Day 24: Goodbyes, Camels, Wind n sand

Today started as a sad day :(
We farewelled the Auzzie (and also 3 others from the Karanis crew)...
We were sad to lose them all...
But especially Roo Roo :(
Despite being a dirty, filthy australian...
Over the last 4 weeks we had become close to roo-roo and shared many laughs, mostly at her expense...

Now, we made her a card last night which had a beautifully hand-drawn image of WHERE THE BLOODY HELL ARE YA on it...

So yeah... We thought we had the last laugh...

Roo had other ideas...

Some of the posters she put on our walls :D

Some more of the posters on the walls

More posters

Yet more...

She also wrote on our oranges :O

So yes... 

As you can see...

Straya / Roo Roo came into our office in the depth of the night... and plastered it with posters... and massacred our oranges :O

Whilst this act of shennaniganary will not go unpunished we were truly touched.

We will miss our roo roo :(

Rach looking sad, whilst Roo Roo points and laughs L8RZ NRDZ.

Our day then took a turn for the more interesting as we came onto the desert road...

CAMELS...

EVERYWHERE...

SO. MANY. CAMELS!

What were they doing there?

Nobody knows...

WHY ON THE ROAD?

Nobody knows...

One thing is for certain is that the camels are now our camel friends :3

The rest of the day went pleasantly enough... 

Found a rough out of a arrowhead

Rough out 

The rough outs are the first step before making the actual projectile...

So basically what we are seeing here is where somebody 10,000 years ago grabbed a rock, started to make a projectile point and then was like HUH, SANDWICH TIME I GUESS...

Drop rough out...

Many many years later we find it :D

Hoorah!

So this was all very exciting and good...

Until...

Sandstorm...

THE HORROR...

OK SO. 

Think... sand... everywhere...

Breathing? Breathe in sand...

Talking? Talk in some sand...

Eyes open? Bad mistake

Long story short...

I now hate sand...

Which is unfortunate given that we have another 9 days of data collection in it D:

BONUS ROUND: Marcus with a tumbleweed

A wild tumbleweed appeared.

Marcus used catch.

It was super effective.

Day 23: Attack of the camel spider

So today started as per usual...
Early wake...
Early to the field...
Nail out transects...
Profit...
Rince and repeat till out of nails...

This was successfull :3
In the early part of the morning I located an unusual arrowhead...

The arrowhead :3

So the arrowheads from the neolithic normally kinda look like the startrek logo... shorter on one side and kind of curved... this one is entirely straight... complete... and no curvature...

Its definitley neolithic as its size and general shape are inkeeping, however its not like any of the other projectile points we have found in this area, or in previous years of survey...

Any ideas??? plz gimmeh...

After some debate on this matter it was buisness as usual until...

a wild spongebob blew accross our survey area

So... we were just walking around minding our own buisness... when all of a sudden...

SPONGEBOB..

how does this even get out into the desert?

WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?

nobody knows...

perhaps its a sign from our ancestors...

some kind of portent to the future...

D:

We continued on our field survey...

I warn those light of heart to turn back now...

Because I certinally almost wet myself in fear at what happened next D:

The first sign of things begining to go from good to bad came in the form of a dead snake.

Ever wanted to know what a dead snake looks like?

I havent...

It was horrifying...

The horror... The horror...

The next thing was probably my fault...

uhhh...

yeah...

So uhh...

So there are all these little holes around the desert, kinda fist sized...

And for the entire field season I have wondered what they are...

Today I decided to look at what they were...

By poking a rebar down there...

As it turns out...

This is not a smart thing to do.

About 3 seconds later I was screaming like a baby girl 

As it turns out camel spiders live down there...

Very angry camel spiders...

Who want to kill me...

Photo not mine... I was too goddam scared to take a photo of the abomination...

Screamed.

Like.

A.

Girl.

D:

So long story short...

Today... 

Almost died...

Day 22: Ambassadors, wine 'n' meat :D

So today was a delicious day.
From start to finish it was filled with things out of the ordinary.

First thing this morning was repacking the truck after valley of the whales.
This turned out to be abit of a mission.
The next thing was tackling the morning traffic.

So satudays are the cow markets down the road from us.
Which means... uhhh... yeah...
Literally 100's of goddam cows... goddam everywhere...
Literally.

So we start off...
And then next thing we know cows... EVERWHERE...
GRIDLOCK COW TRAFFIC.
Cows in cars.
Cows on cars.
Goats behind cars.
Gamoosas in pickuptrucks.
No idea.

We closed the windows pretty rapidly to avoid any uhh... cow... uhhh... yeah...
They were close enough to poop in the windows...
And at 6am in the morning that is not exactly a good wake up...

Anyway...
To the field... was awesome... was a chill day...

Morning was spent excavating hearths and nailing out the transect so that when the ambassador arrived we had lots of pretty neolithic things to show him...

As it turns out none of the hearths were hearths...
soooooooooo...
yes...
but they were very very exciting for the astrophysists / geomorphologists amoungst us...
long story short the shoreline wasnt supposed to be up that high...
and all the hearths were PERFECT beach sand...
and compacted shell deposits...
havent seen anything like this anywhere else.

So yes...
The ambassador turns up , walks roudn the site, checks out stuff out...
I play photographer...

We return to base.
SUPRISE!
Ambassador has bought wine, beer, beef and sausages from NZ for us...
best. night. of. my. life.
seriously.
after eating "quasi meat" for the last 3 weeks, the taste of actual beef.
just. heaven!

my god.

that is all.

just.

yes.

:3

Conditions in the car this morning were a little cramped :S

Barrett and Slaggy shooting in the hearth lithics under Tash's watchful eye

The "hearth" which actually turned out to be a sweet sandpit

The hearth which turned out to be filled with nasty sharp shells :S

Day 21: Whale of a time

Last night was the big night.
Our night off.
Our night under the stars.
Joshs night to go b1g.

As was fortold it didnt matter how early we left, we would be getting to the camp site at darkness.
We had planned to leave at 2.
2 turned to 3.
We then got held up badly at some kind of horrifying police check point...
The only words I have to explain what happened at the check point are mystifying and completley bizzare... i dont really know what it was about... or why... all I know is that a large amount of money changed hands... we sat around for 30 minutes and then we were on our way again...

oh egypt you so silly.

So yes.

Finally we get there.

We then proceed to trapse through the desert.
As it turns out in a circle.

After figuring this out we rectified our course, found our perfect site and got cracking with setting up for the night!

Josh and Bex dissapeared off into the night.
We waited, getting the site ready for the forthcoming return.
Champagne was poured, we gathered.

Not gonna lie. Was more than a little nervous for Josh!

We waited.
And waited.
And then...

SHE SAID YES :D !!

Hoorah!

The champagne was drunk.
Frivolity ensued.

For some reason Bethany had decided back in the US to buy many many glow sticks...
And also a laser pointery thingery ravey thingy.
And brought them to Egypt...

This transpired to be a good move as we began our mid-desert rave partay.

On a serious note.
There was atleast 5-7 points in time last night where I became truly aware of what a unique kind of an experience this is... and how lucky I am to do the things I do... whilst being around the people that I am...

Long story short.
Amazingness.

Soon we all went out stargazing and observed the pristine stars from the desert before returning to base to set up sleeping bags, stare at the stars and attempt to sleep.

The night was cold but amazing. Again another of the truly amazing experiences :3

In the morning we awoke to a clear day, only slightly unnerved to be in the middle of the desert with nothing around...

We proceeded to do some geo-caching and walk the wadi el hitan track.

It was then back into the car and back home.
Whilst the night was truly amazing it was also exhausting.
Truly exhausting.

Now it is time to chill out.
Kick back.
Drink a beer and contemplate what tomorrow holds.

photos to come soooon

First approach to the site

Hamman and co cooking our foods :D

The view on wake up in the morning

our camping area

The geocache

Simon and Marcus getting down to truck pack up

View out over wadi el hitan

The sign that looks like tie fighters on the way home

Day 20: I think the crews gone crayyzayy!

So today... today... was a crazy day in the field...

Words cannot describe...

I started at like 7am with copious laughter... and didnt stop... till just now...
Seriously...
My abs hurt...

So long story short it was a good day...
My camera is in my bag so will upload photos later tonight...

But know this...
1) we live up the road from a factory that smells like doughnuts... turns out... plastic bag factory...
2) tomorow we travel to valley of the whales for our camp out
3) I am SO EXCITED FOR TOMOROW
4) Its really goddam cold right now
5) I found a bead and epipaliolithic arrow point today :3

6) today was a good day

Day 19: Luke! LUKE!

Today I captured a magestic picture of star-wars in action.
Legit.
No photoshopping here.

The live scene captured this morning outside the skywalker house

Anyway. In seriousness. The house really really really does look like Uncle Owens house. I am sufficiently happy with the setting of this transect here :3

So today I woke up feeling a little bit less than chipper, but decided that I was going to be good enough to go to the field...

So off we went...

Into the now winter temperatures of the desert.

A northerly was blowing today which meant extra cold and extra wind :S not cool when ya feeling sickly :S

Luckily today was my first day off of the survey team as I dont think I could manage another day staring at the screen wizzing round shooting in points whilst feeling sickly.

So today it was artifact analysis duty: nailing out and analysing 800+ artifacts :O

More fun than it sounds, trust me :3

One of the cool artifacts from today was another epi-paleolithic projectile point:

woo! epipaleolithcness!

Not quite as nice as our last one, but pretty cool none the less!

The rest of the day wizzed past, the only other excitement being the giant ants:

oh god so big :S

And a human sized tumble weed that blew across the transect (photos forthcoming)

We all were feeling the other side of hump day today and on the way home were more silent than usual... 

UNTIL!

Second lunch time.

So usually second lunch is some form of fish or somthing else relatively averagely appetising which we kind of shove our faces with without really tasting it... but not today... oh no...

Today was fried chicken and some form of delicious pasta...

hump day no longer was a feeling...

WE FELT LIKE KINGS.

Seriously though. delicious. amaze. yes. 

10/10

Happyness :3