Ever since arriving in Ethiopia we’ve been excited to get out of Africa, not that its been bad at all mind you, its just that Africa is difficult. Emotionally, physically and mentally Africa can take it all out of you without you even realizing it. It’s been a pleasure sharing the adventure with others along with way, but frankly we were just exhausted of being in the developing world. I know how that sounds and I realize how lucky we are to be able to leave those difficult situations, but it’s the truth, it was hard. We needed a long break, badly.
Needless to say it wasn’t with heavy hearts that we took the ferry to Jordan. In fact it was …

Hiking Mt Sinai is the sort of thing that manypeople come to Egypt to do. Most people fly to one of Egypt’s expensive coastal cities, book a tour, get on the bus around midnight, arrive sometime before 2am, and with some luck are at the summit with one thousand of their closest friends that they never met before who are all just as tired and cranky as you’d expect them to be…..oh, but the sunrise is spectacular. We decided against that route.
We arrived in the small yet touristy town of St. Catherine’s in the afternoon. This is little town is walking distance from the actual mountain but sees a mere fraction of the traffic the mountain does…since no …

Sold as a street side snack falafel is as common as coca cola in the middle east.  Deep fried balls usually made from chickpeas, falafel can be served alone, with fuul or stuffed into a pita with fresh vegetables and salads.  In Sudan the falafel or t’amiyya was made of fava beans and was served alone or as an addition to fuul.  It was mostly plain in flavor and texture.  In Egypt we started to see falafel in pita with some salad and sometimes a tahini based sauce.  In Jordan we started seeing falafel topping bars, but it wasn’t until Israel that we had the full on falafel sandwich with chips, sauces, pickles and salads.  So its deep friend, but …

Arriving in Cairo after two long days in the car, we were excited to check into our hotel and grab a drink. A long time ago a fellow blogger told us there was a Chili’s in Cairo and frankly we’ve been dreaming of nothing but a big serving of chips and salsa and an almost-the-size-of-your-head margarita ever since then. It was a schlep into Cairo but the whole time we kept saying, margarita’s tonight! Sitting down to order we looked at the drink menu: slushies, not margarita’s. We were devastated. No margarita’s at Chili’s? Consoling ourselves in fajitas and copious amounts of salsa, the four of us celebrated our arrive to Cairo with some “Jani Water: Red Lion” rum, which …