Travelling to Egypt (Pt 2)

Friday morning came, and we headed out to the venue. It was electric. We have been to several different events now and this was by far the most fun we have ever attended. They had a massive stage where people were instructing a warm-up, the music was absolutely blaring at 6am and the energy of people everywhere was awesome.

Nathanael said along the run there were bands following, music happening, encouragement throughout. He said it has been his favourite event to participate in ever. As Nathanael ran and I had two hours to kill in the middle of no where at 6am in the morning I just walked around the venue and tried all the samples and received lots of free items. Being a white woman in Egypt meant I was told how beautiful I was. It was actually very overwhelming to be stared at constantly or have people ask for photos.

Nathanael was told countless times how lucky he was. I was starting to feel a bit ready to be back in Aus where I’m just an average looking person who doesn’t receive 20 comments a day about my looks.

Nathanael finished the event and I always enjoy cheering him on and feeling that sense of accomplishment with him. Nathanael is a very simple guy that doesn’t ask for much so standing by him while he does something that makes his soul happy is a privilege. Even if it’s cold and takes hours haha.

We bought a fun board game for the girls at the event and we headed back to our hotel just in time to have their complimentary breakfast. Oh yay! With still half a day to explore before an early flight out in the morning we decided to go and visit a couple of the mosques that were recommended. Something we had heard a lot about Egypt was the scammers or people asking for money for doing little things for you. It hadn’t been too bad but these mosques were certainly places we felt this.

You were required to take your shoes off and leave them on the bench but of course, because someone is there watching your shoes you need to tip. If someone offers to take a photo, you need to tip. Someone shows you a locked room, and you tip. Someone says hello and is nice to you, a tip. Although it’s not a lot of money. Mostly 50c or so they are constantly disappointed you aren’t giving more and it’s just not a nice culture to be in where just by existing you have to tip people everywhere who then are unhappy you aren’t more generous. This got even worse in Luxor which is where we were headed to in the morning.

After the mosques, we went to a well-talked-about market to see if we could find the last of our souvenirs but after spending over an hour and a half late at night in traffic only for our Uber to break down and leave us without transport on the side of the road we were eager to get some dinner and go home to our hotel. We needed to be at the airport early in the morning as we were catching a 1-hour flight to Luxor in the morning.

Originally when doing the itinerary Nathanael suggested Luxor. I wasn’t sure about it. It was going to cost us a bit in flights and accommodation as well as several hundred on the tours but man am I so glad that we did. This is where a lot of the ancient history is and it was well worth the weekend trip down there.

Arriving in Luxor we were starving as we weren’t able to get any food before our flight, during or after. We went for a walk to apparently a close by restaurant but we went the wrong way. Walked around for a km before landing back at the hotel and ordering room service. We had a short rest in our hotel which overlooked the Nile before heading to our tour of the Eastbank of Luxor.

On our tour, we were going to see two main places these were the Luxor Temple and the Karnak Temple. These places were fascinating to see. These were temples built by pharaohs such as Tutankhamun and Ramesses II. The pharaohs were likely to be crowned here and they were built in their honour to show their wealth, status and importance.

Although some of the temples were destroyed there was plenty to see and take in. The biggest thing that struck me about Luxor was the sheer amount of colourful hieroglyphics that were crafted everywhere to share the lives of those they were built for. The detail, precision and effort that went into these everywhere was just incredible.

We headed next to the Karnak temple which as the sun was setting had a beautiful lit-up view with the Nile right there in the background. This temple was full of history and the incredible statues of previous Pharaohs that guarded the entry were amazing. It was a wonderful experience to see so much history and listen to the stories of the Gods that were worshipped and the way they used to live many thousands of years ago.

After a great and enlightening tour, we headed to a recommended place for dinner where Nathanael had camel stew and I had one of the highlights which was roasted cauliflower which I have since started cooking at home now. We finished and headed to bed because even though it would have been nice to have long sleep ins with no kids and relaxing mornings we were there to see and do and that is what we did.

We were up and ready to go at 4:30am to catch a taxi to the boat that would take us across the Nile. We then took another taxi out on the Westbank to the hot air balloon complex where there were dozens of hot air balloons set up. Having never done a hot air balloon ride before we weren’t quite sure what to expect. It was actually a bit scary but absolutely beautiful at sunrise to experience. We thoroughly enjoyed it and the much cheaper price tag that came with doing it in Egypt than Australia and landed in a field of sugar cane where our driver had been following us to transport us back to the boat, back to the taxi, back to the hotel.

We had about 45 minutes then to eat at the buffet breakfast (which was better than the one in Cairo but definitely not what we have here in Australia) and then shower and get ready for an 8-hour tour. Ready to go at 8:30am we headed off to the Westbank of Luxor to experience lots of places but mainly the Valley of The Kings & Queens.

Essentially these places were tombs for the Kings and Queens (Both actually at separate locations) where upon being crowned a king, workers would start work on the king’s tomb and depending on how long you lived would depend on how long and grand your tomb was. In these ancient times, they believed that after you died you would one day come back again and when you did your memory of your time here on earth would be erased. This is why they spent years writing hieroglyphics from the tip of the ceiling to the floor, the entire way down 100m+ tombs underground so the person could read about their life and who they were and what they did. They also buried them with their treasures so they would have wealth too.

It was just such a fascinating concept and to be able to walk underground in these tombs and see the pictures and colours on the walls was surreal. Each one was different as some didn’t live as long but there are about 60 tombs that have been discovered so far and they believe there are still plenty more to be discovered as they are missing several dynasties.

Throughout this day on the Westbank, we were able to see the Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens, Temple of Hatshepsut (Hot chicken soup as the tour guide called her), Hebu Temple and Deir El-Medina.

By the end of the day, I was absolutely shattered. Still dealing with the end of 1st trimester and walking 10-15km every day, early starts day after day, the last couple of places for me were experienced through Nathanael’s camera lens as although I am content with seeing 70-80% of a building when my legs don’t want anymore. Nathanael is more of a 100% building type person so while I sat he went and took photos to share with me of the very back corners of the building that I was ‘missing’ out on.

We arrived back at the accommodation around 4:30pm and had a short break and I suggested we catch a taxi down the street to get some dinner. Nathanael said let’s just go look at the Nile and take a little walk as we hadn’t done so yet. I told him to promise me that it wouldn’t end up with us walking all the way to the restaurants. Yeah, one guess for you to find out how that went. Haha.

As we were walking we were approached as usual to take a felucca ride. We were so over being harassed for a horse ride, taxi, and felucca that I threw out a ridiculous price for an hour session. Surprisingly the guy agreed as because of the war in Gaza tourism was incredibly slow for them in Egypt and in particular Luxor so most people were just trying to make enough money to feed their families.

I said to Nathanael how is this going to end? We have offered him a really low amount and I know he will want the full regular payment somehow. Well after not so great wind and a short 20 minutes (instead of the hour) the Felucca ride was over and so really his hourly rate was the same we just only did a 1/3 of it. I laughed and told him I knew somehow he would figure it out but it was great. It was getting late and I wasn’t so keen on an hour anyway so we got to experience it and he got what he wanted.

After a final meal in Luxor we headed back to the hotel, packed our bags as we would be….you guessed it, leaving early the next morning for a flight back to Cairo.

We woke up the next morning and had our buffet breakfast before heading to the airport. Upon leaving the taxi I went to grab our passport bag out and get it ready. Oh no, it wasn’t in my bag. With our flight leaving in 90 minutes, Nathanael paid the taxi driver extra to take him back to the hotel we had checked out of, get a key back into our room, get our passports which were safely in the drawer and return to the airport. They didn’t have online check-in available and due to security measures would not let me even enter the airport to tell the airline that we were at least here. We didn’t have bags to check so I just need them to know we were here but I wasn’t allowed in.

All was well. We made it on the flight, got a row each to ourselves and landed back in Cairo to have our worst dealing with trying to get a driver to the hotel. The number of drivers that would accept our request and then tell us they were here when really they hadn’t driven at all and were expecting us to meet them somewhere in a busy airport carpark was crazy. 30 minutes later and we were on our way.

This was our last day in Egypt as at 2am in the morning we would be heading to the airport for a 4:30am flight to Israel. We spent the day packing up our bags and heading to a laundry place to have our washing done for the next part of our trip. We could have had time to go to the museum that afternoon but really, we were exhausted! We decided to just have a casual few hours, get one last Abu Tourek meal and call it the end of our Egypt chapter.

We definitely saw some incredible things during our week. History that you can’t get elsewhere and that is so rich with culture and purpose. We also didn’t enjoy Cairo city for the hecticness, dirtiness and overall quality of life. So with memories to take with us and photos galore, we were ready for the next part of our trip. Israel, The holy Land or for me…..’ Jesus Land’.

Thanks for sharing in our journey of Egypt. It was super fun travelling down memory lane and to relive some of these incredible moments.

See you in ISRAEL,

Love Sarah Kay, xx