Souks & Sufis - The last night in Cairo

For our last night in Cairo we headed into what's known as Islamisc Cairo for one last spin around the souqs and then for a Sufi dancing show.


Valda & Delia in the Souq



Mosque in Cairo



Sufi dancing

More stars

Not sure how this will look in the internet world, but the stars were amazing... no light pollution, no moon, and more stars than I ever remember seeing. Ever.

The White Desert

And here we are, at the place that provided the reason for dragging friends and family through the sand for days on end.



Another breakdown. Nothing like a broken radiator fan in the middle of nowhere...


Mel and Delia hangin out at Crystal Mountain


Nothing in front of us but sand, nothing behind us but sand.


Amy & Delia at the "Obstacle Course"


The fine white dust of the White Desert


One of the rock features


Leave only footprints, take only photos - here are some fossils from the White Desert. I thought they looked like raspberries.


Paul & Amy


More rock features


Sunset


Cricket in the desert


Delia joining in with the locals in providing entertainment


Look carefully, this isn't a blank photo, it is actually stars. I'll blog another when I've highlighted it


Tea at dawn - Paul & Amy

The Black Desert

I was reminded a lot of the Central Plateau here. And Lord of the Rings. Must've been something about the volcanic look.

The Western Desert - The Great Sand Sea (Day 2)

I take full responsibility for our trip going into the Western Desert. I had seen some photos of the White Desert and thought that just sounded unlike any other place in the world.

Of course it's not very easy to get to so we were able to enjoy more of the Great Sand Sea.


Paul, Amy, Valda, Delia


Paul during the standing jump competition


This photo has a bit of a story. I was in the girls' van with Kay, Valda and Delia. We had a "western" tape and it had some Sinatra on it. We were all singing away to "My way" and literally as the song ended we braked on the ridge with the other trucks - the timing was rather funny.


Walk like an Egyptian - Jess, Andrew, Paul, Delia, Valda and Graham


Lunch at another oasis - Andrew, Delia, Mohamed, Jess, Paul & Mel

The Western Desert - The Great Sand Sea

Here are a few pics from the long drive from Siwa through the Great Sand Sea. It was about ten hours, a one breakdown, several police checks (I do not envy those guys, so isolated and just tourists coming through with chocolate supplies to keep you going) and a few times being stuck in the sand.


The "road"


Just one of the times we got stuck


Our lunch stop


View from the top of the lunch stop


Shells/ fossils from the lunch stop

Out in the desert (Siwa)

After a very tough morning on the bikes we headed out into the desert for a 4x4 adventure in the dunes, a swim in the Oasis (there were two and the warm spring was far more popular than the cold one, even if it was err, full of slime), some dune boarding and finally the sunset.




Our drivers



Prayer time


Delia having a swim in the cold oasis


Paul sandboarding



Dunes


Mohamed and the warm Oasis


More dunes


Sunset in the Sahara


Paul & Amy

Siwa

Siwa is an oasis town in the west of Egypt, rather close to Libya, kinda. Here's a map for a bit of a sense of geography. You might be intrested to know that when we left Siwa we headed east, yeah, over that bit with no roads...

Siwa is also a very conservative Berber town. You didn't see too many women about, and the older ones were totally covered. It was a bit odd, but as Paul and I had been to Berber towns before in Morocco and Libya I think it was less of a shock for us than some of the others.



A woman in Siwa (image taken from here)


It was a real change from the other places we'd visited, and in some ways felt like the chilled out places you get near the coast (sand + palm trees + water must be formula).

We went on a bike ride the first morning to check out a few temples and the oh-so-relaxing Cleopatra's Spring.



View from our room to the old town of Siwa


On the bikes


Mountain of the Dead


Valda and Kay being ladies who chat



Temple of the Oracle (where Alexander the Great came to find out if he was going to have children; we on the other hand just wanted to know if there was good coffee in the area).


Cleopatra's Spring


The Spring


Delia and Amy


Turns out the Oracle was right when good coffee was predicted


Fran and Amy looking very stressed while waiting for their coffees

Voyage into the Western Desert

The trip notes referred to this day as being a long drive. To be honest not too much happened. We played scrabble on the bus, read books, had roadside falafel (yum, and a bargain at 10p!).

Here are some photos from an afternoon prayer/ coffee stop. We were very close to the middle of nowhere.


Proper Egyptian coffee.


Mosque


The coffee house


The road to the middle

Alexandria

We arrived in Alex after another overnight train and what was agreed in the group as a very uncomfortable mini-bus ride. It was New Year's eve and as (due to a lost suitcase) we'd postponed the secret santa part of Christmas the group split and explored the city and trying to find markets.

Our exploring took us to the museum which had displays from all parts of the city's heritage - Egyptian, Greek, Roman, modern. We also checked out the souq which was more for the locals than the tourists and even discovered the tat-souq with all items bright, plastic and with flashing lights.

I'll need to nab someone else's photos but we had great fun with a few wines and secret santa before heading out for a fresh fish dinner (mmmm it's hard to find fresh fish in London).

After a lovely dinner with one of the best mezzes I have ever had we split again. It was New Year's eve and there was no way I was going to bed before midnight. We had been told that there were bars in Alex, we even had a map, but we couldn't locate any. Paul eventually asked a local cop by using the international "I'd quite like a drink" gesture.

We were sent down a wee side street and to an unmarked shop. Inside there was one flavour of beer, and more bottles of Johnny Walker than I've ever seen before in my life.

After seeing in the new year, just, on account of the long day and another early start scheduled we headed back to the hotel to discover how the locals celebrated - by throwing things out windows - water - food - glasses - and in one case an entire kitchen.


The view from our room - the sea yay!


Picnic on the corniche - Amy, Mel, Dennis, Kay (and the others)


Mmm fish dinner.

Medinet Habu

...and another temple... Medinet Habu which belonged to Rameses III.

 

 

 

 

Deir el-Medina - Valley of the Workers

There's no denying that the Valley of the Kings is an amazing place.

But what about the people who worked there? Mohamed suggested visiting the Valley of the Workers. Above there was nothing too interesting, but in the two tiny tombs we entered there was so much colour and life in the drawings...

Valley of the Kings

Like many things in Egypt we didn't really know what to expect. The Valley of the Kings was no exception. We were certainly in a real adventure mood having survived the donkey ride and made the decent into the valley on foot.

Our tickets enabled us to go into three tombs and our guide made some excellent choices as each was diferent from eachother. Each brightly painted and it was also possible to see the changes in the degree of detail in types of decorations over the years. It must've been quite an experience to be an early explorer and to come across the tombs - even better if you found one with treasure.

Perhaps one of the more memorable moments was, having climbed a long staircase up a cliff, wandered a passage in the light, then decended into the dark caverns, over the planks over the traps, down another tunnel into the first of two chambers in the tomb the power went out. No lights, no fans, total darkness and a lot of heat... all of a sudden the suicial donkey didn't seem to bad (although the power was shortly restored and we made it out safely and there were no replays of scenes from Indiana Jones or The Mummy).



View when walking into the valley.


A map seeing as we were not allowed to take photos in the tombs.


... the digging continues...


The view back up the Valley.

Donkey ride into Valley of the Kings

The idea of entering the Valley of the Kings was too good to turn down. Made it feel a lot more like a real adventure (particularly as my vertigo was not helped by the fact that I was sure my donkey was about to run off ovr the side of a cliff...)

We all named our donkeys, there was Simon, Eeyore, Falafel, and "Oh-my-god-stop-don't-go-there".


Valda and her donkey


Fran making her donkey look like a real show pony.


Paul and Amy


The cliff path

Luxor and the entrance to Thebes

Luxor is the ultimate places for locals hassling the tourists.


View from the roof of the hotel to Luxor Templee


Luxor Temple at night (quite a neat experience to wander the passages in the dark)


Entrance to ancient Thebes

Karnak Temple (Luxor)

Back on dry land we started to explore the temples in Luxor.

First stop was the large and impressive Karnak Temple.

The scale was very impressive, large rooms full of large pillars, giant obelisks, and the complex just went on and on and on...

It was the first time I had ever seen something of that age with so much colour. I don't think it had ever really registered before that when these temples were first built they were covered in such bright colours.


Valda and Kay outside the temple complex.


Obelisk


Another view of the complex


To get a feel for the size of these thing, think of the trunk of an 800 year old kauri...