Blogs from Upper Egypt, Egypt, Africa - page 76

Geo: 22.7308, 30.8629Our wake-up call this morning was at 3am, I hate early mornings. We weren't allowed to be late, otherwise the convoy leaves without us and we miss out. 10 years ago tourists were shot by terrorists, so the only way to get there is to be in a convoy. Three hours later we arrived. I got quite a bit of sleep on the bus which was good. There are two huge temples here. Ramses II and Nefertitis- his favourite wife of 62. Both temples were built near the dam and in 1967 were moved up the hill to higher ground. One of the heads of Ramses fell off during an earthquake and they have left it on the ground. Nefertitis was built first and is much smaller than Ramses. Both were decorated 4,000 years ... read more

Today was a nice day, we slept in and took our time. 3 days in Luxor is more than enough. 1.5 days would have been sufficient, but we enjoyed being able to relax. We went to the Mummification Museum which is a one-room museum with explanations and artifacts that illustrate the Mummification process. The neatest thing was a cross section of a skull showing where they had removed the brain and stuffed it with linen. Also, you never think about the fact that they mummified animals other than cats and dogs, but they did alligators, monkeys, fish etc. Many of these animals were considered sacred. We walked over to the Souq which is the market area that we went through on Wednesday with our horse and buggy driver. Like we mentioned before, this was a “real” ... read more

We took the overnight train to Luxor. Getting to the train station in Cairo was a fun experience! We noticed a day or so ago that all taxis have roof racks. Matt wondered if they even use their trunks? This brings up that every taxi we have been in is literally falling apart, but not the typical things are broken. The door handles, window handles, locks, etc..are all broken off. These are parts on cars that never break? We don’t understand? Anyway, so come to find out, Matt was right! They just throw your luggage up on this rack without tying it down. This made the ride extra nervous because of all of the braking/swerving you do on a typical car ride. We had images of our luggage flying into the street only to be hit ... read more

I think that God is toying with me. I had to get up at 4:30am in order to get ready for my Hot Air Balloon Ride over Luxor. On the way out of the hotel, I noticed a 5-Star sign behind the front desk. It was from the Tourism Board of Egypt. That explains a lot. Hot Air Balloon Ride I had arranged my Hot Air Balloon Ride through Shadi (Pack2Egypt) before I came to Egypt. My Taiwanese friends who joined me on the Nile River Cruise decided they would like to go too, but arranged it through a tour agency directly in Luxor. Since they would need to catch the late morning balloon, they would need to meet us wherever we were on our regular tour. When they tried to call Mohammed, our local tour ... read more

Haggle tips for the wise! * There first price will be at least 50% more than what they will except. * Pretend not really to want the item u r tryin to get. * Don't let a guy take u into a shop, because his commission will be added on the price. * Start low & don't budge much. * Begin to walk off @ least once. * Sit & have a tea & a she-sha with the owner. On the 1 hand no one likes gettin ripped off but when u think about it, it;s usally a tiny amount of $$ to u but a huge amount to them. but it's a bit of fun gettin them down! then u can always give them extra after u win the haggle, good luck! We got to ... read more