So sorry we've been out of touch. A lot has been happening in regions sparse of Internet. Quick rundown...
Oct 27th: Saw the pyramids and the sphinx. I even got to go inside one of the them! Very impressive. I have some awesome pictures because our guide took us to a sweet spot that was infrequent of visitors. Camels in the background and everything :) Visited the Egyptian museum in Cairo and saw King Tut's death mask and everything else that was in his tomb.
Oct 28th (I think): Rode a sleeper train out to Aswan, a small city in southern Egypt. Here we figured for the first time (definitely not the last) that public transportation in the middle east runs on no time schedule. Our train was 4 hours late, but no worries,our new motto is, "it is what it is". After off-loading our packs into our hotel, overlooking the Nile, we jumped into a motor boat that took us to Elephantine Island, home to a Nubian village. Our guide, Esam, seemed to know everyone in Egypt but because of that we were invited into a Nubian house and we able to converse with the locals. The village is tightly knit and all the houses painted bright hues of yellow, blue, and green. Everyone was super friendly and Marshall played futball with a couple village boys.
From there, we got back on the boat where a Nubian elder told us tales and the history of the island. After that, we RODE CAMELS to dinner across the Saharan desert at sunset. My camel's name was Gamble and my guide let me trot (but to me I was racing across the desert at top camel speeds!!). Dinner was at a traditional Nubian house and oh man was the food amazing with the sunbread, and Nile perch the highlights. As we were digesting dinner, the (adorable!) village girls began playing a game with us kinda similar to patty-cake. The grand finale came when what seemed like the rest of village clambered into the courtyard and began playing drums and singing. The children demanding that we dance, grabbed our hands (in Marshall's case, climbed all over him) and pulled us into the mix. I was out danced by 6 year olds.
Oct 29th: Rode a felucca down the Nile!! Amazing. Highlights:
-Megan, Monica, Marshall, and I went swimming in the Nile
-had a candle-lit dinner on the boat of yummy, tradition Egyptian food
-danced around a campfire to Nubian music
-saw the biggest cow ever hiding in a marsh near our camp
-played lots of backgammon
Oct 30th: LUXOR. From the felucca we were transported to a van that took us north about 3 hours to Luxor. Luxor has been occupied for the better part of 4000 years. We toured The Temple of Karnak, an amazing collection of temples, shrines, pylons, obelisks that have been dismantled, restored, enlarged, and decorated by Pharaohs over a period of 1500 years. It's not uncommon see ancient graffiti because the Greeks and Romans also use to visit these exhibits on holidays. At night, we toured the Luxor Temple, a sanctuary with Egyptian, Roman, Muslim, and Christian relics. And on our way to dinner, we passed a celebrating wedding party dancing and singing in the streets.
Oct 31st: Happy Halloween! Though it didn't feel like Halloween because it was 75 degrees and sunny. After visiting the Colossi of Memnon, we RODE DONKEYS (though camels > donkeys) up a steep hill (~1000 ft) that overlooks the Valley of the Kings and Queen Hatshepsut memorial. Very impressive. We descended into the Valley of the Kings and took tours of the tombs of Tutmoses III, Ramses IX, and Ramses IV. Very impressive. The tombs had elaborate artwork, the classical Egyptian hieroglyphics, and a good portion of the paint was still intact! Over 4500 years!! A lot of the ceilings retained the brilliant indigo blue and yellow (representing the sky and the stars) as if it were painted yesterday. I thought American history was old, until I visited Europe, thought that European history was old until I went to Greece and thought Greek history reached way back until I came to Egypt. The history here is phenomenal, intricate, and old old old.
Currently, we are in Jordan (headed to Wadi Rum) and I will try to update when we are in Petra tomorrow.
