Egypt

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Hey all! or 'Salama alekum' (Peace upon you, the arabic hello - see they are not all terrorists!)

We've had many adventures over the last 3 weeks - seen many amazing desert terrains and stunning ancient monuments. At first we did not find the independent travel easy - its not like Thailand! We were almost (almost!) jealous of the numerous tour groups. The main problem was getting in and out of Cairo when we did have to pass through it - the bus and train timetables are not terribly in sync! For our first week and a half we came across very few other backpackers for travel tips so we were travelling blind and relying heavily on the guide book.
We enjoyed our first 4 days in Cairo - pyramids, bazaars, sufi dancing, coptic cairo, islamic cairo, mosques, earthquake rubble littering every rooftop, cheap fastfood egyptian style, taxi drivers, constant tooting, the metro, not to mention the incredibly intense and gawking egytian men! They were constantly trying to attract our attention by hissing and making smoochy noises - sometimes even the women did it (although to shame us instead).
We escaped to Alexandria which turned out to be another giant city with a 6 lane highway (well it would be if they knew how to use lanes) running along the corniche in front of our hotel. Marie and I escaped for a few hours along the coast past thousands of built up holiday resorts to where we could finally have a our first (fully clothed) swim in the incredible turquoise waters of the mediteranean - well worth the scary frontseat minibus ride full of egytian men! Meanwhile Phil made the most of the minimal Alexandrian sights on offer (the best are underwater) Cleopatra's needle, the big beautiful new library and the Roman catacombs.
Next we made our way to Baharriya Oasis via Cairo getting stuck there for a night. On the bus Phil made friends with a nice Egyptain guy who invited us to his fiance's home for lunch - where we sheltered from the sun in their cool mudbrick home and enjoyed a full egyptian lunch (minus the women of the house). We left the next day on a 2 night desert Safari where we slept amongst the surreal outcrops of the white desert (surely designed by Dali himself!), cooled off in cold and hot oasis springs, and relaxed in the serene silence of the desert under the stars, while tiny foxes with huge ears and sand coloured mice crept in very close to our open air camp for left over bbq chicken bones and rice.
To make it down to Aswan in the South (or Upper Egypt) we splashed out on an overnight sleeper train. We found a hotel with a rooftop pool but found the best way to escape the intense heat (apart from aircon museums) was to cruise along the nile in a feloucca sailboat with the chilled out nubian sailors weaving in out out of the islands of the cataract.
We did an early morning tourist bus convoy (security reasons) to the incredible, ancient monuments built by Ramses II a few thousand years back. giant figures standing outside, and intricately carved and painted interiors telling the history in minute detail while the sun angles in so that it hits the back wall of the last chamber every morning! And all of this is built into a mountainside that had to be moved 50 years ago by unesco to save it from being flooded by the rising waters of the giant dam that now controls the river nile. The same also for the beautiful, peaceful temple of philae now based on a new island but still bearing the inscriptions/defacements from the more recent christians, muslims, and victorian age tourists.

we spent a couple of days cruising and sleeping on a feloucca boat sailing up the nile to reach luxor... which will have to be part of the next extremely belated instalment!

Also while in egypt we made it over to Jordan to check out the beautiful ancient city of Petra whick is completely carved out of the rose coloured cliff faces of some narrow valleys.

Back in egypt we had nearly 2 weeks to relax on the Sinai peninsula, just eating, sleeping, dancing, smoking shisha (waterpipes), and snorkelling and diving in the most stunning clear water along the most colourful coral reefs teeming with beautiful fish. it was heavenly, apart from the odd sleazy egyptian tout. we had the odd excursion to mt Sinai, and a very relaxing coastal bedouin village for a night sleeping on the beach under the stars and feasting on deliciously fresh fish.

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