Eternal Egypt and the Nile

Welcome to a short tour of Egypt! Please consider clicking on pictures to enlarge; then simply
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My friend, Ruth Ann, with whom I've done such things as spend 39 days on an Italian freighter and I spent three weeks in February in Egypt and Jordan. Hope you'll enjoy this account!

One of the most popular things for tourists to do in Egypt is to ride on a felucca (boat) on the Nile. These delightful craft have not changed in thousands of years. They have one sail and travel by tacking back and forth on the river. It looks like so many lovely white gulls floating across the water. Here is Penny, Queen of the Nile for a day, enjoying a trip to the
First Cataract! This is a felucca, sailing near the hillside which has many tombs of ancient nobles. Note how absolutely barren the desert hillside appears---there is NOTHING growing on the desert.

One highlight for me was a hot air balloon trip, at dawn, over the Valley of the Kings. Here you see the mountains that hold the valley, where the ancient tombs were constructed, including that of King Tut and Ramses II. It was a spectacular trip---we went up to 25oo feet! (Please click to enlarge this photo---it is one of my favorites! Thanks!)

Riding camels turned out to be a great way to cross the desert from one ancient temple to another. The great lurching effort the poor beast has to exert in order to stand up nearly unseated us, but then I was able to wrap my leg around the horn and rock along over the sand in true Lawrence of Arabia style. I'm thinking a camel expedition might be fun!

This was one of the temples built by Ramses II to honor himself. It was truly out in the middle of nowhere. This was the reason for the camel ride---over the 100+ degree desert from one

ancient temple to another! Best $5 I ever spent! (Note all the resting camels in a row.)

Welcome to the Giza Plateau, where the Great Pyramid and the mysterious Sphinx have drawn visitors since they were built---four thousand years ago! It was very hot and windy on the plateau, somewhere close to 100 degrees, which was unusual for February.
You can tell the real estate was rapidly changing hands on the desert around the pyramids.

I am still pondering our visit to the area and my reaction to size of the pyramids and Sphinx. At first they didn't seem as large as I had anticipated---but when I walked along their sides and

climbed up some of the blocks of the Great Pyramid I changed my mind---Khufu's pyramid (the largest) covers 13 acres of ground and utilized six million tons of stone in its construction

Traveling through the Nile Valley was a feast for the eyes, as there were farming efforts everywhere. Egypt has 80 million people, most of whom live in the Nile Valley. Can you imagine the amount of food it takes for that many people? In this picture the water buffalo were going home from the fields at the end of the day and the poor little donkey was carrying fresh-cut alfalfa to feed the buffalo overnight.
Cairo is proud of the Mosque of Mohammed Ali---a copy of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul. The number of mosques and minarets in Cairo was astonishing. There was a minaret just outside our hotel window so we could easily hear the call to prayer five times a day!!
Cairo insists it doesn't have pollution but has moisture vapor mingled with desert dust. I'd vote for pollution myself as the number of vehicles to transport 20 million people is significant! Here Ruth Ann and I are, above the city where the air was a bit better.

You must come to visit me to see other pictures. We traveled to Alexandria where we relished the magnificent new library which has reading space for 2000 people, we spent a week on old-fashined river boats on Lake Nassar and the Nile seeing temples galore, we went to Jordan to see the ancient Rose Red City of Petra (shades of Indiana Jones!), we toured old Luxor by horse and carriage and saw city streets that haven't changed in hundreds of years, we climbed up Mt. Nebo in Jordan where it is believed Moses stood to look into the Promised Land (the Dead Sea and the River Jordan were just below us), we shopped in the suqs with their narrow streets and agressive merchants (when one bargains in Egypt you start at 10% of the asking price so it takes a long time to buy anything!), we always had a plain-clothes armed guard with us and often a police escort with lights and sirens going---nothing like announcing one's presence,right?

It was a priviledge to be able to go to Egypt and Jordan. We learned a great deal about the cultural differences between their countries and ours. We learned why Egypt has such a concern about how to slow their growing population---they simply will not be able to feed their people.

Learning---learning---learning. That is what travel is about; this trip had almost too much

to absorb but it was a marvelous experience. PS--Ruth Ann is great as a travel-mate!!!