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On my last day in Cairo I spent 4 hours out at Giza and got some great additional photos, even venturing into the Great Pyramid of Khafre (the middle one with the smooth cap). The inside of the pyrimid was incredibly hot and humid and the air stale, but the vast magnitude of the structure above made it a worthy venture, all 20 stories of crouched steps down and back up into the center.

For more on Giza, see The Pyramids of Giza

I made it to the ancient city of Alexandria, founded by Alexandar the Great in 334 BC. Although the first day there was pretty rainy, the second was very sunny and warm and I was able to see the Citadel, which was built with and upon the rubble of the fallen Alexandria Lighthouse (one of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World), plus a series of 1st and 2nd Centurey AD Catacombs, filled with over 300 tombs and decorated interestingly with the carvings of Roman, Greek and Egyptian motifs (in the style of the Ptolemaic dynasty that began after Alexandar conquered Egypt). After a short 1 1/2 day trip to Alex I headed back to Cairo by train (3 hours) and arrived late at night for 1 more full day.

For more information on Alexandria, these Wikipidia links:

Alexandria
Alexandar The Great
The Alexandria Lighthouse
The Seven Ancient Wonders of the World

The border at Rafah has been closed to non-Palestinians since the Israelis withdrew from the Gaza Strip and there is no official Palestinian authority in existance to monitor it. As a result, all trips from Tel Aviv, Israel to Cairo go from the Mediterranean side, all the way to the Red Sea side at Taba, then all the way back across Sinai, turning an 8 hour trip into a more gruelling 13.5 hour trip and waste of a travel day.

After arriving in Cairo very late Sunday night (1AM) and with little more than 24 hours left before my flight I decided to extend my trip 3 days (to Jan 20) in order to give me a chance to get to Alexandria and to have a few more hours in Cairo.

I am heading to Tel Aviv to hopefully rest up in a more comfortable hotel, to sample the night life and to either fly or take the bus back to Cairo before heading home on the 17th.

It is not quite so cold here as in Jerusalem, but still far from the warmth of the Mediterranean I had imagined. I was hoping to spend 1 day here and head back to Cairo, but everything shuts down on Friday and Saturday, so I was not able to get an Egyptian visa and flights are not until Sunday. It is pretty chill here and things are more modern than Jerusalem, but still not the ultra-modern perfect western standards I had imagined (i.e. the toilets cannot handle TP, so like many 3rd world countries there is a can by the can).