Jenyfer Matthews

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

Gotta love a greeting that can be used for hello or goodbye

I just returned from the Women’s Fiction Festival in Matera, Italy hours ago. It was my first conference and a totally amazing experience. I’ll tell you more about it later, but for now I’ll let the scenery speak for itself…

(click on the picture for a larger view)

My hotel room was fantastic but difficult to photograph. Imagine a pizza oven - a long narrow passage (with kitchen) then you pass through an arch and into a tall rounded room carved from the stone in the hillside. I can’t remember the last time I slept so well in a hotel room…





The view from my hotel courtyard




As you might imagine, it was a little difficult to find my way to and from my hotel. I found it rather ironic to be walking down the narrow cobblestone alleys on my own at night looking for the Museum of Torture on purpose…





“Turn left at the cat.” That’s what I told a fellow author who was staying at my hotel when I showing her my route back and forth. No matter what time of day or weather, this cat was there. Of course the sign helped too…





I could bore you with pictures of the streets and alleys all day…







One of many rock churches in the historic “Sassi” area of Matera




A lovely intersection…




A view of the Sassi Barisano from the piazza near the conference site





A coffee break on the terrace of the conference site, a converted monastery



I’ve only just returned home and I am already scheming on how I can go back next year…

I was in Minnesota for about a month. Most of the week days I spent in town, visiting with my mother, poking in and out of the various gift shops that make up most of the town’s businesses, taking the children to the playground or to play mini golf.

The weekends were a different story though. On the weekends my father and his wife would take us on outings - long outings that required packing food and water bottles and bug spray. The three mile hike up the Fingerpoint trail shown yesterday was the first such outing. The next was a five mile hike through part of Judge Magney State Park, along the Brule River.

I’ve known this hike was in the plans since last year when we walked the park trails with the children. They enjoyed it so much and had so much energy to spare at the end that my step-mother commented that next time we’d do the longer version, to which my son enthusiastically replied “okay!” I just wasn’t sure I was going to join them until this year!

Five miles sounds like a long way, and it is. But in reality, it wasn’t too bad. Once we reached the river, we took frequent breaks so my step-mother’s dog could swim and the kids could wade and there was plenty of interesting stuff to see along the way.

(click any picture below for a larger view)

Just in case you thought I was exaggerating about the distance - or you were interested in seeing it for yourself

A toadstool growing in the middle of the trail. Looked so pretty just sitting there in the sun…

It’s never a problem to get my son to walk in the woods where there are such yummy thimble berries to be found and eaten! He snacked the whole way!

Pretty, but inedible.

See - I wasn’t the only one who thought it was a long walk!

Anyone know the name of this wildflower? My step-mother told me but I forgot…

Pretty much the extent of the wildlife we saw that day!

It was just sitting there, waiting for me to take its picture…

But what a reward! The Devil’s Kettle water fall, Brule River. So named because there is a hole on the left that about half of the river plunges down into and supposedly no one knows where it comes out…My step-mother’s dog almost found out this year, trying to retrieve his stick from the current upstream. There were a few tense moments there, but I’m happy to say he let the stick go and came back to shore. Smart dog!

Tomorrow, the last of the vacation photos (promise!)

I have so many pictures of my time in Minnesota - what do you want? It’s a picturesque place! - I can’t possibly share them all here. I took the most pictures when I was out hiking in the woods so those are the ones you’ll get to see

My first stop in Minnesota was Duluth. We stayed in town a couple of days after flying in so I could do a bit of back to school shopping (school starts tomorrow - woo hoo!!) and take the kids to do a few town things, like visit the zoo. As zoos go, it is fairly small but it had some nice exhibits and was just big enough for the kids to get a good run around.

I try to resist taking animal pictures because they never turn out very well, but this guy was practically posing for the camera!

Calm down - it’s not a real tortoise…

Once I arrived in the woods, the first really long hike we took was actually just over the border in Ontario - called Fingerpoint Trail. The trail head actually starts in the parking lot of the Ontario Welcome Center and following the trail to the summit is actually about a 3 mile walk.

See that bump? The top of that knob is our goal…

The view from the top of the knob - beautiful!

This is a beach along Lake Superior where the trail passes. If you collect driftwood, this is the beach for you!

This shiny log caught my eye - hasn’t dried out quite as much as the others and was shining like gold in the sun

The children loved to play on the various beaches along Lake Superior - any excuse would do. It’s hardly the worst place in the world to hang out for an hour so I spent a lot of time there while they stripped down and swam. I thought after the first time that the frigid water temperatures would put them off, but what do I know? So while they played polar bears, I snacked. Look at all the wonderful beach food I found:

There is nothing tastier than wild raspberries - picking them yourself makes them taste better!

Wild beach peas - they only grow in the rocks and gravel along the beach.

These are best eaten raw - like most fresh peas. Yummy!

Tomorrow - more pictures from the deep woods…

All this week, I’ll be sharing photos from my summer vacation. It killed me not to be able to do that all along while I was actually on the spot, but it couldn’t be helped. If looking at other people’s vacation photos isn’t your thing, it could be a boring week for you. I have picked out a handful from the more than 200 I took, but I forgive you if you don’t hang around!

Our first stop was Asbury Park, New Jersey - which also happens to be the inspiration for my first book Here To Stay. Since I only recently found out that Here To Stay will be released in print sometime this fall, it was a particularly nice time to revisit Asbury Park.

I have loved Asbury Park since the first time I visited. Its hey-day as a weekend and holiday getaway was way back in the 40s & 50s and by the time I discovered it in the 90s, it was deserted and decrepit. And a potentially dangerous place to hang around. Stories abounded of people being mugged on the boardwalk in broad daylight and the old buildings were crumbling. Very few businesses existed on that section of the boardwalk and there were fewer people still taking advantage of the beach. I could never get my mind around how such a lovely location could be so neglected and forgotten. Aside from Bruce Springsteen, surely someone somewhere cared about Asbury Park enough to invest some money in it?

Until July of this year, I hadn’t been to Asbury Park in almost seven years. It was a wonderful surprise to see it doing so well. The old buildings are being restored, the Convention Center - once a creepy, echo-y shell of a building - now houses several businesses and hosts events, and the boardwalk is lined with shops and restaurants and people. I can remember when we didn’t go out after dark for fear of our lives. Now it is difficult to find a time when the boardwalk isn’t crawling with people. It’s wonderful.

Asbury Park beach, August 1998

You’ll have to take my word - this is the same stretch of beach in July 2008!

Asbury Park boardwalk, heading toward Ocean Grove, 1998
This same stretch of boardwalk is now lined with shops and activities. I’d have taken a picture this year but it would have just looked like a mass of people!

Asbury Park Convention Center, 1998

This used to be an empty shell of a building that you had to pass through to make your way down the boardwalk

Asbury Park Convention Center, 2008
This shot was taken in late afternoon when most of the sun bathers had gone home for the day. We had dinner at a neat Irish pub in the Convention Center one night. I also noticed a poster advertising an upcoming Bob Dylan concert being held there. Definitely more than a pass through now!

An old amusement park located just beside the boardwalk, 1998

Here’s what’s left of the amusement hall. Judging by how well they are trying to restore most of the older buildings, this one must have been in really bad shape. Nice to see that some of it was able to be salvaged. Though that clown face is enough to keep me from going inside!

Victorian lovelies, Ocean Grove, 1998

These houses start just after the boundary line between Asbury Park and Ocean Grove. The demarcation line isn’t so stark as it used to be but I never could figure out why a few hundred feet made such a difference. But just look at them! Is is any wonder I wanted to put story into one?

Tomorrow and the rest of the week: the wilds of northern Minnesota…

There are so many things to see in and around Luxor that unless you have a lot of time to explore, it can be hard to fit them all in. On our third day, we opted to arrange for a guided tour that included the colossi of Memnon, the Valley of the Queens, the Valley of the Kings, and the funerary temple of Hatshepsut.

Our first stop was at the colossi of Memnon. They are large. It might just be me but they remind me a little of the stormtroopers from Starwars. Or maybe it’s the other way round!

This guy had pigeons nesting in his cracks

Villagers working in the field right next to the colossi. It’s astonishingly lush between the Nile and where the Valley of the Kings starts.

Unfortunately Nefartari’s tomb, the most magnificent of them, was not open when we visited. Also unfortunately, there is a no photo rule inside the tombs. You’ll just have to take my word for it that the ones we saw, the tombs of Amunherkhepshep and his mother, were wonderful.

We went next to the funerary temple of Hatshepsut, the mother-in-law of Tuthmosis III, who ruled Egypt as a pharoah for 20 years. The temple was vandalized by a number of other pharoahs, including Thuthmosis III who removed all the images of Hatshepsut he could find. This temple was also the site of the 1997 Luxor Massacre.

The still visible painted reliefs, with stars on the ceiling

King Tut’s tomb is open but requires a separate (and expensive) entrance ticket. Because he was so young when he died, his tomb is rather small and simple by comparison to the others and all of his impressive treasure has been removed to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Steps leading down into Ramses I tomb

Once again, no photos inside. I bought a package of lovely oversized postcards to make up for it.

Howard Carter’s house, on a hill near the entrance of the Valley of the Kings.

Each of the dark openings on the hillside is a tomb in the Valley of the Nobles. We could have spent our entire stay looking at tombs and still not seen them all!

A ferry boat for local people, loading up on the west bank of the Nile.

Valley of the Kings as seen from the water

We spent the rest of the day lounging next to the pool at our hotel. It was no hardship!

As you might imagine, the kid’s pool was a huge hit with the children!

Don’t forget to stop by over the weekend. Chris Power will be here talking about whether it’s better to write a story for a market or write a story for yourself. See you!

We fully intended on getting up and out early on our second day. The heat of the day was enervating - hovering close to 110F by midday. It was closer to midmorning by the time we got ourselves organized to go out, but we didn’t let it stop us. We were determined to see the Temple of Karnak.

It wasn’t an easy outing. We took the shuttle boat from our hotel into town, intending to then take a taxi. I only thought the taxi drivers in Cairo were obnoxious. I *almost* had to admire the relentlessness with which we were pursued by taxi drivers and horse drawn carriages - I say almost because it reached a point where their aggressive haggling was scaring the children. Why didn’t we just take a taxi as intended? Because for a time every driver we encountered was asking 3x the normal rate for the ride. We did eventually find a more reasonable driver but only after having walked about 1/3 of the way ourselves.

The entrance to the Temple of Karnak is lined with rams headed sphinxes. And you know I took more pictures!! It’s just amazing to think that these were each individually made.

I love the small people figures below the beards.

I was lucky to get so many nice pictures that make it look as if we had the place to ourselves - in fact, this is what it looked like in the hypostyle hall - the heat did not deter anyone!

There are 134 massive columns in the hypostyle hall, each heavily decorated with hyroglyphics. This was once roofed and also ornately painted. It’s hard to imagine when it’s already so lovely as it is.

And here is a bit of modern graffiti - added only the day before our visit. I’ll never understand what moves people to deface ancient ruins…

The sacred lake.

A lovely stairway to a now vanished area of the temple complex

A tranquil temple near the rear of the complex where you can still see the remains of paint on the columns and roof. It took us a while to get back this far so we had it mostly to ourselves.

The end of the temple complex - but apparently not the end of the temple. According to our Lonely Planet guide book, this temple was once connected to the Temple of Luxor by a 3km avenue lined with sphinxes - most of which lies beneath the modern city of Luxor. Imagine what that must have looked like! I really could have taken pictures of sphinxes all day!

Alas, we did not get to see the sound and light show in the evening. Perhaps the next time we are in Luxor.

Tomorrow: Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens, and the Funerary Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir al-Bahri plus bonus pictures from along the Nile.

Our second (and last) full day in Siwa started with a visit to Gebel El Mawta (mountain of the dead). There were two very old Egyptian tombs we went into - the paintings were amazing (alas, no photos allowed) The rest of the mountain was honeycombed with Greco-Roman tombs.

A view through a tomb at the top of the “mountain”

like this one.

Views of the remains of Old Shali fortress

A hillside riddled with Greco-Roman tombs. Amazing to me, but merely a blip in the grand scheme of Egyptian history!

Some local boys visiting Ain Shuruf Spring

Our last day away was spent on a bus as we drove back to Cairo in one shot - twelve hours!! It too had its interesting points. I was sitting there reading on my ebookwise book reader and got to chatting with an older man sitting across the aisle from me. He was so interested in my reader and the concept of ebooks that he’s planning on buying his own! Not only that, but after talking about books for a while, he confided that he’d recently read the Nora Roberts book “Birthright” and really enjoyed it. I just loaned him four more from my own collection. Always willing to do my part to woo more people to romance.

I’ve glossed over so many details of the history of the Siwa area. For a more detailed account you can visit this site.

Next month: Luxor and the Valley of the Kings. Can’t wait!!

Edited to add: In other news, my daugher’s Tamagotchi (virtual pet) got married and had a baby while we were away. Guess she’s doing something right

For the interest of anyone who is curious where exactly Siwa Oasis is in relation to Cairo, I’ve included a map. (Click on it to enlarge). It’s roughly 800km from Cairo to Siwa.

Our second day started with the drive from Marsa Matrouh to Siwa, which takes about 4 hours. This is pretty much what the scenery looked like:

Here’s Mr. Matthews standing in the middle of nowhere. What the picture doesn’t capture is the buffeting wind that was sweeping across this broad flat expanse - bringing mouthfuls of grit with it. I could have tied a rope on my youngest and used him for a kite. I hopped out to stretch my legs and take his picture then promptly got back on the bus!

After arriving in the town of Siwa and checking in at our hotel, our first outing was to the Temple of the Oracle, the place where Alexander the Great was allegedly told that he was to be the king of Egypt.

A village girl, coming out to sell trinkets to people on our bus

A glance down a side street in Siwa. I love the Vodafone sign in such a rural and rustic place. I do have to say that I had excellent cell phone reception nearly the entire time!

It was unusually hot for this time of year, reaching near 104F most days. It was an exceptionally dry heat, but there is only so much of that sort of baking in the sun a person can take before they need to cool down. Fortunately our hotel had its own “spring”

I have no idea if this was an actual spring - there are several in the area - but the water was near frigid. I prefer my pool water temperature to be closer to bath water, but even I took a dip after a day spent walking around in the heat of the desert. A one time splash in that water was enough to numb my outer layer. After that I basked in the sun to dry off - an enterprise that took about 10 minutes. Did I mention how dry it was?

One more day of pictures to share and then Liz Jasper will be here over the weekend as my Friday Feature. Where has the week gone?

First a little information about Siwa:

The oasis of Siwa is more than the gateway to the Great Sand Sea. This once sleepy frontier town, less than 50 kilometers from the border of Libya, has a rich cultural history. Siwa is home to Egypt’s only native Berber population as well as the famed Temple of the Oracle. Alexander the Great traveled here and obtained the confirmation he sought: the priests of the Oracle addressed him as deity and established his right to rule Egypt. Famous for its olives and dates, Siwa was once an important stop on the Caravan Route. But to protect the oasis from hostile invaders the Siwans built the Fortress of Shali in the 12th century and for hundreds of years no one went in. And while Siwa first appeared on an Egyptian map in the 26th dynasty, it was likely settled long before that. Flints found in the area suggest that Siwa was inhabited during the Paleolithic and Neolithic eras when the barren desert was a lush savannah.

We left Cairo for the Siwa Oasis, located in north central Egypt, bright and early on Thursday morning. This was a tour organized by the university where my husband works so there were about 50 of us on a huge bus, driving time two days. There are worse ways to travel in Egypt, believe me!

I took my first picture of the trip at a rest stop about an 1 1/2 hours outside of Cairo. (Note: clicking on any picture will make it larger)

I love taking pictures of goofy signs and how on earth could I resist the irony of this one - of a coffee with a name like this in such a conservative country? Sole Agent of Latin Lover in Egypt, indeed!

Our first real stop was at the Al Alamein War Memorial. I am no WWII history buff but apparently Al Alamein was the site of a huge battle in which the allies were able to defeat the Germans, ending German hopes of occupying Egypt, controlling access to the Suez Canal and gaining access to Middle East oil fields. An important turning point in the war in North Africa.

For a while I read the headstones, the names and ages of the soldiers killed, the inscriptions added by the family they left behind, but I soon had to stop. It was incredibly poignant to see the number of headstones - so many young men, life ended too soon, interred in this remote and dusty foreign place so far from home, some unidentified. The number of headstones here represents those they actually found - there were apparently tens of thousands killed whose bodies were never recovered.

We then drove a few more hours to Marsa Matrouh, a city on the North Coast, arriving late afternoon. Our hotel sat on the edge of the Mediterranean. It was almost impossible to look away from the vivid aquas and blues of the water there - and equally impossible to capture the colors with my camera at that time of the day. I suspect we’ll go back at some point, just to spend the weekend on the beach. The children did not get their fill of beach time during our short stay there.

Stay tuned…tomorrow I will post more pictures taken in and around the Siwa area….