Blog moved!

This place is DEAD. Go to jacobsweb.wordpress.com now!

Back from Cairo

I was off to the Egyptian capital city of Cairo for the weekend, and at the same time recovering from the flu I caught last week. Now I'm back with tons of photos which I will upload here very soon, so stay tuned. But first I gotta take care of some work-related stuff!

Flu!

Can you catch the flu in tropical climate? Today I unfortunately found out you can...

Damn. My muscles hurt, I got sore throat, fever and I slept whole day. What's wrong with me? I thought that the illness in this part of year is related to the weather in Northern Europe where I usually live. Obviously it's not the weather cause it's still 35° C here and I somehow got influenza. Hate being sick!

Here are some pictures taken yesterday, before it all happened. Let them remind me of the good days. 

My aunt from Poland made a visit.

Whaddup y'all!

"Grrrr..!"

Mosquitoes were everywhere

Prof. Jake tells the story of the Mosque

Staying on the safe side

I've been living here in Sharm on and off for over three months now, and taken lots of photos (some of which you might see here, and other on Facebook and - most important - my Flickr account). My favourite motive has been the sunsets over the beautiful mountains of South Sinai. Once I also managed to shot the mountains at the sunrise (couldn't sleep at 6 am), but that's nothing I'm doing on a daily basis. So. 

The mountains are cool from the distance. But I think it would be even cooler to get there and maybe climbe a little. (Nothing like Kebnekajse or Galdhöppigen! ;)). But there might be problems...

According to pretty much everyone I've spoke to, it's rather dangerous to go there. For various reasons. Some say the police are there and won't let anyone in. That might be because they really are there or they just say it so the tourists don't go there and get harmed by the real dangerous things waiting there. What might that be? Here's a (pretty serious) list of dangerous "stuff" waiting arount the corner in the mountains of South Sinai.

1) Mines - Remains from the various wars in the area in the 60's. I've heard that both Israeli and Egyptians have mined the area. Then as the time went on the land was once in Egyptian and another time in Israeli hands, and both sides added more enforcements, so now nobody really knows where it's safe to go.

2) The animals - according to locals it's best not to go alone in the desert as one might meet some wild animals. Most dangerous are the arabian wolfs they say. They are hungry preditors living in the desert, so better watch out. They look a lot like wild dogs but they're said to be not exacly "human's best friend". 

3) Police/military forces - they're said to be here to protect us (the foreingers in Sharm). But who knows what they actually do when they sit in the middle of the desert 24 hours a day and stare at the sun, sand and dust all around them? Also they're of course fully armed so you might not want to get into trouble with them. 

Anyway. I've also heard that from the point where I'm living (at the edge of the city, so to say) it's only 10 minutes walk to the Ring Road (also called Desert Road). After that road there's nothing there, except the three things I've mentioned above. If I continue I should get to the foot of the mountains in about 1 hour of walk through the desert (not exactly the 40 years Moses and his followers are said to have been walking in the area in the bibilal times). So, one day I'm planning a little walk, with my camera of course. It can't be that dangerous right.. It's just sand?

Could have been worse!

... =)