Took full advantage of our included buffet breakfast, as I was well hungry from the long walk yesterday & the fact I´d missed dinner last night too. We piled into the minivan & drove to the store to stock up on snacks before commencing our six hour journey back to Cairo. Made a quick detour to watch ships passing through the Suez Canal & took some illegal photos before stopping in Suez for a rest stop. I spied a cool camouflage hat, which looked cute but the guy wanted way too much & wouldn´t budge on price, so I decided to [View Full Entry]

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Had an amazing Nutella pancake for breakfast this morning; the second in eight months of travelling. Would LOVE to eat them every day, but am sure I would put on weight pretty fast if I did. Am considering switching from the traditional Sunday hangover breakfast of bacon & eggs on toast to Nutella & banana pancakes. We were collected after breakfast by a different driver than yesterday (thank God...) & driven to St Katherines Monastery. It´s purported to be the oldest continuous monastery in the world. Added to that, it´s the place of the burning bush, where Moses chatted with God [View Full Entry]

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Had a lovely lie in until nine o´clock this morning, then figured almost twelve hours sleep is more than enough for anybody. Decided it was only right to swim at least once in the Red Sea, even if it was only fourteen degrees celcius! After I stopped hyperventilating from the shock of cold water, it actually felt quite nice & I stayed in much longer than anticipated. Dad hired a snorkel, which I borrowed for ten minutes to check out marine life in the shallows. I had every intention of going for a proper snorkel in deeper water later on, but [View Full Entry]

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Grabbed a takeaway breakfast from the hotel before heading down to the pier to catch the ferry across to Sharm el Sheikh. Had to wait a while upon arrival for our driver to turn up, before enduring a two hour death ride on a minibus, reaching speeds in excess of one hundred & forty kilometers an hour. Fortunately it was a fairly straight road as the guy barely slowed down for corners! Shared some Babaganough dip with Nige for lunch at Sawa camp & spent the remainder of the afternoon relaxing on the beach. It wasn´t super hot, but the sun [View Full Entry]

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Visited Karnak Temple for a couple of hours in the morning before we were due to leave Luxor. The temple & surrounding area was just such an amazing thing to see. It is quite an awesome structure to have survived this long & I am sure would have been an even more spectacular sight in it´s heyday. It is just such a pity so many ancient relics have been built upon & are now probably lost forever. Caught our local bus mid morning, which thankfully wasn´t actually very local at all. It had all it´s windows, comfy seats, a clean floor [View Full Entry]

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Met with Ahmed, our guide for the day¨and caught a boat across to the West Bank. First stop was the Colossi of Memnon, two very large statues in the middle of a field. The granite had been transported thousands of years ago by river from Aswan, over one hundred kilometres away! We rode donkeys up the mountain before walking on foot into the Valley of the Kings. I spent the whole time laughing at dad trying to balance on his tiny ride and am even having a little chuckle to myself whilst writing this entry. Poor Nige managed to fall off [View Full Entry]

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Came off the felucca fairly early and walked past Kom Ombo Temple on way to meet our transport. Had to wait a while as we had to join up with the convoy from Aswan to Luxor. Visited Edfu Temple, which is renowned as the battle site between the two Egyptian Gods, Horus (falcon) and Seth (his uncle). Again, very spectacular, however I wish we´d had a guide provided. There´s certainly a huge difference between exploring on your own and being taken in a group. You learn so much more about a place with a guide and although alot of information may [View Full Entry]

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There is so much relaxing to do on the felucca, it felt we had no sooner finished our pancake breakfast when lunch was served. A few more hours of cruising before we docked at a town called Daraw to go see camels & the local market. Not overly exciting stuff, but I think it was an excuse to break up the day a little so we didn´t get bored on the boat. After an hour or so back on board, we stopped for the night & set up camp (the loo). Unfortunately dinner was postponed due to the cook running out [View Full Entry]

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Managed to get an hour in on the internet before going down to the river to board my home for the next two nights - a felucca. Ate lunch on board not long after setting off & spent a lazy afternoon alternating between reading & napping. There is another Intrepid group parallelling our route for the first few days of the trip, and they caught up with us an hour or so before we docked for the day. After collecting firewood we ate a lovely dinner that the felucca crew had prepared. The remainder of the evening consisted of much singing [View Full Entry]

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Up before three because we were being collected from the hotel to join the convoy to Abu Simbel. Unfortunately we were the first pick up point & so spent an hour driving around Aswan picking up other passengers. Once on the road our journey was fast & furious, with the convoy reaching speeds of around one hundred & fifty kilometres per hour. I couldn´t see the speedo, however this estimation is NOT an exaggeration of how fast we were travelling. Fortunately the road was straight for the most part & I was still tired from lack of sleep last night, so [View Full Entry]

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