Delightful Dahab

The following takes place on Days 193-197, June 8-12, 2011

For Mick, Arnold, and I, the next day was fairly uneventful. As Vitaly and Ying had left the night before and with no actual tour for us, we had the day completely free. We took the opportunity to walk to the Luxor Museum to check that out as it hadn’t been on the itinerary for our tour. Finding it turned into a bit of a challenge as the road it was on was currently under construction/repair so it deceived us into thinking we couldn’t walk that way. Added a good half hour to our search.

When we did find it and went inside we were all pleasantly surprised. Sure, it was a bit smaller than the museum in Cairo(and more expensive), but it had a semblance of order. All the pieces were in their place with placards explaining their significance. It even had the mummy that had been rediscovered in a Niagara Falls museums back room.

We spent a good few hours there before heading back to the hotel where we spent the rest of the day by the hotel pool, with me meeting a family from England who gave me a few beers for free. Before we knew it though it was time to head to the train station. Arnold had the sitting train back which left half an hour before the sleeper train that Mick and I would be on.

Hanging out with dead people

The following takes place on Day 192, June 7, 2011

Luckily, for the five of us, we didn’t have to get up so bloody early on this last official day of our tour of southern Egypt. And when I mean not so early, I mean 7am. We had breakfast in the hotel which came with the room(omelette’s made to order, OJ, sausage, potatoes, etc.) and crawled into the van. Today’s journey would take us to the West bank of the Nile and into the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens.

1 Temple, 2 Temples, 3 Temples, 4.

The following takes place on Day 191, June 6, 2011

Considering the temperature didn’t go much lower than 28 degrees that night on the felucca, I slept surprisingly well. Even the fact that we pushed off from the rivers edge and the sun had risen didn’t completely stir me awake for a good hour. I don’t even recall if I stirred an inch the entire evening, the sleep was that restful. When I did wake, and I wasn’t the last one awake mind you, we still had another half hour or so of sailing before we got to the meet up point with the van that would take us the rest of the way to Luxor.

Little did I know how long of a day it was going to be.

Sunrise to Sunset

The following takes place on Day 190, June 5, 2011

I am not a morning person. Far from it. So when I realized that the second day of the tour required us to be awake and in the lobby by 5am, I was not a happy camper. I am much more of a night owl and have a hard time forcing myself asleep before midnight. But in order to get to the temple of Abu Simbel on the shores of Lake Nasser before it got too unbearably hot, we had to leave by 5:30am at the latest.

It used to be that in order to go there, one needed a police escort the entire way. They seem to have disposed of this in favour of a simpler stop check. If you go to Abu Simbel, your bus stops, the police take account of all who are on it, give the driver a form and then, after the tour in Abu Simbel, another stop check checks to make sure you didn’t take on any additional passengers. Mainly, illegal immigrants from the Sudan which is just across the water from the temple.

Democracy’s birth, Temple’s legacy

The following takes place on Days 188-189, June 3-4, 2011


One of the more interesting side notes that Israa had mentioned was that the revolutionary protests still happen on Friday’s.While not as large as the ones that initially sparked the full out revolution, the protests still draw large crowds of people who are keeping the pressure on the military leadership and to help promote the dozens of newly cropped up political parties. Coming from Canada, where political apathy has reached an unbearable high and the idea of actually being thrilled to have a say in your government is about as exciting a prospect as watching paint dry, I was excited to see the revolution taking place. To finally see a group of people excited to have a democracy and demanding a say.
Canada can certainly learn a few lessons.

The Wonders of Egypt

The following takes place on Day 187, June 2, 2011

Lets face it. The number one reason the majority of  people go to Egypt in the first place is to see the pyramids. And, like it or not, the tourism industry in Egypt knows this all too well as well. A quick search on getting to the Pyramids ourselves and dealing with haggling for taxi rides or manoeuvring on the Cairo bus system showed Mick, the Australian I met that morning, and myself that taking the offer from the hostel of a free guide was a huge savings. Though, mind you, the free tour and guide came because we had ended up booking a tour with the hostel down to the Luxor/Aswan area.

From Hippy to Revolutionary

The following takes place between days 184-186, May 30 – June 1, 2011

Even though I still felt queasy and tired from the food poisoning, I still managed to get up and leave the hostel in Essouira in time to catch my bus that would begin probably not so much the longest travel day of the trip, but certainly the one with the most connections and distance. 

It started off with a bus from Essaouira to Marrakech where I would switch to a train for Casablanca. As the Casablanca airport is so far out of the city, I would then need to take a separate train from Casablanca back out of the city to the airport. Considering I had at least 7 hours to wait for my flight, I initially thought I could store my luggage at the Casablanca train station or something and run off to see the 3rd largest Mosque in the world, and also one of only two in the country that allows non-Muslims to visit.

Sometimes, though, things don’t necessarily turn out the way one plans.