We got home safe and healthy!

Thanks to our trip leader, Maher, we got home safe and healthy. Masks were a bit of a nuisance and hand sanitizer use about 20 times a day was a pain in the rear. The protocol kept us COVID free. A side benefit, we normally come home with a cold, no colds for either one of us!

Now that we’re home I’ll finish the trip blog with a few more posts. The Egyptian wifi signals were not very good for making blog posts.

Camels……. Maher summed it up, “Camels, we rode them, fed them, and ate them!”

We Rode them
Patty fed them
And we ate them. We had the butcher grind some up so that we could have camel burgers back on the boat! Not my favorite Egyptian cuisine!
Our friend, Sheila, cooking the camel burgers

A camel burger for lunch!!! Not my favorite, mainly because of the spices that were added.

Visiting Luxor Temple and the Temples of Karnak

Luxor Temple entrance. In 1950 the silt and sand from over a thousand years had the dirt that you walked on up to the shoulders of the statues of the kings that are in the picture.
The columns of Luxor are the tallest we saw. The engineering marvel is that they are all exactly the same height, circumference, and the capitals (decorative tops of the column are all identical)….. an amazing feat, considering the lack of technology.
Avenue of the Sphinxes, still a work in progressive. It connects the Temple of Luxor and the Temples of Karnak
Temples of Karnak, the crowds began as the Egyptians had a school break. Lots of families visiting. Similar to our more popular national parks.
Reconstruction continues
Impressive columns and carving in Karnak Temples
Karnak
Rams headed Sphinx in Karnak
Painstaking careful restoration and cleaning of the columns brings out the original colors of the carvings.
The Karnak temples have some of the color restored. At the rate they are going this project will last many many decades!!

Camel ride to the ruins of Saint Simeon Monastery

It was built in 7th century, rebuilt in the tenth century. Then it was destroyed in 1173 by Saladin. He feared that it might serve as a refuge for Christian Nubians.

Lawerence of Arabia extras. Roger and Rod
Sheila and Patty are ready for the uphill ride to the Monastery
Lawerence of Arabia heads out on his quest
Patty expertly mounts the camel
Monastery ruins
A good dismount and glad the ride wasn’t longer!

On the road again…. bus ride fro Abu Simbel to Aswan

3 hour Bus ride from Abu Simbel to Aswan so we can get on our river boat, or dahabeya. We will be spending 5 nights cruising the Nile river on a small boat that holds 16 passengers(we only have 9 tourists on the boat). This allows us to stop in very shallow water on banks of the river where the bigger river boats can’t stop. We will travel from Aswan to Luxor on the Dahabeya.

Our bus stopped on the Tropic of Cancer (30 degrees north latitude) on the way to Aswan. This was to stretch our legs and walk barefoot in the Sahara desert.
Our bare feet in the River Nile
Our Dahabeya
A view of our boat. The crew put up the front sail and we rode around in the tugboat to get a better perspective of how our boat looks on the river.
Sunset on the Nile

Abu Simbel… Pharaoh Ramses the Second

Rameses the second was quite a man…..

He lived to be 101, had 41 wives and 191 children. He married the daughter of his enemy (his 41st wife) to bring peace to his kingdom. The peace lasted 25 years, until his death.

King Rameses Temple
King Ramses wive’s Temple…… of course the wive’s Temple is smaller than the King’s
Very impressive statues inside Rames Temple, in size and in detail!
Light and sound show at night was very impressive!

Most impressive about the Temples in Abu Sembel Temples……. They were moved , 200 meters back from the river and 65 meters higher. It only took 4 years and was completed in 1968. The move was necessary because of the high dam constructed on the Nile was going to flood these Temples. The amazing thing is that you you can hardly see a seam or any signs that these Temples were cut apart, moved and reassembled. An amazing engineering feat!

The great pyramids of Giza and the sphinx

Seeing them in person was fabulous! The great pyramid of Khufu is the largest building built by man. It’s approx 140 meters high and has 2.3 million stones weighing between 2 tons and 15 tons. The great mystery …. How did they physically move these stones and carve them to fit with such precision!! This was built about 4600 years ago !!

Our guide, Mehar, did a great job explaining the wonders of the pyramids. Roger and Sheila Nielson are with us on this adventure.
The sphinx is carved out of one piece of bedrock, it was built about 2630BC.

Our first Egyptian pyramid

We arrived in Cairo two days early for our tour so we hired a guide for a day. Our trip leader arranged for a driver and guide to take us to Saqqara “city of the dead”. It’s considered the oldest pyramid and it’s called a step pyramid. It was built two steps at a time.

Saqqara is the one on the left
It was built in 2630 BC
Relief carvings in great shape for being 4600 years old!!
The mound behind us covers a pyramid that was deemed structurally unsound. It was left covered up with sand to help it stay intact but you can take steep steps down about 20 feet and go inside. It was a bit claustrophobic as the ceiling height is only about 4 feet tall. Patty stayed on top, Rod made it a very fast visit!

Arrived in Cairo

26 hours after our daughter, Meg picked us up and drove us to the airport we were in our hotel room. We arrived 2 days prior to our tour to help us old folks get acclimated.

Our trip leader arranged for a half day tour of some pyramids tomorrow. These will be pyramids that we won’t see on the main tour.

The first flight, still smiling
Egypt air flight from Paris to Cairo, it was a packed cattle car….

And Rod left his polar fleece jacket in the boarding area. He didn’t realize until he sat down in row 30 then had to go upstream and back to the gate area…. and found his jacket