Grenada

Well, sort of...

The first picture I have is of the monkeys who live in Gibralter. I wasn´t brave enough to drive to the "Ape House" where they live on the Rock, so I figured I wouldn´t see them. Evidently they are the only primates in Europe. Little did I know that they like chocolate like the rest of us, so they come down and scavage, and showed up at my hotel as I was walking out the door. Here is a picture of one of the little guys, chocolate wrapper in hand!

I got to Granada yesterday and just kind of cratered. It took forever to find the hotel. I really have NO sense of direction, and I´m getting tired of being lost ALL the time! I drove to the street, then started looking for the hotel, and of course the map I had showed it on the opposite side of the road AND at the wrong end of the street! When I tell you the streets here all star into a plaza (think the intersection of Main, 20th, and Studemont) and you have some idea of how confused I was. I finally parked, but realized I was too far away, lost the parking card, had to ay for a full day, figured out the map sucked, and finally found the hotel...after driving around for nearly an hour. Did I mention the streets here are about 1 car wide! I was a wreck, and had the migraine from hell. So yesterday I didn´t leave my room. Once I got there, I was done. I took a nap, read, sewed on my fish, and just rested. It was actually hard for me to get out this morning (OK, actually after noon). I´m better now, don´t feel as lost, and actually rode the bus and got to where I wanted to go!

Where I wanted to go was Alhambra, the huge citadel palace here in Granada. Believe it or not, this is something I have wanted to do since I was in university the first time! The history here, and the beauty are incredible. The area started as a fortress, and us surrounded by walls like these...

It was also the main gate into the city, the adminstrative center for the rulars, and the palace. The beautiful plasterwork almost has to be seen to be believed.

At one time it was painted. Here you can still see some of the blue background.

Below is part of a courtyard called "Courtyard of the Lions". In the center it has a fountain surrounded by 12 Lions (these are being restored, so no pictures). The fountain pours into 4 channels, one on each side, representing the 4 heavenly areas of islam, and terminates in a fountain. So, if it were working, the whole area would be alive with the sound of water.

Around the courtyard are 124 marble colums, so delicate, and the plasterwork is incredible. The entire complex is built around courtyards, some paved with patterns of stones, some gardens, and most with some sort of fountain in the middle.

Here are some more views of the beautiful lacework plaster that is over the entire palace...

This special dome has plaster stars, and almost seams to swirl!

After the conquest by the Christian rulars, Carlos V ordered this room ceiling redone to suit his tastes...

Everywhere there is water. Below is a courtyard in an area called the Architects´s garden..

This last picture of the gardens is called the garden of water. It is incredible.

This is a shot of the main palace from the Summer Palace, on a different hill!

I have to say of all the places I´ve been, this is the first place where I wish I had come at a different time. The roses are just starting to shoot out, the gardens are just starting to come alive. This is a place to visit one late afternoon in the summer, when the air is full of the smell of roses and myrtle and the gardens are lit for nighttime, mysterious and beautiful. It was beautiful now, but imagining it like that...wow!

OK guys, enough for now... I´m here one more day, then I head up the coast. I may take off tomorow and go halfway, don´t really know yet, but it´s a long way up to Barcelona, so I may get started. Take care,

Earline

Finally caught up - Jordan at last!

I've got a couple of hours left on this internet card, so I figured I'd use them...and this computer loads pictures really quickly! So I'm going to catch you up, and show you the last of the pictures from the middle east. You guys have to know that these are only a tenth of the pictures I took, but at least you get the idea!

You know...I don't have to go back to Egypt. There are a couple of places I could go, and would enjoy them (Alexandria) but Egypt itself was not some place I really felt at home. Jordan was different. Part of it was the fact that, for the first time, I sort of knew the history. It's all biblical! It is amazing to travel through the place names you have known since a child!

For starters, I had a great guide. She, yes she, was too funny! She and I drove all over. She definately had a list of things for me to do, and was not about for me to miss one sight that could be found in Jordan! Since I only knew of Petra, this was cool with me! Below is a picture of the first thing she wanted me to see. Unfortuanately, I don't remember the name of the church, but this is a mosaic on the floor of the whole church center, showing all the important places in the area, meaning all the important places in the Bible! This, I think, was my most intriguing thing in Jordan. Petra was incredible, but this, so unexpected, was amazing!

Next we went to an ancient fortress. When you think of the crusades, and you see the movies, you wonder how 2000 people could live in a fortress. Not anymore! It was HUGE! and hallways, rooms, kitchens, chapels everywhere! Below is only a small bit of the fortress. You could see the defensive way it was built, with slits to ffire arrows and tunnels to pour hot stuff on your enemies! It was really cool, especially imagining it teaming with people!

After this, we drove to Petra. We drove in a fog, so that was a little hair-raising, but I think I've already told you about that! So here are some pictures of Petra. The first is the entrance...it's no wonder the place was lost for so many years!

Then of course...the treasury...

What I didn't realize, but should have, is that the city is enormous! The treasury is only the begining. There are tombs carved all over. The reality is that if it was dedicated to a god, or meant for a tomb, it was carved into the stone. The people lived in brick houses, which have not survived. So all we are looking at is tomb and temples.

After this, we went to Wadi Rumm, or the desert. I want to go back and spend the night! There is nothing for miles, and all I can think of is how huge the sky must be. We took tea at a Bedouin camp, and drove a pickup through the desert, stopping for photo opps! So here are some of the photos...

Our driver...

Random bedouins and their transport...

The beautiful desert!

After we went to the desert, I begged. We were so close to the Red Sea and Aqaba, that I wanted to see it...so my wonderful guide took me.

First my great guide...

Then the Red Sea. I know Israel is there, but I had no idea how close. Anyway, in this shot you an just see the sea!

And finally, on of the places which has enabled me to stay in touch with you. Thanks to all of them!!!!!

Hope you have a great week, I'm headed to Granada and a Turkish Bath!

Earline

Egypt...some more

It's been a while now since I could work on posting what I saw in Egypt, but they only had a 4 hour internet card, so I've got the time! After we were in Luxor a few days, we boarded a cruise boat to Aswan. It was kind of a different boat. It is VERY flat. The draft on the Nile is only 3 meters, or about 15 feet, so these boats only have a draft of 2.5 meters. They are really flat. The Nile is low now, so the ship we were supposed to take had grounded, and we were put on another one. We boarded a day before we actually left, and spent the first night tied up to the dock. The difficulty is scheduling the locks on the Nile, and ships wait for hours (as ours did) to be able to pass through the locks. We don't have a lot of room side to side. The ship has about 6 inches clearance either way! Here is our ship.

The Nile is really beautiful to sail down...

You get the sense not much has changed here in hundreds of years.

Once we got to Aswan, we got to sail on a Felucca, which was pretty neat. Again, really old design, but pretty efficient. You know, so often, sail boats have a motor, but not these. No wind...no sail!

I had some fun with T and his new friend the Drom...but then the Drom moved to Sweden, so T is friendless again.

Here is a picture of Ayman sailing the felucca. We took them everywhere. Here's T checking out the Nile...

And also looking at Aswan. There is an upper and lower dam. We could only go to the lower.

This is a view of the first cataracts. We stayed on the island, at the Movenpick, so we had to ferry back and forth to the city.

In Aswan, the last temple we visited was the last temple used...the Temple of Philae. A temple dedicated to the worship of Isis, this temple would have been underwater, and was moved from an island which is now part of the lake to a higher island. Literally, stone by stone. It was cut up, numbered and put together like a giant jigsaw puzzle.

Here are some pictures.....

This would have been where anyone arriving would have landed. Here's the view from the river of the landing site....

Now for the pictures you have been waiting for! Yes, Virginia, Earline did ride a camel, AND have a live alligator dropped on her head! It (excepting the alligator) was on of the best times I had in Egypt! We took a ferry up the Nile a ways one late afternoon. When we had gone a ways, there were camels...and I rode one to a Nubian village. I can't remember if I told you alread that I'm pretty sure Nubia is where Dr. Seuss got his inspiration. The houses are all arches and wild colors. It was really neat. We had tea there, then of course I had to wear the alligator! Coming back down the Nile after dark was so peaceful. I laid on the roof of the ferry and just watched the stars come out. Now for the pictures...

Me on the camel...it standing was the hardest part!

Me riding the camel...

Me with the *&$#@ alligator on my head... Just a couple more, then I'll post this...of the sunset as we came back down the Nile. It was a great experience.

And I've got to say...it's amazing what you find just sitting around in the desert!
And just so you know it's really me taking those pictures...here's Earline....the fearless explorer!

Bye for now....

Gibralter

Hello again

Today I'm in Gibralter...as in the Rock of. It's a pretty incredible looking rock! You can see it for miles. Here are a couple of pictures

This one is from my terrace at my hotel! They tell me you can see Africa from my room on a clear day. I would have liked to have seen that!

Now for a couple more driving stories. The first is an honest mistake....anyone could make it! This car is a diesal car. Now in the states, what color are the diesal pumps? Why yes they are green. But not here. Here, yep, you guessed it...the unleaded pumps are green. Who knew! So I wondered why my poor car started running so rough. Fortunately, I only put in a quarter of a tank, and had run a bunch of that out when I figured it out! So I filled the tank and it is MUCH happier now.

Then there is driving in Gibralter. DON'T!!!! The streets are (snicker) 2 way, but only one car width and all up hill or down. If you meet someone, one of you goes back to the nearest wide spot in the road and waits until the other goes past...and this can be a ways down the road! Let's just say I will NEVER drive here again. You'd have to have a death wish! But I did drive up to a lookout point on the Rock, and here's a picture. Not much of one as the day is not clear, but something!

I head to Granada tomorrow, and will be there until it's time to head to Barcelona and pick up Sandy. Just read yesterday there is an air traffic controller's strike possible in Paris (SOMETHING has to strike there or it's not Paris!) so I'm hoping none of you who are joining me get hung! I'm going to post this, then try to catch up the rest of Egypt. Love you guys...

Earline

More about Spain - Toledo and Seville

Well, the adventure continues....and now I have car stories!

OK, so I pick up my car at the airport in Madrid, and it is great...a small mini-van (for those of you meeting me...yeah!) It´s a standard, which is normal here, and not a problem for me to drive. I rented the GPS, which I learned in Sweden is both a good and bad thing. Good, in that it gives you a vague idea of where you need to go...bad when it INSISTS you need to turn right....into an embankment! I´ve learned when that happens, I just have to get far enough away that it won´t just keep telling me to turn around and go back into the embankment! It actually has to recalculate the route. Of course, this has entailed the thing ¨falling across the car¨ a couple of times!

So now I´m on may way to Toledo, and it is an easy drive, until I get to Toledo and have to find a hotel and a place to park. One person I met wondered how it was that the roads were so exactly designed to be one car width? I´m not sure if I was always supposed to drive there, but at least I didn´t hit anything. So parked the car (whew!!) found a hotel and all was well. While wandering around Toledo, I discovered something else (besides amazing architecture). Dried ham and hard bread BOTH expand when they hit your stomach, something my stomach does NOT like. Oh well, after that, the bartender/waiter and I began talking in some random language that was part spanish, part french, and part english. He told me that the city was only 2KM wide and 2KM from top to bottom, and if I really wanted to see it, I should take the ring road on the other side of the river and go to the terrace cafe on the side of the mountain and get a great view. At least that is what I understood, he could have been expounding on the flat earth theory. So the next day, I´m leaving and I decide to find this great café. OKKKK....

Somehow I had been driving for 2 days and had never put the car in reverse. I´m not sure how that happened, or if I just go lucky once, but anyway, I´m driving on the road up the hill on the other side of the river and pull in to a parking space at the café, only to find that one was closed. But now I can´t back out, because I can´t get the car into reverse!!! So finally, after a few minutes, there was this old guy with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth washing his car by throwing buckets of soapy water on it. Hey...maybe HE can get it into reverse, on the strange theory that mechanical devices work better for men (?), but he can´t get it in reverse either. OK, so now call AVIS; the car is broken. Only AVIS wants me to call someone else, and the old guy is still trying to put it in gear, when all of the sudden he starts to laugh, and does this strange thing with pulling something up around the gear shift knob and the car goes into reverse! YIPPEE!!! And now he´s telling me the story about how this happened to him once before and the woman (his wife??) laughed because he didn´t know how to put it in reverse and there was a lot more to that story, but I´m pretty sure we went back to the flat earth theory at that point. He talked for a while though! And I did find the terrace, and here are the pictures to prove it!

So anyway, got to Cordoba, and here are some of the things I saw. This is the inside of the mosque there, which has also got a catholic church inside, so you have this beautiful court, with chapels all around and a huge center alter and choir...The main alter, with the cool ceiling that is a combiantion of muslim and gothic design..

One of the side chapels...

All of the cities I´ve visited so far have been on rivers...makes sense for defense, etc. So is Cordoba, and this is an old water wheel that was used as early as Roman times. It´s been rebuilt several times, used to pump water to the city or as a mill, but is now no longer in use. Cordoba had (as so many of the cities here in Spain) a huge Juderia, where Jews lived until they were expelled at the start of the Inquisition. Both Seville and Toledo had synagogues. Toledo´s were closed when I was there, but here are some shots of the one in Seville.

The walls had the beautiful plasterwork, then inscriptions in Hebrew. One that is still visible is the donars´name!

I stayed at a small Hostal in the Juderia, and it was an amazing place, located in an old muslim (mudejar) building, built around courtyards. All of the cities here are built around plazas, where you find cool outdoor cafés and can get a caña, or small beer for a couple of bucks and sit there for hours. I am experienced! The other thing that I´ve tried over and over again to capture in pictures are the fact that the orange trees are FULL of fruit! There are oranges literally dropping on the ground all over the south of Spain! It´s really funny. I haven´t had the guts to taste one yet, because people literally ignore them! I don´t know why..

One night I was having dinner and the couple at the table next to me invited me to join them. What a fun evening! She was from California, a nurse, and he was from Scotland, a psycology professor. They had married, and were living in Scotland but looking for a place to live where it was warmer! We had such a fun evening, and I was reminded again of gifts. It was just enjoyable. We stayed at dinner for over 3 hours!

The next morning I headed for Seville, where I am now. Everytime I think I have found my favorite city, I get to the next one. Seville is just a great place. This area (the old city) is full of little plazas, cafés, small shops, and wandering streets with random fountains! This is the hallmark of the city, called the Giraldi tower. It is what is left of a mosque, which was demolished to build the city´s cathedral. The rumour here is that the city fathers got together and said let´s build something so big, people will think we´re crazy! They succeeded. It took 200 years, and styles changed some, so it has different parts, but it is amazing. You can walk up this tower, and I did this morning. The views are great. I was up by the bells, and yes, they still ring them! Here it is at night....

And during the day!And the front.....with T..

After a refreshing lunch of a caña and paté, yum.. I then went to the Alcázar, where both Muslim and Christian rulars have lived and built. It started as a fort in 913, the was added on to in the 11th and 12th centuries by the Muslum rulers, then, in the middle of the 13th century, the Christians took over and added on in the 14th century. In 1480 Ferdinand and Isabel had their court here, and the gardens were created later. It almost has to be seen to be believed. The best word to describe it is sumptuos! Wow!!! The plasterwork is amazing. Then you get to the tiled and painted areas.

And I think my favorite part was the garden!

Well, I´d better go, before they make me buy this computer! Hope all is well with you guys.

Oh yeah...I forgot one of the best parts of Seville...I got to do my laundry! I have clean jeans. Not that you want to know, but did you know you can wear your jeans for a full month in the winter before they start to get stinky!

Tomorrow I head to Gibralter, where I hope I can see the rock!

Earline