We haven't had an Internet connection in several days – sorry for the long absence – so there is much to catch up on and we've only got 1 day left in Egypt and then it's travel day. This will be a long post, but not with any pictures, sorry.
When we last left off we were setting sail on the Nile. The days prior to that were full of sight-seeing, lots of wonderful food, and different modes of transportation. Our first official tour day was going to the pyramids and the Sphinx; the following day we drove 3 hours to Alexandria, the city by the Mediterranean Sea. We visited the Catacombs that were built by the Greeks and they were discovered when a donkey fell into a hole in the ground in 1900. It was interesting and most of it has yet to be discovered because housing has been built on top of the site over the centuries and it cannot now be excavated. We saw the old street cars and drove through town to the hotel, which was beautiful. Our tour guide, Sami, gave us an upgrade to a huge suite with a balcony and a gorgeous view of the sea. It was really, really nice. That night we went with the most adventurous of our tour-mates and found a fantastic little restaurant called Mohammed Ahmed that served fuul, which is a traditional dish that you eat in pita with lots of condiments. We sat down and didn't know what to expect, but our new friend from the tour had the best attitude, clapped her hands, and said “let's see what happens” with the excitement of a child on Christmas Eve. When the food started coming out we weren't sure what was happening – our entire table was full of all kinds of delicious culinary discoveries and we each tried some of everything. It was our favorite meal of the entire trip (so far) and cost only $2 US per person, including the bottled water! After dinner we walked the busy streets of Alexandria and as the guide book said would likely happen, Jen got her butt grabbed. It was no big deal, and we were prepared for it, since our guide book said to expect it, we just kept on walking. We eventually took a romantic horse-drawn carriage ride back to the hotel and slept great. The next morning we dipped our toes in the Mediterranean, which was about all we were dipping since the water was freezing cold, but we can say we've been “in” the Mediterranean Sea in Egypt!
The next day in Alexandria we visited Fort Qaitbey, the site of the old lighthouse. That was fun because there were fisherman all over and combining fresh catches with the dozens of cats running around was neat to watch - can you say "feeding frenzy!" We visited a gorgeous mosque and took beautiful pictures inside. Then we went to the Biblioteca Alexandria, the biggest library we've ever seen and one of the most interesting places we visited the entire trip. Just Google it to learn more – there is entirely too much to the library to type. We visited the Anwar Sadat Museum, inside the library, as well as several art collections. We then drove to the gardens of the old king's mansion, which the current president uses as a summer house. The grounds include a 5-star hotel which was originally built for the old king's concubines(!) and has a tourist-only casino next door.
Then things went less than good. We had to drive the 3 hours back to Cairo to get on the overnight train to Aswan. That seemed fine in theory, but in practice it was, well, pretty awful. First the highway was closed so we had to find another way around and that took at least an hour. By the time we got to Cairo we had just 10 minutes to run into a grocery store and buy water and snacks for the train ride. Jen was getting a head cold and when we boarded the train and our train car reeked of cigarette smoke, which didn't help the head cold at all. We tried to settle in, but lack of sleep and not feeling all that great, added up to grumpiness and discomfort. Dinner was delivered to our train car but Jen couldn't really eat. Good thing, in the end, because she spent 1:00 am to 5:00 am sick. Let's just say, an overnight Egyptian train with a shared bathroom (and the word “bathroom” is used VERY loosely here!) is NOT the place to get sick! Just bad. Really, really bad. Indescribably bad. In the morning J was great and got sick pills from our tour guide, Sami, and they helped fairly quickly, but Jen had to sit out the events of the day and just went straight to the hotel to rest. Thankfully it was a fabulous 5-star hotel right on the Nile and, best of all, it was non-smoking with a wonderful patio.
While Jen recovered, J continued on the tour (no sense for him to stay at the hotel and just watch Jen being sick). He took lots of pictures for Jen to see but since he didn't sleep much on the train either, it was a very long day. J took a boat to Elephantine Island, toured a perfume factory, and later went to the Nubian Village. We were both looking forward to the Nubian Village experience, but Jen was just not up to it, so J provided photographic commentary. Thank goodness we rode camels at the pyramids because that was part of the Nubian Village trip, and J promised Jen she could ride a camel in Egypt, so she would have missed the experience entirely. As it was, J said the camels at the pyramids were much better (cleaner, nicer) than at the Nubian Village.
The next day was an early morning flight to Abu Simbel. We had to wake up at 3:30 am but seeing the sun come up over Lake Nasser and getting to Abu Simbel before all the crowds was worth the early morning wake-up call. Abu Simbel was moved from its original place because of the damn built on the Nile, which created Lake Nasser. It was impressive – that's such an understatement! There was so much to see, but unfortunately, no photos inside the temples. Abu Simbel was built in 1244 BC for Ramses II, who was described to us as the greatest king of Egypt. In an age where the average life span was 45 years, Ramses II lived to be 92. Part of the site includes the temple to Ramses II wife, Queen Nefertari. After visiting the temples we ran the gauntlet of the souvenir vendors – and lived to tell about it – hahaha! The flight back was fine and then we returned to the hotel for a couple of hours to rest a little, which was nice. Later that afternoon we moved to the boat.
We had a 3-day journey up the Nile on an older river boat called the Shehrazad. Again, Sami gave us an upgrade and we had a huge double room with 2 full bathrooms. The boat is older and desperately needed a good cleaning, but it was fine. It was a very nice room, non-smoking, with 2 huge windows and a sitting area, which was wonderful while we were sailing and could look out at the Nile while in the comfort of our room. It was an opportunity to get laundry done, too. We had been washing in the sink but we had so much dirty stuff that a real washing was needed at that point.
We were on the boat, but still in Aswan. Aswan is a lovely city – it was the favorite city of both of us on the entire trip. The air is clean, the sky is clear, the people are friendly (they are all throughout Egypt), and it's just beautiful.
Because Jen missed the perfume factory the day before, Sami arranged for us to visit it again our last night in Aswan. We anticipated spending 30 minutes there, and ended up spending 1.5 hours! The salesman was cool and funny, the shop was closed and they were keeping it open just for us, and the salesman really wanted to watch the soccer game that was about to come on, so we haggled some and got a really good deal on 6 fabulous perfumes – not colognes or sprays but real perfumes – and he threw in a decorative bottle, too. According to another friend we made on the tour, the perfumes will last years and years and still smell the same because there is no alcohol to degrade the scent. That's good because there are enough perfumes to last Jen 20 years! The salesman was funny, he told Jen that if she ever got tired of J to come back to the shop and he will teach her Arabic and he has 50 camels and will take care of her. He was a real charmer!
The next morning we got on a traditional felucca ride, which was a lot of fun! We sailed around and had tea, some folks smoked the shisha (water pipe), and we got a lot of pictures. We were on the felucca a little over an hour but it flew by. After the felucca ride we bought some water and a couple other grocery snacks and then boarded the boat for sail-away. It was nice weather on the top deck and that's when we found the Internet briefly for our previous post.
That night we arrived in Kom Ombo and visited the Temple. WOW! It's a temple to 2 gods, Sobek (the crocodile god) and Haroeris. Seeing it at night made it that much more impressive and Sami gave us plenty of time to explore and take photos on our own. J got several great shots of the hieroglyphics. One of the mummified crocodiles that were found at the temple was at the Egyptian Museum, which we saw on day 1. That was a huge crocodile! We were both very impressed.
That night was Egyptian Night on the cruise. Some folks on the boat dressed in traditional Egyptian garb. We played games and the Mexican contingent on the boat danced the Salsa.
We sailed on to Philae. We arrived in the morning, had breakfast, and took the bus to Philae Temple. It was huge! Sami did a cute thing using members of the tour groups to represent the gods seen in the temple and the story being told. J got to be Horus, who killed Set, and lost an eye doing so. It was a good way to explain what we were seeing. Philae is a poor city and obviously tries to make any money it can on the river boat tourists. The horses pulling the carriages were emaciated and the dresses for sale were faded and torn. We did see kids walking to school, but the school was beyond run-down. It was kind of sad, actually. Without the discovery of Philae Temple the little town really would have nothing, so at least they do get some tourist dollars.
We sailed away an hour late because the Mexican tour group was late returning from the temple. It was getting cool out, too, so we stayed inside and watched the Nile go by – it was pretty amazing when you think about it! In the afternoon we went through the Locke. Even though it was really cool out, we were up on deck to watch the process and really enjoyed it. But, you could see that a storm was coming – not a rain storm but a wind storm that drove up all that sand! We ended up getting stuck at a port whose name we don't know because we weren't supposed to stop there. Due to poor visibility many boats were stopped and we sat and sat for hours and hours. It ended up being fun for us, though, because we sat in the lounge with several tour-mates and talked and drank and watched soccer and had a lot of laughs. After dinner we went to our cabin to pack up and realized around 9:00 pm that we had begun sailing. We sailed all night and woke up in Luxor.
That's almost got us caught up and we'll have to finish probably when we get home. So, if you're interested in lots more photos and lots more Egypt talk, stay tuned . . .
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