Some more photos
Posts
Israel 31 January. Low 20s Up early at 5 am for a departure from hotel at 6.15. Our scheduled departure is 8.55. Proceed through security and passport control ok and we have a 90 min wait till take off. Getting a bit tired of all these early morning starts. My cold has moved from my chest to my sinuses, so maybe I am picking up. There are four others in our group who sound much worse than me. As we fly into Tel Aviv there is a lot more greenery around, it is nice to leave the sparseness of the desert behind. As we drive from the airport the city has a much nicer feel about it. Very clean and orderly, and while the traffic is heavy it is not chaotic. The buildings are modern and typical of any major city. Our first stop is the Diaspora Museum, unfortunately there are major renovations underway and we are restricted to two sections, one displays models of Jewish synagogues from all over the world. The other display is on Jewish humour - it is amazing how many actors, singers...
Aswan to Cairo 30 January. Clear skies, sunny about mid 20s Up early (5.45) for breakfast and check out. Not so achey around the sinus but have developed a chesty cough, otherwise feel ok. After check out we head off to our first stop, the quarry where the ancient Egyptians carved the granite blocks and stone for the obelisks. There are the remains of one there which would have been the tallest one ever made, but during the cutting process a crack developed and it had to be abandoned. Obelisks are made from one piece of stone. Our second stop is the Island of Philae. It is a temple on an island dedicated to the goddess Isis. We have a motorboat ride to the island and as at all the sites we have to run the gauntlet of the hawkers. This is the only temple dedicated to a female god. This temple also had to be moved from its original site because of the damming of the Nile. It was cut into some 14000 pieces, transported and reassembled. The temple has a different feel fro...
Aswan 29 January. Clear sky, very cold morning warm later low 20s Very early start this morning, up at 3.45 for a 4.30 departure. As we leave the city there is a security check just before you hit the desert proper. There is quite a convoy of buses and it takes almost 30 mins to get through the check point. At about 6.30 we pull over so we can watch the sunrise. It is a spectacular sight as the sun rises above the desert. Back on the bus there are only 9 of us, one chose not to go and two are sick. We try to sleep but it is difficult, it is a large bus so we can all spread out. We eventually arrive at Abu Simble at 8.15 and we have to be back on board by 10. The original site was discovered in the 1860s by a local named Abu Simble. When word spread and others wanted to view/excavate the temples they were told to go to the village in the area and ask for Abu Simble. In the 1960s when the Aswan dam was being constructed, the dam would submerge the temples as it filled. It was de...
Nile River 28 January Clear Skies. This morning we have clear blue skies but quite cool. Our first tour is to the Temple of Horus, a temple built during the Roman occupation in 300 bc. It had been completely covered by silt from Nile floods until it was discovered in 1860s. The sun is lovely but it is quite cool in the shade. From our docking berth in Edfu we are to take horse drawn carriages to the temple. As we leave the barge there are 40 to 50 carriages waiting and all the drivers are calling out for passengers. Assem arranges with who appears to be a supervisor who appoints jobs to the drivers. It is bedlam with all the drivers calling out to him for the jobs. We are told to go with a driver and then have to follow him through the throng. The carriage ride takes about 10 minutes. The temple is second in size to the Karnak temple. It is covered in etchings and was dedicated to the god Horus who is the son of the gods Osiris and Isis. It must have looked magn...
Luxor Sunday 27 January. Cloudy and cool, windy afternoon. Up early again as we have a 7 am start. Some of the group were up even earlier for a balloon ride. The day is overcast and cloudy but not too cold. Our first stop is to pick up the ballooners and it is at The Colossi of Memnon , two giant statues of the Pharaoh Amenhotep III. As we proceed to the Valley of The kings the landscape becomes quite sparse with just rock and desert. We travel past one area where there are excavations going on and the vastness of the area you wonder what else they will find. As we drive up to the valley of the kings there is not much to see but hilly bare rocky sandy ground. All the tombs are buried deep into the hills. At the visitor centre there is a three dimension model of the area which shows the landscape of the area, where the tombs entrances are and then below the surface shows the marked tunnels and tombs. We visit three tombs which our guide Assem says are the best, they are the...
Cairo to Luxor Saturday 26 January. Up early this morning, we woke up at 3 am. We had packed last night so just had to finish off. We have breakfast at 4 am. We leave the hotel at 5.50 and head off to the airport. Traffic very light at this hour. We have a short (50 mins) flight and arrive at Luxor. After collecting our bags we head off to Karnak temple. Luxor is very different to Cairo, much less inhabitants (450,000 compared to 20 million), cleaner and less cars. The security is the same though, police/military at all tourist sites. Karnak is an extraordinary place, massive structure over a large area. The columns 134 of them are spectacular and the area grew with each succeeding King building on to it for over 2000 years. It had lain under silt and sand for thousands of years until it was discovered. There is an avenue of sphinxes that stretches from Karnak temple to Luxor temple and they are still trying to uncover it completely, because other buildings had been constructed abov...
Cairo 25January cool morning, clear skies max 21 degrees. This morning we again head off at 8 am. It is quite cool and we are all layered up. One thing that stands out is the security. It is usual to see armoured personnel carriers driving around and often with a gunner sitting up top with a machine gun. Everytime our bus enters the hotel area we are stopped at a barrier and a sniffer dog walks around the bus with his handler. Entering the hotel we pass through an airport type screening machine. Along the routes to the tourist spots there are always armed police with flack jackets, at the tourist spots we go through the sniffer dogs again with armed police and sometimes military at the barriers. They are very safety conscious of tourism as it is their prime source of overseas income and drives their economy. Our first stop today is Saladin Citadel and the Mohammed Mosque. Saladin was well thought in Egypt as he was the one who defeated the crusaders. In modern Egypt he would be the...
Cairo 24 January temp. 21 degrees Today was a big day. We both slept well but were up at 5.30. Breakfast was good and we head off at 8 am. Our first stop is Memphis which was one of the capitals of Egypt. It is about 45 minute drive through some of the most grotty and dirty places we have seen. Our guide pointed out that a lot of the buildings have been built on farm land and they are illegal and the government does not recognise their existence. As a consequence there is no infrastructure. The inhabitants have to connect their own utilities including sewage. There are no garbage collections, so garbage and litter is everywhere. Houses/buildings are never completed because once completed taxes have to be paid. Some are being demolished but people still live in them. On the way we pass a canal, in parts you can’t see the water because it is full of floating rubbish, and then we see a dinghy with two fishermen pulling in fishing nets! At Memphis we see a large statue of Ramses II. an...
Cairo. Smoggy 21 degrees. Had a couple of hours sleep and a shower and feeling better. The flight from Dubai was ok but not as good as business class. Both flights had periods of turbulence but nothing serious. On arriving in Cairo we had over ten minutes ground travel until we reached where we could disembark. Our guide was waiting for us and three others of the group arrived on the same flight - all women. We had a 70 minute drive to the hotel. It was quite chaotic, three lane highway that had four lanes of cars and at times five lanes, they ignore lane marking. Cars everywhere and swapping lanes at will. Reminded us of Beijing. There are some newer apartment buildings, but Not much colour. Everything brick or sandstone. Everything is mostly high rise, but there appears to be a number of buildings partially demolished and people living in parts of them. We arrive at our hotel and get our first sight of the pyramids which we can see from our hotel. From the outside and foyer ...
Tuesday 22 January Egypt here we come. Went on the internet yesterday to check in for our flights. Received an offer to upgrade. After a long time of trying to convince Ann it was a good deal, ($1500 each) we took the offer and are now travelling business class to Dubai!! 🥳 . Ann is now able to tick off another item from her wish list. Ann has checked it out and it looks amazing. I did check with Kirk and he said Emirates business class was one of the best. There is even an onboard lounge where we can have a drink and relax with a few snacks, not to mention the fully reclined bed to sleep on. A great way to start our trip. We left home at 6.50 pm and were at the long term car park just before 8 pm. It was a great run in. Booking in was very straight forward not having to wait in line with the crowds. We are due to board at 9.45 pm. Left right on 10.30. Quite a number of tennis players on our flight, Cilic, Zverev and his brother, the angry Spaniard Pablo Busta and ot...
Off Again
On 22 January we head off again for a very interesting tour of Egypt, Israel and Jordan. At the conclusion of this tour we would have travelled to all seven continents. While we won't have our regular travelling companions with us, I am sure the rest of our company will be fine, but we promise not to dilute our friendship cabal with outsiders. We have a late night departure at 10.30 pm from Melbourne arriving in Dubai at 5.40 am and then depart Dubai at 8.10 am and arrive Cairo at 10.25 am. Will post as often as I can, but when we travel on the Nile the WiFi is apparently very poor and very expensive, so there will probably be a four to five day blackout (26 Jan to 30 Jan). We expect many highlights and hopefully will give them an adequate description.