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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...