Friday, Feb 10th, St Simeon's Monestary

Greetings!

One of the questions you probably won’t answer until you have to is: “Will I ride a camel across a desert?” At our age, it just may not be high on your bucket list.
While our luggage was on its way to the Miss Egypt cruise ship, we took a boat across the Nile to the base of a huge sand dune. Seated there were eleven young camels with names like Rambo, Lulu, and Mickey Mouse. Mustafa and his band of brothers loaded us up on the camels, and guided us up and across the dunes to a seventh century monestary which hosted pilgrims for over 300 years. A millennium later, it’s still receiving visitors.

If you remember to sit forward in the saddle, grip with your inner thighs, and lean back when going down hills, it’s not that bad. That lets you actually see the desert, instead of your hands gripping that saddle horn between your legs. If you can cross your legs in front of you, and above the camel’s neck, there’s less stress on the butt. I found, however, that dangling my feet out to each side of the camel’s neck made for better balance.

Dismounting (remember to lean back as the camel kneels), we thanked our guides, took a group photo, and boarded a small boat back to the cruise ship. After a stop at Nile Botanical Garden on Kitchener’s Island, we returned to check into our ship’s cabins (quite luxurious) and have lunch, and then savor an afternoon free to visit the Nubian Museum and walk through the Aswan Tourist Market (no, thank you).

After dinner at 8pm, we returned to our cabins, and re-charged not only our camera and computers, but the body and brain cells drained well over the past two days. Tomorrow, the country is going on a general strike in recognition of the one-year anniversary of President Mubarak’s stepping down. We don’t expect to be effected by it, but don’t really know for sure. We’re exploring several alternative strategies to be capable of seeing as many ruins along the banks of the upper Nile.

To see the photos from today’s adventures, click on: Friday, Feb 10th, Camel Day

Gregory

Thursday, Feb 9th, Abu Simbel and Philae

Greetings!

Today’s adventure began 23 hours ago, and has involved a six-hour, round-trip bus caravan, an hour’s boat ride to an island, a great meal at a floating restaurant, a hike around two ruins relocated by the creation of a dam, four gauntlets through dozens of vendors hawking everything Egyptian, and a birthday party.

After our return, we visited the quarry where most of the world's obelisks were chiseled out of granite. The largest in the world still rests, broken and unused.

We ended the evening with a boat ride out into the middle of the Nile to an island which was designed to replace the ruins brought up from beneath Lake Nasser when Philae was inundated. it's a spectacular site, and the light and sound show includes the story of its resurrection.

The depression in the travel market has us showing up at ruins with only a few Europeans joining us. We’re really having fun, and are enjoying once again our travel colleagues on the trip with us from Adventures Abroad.

During this time of turmoil in Eqypt, the new government is trying its best to keep its guests (tourists) safe. That includes placing military personnel with us on our bus, and arranging them in a convey caravan with more personnel in the front and back. That may seem a bit heavy-handed, just to drive a few hundred miles across the desert, but it does make one feel welcome. And we can tell that tourism in Egypt is at an extremely low point currently.

It’s midnight, so I won’t go on much longer (I’m falling asleep on the sofa in the lobby) except to remind you all that our next few days will be spent sailing up the Nile to the southern limits of Eqypt. There is no wifi onboard the ship, and very little in towns at that end of the country. We’ll be back in touch when we can, and we hope you can spend the time taking a look at the photos we’ve posted so far. We’ve enjoyed the trip thoroughly, and are eager to see what more excitement comes our way.

To view the photos taken today, click on:Abu Simbel and Philae

Wednesday, Feb 8th,

Greetings!

We flew south out of Cairo, up the Nile to Aswan. The plane was an older model 737, with four seats across, feeling very much like something out of "Indiana Jones".

We'll be here for two days, visiting ruins and a local village where we'll have dinner with the family of our local guide. Our hotel has a pretty good wifi, so I'll be able to upload the photographs. I can't be sure about communications in about three days, as we'll be boarding a medium size cruise ship for a journey to the far south.

We'll be sailing on a falluga this afternoon, and it'll be a time for the group to spend some quiet time together. The Nile is the best place to drift on the wind, and I'm hoping to get some good photos of each member of the group. I won't be able to put them all in the post, so please take your time checking out what I come up with.

Our sail ends at the village of our host. We'll climb up to the village in the hills, and spend some time in their market. Then, we're invited to have dinner with his family. It should be a real treat, and we're all looking forward to it.

Tomorrow, we'll have a very long day. Our bus caravan leaves early for Abu Simple, the huge ruins built by Ramses II, which was rescued from destruction in the 1960's when Eqypt's Aswan Dam was built. After exploring the site, we'll come back and prepare for an evening which includes dinner at the Aswan Moon, and a trip to an island in the Nile to explore Philae. That site was resurrected from Lake Nasser after the dam was built.

To view the entire photo collection from today, visit:Aswan

Tuesday, Feb 8th, Alexandria

Greetings!

The sound of Arabic sounded so sweet, as the couple next to me discussed their hopes that his father would meet them with a car at the airport. They showed me the famous boulevard “6th of October”, named after Cairo’s Independence Day, as we approached the runway from north of the city. I wondered whether streets would be named after their more recent independence days.
Ishmeel was standing just inside the terminal holding an “Adventures Abroad” sign, and smiling from ear to ear. He had done the same the night before, at two different flights, hoping to meet the Americans who he thought had been stranded in Paris.

We arrived at the Safir Hotel around 1:30am, instead of the Ramses Hilton. The civil protests in Tahrir Square, across the street from the Ramses, made it wiser to put a little distance between us and the center of trouble.

Jonathan met us in the lobby, made sure we were okay, and gave us the particulars of our breakfast and departure in five and a half hours. As we knew we wouldn’t get to sleep for at least another hour, we thanked everyone, and retired to our 7th floor room to unpack, shower, re-charge our cameras and computers, and hit the sack.

After breakfast, we met the other members of our group in the hotel lobby. Well-traveled Americans and Canadians, we were accompanied by a driver, tour guide, daily guide, and a guide in training to Alexandria for the day. As the countryside’s watertable lies relatively close to the surface, we passed rich agricultural areas where oranges, grapes, dates, and cotton are grown. Our primary destinations for the day were two of the seven wonders of the ancient world (the Alexandria Library and Lighthouse). We were treated to a protest in the courtyard of the library, where a large crowd chanted angry slogans against the relationship of the current museum director to the wife of the deposed President of Egypt. Along the way, we also descended into a second century BC underground tomb where Caligula buried eight horses killed in a stampede which intentionally trampled the city’s women and children. And we had lunch overlooking the site of Cleopatra’s palace, now sunk into the Mediterranean Sea.

The weather was cold, the sky was full of sand, and the Mediterranean stormy. But if our bodies shivered, our hearts were delighted – by the sights, sounds, and smells of a culture in great upheaval. Following a great tradition as a city which held the attention of the world for over two thousand years, Alexandria didn’t disappoint us.

For a look at the rest of the photos taken since we arrived, go to: Tuesday, Feb 8th, Alexandria

To view the video of the Alexandria Library Protest, click on: Alexandria Library Protest

Gregory

Monday, Feb 6th, London

Greetings!

After an evening watching English television, topped off by late-night Superbowl, we checked out of the Heathrow Holiday Inn and returned to the airport. We took the bus back to the airport, and claimed a comfortable cushy sofa chair in one of the lounges. It’s now 3pm, and we’re waiting for our boarding gate to be posted on the list of departures.

Everyone who asks where we’re going expresses some alarm when hearing our answer. We tell them that we’ll be with a highly-proficient tour company, and won’t be spending much time in the areas where there has been trouble. But we don’t really know what to expect of either the original tour design, or the conditions in Cairo.

It’ll be an adventure, and we’ve always enjoyed a little bit of chaos.

Gregory

Sunday, Feb 5th, London

Greetings!
Well, the storm headed west, and slammed into London just before we got here. Two-thirds of the flights out of Heathrow were cancelled today, including ours to Cairo. The airline staff met us as we headed to the connecting flight area, handing out flyers explaining our options. For most local travelers, the advise was to go home. For those like us, coming in from far away, the only solution was to re-book on a later flight. Only there were thousands of them, and the line to the ticketing staff snaked around the inside of the airport, and took four hours to traverse. Fortunately, we won the lottery, and were picked out after about two hours by a nice young airline staff member who used her phone to accomplish the re-booking. A couple from Australia in line with us helped us secure a room for the night, as the re-booking is on the same flight tomorrow afternoon. We’re now at the Holiday Inn on Bath/Sipley Way. Our baggage is currently circulating through the airport system, awaiting the new flight information, so it can know where and when to send it on. We’re making due with hotel toiletries.
After an evening of watching British television to keep ourselves from falling asleep too early, and the hotel’s restaurant for dinner, we’ll sleep to the checkout time (11am), and take the city bus back to the airport for our flight to Cairo. That is, unless we arise tomorrow to another round of flight cancellations.

Gregory

Saturday, Feb 4th, San Francisco Airport

Greetings!

We should have been on our flight to Amsterdam by now. But a storm over Europe kept our plane from leaving Amsterdam, and thus carrying us back on the return flight. Our choices were either to take the same flight tomorrow, or get re-booked into a flight on a different carrier today. We chose the latter, and are now waiting for an overnight United flight at 5:08pm tonight, arriving tomorrow morning in London. We then have six and a half hours to wait there for a 5:10 British Airways flight to Cairo, arriving just before midnight.

We've emailed our tour to coordinate pickups, gotten some lunch, and are now trying to relax in seats at Gate 94. It's going to be a long flight, with hopefully a quiet plane and seatback movies to help if we can't get some sleep.

And no storms in Britain, please.

Gregory