Egypt is HOT

No, I mean REALLY hot, a heat like I’ve never before experienced. No, seriously, you can’t comprehend how hot it is – I am not exaggerating or kidding – we rode camels in the desert of Aswan at somewhere around 130F. I actually didn’t know that it was possible for human beings to survive temperatures that high. I spent the entire time concentrating on not throwing up and not passing out and falling off the camel. Later that day, local temps read 60C – which is 140F.

Besides the unbearable heat, Egypt is amazing! I definitely recommend coming to visit when they aren’t having a record breaking heat wave. January or February is probably quite nice.

In Cairo, on Sunday, we visited the Egyptian History Museum, which houses an incredible collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts (including King Tut’s complete tomb!). It’s crazy to see 4000 year old things up close and personal that I’ve only previously read about or seen in photos. Unfortunately, many of the monuments and museums do not allow any photography inside, so I only have a few pictures from outside the museum. (Well, ahem, maybe I tried to sneak a couple of pictures with my iPhone that didn’t turn out great. Here is a mummy of one of the ancient queens and a mummified doggie.)

After spending several hours at the museum we made our way to the Great Pyramids of Giza. It’s a little strange to be driving through the suburbs of Cairo and see one of the Great Pyramids poking out from behind some buildings, but Cairo has grown right up to the borders of the area. Once we entered the pyramid area, however, it was like being transported to another world. Those suckers are huge!!!

We went inside the medium sized pyramid, the one behind the Sphinx – it’s nothing much inside, just some long narrow tunnels that lead to a room with a coffin. But I can now say that I’ve been inside an ancient pharaoh’s tomb in Egypt!

After the pyramids we stopped for some delicious falafel and then on to a papyrus factory, where we learned how the ancient Egyptians used the papyrus plant to make paper. We got to try it out for ourselves, then did a little shopping for some lovely paintings on papyrus paper. Since I have a little collection of art from most of the countries I’ve visited, of course I had to make a purchase here!

Sunday night we made our way to the train station to take an overnight sleeper train to Aswan. I’ve never been on an overnight train before! I had my own cabin and the 12-hour ride was pretty cool. All of our cabins were right next to one another, and there was an unintentionally retro Club Car a couple of cars down – it was too smoky for me to hang out for long, but I did get one surreal picture that kinda captured the spirit of it all.  From the left that's Nathan, Brian and Spencer.

This morning (Monday) we arrived in Aswan, which is a small town right on the Nile in the far south of Egypt. It's picturesque and much calmer than crazy Cairo - these two photos are the view from the rooftop of our hotel.  We checked into our hotel, showered (which I have since realized is a pointless venture because the buckets of sweat start pouring as soon as you get out), and then took a little motor boat over to the west side of the Nile. This is where the desert camel ride in the ridiculous heat happened, and I honestly don’t remember most of it due to the previously mentioned concentration on not fainting and not throwing up. We rode (for what seemed like hours, but I think it was only 30 minutes) out to a sixth century monastery called St Simeon.

I asked Mudi, our guide, to make my camel go faster for the return trip, so he tethered my camel to the back of his and we literally galloped through the desert back to our boat. This entire experience would have been a lot of fun if my skin hadn’t been hot enough to bake cookies on. The boat took us to Kitchener Island, which contains a botanical garden where I sat on a bench in the shade and tried to regain consciousness while everyone else walked around.

After shade, lots of beverages, and dumping a liter of cold water on my head and torso, I was feeling much more human when we re-boarded our boat and made it over to a Nubian village where we met up with a very nice man and had a delicious lunch in his house! It was awesome (the food, the village, the company, the experience – all of it!)! One of the Nubian ladies came by and gave us all henna tattoos.

Tomorrow morning we wake up at 3 AM to join a caravan down to Abu Simbel temple. Apparently, Abu Simbel is out in the middle of nowhere, so the Tourist Police of Egypt require all tourists to travel in an escorted caravan to the site for safety reasons. Otherwise, the road to Abu Simbel is deserted and if your vehicle breaks down you’re screwed. Unfortunately, the caravan leaves at 4 AM! But we just have to wake up, board the van, and then sleep for the 2-3 hour drive to Abu Simbel.  Good night!