Egypt - 1976

Over at Harper's Keeper the Blogger mentioned that Belly Dancers made him uncomfortable. It reminded me of the only time I have ever been close to a Belly Dancer was when we went to Egypt.  And since I now have a new printer that will scan photos I was able to scan the photo into the computer -  so I did!

We were all out to eat and after dinner the music began and the next thing I knew this scantily clad young woman was moving around the tables and wiggling her belly in our faces.  That is me with my arm about to come around for a hug.  She was going around very quickly stopping at every male in the arena and posing just long enough to get her picture snapped with them.  Later after they were developed the photographer came to sell them to us. Obviously I purchased mine.  

The lady sitting to my right was Mary Sterling.  Mary was a teacher and later a principal here in Ames.  She was one of my favorite people and I loved her.  She and I were seat mates on the flight over and Mary was just a little nervous about flying that far in that large an airplane and was also excited about the trip.  I could tell because of the way she gripped my arm as we lifted off. (And she also used some exciting language.)

We went on several adventures together while we were in Egypt. One of them was being invited to an Egyptian wedding.  We got into a cab with some Egyptian kids who had invited us and the cab ride was just as exciting as the plane ride and the language was also.  Egyptian traffic has cars, trucks, donkeys, camels, wagons and bicycles all going at breakneck speed with horns  blaring and poor pedestrians just have to duck and jump out of the way to avoid being hit.  Oh and they don't use their lights at night but rather race down the street in the dark, flashing their lights to warn you to get out of the way.

Generally we had our transportation provided for us.  Usually a bus but when we did ride on something else it was an adventure.  I think the train from Karnak to Cairo was the most interesting.  No air conditioning until it started to move and we were shaken left and right, back and forth and up and down. Quite  exciting. 

The Belly dancer was at the Palestine Hotel in Alexandria and we also got to dance.  So naturally they took a picture of that.

Egypt was a wonderful trip and I still treasure my time there,  Most of my pictures are 35 mm slides put perhaps I will get a machine and transfer them to digital.  Thanks for stopping by.  Hugs,