Egypt - Land of the Pharoahs!

Wow! Where to start about our trip to Egypt! It was a whirlwind- jampacked 9 days & we still didn't see near all of the wonders Egypt has to offer. It was interesting to know that in biblical days, Egypt was just the strip of land on both sides of the Nile river that were fertile. All of the desert that is now included in Egypt was not included at that time - it was just wilderness.
On Wed, we flew from Athens to Cairo. After being met by Sammy from Travel Egypt, we loaded into a bus that took us to our hotel. On the way, we must have gone by some of the lower class neighborhoods as it looked like slums all around. There were row after row of 5-6 story buildings that would have looked abandoned except for the laundry seen hanging from the lines & the satellite dishes all over the tops of them. At the base of each building & between buildings it was common to see huge piles of trash strewn all around as that is how the occupants got rid of their trash! Apparently no landfills here! Happily, our hotel was a nice 4 star resort hotel that was very clean & had delicious food!
Early the next day, we met our tour guide in Egypt who was named Khalid Osman - we called him Osman. He has degrees in Egyptian history, Hieroglyphics, & English & has translated for Colin Powell when he was in Egypt. His knowledge of everything Egyptian was just overwhelming!! We loaded the bus & headed to the Giza pyramids. They were spectacular!! It was truly a feat of engineering to build these pyramids that are hundreds of feet tall & absolutely huge!! They can be seen from miles away on a clear day. Some of the stones used to build them were several tons & it took several million stones to build each one. These were the burial places for the kings of the first period in Egypt when the Kings were seen as gods. Each king was allowed to have 3 wives, & they each also had smaller pyramids around their husbands larger one. To get inside, one would have to walk into a deep tunnel & there would be a small room for the body & the possessions of the king so he would have them to take with him into the next life. There were 2 large & about 5-7 smaller pyramids still standing in this area.
Just a short way from the pyramids stands the Spinx statue. It is standing guard over the pyramids. I have to say I was a little disappointed in the sphinx. I think it always looked so much bigger than life when I've seen it in pictures & it was large, but not nearly as spectacular as I had expected. Next to it is the Rose Temple which was used for mummification of the King. (Each king had his own mummification temple). Mummification takes 40 days for a king & involved removing the brain, heart, liver, & stomach/intestines & placing them in seperate jars & then filling the body & wrapping it with cloth. It is then placed in a human shaped coffin & then placed in a box - like sarcophagus made of stone with a lid.
The afternoon was spent in the Cairo Archeological Museum where we saw many of the items that had been taken from the tombs of kings (including king Tuts treasures & his gold coffin & face shield) & learned about Hieroglyphics & their use in Ancient Egypt.
That night we took a sleeper train down to Aswan which is the southernmost city of any size in Egypt. On arrival in Aswan, we checked into our "hotel" for the next 3 nights which was a riverboat - the Movenpick Ramadis 1. We had a quick lunch before heading out on speedboats to the Temple Philae which was dedicated to Isis. It had been located in a lower place previously, but when the Nile was dammed to build lake Nassar further south, it flooded this temple, so it was taken apart piece by piece & rebuilt here. As in many of the temples here, parts of the hieroglyphics were destroyed by the Christians that took over the temples to use them as churchs. They often would scratch out the faces & bodies of the gods portrayed but would leave everything else. That afternoon, we went for a camel ride which was enjoyed by all (pretty wild when the camel stands up & lies down!) & off to a Nubian village where they gave us a complimentary drink & let us hold their baby crocodiles!! The girls both got henna tatoos & we did a little souvenier shopping with them. One thing that is strange here is that many of the stores we go to offer complimentary drinks - usually tea or soft drinks - as they know when a bus pulls up, they will sell a lot of things, but everywhere you go, you have to pay to go to the bathroom!! They usually have a person in the rest room to hand you toilet paper, turn on the sink, & keep it clean. They expect a little tip (& prefer US dollar bills!!) - Even in some of these same stores - really strange!
This night we enjoyed a delicious dinner on the boat & then hit the sack early as we had a 3:30 wake up call for the next morning.
3:30 am sure came early! We grabbed a boxed breakfast & headed out to Abu Simbal! This was definitely one of the highlights of this trip & we didn't want to miss it! Our bus was part of a caravan that left at 4:00 for the 3 hour trip. Abu Simbal is the famous burial place of Ramses II & his wives. It has the giant sculptures of Ramses & his wife, Nephertari, in the side of a mountain. Inside, there are huge pillars & multiple rooms which at one time held all of his possessions. Unbelieveably, this is also a monument which would have been buried when Lake Nassar was formed, but it was taken apart piece by piece & moved to it's current location which is just by Lake Nassar. This monument & lake is out in the middle of nothing. You drive for miles & miles & see very little except desert & an occasional village. It is amazing as you can see "houses" that are nothing more than mudbrick walls with a thatch roof - but it's got a satellite dish on top!! I guess it's their communication with the rest of the world.
You may wonder if we felt safe while traveling in Egypt. I think I would only want to go with a tour group, but must say I felt extremely safe the whole time. We actually had our own personal gunslinger (armed guard) with us on the bus the whole time & often were also accompanied by an escort car with 3 or 4 armed policemen in it. Egypt relies so heavily on tourism for their livelihood, that it is Egyptian law that all foreign groups must have armed guards with them at all times. American groups are especially well taken care of as America gives approx 25 million dollars yearly in aid to Egypt. I'm sure our guards were totally bored the whole time, but they never complained & were often with us from 7:00 am until 9:oo pm.
That night we visited a Papyrus shop & learned how papyrus was made & did a little shopping before heading back to the boat for a wonderful meal & great nights sleep! The boat sailed to Edfu overnight.
The next day, Sunday, was in Edfu, we headed out early by horse drawn carriages to see the Edfu temple, which is the most intact temple in the world. It had been covered by sand for hundreds of years & includes a replica of what the ark of the covenant would have looked like.
The rest of the day was spent in worship on the boat & relaxing (whew! our one easy day!!) That night was "Egyptian night" on the boat with everyone (except the real Egyptians) dressing up like ancient Egyptians for dinner & then hanging out in the disco for fun & games afterwards! It was a lot of fun!

That night we went through the locks on the Nile heading to Luxor. Luxor id called the cit of a Hundred Gates where the Valley of the Kings is located. Valley of the Kings is basically an area in the desert outside of Luxor where the Kings of the 19th & 20th dynasties (Ramsees, including King Tut) were buried in tombs deep inside the mountains. There are over 60 tombs which have been discovered in this area, although not all of them have been uncovered. We went inside of 3 of them. Of course, the bodies & possessions have been removed, but it was fascinating to see the hieroglyphics which were intended to point the way to eternal life for the king & how huge these tombs were. It was amazing the work that they went to to bury their kings. It was said that it took 70 men to finish the tomb, working in 2 shifts. We tried to imagine what it must have been like for the workers to be in the dark down there with only torches for light. In light of that, the artwork is really fantastic. There is also a valley of the Queens, valley of the workers, & valley of the Noblemen. We went through a couple of tombs of the workers (those who created the tombs) & while theirs were much smaller, the artwork on them was great & they had been very well preserved.
Our next stop was at an Alabaster shop where we saw demonstrations of making alabaster vases. Some did shopping here. Next stop was Karnak Temple, which is in contention for the next great wonder of the world. It is the largest temple ever built (was added onto multiple times over 2,000 years) & covers over 100 acres of land.
We also made our way to the Luxor temple which was built for Ramsees II. It has several huge statues of him & has a large, open courtyard. It is believed this is the place where Moses probably studied when he was growing up in Egypt as the temples were also used as schools. It was dark when we got here & the lighting on the pillars & statues was beautiful. While sitting in the courtyard, our tour-guide encouraged us to sing, so we sang 3 or 4 songs & had a small crowd gathered around.to listen. It was a very inspirational moment to think we were ministering in a place that Moses probably sat in so many years before.
We had a late train that night back to Cairo.