Yes, we got the visas. It's been very busy the past few days. Mostly traveling but at least things have been going smoothly. This is going to be a fairly lengthy post, but it should be worth so hang in there, we'll do this together.

For starters here are a few pictures of our 4 hour bus ride through the Negev. Not much to look at but it was still pretty interesting.





We made it to Eilat and quickly found a taxi to the border crossing at Taba. The military stopped our taxi just before we got to the crossing saying there was a "suspicious" obeject and that we had to wait for everything to be cleared. After a 15 minute wait we continued through security and found ourselves in Egypt. It was at this point that I wished I knew more Arabic. If I had known more Arabic maybe we wouldn't have gotten hosed on our ride from Taba to Dahab. Although we paid more than what we would have liked to, we were just glad to get to Dahab.

Once in Dahab, we were greeted with a warm welcome and a free drink. If you can picture a place right by the shore where people don't really do anything but relax, that's Dahab. One of the hostel employees, Eminem, was super nice. He's our age and we had a few chances to just sit and chat with him. In general, people at the hostel were great.

Now for some pictures. This is a view into the desert from our window.



And this was out our other window; the Red Sea.



Ah, dinner by the shore. Trust me, the black abyss of nothingness is actually the Red Sea. This was such a nice place to relax, especially after our visa troubles and traveling.



From Dahab we boarded a bus for Cairo. Desert. Desert. Desert. 10 hours of desert. But at least we were able to catch the sunset on the other side of Sinai. You can just make out the Red Sea in this picture. Yes, the same Red Sea that Moses parted all those years ago. I can't imagine coming up out of the parted sea and seeing the desert. There is literally nothing but sand and rock.



Cairo is a mess of a city. 25 million people. After breakfast at the hostel we headed out with a tour guide to visit a few places in the city. First, the Egyptian Museum.



You'll have to excuse me for the poor quality of this next picture. They wouldn't let us take our cameras into the museum, so what did I do, took pictures with my phone. I present to you the mask of King Tutankhamun.



No, we didn't see the mummies. That was a separate fee and I wasn't eager enough to spend $20 to see dried up dead people. There were plenty of other things to see.

Right outside the museum.



Next we went to the Citadel to visit the mosque of Muhammad Ali. No, not the boxer.



This where you would wash your hands and face before entering the mosque.



Pictures will never be able to capture the grandeur of this building.



The domes were absolutely unbelievable.



Ryan admiring the architecture, or at least pretending to.



This was the view from outside the mosque. This is only one of four pictures that I'll merge into a panoramic view of the city. We were able to just make out the pyramids in the distance. It's much too smoggy to make it out in this picture but you can try. They would be on the left side. Good luck.



A view of the market. Tons of souvenirs. Very similar to the Old City in Jerusalem.



The tour guide took us to one of her friend's shops to do a little souvenir hunting. He was a good dude, but man could that guy bargain. I'm sure he's really good at ripping people off but he gave us a "good deal". They always say that so I'm not sure how good of a deal I got. Oh well, I'm not too concerned because Egypt is cheap either way. Take for example our dinner; 2 large pizzas and 4 drinks. The total cost was $16 making the meal $4 per person. What a steal!

Tomorrow, the pyramids. Get ready for tons of pictures.

Take care.