Into the South - Egypt

Aswan

Caught the sleeper train down which was a really good way of doing it, so glad I didn't try the sitting option!!! Slept pretty well on it and got plane type dinner and breakfast while on board. We had adjourning cabins and Daniel managed to annoy our porter guy by not wanting to buy his Coke as it wasn't cold enough Was delayed by about 3 hours, so took 15 hours to get there but we are on Egyptian time. Got a hotel with a rooftop pool and nice view of the Nile and spent the rest of Monday wandering about the town and relaxing by the pool.

Got up very early Tuesday morning to go out to Abu Simbel. Surprisingly Daniel managed to haul himself out of bed at 3am without too much nagging!!! The temples were pretty spectacular. The effort that went into them when they were made and then again when they were moved to build Lake Nasser is pretty amazing. We got a brief run down on the temples and then just took ourselves around. The inside of both were covered in paintings and hieroglyphics and really well preserved, probably one of the highlights of things we have seen.

Around about at Abu Simbel

We didn't get up to much else in Aswan really, wandered the markets, organised our felucca trip to Luxor and went for a sunset sail on the Nile. Was a bit of a pain dealing with all the captains constantly bugging us and one we ruled out as soon as we found out he was Sudanese after the taxi driver episode but found one we were happy with.

Felucca Trip

I have to say before doing the felucca trip I was a little apprehensive about how much I would enjoy it based on what I had heard others say, the hygiene standards of a few places and the dodginess of a lot of the felucca captains we spoke to. The two days ended up being fantastic though!!! Our captain Nassar and his first mate Jimmy were great and we had organised to have a boat to ourselves so had heaps of room to spread out while we relaxed. We had the same size boat as groups with 10 people!!!

Cruising along the Nile

The food was really good, though I was getting a bit sick of the bread we were having by the end (kind of thick pita style bread), even bought some camel meat to cook up from a camel market village we stopped at to have a look (can't remember the name). Camel meat was ok, though a bit tough and stringy and lots of fat, kind of a stongish flavour though not too much different to beef.

Was a lovely relaxing few days; lots of sailing, drinking beer, eating and reading. Stopped at a little Nubian village to have hibiscus tea and Jo got a henna tattoo. Callan and I braved it and swam in the Nile River!!! It was one of the clean, fast flowing sections, so we were told anyway and the water was sooooo cold. I only stayed in a few minutes, no matter how much you moved around you just didn't warm up!!!

Luxor

Our felucca trip unfortunately ended on the Friday morning, we didn't get as far as we wanted, only got to Kom Ombo (done on purpose we think so our captains didn't have as far to try and get back). A private taxi later and we were visiting the temple at Edfu and then onward to Luxor. Visited the Luxor Temple at sunset that afternoon. Jo and I also got to visit a little jewellery workshop to see how they make the cartouches (not sure how it is spelt).

Edfu and Luxor Temples

Next day we hired bicycles and spent the day riding around the city, visited the Mummification Museum, caught the ferry across to the West Bank and rode out to Karnak Temple to look around. Jo, Dan and I had by now decided we were going to take the easy way from Luxor to Dahab and fly, so Callan made his first attempt at organising his bus/ferry journey across.

Valley of the Kings was our destination for Sunday. We looked inside 4 different tombs but didn't bother doing Tutankhamen's. Lots of people had said others were better so there's no point. The tombs themselves weren't as big as I had been expecting but the few that we went into (Ramses VI in particular) still had all the paintings and hieroglyphics on the walls and roof with all the colour still there. Some were water damaged but mostly good. Wasn't really much inside of them, except a very musty smell and in one tomb fans to circulate the air.

Valley of the Kings and over the ridge and out

We took the option of walking over the ridge of the Valley to the Temple of Horatus. The walk wasn't hard at all but it was pretty hot, anyway it was worth it for the views we got at the top of the area and in particular the Temple. At the bottom all but Daniel decided to go in to look around (he made the right decision) and it was definitely much more impressive to see from afar. Not much to see, was so hot and I think by now I am pretty templed out. Rooftop relaxing took up the rest of our afternoon with a few nice sunset beverages.

First Week in Egypt

Alexandria

Well we made it safely to Cairo on Monday night and got picked up from the airport and taken to our hotel. Getting our visa at the airport was interesting but not difficult – at least not for us!!! There were plenty of people getting a bit of a hard time and sent to the back of the queue. The hotel was pretty good and in a quiet area called Zamalek – an island in the middle of the Nile in Cairo. Met Callan at the hotel, he had arrived earlier that day from Dubai.

Caught the train up to Alexandria on the Mediterranean Coast Tuesday morning. We got 1^st class tickets and I was pleasantly surprised at how nice the train was. Got a room that overlooked the bay area. Wandered around the bay for quite a while, checking out a Fort and the library which has a giant ball thing out the front that apparently looks like a death star from Star Wars. Popped in to a cafe for some apple sheesha and then had dinner near the Fort overlooking the bay.

The fort, the library and the "Death Star"

Have had quite a few weird looks so far with my clothes - at least that's what I think it is... Had a t-shirt on today in Alexandria and got a lot of stares and dirty looks from the women and then some little boys decided to run over and touch my arms. Will be making sure to wear longer sleeves from now on, cannot see how arms are that exciting.

Wednesday morning we decided to take a private taxi out to El Alamein and check out the WWII cemetery and memorial to the Commonwealth troops who fought in Egypt. Nearby was a small war museum which had a bunch of tanks and army vehicles and quite a bit of information about the Germans and Italians in WWII but not much about the others. The taxi was a good idea - except when it came to paying! We had agreed a rate before we left but what do you know that changed once we were back in town and trying to pay, not a huge difference and Callan did try to work out why but in the end it was easier to pay and keep moving as the driver had almost non existent English. Headed back down to Cairo staying at the same place again.

Photos at the Commonwealth War Memorial

Bahariya Oasis

Decided to take ourselves out to Bahariya Oasis on Thursday. Took the bus out to the Oasis from Cairo which was supposed to take us 3-4 hours. Or so we thought, 5 ½ hours later we had arrived. The drive was so boring, there was just nothing to see, the scene outside the window didn't change the whole time, a long straight road and sand. To make it worse, I was not feeling the best so wasn't a pretty drive, particularly for Daniel sitting beside me. Upside was we did get to see the tops of the pyramids as we drove out of Cairo.

Took an afternoon 4WD trip around the Oasis, walking up a few mountains, saw the lake nearby and went for a swim in one of the hot springs. Nothing like what I had been expecting!!! I had assumed it would be a spring in a nice green NATURAL setting, with some palms trees, etc around it. Not exactly...it was actually a concrete square pool away from the trees with a pipe just pumping the water into it. Not exotic at all and the water was really hot. The few locals near it at the time disappeared and so we all hopped in briefly, hopefully I didn't offend anyone.

The hot springs and me at the top of English Mountain

Friday morning saw us rising early to watch the sunrise, only to notice when we started driving that the guy had got the times wrong and the sun was already up. Another 4WD tour, this one taking us to the black and white deserts. The black desert is really just a normal desert with black rocks on top of the sand but the white desert was cool to see. Had some spots with different sand formations and shapes which we were taken to as well as a lone tree... We weren't exactly sure why we were taken to see a tree but oh well. That afternoon we did the painful return bus journey and then met up with Kel and Jo in Cairo.

In the Black and White Deserts

Cairo

The 5 of us caught a taxi out to Giza to see the pyramids and the sphinx on Saturday morning. After haggling with the driver we were taken to his mates shop near the pyramids not the front entrance and ended up doing a camel/horse ride through the area with the pyramids. It was pretty cool riding a camel and reaching the pyramids from the sand dunes at the back. The weather wasn't quite so kind though, Callan jinxed us the day before by saying if it couldn't be blue sky the next best thing would be to see them in rain. It rained while we were there, not too bad but we did have to hop under one of the camel blankets to keep dry. Spent a few hours riding around the area, climbed a few steps up on one of the smaller pyramids, got close to the second one (which Callan and Daniel went into) and then visited the sphinx.

Around the pyramids!!!

Although it was great to see them in real life and pretty amazing to see how big they were and stuff, the people we did the camel trip with were dodgy and so it kind of spoilt it a little (we didn't get to go close to the Great Pyramid and had to fight with the guide to get down close to the Sphinx to take photos).

Also went down to the markets and tried our hand at haggling for a few things, enjoyed some Egyptian pancakes (much like a pizza) and sheesha. On the way back to the hotel, we decided to spoil ourselves and so went into the Marriott for a quick cocktail and to use the schmancy facilities.

The markets, some sheesha and enjoying drinks at the Marriott

Sunday we said goodbye to Kel and went to the Egyptian Museum. There were lots of things in there though not really set out the best or labelled. Saw the Tutankhamen area, a bunch of statues and figures, mummy cases, manuscripts and just a heap of stuff out of the tombs. Also had a look at the mummies which was a bit weird, particularly the area with animal mummies – there were mummies of pet baboons, birds, cats, dogs, crocodiles, sheep and other parts of animals. Ventured down to the Downtown area for a snack and then a drink on the river before we caught the sleeper train to Aswan.

Little tip - never catch a taxi if the driver is from Sudan!!! We got a crazy driver when going to the train station - he didn't know where it was, drove all over the place, yelled at everyone and then broke down on the way, even some locals gave us hand signals not to get back in the car.

A Boat Trip at Farncombe

Over the first long weekend in May (5-7) Daniel and I ventured to Farncombe to go on a canal boat trip with a bunch of Peta and Mick’s friends to celebrate Mick’s 30th. There were 2 boats hired, one holding 8 and one 10, we were on the 8 berth one. Headed down Friday afternoon after work and jumped on the boat to navigate along the River Wey. We accidentally ended up in Guildford that night – completely missed the pub we intended to stop at! Parked the boats right alongside a pub and then made our way in for a big night in town, ending with a big, gross kebab.

Here are our canal boats, in one of the locks and Daniel driving.

The next morning our boat was woken by the other boat who were all up bright and early. After traipsing through the remnants of the kebabs from the night before, we started the boats up and headed further along the river, cooking breakfast along the way. Manoeuvred ourselves through a number of locks, some tight turns and a bit of a race and then stopped off for a pub lunch. Saturday afternoon went along somewhat similarly, with us getting a little further than planned and so having to stop randomly along the canal. Saturday night was spent with some staying at the boats (a few people were a little under the weather…) and the rest walking into a nearby town for food and drinks.

Some random shots along the canal and Peta and Mick enjoying the scenery at the bottom of a lock.

Sunday went along pretty similarly as we made our way back to the boathouse. There were a few pub stops, races along the canal, a beaching here and there, some crazy stunts of jumping between boats, card games and what seemed like an endless number of locks. We moored beside a field for the night ready for the early morning to follow (had to return the boats by 9am).

Peta as captain and passing the afternoon with a few beverages and game of cards.

A lot of food and drink later and the weekend ended on a high, both boats were returned intact, no-one had drowned, only a couple of phones were lost in the water and we’d had a great time. Our boats seemed to make both friends and enemies along the way, I am not sure everyone appreciated our “dodgem car” attitude – we did have a few big hits but the boats bounced so nothing to worry about…

Our only friends on the canal.

An easter trip to Portugal

Over the Easter weekend Luke and I flew to Lisbon to spend a hopeful 4 days in a warmer climate and some sun. We left on the Friday morning, had to be at the airport around 5am, so made for a very early morning and straight after my birthday drinks, I was slightly under the weather and very tired. Our hotel was in Estoril, along the Coast west of Lisbon.

We spent the Friday wandering around Estoril and Cascais, had a wonderful lunch of fish and this seafood rice stuff and some very yummy wine. Friday night we made our way into Lisbon to have a look around Alfama the old town area. Spoilt ourselves with a really nice dinner, hadn't quite got the deal with the nibbles at the beginning so ended up gorging on those and then were slightly full for the rest.

Saturday we had nice weather and headed into Lisbon to look at all the sites. Visited some cathedrals, castles and lots of monuments. We ended the day with dinner and a Fado show, a traditional Portuguese opera sort of show which is performed throughtout dinner.

Sunday was our rest and relaxation day and was to be spent lying on the beach in the sun. Unluckily for us the weather switched a little, it cooled down, got very windy and the clouds were coming and going. Still was nicer than what we had in London so all good. Tried out the casino near our hotel and was very disappointed, was smaller than the Brisbane casino!

Monday was our last day and we headed off to spend it in Sintra. Caught a bus there, so got to see some nice scenery and then went to the National Palace. Was very nice though not as spectacular as some others. We then headed up to Moors Castle a ruined castle on the top of a hill overlooking the town. Climbed to the top and the view was beautiful could see out in every direction.

After the climb headed back to Estoril for the painful trip back to London. Our flight was delayed and so we didn't end up getting home until about 4 in the morning. Although the next day at work was extremely painful the weekend was great and a nice change from the usual in London.