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Published: December 24th 2007
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Just a short pre-christmas blog update....
From Aswan in Egypt we took a Felucca on Captain Nemo's Washington boat down the nile to Luxor. We suspect he wasn't the real Nemo we had been recommended and it was one of many Washington's, but his crew (Mahmoud and Ahmed) managed to safely navigate us down the nile for 2 days and nights so it really didn't matter. The first night we went into Mahmoud's own nubian village and had dinner (separate from our hosts) and socialized (the men in one room, the women in the other). It was a wonderful experience, and they were very friendly to us despite considerable language barriers.
The next morning Dot had a bit of the Delhi Belly, or in this case the nauseous nile, so she tried to sleep while Dan luxuriated with the boat all to himself. The weather was warm but we didn't even consider taking a dip as the nile is so infested with Bilharzia that its a cesspit of disease. We did see a bunch of french travellers swimming, however, but didn't try to warn them as they were french.
After coming to land and checking out more brilliant temples,
we headed to Luxor. The city itself is crazy, and so full of desperate and often aggressive touts that we couldn't help but be a little rude at times. "No, piss off" didn't even begin to deter them and we saw one westerner losing it completely at a persistent carriage riding tout.
We headed to Luxor temple in town and the brilliant Luxor museum, before spending the afternoon walking through the incredibly vast Karnak Temple site. In its heyday in 1300BC, 80,000 people used to work there.
The following two days we journeyed to the West Bank, home of the fabled Valley of the Kings. We hired bikes and cycled into the desert to the Valley of the Kings first. This is where many of the pharaohs are buried, and where Tutankhamen's treasure was found. The Valley is under the imposing Al Qurn, an impressive natural pyramid shaped mountain. This would feature prominently the next day. The tombs themselves were stunningly long and well preserved, with much of the elaborate paintings seemingly finished only hours ago, even paint strokes were still visible.
The next day Dan had reason to be a little nervous. We got up early
and headed back to the west bank on our trusty bikes. We then took a long walk up the hills, past armed guards to the pyramid mountain. Luckily we weren't stopped and there was no one at the top so Dan got down on one knee overlooking the Valley of the Kings and proposed to Dot, who said yes. Which was lucky, because otherwise it would have been an awkward walk back down!
We descended to Hatshepsut's Temple, built in to the base of the mighty cliff face. It is a stunning piece of architecture with 3 tiers rising up out of the valley, and still retains some of its marvellous frescoes.
The next evening involved the start of a marathon bus ride to Dahab on the Sinai Peninsular. We thought we would see the Suez canal at Suez so got dropped off after a harrowing 11 hours on a rattly old bus with fellow passengers hoiking on the bus and coughing themselves to death. Suez canal was quite impressive, but the city was dead at 7am so we tried to high tail it out of there, only to be forced to wait 3 hours for the next
Karnak Temple
Hypostolic Hall bus then drive for a further 8 hours or so, getting our passposts checked a full 8 times. We finally arrived in Dahab over 24 hours after leaving Luxor. Could have got to NZ quicker.
Dahab, however, was well worth the travel. Laid back, sunny, cheap and with plenty to do, we threw ourselves into intense sessions of lying in the sun at the beach. We also went to Saint Katherine's Monastery, site of the Burning Bush, and one of the oldest churches in the world at 330AD. Mt Sinai nearby, where the big guy handed Moses the ten commandments, was an excellent walk. One tenacious penitent monk made 3700 stone steps all the way to the top. Super effort, but apparently he still went to hell. Gutted.
Dan took his first scuba dive and we both went snorkeling through some of the finest coral reefs in the world. Perhaps the highlight of Dahab, however, was a two day excursion into the desert. We met a local Bedouin family, all of who had a joint for morning tea. Camels took us into the heart of the desert, where we explored beautiful canyons. We slept under the stars to
the troubled snoring of our poor guide who insisted on giving us all the blankets and spent the night shivering away. The next day we took a dodgy toyota 4WD into a much more open area of desert and played silly buggers down the sand dunes.
We also bumped into Dan's cousin Simon and his fiancee Anika in Dahab, as you do.
Finally we headed back to London. We have revelled in the familliar places and catching up with good friends and family. After Christmas the journey back to NZ continues, via Canada and Mexico. We will keep you updated.
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