Advertisement
Published: August 29th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Hello!
I loved the cute camels! This guy was hanging out at the Sakkara Step Pyramids Greetings friends! This is "Part 2" of our travel blog. Go back to "Part 1" to read about the start of our trip and our time in Cairo!
Nile Cruise
When we first arrived in Luxor, we brought all our bags to our Nile cruise boat! We slept on the boat for the 2 days we were in port at Luxor. The boats are 3 and 4 stories tall with about 40-50 rooms. Our room was just like a typical hotel room...pretty roomy and comfortable. It was fun to open our window and be right on the Nile. The waves rocked us to sleep. After touring at Luxor, the tour boat left for Aswan. We cruised all afternoon and overnight. The boat made two stops along the way to Aswan so we could visit the Edfu and Kom Ombo Temples. The Nile cruise was GORGEOUS and very worth it. It was so relaxing and lovely to look out at the grasses along the Nile, the desert hills and tombs along the West Bank, the small towns and homes that line the Nile, the fishing boats. We spent our first evening waiting to pass through the Locks. Hundreds of men
Hatshepsut Temple
A man was waiting in the shade of the pillars inside Hatshepsut's Temple. come out on small boats to sell items to people on the cruise boats. Ben bought a beach towel (see photo).
Aswan
We arrived in Aswan and were amazed...the Nile was even more incredibly beautiful here and the famed felucca (sail) boats were everywhere. The city rose on a hill on the East bank and huge golden sand hills spilled into the Nile on the West bank. We visited the Aswan dam and learned about how so many of the ancient sites and the Nubian people's homes and towns were submerged and lost forever when the dam was built. We visited the Nubian Museum, an old cemetary, the Unfinished Obelisk, and the local market. We took a ride on a felucca and just enjoyed the beauty of the small city. We bought an beautiful camel-hair Nubian rug!
On the second day in Aswan, we flew down to the southernmost part of Egypt near the Sudanese border. The Abu Simbel temple is located there on the Nile. It was originally built in this location to intimidate travelers who were sailing down the Nile into Egypt. This was probably the most awe-inspiring site we saw in Egypt. The incredible
The Colors of Hatshepsut
The colors on the walls of the temple are still vibrant after thousands of years! Beautiful... complexity of the temple, the massive size, and the fact that restorers had to take apart the temple and move it piece by piece to a higher location (because the Aswan Dam created the Aswan Lake and was going to fill in the area where Abu Simbel was originally located) blew us away. The flight only took 30 minutes and we only toured for 45 minutes, so it was a quick trip.
We flew back from Aswan to Cairo (no way were we getting back on that overnight train again!) and checked into another awesome hotel on the Nile. The views were awesome! We spent more time at the Egyptian Museum and went back to the Khan el Khalili bazaar.
Food!
Just a note on food (because Christa can't evaluate a trip without mentioning the food)! After not having had hummos or tabouli for six months, I was in HEAVEN. I took every chance I could get to find local goodies (aka delicious food treats). I overdosed on hummos one night which did not make Ben happy 😉. The kebab, the hummos, the shawerma, the pita, the grape leaves, oh my! We also had an awesome pizza dinner 😉.
A Bird's Perch
This bird was resting inside a carving in the Temple of Philae. My only complaint was that they tended to serve European food (English, German, Italian) on the 4 day boat cruise. This was really annoying when all I wanted to eat was Egyptian food!! They had one Egyptian night where we all dressed up and they served Egyptian food (this was the night I overdosed b/c I had gone 3 days without it...ha!!). All in all, I was quite happy.
Bargaining
Ben LOVED this part of the trip. We thoguht we were pretty used to bargaining after living in Cambodia, but Egypt definitely takes this art to a new height!! The key difference was that men rule in the Egyptian markets. All of the market sellers are men....the bargaining and dialogue was very gregarious, loud, friendly, agressive, and expressive...great fun!! Ben grew a huge beard for the trip so he would fit in a bit better. All the Egyptian men loved him...he's so big and manly and had a huge beard. They all asked if he was an Egyptian man and teased him 😉. He got along great with everyone and spent hours bargaining, debating, talking, laughing. You'll have to ask us to give you an in-person impression of the
Valley of the Kings 1
We loved visiting the tombs inside the Valley of the Kings. The carvings were magnificent, the colors vibrant after thousands of years, and the history fascinating! bargaining...it's too hard to write out! I (Christa) wimped out after the first 10 minutes of bargaining..then tension is too much!! But Ben loved it and stuck it out till the end and always got a great price and made friends along the way.
Final Toughts
We could say so much more about our trip and all the incredilbe things we saw and learned. The history was incredible...Ben is buying one Egyptian book a week. We were fascinated and enthralled by the small taste we had of the culture and language; we would love to go back and dig in a bit more. A very worth-while trip!! We hope you enjoy the photos 😊
Advertisement
Tot: 0.175s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 10; qc: 55; dbt: 0.0749s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Luis Leal
non-member comment
Beautiful photos
"the man walking out the shade..." ;) http://www.flickr.com/photos/tiles4ever/3114052634/in/set-72157611257530381/