Egypt!! (wow.)

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We arrived in Cairo on October 18th. It was a short flight from Athens. This is the only leg of our trip where it was advised to do a tour, and it was some very good advice. My Arabic skills aren't up to date. The trip was phenomenal. Karl was offered 1,000 camels "for your wife". I was quite insulted as I heard later another girl had been offered 6million. Oh well.

(I talked him up to 2,000 camels and now I have an absolute gaggle of these beasts. Soooo cool!) I'll never forget flying in over Cairo late-afternoon, and seeing the vast, dusty city, filtered through a strange sepia tone. The city had just experienced a huge sand-storm, combined with rain, and the effect was truly surreal! Every country we've visited has a fun phrase which means you have a bad stomach disorder, it's called "Egyptian Tummy" here. Oh the joy of this little treat! I enjoyed it for a week and recommend it to everyone. That aside, we had such an amazing trip here. The Great Pyramids are incredible, awe inspiring, mysterious, all of it! After Cairo and Giza, we took a long train to Aswan and from there took a bus to Abu Simbel - a fantastic temple built by King Ramses II, considered to be the greatest of all Egyptian Pharaohs. When it was discovered that the construction of the Aswan High Dam in the 1960s would eventually submerge this beautiful temple, the U.N. gave a huge fund to actually cut, dismantle and MOVE the temple to higher ground intact. The engineering feat is mind-boggling.

http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/abusimbel.htm

KT and I went on a three-day Nile River cruise, where we enjoyed drifting down this majestic river and watching the contrast of the desert just beyond the river's edge. We also met a wonderful group of people on our boat, The Melodie: Ali, our fearless leader from England, Dave and his son, James (trouble-these two!) also from the U.K., Candice (Aussie), Debra, Jill, Russ and Rochelle all from Canada. Our group dominated the Dance Party on the boat and we gave a belly dancer all she could handle! Ali, KT and I scared more than a few people with karaoke on our last night. KT looked like a deer in the headlights when it was her turn to rap Eminem's "Without Me". (Michele, Theresa, Lisa- y'all would've LOST it)

We also snuck in a day of scuba-diving in the Red Sea off the city of Hargada. The visibility was amazing, however the reef suffered from "idiot touristica" (people climbing all over it in the past, very grey and damaged). I was so proud of KT for doing it after she swore she never would! She was nervous, for sure, but kept her cool and had a blast. Never say Never!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_of_Khufu

(above...info on the Great Pyramid of Khufu...lonnng, but super cool!)

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Photos

Egypt
We had a fantastic "Egyptologist" giving us a tour of Giza, the pyramids and the surrounding area. Notice that the nose of the Sphinx is missing; one theory about the missing nose is Turkish soldiers used it for target practice. No!

In front of the Great Sphinx
We felt so lucky to be exploring an area so filled with history (and mystery!).

Faluka Cruise
We took a 1/2 day faluka (old-school sailboat) cruise down the Nile and passed by this temple on a sand dune.

Khufu, Khafre, KT
We had the option of going inside the burial chambers of each of the pyramids. We enjoyed the view from here.

Cute!
These five gals were in front of the Sphinx entrance. This is a great example of the younger Egyptians mixing tradition (with the hijab headdress) with a modern touch!

Cafe in Cairo
We went shopping in the Cairo Bizarre and found a cafe Debra was dying to show us. Naturally, we had a smoke and a coffee!

Cairo at night
This was the view from the restaurant atop our hotel in Cairo.

Cairo Bizarre
So many shisha pipes to choose from. Chadwick, time for a visit to Egypt, my friend.

Three old artifacts
The Great Pyramid of Khafre (slightly smaller than Khufu by a few meters) still has the limestone apex.

Scariest Cabbie EVER
After our trip to the Bizarre in Cairo, our cabbie got in an altercation with another driver. He proceeded to chase the guy at high-speed, creating his own lane, until he tracked him down (all the while, we're screaming hysterically) and verbally harpooned the offending driver. Wow.

Egyptian Mummy!
Here I was taking a little nap, when my gal rocked me good! I shall get her back.

Khufu
This is the Great Pyramid, Khufu, and the only remaining member of the Seven Wonders of the World. The "hole" above KT's head leads to the King's burial chamber.

Khufu again...
With our cheesy, little camera, it was next to impossible to capture the scope and size of the structure.

The Great Pyramid
At one time, the entire pyramid was covered with white, highly polished limestone. These casing stones were placed in such a way that a person could slide down the pyramid from top to bottom. This also made the structure visible from from a long way away.

Candice
This is at the Bizarre in Cairo again. Candice, our friendly Aussie, received a temporary tattoo from a woman before she could say she wanted one.

Negotiations underway
Mohamed is the character who offered 1000 camels for Ms Martin.

Local
"Can I have an order of super-corny, please?" Thank you.

Nile River
This boy was the co-captain of our faluka cruise. Very cool.

Trouble...
God Save the Queen! Dave and James in full galabias. We tore the boat up on our last night. The crew on the Melodie were the biggest pranksters of all time.

Farewell Dinner
Our "posse". That's Ali front-right. Good leader, great person, bad singer!

Belly dancer?
When this little lady sashed her way in for the belly dancing, a shiver of fear went down my spine.