Posts tagged ‘Egypt’
Egypt comes to an end…
Thursday Night
On Thursday night we headed out for our “last” dinner with the group. Everyone was really tired from the hike and noone was really in the mood to go out. But we all went and had dinner in a restaurant called Same Same, but Different. We got free bruchetta for a starter and free pankcakes for dessert. For dinner Kath had a chicken Fajita and I had grilled fish. The fish wasn’t that great. After dinner we went to the pub, some of the group had some beers, Kath and I just hung out and chatted. After one drink everyone was pretty knackered and we went back to the hotel for bed.
Friday
The next morning, I was not too keen to get up, I was still so sleepy from the night before. Kath got up pretty early and headed to the restaurant for breakfast, while I slept. We then got ready to go snorkeling. We headed to a new spot called Three Holes. It was not as good at the Blue Hole, but still had some cool fish alot of Nemo’s and parrotfish. A group of us had hired a digital camera that we could take out into the water, It only lasted about 30 minutes before the batteries died and it didn’t take many photos… so we were quite annoyed… Yasser said he’d try get us our money back….
I (kath) went back out for another snorkel with the two guys and we went past the three pools – there were a few more fish but the same type. We headed in to get some lunch and drinks and we all just hung out and chatted while giving sanctuary to this poor cat that was getting tormented by some Italian kids next to us. (the kids weren’t happy that we had saved it!). After lunch, Yasser took us further down to another spot – more a scuba diving spot but still good for snorkelling. Only me and Damien went in this time and there were so many different fish. We came across a lion fish (kind of like a stone fish)… it was kinda scary looking. We went a bit further out and Damien points at this thing further out … We swim closer and what is it – a Barracuda… not a big big one but still big enough to give me a little caution at getting too close… he saw Damien approaching and opened his mouth (like a yawn) and the Teeth… you could see them from so far away… we decided to leave him alone… there were fish eating jelly fish and so many fish feeding on something… The fish with the nose… and little fish… so good… After a while we got out and all piled back into the bus and went back to the resort for a couple of hours for showers/packing etc.
We went out to the town to shop and get some dinner. I got Cindy a good deal on a shot glass – got it from 35 to 20 for this nice metal shot glass. We also got some other small things. Dinner was niceish… very filling we got free starters and desert again. After dinner we headed back to the resort and checked out and got ready to jump on the bus.
I went to sleep quite early on… but about an hour in the bus pulled over because it was overheated… the driver didn’t check the water.. so it downed about 6ltrs of water and after about an hour and a half we were back on the road… we drove about another hour and a bit to tapa and found out the road was closed from here to Cairo… We weren’t too impressed, our flight was getting quite close… so we had to drive back through dahab, then to sharm es sheik to go from that… so that added another 2 hours onto the trip length… so we went meant to get to cairo at 8, and our flight was at 10… so it was pushing it.
Saturday
OMG our driver… he must have driven 100-150km the whole way… and he was quite scary weaving in and out of trucks/cars anything in the way even if there was only a few metres of space. If the driver hadn’t of been so insane and fearless… we probably would have missed our plane. We got to Cairo airport at 7:45am… so he drove really fast.
We said goodbye to everyone and went through security – who didn’t care about liquids (even our 1.5ltr bottle of water) or anything metal… we then got our tickets and went through immigration to get stamped out… had some feral breakfast at burger king and then went through another lot of security to get to our gate who also failed to care about liquids or metallic items on us…
The plane ride was pretty uneventful – I slept and woke up for the food… which was pretty gross so I just had the chocolate cake and some lemonade.
We touched in at Athens, and had to queue for ages to get through immigration – I didn’t have to but I waited with Cindy. Cindy went to the toilets and I went to the luggage collection.. I saw Cindy’s bag and ran over and got it to see mine at the end of the conveyor belt and had to wait for it to come out again.
We then just walked straight through a non-existent customs… and went to find the public buses… we found the ticket place and bought two tickets and jumped on the bus… I remembered reading about validating your ticket so we did that we got on, and sat on the bus for awhile until the driver came and off we went. It was quite a nice trip… long though and parts were so busy with traffic. We didn’t know where to get off ( well we knew the name, but that was it). A girl next to us told us it was the last stop. Saw lots of embassies and it looked like a march had just finished because there were people with banners and lots of police and big police vans. We got off at Syntagma Square – which looked like the middle of town and walked around till we found the metro. Got our tickets and validated them and down we went – very nice sub system. Quite clean but very busy… We jumped on and got off one stop later… we found the hostel quite easily and now we’ve just unpacked alot of our crap because we’re here for 4 nights in a 6 bed female dorm, looks like there’s only 1 other girl in the room so far. Free wi-fi which is good. We’re heading down to their pub at 7 for their happy hour. Cindy’s hoping for some Cider and food.
Well thats us updated. It’s apparently going to rain tomorrow… Great! So we’ll see what we do tomorrow when we wake up.
Hope everyone is good. Talk later.
Tour Continued….
Aswan to Luxor, Wednesday.
We had a bit of a sleep in this morning, had to be ready by 7.30. We went for our breakfast, which turned out to be the same as the first meal we had in Aswan, it was pretty horrible, we just had an omlette and breadrolls again. We had to wait for ages for the bus to turn up. We then started our drive North to Luxor. Our first stop was at Kom Ombo Temple. The temple was different to most temples, as it was built to worship two gods, instead of just 1. Some guy that was in the temple tried to “show me some things”, and he was pointing out some colour things, then was going to make me pay for him to tell me those things, luckily, Kath turned up and was like come on we are going, then dragged me away, and he was asking for money and she was like “no money, no money”. The same thing happened to another girl on the tour, except it was a police officer doing it to her… Every-time I walked away he blocked me and tried to keep telling me things… Really irritating!!!!! At this temple, they worshiped the crocodile god, as they believed that if they did that it would protect them from all of the crocodiles on the Nile. Every year, they had a festival and mummified a crocodile at the ceremony, then buried it in a coffin. They had a museum of mummified crocodiles. Unfortunately it was closed so we were unable to see it.
Our next stop was at a temple in Edfu. This temple was massive!! It is the second largest temple in Egypt. All of the ceilings in the temple were burnt by the Christians when they took over Egypt, so there were only a few places where you could see the original ceiling. This temple had 10 “store rooms”. In the ancient times, people would come for 2 weeks to pray and worship the god here. All of the carvings on the left hand side of the temple (leading in and around as well), were of the beginning of the festival, then half way around and all the way back to the right of the temple was the end of the festival period. It was really interesting! When we headed back to the bus, we got caught by hawkers and one grabbed me and Kath was like No, and pulled me the other way… It really made me mad, as we wanted to look in the shops, but you get so put off when people are just hassling you and especially when they grab you!
We spent the next two hours in the bus heading to Luxor. When we arrived we found out we were staying in a Sofitel Hotel. We checked into our rooms and then went for a walk around the resort. We then decided to have a swim, as the water felt really nice. It was a bit cool when we got in. We found a restaurant that had a nice menu, but it closed at 5, so at 4.30 we headed to have a really early dinner! We both had a club sandwich, it was really nice! We are spending the evening resting and relaxing, as the next few days are really full on.
Thursday
After having an amazing sleep and sleep in.. we got dressed and our day packs ready and headed down to the buffet breakfast! It was massive… Cindy wasn’t feeling the best so she had some cereal, I had a personalized omelet made and some other stuff.. we snuck out some boxes of cereal to eat if we got hungry later on. After breakfast we joined up with the people who did the boat cruise to go to our first stop of the day… Karnak Temple (the biggest temple in Egypt)…. It was massive it took them 2000 years to build it and the architecture they used was absolutely amazing… even though it’s not in the best condition but the planing involved to make sure everything was perfect… putting sky lights in to let more light out… making a sacred lake with a tunnel to the Nile… Was really good… We went into a little store and saw a nice shot glass – the guy was asking for 25 Egyptian and I had got him to 15 and then realised we didn’t have any small notes so we just kept looking around… There were sooo many random stray dogs everywhere, just sleeping in the sun. We then drove a little bit down the road to Luxor temple – they actually had a road that joined the two temples and had festivals to celebrate the gods by walking these god statues between them. So they are tearing down the buildings that are in the way to dig and find the path… At Luxor temple they had already got about 200m… and about every 5m there was a mini sphinx statue, so incredible… some are in pristine condition. Luxor temple doesn’t have much going on for it… there is a lot of anger/change in the temple from other pharaohs, religions from over the years. First off there is a temple, a church, and a mosque within the Luxor Temple… The Christians from way back (when they took over Egypt) they converted the temple into a chapel… and plastered the walls and painted there own pictures on there… and chiseled parts of peoples faces off on the walls… quite horrible really. The mosque was built on top of part of an old section of the temple… The anger was that One Pharaoh didn’t like Tutankhamen’s statue that was on the site /scratched off his name and put his own (so he became this young pharaoh. Another pharaoh had scratched all the names of one particular pharaohs name on all the hieroglyphics within the temple.
It’s got a lot of history as a lot of pharaohs had made their mark on this temple… After this we went back to the resort and all chilled out… We had a nice ice-cream and then I went for another swim with some other people from the tour while Cindy lazed on a chair… It was a relaxing afternoon. For dinner we all (including the felucca people) went into town and went to (of all places) an Irish pub – it was really good – I had the chicken Kiev (real chicken but not really kievy) and the local Luxor Beer (5%) – It was a great beer. Cindy had the macaroni cheese which she really liked… we then hung out and talked for awhile with people – the mini bus was coming back at 10:30 but at 9pm we had had enough and another couple had as well so we shared a cab back to the resort (they are really cheap). We packed our bags as this was our last night in the resort.
Friday
Friday morning we were up at the crack of dawn – we had to get up at 4:30pm to be in the lobby at 5:15am to go Hot Air Ballooning over the west bank of Luxor. There was 11 people from the tour who chose to do it, the company took us to the Nile where we caught a boat to the other side of the Nile where we got on another mini bus to the take-off site. There was soo many people both crew and tourists alike. There were about 6/7 balloons still flat on the ground with these huge baskets. We got the ugly balloon. But when they started to put hot air in the balloons – they took there shape and filled really quickly… The noise too – was really loud, you could barely hear people talk. We were going up with another group. The balloon basket was split into 5 parts. The balloon held 21 people, 10 on one side, the captain in the middle and 10 on the other side. Then on each side it was split into 5 on one half of the space and 5 on the other. Once we got into the balloon and learnt about the landing procedures…. the balloon was released from the truck and the captain put some hot air in… we just floated so peacefully up. Then all of a sudden – your getting higher and higher and then the crew became black specs… it was insane! On one side was the Nile and Luxor, another was Hatchepsut Temple into the mountains, with these smaller temples, farms and statues on the ground and seeing the locals houses and animals. We were up for about 45 minutes but it felt like it went soo much quicker. We also saw the sunrise appear from behind Luxor city… and it was beautiful, it came up so quickly… but the colours – so much red and yellow. When it was time to land and we were starting to descend – we could see into peoples houses (as a lot didn’t have roof’s) and had mud floors… and wild/stray dogs yelping and chasing the basket. One was really determined and nearly got us but we then went over some sugar cane. The landing crew had come in the back of a long ute… and they had all got off and were waiting for the balloon to land in this spot… but we weren’t ready to land (going to fast or were too high) so we kept going right pass them and you should have seem them all scramble to get onto the truck to keep going to catch up… So we were really slowing down and getting closer to the ground and were above sugar cane and the sugar cane was hitting the basket, was a cool sensation. Then when we had passed the sugar cane and came onto another farm, next to the road… we saw he was going to try land on this little road.. and he said landing positions… It was quite smooth – a bit of a bump but other than that it was good… we just missed the road… we were on an angle, half on the side of the road and then going down onto the farm… the crew worked really hard and shouting heave/hoe but in Arabic… it was pretty cool. When they got it onto the road we all jumped out and watched the balloon go down and the speed the crew worked at… however at that time all these little kids had swarmed from nowhere and trying to give you puppy dog eyes and ask for money. We then went into the mini-bus and to meet the rest of the group… When they turned up… we were told it was time for DONKEY RIDING….
Cindy’s going to do the donkey trip…
While we were all waiting around for our donkey rides, a few donkeys were passed out, one of these donkeys did not like Kath and kicked her! After a few people got her donkeys, Kath got hers. Sam helped her up onto her donkey and off she went. While I was waiting for my donkey, I saw a farmer chasing a donkey, as it had taken off at great speeds into another field.. When the farmer retrieved him, he walked up to me and said here is your donkey.. I was like ahhhh thanks!! So I walked my donkey over to a garden ledge so I could jump up onto him.. As I was getting on, Sam came over and held the reigns while I got on, when I was on he gave me back the reigns then smacked my donkey so he went bolting off… We were over 200metres behind the main group.. My donkey and I were quickly approaching. The group had all stopped to get control of their donkeys and when they started letting people go ahead, my donkey took off at top speed to be right at the front. I tried to look around for Kath but my donkey had left the group. One of the farmers kids came sprinting after my donkey to slow him down and let everyone else catch up. Finally a few people caught up with us and one of the guys made a clicking noise (used to make the donkey go faster), so that his donkey would start to go faster, but instead mine decided it was his signal to go.. He was really very good, he just liked to be the winner (much like the “jockey”) haha. When we reached the point where the bus was, Tanya, one of the girls on our tour, took a picture of me on my donkey. A few minutes later Kath appeared, she seemed like she had a nice steady journey, apparently her donkey was actually very lazy and kept trying to “nod” her off. Tanya took a picture of her on her donkey too. I jumped off mine and tried to hand it back to the farmer. Kath sat on hers for a bit longer, then I held her donkey while she got off… We both had a great time on our donkey ride! I quite liked my donkey! Some people didn’t ride the donkeys, Tanya was one of them, she said that she was laughing her head off at my donkey taking off with me on it!
After everyone had got off their donkeys we got back onto the bus and headed to the Valley of the Kings. There we took a little “train” to the tombs of the Pharaohs. The first tomb we visited was the tomb of King Ramses IV. The line to get into the tomb was huge, and took forever to get in. It was good however as you were able to look at the details of the carvings and paintings that were done in the tomb. All of the tombs were carved deep into the mountains. It is incredible to see the work that the Egyptians did without the modern technology we have today. The second tomb we saw was of King Ramses I. It was 3 flights of stairs deep into the mountain. The inside of the tomb was very hot. There was huge stone coffin deep inside, the paintings were brightly coloured. After we made our way back up the steep stairs, we headed to Thutmose’s III tomb. This one you had to walk up 2 massive steep flights of stairs to get to the entrance of the tomb. Once at the top, we had to make our way down another steep, narrow flight of stairs into the tomb. Once inside we made our way down another 2 sets of stairs. We then reached a level that had some paintings. It was really hot in there. We then realised we still had to go down yet another flight of stairs. So we made our way down that set. At the bottom there was a huge stone coffin. How it got in there is beyond me, as the entrance was tiny, the stairs were really narrow (you could really only walk one at a time up/down the stairs)… As it was so hot I couldn’t stay in there too long, so we looked at the paintings then headed back up the many sets of stairs. We made our way back to the bus to go to the next destination. We weren’t allowed to take any cameras into the Valley of the Kings, so we don’t have any pictures there unfortunately.
Our next stop was to King Hatchepsut’s Temple. There is a really interesting story about this temple, as Hatchepsut was not actually a man, but rather a woman. She depicted herself as a woman to the Egyptian people so they would accept her as the king. However her nephew thought this was wrong and went to the temple she had had built and he scratched all carvings of her off the walls and also destroyed statues of her. The site was destroyed and was rebuilt. So it looked really new and not as interesting as the other older temples.
We then went back to the resort to check out and spend the afternoon killing time. We had lunch in one of the resorts restaurant (which made me ill a second time). After that Kath, Tanya and I sat on some sun lounges next to the Nile and watched some people have a Felluca ride. We spent the afternoon there and saw the sunset. It was really lovely, the sun went down very quickly! We still had heaps of time before heading off to the train back to Cairo. We went to the corner store to get some more water and snacks for our journey. We then spent the remaining time in the resort lobby chatting to people from our tour.
Saturday
Our train ride back was better then our train ride to Aswan, both of us pretty much fell asleep after the train left the station. I was awake early enough this morning to see yet another sun set. When we arrived in Cairo we checked into the Cataract Resort (where we spent the first night in Cairo), where we were able to shower and change before heading out for the days activities. Our first stop was at the “Hanging Church”, it is the main Coptic Christian Church in Egypt. It is said to be hanging because it was built on top of another building. After we left there we went to the oldest Mosque in Africa, built in 7th century AD. Here the girls had to put on a gown and everyone had to take off their shoes before entering. The gown looked like a boxing gown (except much longer). We looked around the mosque then went to retrieve our shoes. The man who took our shoes tried to charge us to get them back, I told him we had no money then walked off with our pairs of shoes. As none of us really had breakfast, we headed out for a buffet lunch. It was quite nice, I ate lots of rice. After lunch we went to the Egyptian museum. The museum was huge and had so many artefacts in it. There was everything that Tutankhamen was buried with, bar his mummy and sarcophagus. This included chariots, beds, clothes, jewellery and statues. The sarcophagus was made out of 110kg of gold! There was a section of the museum which had mummified animals. It was really interesting. There was mummified cats, dogs, crocodiles, goat, ibis’ and baboons. One of the goats and dogs still had fur on it, even though it was mummified thousands of years ago.. Crazy!.
We then headed into the markets to have a look around. Kath did some really good haggling and got us some good buys. People weren’t as pushy at these markets as they were in Aswan. When we got back to the resort, I had a shower and we went to dinner with some of the people from the tour, who finish up tomorrow when we head up to Dahab. We have to get up early tomorrow to travel to Dahab, 8 hours by bus.
Sunday, Drive to Dahab
W got up at 6 to get ready to leave the Cairo Resort. I had been up since 3am, the food I had for dinner did not agree with me. We packed our bags and headed into the lobby to meet our new tour guide. He is really nice. We got a mini bus as there are only 8 of us here. In the bus we got our itinerary of our optional activities for the week. We are really looking forward to doing them. Our first stop was to get fuel, for 40L it cost 44LE (Egyptian Pound), which is about 20c a L back home… Pretty cheap!!! We then stopped before the tunnel which goes under the Suez Canal, at a little shop so we could use the bathrooms and get some food. The toilets there were pretty gross and you had to pay before even going in. They didn’t even give you toilet paper (luckily we brought some with us), but Kath had to run back to the mini bus to get ours from our bag. Here we were also told a little bit of history about the area. We then travelled for another 2 hours, and had a last toilet stop before our last leg into Dahab. These toilets were free! There were 10 cubicles, the first 7 were holes in the ground, the last 3 were real toilets. However the whole place was feral! We were busting and had to use them…The toilet bowl had some sort of rod poking out of the bottom and they didn’t flush…. It was an experience, and one I am not too keen to repeat (not right now anyway). We left there and got back into our bus and poured antibacterial gel all over our hand and arms. We arrived in Dahab around 3pm and checked into our rooms. We have quite a nice room, the bathroom is a little small, but it is really clean, so that is great. We had a meeting about snorkelling and scuba diving for tomorrow and then hung out by the pool. We are right on the Edge of the Red Sea, the water is crystal clear and great. At one stage of our journey we could see Jordan, and were 10 km from Israel borders. We are officially not in Africa anymore, we are in ASIA!!
Egypt so far! Cairo & Aswan
Glasgow, Scotland
We woke up reasonably early on Friday morning, ready to head off for our London, Athens Egypt flights.
When we woke up we had a game plan, Kath was for first shower, while I changed and washed the sheets and checked my email… Before Kath even reached the shower I was running after her, telling her that our flight was canceled! Our game plan changed, Kath had to ring British Airways to find us another flight and I was to frantically clean and pack. After 45mins on hold Kath got through to someone. The lady was very helpful. We arranged another flight from Glasgow to London Gatwick, departing at 13:55pm arriving at 15:30, then we had to catch a 70min bus from Gatwick to Heathrow, to catch our booked BA flight at 18:40pm. We only had 2 hours to get ready and get to the airport. Ellen had taken the afternoon off to take us to the airport, but due to our new early departure, Kath rang her uncle Kennith and he said he would drop us at the airport.
London, England
We reached the airport just over 2 hours early and checked in and made our way through security then headed to our gate. When we arrived we noticed that the departures board had changed to say that our flight would be delayed and heading out at 14:14pm. We thought that was ok, cutting it pretty close, but we’ll be fine. Well while we were sitting there the delay time got higher, we were starting to get worried then.. We headed off the runway at 14:40… Hoping we were going to get in within the hour to Gatwick… The flight was fairly quick, we got bird seed and a soft drink for afternoon tea.
When we reached Gatwick, Kath and I were one of the first ones through to luggage collection. 40mins later our luggage actually came out of the conveyor belt… AHHHHH… So we rushed our way through the airport to try and reach the connecting bus. We got there 5 mins to spare and bought tickets, they charged us 19.50pounds each, such a rip off (fares were meant to be from 6.60pounds, go figure!). We were one of the last ones allowed to board the bus. The bus trip was reasonably quick, it was around 50 mins.
We arrived at Heathrow at 17:30pm. We rushed through to the bag drop section, the lines were enormous, I was pretty convinced we weren’t going to get through security in time. When we reached the counter we explained what we had already been through to the lady at the desk, she was really nice and offered us free food, so we took some chips each. We went into security, Kath got patted down (nice and firmly she said). Turns out she left her pens in her pocket! We hadn’t see a gate number on the departures board, so we were staring to get a bit worried that we would miss the flight. Finally it popped up on the board we were at B32. B meant we had to get an underground train to the gate. The train only took about 30 seconds haha. We finally found arrived at our gate, relieved we were finally there. We checked the screen at the gate and it said “please wait” we were like ohh great, we are delayed. Finally they came on and said our ETD was 19:50, 1 hour 10 mins after we were meant to leave. We didn’t think it would be quite enough time to grab dinner, despite being starving, so we just waited at the gate. Finally they boarded us at 19:40pm. When we got in the plane we were advised that we just had to wait for the de-icer then we would be on our way… Well we waited for 2 hours, then were advised that we were 40th in que, but were now only 4th, we should be underway in 30mins. Then another hour later we were informed that there was a security incident on the runway and they had to close the last remaining runway until the incident was sorted out (the de-icer was stuck at the incident)… The cabin crew were great and gave us soft drinks, everyone was asking about alcohol and they said they can’t til we are in air, finally they gave in and we all got some drinks. They also served us dinner. It was tuna in a nice creamy white sauce, with potatoes and beans, salad, breadroll and trifle. Kath only ate her beans, then we traded my salad for her tuna and I shared my roll with her and a potato. Another hour on we were told we were next to be de-iced and told what the security incident was.. Apparently when the plane was landing someone stood up and was making threats… Thats all we were told. Finally our plane left for the runway at 1am (British time). We had been sitting in the for over 4 hours already. The Captain came while we were waiting to answer any questions we had, he was really nice. We decided it would be a good idea to have a bit of a sleep, as we still had to wait until 13:30 for our flight to Egypt. I started watching the new Sandra Bullock Movie (All about Steve,I think), but fell as sleep just into it. I slept for a good hour or more, then dozed for the rest of the flight until it was time to land. So we’ve finally landed in Athens.
Athens, Greece
We got our bags no problem and Cindy got stamped into Greece fine. We decided to go get some breakfast and went out found a McDonalds… The time zone was different to the UK so we only had to kill 8 hours instead of 13. (so we are glad about the delays in a way). We checked our email on a free computer and slept a little in the airport waiting to check our bags in. Cindy’s pack is 15kgs, Mine is 12.5… Cindy doesn’t know what she’s carrying, bricks perhaps haha.
Cairo, Egypt
We had a great meal on the plane on Egypt Air it would have to be one of the best plane meals we’ve had. They served us Marinated Chicken with pasta and vegies. It was delicious then we had a yummy bread roll and a chocolate cake to finish the meal up! There was a salad but it consisted of 3 peices of dried cucumber, 1 olive and some other stuff… So that was a good start to Egypt Air! It was Upon our decent into Cairo, we saw an amazing views, tops of pyramids emerging from low lying clouds, sand everywhere and tops of roofs completely covered in TV Satellite dishes (I would say at least 20 per roof). When we landed, we had to go through customs and buy our visa’s. We then had to collect our bags, mine came out really quickly Kaths took quite a while. We made our way out of the terminal to find our tour guide. We had to wait for an hour and a half until some of the other tour people turned up. Once we were altogether we headed out into the van used to take us from the airport… The first thing we noticed was the stench, mmm it was not pleasant! We hit the road and discovered Cairo drivers are SCARY.. Imagine the worst driver, add a hundred more merging into one lane… Then add a busy motorway, people parked in the “slow lane”, people (adults and children) walking and running around also in the “slow lane”, throw in a couple of donkeys, vans full (10 seater vans) of over 20 people, passing babies around the car, then throw in a few hoons and you can only half imagine the roads over here. Then add a few food stalls which appear from nowhere in the “slow lane”, a really bad fart smell (worse then Reece!), people sitting on top of a loaded semi trailer truck (while traveling down the motorway), oh and they have different speed limits for each type of vehicle. ie cars 90, buses 70, trucks 60 (all on the one road). At one point we were sitting driving down a 4 lane road, which suddenly appeared to be a 6 lane road, ohh no wait, there were cars just crammed in, not actually in there lanes!!! There were so many near accidents, I’m not surprised that 99% of cars/trucks/buses look like they have come from the wrecker!!
When we arrived at our 5 star resort we we were rushed into our meeting (the last flight we were waiting on was late)… We found out there was a dinner going on, so we had to quickly check in and get our stuff to our room. The porter gave us a lift in his buggy down to our villa.. He then carried our bags all the way up 2 flights of stairs and into our room. He was really nice. We quickly got some stuff together to go out to dinner! We just made the bus, we caught it as it was pulling away from the building. We headed to a boat, which was going for a cruise down the Nile. It was called the Memphis. It was a buffet meal with Egyptian food and live music. There was a belly dancer performance and some other performers. It was really nice..
We have not slept since 8am (British time on Friday morning), it is now 11.30pm Saturday and we are ready to sleep. Tomorrow we are going to the pyramids and to see the sphinx, then on an overnight train to Aswan.
Sunday
Today we had a very sunny and busy day. We woke up at 6am, only 4 hours sleep!! We packed our bags and headed up to the restaurant for breakfast. There was a ‘bakery’ section; with all different types of breads, a ‘cereal’ section, ‘hot food’ section, salad and an Omlette making section Where a chef would make personalised omelet’s with the ingredients you wanted right in front of you. I had toast and breadrolls and Kath had an omelette and toast. After breakfast we went back to our rooms and got our bags the waited in the foyer for our tour to start. On the way to the first pyramid we were going to see, we traveled alongside a river which was full of rubbish,and lots of dead animals including donkeys, cows, horses and dogs. We arrived at the first pyramid ever built (even though it was an incomplete pyramid) called Sakkara. There was also a temple and some smaller pyramids around there which we had a walk around. There were lots of people trying to get you to buy souvenirs, they listened to you when you said ‘no thanks’ and walked away. There were also people offering people camel rides. Our next stop we headed to Giza to see the great pyramids, on the side of the road some one had made a little box of green grass for goats to eat. There were about 5 goats eating there, then less then a metre away (right on the roads edge) was a goat hung up on a metal rod being skinned in plain sight so the world could see! Really disgusting. When we arrived at the famous pyramids, they were MASSIVE!!! Walking right up to one of the stones at the bottom made you feel so insignificant as they were sooo big! Our tour guide Sam told us the lightest block was 1 tonne!! (ouch! can you imagine pulling that!!) Also apparently they didn’t use slaves to build the pyramids but people who loved their king and they got paid to do it! As we walked closed to the 2nd pyramid we saw so so sooo many Egyptian hawkers trying anything to get your money!! We were quite good until a guy on a camel came over and said – “Take a picture of me on my camel – It’s free” He kept on it and so insistent going “take a photo” so we did… Next thing we know he’s jumped down and asking us where we come from and asking us about this and that. He then took off Cindy’s hat and put his scarfy thing on her head and pulled her next to his camel and she was like i don’t want to go on! So he made her stand next to the camel and says to me – take her photo.. and I’m like ahh… he goes take her photo – so I did… and then he’s like on of you and her… I’m like is it free – and he ignores me and takes the camera to take the photo of us.. After he took the photo he gave us our stuff back and then goes ’20,20!!” I’m like free, free… He said No! 20! I go to give him a tip of coins and he says “notes – bankable”… He’s being soo insistent so I gave him a 20 to just get rid of him but he meant 20 each!! We were like argh!! But we were getting intimidated by him so we just paid – It was only like $8 AUD… But still… So we walked off closer to the pyramid to get some photos of it and this other guy comes up with so much charm (if you can call it that) and goes “welcome to Cairo, where are you from?”We go Australia – trying to walk away and he senses this and goes gift, gift from Egypt for you lovely lady! Trying to give Cindy a Tourist Scarfy thing… (We had been warned about these so called gifts! They give you this “gift” and then they then go… I gave you gift, so can I have a gift (meaning Money)). So he’s trying to give Cindy this ‘gift’ forcing her to take it… while he’s trying to give this gift to us – this guy comes over with a camel (different guy) and we go ‘NO camel!’ and walk the other way! You should have seen how fast this guy grabs the gifts off us then turns around to the camel guy and abuses the crap out of him in Arabic for ruining his sale!! We kept walking around the pyramids – They were soo stunning… but the Egyptian hawkers around ruined it for us… you couldn’t have a moments piece – couldn’t let your guard down to just admire the pyramids because you were always watching for the next guy to pester you, sell stuff to you or trick you! They even had little boys doing it (they had to be like 8yrs old)… them trying to use their childish innocence, and puppy dog eyes on people… It really just put me off from being there because they just swarm all over you! When you get fed up and tell them to go away – they feign hurt and go I just wanted to welcome you to Cairo, aren’t you enjoying Cairo… and you go yes you are… then they go where you from.. and then they try again!! We had 2 camel/men following us around -so we had enough so we just went back to the bus – It wasn’t just us they annoyed both male/female couples just as much as us.
Our next stop was to the Sphinx!! It was sooo very impressive! We went into the temple where Same told us that the temple was where they had done the embalming and funerals for the kings of Egypt! But the Sphinx just blows you away – Carved out of 1 piece of Limestone – It had to have been a MASSIVE block of limestone! Insane! After this we went for lunch (about 2:30pm) – the buffet was pretty good, but Cindy felt a bit sick after it… After lunch – we were taken to a Perfumery – Where they make perfume concentrate for leading perfume companies, and his are better as they last much longer on the skin, no chemicals or alcohol so good for skin! lol So he sells his perfume concentrates to the likes of Revlon and Channel, Hugo etc and he gave us some to try and were telling people to ask to try the concentrate of the famous perfume/after shaves etc that they use… They ended up selling quite a bit but talking to some people – they felt ripped off because they made it sound so cheap at the start but they actually charge a fortune… so yeah – As we walked into the place – everybody felt trapped … lol We didn’t buy anything though (perfume isn’t our thing)…
On the way back to the hotel there were young children around 7-9yrs old selling stuff to Moving cars and standing on the road, it was pretty scary watching them. When we arrived at the hotel we had to book our optional activities and get ready for the overnight train to Aswan. We took a while booking the activities so we pretty much had to leave to get to the station. On the way to the train station – we stopped off at a little bottle shop as the train charged 40Egyptian pound for 1 beer where you could buy them at the bottleo for 8 Egyptian pound. Kath got 3 beers (Sam haggled with the man and got them from 10 down to 8). 2 Egyptian beers called Stella and one called Sakara. When we reached the train station we bought some snacks for the 12 hour train trip. The train is quite nice, we didn’t get sleeping seats but our seats are large and hopefully we can get some sleep.
Monday
Well our night on the train was very very long, they didn’t turn off the lights so most of the night we had our jumpers over our heads. The toilets were really disgusting, Kath went after her first beer then decided not to drink anymore so she didn’t have to go to the toilet again. I didn’t get a great deal of sleep during the night, I couldn’t really get comfortable. The train ride ended up taking 13 hours to get to Aswan, so by the time we got off the train we were busting for the toilet. We made our way to the hotel in a mini van and checked in and then after going to the toilet we headed for breakfast. We were told that when we arrived that the breakfast would be ready for us. This was not the case, the people in the restaurant had no idea we were coming, first they brought out a small side plate with 3 olives, 3 slices of tomato and 3 pieces of cucumber – 1 plate to share between 2 people… (Not really breakfast foods).. they then brought out individual plates that had four half slices of processed meat, and a few slices of cheese (again not really breakfast foods)… We all just looked at each other not knowing what to do… Someone asked if we were getting any hot food and it was agreed we would all get omelets. The plate with cheese and meat was gross – looked like it was 2 weeks old (it was curling around the edges) Kath had a mouldy olive on her plate (not that she eats olives anyways)…. After at least 30 minutes – our omelets came out! The omelette was egg and oil! The service was really slow and annoying because they just kept ignoring us. Finally we decided we had had enough so we paid and left… Kath and I headed to our room to have a shower and a lie down before having to go out. At 12:45 we met in the foyer to go out for the days activities. Our first stop was the unfinished Obelisk – which is the granite quarry the Egyptians had used to build things – such as the Obelisks – they had started to make this giant Obelisk but it cracked when they were trying to get the granite piece away – but it allowed historians to see how they did it and study their digging skills etc. We then went to the High Dam, it is the largest man made lake in the world – it allowed for Egyptians to store water in the summer when the Nile floods so they can go for 7 years without rain! They built it about 50 or so years ago but funding was provided by the Soviet Union… so they have this big monument to commemorate the love between Egypt and Russia. If the dam were to break or get destroyed – it would flood Egypt in water in 7 hours (you weren’t able to take big zoom cameras, video cameras into it as they see it as a security issue). The dam/lake which was man made which was 100m deep and they do alot of fishing in there (They even have alligators in there but not in the Nile… so where did they come from?? There were lots of dogs and puppies on the dam wall. They were really cute but wild so we didn’t go near them.
After looking at the dam we headed around to the Philately Temple, the boat ride was really nice. When we reached the island the temple was on – Sam our tour guide told us the histories of the site and some of the history of the Egyptian gods. The Hieroglyphic carvings on the walls were absolutely amazing ( some looked so perfect – hasn’t been eroded at all) To think it’s still standing after all this time and only made out of sandstone. The temple had actually been moved as it got covered by the water when they made the dam. After looking around the temple on our own we then headed back to land – before we went back to the hotel we stopped off at the papyrus making shop… (we immediately thought back to the perfume shop)… but it was like it – but the paintings/papyrus was pretty cool. Inside we were shown how the Egyptians used and made papyrus from the plant. The paper looked really cool. After the demonstration – we walked around and had a look at the artwork and there were some really nice ones (but really big)… we ended up getting a nice little painting on brown papyrus paper which takes longer to make as the sugar as has to dry out instead of being soaked.. I dunno – so we go a really nice painting which we’ll probably ship back home so we don’t have to carry it about. When we got back to the hotel, we arranged to have dinner with one of the girls next door (from Adelaide), So went out for dinner at 6 to the restaurant across the road and got some Egyptian pizzas… they were really nice – A guy we invited to come with us ended up coming too he had a chicken meal… The people put these naan breads out on the table and we’re like how much do they cost and the guys like its not about money – just enjoy on us… Tanya and Us didn’t have any but the guy did … and he got charged…. anyhooo…
Tomorrow we’re up at 2:45am as we are going on our optional activity to Abu Simble Ramses II Temple -
which should be exciting but early!! Anyways – we’re off to bed.
Tuesday – Aswan
We got up this morning at 2.45am, ready to head down to Abu Sinbil Temple, Egypt’s largest temple. The bus arrived to pick us up at 3.20am, we then had to join the Police Convoy to drive down to the temple. We missed the first convoy, as the bus was late picking us up, so we had to wait until after 4 for the second convoy to go. I fell asleep on the bus pretty early… I slept for an hour or 2, then Kath had a sleep.. The bus was very crampy… We each had a packed breakfast.. It was awful, there was a boiled egg (still in its shell), a third of a cucumber (skin peeled off), 3 mini breadrolls, 2 slices of processed meat, 1 baby croissant, another bready thing and some jams, a popper and an orange. It was not in the fridge (we think since the night before). I had a bite of one bread roll then didn’t eat anymore as it wasn’t very nice. Kath had one whole bread roll and her popper. She felt very ill afterwards. We arrived at the temple around 8am. And we all had to use the toilets.. There was a huge line as there were about 10 tour company’s arriving at the same time as us. Sam, our tour guide told us stories about the temple and explained the design, and how it had to be moved when the lake was built. The temple is absolutely incredible!! To think that they just carved the whole thing straight from a mountain! Ramsis II had taste and smart designers.. they designed the whole temple so that on two particular days (same days every year) that the sun rays would shine all the way through and hit the 3 gods at the back and miss the 4th (as he was the god of darkness)… They still don’t know how they figured out how… Inside was breathtaking… You weren’t allowed to take photos of inside the temple but the hieroglyphics were in such incredible condition… some still had colour ink on the carvings. The smaller one which is dedicated to one of his many (I mean many) wives was much smaller than Ramsis’s temple but still very much aw-inspiring!
We then drove back to the hotel in another convoy back… we then spent a couple of hours recuperating in our rooms… at 3 in the afternoon- we met a new guide who will be looking after us (land tour) for a couple of days! She was lovely – we went on an hour felucca cruise around Aswan. It was great… really hot though. They had a really nice looking mc donald restaurant on the water side.. looked like the ones in home – Globalisation for you! After the boat cruise – our tour guide walked us through the markets… the store owners were really funny (they weren’t too pushy) they just said the most funniest things trying to get you to look at the store…. like -”everything is free in this store”, “come in – I’ll help you spend your money!”, “Everything is nearly free!”, “Come in, I’ll share my coffee with you!”, and always were calling us Australian, and when you didn’t answer would then go Canadian, Chinese?? It was really funny…
We then had a nice dinner at a restaurant with the tour group!! When we got back to the hotel, Cindy saw they had wireless internet… so Cindy quickly checked her emails – to see everybody is worried… We didn’t mean to worry – there has been no internet and no phone reception… Thats Egypt though…
The internet cut out – so we didn’t finished surfing!! We just got back on.. We are only putting up this post until we have a better internet connection. We are safe and having a great time.
Love Kath and Cindy
The last few days in Glasgow…
On Sunday it was a nice sunny day, so Kath and I decided to start our training for the Santa Dash (better late then never I say haha)… We walked the 5km loop near the house, it took us around 40mins.. not bad I say.
When we returned from our walk Ellen took us to the New Lanark World Heritage site. Which is an 18th Century Cotton Mill Village, based near the Clyde (the main river in Glasgow) Falls. Since it is Christmas time they had all Christmas activities and an Annie McLeod Christmas experience ride (which was like a ghost train ride, but not scary!), which showed a young girl working in the Cotton Mill and how people celebrate Christmas over the world. My favourite bit was when the Christmas fairy said “and some people even have really hot Christmas days” haha. The ride “capsule/seat” generally held 2 young children and 1 adult… but we all insisted on sitting in the one carriage, it was very cosy!!
After the ride we wandered around the village, went into the old school and through the mills and houses. Kids started work at 10 years old and worked for 10hours a day then went to school in the evening… Gee kids these days just have it so easy haha.
After we saw the village we went on a hike to the Clyde Falls. The path along the river was blocked off from all the rain that we had the days before, so we had to take a long walk up the hills.. I took lots of photos and spent most of the time running to catch up to Ellen and Kath, I was extremely exhausted! The falls were amazing, they were running really fast and gushing over the drop! That is apparently not even at its fullest, as some of the water is diverted at the top of the falls to be used elsewhere.
The hike back to the car was very tiring, especially the last hike up to the car…But we all made it back in one piece.
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday we pretty much did the same thing. We went for a walk on our loop and then headed to the shops to get various things. I have new shoe laces, new insoles and Kath got some soft drink. We also got a really cool torch (apparently we are going to need torches on our Egypt night hike).
We booked our flights on Monday night to Egypt.. So have a way of getting there.. We are going from Glasgow to London, London to Athens and from Athens to Cairo. After our tour we will head back to Athens and start our next big adventure!
Today is Reece’s Birthday (Happy Birthday Reece!!). So I have spoken to everyone on Skype and missed out, yet again on Birthday cake.. I think when we get home I will have to have a super cake for my birthday to make up for all the cake I have been missing out on 
.
We are really excited about our fun run on Sunday.
It is 1degree here today… The frost was really cool this morning, still some around the backyard and in the paddock.
At least we will not get hot on our run!!
I’ll put up some pics of the last few days..
We hope everyone is going well.
Love Cindy and Kath
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