Day 2-5 :)

Egypt Day 2
We woke up pretty early and went to breakfast on the roof of the hotel  We ate some bread rolls that were really good… they had like baked tomatoes and peppers and cheese into the bread rolls (yum) and we also drank some Egyptian tea. There was a car waiting for us around 7 am so we all headed to it and went to Geeza. The pyramids in Geeza are the only left standing of the 7 wonders of the ancient world. All of the others haven’t survived the time so that was pretty cool to see. The pyramids are huge and sooooo beautiful. We got to climb them a little ways, and we got to go inside one of the smaller ones (it was basically just an empty room). There were a ton of men offering camel rides but no one was brave enough to take one and I had forgotten to take my allergy pills that day lol. Then we went to see the sphinx… it was a lot smaller than I had pictured it, and it was sort of damaged like the nose was missing and the lion legs weren’t in tact… I don’t know I guess I just pictured it to be different- but it was really neat to see anyway. After that we went to an Egyptian cotton place, and a papyrus place. Watching how they used to use the papyrus plant to make paper in the ancient times was really interesting. The plant is also really symbolic, its on the top of a lot of the columns in the temples that we went to see. We ate lunch which was amazing! A lot of the food comes with the meat on the side  Lunch consisted of fresh baked pita bread and things that you can put inside it like hummus and veggies and feta cheese- it was so tasty. The served figs for desert which I think I like as well. After lunch we went to Memphis to see the statue of Ramses- it was massive I have no idea how they carved the single piece of granite so perfectly. It was definitely a work of art. After that we went to visit the step pyramid Saquarra, took a couple of pictures, and then went back to the hotel. Our train to Aswan left at 6 pm that night so we packed our things and headed to the train station. The fact that train stations smell like urine is universal btw lol. The train wasn’t too bad… the seats were nice. It smelled like smoke which was pretty gross, and the bathroom was SO disgusting… I held it for like 13 hours! I slept and read most of the train ride which was pretty nice.

Egypt Day 3, 4, and 5 1/2
Our train arrived in Aswan at 8 in the morning. There was a guy there waiting with a sign to pick us up. He lead us to a hotel lobby to wait until our tour started. I showered in the hotel lobby bathroom lol  We sat around for a little while and then went on a tour of a dam that was built to stop the nile river from flooding and to allow irrigation for farming, and also went to a temple that was on an island. It was SOOOOO hot I really couldn’t even pay attention to what the tour guide was saying… definitely a scorcher. After that tour the guide dropped us off at a boat. As part of our 10 day tour we decided to take a boat ride up the nile river from Aswan to Luxor. I had NO idea what I was getting myself into. When we arrived at the boat I thought it was so cute because it was a traditional boat that the Egyptians used to use back in the day. I thought that it was going to take us to our boat- one of the many cruise ships that line the Nile River in Egypt. How wrong I was… the captains introduced themselves and started putting our bags underneath the deck  The boat is called a felluca… its basically a floating mattress with a sail Im not kidding… there is no bathroom, no kitchen, no below deck, no beds, no nothing. We (the 5 of us) were stuck on this floating mattress for three days, basically hardcore camping on the nile. The first afternoon we sailed for a while and took cat naps until the captain fed us lunch. We were starving because there was nothing to eat on the train!!! It was pita bread with feta cheese and cucumbers/tomatoes. Then we sailed for a little while longer. It gets dark pretty early in Egypt so we had to stop sailing pretty early. We docked at some village place along the nile and got off the boat. The captain led us to his house to have dinner with his family. I have to say that this is one of the most interesting cultural experiences of the whole trip. His house was more like a compound of a bunch of houses that his extended family shared. When we walked into the front gate I couldn’t help but thing of Willie Wonka. In the courtyard there were like 3 queen size beds with blankets spread over the spring and like 5-6 people sleeping end to end in them. Its so hot inside the houses at night that most people sleep outside. We helped his grandmother stir the meal and then all went to sit down in the eating room. They layed out a prayer mat on the floor and we all sat in a circle around the food and ate with our hands. It was pita bread (a staple like rice is in Ghana) and rice and there was chicken and veggies- it was really really good! I think I could eat Egyptian food everyday and not get sick of it! After dinner the family smoked hookah- a water pipe for flavored tobacco- and then we went back on the boat to sleep. The bugs were pretty bad, it got super chilly, and there was a donkey tied up on shore that made it his life goal to make sure that every time we were about to fall asleep he’d hee-haw, but other than that I slept fine lol. We woke up in the morning to watch the sunrise and then we all went on shore to pee- ikr! I told everyone no one would believe I lived like this for 3 days lol. Then we changed into our swimsuits and went swimming for a while which was pretty nice. I shaved in the nile river lol- princess ;) and then we got back on the boat to start sailing for the day. Breakfast was pita bread that was dipped in egg and then deep fired in oil and served with jam. We got down to swim again at like 5pm which they consider lunch time and met up with some other felluca goers from Holland and Canada who were doing the same thing. We also ate dinner (chicken and rice) with them later that night. After dinner the captain parked the boat and we played some games that you would play while camping, and told jokes and scary stories. The captain talked about all of his experiences (mind you Im pretty sure the captain was about 22-23 years old so he was a kid). He talked about being in the Army (In Egypt at least one son from every family has to be in the army for two years). But its really horrible so people try to get out of it by cutting off their trigger fingers and swallowing rope so it looks like they have intestinal worms- apparently its really really bad. Then we went to sleep in pretty much the same conditions as the first night. I forgot to mention that we ran out of bottled water so we were also REALLY REALLY thirsty at this point. The next morning we woke up and ate the same breakfast before heading to our final destination.

Day 5
Of course there was some random guy waiting on the banks with a van ready to take us on a tour of the east bank of Luxor. (The East bank of the nile was thought to be in the ancient days as the side of life because theat is where the sun rose, and the west side is the side of death-where all the tombs are and everything). I felt so gross, I wanted a shower soooo badly. We went to two temples and then they took us to our hotel called Emilio. It was really nice, to me it looked like at least a 4 star hotel. We ate some noodles called Kosherie for lunch, showered, and then went for our next tour to the temple at Karnac (62 acres, biggest temple in Egypt) and then to the Luxor temple. When we got to the Luxor temple it was getting dark so they had the lights on at the temple which made it look really amazing. After the Luxor temple we all grabbed some ice cream and then went back to the hotel to check out the pool on the roof- omg it was so nice I want one when I grow up! We walked around the city that night and explored a little bit which was really fun. We went to a bakery and got a bunch of cheap snacks, and then we went back to the hotel and went to bed.