We joined the Felucca boat at 10:30 am in Aswan. The Felucca was captained by Eub and his first mate and cook named Mohammed. The great thing about the Felucca is that you have nothing to do but relax. The crew takes care of all the sailing jobs and the cook prepares your meals. All you have to do to lounge around on the mat under an awning to protect you from the sun while watching the Nile, Date Palms, and Mango trees go by. The first night we stopped on a little island that was home to water buffalo that [View Full Entry]

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I awoke at 3:00am to get ready and be picked up by the driver of our mini bus that was going to take us to Abu Simbel. In order for tourists to go to Abu Simbel you have to travel in a police convoy. Now the idea of Convoy is lost by the Egyptians because as soon as the convoy starts all the buses, vans, and cars try to race to the front. Its a mad dash down the highway in the desert that takes you to Abu Simbel. So after a 2 1/2 hour drive our bus made it to [View Full Entry]

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I spent a semi restless night on the overnight train from Cairo to Aswan. The train was 2 hours late because between Luxor and Aswan some thieves had stolen the communication cables for the train to communicate with the stations. So with no communication the train went down the track very slowly and stopped frequently. After arriving in Aswan I was greeted with a spectacular view of the Nile. The water is semi blue with Feluccas (Sail Boats) sailing down the nile and date palms all along the shore. After taking a nap our group headed to a boat to be [View Full Entry]

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I arrived in Cairo yesterday. My first experience in the city was bargaining for a taxi to take me to my hotel. I had to bargain hard for a price of 50 pounds. I first experienc was in the taxi flying down the road and the car had no headlights on it. None of the cars on the road stayed in the lines and people are crossing everywhere and the taxi did not have a working seatbelt. Although this was quite an exciting ride I made it to my hotel okay. I woke up early in the morning to go on [View Full Entry]

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Today our group traveled to the Western Wall. The place considered to be the Holliest for Jews in the World. We entered through tight security to get to the Western Wall. Once inside the women in our group were yelled at to cover their shoulders. There were some orthodox Jews handing out the wrap to put on for prayers. I put one on and was given a sheet of paper with the prayer on it. I headed over to the wall and began to pray and to put a note in the wall. During that time others and I were constantly [View Full Entry]

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Our tour group had a fabulous night out on the town last night. We woke up early to make it to the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum and memorial. The grounds of Yad Vashem are beautifuly done and they recently opened up the new museum. The museum asalts all your senses as you are overloaded with pictures, artifacts, and exhibits about the Holocaust. The museum starts you off looking at the Jewish population before the Holocaust and progresses towards the end of the war. The museum is designed in a way that you have to go through the whole museum before you [View Full Entry]

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It was another early start of the day so we could go for a hike in the desert. We traveled to the Ein Ovdat national park. Ein Ovdat is like a small grand canyon. It is a beautiful gorge in the middle of the desert. After hiking along the river flowing through the gorge we started our ascent to the top of the gorge. You follow a winding path of steep stone stairs cut into the gorge face and in some place you had to use ladders to get up to the top. It was a hard but wonderful climb with [View Full Entry]

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On saturday's in Israel everything comes to a halt and the religious day of rest. There are a few places open but most are closed. I slept in late, I napped in my air conditioned room, I eat, I relaxed, and at the end of the night I enjoyed watch the world cup soccer in the local pub. Israel knows how to relax and it was exactly what I needed after so much sightseeing in the past couple of days. [View Full Entry]

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Our group woke up at 3:45 am in order to beat the other groups to Masada which was 15 minutes from the Bedouin village. We woke in the cold desert grabbed our things, had some hot shai tea, and a few biscuits to start our early day. We drove through the dark and winding roads to reach the foot of Masada. We stopped for a few minutes to gaze upon it from the bottom with the early morning twilight. We climbed Masada via the Roman Ramp which had been built by the Roman to conquer the fortress. The climb was steep [View Full Entry]

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We woke up early this morning to get a start on the day in Tel Aviv. We had only a few hours of sleep after a night out on town in the heart of Tel Aviv. My group pushed through the sleep deprevation and went to view the Indenpendence Hall where David Ben-Gurion proclaimed Israel's independence in 1948. After visiting Independence Hall we travel to Rabin square where during a peace rally the Prime Minister of Israel Yitzak Rabbin was assassinated by an Israeli. There is a memorial for the Prime Minister and by the Memorial is markers on the ground [View Full Entry]

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