Day 6

Day 6
I love the fact that breakfast was included at all of our hotels :) We ate breakfast at 6:30 and then left the hotel at 7 to tour the West bank. The west bank is the side of death because that is where the sun set so that is where all of the tombs are located. They stopped burying the kings in pyramids because it was just a big beacon to theives like - here is all the gold you could ever want come and get it... so they decided to hide the tombs in a mountain. We first went to the valley of the kings. There were a ton of tombs! we werent allowed to take pictures sadly:( The tombs were so pretty inside- all of the carvings were painted so elaboratley it was breathtaking! We went into three of the tombs- they were quite a climb and it was so hot and stuffy inside... claustrophobic for sure. The tomb that was the most famous was Tutankhamen because he put his tomb underneath the tomb of another king unknowingly because even the kings didnt know where the previous kings were buried. Because of this everything was left in tact, nothing was raided from the tomb unlike all of the other tombs which were found pretty much empty. After that we went to Queen Hetchepsuts temple. She was the only woman who was "king" of Egypt. It was so beautiful and charming I loved it- it was set in a mountain side really high up... The weather was so nice thank goodness because climbing in the heat would have been deadly. There was a nice breeze and even a few clouds. After that we went to the valley of the queens and went into two more tombs. They were pretty much the same except smaller and not as decorated. The tour guide took us back to the hotel lobby and we waited there until 4 for our ride to the bus station. We got on the bus at about 4:30- it was like a greyhound bus only more crowded and not as nice. After we had been on the road for about 15 minutes we stopped on the side of the road and I was wondering if it was a bus stop but actually everyone got off the bus, smoked 2 cigarettes and then got back on... and that happened for pretty much the entire rest of the trip... at one point I actually wished that they would just smoke on the bus because we stopped so often and the lights went on so we couldnt sleep and everyone was rustling around and they all smelled like smoke anyways so there wouldnt be that much of a difference lol. After a while the people in front of us leaned their seats back the entire way and this guy was literally sleeping in my lap- it was so claustrophobic I didnt think I was going to make it... everytime he got off to smoke I moved his seat up lol and hoped he wouldnt notice. We rode to Dahab for 20 hours... I literally thought about getting off the bus and walking, but it was the middle of the desert and I saw a dead horse lying in the sand so I thought against it. 20 hours of pure horribleness later we arrived in Dahab to a man holding up a sign that said STOM- which we believed was for us (Tom was the guy that went with us) so we followed him to our hotel called the Alaska Camp.

Day 7-
The hotel was pretty nice- right on the red sea and the room was clean. We were told that we were only staying there for the day because we had to leave at 11pm that night to climb Mount Sainai. I put on my swimsuit right away and jumped into the Red Sea. OMG! it is the clearest cleanest most beautiful water I have ever seen and probably ever will see... it looked fake no lie. We swam for pretty much the entire morning and then got some lunch at a resturaunt on the strip. I got a really good salad :) After lunch we all went back to the hotel to shower and try to take a nap. The shower was really weird. There was like a sink and potty in the bathroom and a drain on the floor and the shower was basically like the whole bathroom... its hard to explain. There were only two beds so that was pretty intersting for 5 of us lol. I decided that I didnt want to sleep so I sat in the sun and played on the wireless interent at the hotel. Then when it was getting pretty late, Bethany a girl in our group who had been having stomach problems the entire trip (i wont go into detail) was like- I need to go to the hospital. I talked to the owners of the hotel and he told me exactly how to get there and what to do. None of the other people in my group seemed to care and they said they were still going to climb Mount Sainai that night regardless. so I told her that I would take care of her even though I was really bummed about not being able to climb the mountain. We went to the hospital which now looking back on it Id rather see than the mountain anyways because Im a dork like that lol. The doctors were wearing jeans and flip flops, the bed sheets were not clean at all, but they fixed her up and we were able to get back to the hotel in time to catch the van to the mountain. The van left at 11 that night was we got to the mountain at around 1am. A guide led us up and we climbed for a good 4 hours. We forgot flashlights so that was intersting lol. The climb was so tiring I am def out of shape. There were paths in most places and rock-stairs in others but all in all it was def a treck. There were some rest places to stop along the way where you could get tea and snickers bars lol and the camel men followed you up in case you were too tired and wanted a ride. We got to see so many shooting stars, I made about 40 wishes that night I think ;)

Day 8
It was so cold on top of the mountain I could barely unzip my purse to get out my camera. We waited for about 30 min for the sun to rise. It was one of the most beautiful things Ive ever seen. The sun rising on top of the mountains. It looked like it was coming up from the middle of the earth it was so weird but really beautiful. I thought it would be a more religious experience than it was, by the end I wish that Moses had found the 10 commandments on a warm beach somewhere lol but I loved it and Im so glad that I got to experience it. The climb down only took about 2 hours and it was a lot warmer and light out so that was nice. We got to see St. Catherines Monastary which is nestled nicely in the side of the mountain, and then we were on the way back to Cairo in a van for 9 hours. When we got back to Cairo a few of us went to eat. I got some pomegranates (YUM YUM YUM!) and then we sat on the roof of the hotel and enjoyed the sunset, just chilling and relaxing which was quite nice. We showered and went to sleep because we had to get up early to go to Alexandria the next morning.