egyptian travels

we started off the next day nice and early around 7? we went to the egyptian museum which was reallly cool.. so much old stuff just sitting there.. unprotected.. well, except king tuts stuff! that was awesome.. lots of mummies.. cats and dogs even...and cool tombs and jewlery and old wigs and everything older than dirt that you could imagine! most of the awesome stuff was moved to teh london museum..and now that im here, im just gonna haveta go find it! after the museum we saw the pyramids..and we even got to go in the middle one! not as exciting as you may hope.. a bit clasterphobic..and swealteringly hot.. but how often do you get to go in a pyramid!? we took lots of pics.. but none quite as unique as those from my camel ride! we also saw the sphynix and some catacombs me and the other two american girls climbed up... cool! then it was back to the hotel to clean up before our overnight bus ride.. it was supposed to be a train ride..but shit happens in egypt.. duh! soo it was a long ass uncomfortable ride down to aswan? where we got onto our nile cruise for the next few nights :) we threw our stuff on teh boat.. had some lunch and headed out to the dam.. how uneventful. but it was and still is so important to the egyptians because without it.. well water would be scarce! with the building of the hugge dam.. there was a lot of temples and towns that flooded. all the temples had to be moved.. which when you see then.. its really quite amazing.. and they moved them all and put them back in teh same exact positions. the nubian people as well had to move. so we saw the philae temple with its roman and greek additions to it.. and we saw how later the christians came and carved the bodies of the gods off the left side of hte building.. strange. they left thier clothes alone..just hteir bodies.. we headed back to boat and had a nice dinner and hang out all night getting to really know our group members.. well i hung out til 12... since 2:30 couldnt come soon enough for our next wake up call.

so 2:30 we headed to abu simbel.. AWESOME! there are the two temples there.. one for ramses and his wife.. they have the hugggee stuatues in front.. you've all seen pictures of them.. but it was cool.. we tried to snag some photos of hte inside of hte temple... a few turned out.. its funny because theres signs that say no photos.. but if you get caught.. just pay the guard a few bucks..and your good to go! after abu simbel.. we headed back to the boat for our lunch and then we had a fulucca (traditional boat) ride up the nile to a nice little swim spot! we jumped off the top and swam agaisnt the strong current to a little rock island in teh middle.. from there most of the group went on a camel ride.. i already had my fair share of camels and strange men.. (and my leg muscles still hurt from the first one!) so the rest of us enjoyed the warm sun ... only 47celcius. on the top of the boat.. it wasnt thatt hot on the boat.. just out in teh desert at the temples.. thank god we went early! the fulucca stopped at a nubian village where we sat in a classroom and learned the arabic alphabet and numbers... i wrote my name on the board even! correctly... from right to left.. it writing backwards, we found out that their was an obsurd number of left handers in our group.. but anyway.. we moved into a little house.. and our guide rafik taught us more about the culture..and how to pick out a wife and everythign... although egyptian.. he has lived in australia for a bunch of years and could relate the strange and traditions to us pretty well.. in the house i had one of the ladies give me a henna tattoo on my foot.. y not!? and we played with baby crocodiles.. dont worry.. the bigger ones had a hair tie around their mouths for us! haha.. we had some tea.. lots of different egyptian teas.. o and the hybicus tea.. weird.. almost tasty. i then bartered for a handwoven scarf so i could wear it on my head for the festival party that night on the boat! i took too long and made everyone wait.. again.. they were always waiting for me to take pics or something.. oops! no one seemed to care tooo much! except maybe the captain of our cruise ship.. haha.. we delayed the departure! so we cruised for a bit that night.. we partied pretty good.. everyone having an awesome time.. we just had such a good diverse group of mostly aussies, a handful of english.. a couple americans, and a canadian and kiwi. some of the boys were all done up in their nubian outfits out on the deck where we lounged around all night! the next day no one could get up for the first temple.. haha.. so we sunbathed and slept in until we got to the next one.. which was the best preseved temple in egypt.. lots of colors on the wall and crazy corridors everywhere. back to the boat for a relaxing day adn more sun and happiness along the nile :)

and then came the dreadful next morning.. the biggest day of sightseeing.. 4 things to see..and i was already puking on the bus at 6:30 when we left... somewhere along the way i ingested some water.. mightve been from the swim a few days ago.. or apparently the orange juice? so i puked all over the valley of the kings between crawling in the tombs.. everyone was soo nice in helping me out.. carrying my camera..(they liked playing wiht it) and feeding me water, and giving me their hats to wear and what not.. as the day wore on.. people started getting sick left and right.. none as bad as me of course.. i made it to queen hatchepsuts temple.. and then i was done.. i had to get some local drugs to help me stop throwing up.. and i went back to sleep..or try to! everyone got to see the largest temple.. i forgot the name.. but i was glad i didnt go because they said it was the hottest one yet.. pretty sure i wouldve died and been buried their too! and then no one made it to luxor temple either.. :( what a bad temple going group we were! that night, luckily i pulled it together for our bus ride back.. it was quite uncomfortable again.. but i lived! we all did. and stopped off at hernada? for a break around midnight.. no one sleeps in egypt i swear. (we went to a grocery store at midnight and i literally couldnt see what was on the shelves it was so crazy and chaotic) we went and touched the red sea before finishing our trip to cairo.

the next day in cairo we went to the step pyramid and saw some old church and jewish section of cairo to compare with the arabic and ancient egyptian stuff we were doin :) i was still kinda outta it but made it though.. most of us went to a big dinner and hung out again for the last night.