Cruising on the Nile

While watching the scenery pass you by, you notice that the Egyptians make the most from the Nile. It is green with agriculture for a certain distance from the Nile, (2 blocks to 2 miles) then nothing. Dry, tan, devoid of all obvious life and a little foreboding.

Beggar Nile Style

This boy using a thrown away door and pieces of wood for paddles was begging from us as we were on our felucca boat ride. Aladdin talked most of us into not giving him anything by reminding us that he should have been in school. The kid was probably making a really good living.

Whirling Dervish

We saw these dancers a couple of times on boats and at restaurants.
The below link is a pretty good example of what we saw. I felt like throwing up just watching them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbAaQCULBYo

Disembarking

We are disembarking to see one of the many temples that had been moved to higher ground on Aswan Lake. Did you notice that the sailors are holding a pole as handrails for the passengers. You need to be surefooted in Egypt.

Another Amazing Feat

Abu Simbel - It is amazing that they were able to move such a large structure from the rising waters of Aswan Lake in just 4 years. I think that moving the structure in the 1960's sort of impressed me more than the original structure would have. We had already started to become jaded from all the other 4000 yr old sites- This was only 3000 yrs old. I think that is what strikes you most when visiting Egypt - how old everything is. It is sort of hard to comprehend. It made me feel rather insignificant.

Fancy Hotel Cooks

Even though the hotel was a 4 star they still hired 2 women to sit outside and cook pita bread in an outdoor oven. I am sure it was a very hot job but the bread and the different humus spreads were delicious. We ended up substituting the pita bread appetizers for a meal twice while we were in Cairo.

Shopping and Smoking

We had to try a Hooka. It had apple flavored tobacco in it. It was a lot smoother than an American cigarette. Shopping was mostly looking in this area. Aladdin had tipped us off that there would be cheaper places in Luxor & Aswan.

Egypt Photos

Gail, pictured above, was a little nervous on top of that really tall camel. Notice her white knuckles and grimace.... One of my favorite photos.

If you want to just look at the photos and not wait for me to write my blogs - here are the links for our Egypt Trip we took in April 2009. Margie, Paula, Gail and I went with a tour group called Vantage. Even though we visited during the spring -- it was HOT. One day it hit 113. Here they are

Cairo
http://picasaweb.google.com/katiea48/CairoEgypt#

Aswan and Lake Nasser Cruise
http://picasaweb.google.com/katiea48/AswanLakeNassar#

Luxor
http://picasaweb.google.com/katiea48/Luxor#

Warning -- I sort of got carried away and took a lot of photos -

The Citadel

This was the only place that required covered arms and legs (but they provided cover-ups if you were too exposed). The Citadel has a long history. Check out the Wikipedia page for more info.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairo_Citadel

Inside the interesting lit mosque, our guide Aladdin gave a great lecture on religions in Egypt. (And he has a very informative web page that shows you how cute he is and if you ever want to travel to Egypt make sure you read his travel tips.)
http://www.ask-aladdin.com/aladdin_khalifa.htm

Awesome & We Touched Them

With the size of the blocks and the impressive heights - it is no wonder that some people think that aliens helped construct these awesome structures.

Beautiful Vegtables and Fruit

Not many shorts or short sleeves here. The majority of the women dressed very warmly by our standards. It appeared that more than 80% of the adult women wore hair coverings outside their homes.

We Rode a Camel

All of us decided to ride a camel. It is a little scary. When the camel gets up you are pitched forward quite a bit. The camel's keeper took a great picture - made me look like I was touching the top of a pyramid.

The Men Wear a Lot of Layers too!

Paula took this picture of a local gentleman infront of one of the earliest pyramids. Temperature was in the 90's.

Kids

They are all the same everywhere- just different outfits

Our Guard

We had to leave the front 2 seats free on the bus (one for our guide and one for the quard) because we ALWAYS had an armed guard with us. They always wore some type of jacket to hide the gun but every once in while it would poke out.... Many guards and many guns but no trouble except for a couple of guys short changing me.

Daybreak Picture of Nile From Our Cairo Hotel

Our Sofitel Hotel was a 5 star but location sort of left you isolated since you would have had to cross a couple a really busy streets or a bridge to get anywhere. Security was tight everywhere in Egypt with metal detectors, scanners and guards at every hotel and museum entrance. This hotel even had our bus sniffed by a bomb dog every time we entered the compound.