Living in Luxor(y)

After a brief cabbie argument and a brief one hour flight from Cairo, I arrived in Luxor, formerly Thebes, early yesterday morning. Since it was still early, we headed straight to the Valley of the Kings, where the Pharaohs and their favorite queens, consorts and courtesans stored their mortal remains (and earthly treasures) away from the tomb raiders of Cairo, so that instead they could be plundered by tomb-raiders of Thebes. You know, spread the wealth around a bit.

(The opening shot, although out of chronological order, shows you the view from my hotel. Not bad for $60 a night eh?)

There's no doubt in my mind I could spend all day poking into all 65+ tombs here. Although each one follows a similar patterns (each departed soul must past through 4 serpent-guarded gates) each one is unique in build and detailed decoration. As it was, I only had time for three: the Tomb of Rames IX, Ramses IV and Ramses VI. You can find detailed descriptions and maps for all the tombs here. It was easy to see why the limited access, the air inside the tombs was incredibly humid (and dank!) so I can imagine it stripping the paint in short order. And this is off season...

Moses visits the Valley of the Kings

Note the pyramid like mountain in the background of the VoK. You never stray too far from your first love...

From the VoK we headed to the Deir el-Bahri, (the link has better pics than I do) a giant temple set up against the nearby mountains. Multi-storied and richly decorated, this was the great monument by the only female to rule ancient Egypt. Her imagine was later obliterated from the scene by a scornful follow-up, but he couldn't erase all the depicted deeds painted on the temple walls. It's darn impressive, especially from a distance, but it didn't take too long to explore the whole thing. This is also the sight of the 1997 massacre of many tourists, prompting the security measures now in place. (The same group of thugs would go on to greater fame four years later...)

From the Temple, you have a good view of the green band created by the Nile:

You hold the camera still in 100+ heat

Most amazing to me are the fact that many of the original painting remain intact and colorful. Yea, but it's a dry heat, so it's easier to imagine the place in full splendor.

Early Egyptian Toilet Ad

This shows the Egyptian depiction of the night sky, with all the stars shining:

Insurance image proving the upstairs toilet leaked

Some of the better preserved statues inside the temple:

Sadly, Coptic squatters removed Lisa Lopez's condom eye

Both places and more comprise the entire area known as the Theban Necropolis. There were many many tombs up amongst the hills.

...From a Hole in the Ground

The most annoying bit of all this were the locals trying to make a fast buck by 'helping' you any way they could: fanning you, pointing out the obvious ('better color here!'; 'ramses, ramses, osiris...') jumping into your pictures, posing as mummies etc. I tried to confuse them by switching from English, Spanish & German every sentence. Nothing slows them down, so you just have to ignore them and do things on your own time.

On the way out, we stopped by the twin collossi of Memmon that used to guard a temple that Ramses I built. (Note: don't build things you want to last forever in a flood plain. Especially one that floods every year). Lots of legends have grown up around the statues across the years, and Greeks and Romans have their own stories regarding them, which is why they are named the way the are.

Hrm...I've already used toilet twice...

From the VoK, we took a boat across the Nile to my hotel, where I got a much needed nap-break (still on the jet lag thing...). That evening we went to the Temple of Karnak Sound and Light Show. Maybe it's good for a campy laugh or two, but it lasts a bit too long. It begins with trumpet heralds and rolling drum build-ups then moves into plucked harp music. Lights shine on various statues and columns and overacted voices read pretenious poetry ("across the Nile, to the city of the dead, where the Beyond Begins!"). Most Ninetendo 64 games have better effects. In fact, the whole thing reminded me of a prog rock album from the 70s. All that was missing was a guy in a cape playing two keyboards at once.

Tomorrow we're going back to Karnak, for which I'm really glad. The columns, statues and obelisks all look pretty impressive, so I can't wait to see them in daylight.

I Was Dining by the Nile....

What a day, what a day, what a day. Today a lot of hard work by a lot of people paid off, and none too soon. For me, the day involved a meeting with the Commanding Officer, a talk to the scientific crowd and more personal chats with selected scientists. My mantra throughout these meetings was to let our lab be the screening stage for new diagnostics, that when we came with something, to have faith that we'd done our homework and take our assays into the field with confidence. Without today's exciting results, I can imagine those words looking a little hollow. Oh sure, the science was sound and we'd done all the testing we could do, but the cat ain't dead til you open the box, as my pal Schrody would say. Here's a note to you tech-taskmasters: 1 prayed-for positive trumps 50 predicted negatives any day. Any time techs are excited about an assay, you know you're on to something good.

The new virology leaders here are Ce & Ca, a husband wife team from Argentina. Ce runs the lab whilst Ca does a lot of migratory bird collections. Ce has one of those infectious personalities that everyone ends up being drawn to: everyone on the compound waves, smiles and says hi to her, the ground crew bring her flowers etc. She's been a real treat to work with the last few days. This evening, after all the work and meetings were done, she and Ca took us to the Grand Cafe in downtown Cairo to have dinner by the Nile (Ca has mastered the Cairo driving rules in record time). It was awesome to finally get a good look at the city. We drove past the Citadel, the City of the Dead and through the nicely watered and expensive living section called Maadi. There we dined at the Grand Cafe and watched the sky slowly fade to dark as fishing boats and sailboas swung by. Despite the fact that I have meetings both tomorrow and Monday. I declared work-time officially over and ordered a nice big ice cream. Yum, nothing like ice cream to take the heat off whilst sitting by the Nile.

Mars' Observed Rules of Driving In Cairo

1) There are many road signs, lane markings, traffic signals and various other flashing lights and objects d'guidance that will try and distract you. Do not let them, focus instead on moving forward at all times.

2) There will be many confused pedestrians (CPs) in the middle of the street that need guidance to move to the other side. Try to gently nudge them in the right direction. Much like a sheep-hearding dog might nip at their heels, a small tap will help their motivation. Bonus points for using English spin.

3) When the police officer turns his back to you, it is his way of saying "it's OK to go" even if he just told you to stop. Do so as rapidly as possible. Remember, body language is more important than verbal cues, so ignore his cries. NOTE: Under no circumstances should a PO be mistaken for a CP. You've been warned.

4) Prior to merging onto another car, give two short horn blasts as a signal. Do not bother using your signal (see rule #1). The spaced sound effect will allow the echolocation system of the other drivers to properly calculate your incoming trajectory and adjust accordingly and simultaneously curse you properly. (thanks Doug!)

5) By the laws of physics, any car more than 20 yards away has absolutely no chance of hitting you when you pull out in front of it, regardless of it's velocity. Go ahead and zip on out.

6) If your car dies, move it under the overpass. The sand will soon cover it. A new car will be along shortly, just like in Spy Hunter.

Mars Rules for Riding

1) Pray. You might want to try Allah since your on his turf.
2) Always look straight ahead, especially when merging into oncoming traffic.
3) Keep score and cheer your driver when he helps a CP cross the street. One loud yell will not be confused as a merge signal.

Just for Fun: Anytime you see 5 cars abreast in three supposed lanes yell "punch bug!" and slug the nearest person to you. Explain before hand the rules to any Afghani visitors that may be riding along with you.

Kairo Arrival

That's the view from my hotel window at dawn (well you would see it, except that $14 worth of internet doesn't get you uploading tme...) . Yup. Dusty dirty and sandy. It smells like burnt rubber. For the flight from Frankfurt, I was seated in the middle section, which was nice for stretching, but not for viewing. My first good look at the city came as my driver took me to my hotel...I had been trying to imagine what was I was in for, a cross between Mexico City and Los Angeles if the guidebooks were to be believed. My first impression was Beijing, where the modern day gleams near where the dishelved past decays. Everything looks like it's waiting for the final touch, for that stack of bricks and debris nearby to finally be added on. Or like it's been eroded away, like some more famous edifices around here...

Things have been going very smoothly, all thanks to the hospitality team from NAMRU3. We're staying in a fabulously swank hotel next to the biggest, most bustling mall I've ever seen, with a driver to take us hither and there. If it sounds a little sanitized, it is. We're in Heliopolis, which is sadly somewhat removed from downtown. The new metro line hasn't been completed yet either, which limits excursion options. I may just have to be accept a more touristy trip this time around.

oh, and everyone knows I'm a sucker for dark hair and dark eyes, so this place is something else. A paraphrased Sugar Hill Gang raps around in my head all day:

Damn sly girl
I'm in love wichyou
that Cleopatra legend
Musta been true

There's no mistaking why the Egyptians were so fascinated with the eyes.

oh, and my nose feels right at home.

Off to Egypt

I'm heading to Cairo to meet up with some fellow demi-gods. We'll probably spend the whole night complaining about this upstart Monogod fellow. Kids today. Anyhoo, I hope I can post from Egypt, we'll see.

The above is a random street scene from TO. What's a guy in a bag got to do to get some attention?

The Limits of Mars

As if the day on the island wasn't enough, AnOs and I headed over and up the CN tower for some pure tourist action. Had to be done, although the lenght of the wait ensured that I'll never do it again. That and the fact that I found out I'm terrified of glass floors that are very high up. I almost passed out when AnOs tried to shove me over onto the glass floor. I spent the rest of the time wiping my clammy hands on the windows and other schmucks stuck in line. Who knew?

All good from behind glass. and a few feet back.

Still, a pretty darn good day, topped off by some cider of course. As AnOs said "and I thought we were going to end up in a farkin' Shoe Museum"

Best. Sport. Ever.

TO View From A Bike

The last day was a gorgeous mid-western sunshine fest so AnOs and I decided to head out to the island in Lake Erie. We rode around the entire thing on some dodgy bikes, had some food and then went to check out some commotion we were hearing. I'm so glad we did. There were some dragon boat races going on, some real D&Ders beating each other up with fake swords, and a local Tug-Of-War competition.

Canada Conquered by D&D Club

Look at All That Tension!

This was a pretty good warm-up, especially since they had world's oldest (and only) tug-of-war fan announcing the whole thing. I've never known anyone to get so excited about tension before, but after reading Savage Love I know anything is possible. The guys above kicked ass and took names all day. They had a very precise and methodical style and could look their boots and hold out all day.

But the main event came at the end of the dragon boat races: The Wife Carrying Competition. Now to make things interesting and ensure all types of folks participated they came up with the best.prize.ever: Your wife's weight in beer to the winner. That's right, 100lbs of beer (easy!) was on the line. It wasn't easy either, you had to run a good distance with your wife on your back, go out into water up to your waist, around the maker and haul ass back ot the starting point. The winner ended up getting darn near 4 cases of beer. I thought they should have given a consolation prize to the women who spanked her husband's ass like a mule the whole time, she was the highlight. Pure Comedy Gold Baby!

The 'Over the Shoulder Grab 'n' Go' Method

The 'Dunk Your Woman and Slap Her Face Against Your Ass' Method

I'll have the videos up on You tube soon.

Best Swag Ever

Being an influenza/public health meeting, one of the freebies that came with the ever present meeting back-pack was a tube of Lysol, which can supposedly kill the flu virus. It came in real handy as there was a Yu-Gi-Oh tournament going on at the same time. Although not as bad as a full blown Magic: The Unwashed or D&D convention would have been, there were still a few ripe ones in the bunch.

Free Gamer Bane!!!

Later on that night...

After leaving the Distillery district, we headed out with a full crew. We tried going to some new bars, partially to get food, and partially to get some more exposure. Sadly, we ended up getting surrounded by some not so upstanding Germans at a bar with a totally kick ass beer selection (go figure). In a matter of minutes, they had managed to Eik into a corner (although, not sure she totally minded, but the male chaperones were on edge) and hand away $30 of Kampai's hard earned cash. I stepped to prevent some violence and recovered the cash. The bartender said he thought it was a tip. Right...

Oh, some of you were wondering where AnOs was in the last shot:

AnOs Mounted

Go ahead and make up your own mexican/border joke. He said it's ok.

Anyhoo, we exited and prepared for the last day of the conference. The ending session looked like this:

Bueller? Bueller? Anyone?

This after the opening session had to find a room to video broadcast the opening remarks as the 1500 seat auditorium was full. This is why you don't want to give a talk during the last session. As I told several conference noob: it's an endurance test and you have to finish out strong, despite the decreasing amount of sleep and increasing amount of hangover you have each day.

Also, as my friend The Badger knows, whoever collects the most business cards win. I did pretty well:

Ok, so the Hooters Club Card Doesn't Count

Beer, Beer, Beer, Beer, We Like Beer
--The Asylum Street Spankers
(and Me)

As if taking us to Niagra falls wasn't good enough, the conference organizers decided we needed to blow off a little steam and drink down a few brews. As AnOs said "way ahead of you". Still, not wanting to perpetuate the rumor that our group can be a little anti-social, we hopped onto one of a dozen buses that took us to Toronto's reborn Distillery District. Seems like a lot of towns are rediscovering their forgotten local brew sites and re-imagining them as havens for upscale drinkers who might have a few too many and take home some ritzy art or a Prada handbag that caught their beer-goggled eyes. That being said, the place was a welcoming all brick, sunshine filled plaza where free food and drinks were handed out like candy. The Hawk found some high-brow Sam Adams drink-alike inside the actual bar, but I was pretty happy with my Canadian stand-by Sleeman's. Good stuff. They used to have a billboard in Windsor that said "What American's Take Home in Their Trunk". Damn straight!

Whilst there, we met Eik, resident Army Epidemiologist. Yes she has red hair. Yes, I tried not to stare (staring inversely proportional to BAC). She was a good addition to our crew. i.e. she knew how to have a drink and talk science such that neither is out of hand.

Hawk and Dove

Our crew also involved Wallace from Kenya. Wallace was with a couple of other folks from Africa. One of them was looking a little sickly. As it turned out, he had malaria. Wallace took this along the lines of someone getting your drive-through order wrong: it happens from time to time. However, having malaria at a public health conference is a bit like being the hot chick in the engineering class: everyone wants to talk to you.

The Hawk owns up to a few Hooters visits

Leaving Stylish District in Style

HT To AngiO, whom I stole photos from, since I wasn't bright enough to remember my camera.