Four Night Nile Cruise - Español Style!

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Hola!

We arrived in Luxor to much hotter weather. Temperatures reaching early 40s. We were told that temperatures can often reach 60 degrees celsius, so we were pleased that we did not get to experience that!

We boarded our ship the 'Royal Ruby'. The cabin was quite nice & better than expected! We were thankful that the ship also had its own pool - much more enticing than swimming in the Nile haha.

After spending a lot of time on our own, we had been looking forward to getting on board our cruise and meeting, getting to know, and spending time with fellow travellers. All was going well too - the cruise boat was starting to fill up, however we soon realised that the majority of the cruise boat was made up of Spaniards and so the common themes of events and food on the boat were from the Spanish culture. What this meant for us was that we actually felt quite isolated due to the language barrier as there was only one other English speaking family from the US on board. Naturally we formed a bond with them and spent quite a lot of our tour together which was great.

Over these four days we got to visit numerous temples including Valley of the Kings, Queen Hatshepsut's mortuary temple, the temple of Karnak, Luxor Temple, Colossi of Memnon, the temple of Horus at Edfu, Kom Ombo, and the temple of Philae. Most spectacular of all, was the separate plane excursion to Abu Simbel. These are the statues and temples of Ramses the Great and his wife Nefertari - it was amazing to learn that these temples were moved in the late 1960s due to the construction of the high dam.

Some of the sights along the Nile that we were able to see on our cruise were simply magical, especially at sunset. The banks along the Nile are very green, which is in stark contrast to the surrounding desert! Luxor and Aswan were definitely more appealing places than Cairo!

We are so glad that we have left Egypt now, despite having had a great time taking in the sights. We did not leave unscathed though, as we both contracted a case of King Tut's Butt on the last night - so much for the vego diet! Kim in particular was quite sick yesterday which made for a hard day of travelling. Three plane trips and a 6 hour transit wait at Cairo airport with the day ending with a 1 hour train ride to our hotel in London... as you can imagine, we were both very glad to hit the hay, especially Kim (with having been sick).

And so today, we have started to explore London - so far we are liking what we see and look forward to the start of our Contiki tour on the 11th.

Love to you all,

Kim & Steve xx.

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Photos

Kim @ Valley of the Kings
Ramses VII's Temple

Karnak Temple
Ramses the Great's Statue

Abu Simbel
Ramses Temple

Kim @ Abu Simbel
Nefertari's Temple

Comments

[Mumsie]

Nile Cruise - Spanish Style
Great to read your latest update, your photos look impressive. Sorry to hear you both contracted the Egyptian bug, but sounds like you are both over it now and looking forward to your Contiki tour. We look forward to reading your next instalment. Love Mum and Charlie. xoxox

[Genbo]

Glad to hear you are safely out of Egypt. Expect we won't hear from you again until you sober up after Contiki :) Baby is overdue 2 days now but should have news of new cousin for you soon. Have a large drink for me xxx Gen

[Tam]

Jealous
Hey Kim and Steve - rather jealous to see you both in Egypt when i have a daily view of picadilly, it on the top of my travel destinations (Egypt that is, not picadilly)! Looks like you have had some amazing adventures so far, love reading the updates. Have fun in Scotland and drink lots of scotch (well at least have one for me). I recommend a tour (doesn't take too long) of the Scotch Whiskey Heritage place just next to the castle - yum. Anyway Steve don't miss work too much mate!':o) Tam