Home safe and sound

We are home and about to shake off the jetlag. It was a wonderful trip and to see the pyramids and the Sphinx and Valley of the Kings and Queens was just really unbelievable. We really have no desire to go back to Egypt but we learned so much. I found last night at our Ash Wednesday service that I understand a lot more about the life in Bible times for having been over there. Blogging this time was a challenge with the internet going out in Africa while we were there. Anyway, we will be putting up a photo album for anyone who is interested.

Birds

A Few More Temples

We went to Temples and more Temples and I'll send some photos of some of those. The last two we saw were in Luxor-Karnak and Luxor. Karnak was supposed to be the biggest and best and it is the biggest but by that time, I think we were templed out as it was not as impressive to us as several of the others. But at the same time, it is also the oldest so we should keep that in perspective. It is huge though and when Luxor finishes with their project to clear the city and restore the area to the way it was where there is a pathway between the two temples, it will be magnificent. That will be a long time in coming but they are working on it.

Fun Times On The Riverboat

Ok let's get down to some of the fun times on the boat. The Nile is one of the most beautiful rivers to cruise down that we have ever been on. The life along the Nile is so much like we would imagine it was and you can almost picture it like it was in Bible times. The houses are still made of mud bricks and the people still use donkeys as a major mode of transportation and farm work. There are bulrushes growing next to the banks and life is slow. The dress for this cruise was very casual and we did have the Egyptian night where they encouraged everyone to dress up in traditional Egyptian galabayas or some sort of attire. It was quite colorful and fun. Well as you can see Cleopatra and Rames were the hits of the affair. ha.

Riding in the Felucca was also fun. Everytime we went in a small boat, we had to take our life jackets, which was a good precaution. We had to take them when we rode to get to the Temple of Philea was one we had to do that with. Some of the nubians came on board the boats with jewelry to sell and that was a hoot trying to figure the prices and to deal with that while trying to manage the life jackets, money and bargain at the same time.

Another fun thing was finding what the cabin boy did for us each night with our towels. He was the best we have ever had and we had all sorts of great designs, the funniest was when we came in and found Bubba sitting on our bed. Bubba was made with the towel and a roll of toilet paper with a face painted on it. We got a kick out of him. Later Bubba made another appearance hanging like a monkey from the doorfacing! So I'll put some pictures of some of the better ones on there.

Let's get this thing updated!

Ok, it doesn't help when a computer cable knocks out internet for a whole continent and you happen to be on it! So much for our trying to update when we got back to Cairo! So here goes. Where was I when I was so rudely interrupted..... Well, I think I may have mentioned that we went to the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens. You cannot take photos down in the tombs but it is quite a special experience to be able to go down in them, even if all the special gold and silver and such pieces have been robbed or removed to the Egyptian museum. The hierglyphics are awesome and the colors are still there and are amazing. Jim and I went ahead and paid for the two special tombs, despite the advice of our program director and were we ever glad we did! One was to go down in King Tut's tomb and in the last month or so, they have removed him from his sarcarphogas and he is lying in a glass case where you can actually see him. It is amazing! So we got to see him! And his tomb, though small is very elegant and the colors are just perfect and beautiful. The crypt is beautiful also. So we were very glad we went and saw it. Our main ticket allowed us to go into any 3 tombs that were open. But Hisham only gave us 3 to go into basically, which later we really resented as the other guides suggested some we would have found more interesting. But since we bought the two extras, we had to really use our time wisely to get all 5 in. So it probably worked out just as well. The other purchased ticket was the most gorgous of all the tombs. The colors were just perfect and it was large and just in excellent shape. Because you had to pay extra to get in, there were no crowds at all so it allowed us to go and see it with no rush at all and with perfect viewing. Then we were able to go to the 3 Hisham told us to go to also but we had to stand in lines to go to those and compared to either King Tut or the other one, those were not at all "wonderful". At the same time though, the idea we were in the Valley of the Kings where so many were buried and so much grandeur exists was just a wonder to me. We left there and then went to the Valley of the Queens. Hisham said the work there was far superior to the Valley of the Kings but we did not feel it was. We went to two tombs there and one was where they buried the son of one of the kinds and it had several rooms off to the side and had pictures depicting the king and his son. But still we felt the paintings and carvings in the Valley of the Kings were better. The second tomb in the Valley of the Queens was much smaller and less impressive. I think it was for Queen titi.

These tombs for both valleys are literally in the deserts and it is amazing that they were every found or thought to be used for burials. It is so massive.

Since we are not going in order anyway at this point, I will talk about Abu Simbel some. We had to get up at 4 AM to get ready to go to Abu Simbel. We had a 6AM flight so maybe we even got up earlier than that-it seemed every time we turned around we were getting up at 2-3:30 am to catch flights! Egypt Air likes early morning flights. Anyway, we made it and we were not even the first flight up there for the day! We flew there on a regular airplane and as we got on the plane, I heard a lady say " it never fails, there is an Auburn fan. Everywhere you go, there is one.
Well, of course, she was an Alabama fan and spotted Jim's AU hat. So we headed on back to our seats, but as luck would have it, on the return flight, guess who our seat mate was! She was from Montgomery and her name was Karen Campbell! We had a good time talking and it makes you realize again what a small world it is. Now back to Abu Simbel. Abu Simbel was going to be buried underwater by the Great Dam so it was disassembled and rebuilt in a safe place and it is an amazing feat! It is such a treasure that I am so thankful that they took such care and did it. We thoughly enjoyed walking around and hearing about it, going in and seeing it and taking it all in.