Putting the gypt back in Egypt

Our Egyptian adventure draws to a close as tomorrow we fly on to London! The past 2 weeks have been an intense combination of frustration, amazement, good times, and a little bit of illness.

We spent about half a week in Cairo with Lori feeling a little ill but thankfully recovering quickly, yay Cipro! We did all the must-do's including riding camels at the Pyramids, hitting the Pharonicly overloading museum with a vast amount of amazing historic pieces arranged in no particular order, and dodging insane traffic. Apparently the only reference to road rules in Cairo is in jokes, no joke.

We left Cairo behind via the day train to Luxor where some of the most amazing constructs of the ancient Egyptians still stand, as well as the Valley of the Kings and Queens, the burial tombs of the most important rulers of the Egyptian civilization. It is also home of the most deceiving and pushy touts to ever walk the planet. Upon arrival we were litterally attacked by them. One guy claiming to be the "manager" of the hotel we were staying at. He tried to work us good, but upon telling us that he "had a big group show up unexpectedly" but he "knew a good hotel that he could take us to" we were on to him.

Luxor is an amazing stop for Antiquities so we took a few days to see the Temple of Luxor, the stunning temple of Karnak with its pillar forest in the Hypostyle Hall, 3 of the tombs at the Valley of the Kings, (which we could not photograph) as well as 2 in the Valley of the Queens (no photographs), and the restored temple of Hatshepsut.

Unfortunately the sights seem a lot less amazing with someone hanging off each of your arms demanding money for unwanted fanning with cardboard pieces, or suggesting nice views for pictures in return for money, or getting into your pictures and expecting money, or just plain trying to get your attention so that they can find some way to get your... money. Walking around the town itself is no less a hassle as every shop you pass includes someone showing you the same junk every other shop has and trying to drag you inside with a broad range of different tactics. Rest assured, each one has the "best price." Luxor, home of the big Hassle.

Anyhow, from there we switched gears from antiquities and moved on to beaching it at the Red Sea. We headed over to Hurghada and then caught a ferry over to the Sinai penninsula and went up to Dahab. Dahab has a very nice vacation set up. Excellent diving and snorkelling, and the usual water activities with some of the most stunning water we've ever seen. Unfortunately, we were so scared of jelly fish that we didn't get as much out of our snorkelling as we'd hoped. But what we did see was just incredible.

From Dahab we had intended to go see the St. Catherines monastery and climb Mt. Sinai, where Moses recieved the Ten Commandments from God. However, series after series of mishap leads us to believe it was not to be so. Our bus to St. Catherines, the last day we could go, was broken down, and then the overnight tour which we booked turned up misbooked at the last minute leaving us with no tour at all. Which was actually probably for the good since we both got ill that night anyhow. So, we spent our 2 lost days in Dahab and then bussed our way back to Cairo underneath the Suez, no less!

With 3 weeks remaining in our entire trip, things are quickly winding down! Tomorrow we fly on to England where we will road trip around the countryside for a week and then its on to Scotland where Lori's parents will be meeting us! We probably won't have another post until we return home, so, thanks for adventuring with us!

Best of the Worst (and Best) Part II

With 5 weeks left in our trip we are overdue for a "Best of" post. It looks like our 4 part series is going to become a 3 part series. Apologies to Norah, who has been waiting for this post for 3 months.

Food (Lori would never let this category go away)

Best Dessert

• Lori - Chocolate Lava Cake in Te Anau, New Zealand. Enough said.



• Dan - Yogurt Cheescake at the food court in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Who knew a food court could be so good, but if you're going to order it pronounce it, 'shogur'.

Most Unpalatable Meal

• Lori - Battered everything meal in Melbourne, Australia, just what the body needs before going to sleep on a Ferry.



• Dan - Valdivia boat cruise. See picture in this post. I think the picture says it all.

Unexpected Food Moment

• Lori - Free chocolate samples in every chocolate shop in Bariloche, Argentina, and there are a lot of them.



• Dan - The meat man in the park in Bariloche, Argentina. I think it might have been all about the sauce.

Accomodation

Most Syrian Prison like

• Hands down, Bahundanda on the Annapurna Circuit. White washed walls, wicker floor and ceiling about, 5 feet high, and wooden cots. Thankfully we were allowed out of the room.
  

Most 'Rustic'

• Little Swan Port, our second week of volunteer work in Tasmania. Our accomodations were advertised ahead of time as 'rustic' and that certainly hit the mark. We're talking basically camping in an 1834 brick building. This didn't trouble us much as we brought our tent, but the occasional screams due to creepys from the brick building let us know what we were missing.

Best Toilet

• Lori - The Jailhouse in Christchurch, New Zealand. Unfortunately we arrived too late to really enjoy our accomodations. The barbed wire in the toilet seat prompted Lori to make this category.



• Dan - Attached squatter in Manang on the Annapurna Circuit. I love the squatter, the fact that we had our own was just awesome, and also, I had to put something in this category.

Adventure

Wildlife

• Lori - Wallabies in Tasmania, at first you might just see one and say, 'oh cute, a wallaby,' and then, you'd look again, and see them everywhere!



• Dan - Condors in the Colca Canyon, Peru. Their curiosity making them swoop low over the crowds gathered to check them out caused screams. An amazing bird.

Most Near Death Experience

• Dan - Its hard to choose from the wide array of near misses: dodging low lying power lines on top of the bus from Pokhara to Besi Sahar; sitting on busses being fueled while running; dodging cows and traffic while riding a motor bike in Nepal; but I think the one that stands out most in my mind was the 10 meter ride down a very large fallen tree we were scrambling over on the Overland track in Tasmania. I managed to fall off before hitting any major obstacles on the tree itself and before hitting the lake and into some brush, thankfully containing no snakes, and thankfully breaking no limbs.


• Lori - Surviving the miserable Paso John Garner was bad enough, but adding insult to injury with a 5 meter mud slide down incredibley steep terrain and potentially breaking something on a tree was enough to prompt some pretty bad language.

...the pictures are back

Hello from Cairo! We arrived here early this morning after 2 days and 3 painful flights. We killed our last couple days in Nepal taking pictures with temporary cameras and dodging offers to sell us dope and coke. Aparently I look like the type... We then actually took advantage of the duty free services of Bangkok and bought a fancy new picture machine! From there it was to London where we had 10 hours of layover to kill. We felt so worn out we just decided to fritter away time at the airport rather then go into town. However, we cut our time in Egypt back a week giving us a chance to bum around England 2 weeks from now.

Today, we're beating the heat, and that includes some time in the internet cafe, so here are the pictures we took from our awesome Himalayan experience. Thankfully we had one card that included the first 2 weeks of our hike when the camera left our lives...

Lori offers prayers at one of the many bhuddist prayer wheel set-ups which got bigger the more we climbed into areas of Tibetan influence.

Dal Bhaat, it may be bland, but it fills you up. Dan scarfs down a truly Nepali meal after a long day of hiking.
Traffic Jam on the Annapurna. One of the MANY pony caravans we encountered, not only do they deliver supplies up the trail, but they give the trail a nice musky scent!
A view of the Annapurna Massif from Manang. Our favorite stop on the hike, unfortunately we missed the Manang archery competition.
Lori loves the tiny goats.
Yak heads, we bought one for everyone we know.
Stupa? Gompa? We're still not totally clear on that.
Buckwheat fields and rice paddis oh my.
Not Yaks, Naks...and Pat thought I just made that word up.
At 4500m, our last picture before the pass. It was a little cold.