Day 33, part 2, holy ****, bush plane

"I booked you a flight from Zanzi to Dar," says Greg. He gives me a time and an airline, and tells me to be prepared to throw an elbow, or step on small children, or whatever else it takes to secure the co-pilot seat. "Trust me," he says.

I get to the airport and am not exactly sure of the procedure- my boarding pass says CA DAR 14:00. My boarding pass is handwritten, on the back of a napkin. In the waiting area, nobody is calling flights, no information is posted- 10 minutes before takeoff I give in and ask. Late flight- but not very. I needn't have worried. A guy with a clipboard walks up to one of the gates and mumbles, "Dar passengers." There are two of us. We approach the plane, packed with six other people. Empty co-pilot seat. "May I sit up front?" I ask. The guy loading us raises an eyebrow and says sure, throw your bags in the back, and climb up the ladder.

I do this- and am sitting, as promised, in the co-pilot seat, controls literally between my knees. It is an antique bush plane, I swear, an actual prop plane, with old-fashioned details and a scotch-taped-on label that says, "GPS not suitable for navigation."

The teenaged Dutch pilot says, "Twenty minutes to Dar, please do not unfasten your seat belts."

As if.

We take off, shoulder first: I have never seen this manoeuver in an airplane. But then, this is no ordinary airplane. It is the approximate age, size, and condition of my parents' 1968 Volkswagon Beetle, on which I learned to drive.

It is light enough that you feel, no kidding, every puff of wind. The payoff, of course, is looking down into that spectacular blue water. Zanzibar is surrounded by shifting sandbars, and the changing depths create every shade of blue, from bright turquoise on up through cobalt. You can even see the directon of the currents, little rivers of water skimming across the Indian Ocean in fingers, since they're more reflective and shimmery than the rest.

Twice during the flight, there is a series of piercing warning beeps. I stopped breathing, particularly as there were controls between my knees. I had the worst, I mean the worst vision of a scene from "Airplane," in which the pilot keeled over and I, because I was sitting in the front, would have to land the plane, while translating radio-tower instructions in Swahili. I questioned, seriously, every single decision that had led me to this point. Turned out not to be a big deal; out of my peripheral vision (I was pretending to be a statue) I could see that the beeps didn't make my pilot flinch, so I relaxed.

To round out my day of adventuresome transport, I also got to take a tuk-tuk and a dala-dala. The tuk-tuk was on the way to a beachfront restaurant. Greg was leading the way, and Greg is tall, and fast. I'm tall, sort of, but I had to trot to keep up. Before I know it has has flagged down a tuk-tuk on the street and the three of us wedge in. It is slightly smaller than my bush plane- kind of like a moped with a shell and a bucket seat in back. "Did you see my bargaining skills?" Greg asks. "No, how'd it go?" I said. "He wanted 3 thousand," said Greg, but I got him all the way down to 3 thousand." I was in the middle so I had the safety seat- Greg and Kate were hanging on to the rails to keep from getting bounced out from either side. The turn we took across 3 lanes of onrushing traffic, in what is essentially a glorified Big Wheel, was exhilarating.

Coming home, two beachfront beers and a large dinner later, I am again trotting behind Greg when he swerves and jumps, without hesitation, onto a half-stopped minibus, or dala-dala. Kate, used to these sorts of transitions, steps in gracefully, fitting herself neatly into the closely nested crowd. As I step in the people-packer, actually serving as a safety net because the door won't close, yells up to the driver, not unkindly, "Mzungi!" It's one of the 4 Swahili words I know, and it means something like (I hope I'm not offending anyone here,) "Whitey." I am half on one step, half on another, and it gets to be even more fun at the next stop when a few more people pile in. I know a lot, I mean a lot, about my fellow passengers now. We hop off and make it the rest of the way home on foot. I feel like I have done some things today.

Tomorrow: I am booked on the Dar Reality Bike Tour- 6 hours, a bike, the streets of Dar. Have mercy.

Day 33: Stone Town Snipe Hunt, success

After I wrote about Cairo being a less-than-pleasant place for a female traveler, I got a couple of great messages. My friend Lyndsay was on a trip once where some Israeli men tried to trade camels for the women in the group. I thought that was great, because who among us knows our worth in camels? (Lyndsay does- but really, she's priceless.) Kristin, who won a huge travel grant and spent 10 weeks traveling last summer, commented that great experiences always follow the bad ones while you're traveling- to the extent that, when she had a small misfortune, she's immediately starts anticipating a great surprise.

And it's been true for me, too- when you start looking around, all kinds of great things will fall into your lap. Zanzibar has been even better than I wanted it to be- and I was afraid I was overly excited and I knew my expectations were high. Zanzibar in the dark? A really surprising gift, as it just added to the allure and mystique of Stone Town. Stone Town itself? So lively, so colorful, so diverse. The thrill of starting to find my own way, though I stayed lost about 50% of the time- so satisfying.

So while Greg and Kate were here, I kept almost finding my project site from studio. I can find it on Google Earth in about 4 seconds, or on a detailed map in 10, but I had no detailed map with me, and I can't get high enough for the right rooftop view. And my landmark- a huge interior courtyard- is all but invisible from the street. And of course, on the ground, everything looks remarkably similar. I kept saying, "Oh wait! Maybe...no, we're too close to the water. Oh there's a ...wait, which way is north? Isn't the fort over there?" And I felt like I was on a snipe hunt, and dragging very patient Kate around with me. And lordy, it's hot here for extraneous movement.

In the House of Wonders, the old sultan's palace so named because it was one of the first places in East Africa to have electricity, there's a great museum and a giant wall-sized aerial map. Another gift- I figured out every turn and landmark and went for it.

My site, is has to be said, was lacking in on-the-ground information beyond building footprints. I knew there was a mosque, but had to guess at everything other than the roof lines. In my presentation, I used photos of a sample Zanzibar mosque, unidentifed in photos, and a typical floor plan from another source. Because Stone Town is so, so small, although it looks big on the map, it was less than 5 minutes from the palace to my site. Wonders never cease- the typical unidentified mosque I'd been using- was actually my mosque. I peeked in- same with the random floor plan. It looks, but exactly, like the itty bitty model I made. I decided, as I knew I would when I got there, that my project is all wrong and I want to start again- but it was really great to stand in front if it. For the record, the buildings I hypothetically demolished to make room for my building are new and awful and out of place, so I no longer feel hypothetical guilt. I could see beautiful almond trees peeking out over a makeshift corrugated scrap fence, which would be perfect for the small courtyard I designed. I practically ran to the internet shop to e-mail my professor.

One other little bit of travel magic I've already shared with a few of you: I have been waking up every morning to the sound of school children singing chanting songs. I love this. I do not miss being a teacher, but I wouldn't mind a roomfull of these precious little Zanzibaris. The are beautiful children, happy and running about in the streets after school, in full robes and head coverings, no matter how tiny. I want to scoop them all up and read them picture books and buy them all ice cream. My Zanzibar studio project was an Islamic school for girls. When I located the source of the singing this morning, it's an Islamic school, for girls, right underneath my bedroom window.

Day 32, Night in Stone Town

This one's brief. Greg and Kate went back to Dar today, and I'm staying behind for the two more days to relax, sketch, take pictures, coughbuyjewelrycough, and find my studio site. Way harder than it sounds.)

Now that I'm navigating on myown, I really have to test my skills. Kate warned me about the rookie mistake of picking out landmarks in the daytime, like shoe shops or book shops, because when the shopfronts close at night, you get a sea of blank walls. And this is a place where you get and give directions like, go left right right right right left, and then veer left at the trash pile, and then take a right at the scrambling pile of cats. But I think I've figured some things out. Leaving the concert tonight on my own, I hired a walking taxi, but he had no idea where my hotel was. I was game to try it as long as I had a big guy with a flashlight with me. In the dark, I walked us straight back to my hotel, no false moves, no wrong turns. I was so excited I high-fived my taxi.

Zanzibar, Part 3: Are we on day 31? 32? Island time...

At last, some overdue words about my hosts in Tanzania Greg and Kate Giles. Both Texans, both former Raleigh-ites, both artistic souls, and two of the coolest people I know (together and separately.) I know this twosome via Greg, having met him 10 years ago on another trip to Africa. This one was a teacher trip to Ghana to study design through the NC Art Musuem, and we ended up as co-workers at Centennial Middle School after that. There Greg taught art and created all kinds of mischief. He was captain of our bowling team (Face Down in the Gutter), and I'm pretty sure he instigated the faculty/student basketball game. He was responsible for cleaning us all out of nickels at his annual last-day-of-school poker party. Greg has always been unflappable. He reminded me recently of an incident with one of our most lively students, haggling in the hall with our assistant principal. She said, "Time to go back to class with Mr. Giles," and the student said, "Mr. Giles? That old bitch?" To which Greg responded, "Who you callin' OLD?" (Pure gold.) Furthermore, if you play croquet with Greg, he will make up rules on the fly, such as, "Now you've done it. You are two inches away from the Wicket of Death. Now you have to drink a Rogue Shakespeare Stout, do a cartwheel, and tell somebody a lie. Fast." So that's Greg, or Greggae, or Greggorio, or Gilesy-Wilesy, or G-Snap, depending on the day.

Kate Giles: equally fabulous. These two are a perfect pair, as attested to by the fact that they are one of the happiest, sweetest couples I know, and they've been married for 15 years despite their tender young age. If you ate at Edible Arts, or ate a wedding cake of any kind from, say, 1995-2007, then you also know Kate. One of her many talents is cake decorating, which at this point she'd like to keep under wraps or she'll never have a moment's peace in Tanzania. Additionally, Kate is a fantastic cook in every other category. Making tortillas by hand? Making collards edible? Making cocktails out of fresh vanilla beans? No problem. The Giles Calzone Party, consistently, was the highlight of my annual social calendar: house stuffed to the rafters with hungry people, vats of Kate's homemade tomato sauce and gobs of fresh dough, mannequins and fairy lights in the bathtub, 1950's freezer in the den full of CD's, round after round of make-your-own calzones coming out of the oven. I already loved Kate but now she is a lifetime friend: instead of the agreed-upon cab driver with a sign to meet me at my obnoxiously early 5 a.m. arrival in Tanzania, there was Kate instead. She shepherded me onto the ferry in a daze and we watched the sun come up over the water at dawn as we came into Zanzibar. She has been navigating these streets like an Eagle Scout, showing me all kinds of treasures and keeping me from getting ripped off by the fabric sellers and run over by the motorbikes. (Fun aside, these are called "piki-piki's" because that's how they sound: piki piki piki piki piki.)

So, between the two of them, everything you want halfway through a long trip. Greg and I have toasted old colleagues and reminisced about bowling shirts and listened to East African music. Kate and I have wandered the streets for at least a couple of hours every day, shopping and chattering. All three of us have shared great food, and all three of us love the roof.

Greg, it has to be said, wins the prize here. Greg, in fact, has a master's degree in Roof. He's up in our breezy rooftop lounge long before I'm up, with breakfast and coffee and book. I straggle up there as Kate is finishing breakfast, and we do coffee and chit-chat while Greg chills. We head out for fabric shopping; Greg, unswerving in his focus, camps out in the lounge, not missing a moment of steady breeze and the sea of rooftops below. We all head out for a great lunch somewhere else breezy; then, in the heat of the day, we Roof again.

Today I spent two hours napping across two of the Arabian lounge chairs up there- except that it was too great to actually sleep. I would look up at the stained glass above the shutters, backlit with Zanzibar sun and blue sky, then close my eyes and see the reverse pattern floating around for a couple of minutes. Then I'd stare up at the ceiling looking for the fan and remember that there is none- just a stiff steady perfect sea-breeze. I lounged there with Kate reading on one side, and Greg reading at his little balcony triangle table on the other, and thought about how lucky I am, and how perfect this is, and how I wish all of our old friends were here with us, and that all my new friends could come meet them too- trust me, you'd have a great time.

Zanzibar, part 2

Other than the street wandering, which is full of wonders, there's something else amazing about Stone Town: the power is out. The power, in fact, has been out for weeks. Again, nobody cares. I know of entire states that would be shut down by such circumstances; here in Zanzibar, they're used to a spotty power grid. The bigger hotels (which are still small) have generators, which are on and off at scheduled times. The music festival, also running on generators, has proceeded wtihout a hiccup. Nobody has explained to anyone exactly why the power is out, or why it will take weeks to fix it- something to do with a severed cable from the mainland, and probably some politics. And it has not slowed anyone down. The best thing about all of this is gettng to walk the labyrinth of Stone Town streets, a complete and utter maze in broad daylight, in the dark. And I'm not being sarcastic- weaving through these canyons, it's dark, indeed- but as I've said before, there's dark, and there's dark. This is not a scary dark- I'd call it a dynamic dark. WE have flashlights, and as you walk through the streets you see a few houses with candles, and a small bonfire at the odd open space. Small bands of children (or bands of small children?) are out playing in the alleys. At one spot there's a bit of an expanse and a wall for sitting; someone has rigged a small TV to a generator, and people are gathered like it's a movie theater. (For the record, last night it was Wanted with Angelina Jolie, and as we walked past even I was riveted by the scene on top of the Chicago El when she does that cool move to duck the tunnel. Showstopper.) Lots of people are out on their stoops chatting. If someone walks by with a cigarette, you can see him coming from way off as a pinpoint of light. The stars are phenomenal, and there's music off in the distance. This place feels so much older than it is, anyway- the darkness at night seems to feel right, and it's a really nice way to see the city. And we approach our hotel, all lit up and waiting for us, after the music festival late at night.

Here's where the "rest for the weary" part comes in. This place, the Zanzibar Coffee House Hotel, is probably the coolest place I've ever stayed. For starters, it's an old Arab house- meaning, thick stone walls, very inwardly focused, and designed around two different light wells. Technically they might be called courtyards, but they're tiny- just enough to let a tiny shaft of light down into the lobby, which most of the day just washes down part of the wall. (Good plan. You don't want to be standing in that shaft of light here.) The rooms branch off around the two light wells, and it's even kind of a maze inside the hotel, because another two twisting stairways lead you up to the roof. This makes perfect sense; it is dark at the bottom and gets lighter and breezier as you go up. You'd think the darkness at the bottom would be a bid thing, but coming in off the street and out of the tropical sun, it's delicious. And the heat rises up and out through the airshaft.

The alternative, also great, is to climb a few flights of stairs to the shaded rooftop lounge. It's one of my new favorite places in the world. It's high enough to catch the sea breeze, and stays comfortable even in the hottest part of the day. It's got a balcony on all four sides, with triangular tables tucked into each corner. There's a room in the middle with shutters you can open and close as needed. That room: filled with low chairs and cushions. Perfect height for reading, beer drinking, lounging horizontally in the breeze, or, in Greg Giles fashion, starting upright with a book and slowly sliding to horizontal napping mode. There's a stocked fridge at the bottom of the stairs, so you grab your alternating cold ginger ale and cold beer, write it down on a little notepad, and head up to the lounge for a couple of hours.

And speaking of lounging, there is my room, my other new favorite place in the world. Because we booked this room at the last minute, over 4 months ago, the only one left was the "Arabica Suite." They will have to drag me out of here, I mean it. The ceiling, at my best guess, is 18' high. There are 6 arched window alcoves with layers and layers of carved shutters. There are two enormous window seats. These are about 6 inches off teh floor, with curved backs, covered with what the brochure described as "loungey pillows." I am lying on one to write this, right now.

The other fabulous feature: a huge, huge I tell you, Zanzibar bed. It is so elaborately carved that I want to cry with joy. A Zanzibar bed is usuallypretty tall, and instead of 4 corner bedposts, there are carved pieces coming up from the center of the headboard and footboard. These hold up the canopy frame, and the yards and yards of mosquito netting. I feel like a princess. There is a candelabra over my bed. And a cool stone floor, and beautiful wood furniture. This room is as big as my house. It's my only non-budget hotel room of this trip; truly, if I'd had much choice, I would have felt obligated to go cheap. But I'm glad I didn't. My travels have been miraculously smooth so far, but this is such a great rest. After Cairo, and an overnight flight, and a few weeks of changing time zones and gadding about on different continents, I need it. Today: I woke up whenever. Breakfast on the roof; shopping and strolling with my friend Kate; then all 3 of us had a great lunch, got our books, and spent the hottest part of the day reading and napping on the roof. Blissful and breezy. It's such an embarrassment of riches: it's so much fun in the streets that it's hard to come in. The rooftop is so relaxing you never want to leave. The music festival is so great you don't want to miss any of it. And the room....well, as I've already said, they'll have to drag me out of here.

Much more to come- I hope nobody is feeling obligated to read all of this verbiage, but I can't help it!! My entries are getting wordy but there is so much to say- the only solution, obviously, is for you to come join me here. Best to all on Valentine's Day back home-

Day 30. Zanzibar, Sauti Za Busara, and Rest for the Weary (part 1)

Oh sweet slice of exotic tropical heaven. I love Zanzibar. This is not news. Anybody would love Zanzibar. This is a fascinating, fascinating place, and lovely in a way unlike any other place I've ever been. This particular part of the trip is a Big Deal to me, personally and academically. Personally: two of my favorite people, Greg and Kate Giles, live in Dar Es Salaam. When I told them I was studying Zanzibar and also that I would love to come by and see them on my world tour, they said hell yes, and invited me to a music festival in Zanzibar. One does not turn down such an invitation. They get their own blog post later. Academically: because Paul Tesar is a fantastic professor and understands that people work harder when they're excited about things, he let us pick our own sites for our last studio project, and thus I got to study Zanzibar.

A brief bit of background, for anyone who hasn't heard me yammer on about it for the last few months: Zanzibar is a small island off the coast of Tanzania, about 90 minutes by ferry from Dar. It's been part of Tanzania since 1964 (Tanganika + Zanzibar = Tanzania) but it's semi-autonomous. What makes it such a facinating place: it's a spice island, and for centuries because of its spices and safe harbor and trade winds, it has attracted all of the following: Persians, Indians, Arabs, Chinese, the British, the Dutch, and African mainlanders, to name a few. Because of the trade wind situation, people didn't just come through Zanzibar- they stayed for six months at a time, until the winds reversed and they could sail home; they all brought their cultures with them. And because of the money to be made here, many stayed permanently- the majority of these being Omani traders and Indian merchants, with a good mix of everything else.

Too late for this to be brief, but a bit more: Stone Town, the main city on the island, is a World Heritage Site due to its unique history and design. It's in danger, literally, of collaps: 80% of the buildings here are decaying or damaged, due to a lack of funds for upkeep, and problems with using a porous stone as a building block in a tropical climate. For all that, which is everywhere evident, Stone Town is really lovely. To create shade (just south of the equator, after all) people built tightly. The streets are no more than 8 or 10 feet wide. Most places you could lie down and touch the walls on both sides. The buildings are tall for such narrow streets, 4 to 6 stories, so it's like walking through a canyon. Details vary, but gorgeously carved doors are everywhere, and every single building is made of the same coral limestone and plaster. All along the streets, every kind of bench, stoop, and step is carved into the buildings and shopfronts, so people are hanging out everywhere, quite comfortably.

Despite a few mishaps I am generally pretty good at navigating, particulary if I have looked at a map ahead of time. I spent weeks and weeks documenting this place, so I should know it fairly well, at least in concept. I mean, I drew diagrams color-coded with everything from architectural origin to level of decay, for every single building in Stone Town, and mapped every single landmark and significant street. On paper. On the ground, I could not navigate my way across town for love nor money, since everything looks the same. And if you figure out a few landmarks in the daylight, forget it- once the shopfronts close, the whole streetscape changes again.

The beautiful thing? Nobody cares. The whole point of wandering Stone Town is to spend a few hours being pleasantly lost. It's not nearly as big as I imagined it, anyway, and the streets are lined with shopes and people sitting in the shade and children playing games. Walking in the shady streets, even the equatorial sun is no problem. Eventually you'll hit water, or a road for cars, or the old fort, then you re-orient and dive back in.

The labyrinth I was looking for at Knossos? Here. But one fun thing: you can hire a walking taxi if you need to. For about $1.50, they'll cheerfully guide you back to your hotel.

(to be continued!)

Day 27. Islamic Cairo

Decided to give it a go, alone on foot today. This is bigger than it sounds- Cairo is pretty overstimulating, and I actually feel a little dazed. I struck out on foot yesterday for a couple of hours, in search of food and general orientation; ino two hours I found nothing that I was sure was a restaurant, and certainly nowhere to sit and have coffee. I found water, and grocery stores with canned food, but not much to eat. As I had missed breakfast at my hotel due to the Giza tour, and skipped lunch while touring, this was getting to be problematic. (At this point, a big thank-you to Mom for the Whole Foods snacks!)

I did make one friend, at a juice stand. He gave me the only real smile I have seen in my 4 days in Cairo. He was ecstatic when I went in for water. "Thank you!! Hellooo!! Welcome!!" So I also asked for an orange. He looked crestfallen, so I said, "...and also juice?" So he clapped his hands and said, "For you try this." And he poured a small splash of something white into a glass from a milk bottle he fished out of a giant freezer. Sweet slushy ice-cold coconut mikk. Fabulous. He gave me something else to taste, which he said was from India; tamarind juice, I think. I thought too late, "Hmm- I wonder if that was crushed ice, or just frozen coconut milk? Was there water mixed in that drink? Do I have a bout of water-bourne illness coming on?" Oh well, if so, I have Cipro. If that didn't do it, the handsful of salty roasted pumpkin seeds my cab driver kept plying on me today will. But they were really good, too, and it's so hard to refuse people who are trying to be nice. (Which is how I got giardia in Costa Rica, but that's a separate story.)
And, frankly, not so many people I've met this week are particularly nice.

Today's desination, on foot, is Islamic Cairo. My guidebook points out that it's no more or less Islamic than the rest of the city, just so-named for the number of medieval mosques in the neighborhood. This walk is by turns beautiful and chaotic. Cairo is one of the dirtiest places I've ever seen, but there are spots that are swept clean and are bright and open. Winding through the main pedestrian street in the medieval quarter, I discover all the hassling and unwanted attention I had mistakenly expeceted in Istanbul. This time it was aggressive and not at all charming. You'd accept a handshake, only to find that that person wouldn't let go. You'd walk down a lane only to have someone fully block your path to deliver a sales pitch. I went down one street and was proposed to, in a vulgar way, six times. The entrepreneurial optimism in places like this is actually kind of endearing. People seem to have a belief that, for the right price, they can sell you anything. Bicycle tire. Tacky t-shirt. Water pipe. (I can't pass one of those without laughing about the "smug hookah" in those "Unhappy Hipsters" photos.) But I was at the end of my patience when, trying to buy a gift in one stall, the guy said, "What, why not sit down, I'm not going to kill you." Which did not, in fact, feel all that welcoming.

I fought my way pack out of that particular nest of the old city, and came back through a produce market, the nicest part of the walk. Favorite scene: a small baby, sitting happily in a pile of lettuce on top of a vegetable cart. People here were a little friendlier. The loveliest part, through here, was a quiet alley with shafts of light coming down through a wooden roof, lined on both sides with Bedouin tent makers. Beautiful.

At the end of this walk, I see the Citadel, my destination, in sight. A kid, about 17 years old, stops me and says hello. He asks where I'm from, and I say USA. "You need help? What are you looking for?" And I say, "That's the Citadel, right?" And he says yes, and I'm thinking, how nice. "One more question," he says. "Do you want to kiss me?"

"No," I enunciate. "No, I do not."

Still fuming half a block later at a cultural milieu which makes this kind of behavior seem rational to young men, I am waylaid at the back side of the Citadel by a helpful man who apologizes and says it's closed until 3 for a visiting dignitary. He says he's not a guide, doesn't want mone, maybe I want to go visit the Cairo Blue Mosque and then come back? He'll show me the way. He leads me down a side street which is packed with people so it's not scary, but his story is fishy. He talks about the 40 pound entrance fee to the mosque, and I say, "Oh, that's fine, then I'll just take some pictures outside," and he is so dismayed that I realize he is working for the mosque. When he realizes I am not a cash customer he kindly points me the rest of the way and turns back. I double back as well and go to the front of the Citadel- which of course is open. And it was worth the trip, ancient and quiet.

So. I am not proud of this fact, but I am writing this from a cafe- in the mall. After a few hours of full-on hassling, I need a break. I saw this mall in Lonely Planet and scoffed, "what kind of a desperate lame Westerner would come all the way to Cairo and end up in a MALL?" And now I know, exactly, what it takes to drive someone in search of new vistas, to a coffee shop in a mall downtown. I just drank two cappucinos, with dark chocolate on top. And I ate chicken . Clearly I am in mild culture shock. But I am sufficiently fortified- I think I can head back out.

(note from a day later, things actually deteriorated after that. The incident with my obnoxious and amorous 21 year old cab driver, who bought himself a ticket on my Nile dinner cruise and tried to be my date for the evening, probably deserves a full post. But it's too awkward and I am still mad. Another day of Cairo travel under my belt and I can say, with confidence, I am so glad I came. I am so glad I saw the pyramids. I am so glad I rode a camel. I am so glad I saw the Egyptian Museum. And I am so glad I am leaving, in exactly half an hour.)