What bad luck to lose your sense of smell in Cairo! It's like losing your hearing during a broadway musical or losing your ability to see color in the Louvre.

I got a cold and my nose completely stuffed up on my 2nd day in Cairo. For those of us who have never been to North Africa or the Middle East, the sites and people are exotic - smell or no - but i'm missing all the smells! Sure it came in handy when we visited the awe inspiring "Coptic Cave Church" in the expansive trash dump on the city's outskirts, but it's a personal tragedy for me as i sip on cardomen-spiced Turkish coffee at El Fishawi's a caf� in the open market which has been open 24-hours a day for the last 200 years (at least the texture was interesting).

(click photo for larger version)
Everything else is fabulously different and interesting. All 11 of us - including the pair of two year olds - are enjoying themselves. We leave for Addis Ababa, Ethiopia at 11 p.m. tonight and arrive at 3:55 a.m.