Meeting Our Tour Group

Our driver told us about a dinner cruise which would give us dinner,  and a show.  We watched a belly dancer, and a tanoura (dervish) dancer .   The tanoura dancer twirled and twirled. He gave everyone an opportunity to dance the tanoura  and the ladies that tried would tend to fall over after only a few seconds of constantly turning.

The next day  we visited Saqqara Pyramids, Memphis (a former capital of Egypt in the days of the pharaohs), Coptic churches, and a Jewish synagogue.

We met the rest of our tour group for our trip through Egypt and Jordan. The group consists of 12 people--two from USA, one from Ireland, seven from Australia and ourselves. The fellow from California (David Mohr) speaks and knows several languages including Arabic.  He is very interested in the Egyptian people, their life styles, their history, their religion and politics.  The occupations of the people in the group consist of teachers, a midwife, a psychologist, nurses, computer linguist programmer, cargo dispatcher  and university students.

We visited the Egyptian Museum again--this time with our tour leader (Mohammad) who explained the significance of some of the more important pieces.

We, also, visited the pyramids for the second time in a more leisurely manner.  With the help and advise from  Mohammad,  we were more successful in ignoring the touts.

Laura

David Mohr

The group stopped at a papyrus store and one of the clerks explained how papyrus is made from the papyrus plant. After the stalk is cut into thin strips, the papyrus is soaked in water for seven days. Next the strips are layered crosswise with the strips overlapping a little bit, and then lengthwise.  The sheets are then compressed for seven or more days to press out all the water and dry the paper.

The group then left for the train station to catch a sleeper car for a 13 hour over night train ride to Aswan.

Julie and Karen

Jay and Brenton

When we arrived at our hotel, we freshened up, and then walked over to the unfinished obelisk

Dianne

While there, we met an Egyptian family which included grandparents, mom and dad and their ten-month girl and siblings of the mom and dad out for the day. We watched the small child navigate the stairs  with a lot of encouragement from her family.  Before, we went our separate ways, we exchanged pictures with the parents and their little girl.

Our group then started back to the hotel walking along the side of the road (no side walk).  We were strung out in a long column--David Mohr, a strikingly huge man wearing a colorful t-shirt, all of us foreigners.  We must of caused such a distraction to the drivers that one fellow with a new Toyota truck slammed into the back of the truck ahead him. The Toyota driver's vehicle was undriveable with radiator fluid spilling beneath the truck.   The back of the vehicle he hit was in pretty rough shape as well.

We visited the souq in Aswan, and picked up some pita bread sandwiches from a vendor.  The merchants sell everything--spices, perfumes, meats, candy, scarves, t-shirts, kitchenware, groceries, etc.

On the way back from the souq, in jest one of the touts offered to buy Laura (midwife from Australia) for 3000 camels.  If it had been for something of real value we would have certainly sold her off.    Ha! Ha!

We took a small boat along the Nile around Elephantine Island and over to a Nubian village for supper. We passed the Old Cataract Hotel where Agatha Christie wrote the book, "Death on the Nile". The Nubian home consists of an open courtyard with several rooms off to the side.  These rooms are used to house the family as well as the extended family during inclement weather. Because there is little rain, they eat and sleep in the court yard in general practice. They live a simple life with no furniture but rugs and pillows for comfort

Matt

Laura

In the 1980's, we were watching  the discussions about moving the big monuments and temples at Abu Simbel up out of harms way as the water in the Aswan Dam would eventually cover up them up. Tomorrow, we are looking forward to seeing these monuments of Ramses and Nefertiti.

                                                                       David Mohr