Alexandria was an incredibly beautiful city and one of my favorite things about the trip.

It was a long day (and it was going to continue to be a long day), but still the actual tour around the city was relaxing and peaceful.  We had a different tour guide this time, Hazem, who was great though we missed Sherif terribly.  The bus ride was three ( Read more... )

The day of the Valley of the Kings was really dusty.  Not too hot (just yet), but pretty dry.  We had been pretty lucky with the weather the week we were there--most days were hot, but breezy enough that it wasn't an issue.  There were only a couple of times I seriously thought I was melting and was going through several liters of water a day.  We ( Read more... )

The next morning, we went to visit the temple at Edfu.  We had an earlier than usual wake up call and we sorta complained about it, especially since breakfast wasn't going to be after the tour (there was a tea & coffee service before), but in the end we really appreciated why it was done.  Sherif told us he wanted us to be one of the first groups ( Read more... )

The Abu Simbel trip was optional and before we went, I was debating on going.  I really don't have extra money to spend, but what the hell, I'm already there and everyone who was just finishing their tour as we were begining ours said it was worth it and who knows when/if I'll get to come back, so I paid for it.  I'm glad I did.  It ended up being ( Read more... )

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I'm gonna umm, go out on a limb here and say that I didn't think the Pyramids of Giza or the Sphinx was all that great.  It felt sorta anti-climactic seeing them.  I was far more impressed with all the temples we saw later in the week and was amazed at how much more the next one topped the last.  In any case, it was still great seeing the Pyramids ( Read more... )

I usually can't sleep the night before a flight, both domestic and international.  Even if it's just a short flight, I end up staying awake.  Part of this is me procrastinating on packing even though I can usually do that in fifteen minutes, the other part is just a general paranoia of missing the flight, and to a much smaller degree for the longer ( Read more... )

The day after Machu Picchu, Jackie was flying home, while Doan, Edwin, and I were off to Manu Jungle.  We took a small private plane out there, which was all kinds of awesome.  Aside from the two pilots, it was only the three of us on there.  We felt pretty special, actually.  The mountains looked gorgeous from the plane since we were flying a ( Read more... )

On our fourth and last day, we were up super early.  We were told the night before that we couldn't be late on this morning.  The porters had a train to catch at 6:30 am and absolutely couldn't miss it.  Otherwise, they'd have to wait until later in the day and pay their own fare, besides missing a day of work.  We were packed and at breakfast by 4 ( Read more... )

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