Digital Rabbit

The word “pyramid” always painted a picture of a pristine sandscape with towering stone tetrahedrons breaking the monotony of the sand. I was not disappointed when I opened the balcony window in my room at Oberoi Mena House in Cairo. There it was, my first face-to-face encounter with one of the great Giza pyramids.

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I arrived at Mena House two days before I would meet up with the Wonders of Egypt tour I signed on with. I couldn’t wait that long. I had to experience the great pyramids more closely. So I walked the short distance from Mena House to the pyramids. Walking gave me the chance to exercise and get a feeling for the streets—something you can’t get from the sheltered environment of Mena House. Walking also gave me a unique view of the pyramids, one that isn’t as obvious from a tourist bus.

Just outside the gate to the pyramids is a large staging area for the horses and camels used for tourist rides. It is also a place for dumping trash.The problem isn’t confined to outside the pyramid. Trash is everywhere on the grounds themselves. If you are with a tour group you are likely to be herded from a bus to a photo stop, back to the bus, the to a line for a pyramid, then back to the bus, and so on. But if you are an independent traveler, it doesn’t take any sleuth work to encounter old sandals, water bottles, candy wrappers, cigarette boxes, and more.

One issue is that there aren’t any visible trash cans at the Giza pyramids. I spent some time observing the tourists to see who was tossing trash on the ground. The guides I’ve met have been quite conscientious about making sure their charges were clean and respectful. Tourists aren’t the problem. The trinket vendors, along with the camel and horse people who work at the pyramid site, are the culprits.

When I toured the rest of Egypt, I realized that trash is as pervasive as the poverty. Travel photographers, reporters, and Egyptologists overlook the trash. Who want’s to see it? Certainly not the armchair traveler.

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At the end of the day, I mentioned the trash and the bribery (see Egyptian Police Double as Photography Consultants) to one of the staff at Mena House. He was shocked that I ventured out on my own. Wouldn’t it be best if tourists leave Egypt with the same impression they would get sitting in an armchair at home watching Zawi Hawass on a travel channel? I don’t think so. I travel to experience the reality of an area. Despite the trash, the pyramids still amaze me. I am amazed even more now that I see how well they are preserved amid the poverty and problems that Egypt has. (Note: I left Egypt just days before the January, 2011 revolution.)

When I jumped out of our vehicle and starting walking towards a flock of frenzied seagulls, I wondered if I was destined for a fate similar to Tippi Hedren in the Hitchcock thriller The Birds. My guide, Abudullah al Shuhi, reassured me that the seagulls signaled a rare site—a sardine catch. The seagulls were after the fish, not me.

Abdullah explained that each coastal town has a designated lookout person for sardines, whose silver glint is unmistakable as a school approaches the surface of the water. Today was a lucky day for the small village of Taqah. The sardines were shoaling close to shore.

When sardines are spotted, the men from town drive or run to the water’s edge and get to work. Some men throw out a net. Others struggle to keep the net in place, trapping the sardines as they swim into it. The fishermen scoop the captured sardines into bags and haul them back to town.

The seagulls see the catch as a fine opportunity to fill their bellies. As the fishermen are hard at work, every local seagull swoops down to grab sardines. Meanwhile, the poor sardines are frantically trying to get away from the nets and the birds. The fish jump out of the water, and even swim directly to the shore.

I got as close as I could to the activity, even standing in the water. Bird wings grazed my head while sardines slapped against my ankles.

All this activity took place in the muslim country of Oman—a country where I was told to be careful about taking photographs of people. (Most people do not want their photograph taken, especially women.) But the sardine catch created a festive mood, so photography was okay. A few fishermen asked me to take their photos, others gave me a thumbs up, and one man stuck out his tongue in jest.

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I amused the fishermen as much as they amazed me. I didn’t know whether to take video or stills, so I took both. At one point I squatted to get a sea-level view of the activity. Then a wave swamped me. We all laughed as bags and bags and bags of squirming sardines were hauled off to town.

 

Watch the sardine catch video on YouTube.

On Sunday, January 23 I returned from a journey to Egypt, just days before the unrest sparked by Tunisia erupted into major protests on the streets of Cairo. I arrived in Egypt on January 9th, two days before joining a group tour run by Wilderness Travel. The day before the official tour began, my husband, Glen, and I walked to the Giza pyramids on our own. It was on that day that I learned that Egypt’s “tourism” police had photography skills.

Tourism police watch the monuments of Egypt. At times, there seems to be an excess of police assigned to a particular post. I’m inclined to be on my best behavior around police, particularly foreign ones. Didn’t some tourist in the USA get killed because he ran from the police instead of obeying their commands? So when two tourism police motioned for me and Glen to walk over to them, we did. It turns out that they wanted to give us some photography advice.

One of the cops pointed to a spot and motioned for me to take a photo. I had already taken dozens of photos of the Great Pyramid and really didn’t want another one, but I appeased him. Then he motioned for me to give him my camera and proceeded to take several photos of me and Glen in a variety of police-directed poses. He and his buddy had us raise our hands, first separately and then together. I couldn’t figure out what they were doing. Finally I said “enough!” I really didn’t want any of these photos. I took my camera back and walked away.

The two police quickly pursued us and insisted we give them money for the service of taking photos. We handed them the smallest bill we had—a 10 pound note, and walked away. Take a look at the photo. Do you think it was worth it? Now I understand the strange poses!

After that, other police tried the same thing, but I refused to acknowledge them. The police annoyed me so much that I finally put on sunglasses and looked straight ahead to avoid eye contact. To be fair, the police weren’t the only ones playing photography consultant. The Giza pyramids were full of horse and camel riders who were as persistent and annoying as flies at a picnic. If I had taken everyone’s “advice” who approached me, I’d be out at least $50 USD.

The police trapped us once more, inside a small tomb on the back side of one of the pyramids, a little off the beaten path. While we were inside looking around, a tourism police approached us with some “helpful advice” to crouch into a small passageway that led to a sarcophagus. I sensed this would cost a “tip” so I responded that I wasn’t interested. After walking around the tomb, the cop approached again, insisting that it was safe to enter the small passageway. Safety wasn’t my concern; I didn’t want to get shaken down for more money. He continued to insist and my curiosity got the best of me. When I crawled out of the passageway after viewing the sarcophagus (which was very cool), he asked me for money. I threw up my hands, said “I have no money”, and walked quickly out of the tomb. Glen did the same.

Someone told me that the Egyptian police are not paid very much. Perhaps that’s why the police give photography and sightseeing “advice” to earn more money.

Egypt is full of poverty and illiteracy. I could sense the hopeless lethargy in the air when I was there. I’m not surprised at the events unfolding this week.

When I was in Antarctica, I saw a few icebergs that had linear voids where ice melted out. These were typically icebergs that flipped or tipped on their side. The sections melted when that part of the iceberg was underwater. These voids can fill up with sea water that’s rich in algae, creating the striped effect you see in this image.

For more information, see Snopes on Striped Icebergs.

Thanks to The Wanderer for this tip!

In this satellite image released by Commonwealth of Australia, a 97-kilometer (60 mile) long iceberg known as B9B, right, crashes into the Mertz Glacier Tongue, left, in the Australian Antarctic Territory on Feb. 20, 2010. The collision created a new 78-kilometer (48 mile) long iceberg.

Two icebergs are now drifting off Antarctica’s coast. One of them is 23 years old and is named B9B. The other just came into existence because B9B smacked into the Mertz Glacier and broke off a chunk. Any ideas for names of this second iceberg? We can’t let this chunk of ice have as dull a name as its companion B9B?

B9B is 97 kilometers long, which puts it at the size of the country of Luxembourg. Hop on it, declare yourself the ice king or queen, and you can stand ruler over any penguins and seals that jump on.

This second iceberg (Ms. Newberg, perhaps?) is 78 kilometers long. How big is that? It holds about a fifth of the water usage of the world!

For the full story:
2 Huge Icebergs Let Loose Off Antarctica’s Coast

A few people asked me if I saw any polar bears during my recent trip to Antarctica. No, I didn’t. Polar bears live in the Arctic. If you want to see them, either go to Canada (where 60% of them live) or get to some other Arctic location, like Point Barrow, Alaska. Find out more about them and their melting habitat on David Suzuki’s website.

One person asked me if I met any Antarctica natives. In fact, I met several thousands of them. They live there only part of the year, so you might argue they don’t qualify as natives. Unfortunately we had a big communication problem. I don’t speak penguin. Penguins are very communicative with each other. After watching them for awhile, I could understand their primary motivation in life—fish and reproduction. A few seem to have some other interests, like racing!

That’s what it felt like during my recent trip to Antarctica. A tail here, a fin there, and the occasional glimpse of a blow hole or mouth. My companions and I wanted to see more.

We were sitting in a small Zodiac boat in icy cold water watching mammals that are 50 feet long. What if one came up under the boat? I guess we trusted the whales knew what they were doing. They trusted we weren’t going to harpoon them.

You might have seen photos of whales jumping out of the water. That’s what we wanted to see. But these whales were feeding. Feeding humpbacks don’t do that, which made watching them a challenge. The whales typically approach a large gathering of krill from below, then drive them towards the surface, with mouth open. The whale engulfs the krill, snaps its mouth shut, and squishes the water out. A tasty meal.

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When the petrel sea bird feeds, its feet patter on the surface of the water. It almost looks as if the bird is walking on water. There is a story in the bible about St. Peter walking on water. Hundreds of years ago someone familiar with that story named the bird after St. Peter. At least that’s what I’ve been told.

Petrels are a type of pelagic bird—they live on the open sea, flying to land only to breed. Non-pelagic birds fly close to shore; seeing them is a sign that land is nearby. If you can’t tell a pelagic bird from a non-pelagic one, you’ll be sorely disappointed if you’re lost at sea and encounter petrels. You might think you are close to land when in fact it’s no where in the vicinity of your boat.

Because they fly for long periods of time, petrels have thin legs. Their legs can’t support their weight very well, which is one reason stay at sea except when they need to breed.

Petrels—and other pelagic birds—drink sea water. You or I would die if we drank that much salt. How do these birds survive? They have a specially built bill that has nostril tubes for blowing out salt. If you look closely, you can see the saline dripping out of the tubes.

When I was in Antarctica recently, I saw 10 different varieties of petrels. They appeared soon after we crossed the Antarctic convergence zone, circling the ship while we were in open waters. One of my favorites is the Cape Petrel. It has the most amazing pattern on its wings. It almost looks stenciled on its back.

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One of the ways to tell that you’ve passed from the Atlantic Ocean into the Southern Ocean is the appearance of albatrosses. This Royal Albatross is one of the several kinds of sea birds that became constant companions to the Polar Star during my recent expedition to Antarctica.

Like many living creatures on earth, the albatross faces many threats. 100,000 albatrosses die each year from ingesting fish hooks. Most of the hooks are discarded by fishing boats when the fisherman toss out waste and bait. BirdLife International is trying to stop these deaths with their Save the Albatross campaign. Check it out.

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I don’t know what to say about this creature. The expedition staff on our cruise had never seen an octopus in Antarctica. This one was in the shallow water near Port Lockroy. If you have any ideas on what species it is, please let me know.