dispatches from here

The Cairo metro region is home to 18 million people, and probably 20 million by the time you read this. Constant activity, noises, smells, and people, people, everywhere you turn. And every front door and curb and street corner is somebody’s workshop or storefront. Just finding a spot to sit or stand in the chaos feels like an accomplishment.

Hop right on the bus, pay whoever is standing at the door, and watch all the pedestrians pass you by as you sit in standstill traffic.

Who needs a workshop? Sit on a tire in the street.

Delivery skills that put hipster San Francisco bike messengers to shame.

Evidence of a hard day's work.

taking a break from carrying boxes and getting a hard time from his friend.

UPS has nothing on this.

I'm not sure exactly what he fixes at this shop, but I think 'everything' would be a good guess.

the busy street of cairo, where sidewalks are as jammed as the streets.

Awnings for sale. On the side of the street at midnight. This place literally never sleeps.

the only way to get around this place, but I doubt you'd survive. Red lights are only for decoration here.

lots of friendly folks, at least, when they aren't trying to hustle you.

there is not enough time for buses to stop, so you need a running start to get on one.

one of the larger traffic circles in downtown Cairo.

when its time to pray, its time to pray, even if you're hanging out in the shade of a coke machine.

As many of you readers know, I spent the 10 weeks starting Feb 12 in the Middle East, through Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt. The core of that time was spent in Syria, living in an Iraqi refugee camp and putting together a documentary film (more on that later).

To keep things interesting and to log my travels, each day I took a photo telling the story of that day somehow. Most of them were done with a tripod and wireless remote, with an occasional bystander snapping the photo. I tried to switch things up, and the fact that I didn’t spend much time in the same place helped out.

Check out the complete slideshow below, 10 weeks of daily photos while bopping around the Middle East.

Hit the play button to get started.

Just catching up, and I may not get a good post in until I get back home.  The next few days entail more ruins/temples in Luxor, a relaxing felucca ride down the Nile, then a hectic taxi+plane+bus+ferry that will hopefully get me into southern Jordan.

Some photos from Giza….pretty unreal overall.  Going inside the Great Pyramid was a little bit underwhelming, but at least now I’ve been inside the Great Pyramid of Giza.  The area around Cairo is littered with pyramids, with lots more to see…hopefully I’ll have a chance to update!

A two day trip up the Lebanese coast to Tripoli followed by a quick hop inland for some wine tasting in Zahle. Tripoli is an ancient Phoenician city dating to before the 7th century BCE.  Since then, its been ruled by the Persians, Seleucids, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Crusaders, Mamluks, and Ottomans.  And it is currently Lebanese, despite Hezbollah attempts to take it over.  In May, 2007 there was fighting between the Lebanese Internal Security Forces and Fatah al-Islam, a jihadist militia focused on the Nahr el-Bared Palestinian refugee camp just outside the town.  This resulted in the deaths of 170 soldiers, 290 militants, and nearly 50 civilians, along with the destruction of the refugee camp. And in 2008, Tripoli was the epicenter for a fierce battle between Sunnis loyal to the current government and Alawites (a Shia sect) loyal to Hezbollah.  The Lebanese Army intervened a few days later to put an end to the fighting, but tensions picked up again in July and over 30 people died in the combined clashes. Check out this map of hte city breakdown.

But for now, in a period of relative peace (despite heavy military presence), Tripoli is a quiet, mellow escape from the glitz of Beirut.

The coastal town of Tripoli, contested but beautiful.

In the evenings, the corniche (aka boardwalk) is packed with families and young folks eating cotton candy, and riding bikes. In the background, young guys drive cruise by in tricked out cars blasting hip hop.

Barrels of Lebanese wine being aged in the caves at the Ksara winery, which was established in 1857 by Christian priests.

Cars and carts selling all sorts of goodies line the corniche.

Never too young for some hookah/sheesha/nargela

The view from my balcony. And I'm not sure who that laundry belongs to.

The Lebanese coast...beautiful, with some limited access in parts.

Lebanon is so radically different from anywhere else in the Middle East and pretty surreal.  A small country with only 4 million people, it continues to trudge on despite a 17 year civil war (1975 – 1992), war with Israel in 2006, and tensions with Hezbollah (most recently leading to armed conflict in the north in 2007).  So what does that mean?  A strong military presence, remnants of the civil war, and every Western luxury you could imagine.

After spending 6 weeks in Syria (in a refugee camp no less!), arriving in Beirut feels like I’m in a different universe.  How different is it from Syria?

• Replace all of the donkeys in the streets of Damascus (there are a lot!)  with Ferraris.
• Replace hijabs and chadors with Prada and Gucci.
• Replace mud covered shoes with shiny high heels.
• Replace sputtering 1975 Fiat taxis with shiny new Mercedes taxis.
• Replace the rust stains on the walls with bullet holes, which decorate any building over 20 years old.
• Replace pictures of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, with Hezbollah billboards and pictures of Hassan Nasrallah.
• Replace warm, undrinkable local beers with microbrews and $20 cocktails.
• Replace all of the shawerma with….well, shawerma.  Its still a Middle Eastern country, after all.

A beautiful sunset over the Mediterranean from a balcony in Beirut.

The Lebanese military maintains a heavy presence in the city, with tanks and machine guns on most corners. Its a really bizarre sight seeing a woman walk past a row of tanks into a Chanel store. This is the best shot I could get before being stopped by the soldiers.

Bullet holes in blown out buildings surround the new expensive apartment buildings.

Bullet holes in concrete walls, a constant reminder of the painful civil war that tore Beirut apart for 17 years.

Abandoned buildings converted into an urban canvas.

One of the thousands of armed checkpoints all across the city. Almost as many as Syria.

The southern suburbs of Beirut are essentially controlled by Hezbollah, with yellow and green flags and billboards on every corner and the streets in these poor suburbs are lined with pictures of dead Hezbollah militants.

In the southern Hezbollah controlled suburbs, there are more soldiers/paramilitary forces than civilians it feels.

Remnants of civil war.

The Holiday Inn, which during the civil war was the site of a major battle between Christian and Muslim forces. The blown out shell of this 20+ story building stands right next brand new multimillion dollar condos, modern steel and glass skyscrapers with fancy one word names.

Beirut is surrounded by water on two sides, and the Corniche, a wide pleasant boardwalk provides a hangout place for young Beirutis.

The Mohammad Al-Amin mosque, built next to the burial site of Rafik Harriri, was built in 2008. Ita huge, shiny, new, clean, and feels like it descended from another world. It feels so magical and out of place, almost like a Disney mosque.

Downtown Beirut is all glitz and glam, and Ferraris are a dime a dozen. I almost got run over by one twice! Porsches, Lamborghinis, Bentleys line the narrow streets of the trendiest neighborhoods as moneyed Beirutis drink and party at bars that rival NYC in exclusivity, with overpriced cocktails, hip sounding names like "Copper" and "Rehab", and lines around the block.

The American University of Beirut (AUB) is one of the most prestigious universities in the Middle East.  Established by American missionaries in 1866, this place is completely awesome and feels like any US college campus.  Note to any college students reading this: do a semester abroad here.  All of the classes are taught in English and you hear English and French chatter all over campus.

Modern buildings, spotlessly clean campus, water fountains, the works.

Gorgeous athletic fields overlooking the Mediterranean Sea

Inside the Bechtel Engineering Building...we have a Bechtel building at Cal as well, but its not as nice as this one.

Amazing! It seems like 95% of the Middle East consists of chain smokers. Impressive to have a smoke free campus.

I'd definitely want to do a semester here!

Part of the campus square, with students constantly milling about. The whole campus feels so alive and really indistinguishable from a college campus in the US.

A beautiful mix of ultra modern and classic brick buildings.

Falling a little behind on the blog because life has been moving pretty quickly, bouncing around between countries, and working on the documentary project. But fortunately, I’ve continued the journal, which is really starting to look and feel awesome.

Great party, celebrating, singing and dancing in the hills of Eastern Syria on a gorgeous day.  Exactly what Kha B’Nisan should be about. It definitely felt a little magical to be able to celebrate it here in Syria, especially because my undergrad honors thesis was about the development of the New Year’s Festival (Akitu) throughout Mesopotamia.

The satellite view of the Eastern Syrian Desert. There's basically lots and lots of sand and rocks, and the green strip bisecting it is the Euphrates river. Seen from above, you can really appreciate how important it has been throughout antiquity and how it was able to sustain civilization for thousands of years.

On our way to the eastern Syrian town of Hassake, we stopped over in a small town on the Euphrates River called Dier as-Zur for the night.  This has got to be one of the dustiest places I have ever been, with a fresh daily 3mm coat of dust on everything in sight once the sun sets and the winds pick up. It actually hurts to breathe in the evenings and visibility is minimal.

During the day we wandered down to the banks of the Euphrates River and had a chance to see one of the two rivers that defined Mesopotamia and gave birth to the ‘fertile crescent’ and the first civilizations of the ancient Near East.

I came across a group of local kids swimming in the river and couldn’t pass up an opportunity for a baptism in the Euphrates.  Relatively clean water, cool and crisp, wide and slow moving.  A swim in the Euphrates is definitely an unforgettable experience.

The Euphrates at Dier Az Zur. This used to be an old Assyrian village many generations ago (the name means 'Small Church'), but there aren't any left there now. In the 1990's it turned in a boom town when oil was found nearby. Local kids were jumping off the bridge into the river, a temptation I was able to avoid. Those splashed in the river are me...swimming against the slow current.

Swimming with the local kids in the Euphrates!