Our stomachs woke us up this morning to remind us of our bad choices from the night before. Seems that we are all still getting used to the food. Somebody mentioned the other day that everything out here is “organic” and we weren’t used to it. Maybe. The good news is that nobody is gaining any weight this trip…. Just losing…. Unintentionally of course. Showers in the hotel were interesting because there was just a shower head in the middle of the bathroom…. And a giant squeegee in the corner to push all the residual water to the drain hole next to the toilet. Since everyone and everything smokes like a chimney in Egypt, our towels reeked of nicotine. Second shower was in bath and body works lotions to compensate.

When Mina came to pick us up from the hotel, he came out of the car with his infant baby snuggled into his arm. She’s a month old and super cute! We got into the car and Sarah took over holding her to let him focus on driving. We headed to Fifi’s for breakfast, per Sarah’s request. At the bottom of her building was another tourist police officer posted in front of our building. Seems to me they draw more attention than anything but it is what it is.

The breakfast group was smaller but one of our relatives ordered a traditional Egyptian breakfast with beans, spicy eggplant, couscous, and all the associated dips and fixins. I stuck to eggs, over easy, but Matt didn’t hold back from anything. The older ladies who offered the food to him kept telling me good luck later.

Once again we started the day behind schedule. Today’s plan was to stop at 2 monasteries and then a brief stop at Fifi’s to say goodbye to a few more people, and then leave Faiyoum by 2:30 pm.

The first item on our checklist was the Monastery of the Holy Virgin in Luhan. The most distinctive feature of this place is its walls, which are fortified by 6-10 inches or wasps nests. One must travel over about five miles of desert track in order to reach the monastery. There were about 16 of us visiting together. Like everywhere else in Egypt, there were stray cats and dogs all around us. But these cats in particular insisted on using us as shade and/or pillows for their naps.

On our way out, Mina got a call saying that we couldn’t leave without a tourist police escort. So we had to wait a few minutes for one to show up before going to the second stop.

The next stop was Monastery of Prince Tadros Al-Shattabi. It had many smaller churches within it and even more stories of miracles that have occurred. At all these holy places we could see small notes/prayer requests around some of the icons and relics. One of the nuns insisted we sit and have some refreshments while she shared stories of some of the recent miracles. She also gave us some holy oil and water and literature as a gift.

Our caravan finally headed back to Fifi’s for a quick bite and one last farewell to our Fayoum family. Fifi has been begging us for years to come visit. She prefers Egypt over the U.S. now. Since Fifi is my moms last remaining sibling, she likes to see her as often as possible but also my mom prefers the US and could never live in Egypt full time. I love the family aspect of Egypt. Everyone is so close and loves spending time together…and they do it often.

Our day concluded a bit early today as we are being picked up super early tomorrow morning for a day trip to Luxor.