We started off our Egypt leg without really feeling like we were in Egypt. We spent 4 days in the Red Sea resort town of Dahab. It was very relaxed, the weather was gorgeous, and we caught up on a lot of sleep! We spent a day snorkelling at the Blue Hole and the Bells. The Blue Hole is 100m deep hole in the middle of a coral reef. Many scuba divers have lost their lives their, we saw lots of fish just from snorkelling so no scuba diving for us! We saw many fish but our favorite had to be the lion fish, which just drifts along the coral scaring fish and snorkellers! After our relaxation we were thrown into mini buses that would take us to Cairo, it was pretty touch and go on wether or not we'd arrive alive, but in the end we made it.
Cairo is chaotic, there really is no other way to describe it. There are masses of people, cars and garbage everywhere. We visited the acienct sites of Saqqara and the Giza Pyramids. It was interesting but we were slightly culture shocked by the amount of hassle you get, plus travelling through the middle east we didn't see many other tourist, the pyramids were swarming with them!
Dan - not to sound ungratful but the pyramids are a bit rubbish, big triangle type things, I did find it entertaining that 50m away from the sphinx was a KFC, got to love the way Eygptians mix the new with the old so symapthetically. Also my take on the Egyptians (Gypos) is not entirly favourable, through the middle east we have met some very genuine and friendly people, this is far from the case in Egypt, you feel like the majority of people are going to rip you off rather than the minority.
We took a night train to Aswan, that was an interesting experience, our group had to take two seperate trains, Dan managed to pass out for about 9 of the 14 hours, I got about 4 hours sleep, as I was on the aisle and constantly asked to show my ticket, if that was my seat (I was sitting in it, how else was I to show it was my seat?) and being whacked in the head by all the egyptian carrying the household belongings!!!
We didn't get much time in Aswan, the first night we took a sunset cruise on a Felucca boat (a type of sail boat) around the islands there. The next morning we joined the 4am convoy to Abu Simbel. The Egyptian Police require tourist to travel in large convoys for safety in certain areas, this should have made us feel safer but it didn't, as soon as we started out all the buses were jockeying for posistion and racing each other and overtaking blindly. It was crazyness, we arrived at Abu Simbel around 8. Happy to be off the bus we were pleasanty suprised that Abu Simbel was amazing and enormous and all together very impressive (it was hard to tell is had actually been moved from it's original location). Again it was sawarming with tourists but we didn't have much choice as we all had to travel together. The convoy then took us to the Temple of Philiae. Another temple that had to be moved after they built the Aswan Damn. The temple is beautiful and is on an island. You can still see the water marks on the inside showing just how submerged the temple had been.
That night we loaded our Felluca with several cases of beer and set sail in the direction of Luxor. This is the way to travel, the deck of the boat is one giant mattrass, which was handy as we would be sleeping on deck under the stars. So we cracked a few beers and watched the sun go down. The beers brings me to the only minor down side of the boat, it has no toillet, so it is a case of going off the side, no problem for the boys, more of an issue for the girls!! We stopped off at a nubian village where we were fed to bursting point before meandering back to the boats to drink and chat into the small hours, when we finally went to bed we had some of the best sleep we have had on this trip. The next day was more of the same drinking playing games and chatting, we stopped a couple of times to swim in the Nile, which is alot cleaner than you would think!! The evening was spent on "poo island" the name tells you all you need to know about what was all over the island!! Despite the plethera of poo all around us we had a great night dancing around the camp fire while the nubian guys from the boat played the drums.
Alas our time on the felucca was over all too quickly, we docked at Kom-Ombo and were thrust right back into the tourist hussle and bussle, we spent the day visiting a couple of temples, which were very temply and had plenty of hyroglifs, I now know that a horned viper is an F only 24 more letters to learn. We arrived in Luxor just after midday, and guess what we are staying in a real hotel, "The Golden Palce" in it's hay day (early 80's it would have been very nice) but even now it is a welcome change for grubby backpackers, the rooms had aircon and ensuite with hot and cold water (well until it got cut off half way through heathers shower - but lets not be picky)
Early start the next day for the valley of the kings and the valley of the queens. The valley of the kings is where the kings tombs are and I think you can probably guess what the Valley of the Queens is! The tombs were fantastic, the Hyroglifics and carvings were all still painted, which really brings home how fantastic some of the temples would have looked with the paint. We visited a few tombs in each valley. The valley itself was not photogenic at all it dotted with tombs the entrances to which looked alot like millitary bunkers.
Have finally found a fast internet connection so check out all the photos as lots have been added!
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