We're in Luxor now, waiting at a hotel before we leave to return to Cairo this evening.  We have had lots of fun adventures here in Egypt so far.  Two days remain before we head on to Greece.  Internet is spotty, so I will just share one story from earlier this week.  Hopefully in the next few days, I can return to post some more stories and photos.  For now, here's what happened to us on the way back from our desert safari.   We're driving back through the Egyptian desert after an overnight camping trip.  The sun is rising and the temperature is climbing.  At 10:30, it is already 85 degrees.  The odometer on our car reads 446,000 km, but since it hasn't flipped one km in the 7+ hours we've already spent in this car,  I'm pretty sure it has been disconnected.  Our driver is the Egyptian equivalent of a surfer dude.  We already stopped once on our way out to the desert to fix a flat tire, and the driver was fiddling mysteriously with the lug nuts this morning.  We're not wearing seat belts because, well, the car doesn't have seatbelts, and it seems that Egyptians only use seat belts when approaching a government checkpoint anyway.  We are barreling down the highway on our way back to the oasis, still 70 miles away.  The Egyptian music plays loudly on the stereo and our driver is singing and clapping his hands.  Or dancing.  Or undulating.  Suddenly,  we hear an explosive thump.  We all sit in stunned silence as the car screeches and grinds to a halt, while the left rear tire careens across the desert like a giant rubber tumbleweed, followed in quick succession by the hub cap and the brake drum.  Not a word is spoken as our driver hops out to extract the jack and begin elevating the rear of the car and our guide sets out across the desert to retrieve the abdicating tire.  We drag ourselves out of the car, certain that we will be here baking in the desert sun for hours.  Much to our surprise, only 10 minutes pass before our rescue vehicle appears.  He is the "big boss" of the desert camping experience and, apparently, he suspected we may run into a bit of transportation trouble, so, unbeknownst to us, he drove 10 minutes behind, just in case.  Our guide says "OK, we will go in this car" so we jump in while our first driver and a growing horde of his buddies continue staring at the broken vehicle, shaking their heads and yelling at each other in Arabic.  As we get into the rescue vehicle, I can't resist taking a glance at its odometer.  460,500 km.  Hmm.