DAY 33 Thur 15 July

Today is the day that Maryanne is due to have her staples out – woohoo! She will be so happy to be able to head out of the house at last! When I woke up, Cris was already here to visit Nayzak, and I headed across to the house to get things sorted with the dogs. After Cris left, I went over to Morad's to check on his horses. They were all okay – waiting for breakfast I think – his groom was in the middle of getting them fresh water.
I had just got back and was going to get some breakfast when I got a call from Maryanne as the grooms were wondering which horse I wanted to ride – I decided to go for a ride on Shaboura. They weren't too sure about that because of how she had reacted that day I went out with Sabine, but Maryanne explained to them that that day she had not wanted to leave her friends and head out with Elvis who she didn't like.
We actually went out into the desert – woohoo, I love the desert. Shibs just wanted to run – little tart – she got a fair bit of running as well, but she is no where near as fit as Dooby and Negmadin who we went out with (Waleed on Dooby and Hassan on Negmadin). In fact they kicked her butt in the race – she slowed down to a canter when they were more than happy continuing at a gallop. It was a nice fast ride, but I couldn't take many photos as my good camera had the battery on charging, and for some reason the Olympus just wanted to reformat the memory card (I couldn't remember if I had transferred all the pictures over to the laptop). So the only photos I could take were on my phone. I'll get that sorted before tomorrow – I think we will be going out in the desert again tomorrow as well, but heading in the opposite direction. We picked up Achmed again while riding through Saber's garden (I don't think I can handle another day with a young Egyptian boy – especially not after the boys roughhousing yesterday, and then Morad and his mates playing like boys last night).
I showed Waleed and Hassam the GPS from the ride today – they were very interested to see that – I'll have to take out a better camera tomorrow as well.
I was so happy to hop in a shower once we got back, though I had just got my hair all lathered up with shampoo when the water stopped running. But fortunately after a little bit the water started running – woohoo.
Now I am back over at the house – we have bee waiting for the doctor to get here, and he is here at last as is Sabine – the staples are about to come out!
I'm impressed with the doctor – not only has he done a lovely job on her knees, but he was interested in Sabine's homeopathic remedies for helping out some of his patients. Unfortunately for Maryanne however, he has her on house arrest for another two days :(
After the doctor left, I got a massage from Sabine (she is amazing – unfortunately it is a little too far to come for an appointment, so I will have to get as many in as possible before I fly home.
I then came over to the house for a very late lunch (or early dinner depending on which way you like to look at it) before ringing Morad to see how he was. The upshot of that phone call was hungry, sad and tired. Cespio had finally passed away early in the morning and he had been sitting up with him all the time. So I raided Maryanne's fridge for food and my fridge for beer and went around for a visit. We sat watching really terrible low budget movies for a while, before I decided it was time to head home and let him sleep. At least today I had headed out the back gate after borrowing a key off the grooms – it is certainly the best way to get to and from Morad's. As I was walking down beside the smaller pens, Buffy came running out to greet me – she isn't that happy when I desert her, poor girl, and her, Finn and Bella crashed in the guest house with me.

Desert ride 7:
Distance - 7.76km
Time - 0:56:23
Average speed - 8.3kmph
Max speed - 49.5kmph