Friday April 26
The past few weeks have been a blur. No time to even post here. Linda is leaving the 9th, that is tonight, we are leaving for the airport at 2:30. Nora leaves on the 12th. Alice and Peggy left left last Saturday the 3rd.
Friday the 25th was the day to visit the Egyptian Museum of Cairo. Had a guided tour of the building for about 1 ½ hours. That is about the right amount of time to spend there before you get overwhelmed by all the amazing antiquities. The treasures of King Tut’s tomb and the huge sarcophagus are incredible as well as all the other treasure on display there. We took a walk down Talat-Harb street and got a taste of the big city with all its sights, sounds and hustlers. Learning from others where the best quality can be found we took in the leather coat shops and the silver smith’s shop which are very close to where I live.
Sunday Linda arrived and I hired a van to pick her up. A van from the travel agency is more reliable and safe to travel long distances. We picked her up in the afternoon we just had time to return home go to bed ,catch a few winks then we were up again to catch the van to the airport at 3:00 AM. We caught the 5:30 flight to Aswan and met up with our cruise ship in the morning, the MS Isadora. Turned out to be a nice vessel with good food, comfortable rooms and an upper deck where we could relax by the pool and watch the sights as we motored up the Nile. We were assigned a guide who was with us throughout the tour. He took us to see the High Dam in Aswan which supplies all of Egypt with electricity. The construction of the dam stopped the annual flooding of the Nile and created Lake Nasser. The rising water submerged some temples and ruins but many were moved piece by piece to higher ground such as the Philae. We took a felucca ride around the islands and then took a motor launch to the Philae temple. That night our boat sailed up the river and we arrived at Kom Ombo the next morning. The temple of Kom Ombo is dedicated to the Crocodile God. There are crocodile mummies in this temple. The temple of Horus at Edfu is dedicated to the God Horus the falcon god. Both temples have so many beautiful columns and are massive structures. We returned to the boat and sailed through the locks on to Esna. The locks are to ease the ships through the different levels of water on the Nile just like the St Lawrence Seaway. Every day we had meals in the dining room and when were sailing we could relax/snooze on the upper deck by the pool. We all got enough sun to give us varying degrees of tans.
The markets in Aswan and Luxor were a test of stamina. The vendors are super aggressive, and stand in the street calling tourists into their shops. Best strategy is to walk by and ignore any invitations to look at merchandise. Eye contact with a vendor means you are blitzed and have scarves draped over your shoulders, purses put on your arms and table cloths almost stuffed in your bags. Having two young ladies didn’t help either. Egyptian men are very bold and fall in love at first glance especially if the girls are young and have the potential of a good salary and a ticket to Canada. They are bold and make comments and instead if disguising their interest, they exaggerate it. This can get quite obnoxious day after day. Our boat docked in Luxor and we spent the night. Morning we visited the Valley of the Kings. This is a large valley on the upper bank of the Nile. There are many tombs of Kings cut deep into the cliffs of the valley. Nora, Peggy and Linda went into the deep tombs and Alice and I joined them in the tombs that weren’t low and too deep into the cliff. The can get very hot and make it hard to breathe. Those emerging came out sweating and red faced. The temple of Queen Hatshepsut, (a woman pharaoh) was beautiful but by then we were getting “templed out”. We saw the Colossi of Memnon, (huge statues) and went to an alabaster factory/museum. It was quite interesting. It is a house constructed over an ancient tomb, where they make and sell alabaster articles. We went in the tomb which they used as a storage room. The family lives there along with roosters, hens and an indoor pigeon roost.
After lunch we took a motor launch to a beach a few kms up the Nile and docked to find our camels awaiting us. We all choose a camel and Nora was first to mount her camel. Turned out she had the most vocal and most spitting beast. Linda got on her camel which was sitting, the camels get up rear end first which pitches the rider forward on a steep angle so you have to hang on tight. Got some good pictures of Linda in “OMG” mode as her camel rocked to a standing position. We were led through a rural area by 6-9 year olds children who kept giving the camels whacks on the behind when they stopped to eat THORN bushes. The boys also kept up a steady stream of comments about ‘bakshesh’ which means tip money. We were very glad to have our guide Ahmed with us for when you are on a camel you are at the mercy of the drivers. We continued on in the boat to a banana plantation where we saw, mangos, guavas, grapefruit, mandarin oranges, avocado, and banana.
Friday 9 May 2008
Visitors from home
Friday April 26
The past few weeks have been a blur. No time to even post here. Linda is leaving the 9th, that is tonight, we are leaving for the airport at 2:30. Nora leaves on the 12th. Alice and Peggy left left last Saturday the 3rd.
Friday the 25th was the day to visit the Egyptian Museum of Cairo. Had a guided tour of the building for about 1 ½ hours. That is about the right amount of time to spend there before you get overwhelmed by all the amazing antiquities. The treasures of King Tut’s tomb and the huge sarcophagus are incredible as well as all the other treasure on display there. We took a walk down Talat-Harb street and got a taste of the big city with all its sights, sounds and hustlers. Learning from others where the best quality can be found we took in the leather coat shops and the silver smith’s shop which are very close to where I live.
Sunday Linda arrived and I hired a van to pick her up. A van from the travel agency is more reliable and safe to travel long distances. We picked her up in the afternoon we just had time to return home go to bed ,catch a few winks then we were up again to catch the van to the airport at 3:00 AM. We caught the 5:30 flight to Aswan and met up with our cruise ship in the morning, the MS Isadora. Turned out to be a nice vessel with good food, comfortable rooms and an upper deck where we could relax by the pool and watch the sights as we motored up the Nile. We were assigned a guide who was with us throughout the tour. He took us to see the High Dam in Aswan which supplies all of Egypt with electricity. The construction of the dam stopped the annual flooding of the Nile and created Lake Nasser. The rising water submerged some temples and ruins but many were moved piece by piece to higher ground such as the Philae. We took a felucca ride around the islands and then took a motor launch to the Philae temple. That night our boat sailed up the river and we arrived at Kom Ombo the next morning. The temple of Kom Ombo is dedicated to the Crocodile God. There are crocodile mummies in this temple. The temple of Horus at Edfu is dedicated to the God Horus the falcon god. Both temples have so many beautiful columns and are massive structures. We returned to the boat and sailed through the locks on to Esna. The locks are to ease the ships through the different levels of water on the Nile just like the St Lawrence Seaway. Every day we had meals in the dining room and when were sailing we could relax/snooze on the upper deck by the pool. We all got enough sun to give us varying degrees of tans.
The markets in Aswan and Luxor were a test of stamina. The vendors are super aggressive, and stand in the street calling tourists into their shops. Best strategy is to walk by and ignore any invitations to look at merchandise. Eye contact with a vendor means you are blitzed and have scarves draped over your shoulders, purses put on your arms and table cloths almost stuffed in your bags. Having two young ladies didn’t help either. Egyptian men are very bold and fall in love at first glance especially if the girls are young and have the potential of a good salary and a ticket to Canada. They are bold and make comments and instead if disguising their interest, they exaggerate it. This can get quite obnoxious day after day. Our boat docked in Luxor and we spent the night. Morning we visited the Valley of the Kings. This is a large valley on the upper bank of the Nile. There are many tombs of Kings cut deep into the cliffs of the valley. Nora, Peggy and Linda went into the deep tombs and Alice and I joined them in the tombs that weren’t low and too deep into the cliff. The can get very hot and make it hard to breathe. Those emerging came out sweating and red faced. The temple of Queen Hatshepsut, (a woman pharaoh) was beautiful but by then we were getting “templed out”. We saw the Colossi of Memnon, (huge statues) and went to an alabaster factory/museum. It was quite interesting. It is a house constructed over an ancient tomb, where they make and sell alabaster articles. We went in the tomb which they used as a storage room. The family lives there along with roosters, hens and an indoor pigeon roost.
After lunch we took a motor launch to a beach a few kms up the Nile and docked to find our camels awaiting us. We all choose a camel and Nora was first to mount her camel. Turned out she had the most vocal and most spitting beast. Linda got on her camel which was sitting, the camels get up rear end first which pitches the rider forward on a steep angle so you have to hang on tight. Got some good pictures of Linda in “OMG” mode as her camel rocked to a standing position. We were led through a rural area by 6-9 year olds children who kept giving the camels whacks on the behind when they stopped to eat THORN bushes. The boys also kept up a steady stream of comments about ‘bakshesh’ which means tip money. We were very glad to have our guide Ahmed with us for when you are on a camel you are at the mercy of the drivers. We continued on in the boat to a banana plantation where we saw, mangos, guavas, grapefruit, mandarin oranges, avocado, and banana.
