#1: [18-Aug-03]

02-Dec-2003 -- This is my very first confluence point. Boy, was I exited. I had some work to do in Alexandria and thought to visit 31N 30E on my way back home to Giza. Never been there before, I had no idea what lay ahead of me heading into the Nile delta of Egypt. All of it is farmers’ land with lots of canals and only a few bridges.

At a certain moment I found a bridge, crossed it and found myself in between two canals on a really long stretch of wasteland. Beyond the first there was no second bridge to cross the second canal, and of course I turned left where it should have been right. In the end, I found the second bridge, after which the confluence point came rapidly closer.

Due to a lot of rain, yeah it can rain in Egypt :o), the sand tracks had turned into mud tracks, which gave me a scare every time the car sledded to the brook running alongside of it. With the last bit of mud track being a bit high above as well as sloping to the brook alongside, my nerves gave way and I walked the last 400 meters up to a farmer’s house.

I did reach 31N 30E up till 66.4 meters. The farmer was not willing to be persuaded in any which way in letting me go out in his field of crops. Disappointing but fully understandable. Ma`lish, they say in Egypt.

For a realistic general view, I decided to take the four direction pictures not exactly in N, S, E and W, but to shoot based upon the direction of the mud tracks NE-SW.