We were on the train to Alexandria for $5 each by 9am. Looking out a train window is one of my favorite things to do! I love getting a quick peek of the everyday life of people. We skirted the Nile as we sped by the consistently rich fields of wheat, rice, grasses, fruit trees & vegetables. Even the 10' between the tracks & road was cultivated. Rog read somewhere that some crops grow 27 times faster here. Sure saw lots of butts of the field workers...male and female. Some just sit right on the ground. Tallied 5 tractors but donkeys far out numbered them! Did see one new tractor dealer. Wonder how it will stay in business.
About halfway, we started to see groups of 3 or 4 cows tied sporadically in lanes usually under a lone tree. The manure behind them was proof they'd been there quite some time. We'd see maybe 4 or 5 groups of cows down a lane. Saw a few flocks of sheep penned up.
Pigeon houses...large cone shaped with large holes...are common. Easy quick meals!
Small villages seemed to have turned into large cities with those same tall mundane brick apartment buildings topped with re-rods sticking out the top. The fewer the buildings, the more color we saw. . But still hardly any one family homes. Egypt has a population of almost 100 million so I guess they gotta live somewhere!
Everywhere mosque which were the most beautiful building around by far. Sometimes you could see 3 or 4 unique minarets at a time.
But also we saw where the trash goes...on the side of the tracks. We'd read and heard that Egyptians haven't figured out how to deal with their trash...we saw lots of evidence of that!!
We often rode along side wide ditches/tributaries. Some even had small ferries so they could be crossed. We could see they were being used for drainage and irrigation...saw two ladies washing clothes...and unfortunately trash bins. Many of them have been dredge but the ugly mess of trash & muck was left on the banks.
I especially relish seeing sights like kids playing with sticks & stones, soccer games, carts loaded with veges, old men sitting on benches, carpenters building furniture, crowded markets, school kids with their arms around each other, women hanging their laundry on their balconies...just a peek into the ordinary life of the Egyptians!
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