it's like Thanksgiving here

We sent one of our guys to the nearest town. A little tourist resort on the Med near the Libyan border,about 100 miles from here. They opened up a Kentucky Fried Chicken there. I'm sitting here eating KFC,fries, a pint of cole slaw, and a pepsi. Man, it's heaven. I've had nothing but boiled chicken,goat and water buffalo and rice for over a month now.One thing I have learned from being out of the country for so many years is to appreciate the little things.It's amazing how KFC chicken can taste the same anywhere in the world. I'll be going back to Cairo next week and the one thing that I am looking forward to is not a cold beer,well, a little bit, but the thing I crave the most is a McDonalds quarter pounder.Funny how much the little things we take for granted at home can mean so much when you don't have them. There's a lesson in there somewhere but I don't have time to elaborate on it. My chickens getting cold!

 

Oh let me see, we have spiders the size of your fist.They are meat eaters.They have a substance in thier saliva that numbs tissue as they eat it.Camel Spiders. They eat camels feet while they are sleeping.I have heard of two people that were bitten by them.One was a Brit who went out sunbathing on a sand dune and fell asleep.Not smart.Everytime they see the sun they take thier clothes off and go lay out.Woke up and had a big chunk of his foot eaten.Another was a guy that worked for my company.He fell asleep in the TV room and one crawled up on his chest and ate half of his lower lip before he woke up.
Then there are the scorpions.Little green tinted buggers.They like to crawl up under your sheets in the daytime.Makes for a real nasty surprise if you don't check your bed before crawling in.Very poisonous.Not fatal but will put a grown man in the hospital for about 3 weeks.
Don't want to forget the sand vipers.A snake about 2 to 3 foot long,same color as the sand.Near impossible to see.They bury thier selves in the sand and when threatened curl up on thier tail and can jump about 15'!
And of course the sand storms.Seen movies like "The Mummy" or "Hildago"?The towering wall of sand?Not Hollywierd special effects.I've been in a few.I think I have a pic.
This is in Iraq,but I have seen the same thing here.Got caught outside in one a couple a years ago.Had to put my face down in my shirt to breathe.Felt like someone standing on a ladder pouring a bucket of sand over your head.Couldn't see a foot in front of you.Several of us grabbed each others belts and wandered around until we ran into a building, then finally found a door and got inside.
Yeah real nice place.But every place has it's challenges.On a clear night I drive out into the desert.Not a house,town or car around for miles and miles in any direction.I like to lay on the hood of the truck and look at the stars.You would'nt believe how big the sky is when your in the middle of nowhere like that.
I worked in the Rub Al Khali desert in Saudi Arabia.(The Empty Quarter )A place the size of Texas with two paved roads and 3 villages.You could drive for 2 or 3 hundred miles and never see a town or pass another car.Your perspective changes.I used to jump in my truck and make a run to town.Couple hundred miles,no problem.Be right back.
When I was in Saudi in 1990 there was a little village 1 1/2 hour drive away that we would go to once a week and call collect back home.Now in 2005 I have a cell phone that my wife calls me on anytime day or night.I have a small sattelite dish that I can put out anywhere I am at and get on the internet.Amazing.
Some folks that come over here just hate it.Can't see any beauty here. I guess it's perspective.The desert has it's own kind of beauty.I love the vastness and the solitude.I guess you adapt to your environment.When I come home it's culture shock for the first few days.The green almost hurts the eyes to look at.Especially in the spring.It's just so different.But being in another country,especially one so extreme,really makes you appreciate what we have in our country.That's one reason I think that I am more extreme than some in my views.It's the frog in the pot syndrome.I come home from a world where you get stopped randomly and have to show your papers and have no real freedoms.I come home and see some of the same things happening in my country and I just want to shout "Hey wake up!!It's getting hot in here!!"Ok I'm getting off topic.
Yeah, E.L. there is a lot of different aspects to surviving in a place like this.
But I'm never to far away when I can log on and share with friends.
Oh yeah, and if you can't tell.It gets pretty lonely here too!

 

Here we drive toyota 4x4 crew cab diesel pick-ups.Each one has a large auxillary fuel tank in the bed.Two extra spare tires,and two gerry cans of water,and a shovel.I always carry a case of bottled water,flashlight,compass,or GPS,first aid kit. I make sure I have matches and a bic lighter,and of course TP.Nothing really out of the ordinary.If we are going somewhere a long way off or through the desert we always tell someone on both ends and they watch for us.
Some places have good cell phone reception,some we have sattelite phones and some places we use radios.The only time I was ever stranded was in Saudi.We were moving a rig and we came to a wadi.A dry river bed.It was raining(yes it rains in the desert).We crossed the first one and got on top of a mesa.But on the other side the wadi had split and went around the mesa and it was running water.Some guys in front(we always convoy on a move) they tried to cross in a suburban and got stuck in the middle.They had to climb up on the roof of the vehicle and stay there.We could'nt get to them and our phones would'nt work where we were at.
We were stuck there for 3 days waiting for the water to recede and the wadi to dry up enough to cross.The guys on the Suburban were able to wade back to us the next afternoon.But it was 2 more days before it was dry enough to dig the truck out.We had water and food and the days weren't unbearably hot so it was'nt too bad.

 

About the weapons.The bedoins all have AK-47s and old bolt action enfields and mausers.Some times they will try to sell them to you,but I have always been leery of it.I have heard stories of guys buying one then the bedo goes to the cops and turns the guy in.The guy goes to jail and the bedo gets his gun back and gets to keep the money.Not worth the risk.
A funny story.We were preparing for a long move.We had put gasoline in several 55 gallon drums.A bedoin had come up and was begging for fuel.As is usual.The boss said no.He saw the guy circling the location in his truck and thought he was going to try and steal one of the barrels.So he gets a couple of the hands and drives his truck over and has them load the barrels of gas in his truck.The bedo pulls up about 50 yards out and reaches in and pulls out an AK.He raps off a burst in the air over the guys heads.The boss tells the hands "Fill his tank,wash his windows, and check his oil!" True story.That's the first question I ask when they come around asking for fuel "Are they armed?"Is so give em whatever they want.

 

I have never actually lived here on a resident basis.I am always on a business visa so it wouldn't be possible for me to own a gun.But if I was to get a residents visa I could apply and go through the channels.Same all over the third world,if you got the cash you can have anything you want.There are some gun clubs and ranges in Cairo.A lot of the expats that live here shoot trap and other shooting sports.
My other passion is Golf and I get to play alot of that here.My favorite course is at the base of the great pyramid in Giza.I think I have a pic from last month.
I do miss my guns when I am over here tho.I don't like going unarmed,but actually I feel safer in Cairo on a Satuday night than I would in Dallas or any US city.There isn't a terrorist around every corner just waiting for you.That is blown way out of proportion.Like airline crashes.You only hear about it when they happen,but what are the odds of it happening to you?

 

I don't know why these pics keep posting so big.I put them in photoshop and cut them down till they start to blur and they still come out big.

*fine today.Maybe someone fixed or was my system.

 

Great pics and stories MM.

As for the size, try this. XP power toys, Or if not on XP, google windows power toys.
(I just resized your's as "small")
Image resizer. Install it and you can right click on a pic file, (or group of them), and right click, resize pics, Choose medium, and it will cut the pic down in a flash with no noticable loss of quality.

http://download.microsoft.com/download/whistler/Install/2/WXP/EN-US/ImageResizerPowertoySetup.exe

more here: http://survivalmonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=154

 

I flew my wife and 11 yr old daughter over here last April and we took two weeks and went tourist.Took a train down to Aswan and got on a cruise ship for a 4 day cruise up the Nile.Seen Karnak Temple (awesome), Valley of the Kings,King Tuts tomb.Went and stayed with a guy that works for me.Had a farm and the whole family lived there.Was really neat to experience the culture outside of the tourist traps.Stayed a week in Cairo and went to the museum and the Pyramids.Was a really nice trip.One my daughter will always remember.It was good for her to see how other people live.I made a point to drive through some of the poorer parts of town.Made her realize how fortunate we are in America.

 

E.L.,I have all my vacation pics, with commentary, hosted on a website for friends and family to view.If you would like to view the albums PM me an email addy and I'll send you an invite.Anyone else interested can too.Too many pics to post here.
Also I just came back to Cairo and stopped at the war museum in Al Alamein.Lots of WWll stuff.Lots of guns.I can add that album too if interested.

 

Some pics from the War Museum at Al Alamein Egypt

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v234/Ruffnek/PIC_0110.jpg

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http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v234/Ruffnek/WWII items/PIC_0036.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v234/Ruffnek/WWII items/PIC_0034.jpg

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http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v234/Ruffnek/WWII items/PIC_0047.jpg

 

For you WWll buffs here are some more pics that I posted on another site.This is a place near where our base camp is located.It is called the "Quattara Depression".
Like Death Valley in the states it is a wide valley below sea level.Lots of old WWll relics lying around.These are some of the things we found there.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v234/Ruffnek/WWII items/Qattara Depression/94041677107_0_ALB.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v234/Ruffnek/WWII items/Qattara Depression/83041677107_0_ALB.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v234/Ruffnek/WWII items/Qattara Depression/54041677107_0_ALB.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v234/Ruffnek/WWII items/Qattara Depression/34041677107_0_ALB.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v234/Ruffnek/WWII items/Qattara Depression/74041677107_0_ALB.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v234/Ruffnek/WWII items/Qattara Depression/22861927107_0_ALB.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v234/Ruffnek/WWII items/Qattara Depression/62861927107_0_ALB.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v234/Ruffnek/WWII items/Qattara Depression/14041677107_0_ALB.jpg