We left San Diego early in the morning on December 21st and flew to London Heathrow, with a transfer in Texas. Slightly disappointed that we had to change planes in Texas… I had previously vowed never to visit. We flew from Heathrow to Istanbul, then to Cairo. Our flight to Istanbul was delayed an hour, so we had to run to our flight to Cairo. We landed in Cairo around 3am, only to find that ALL of our luggage had been lost. We had four bags between the three of us (I had two for London). After trying to work with the airport staff to locate our luggage, we finally left the airport for our hotel, the Mena House Oberoi. Luckily I had my carry-on with all of my clothes for Egypt. Dad and Jan were not so lucky, and had to wear the same clothes for our entire stay in Egypt. While in Egypt I roomed with Nile’s friend, Angeles. She is from Northern Spain.
The first couple days in Cairo are a bit fuzzy because I was so jetlagged. December 23rd (the day we landed in Cairo) was a very short day. I got into my hotel room, took a shower, and fell asleep until 6pm. Got up, got ready, and met Nile, Christopher, Kostya, and a bunch of their friends in one of the hotel’s bars. After having some drinks (coke light cough cough) and getting acquainted with everyone, we moved the party into the hotel’s Indian restaurant. We took up nearly the entire restaurant. Out party consisted of probably 40-50 people. Dinner was amazing and it was fun getting to know many of Nile’s friends from Egypt. I was exhausted by the end of the evening, and slept like a mummy!
Had to wake up early though the next day. Christmas Eve! Dad, Jan, and I went to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo for a couple of hours in the morning, then met Nile and the rest of the gang back at the hotel to walk up to the pyramids! Our hotel was right next door to the pyramids (only a couple minutes walk from the entrance). We met a man in a suit at the gates, and he led us into the pyramids, past “security” and without having to buy tickets. We then got to meet the director of the pyramids. That was pretty cool. We then were given a tour of the pyramids and the sphinx. That was a lot of fun! We went inside the biggest pyramid. It was very cramped, hot, humid, sweaty, stinky, and not a trek I would want to have to make everyday! I was slightly caught off guard by how plain and ordinary the inside of the tomb was, just a large rectangular stone room. All of the treasures had already been removed obviously, just was expecting more ornate wall carvings or something. We then took a camel ride! Camels are nasty, mean animals. They snarl and growl at you as you walk by. My camel was foaming at the mouth. His name was Moses, but I rechristened him Chauncey. I like to think that we bonded as we trekked through the desert. Some miscommunication with our camel guides left us to walk back across the desert to the pyramids; luckily it wasn’t an awfully long distance. We walked some more around the pyramids, then headed down towards the sphinx. As we got to it, they were closing it down, but our elite guide got us in. The police continued to hassle us to leave, but our guide would just show them his cell phone, and then they would recognize him and back off. It’s like he was saying “Do you really want me to call the director?”. We were the last visitors around the Sphinx. Instead of exiting near the Sphinx like the other tourists, our guide led us back up towards the pyramids. Many police tried to stop us, but our guide would either ignore them, or just wave his cell phone at them. We were the last tourists around the pyramids, so we got some great photos of the pyramids without anybody in our frame! Headed back to the Mena House, then went to my grandfather Sayed’s sister’s house for tea. After we went a market/bazaar and haggled with the shopkeepers. They are intense hagglers! Good thing I am so stubborn! We ended our day at a café drinking mint tea and enjoying some shisha.
Merry Christmas! December 25th feels so weird in Egypt. We hardly acknowledged the fact that it was Christmas. I was kinda sad not to be home with my mummy. We didn’t have much time to do anything celebratory anyways. We took a twelve hour car ride through the desert to get to Dahkla Oasis. It was pretty amazing driving through the desert for so long. Sand, dirt, rock, sand, dirt, rock… and then all of the sudden an oasis. Pretty cool! We stayed at Al Tarfa Desert Sanctuary. Wael and Mona, friends of Nile, own the place, and it is beautiful! Everything is very natural and earthy, yet luxurious at the same time. We drove in late, and were served a delicious multi-course meal. We started with the best pea soup! Everything was simply fantastic.
The next day at Al Tarfa, Wael took us on a journey through his property in the Oasis. He owns much more land than just the hotel property. There are multiple farms on his property, and he says one day he hopes Al Tarfa will be self-sufficient. Right now it produces about half of its vegetables etc. It was very hot out during our hike, and as we climbed over one minor sand dune, the most wonderful sight greeted our eyes. They had arranged an umbrella, chairs, bar, and bartender for us. We sipped cool drinks in the shade while overlooking the land. It was fantastic.
The next evening we took a car trip through massive sand dunes in the oasis. We drove to the top of the tallest sand dune to find another prepared scene for us – umbrella, chairs, drinks, and bartender. Wael never ceased to impress. Amazing! We sat on the sand dune and watched the sunset. Spectacular!
We spent a total of three days at Al Tarfa. Every moment was amazing, and the service was fantastic!
We left Al Tarfa the 28th and drove to Luxor. We arrived in Luxor rather late, and struggled to find our cruise boat. We drove back and forth along the water. Finally Christopher and Angeles jumped out of the car and found our boat. Apparently the boats are stacked, so you have to walk through two or three boats until you reach yours. Very hard to find yours if you can’t even see its name! Our boat was called the Crown Prince.
Our boat organized our itinerary for us, so we had to wake up at 6 or 6:30am everyday! They were insane! I was exhausted by the end of the day.
Our first day we went to the Dandara Temple. It was amazing. It is one of the most intact temples in Egypt. It still has its roof, which is pretty rare. In the afternoon, our ship was to go for a three hour sail along the Nile, but we opted to stay in Luxor. We went shopping to find Dad and Jan some normal clothes to wear. This was very hard to do, unless of course you enjoy wearing a jellabiya.
All of the shop owners – specifically tourist shop owners – are very annoying and aggressive because they yell at you to look at their shops. They practically chase you down. Same with the horse carriage drivers and taxi drivers. We would walk by one carriage and he would yell for us to ride, then the guy right behind him would do the same. Do they really think we would choose that guy any more than the first guy!? So annoying. Not to mention it is a terrible sales technique. They intimidate their potential customers, and scare them away.
In one instance, (and I’m not quite sure how exactly it happened) we were so fed up with all of the horse carriage drivers yelling at us that we hopped on the back of a donkey cart. Somehow, as we were walking along the sidewalk, my dad starts talking with two men sitting on a wooden cart being pulled by a donkey. Next thing I know, my dad has hopped on the back of the donkey cart and tells Jan and me to hop on. I was slightly confused, but hopped on nonetheless. They ended up taking us to our boat. It was hilarious! It was super bumpy. They went much faster than the horse carriages. Traffic in Egypt is insane, so at one point we were face to face with the grill of a giant tour bus. They don’t give you any room! The funniest part was watching all of the reactions of the horse carriage drivers. They were in complete disbelief that these two workmen were able to give us a ride, when they do not normally work with tourism. Everyone got a good laugh, and I got a great video!
So…. My dad sold me! He sold me to some guy for two camels and a pack of beer. I’m not quite sure how to feel about that. The young man however said that he thought I was worth at least 1,000 camels, so I guess that makes me feel a little better.
The second day in Luxor we went to the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens. Both were very interesting, but the Valley of the Kings was too crowded. That evening we went to the Luxor museum. Saw some very scary mummies. They gross me out. We went to the Karnak sound and light show. I didn’t think it was very cool. Definitely something you can skip. I fell asleep during the last part.
New Year’s Eve. We went to the Karnak and Luxor Temples. Karnak is much more interesting in the daytime. It is massive. It covers so much land! We went to a suik and did some shopping. I went with Nile, Christopher, Kostya, and Angeles to some guys spice shop. It was amazing. It smelled so good! The walls were lined with jars and containers of different spices. It was very colorful. The owner told us every spice name and brought most of them down for us to smell. My two favorites were the vanilla and the curry. The curry powder was mouth watering. I tasted the vanilla and it kind of numbed your tongue. It didn’t taste very good. We celebrated New Year’s Eve on the boat while sailing to Edfu. It was pretty funny watching so many different cultures celebrate. People are funny. Since most of Egypt is Muslim, they don’t seem to think that Christmas celebrators separate Christmas from New Year’s Eve, so upon our entry to the bar on the boat, a very scary Santa greeted us at the door. Imagine a short, yet large, Egyptian man dressed in a red Santa suit, but wearing a scary, demonic, plastic Santa mask. Enough to give a grown man nightmares. The evening was pleasant though.
Despite many people partying to the wee hours of the morning, they still made us all get up at 7am to go and see the Edfu Temple. I was exhausted, but didn’t want to miss out! We sailed up the Nile again to the Kom Ombo Temple, then boarded the ship again to sail to Aswan.
In Aswan, we visited the unfinished obelisk, the High Dam, the Philae Temple, and the Aswan Botanic Garden. We stayed in the Basma Hotel our final night in Egypt.
January 3rd was a wonderful day! We finally got to sleep in! I woke up on my own at 10:30am! It was very nice! Flew from Aswan to Cairo. At the Cairo airport we were finally able to be reunited with all of our luggage! It was a joyful reunion. It was very frustrating not knowing were it was for so long! We then flew from Cairo to Istanbul to Heathrow. From Heathrow we flew to Barcelona to visit Jan’s twin sister and her family.
After the NatGal we were planning on running a few quick errands to get some school supplies, etc. We stopped by Covent Garden to go to this store called Lush. It is fantastic! Smells so good. It is a soap/bath product store. Really cool. We bought some awesome things… shampoo bars for backpacking (one bar lets you wash your hair about 80 times, and you don’t have to worry about liquid with going through customs), lotion, and I bought two presents for my mummy dearest! It was a lot of fun. While there, this one sales guy was helping us out and we got talking with him. He was born in the UK, but moved to California when he was young. Upon graduating high school in the States, he chose to move back to London. He is our age. He was very nice. As we were leaving he told us he got off work in an hour, and asked if we wanted to grab a drink after. We spent the next hour wandering around Covent Garden. We went to Ben’s Cookies, a cookie store that a lot of the girls at the Centre have been raving about. I didn’t find them as great as they said they were. They were good, not great. Just an overpriced cookie if you ask me. We then met Kevin back at Lush and we walked around the city. We went to a pub/bar to grab dinner. It was a much different pub/bar than the ones we had previously gone to. It had a more modern feel to it. I had the best veggie burger! After dinner we walked around the city. He said he really liked playing tour guide, so we all had a lot of fun. We walked along the river. It is beautiful at night. Everything has lights, but the fog gives it some misty edge that is lovely. I couldn’t help thinking of the movie Taken when we walked under a dark bridge. It only made me laugh out loud for a moment, before the thought left my head. We came back to the centre later in the evening. Had a great day. We got Kevin’s information, so we may hang out again. It’s nice to have “local” friends. I don’t like to play “tourist”.
In the evening we gathered a group of girls and went to see Sherlock Holmes. We walked down the road to the Coronet Theatre. (Mondays are student night, only 3.50 GBP!) The Coronet is amazing! It is an old historic theatre, so it has multiple levels and balconies for each screen. Very cool! The movie was really good, and showed a lot of locations in London! Haha a little bit into the film, we realize that someone in the theatre is continually yelling something. It sounded like the guy was saying "Woof"! Listening harder, we realized that he was in fact saying "F*** Off!" every minute or so. We think he had tourettes, because this went on for the entire movie. It was pretty strange. 
