So much can happen on a day off.....

So we had a day off. I slept in until I heard yelling out side of my window. I woke up to discover the egyptian salesman had found us! They had paddled out on boats and were tossing their merchandise up to the fourth level of the boat in tiny plastic bags. Heres how they would do it: They hold up an item for display, if you yell over board that you like it or want to see it, they stuff it in a plastic bag and through it up to you on the boat. They had great arms :). After you inspect the merchandice you either like it and keep it and through your money down in the plastic bag OR you rebag it and toss it back.



The Nile in the afternoon.





Katherine shopping :)






The boat going through one of the Nile Dams. You go into the inclosure it fills up with water and you continue on your way.



Me on the deck of the Radamis 3



The Temple of Edfu AT NIGHT. Phenomenal, a really cool way to explore a temple. and the way they had lit it up was very beautiful



mom and me in our Galabias for the Galabia Party which Mom did not attend. She only dressed for it.



Sunset on the Nile

At 5am the Vally of the Kings and Queens look tremendous

Taking a boat across the nile at 5am can be interesting.......( Excuse my boob, I dont think it was awake yet....)

A 4:30am wake - up, 5a luggage outside the door and a light breakfast cause who knows how the boat ride is gonna be??? We all pile on the boat and take off, our group took up two boats. As we crossed the Nile the sun began to rise and you could see the otherside of the river, people just waking up, little mud huts, shacks made out of cardboard all very serene. We really gave them a wake up call because of the lovely arabic music we were blasting. At any rate my boat won the race across the river and we were the first to land AND the first to be accosted by salesmen and boys selling bookmarks and scarfs.

The Vally of the Kings is tremendous. You have to take a tram up to where the tombs are. There are 11 tombs in all, we went into three: Ramses the 2, Ramses the 5 and Ramses the 1st. When you enter a tomb you cannot bring a camera. SO here is an idea of what you would see: You walk down underground and into the tomb, as soon as you enter you see in front of you just how far the tomb spans and on either side of you rows and rows of heiroglyphics painted on the walls. The COLOR IS STILL STRONG AND VIBRANT. As you begin to walk through the tomb you see little rooms to either side of you that have paintings of jugs or jewelry or clothing etc. These rooms all held those items originally. The egyptians have NEVER found any tomb (officially) with any of the spoils left in them, the have all been looted. By 9 am it is scorching and the only place to find respite is the tombs ( which are now peopled with tons of tours, we were early and beat the rush) or in the bus, we had a big schedule so we left the Kings and headed to the Queens.





On a side note while we were here Andrea was balloning over Luxor and Once we arrived on the bus she texted me that " she had landed on a field, but had no idea where she was"




Vally of the Queens - Here again no camera's inside, we did see a mumified fetus though, that was really fascinating, you could still see the cloth and the body very clearly. It was housed in a glass case in one of the tombs.

From here we headed to the Temple of Hatshepsut
(check out her story "http://www.bediz.com/hatshep/story.html")

She was known as the "Queen who would be King" Amazing!!! This temple was build into the mountain and was in front of the Vally of the Queens. It was awe inspiring. Her story is phenomenal, we could take pictures of the heiroglyphics at her temple here is a sample of some of them ( PS I am sweating in all of the pictures because it was 115 degrees or for you canadians reading about 42 celcius)






Then an exciting opportunity to see how alabaster was made AND an opportunity to buy some if we so chose. From there we headed back to the boat, crossed the nile, walked about 70 meters in the hot, hot sun and arrived at the Temple of Luxor. This temple is situated right along the Nile in the middle of the city. It was originally connected to the temple of Karnak ( our afternoon excursion ) by a road bordered by a rows of Sphinxs. Only about 200 meters are left the rest are underground and being excavated as we speak.

* The interesting thing about this photo of the temple of Luxor is that you can see one of the obelisks is missing from the front. That Obelisk was traded with the french for a clock that is at the Sadat Memorial. Strange but true!








This last picture is particulary fascinating to me. It is a mosque that was built into the temple of Luxor. You can see the wall below it is very rough, that is because when the Mosque was built it was actually on the "ground" the rest of the temple was buried under the sand. Through years of excavation the Temple was revealed and that is what we walked through today. At this point in the day 12p, it is stiffling, no amount of water or shad can fully revitalize you. At the temple of Luxor we were witness to 3 people in various parts of the temple collapsing from heat. If this every happens to you,dumping a bottle of water over someones head is the quickest way to cool someone down.
No. The day was not over, from here we went back to the boat for LUNCH. Took a 3 hour siesta and met up again at 5pm to visit the HUGE Temple of Karnak.





The pictures above are of the Temple entrance, we were lucky enough to go off the beaten track to one of the side temples that surround the temple of Karnak.






This small temple was dedicated to the goddess Sekhmet. we stepped inside and it was only us, there were two rooms it seemed one larger and a smaller one with the statue of Sekhmet still standing at one end. This encounter was extremely emotional for me and impacted me for more then anything had thus far. We had an opportunity to stay there and feel the Vibrations. It was amazing! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sekhmet)
From there we wondered and headed back to the boat. We had dinner enjoyed a couple "stella" and headed to bed. Tomorrow was pretty much a free day, we sail to Edfu and were going to see the temple at night.

Day 2 and We are off to Luxor

Well we were off to another early morning departure. Today we had to load the bus and prepare to travel to Luxor in the afternoon, before we left Cairo though we did a whole bunch of stuff!
First we went to the Papyrus institute (don't be fooled there are hundreds all over egypt) basically a store with a demo set up so you can see how they make and treat the papyrus. So we had a demo, then we got to shop ( surprise! ) I actually did by something, so did mom!

We hopped back in the bus and carried on to the oldest Fort in Cairo which had the oldest Mosque within its grounds, it was huge. We went inside, of course I was wearing inappropriate attire so they covered me with a sheet like covering that covered my legs and arms ( yes. I was the only one in our group)


Outside view of the mosque






inside view of the mosque

From the mosque we headed to the oldest coptic church in Cairo called "the hanging church" - We drove by a Movie set on the way - you can never really get away can you?
It was truly beautiful the wood inlay and paintings were thousands of years old.For some reason I couldnt turn this picture around


Coptic Church outside



Church inside also on its side - ahh the joys of computing - but you get the idea

From there some real excitement! SHOPPING! We went to the market. It was packed with TOURISTS and very aggressive sales people. I did however, manage to buy some items ( YES Jake I got you something), We spent about an hour there and if anyone had any problems our tour guide Sameh offered to come help us bargin. Ohhhhh I loved the bargening it was fun!

From there we went to the Sadat Memorial. Just a quick stop before we hit the airport.


Here we are after our arrival in Luxor. The beauty of this trip was we didnt have to carry our luggage we only had to identify it! From the airport we took a bus to a beautiful resort hotel which we could not see because it was so dark and on the way Sameh sprung upon us the wonderful idea that we should depart the next day at 530a ( he wanted to leave earlier he told us later, but didnt have the heart to suggest it because so many of us looked beat) he wanted to get us to the Vally of the Kings and Queens before everyone else. We all reluctantly accepted which begs the question "why did I stay out dancing to Abba and the Weather girls until 12 midnight?" Needless to say my wake up day 3 was a struggle!

"This is a Tour NOT a Vacation"

Yeah that was Sameh (our egyptologist's) favorite saying. Ok sorry for all the fanfare about the blog and then the dry spell but it was a challenge to find internet for the appropriate amount of time..Let me tell you about the first day of our TOUR.
Our hotel was unbelievable (www.oberoimenahouse.com) The pace of day one was relentless - we woke up at 7A left the hotel by 745a so that we could be one of the first tour groups at the pyramids of Giza. We were the first! We went into the 2nd pyramid and crawled into the Phaoroh's tomb, it was claustrophobic and hot but exciting. Our tour group consisted of the 7 of us ( me, my mom, andrea federman, amsie soira, CJ pyles, Rapheal souza and Kathrine Wright) we became known as the Mafia :) and 26 other folks the oldest couple being 77 and 80 respectively. So the crawling factor was quite the experience. Every place we visited on the tour Sameh would bring us together give us the history and answer any questions and then he would let us wonder on our own, it was great.
So vistied the Pyramids, went inside then walked around them, took photos, got onto Camels took photos, got back into the bus.




Drove to "pyramid lookout" - got out took photos, were acosted by local salesmen selling plastic camels and the like,got back in the bus. We then drove to the famous Sphinx. Wow. Took tons of photos that place was magnificent. We walked back to the bus and got to take a camel ride. Hmm I chose to let other people have that opportunity.



We then drove to Sakkara and saw the pyramid of "Zosser (www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/egypt/saqqara/zoser/zoser.html)
by now it was 10am and the heat was strong

Then we drove to Memphis http://touregypt.net/memphis.htm saw a smaller version of the Sphinx in alabaster and tremendous statues.



Then we headed to a carpet store were CHILDREN were weaving all types of carpets.




We had the "opportunity" to purchase the carpets and look around. Of course the one I liked was 4000.00 us :) Thanks mom and dad for the excellent taste in quality :)

< From there we went to lunch. A meal served with the tasty egyptian beer "Stella" or pepsi (sorry no coke) or some bottled water provided by Nestle ( who knew).


After lunch we headed into town to visit the Cairo museum. All I can say is that this musuem had the most pieces of artifacts I have ever seen and probably 75% of them were not covered so you could touch them ( ven though you were not supposed to) the museum was overwhelming and FULL. We got to see all of Tutankamans spoils from his tomb - incidentally he tomb was one of the smallest ones in all of Egypt.
We spent 3 hours there, saw the rosetta stone (really cool). After that we hopped back in to the bus and headed home. It was a full day and a lot to see but very exciting
SOOOOOOO after saying all of that you are probably asking yourself " great but where are all of the photos?" Would you be surprised if I told you I deleted them all by accident? Yup. It was a sad day. The photos provided for this day and tomorrow are compliments of Andrea Federman because she is much more careful with her camera! I will fill you in on day 2 tomorrow.
good night

You met who????? Where?

First let me say that "no I did not take pictures!" "why?" you ask. Well, I guess it was the shock of it, you know, being in the red light district and all.


It has been a great two days. We arrived on My birthday, dropped off our luggage and headed in to Amsterdam 4 hours later we had done some sight seeing, walked half of the the walking street, visited 3 H and M stores, and seen the flower market twice. We met Tom after all of that and went and had a scrumptious dinner at an indian restuarant called "Mayur."

Today we had a slow start in the morning and then made it downtown for some hardcore shopping. We met up with Amsie in the afternoon and strolled through the streets of Amsterdam stopping to watch people and a lively capoeira demo along the way eventually we stopped a the bulldog cafe > one of the many > it was educational to say the least. On our way back home we sauntered through the red light distract again and whom did we come upon?

Well the girl's didn't notice - but as we were passing by "ÿe old sex shop" I say "hey that is Lewis Black" and sho enuff - it the man, the legand", Lewis Black!!! - performing live in Amsterdam this week.

I had to say hello.

So I went up and gushed - of course I ended the conversation with "thank you very much for being here"



hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm aint she cute! "|Thank you for being here?" Good lord.

Well until Cairo folks

it is about 130A I am off to bed