting up so I pretty much just sat there and read. I finally read the first “In Death” book by JD Robb. Definitely going to get more of that series.

We arrived back 11am and just…stayed up. The kids were thrilled to catch up with all of their friends and pretty much disappeared for the rest of the day. I wasn’t so ambitious myself, but I did stay up. I finally herded everyone to bed by 9pm and crashed myself at 9:30pm after being up for nearly 24 hours straight.

Today, my task is to put away all of the treasure I hauled home for me. It’s going to take awhile …

Time is a funny thing. Sometimes it d-r-a-g-s and sometimes it just flies by. My summer vacation has gone by much too quickly and today I’m on my way home.

Going home is bittersweet. On the one hand, I am looking forward to being in my own home again, in my own environment, and not living out of a suitcase. But living in Egypt isn’t always easy and truth be told, I’m not super enthusiastic about going back. Neither are my children. They’ve really bonded with their grandparents this year. To the point where they were threatening to revolt and just stay behind - see ya next year, Mom.

On the other hand, I’ve been so busy doing other things this summer that I haven’t done anything “productive” at all. My creative juices, kind of dry at the end of June, are totally flowing again. I have several ideas for new quilts and lots of ideas for writing. Once I get over the jetlag, I’ll have lots to keep me occupied in the coming year. Yes, in my mind, September and not January starts the new year.

So right about now, I’m flying somewhere high overhead on my way home. Keep commenting on Elizabeth Jenning’s Friday Feature - I’ll announce the winner to my weekend contest when I get home. See you soon…

My husband brought home a bag of postcards from work a while ago. They’d been donated to the library but the library had no use for them - there aren’t rare or collectible. I looked through the bag eagerly. I love old postcards.

This bag was a treasure. Most aren’t dated, but are probably from within the last twenty years or so. I was happy to discover there were duplicates of many of my favorites. What fun it will be to finally send these on their way somewhere!

I picked out a few of my favorites to share with you. It seemed fitting as I’m traveling now and will likely be sending a few postcards myself. Not sure if I’ll use these this time…I’m tempted to frame some of them. I only wish I could see the original art work from which these were produced.

(Click on any of the images below to see a larger version.)

“Old Cairo” by Camilia El Madani
pastel on paper

Sabil-kuttab of Ruqayya Duda, 1761
from Robert Hay’s Illustrations of Cairo

Minarets of El Monayyad Mosque, Bab Zuweilah, Cairo
by Owen B. Carter

Temple of Karnak

The Nile and Luxor Temple


These last three I liked because they were so bright and cheerful. I can’t read the writing on the backs of the cards but I assume they are from Pakistan. There were groupings of cards from different places and these two seemed to fit best with the Pakistan group. (Please correct me if I’m wrong!)



(This one has a dull gold metallic background)





This last one made me smile. We saw many a large truck in the United Arab Emirates decorated in a similar way, driven by Pakistani drivers…