Some Cairo Pics

Here's the Nile River right in Downtown Cairo.

This helps to show a bit of perspective. Look at how small the people are and that shows how big these things are.


Some of the kids who wanted our picture and autographs.

A cool pic, but it really doesn't show how big these things are.


Here are some of the guys on the camels that hasseled us every 5 min. to take a ride.

Another pyramid picture.

Here's another far away shot of the biggest pyramids.

Here is a view of our roof-top hotel. It might be the best place that we've stayed so far. Did we mention it's only $5 a night?

This is a picture from inside one of the Kings tombs. The images on the left and right were carved into the rock and then painted. The man in the middle is a painted statue.

Here is another picture of what can be found all over the walls of the tombs. It is amazing how perfect and detailed these pictures are, considering the fact that they are carved out of stone.

Way Bigger... and Way Smaller!

Well, today was the day! We saw what we have heard about since we we're little kids, and perhaps we've all seen pictures of; the great pyramids of Eqpyt and the sphinx. And to borrow a pun from a good friend, it was quite fun to "peer amid" them! Our first reaction of the pyramids, which is the first thing you seen when you enter the park, was, "wow those things are huge!" They were way bigger than we ever thought they'd be. In the park called Giza, there are about 6 pyramids. One is gigantic, and the others are very big. The stones that were carved, and stacked into place are bigger than vans. The obvious question is, "how in the world did they build these things?" Really amazing!
The other attraction at Giza is the sphinx, pictured below. This looks enormous in a photo, but when we saw it, it wasn't as impressive as we had hoped. Of course it is still amazing work. It's around 50 metres long and carved out of one rock. We just thought it would be bigger.


It really was a good park. Erin and I also enjoyed, in a wierd way, all the hasseling you get at such a huge tourist attraction. It was almost a constant question, "do you want to ride a camel?" There were so many of them. It would be kind of neat to ride around the dessert on a camel or a horse and look a the pyramids, but it really wasn't that much walking. Erin and I also had swarms of Egpytian school kids pestering us constantly. Not that we minding having our picture taken with teenage boys and girls who thought we looked like "movie stars", but it just got to be too much. I adventully got the idea to try saying, "I no speak the english." This worked very well." A few times we were asked then what language we speak, and a simple reply of "me from sweeden" had the tout of your back instantly. That was a real laugh for us!

We then hired a taxi to take us to another ruins site about 30km out of the city. We saw some more pyramids, including what is believed to be the first one that was built. There were some tombs to go inside, which was neat, and also a pyramid we could enter. This was the highlight. You first climb some stairs about a third of the way up the side, and then enter a long shaft down into the pyramid. It was very steep and very low. The tunnel was about 3 feet by 3 feet, and maby 100 metres long or more. Once inside, we were struck by the very stale and hot air. It was really uncomfortable. It was also much smaller inside than we thought it would be. However the cieling went up very high. We were the only ones in there. It was really was hard work, and I don't think the average yuppie tourist would be able to go in and out, at least not without a heart attack. We really enjoyed this. It was also really a treat to see the country side along the nile on the way to here. It was all farm land, since the nile is an excellent irragation source. They grew everything from oranges, to turnips, to alfalfa for the horses and donkeys. We picked up some fresh mandarins that were picked today, they're awesome and cost 40cents for a kilo.
That took up the day. After we returned to Cairo we walked to what was heralded in our guide book as "the best pasta in Cairo. We didn't realize it was so far away from where we were staying though, and it took us 45mins to walk there. But man, was it ever worth it! We each had bruchetta, and spaghetti with meat sauce. Erin had a fanta, and yes Froese boys, I had a coke! What a sweet meal. So good that this dutchman even left a tip! The 6 dollars we spent was a bit steep however. Since we were so full, Erin even talked me into taking a taxi back.
Cairo is a really huge busy, busy city. The traffic here makes Toronto look like Virgil on a Sunday morning. There are cars everywhere. Someone told us 6 million of them. When you need to cross the street you just go, and weave across 6 lanes of honking, crawling vehicles.

Enough talking, here are some more pictures. Thanks again for reading and commenting. We really look forward to reading what all of friends back home wrote!

Sorry our batteries just died on the camera. We realize these are the pictures you want to see, but I guess we'll just whet your appetite with these two. Sorry, we promise to come and put them on tomorrow morning. So if you get up at 2am you should have some.

Into Egypt

We have arrived in Egypt and we're so excited to be here! What a shock though, travelling out of Mauritania and arriving in Cairo. We have gone from a city with roads of sand and only a handful of restaurants to a city bustling with people, cars, highways and restaurants on every corner. American food is quite readily available here. There are clothing, and shoe shops lining the streets. All in all our first impressions are that we are back in "civilization" and this is a HUGE city! Cairo has between 17 and 20 million people. It's the biggest in Africa.

Our trip here was uneventful (for once), just very long. We fly out of Mauritania at 3:30am and arrived in Morocco at 6:30 for our 9 hr stop over. With not much food, and no places to sleep, we had quite the boring time (at least I did, Brian actually had a book). We arrived in Cairo at 11:30 last night and went to bed right away.

Today we spent some time just experiencing the "sights and sounds" of Egypt and oriented ourselves to our small area of the city. This morning we went to the Egyptian Museum. It was really cool. It was incredible to see the mummy coffins, the incredible artwork and millions of old Egyptian artifacts from the tombs of kings and queens. Not one artifact lacks intricate detail. Even arrows are carved or painted with little details. Unfortunately we were not able to bring a camera into the museum. We saw all of the articles from King Tut's tomb. The amount of gold used was amazing. You would not be able to put a value to it. One of the things that I was most interested in were the animal mummies. Egyptians mumified animals for a few reasons.
1 - as food for the afterlife
2 - as offerings to the gods
3 - because they were family pets.
4 - and because they were considered sacred

We saw huge crocodiles that they kept as pets, almost in perfect condition, as well as a many babboons. They were considered to be sacred and to have created the sun god Ra.

Words really can't describe all the things we saw today.

We also were able to try some Egyptian food today. Kushari seems to be a very popular dish here. It was really good. It's a mix of noodles, lentils, onions and a spicy sauce. Here's Brian enjoying his dish. Both of our dishes, and our pop cost less than $3. And I was stuffed! Everything here is very cheap. Our hotel is only $5 and we're in a cool rooftop garden setting.

We also walked down to the Nile River. It feels so wierd to see all of these things. They all seem so normal here, yet the history behind it all makes it fascinating. We were walking over the Nile and thinking that it was once all blood.

Tomorrow we plan to head over to the pyramids and see the sphynx. What a great place to be! For now the plan is to track down some cheap Italian food.

(we tried to put on more pics, including one of the nile, but we are still on African internet and we ran into trouble!)

The Chameaux of Chinguetti

It's been an eventful two days to say the least, and also very tiring. We've been learning a lot about how things work in africa, and how they don't.

On Friday morning we made our way over to Garage Chinguetti. In Mauritania they have these places where taxis all meet to take people where they want to go, since there is no public transport. We had to travel 40kms from Atar to the desert settlement of Chinguetti. The road is entirely gravel, or piste, and is usually traveled by SUV's, and pick-ups. We arrived at the garage at 9am. In Mauritania you're told that the vehicle is going to leave asap, but of course it dosen't go until all possible space is filled with people. In a car this means 4 in the back seat, and two in the front, plus the driver. We've learned this already so we decided we'd ride in the back of the truck. We knew it would be much cooler, less squished and also a bit cheaper. At 10am we were told the truck was going to get diesel. It finally returned at 11am and we realized that the truck had not gone to get diesel in it's own tank, but to get two 45gal drums of diesel which it would bring to Chinguetti, and which we would sit upon. They then proceeded to load the back of the truck up with boxes and boxes of produce and things like canned goods and cupcakes. Most of which would be unsellable by the time it arrived, due to the way it was loaded. All food, except perhaps meat, needs to be brought in Chinguetti since it is in the middle of the desert and they grow nothing. On that note, actually all of the produce in Mauritania is brought in from either Senegal or Morocco.

It's been quite interested to see they way all of the produce is handled here, and all the times it must be moved before it gets to the little villages. You see it moved by donkey and by pickup and then by donkey another time or two. It wasn't in nice shape by the time it got to Chinguetti. Except for the trucks bringing clementines from Morocco, nothing is transported in reefers.

Anyway, back to our ride. Just before climbing on top off all of the stuff, I noticed a huge slice in the sidewall of one of the rear tires. Since this little very beat up 4wd Toyota was already very badly over loaded, I knew there was no way this thing was going to make it on that tire. Erin and I were already getting frustrated by how long the process was taking and weren't to excited at having a tire blow in the middle of nowhere, on top of an over loaded, undersized, pickup. So I showed the tire to the driver and asked for our money back and we planned to take another truck. He simply bent low and pointed at the spare under the truck, "regarde", he told me. Rather than wait who knows how long for another truck, Erin and I decided to risk it and go.

By the time we were rolling it was noon. It was a beautiful drive as we climbed out of the valley on top of a mountain plateau. It was quite dusty but we really were quite comfy on top of all of Chinguetti's tomatoes. After about an hour we just admiring the scenery when the tire blew. It wasn't to dramatic but we slid around a bit before the driver got control and brought us to a stop. Amazingly the spare tire had air and the driver had tools, and we were on our way again in about 15 mins. After about another 5 mins the spare blew-out as well. Erin and I were preparing to walk the last 7 kms or so when the driver said he could fix it. I wasn't sure how until I saw him pull out a tube from behind the seat alond with a bicycle pump. He also got out the tools to remove the tire from the rim, which to my surprise were bias-ply. Which I'm quite sure are illegal on cars in most parts of the world. When he got the tire off the rim I wasn't surprised that it blew. To give us a little better chance of making it, I suggested he remove the other 3 old tubes that were inside the tire before he insert the new tube, which was also covered in no less than 5 patches. We got the tube in and put a little boot over the gaping hole in the tire. After much pumping we got on our way and made it the final distance. I'm not sure if the driver tried to go back on that tire, but I'm sure it wouldn't have made it.

We then had only a short afternoon in the small town of 2000-3000 people. We explored the old city, and spent most of our time exploring and admiring the beauty of the huge dunes. We really love them, and know we may not ever get a chance to see something like it again.

We had a really good dinner of Lamb Tagine (potatoes, carrots, cabbage, onions, squished tomatoes and lamb) over spaghetti believe it or not, and then spent some time looking at the stars. The sky out it the desert away from any light is amazing, and a very different sky than at home.

This morning our "Auberge" host told us that he could have to pickup pick us up right where we were staying at 9am. We reluctantly aggreed, but were amazed when it showed up by 9:05am. This is the first time something has happened on schedule. After picking up some locals we were on our way and made it to Atar in 1.5hrs, much quicker than our 3.5 hrs tire blowing ride the day before. The driver then brought us to a seudo Garage Nouakchott, where his friend was waiting with a crappy station wagon which he planned on putting 9 people in. We realized this was not the actual taxi garage so we left and found it quickly. We then got a really quick ride in an old Mercedes and were on our way to NKC. It was a really sweaty ride again but we had a slow but safe driver. We also had and over sized veiled woman in the back with us, who was chanting something and swinging some beads around for the entire trip. We assumed it was some sort of witch craft, which is common here, so we prayed against it. She continued but all went well.

Well, we have now arrived back at our friends house, and downed some rotisserie chicken, and fries. It's nice to be in a bigger city where you can get some decent food, but that's about as good as it gets here. Our friends are away until tomorrow night, but they've been gracious to allow us to stay here. We plan to go to a bakery for breakfast and then spend some time on the beach tomorrow, if we can find a place sans garbage. Then we fly to Egypt at 3am Monday morning.

Mauritania has been great! But, we're looking forward to moving on. We can't belive we've been here 3 weeks alreay! Here's the pictures we promised. Enjoy!

The happy backpackers!

These things are huge!

Desert beauty.

Erin checking out some old construction in Chinguetti.

One of the many chameaux in Chinguetti.

Perhaps this is where our driver would get a "good" tire in Chinguetti.

Some old brick construction in Atar.

A view on the way to Atar.

Erin and I looking good while enjoying a traditional meal of fish and rice, Mauritanian style.

Check out the way they're moving this old vehicle!

Meat anyone?

Erin, and our friend in the dunes close by NKC.

One of the places we stopped to pray on the road to NKC.

A hot chick on the beach.

A ship in the boat cemetary.

Walking along the rail line in Nouadhibou.

The fishing port in Nouadhibou in the evening.

Erin and Juan, looking over the ocean in Dakhla.

A view of a school from the roof of our friends place.

Email us spaghetti!

We spent another day on the road today. We're glad to be here alive. Aside from the normal African ways of driving we had a few more challenges to overcome in arriving here safely. We knew we'd see camels here but we didn't realize that they'd be as plentiful as cows back home (only without the fences). They were all over the road! We were also driving with a driver who should not have had a licence. He sped up around every corner, and was more interested in the scenery than looking at the road...at one point we were driving 160 km/hr in a taxi driver "race". We were in an old Mercedes that didn't have a tight bolt in any part of it. I think Brian will have a bruise in his leg because of how tightly I was squeezing it.

However, we arrived alive and we are in Atar. We take a short drive out to Chinguetti tomorrow morning. The scenery here is absolutely gorgeous; by far the nicest in Mauritania. There are large sun melted mountains and huge desert dunes. There is actually a lot of greenery as well. We've seen a lot of date trees. This could possibly be the dustiest place around though! We are staying in a fairly nice "camp" tonight and actually have our accomodations in a camping trailer. It's quite funny to be out in the middle of nowhere and then see a camping trailer. They've actually got some really cool stone huts with thatched rooves, but their not quite as cheap as the camping trailer (and you know how the Dutch are!).

The internet connection is really slow here, but they do actually have it. We're quite surprised given where we are. We promise a good post of pictures coming up soon! Now, we're off to find some good eats (or something that at least looks eatable). We're both craving a good plate of spaghetti! You can all email us some if you want to.

On the move soon

Today has been a good day. It's our last day with our family in NKC. This morning Erin, and I went for another walk. We walked through the poorest area of the city, in which all the people are squatters. It was a really sad place. Is this a place with a curse on it? Are there locusts, relentless sandstorms, drought, famine, and disease just by chance? What a dark place. This place really makes you think.

Erin and I have really been having a great time together. We've been doing a lot of talking and praying about our life. We've been thinking a lot about how we can live intentionally at home. We've been convicted on much, and have many dreams and goals for our return already. God is good!

Well, we are going to head out to a city in Mauritania called Chinguetti for our camel adventure after all. We only have a single entry visa, so going to Senegal is out of question. We have a long car ride in the heat, but the dessert oasis and some serious chilling at the other end will be worth it. Hey Laur, it is very hot here, but we where the long clothing to be respectful to the culture. Erin wears a head covering whenever we are in public (in Mauritania).

I was going to post some pictures of random things but it's taking forever. So I'll have to wait to we get a faster connection. Perhaps tomorrow.

Learning about Mauritania

It is our 16th day away from home, as Brian just said to me, "that's it". In a lot of ways it feels like it's been a lot longer than that. We have already experienced so much and learned so much!

We are continuing to do a lot of learning about the people and the place of Mauritania as we spend time with friends here. There is much to know. We have spent the past couple of days touring the city and meeting Mauritanian people here whom we cannot communicate with, despite the fact that they know at least 2 different languages. We met one guy who could speak 5. The official language here is French and Arabic, although there are two different types of Arabic spoken here. As well, there are a few different tribal languages spoken here. There are also distinct divisions between the different people groups here and more often than not they don't get along too well.

Yesterday we walked through the market. It was not a tourist market like all the others we've been to and we saw where the locals shop. There are tons of people and it's amazing how many different things you can find to buy out here in the middle of the desert.

Health issues are quite different here as well. Most people do not eat many fruits or vegetables although they are cheap and readily available. Children are malnourished and undervalued in this society. Many are too small for their ages and average life expectancy amoung Mauritanian people is about 50 years of age. Many women actually crave and eat stones because of the minerals in them. They are sold in all the markets and I've seen many women buying them. Garbage lies everywhere and it is not uncommon to see people "going to the bathroom" at the side of the road. Bugs and animals also carry many germs and diseases. Take a look at the donkey cemmetary. When donkey's die they are just dropped off to rot in the centre of the town.

We have had some chances to see the desert dunes here. They stretch on and on as far as the eye can see and seeing camels is a daily occurance.

I don't think we've mentioned yet how hot it is here. It is the cool season and yet the hottest temperatures I have ever felt. Our friends here make fun of us saying it's very cool right now. They don't seem to be bothered by the temperatures at all. We are drinking a lot...Brian has got on a coke kick....so Dad, Craig and Brad, bring on the coke floats when we get home.

The plan now is to spend another day here and leave Nouakchott on Thursday morning. We don't think we'll have enough time to do our camel trek into the desert now, so we may head down to the beach in Senegal for a few days (it's a lot closer!). We're still trying to figure out what we'll do. For now we're just trying to survive the heat!

Visiting in Nouakchott

Much has happened since we last posted. It's been a really good two days. We were in Nouadibou, in northern Mauritania on Saturday morning. We spent the morning exploring the boat cematery. Along the beach just out of town, they've beached dozens of very old ships on right on the sand. It's a very neat sight. Unfortunately we were they're at high tide so we couldn't get unto the boats themselves. We then had a little adventure for the rest of the day.
It started by running into two girls from Slovenia, who came from Morocco with no hard currnency. They only had travelers cheques and bank cards. There are no ATMs in Mauritania and visa and mastercard are completly useless. It was Saturday, so for the next two days they had no money, because the banks were closed. So we decided to help them out by taking a taxi with them to NCK (Nouakchott) and paying for their hotel and food until they could cash their cheques. I should clarify that a taxi is the only way to travel the 470kms south to NKC.

So the girls arranged the taxi from the hotel (a big mistake, since there are no other taxis there to compete with for the price) and we went with them. We also had a local man in the car. So for the entire way we had two people in the front seat. Erin and I did it for about half the trip, boy were we sore. After frequent stops for the driver's prayer and tea, and many police check points, which the driver had to pay off the police to get through, we arrived in NKC at about 9:30pm. We had a huge missunderstanding with the driver over the price of the trip, and he became extremely mad at us. We finally got this sorted out and all was well. The girls stayed in a different hotel, since the one we were at was more costly but very close to the people we are visiting here. I left them with some money, and we got squared up with them today.
Our hotel was a real splurge for the budget, but a real treat after 2 long weeks of dingy places. We had AC, a king size bed, a bathroom and shower in our room with hot water, and all in all a really nice place! All for about $40 a night. We're used to paying less then $10, but for the next few days we're staying with our friends, so it all evens out. A nice treat!
I'll explain a little about what we're doing and seeing here in NKC, and our reasons for the visit. Unfortunately, due to the country we're in details will be very vaugue and I'll use other words to mean something else. You'll just have to bear with me. (Brian)
We're visiting some workers here from the States. We came into contact with them through an organization that Erin and I became very interested in a while back. The work that this organization does is very close to our hearts. They primarily do incarnational work in slums. We are in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania. It is within the 10 poorest countries in the world, and it's very apparent to us as we see the country. 100% of the population is M. There are currently around 60 workers here in the country, and the folks that we are staying with are one of two teams that work in the slums. The slums make up well over 60% of the population. In the country there are fewer than 10 believers. Of those 10 most have been in and out of jail, and have a very hard life.
Yesterday morning we had the priviledge of going to a service with the workers. There were around 100 people there. All of whom are not Mauritanian. It is entirly illegal for Mauritanian's to attend. What a hard country to be in. It was amazing for me to be in this setting after already being here for two weeks. To sing and hear the word was so refreshing.
As I walk here and see all the people who have not heard, or cannot hear, it really hurts my heart. The poverty is very shocking, but so much more is the darkness all around, and the complete restriction to freely believe the truth. Much is stiring inside of me about this place and the lost here.
Erin and I are going out this afternoon for a walk, to call out for this place, and for some specific request of those that we are staying with. I'm really looking forward to it.
We're going to spend the next two or three days here, and are then going to travel to another part of the country to ride some camels, before we head off to Egypt. Thanks for thinking of us and the people of this country.
Blessings.

Our adventures continue and we have arrived in Nouadhibou, Mauritania. This place really feels like Africa.

We got up early again to leave this morning, at 4 am, and this time did not have any car troubles. Our only surprise today was that we were to have another passenger ride with us which meant that we had to cram four people into the back of a small van. We rode like this for 10 hours. Words can't describe what we experienced today. There were 7 of us in the van, and we all spoke different languages....Arabic, French, Spanish and English. We travelled with 3 Morrocains(one was the driver and the other 2 were just along for the ride), one woman from Ivory Coast, our friend Juan from Argentina, and the 2 of us. As you can imagine communication was difficult, but it was quite fun trying to communicate. I don't think any of us really knew what anyone else was trying to say.

Our trip brought us through the desert where there is absolutely nothing but sand, ocean, some small green bushes, sun and camels. Occasionally we would see people in their nomadic tents and some goats, but really not much to break the landscape.

When had to go through an extensive process of leaving the Moroccain border and entering the Mauritanian border and it took us 3 hours to do this. We travelled through "no mans land" which was a very bumpy unpaved road filled with garbage and wrecked vehicles from travels overland between the two countries. We saw plenty of black market trading going on. The border posts were nothing more than shacks with no power or computers, but full of spikes on the roads to flatten your tires if you tried getting away without consent.

Nouadhibou is the second biggest city in Mauritania. It has about 80 000 people. It is a fishing port and other than fish, all the other fresh products are shipped here. The people here are very friendly. We get many waves and "Bonjour's". The people here appear to be more black africans than arabs. Morocco was all arabs. The poverty here is very apparant. Brian and I both agree that this is the poorest country we have ever been to.

When we arrived we found some food and we had a new version of chawarma....have you ever had french fries on a sandwhich before? The chawarma here consists of egg, beef, and french fries, and no pita. None of these things are found in "real" chawarma. It was interesting but good enough to eat and it filled us up. We also went down to the port and saw some of the guys bringing fish in. The fish were huge and they even had an eel. They pull everything around here with donkeys. The local guys had fun with Brian and all wanted their pictures taken.

Our plans have changed slightly and we are heading to Nouakchott, Mauritania's capital, tomorrow.

Last Stop in Morocco....still

First we should apologize to our faithful blog followers for not posting yesterday. We were quite exhausted after our 22 hour bus ride and didn't really have a good chance to sit down and type.



So, yes, we made it to Dakhla but we're still here. Our bus ride was uneventful, just long and tiring. Brian made it through ok.

Here's proof that we're actually in the Sahara Desert (the largest desert on earth)

We actually managed to arrange a ride to Mauritania quite easily on arriving as well. We were about to take a taxi to a hotel in the middle of the city when some guy spotted us and said in English, "Maybe you like to go to Mauritania?" That started us on our cross Sahara adventure. We were a little leary about the whole situation. First we were told that we would leave at 9 am and then all of a sudden the time changed to 3 am.....who wants to get up at 3 in the morning, in the dark, get into a car outside the hotel room and travel to the middle of no where with people you don't know. Aziz (our new Moroccain friend) just laughed at our concerns. We were soon put at ease once we met the driver, Aziz let us take his picture, and we met some others that were to be travelling with us. Aziz is friends with everyone in town and we knew he could be trusted. We also spent some time praying about it and know that we are in God's hands. (No need to worry mom's)! We spent some time with Aziz, shared some mint tea and he showed us where to get good deals on food and turbans! We'll show you a picture of Brian in his turban later....seriously, he has a turban (saharan style).

So, last night before our early bedtime, we had a delicious and quite authentic Saharan meal of fish kababs and camel meat. I (Erin) can't believe we ate it! It was actually very good and had a similar taste to beef. (not chicken like every other strange meat).

Here's a view of the city from our hotel window.

So, to continue our story. We woke up at 3 am and packed up our stuff. One of our drivers was downstairs knocking at our hotel door so we went down to meet him. Once in the van we had to pick up Juan (from Argentina) and we were on our way, with Bob Marley seranading us over the radio. No later than 30 min. down the road we started to hear thump, pound, thump, pound from the engine which was right underneath us. It was a cabover van (so Brian tells me). That warrented a stop and after about 20 min of standing at the side of the road, we were right back to where we started. So, the van is in the garage and we are still in Dakhla awaiting our Saharan adventure for tomorrow. Thankfully we weren't in the middle of now where when we broke down.

Although we're not in the middle of rolling dunes, the desert here is still quite beautiful. We are right on the coast. This town is said to have the best kite boarding in the world, though few know about it. Many say this is the last town of civilization in the desert. Really, you should look on the internet where we are. Nobody comes here. The rolling dunes is all we will see after tomorrow as we enter the heart of the Sahara.

So, now we are passing our time drinking mint tea with lots of sugar!!! (they like it sweet). There is a real art to pouring it, the more bubbles, the better. I'm not even half as high as they go. Wes, they put your milk pouring to shame.

Our daily post

We're probably spoiling all of you by posting everyday, but with internet at under a dollar and hour it's hard not to. This place is actually about 60cents. Sweet!

Well I'm feeling much better today. Even though Montazuma is still on my tail, the fever is over. Thanks to the good friend who reminded me that the trots just speeds things up in the washroom; and when you're dealing with the hole, that's a good thing.

We don't have to much to say today, we're just waiting around here in Agadir for our night bus to Dahkla. We went for a long walk on the beach this morning, and saw some more Swedes, and German's in the very loose or very tight speedos. Hopefully we can talk to you all again tomorrow. Thanks for all the posts and comments. Feel free to email us as well, at briananderinrowaan@yahoo.ca.

The Hershey Squirts, Montazuma's Revenge, The Trots.....

Brian has had all of those today. Yes, the sickness has hit. Unfortunately Brian has not been feeling well for the past 24 hours. Diarrhea along with a fever, chills and drenching sweat....not too fun and, check out the toilet we're using. We call it "the hole". There is no toilet paper, squating is required, and then you pour a bucket of water down "the hole" (and maybe a bit on your ankles too) to clean everything.

We spent a quiet day on the beach today. It was interesting to observe all the people here. There are many tourists that have come from Europe to spend time in the resorts and on the beach....all strutting their European stuff...and beside them are the local Muslim women dressed from head to toe even on the beach. The contrast really makes you think. We had another great meal again tonight. Moroccains know how to eat well and how to treat their guests. Most people here are very friendly and eagre to please. The young men are quite eagre to please me as well when I am not with Brian for a moment. I get quite the attention and a couple, "come with me's". When I say no, they say, "why not?"

Our time here is almost done. We've almost seen one country with 10 more to go. We are looking forward to our travels to Mauritania although we are a bit nervous about going. We're already quite excited to travel to an English speaking country. We're off to the desert tomorrow night. We take a 19 hour bus ride to the last town in the south of Morroco before heading into Mauritania. Should be an adventure because no buses run the last 350 km across the Western Sahara.

We thought of all of you at home as the sun set here today. It's neat to think that the same sun that warms us here is still shining at home while it goes down here.

killing some time

Erin, and I are just killing a couple of hours waiting for a bus to take us to the Beaches of Morocco, and its a beautiful day for it too. The weather here as been so amazing, sun everyday. Really nice.

Just thought I'd explain a little about Morocco. It's a country were over 95percent are muslim. There is persecution towards believers here for sure. Many emotions and aches arise when we look around and see all the people that haven't even heard what they need to hear. Who will tell them? The only churches are house churches and they must be done in secret. We really don't even have any way of finding out where one is. But, we've been told that the house churches are really thriving and God is bringing many Moroccans to salvation. That's about all I'll say about that from where we are now.

It is a not an extremly poor country. Cerntainly there is much more poverty than any where in N.A. or Europe, but it's nothing like most of Africa. As for our situation we could live it up like the 1000's of rich white tourists in the resorts or hiltons, or we could spend around 2 dollars a night for a whole in the wall hotel. We are spending around 12 a night and getting very nice accomadations in the old part of town, called the medina. This is the orginal city (every city has this) that has been there for centuries, and is entirely enclosed by a concrete wall. We had some really good pictures of that but they're gone now. :(

For food we could eat anything from fine dining to 25cent meals off the street. We've been eating where the locals eat and it's been about 3 to 4 dollars a person. We're not sick yet but things are starting to move a bit faster.

We've been spending the evening journaling and doing devotions, it's really great to step back from the business of home life and enjoy time worth spending.

Thanks again to all who are checking up on us, it's great to know we have so many loved ones at home.

In "hind"sight!

Well, we feel like we're finally travelling. Now that we have Brian's bag we are able to forge ahead as planned. Looking back on our last few days we know that we've learned valuable lessons and having a lost bag worked out for some good. If we hadn't stayed in Casabanca for a few days we definitely would have been retracing some steps and spending some needless time and money. God works for the good of those who love Him and He's been good to us.

We are currently in Marrakech. It is an amazing medievel type city and crazy is the best word to describe it. There are people everywhere all trying to sell their goods and lure you into their stalls. Below is a picture of some of the unique lamps they sell. If we were heading home from here I'd definitely be buying a suitcase for souvenirs (Brian is rolling his eyes).

This morning we were able to take a "free for my friends" tour of the tanneries where we saw how leather is made and dyed. It was really neat to see. A lot of hard work goes in to it. The workers almost look like slaves. I'm sure that many people would be surprised to see how the process goes and how "dirty and smelly" it actually is. Unfortunately we haven't been having much luck with our pictures today. One of our films didn't wind and we also accidentily erased all of our other pictures on our digital. We've gone from crying to laughing over that one! We are having fun and are doing well other than some blisters on our feet from walking. We dined on some more fine Moroccain cuisine tonight and will miss this country for it's excellent food.

Tomorrow we plan to head to Agadir to spend some time on the beach "chillaxin with a mint tea" and our desert adventures begin shortly afterwards.

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Thatùs what our title is if I type properly: We are on a strange keyboard so youùll have to excuse the mistakes: we canùt make a period or an apostrophe:

Thanks so much for posting comments we love reading them: Please keep them coming, it makes posting worth while! The exciting news is thqt I got my pack back today, and they even paid me 50 bucks, For those of you who donùt know thatùs a pile of money for a couple of cheap backers:

after we left the airport we toock a train to marrakech; and got here tonight; we met a really nice american on the train who lives here and she showed us the ropes: this place is as real morrocan as it gets so it was great to have her: in the town squqre here there are several hundred food stalls where you can get anything you would want or not want: We had harira (soup), pastilla (chicken in a pastry cover with cinnamon and sugar, very good), shishkabob, and potatoe cakes, we washed it all down with a orange juice squeezed in front of us for less than 50cents each: the whole meal was about 5 bucks each and we are packed, an amazing cultural experience:
weùre going to go back to the square now (Djmaa el - fna) and check out the snake charmers, story tellers, dancers, magicians, and musicians, Sorry this post is sans picturees, weùll post some tomorrow, Chow!

one more thing, §/.%çàè-(''""ééé&²§§

The Senses of Casablanca

If your views of Casablanca come from the old movie starring Humphry Bogart (filmed in Hollywood) you are quite mistaken. Let us give you a better picture:

Sights:
Check out the satelite dishes on the roofs...every house has them!



Some of the arabic that can be seen anywhere. This is a coke can

the head of a swordfish in the local food market

a clementine tree in the middle of the city

A donkey on one of the main streets.

Pizza Hut Delivery BIKES



"Mobilia" - an Ikea in Morocco!

Sounds

- BEEP, BEEP, BEEP (we had our first taxi ride experience today. Road lanes are suggestions and beeps are signal lights)
- "Hello my friend" - the only English phrase known by Morrocans used to get our attention
- prayer call from the mosques five times a day
- uhhhh.....petite (answer by us when we are asked if we speak French)

Taste

- cafe: very strong espresso
- cafe avec lait (very good cappucino!)
- mint tea
- rotisserie chicken with rice and all the trimmings for only $2 per person
- pastries that resemble croissants with raisins (quite good)

Smells:

-our money belts which touch our very smelly skin

-fish or seafood which can be smelled many places in the city

- our breath (the result of not having toothpaste or a toothbrush due to a lost bag..we have some now)

- a rank smell that is hard to describe coming from many different areas in the city

Touch

- 10 bank machines before we were able to withdraw money

- someone holding Brians arm to get his attention while jabbering on in French

- this keyboard because this is the second time I've typed this post (the first one disappeared somewhere!)