I had a fear that I might not like Egypt the second time around, 27 years later. That I might not feel again the inspiration I’d felt so long ago, the desire to take it all in and know it and write about it.  

But I recognized it immediately; Cairo has changed little. Sometimes you know and feel things right away; you go with your gut and don’t second-guess. Egypt has energy, dynamism; it’s bursting with life.

And it wasn’t bad dropping in at the tail end of a revolution, either.  

On Friday, Cairo’s citizens gathered to celebrate what they’d started on the 25th of January, and it was a street party like no other. Hundreds of thousands gathered under a brilliant sun and cloudless sky, drunk with empowerment. Dancing, singing, beating drums, holding their children into the air and photographing them clutching the barrels of tanks and in the arms of soldiers, an ocean of bodies waving flags that went on and on and on, up every side street and into the night. “We were not afraid!” people told me over and over. “We are Egyptians and we are free!”  

Men hauled me up on lampposts and clapped me on the back. A dead
goat was passed overhead from bloody hand to bloody hand. Families
asked to have their photos taken with me and a man showed me the bloodstained wad of toilet paper he’d used to help staunch the wound of a protester who’d
been shot. As the sun set, bottle rockets and homemade hot air
balloons, each a flickering yellow flame, soared into the darkness. When I finally left the square after eight hours, it was shoulder to
shoulder for miles, even across the Nile bridges, this river of bodies
dancing in the smoky night.  

Ever since, I’ve been south, first to Luxor and then to Aswan, where I
am the only tourist in sight. The
hotels are empty. The tour boats are docked, the feluccas moored in long
flotillas. The touts are hungry. “We haven’t worked
in a month!” they cry.  

But on the west bank of the Nile, across the river from Aswan where
life is slow and donkeys bray under palm trees, I sat
with Abdel Sabour Dahab and his friends on a reed mat sipping tea,
always another cup of tea. Dahab is a bear of a man, with a deep,
resonant voice and joy that radiates. “Tourists will come again soon,
inshallah,” he says, “and now there is no more Mubarak. Remember: one
hand makes no sound, many hands make a thunder!”  

“Come!” he says, “I love to eat and I love the water! We must have lunch and swim.”  And we do. 

[National Geographic Guide to Egypt]
[Egypt Travel Guide]

Follow along with Carl in Cairo on Twitter at @LunaticCarl.

View full post on Intelligent Travel Blog

…

Read Full Post

View full post on About.com Caribbean Travel

It’s part of the reality of living in a world fueled by hydrocarbons, and some of the fuel made here is destined for U.S. gas tanks. However, its good to know that both islands are also taking steps toward a greener future.

The Tera Kora and Playa Kanoa wind farms in Curacao, for example, will soon put out a combined 30 megawatts of clean power, and Aruba also is building a 30 megawatt wind farm — a great legacy for future generations of residents of two islands where Dutch heritage and steady trade winds makes alternative energy projects like these a natural fit.

Learn More About Wind Power

Aruba, Curacao Look Beyond Oil, Seek Green Energy originally appeared on About.com Caribbean Travel on Sunday, February 7th, 2010 at 10:44:52.

Permalink | Comment | Email this

View full post on About.com Caribbean Travel