Suez and Sinai

Sunday, Nov. 15 -- Last full day in Egypt. We visited the oldest mosque in Cairo, which is also the oldest intact mosque in Africa, Ibn Tulun Mosque. It was mostly interesting because Ussama demonstrated how Muslims pray -- five times a day. They wash themselves first, then prostrate a couple of times, say a couple of different prayers, one from the Koran and one they make up. If you pray on time each of the five times, it's 27 times better than praying at the wrong time. Apparently they just made up that number because it means absolutely nothing. They face Mecca, of course, but I didn't know that in the mosque, they also have to be shoulder to shoulder. The prayers are called at a different time every day, depending on the position of the sun. This means that as the world turns (sounds like a soap opera), someone is praying every minute of the day.

Next door is the Gayer-Anderson Museum, notable as the location of "The Spy Who Loves Me." Full of Egyptian artifacts, very ornate, very interesting. I'm posting a picture of Karen, Rita and me, looking out from behind carved "windows" as Muslim women used to do. They can see out, but no one can see in. I believe this is the best picture of the girls from the entire trip.

That was it for Cairo. We had about an eight-hour bus ride, past the Suez Canal (we went under it through a tunnel), drove along the coast of the Red Sea, dotted with resorts and oil platforms and where dozens of ships waited to pass through the canal, and then through the Sinai, which is a mix of desert and mountains. The Egyptian flag was wrapped around the back of our bus, in honor of last night's victory over Algeria, so we were greeted with lots of happy honks and the equivalent of high fives along the way. We're now near the Monastery of St. Katherine, or Kathreine, as they spell it, which is at the base of Mt. Sinai. It's quite cold, believe it or not. Some of the more adventuresome are climbing Mt. Sinai tomorrow morning; the rest will get some sleep.

I want everyone to know this is being typed on an Arabic keyboard. Impressed?