Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime. - Mark Twain We are back in Cairo! (Back at the Novotel). Susan asked for a room at the back to avoid the noisy party boats tonight, as we will have yet another early start tomorrow. We were up this morning shortly after 3 am to be ready for the drive to the airport at 4 am. We got breakfast boxes from the hotel, and headed off. The flight from Aswan to Cairo was about 1 hr 15 min, and it was a pleasant flight. We got picked up by the mini van and ... read more

There are no foreign lands. It is the traveller only who is foreign. - Robert Louis Stevenson I hope my last few blog entries were posted ok, the internet connection is very slow on the riverboat and it took a long time for the photos to upload. This afternoon we arrived in Kom Ombo about 3:30 pm. The scenery from Luxor is really pretty. The land is cultivated on both sides of the Nile in a thin strip, and beyond is desert and rocky hills. There are lots of palm trees here too. The temple of Kom Ombo is a short walk from where our river boat was docked. We left at 4:30 pm and it was still very hot outside. We ran the usual gauntlet of vendors and then entered the site. The difference between ... read more

We had another early morning this morning, with breakfast at 5 am. We left the boat at 5:30 for the drive over to the West Bank of the Nile. Our first stop was the Memorial Temple of Hatshepsut. Hatshepsut was a female pharaoh, who ruled for around 20 years circa 1460 BCE. She was able to hang on to the throne, despite being a woman, because she invented a story, accepted by the high priest, that she was in fact the result of a divine birth (she was the child of a god, and so was a god herself). Hatshepsut's temple is in a dramatically beautiful location, at the foot of rugged limestone cliffs. It would have been even more amazing in its time because it would have approached by a sphinx-lined causeway, and there would ... read more

When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable. - Clifton Fadiman We met our travel companions last evening for our short meeting, then we walked to downtown Cairo for dinner together. We have 12 in our group, 6 Australians, 3 New Zealanders, and us 3 Canadians. We walked over the bridge, through Tahrir Square, to the Felfala restaurant. On the way I asked our tour guide, Amr, whether the restaurant served alcohol. He gave me a sidelong glance and said no (I had asked during the meeting whether the sleeper train had a bar car so he clearly thinks I'm an alcoholic). The restaurant seemed like the type that might serve alcohol (some locals but also tourists were there) so ... read more

I'm afraid the party boats won the battle last night. They were crazy loud and kept me awake most of the night, despite the ear plugs, so I got up at 6:30 feeling pretty groggy. We called the desk and arranged to change rooms to the quiet (hopefully!) side of the building, so we packed up our things, and headed down for another good and filling breakfast. We met Hend at 8:30 am, and we were off to Memphis (not Tennessee! - the ancient capital of Egypt) and Saqqara. Today is the first day of the weekend (Friday and Saturday are the weekend here) and so the traffic was comparatively light. We got to Memphis in less than an hour. It was sunny and fairly hot (high of 33 or so) but it is not humid ... read more