April 2005 Trip to Cairo for EES
I Went with Plano Microwave (PMI) division of Sierra Nevada Corp (SNC) and the USAF from Greenville and Wright Pat AFB to Cairo for a System design review on the Egyptian Air Force C-130 ELINT program (EES). We flew from DFW to Frankfurt to Cairo on Lufthansa, and took the same route back to DFW.
I traveled with Brad Marcum and Brian Weyant from PMI, Rita Salmons and Carrie Davis from Air Force, Chris Richards from Lockheed Martin Denver and ______ from USAF at Greenville. We stayed in condos in Maadi, a rich and green neighborhood of Cairo. The condos were provided by the US Embassy at no cost to us, they were nice and guarded 24/7.
While we were in the air Thursday night, there was a suicide bombing in Cairo at the Khan al-Khalili shopping area where I have been several times before. We had been scheduled to visit the Khan al-Khalili shopping area on Saturday – were advised not to!
Instead, on Saturday, we went to see the pyramids at Giza, the Sphinx, a perfume factory, a papyrus factory and the Egyptian Museum. While we were at Giza, we took a long camel ride, I got to run my camel. Our driver was very good, he worked for SEAVIN, and name was Magdy.
Click on any photo to see a larger view
Chris Richards, Carrie Davis and I took a Pyramid tour and the touristy camel ride
Just hanging out with the Sphinx – I had lost my sunglasses that day so I think my eyes were shut in every picture that I have
I had to smoke a water pipe and of course someone had to take a blackmail picture
The camels were mean and smelly and each one had a camel driver – probably the richest guys in Egypt. They spoke good English, Japanese, Chinese, French, Spanish, German, etc. – you need to speak a lot of languages to get rich
