Down the nile

'Sup, yo.

Sorry that I am not updating as much. It is not, as you may think, because I cannot find Internet or because it is prohibitively expensive, as neither are the case. I've been in major cities so far, and the most expensive I've found is the one I am currently on, which comes in at a whopping $2 an hour. So this is not the problem.

Time is the problem. Tours are tiring! We do so much and go so many places, and I suddenly have people to talk with that when it's the end of the day I am too darn tired to muster up the energy to post a blog. I will be better, but it's looking like, nah, pictures are going to wait a while longer. They take too long.

So anyway, the tour so far is great. It's a small group, with 4 other Americans, one Canadian and 6 Aussies, and a good range of ages. The guise is Egyptian, too, which if you are ever coming here, insist on it - that alone (besides that he is very good) is invaluable.

On the first day we went to a Mosque, to the Khan al Khalili market in Islamic Cairo, and out to dinner where I had fanTAStic ground spiced lamb. Since then, we have also:


--visited the Pyramids of Giza (taking the metro and public bus to get there, which I loved)
--gone through the Egyptian Museum (which was wonderful, if rather completely overwhelming and chock-a-block with too much stuff, though the Tutankhamun room was jaw-dropping)
--ridden an overnight sleeper train down the Nile, which I loved. I adore train travel, sleeper cars are so North by Northwest, and it was such a cool way to tool down the country
--ridden feluccas on the Nile, visited Nubian villages, and, of course, the following:

I did quite well, thank you. even though I now can safely say that camel travel is both inefficient AND uncomfortable.

Today we got up ungodly early in order to leave the hotel at 3:30 am. Yeah. We are in Aswan, but we were getting a caravan of tour vans out of town to go a few hundred kilometers south to visit Abu Simbel. Everything I've listed above was, of course, astonishing and amazing; this was so far the highlight. This temple is just magnificent, and I could have spent hours staring at the carvings on the walls. Loved it.

After, we drove back (with a driver who stayed awake nearly the whole time!) and went to the Philae temple, which is an Egyptian temple and Roman church both (Egyptoman? Romyptian?) in the middle of the Nile. Lovely way to end the day.

Except it was about 2:30. So now we've had luch, and tonight our guide has arranged a dinner at some friend's houses - the cooking should be fabulous. I will say, though, that I am looking forward to tomorrow. We get on a felucca and spend the entire day and night just floating up the Nile and reading, drinking, eating, swimming, and relaxing. Oh, so fun!

I am so glad, though, that I am on a tour. I would not be able to do what I am doing on my own, and I don't think I would have as much fun. As it is, it is already starting to get hard to deal with the scams and rip offs that are so common everywhere we go. I understand that money is so important, but on the other hand, I don't appreciate being made to haggle to use a toilet when I know what it costs, just because I am a tourist. But hopefully it is residual crankiness from being up at 3 am...