The Rest Stop

The drive from Cairo to Alexandria was a long one. Our driver promised us a nice surprise somewhere around lunch time. I like surprises. Especially the good ones.

We stopped at a roadside "place", which ended up being a zoo and a kitchen. The animals lived here in the winter and belonged to a circus during the rest of the year. In some ways, the "zoo" was odd in that it had little dogs for kids to play with in a penned in area, but when I grew up we went to petting farms where we played with goats, so maybe this was similar. The dogs were having as much fun as the kids. Much better than goats.

Foxes Tiger Baby Lion


One of the workers was carrying a baby lion, and for a dollar, he would let you cuddle it carefully and have your photo taken with the cub. This was probably my only opportunity in life to do this, so I pet the baby and boy was she soft!

Rolling the bread flat Watching the bread bake


We then retired to the kitchen where women were demonstrating how to cook bread and I was invited in to help out. Bill took many photos because this is probably one of the few times in life that I ever did anything useful in the kitchen. I rolled the dough several times to the women's dissatisfaction, until I finally got it right. The ovens were right there so we were able to cook it and then bring it over to our table for lunch. It was a really awesome experience to be able to meet some women and cook with them.