After flying to Lusaka Zambia from the US (via Jo'burg) I slept overnight in Lusaka (Protea Hotel Arcades). Next morning I took a flight on Proflight from the Lusaka airport ($8 departure tax) to Mfuwe. The costly flight was fairly short and a little bumpy but worth it since I only had 2 extra days for a safari. My reservations at Mfuwe Lodge inside South Luangwa park included a friendly guide who met me at the airport and drove me back to the Lodge. The road from the airport to the Mfuwe entrance to the Park is newly paved and the [View Full Entry]

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I know this entry gets a lot of hits from the general public. If readers are trying to determine whether Abu Simbel is worth the trip, I would say it depends on your time in Egypt. We got stuck in the Aswan airport on our return and that fact alone ruined this side trip. I had little time in Egypt and had not planned to spend five hours in the airport getting back to Cairo. These temples though are amazing historical, architectural, and now engineering feats; the best of the ancient world and the modern world. Take the trip, just make [View Full Entry]

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Off the boat in Aswan we took a bus ride to the Aswan dam then went to another area where the motor boats are all lined up to take us to the Temple of Philae, dedicated to the goddess Isis. The Temple is on an island, so you have to take a boat there. On the way, a couple young boys on board ply you with goods to buy. The ladies did quite a bit of shopping. The Temple has been relocated from the original island which was flooded by the new Aswan dam. On the way back from visiting the [View Full Entry]

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Got off the boat at 8 am to take a horse buggy ride to the Temple of Knum. Not a pleasant experience. The horses are not treated well and the drivers are very aggressive asking for tips. We were crammed 4 to a small buggy designed for 2. A minibus would have been preferable. This Temple is very interesting because it was only discovered in 1860 by a French archeologist and it took 4 years to uncover. It sits 30 feet below the town. You can still see where some of the houses and shops are located on top of the [View Full Entry]

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The boat left Luxor at 5 am for the sole purpose of getting in line to go through the lock to Esna. There were hundreds of boats lined up and we stayed the entire day there, not getting through the lock until about 7 pm. During the day the local men come out in small row boats and show you their goods for purchase. They throw them up to the top deck and you throw it back to them. If you buy something, they throw up another item and you put the money in and throw it back. There was a [View Full Entry]

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Early pick up at hotel for flight from Cairo to Luxor. The airport was a madhouse and we had an agent getting our boarding passes. Then hundreds of people pushed their way through the single security line to the waiting room. We were supposed to “listen” for our flight to be called and it was really just the guy at the door saying flight numbers. You had to be standing there to hear him. Buses to the plane then off to Luxor. Picked up and taken to the Ti-Yi. Many more tips along the way. It was still early and we [View Full Entry]

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You should read the next entry then come back to this one. One of my favorites of the whole trip, the Temple of Karnak is definitely one of the most impressive sites in Egypt, I think more impressive even than Abu Simbel. Karnak sits on 247 acres so you can imagine its size and it was built over a period of 1500 years. You enter through an avenue of ram’s head sphinxes, then into the central courtyard. The temples all follow a basic plan where as you approach the center of the temple it is more enclosed, more complex, and fewer [View Full Entry]

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On to see Old Cairo. This was a part of Cairo I especially wanted to see. Old Cairo is a walled city in Cairo and was the heart of the original city. There are about 300 Christian, Jewish, and Muslim families who peacefully co-exist here. Their homes are inherited and very hard to come by. We walked through the original city gate, still intact, and through the walkways of the city. We saw the city’s oldest coptic (Christian) church, the Church of St. Sergius, which is reported to be built near the place where Mary and Joseph took shelter on their [View Full Entry]

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We left Cairo today to go out to the ancient sites of Memphis and Sakkara. First though we had to get through the horrendous Cairo traffic. We left right at “rush hour” since Sunday is the first day of the week in Egypt (Friday and Saturday are the weekend). Egyptians drive with no rules, no lanes, and it is very helter-skelter. Pedestrians take their lives in their hands. Very stressful driving through Cairo. Memphis is the old capital of Egypt built more than 5,000 years ago, and was destroyed in an earthquake which apparently ended its reign. Not much left at [View Full Entry]

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We visited the great pyramid at Giza, the Giza plateau, the Sphinx. Everything lived up to our expectations. The pyramids are amazing and still captivate our imagination today. We went inside the tomb in the queen’s pyramid next to the great pyramid. The tomb in the great pyramid is quite an uphill climb and requires an extra ticket, so we did not go in. The queen’s tomb is included in the main ticket. The tomb entrance is very close and stuffy and hot; and people passing both ways in a small corridor. The burial chamber is fairly small, hard to get [View Full Entry]

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