South Egypt

We hired a driver to take us to Aswan with a couple stops at temples on the way. Our hotel in Aswan was on an island. It was not quite as luxurious as the one in Luxor but quite nice once we got the "room with a view!" of the Nile and the city. Breakfast at this hotel was quite good also as we watched the hot air balloons over the Nile. We visited the Aswan Dam which is the 3rd largest in the world (outdone by China and Canada--I think). We also visited a temple on an island. I am "templed" out!!

We got up today at 2am after going to bed at midnight (great dinner and shopping last night with Sean and Inez). We had to board a bus at 3am that was part of a caravan to visit Abu Simbel, a temple down near the border of Sudan. Actually there are two temples there, both of which had to be moved way uphill when the "high dam" was built on the Nile 30 years back or so. It was 170 miles from Aswan to get there. You know at the circus when they stuff clowns in a car, that was our van/bus today. This was the only way to see this "special" temple. It was nice but I'm not sure it was worth going thru all that.

We flew from Aswan to Cairo on our last day in Egypt. We had a plan top-off our trip with a to visit the Egyptian Museum, but the museum was closed due to some big Muslim holiday. We could not store our bags at the airport so we hired a cab driver for 9 hours to take us around Cairo and guard our bags--pretty risky BUT it worked. We saw the sound and light show at the pyramids, the outdoor market and the indoor mall. We got lots of bargains??? at the outdoor market. This was a bit different than our farmers markets!! As most of you know, I have shopped in many malls in the US, but nothing compares to this mall! We ate at Macaroni Grill and I finally had Starbucks coffee. Finally, we marvelously escaped in the night and flew on to Ethiopia. It can be quite annoying dealing with the locals in Egypt. I can't tell you how many times a day that someone wants to know if we need a taxi, carriage, horse, camel or any the type of ride. I feel like I am being rude to totally ignore them, but that is the only way to keep ones sanity! But what an experience Egypt was! I am now able to look back on all we did and saw and say, "WOW!"