Made it back!

Well, after many, many hours on buses and in taxis...I've made it back to Cairo.

Mostly it's my fault, but it seems like it all happened for a reason. For fun and for the experience, I tried hitchhiking on Friday morning from Jerusalem to the border (4 hours away). After about 2 hours of waiting and even getting help from security guys, I finally gave up and raced to the bus station for a 10am bus.

I barely made it there in time, but was too late to get a seat so I stood or sat on the floor, along with several others. Crazy!

Unfortunately, this all made me too late to catch a bus to Cairo, or anywhere else in Egypt. So, I gathered together some other tourists who were in the same situation and we got in a mini-van together and headed for Dahab.

As it turns out, on this part of the "journey", I met up with a 70-year old women who I had heard about from an MCC friend in Jerusalem. She is traveling around promoting peace and working on development projects (noble work), but comes across as a bit senile. I'm not sure what her story is, but it seemed like beyond coincidence. So...it seemed like I should help her out as much as possible, so that's what I did! We left her in a small beach town and she's hoping to go into Gaza on Sunday. God be with her!

So, I made it to Dahab, which is my favorite beach spot in Egypt. I was interested to see the changes since my last tri in Jan. 2005 and also since the bombings in April. It seems like things are going better than ever and this was confirmed by a restaurant guy I talked to. But I only had enough time to walk along the promenade and then have a nice dinner while watching a World Cup match before getting a 10pm bus to Cairo.

Uneventful ride and actually quite comfortable. I managed to get quite a bit of sleep! It's 8am as I write this and I want to spend some time online and uploading pics to share, then maybe a short nap and laundry before going to the American University in Cairo for a World Refugee Day celebration at 5pm.

Sunday morning, I'll head for Tanta and get back to teaching in the afternoon.

Memorial for those who died in the attack: