Brighter Horizons : egypt

Camels and Donkeys

walshy — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 13:47:00 GMT

Let me just say, for the record, riding a camel is really uncomfortable - particularly for a guy! In Aswan, we rode camels for 1hr through the desert to St. Simon's Monastery. This monastery was actually one of the earliest Christian churches. With the Roman persecution, many Christians we're forced to live out in the desert, so they built a monastery out of mud brick. This site isn't very popular however, because some time afterwards, all the Christians were converted into Muslims, and so the place is now a Mosque.

This is Jono on a Camel:

This morning in Luxor, after visiting the Valley of the Kings, it was time for the donkey-ride. Now Donkeys are renowned for being extremely suborn, as we soon found out! They are not grand, they are not graceful. They are just, well, donkeys! And whoever sits on a donkey, looks really really stupid:

It reminds me of when Jesus entered Jerusalem, riding on a Donkey. He must have looked so silly! Certainly, it wasn't the kind of grand entry you'd expect for God's promised King and Saviour.

Overall however, our donkey-ride was awesome. We raced them like horses through the local village, passed all the kids who were harvesting the sugar cane. Afterwards, we stopped by a street vendor to buy some Sweet Potatoes from his cart-drawn wood oven, while our donkeys decided to go for a stroll through the traffic.

Tonight, we return to Cairo. And then tomorrow I'm off to Spain! Stay tuned for more updates.

Bigger is always Better

walshy — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 13:38:00 GMT

2566 BC. That was when the first pyramids were built. Over 4 and half millennia ago. It's something that you really can't comprehend, especially as you stand underneath them. How on earth did they get all those myassive stone blocks up there! They say they made ramps of sand - but I'm still not convinced!

But the pyramids were just the beginning, as we soon found out. After our all-night train journey to Aswan, we awoke at 5am - that's right 5am - to catch our police escort out to Abu Simbel. After watching the sun rise over the Sahara desert (a sight in itself), we stepped out see this:

What's really amazing is that, when Egypt built the High Dam, they had to move this entire structure onto higher ground! Now the river Nile is quite something. Apparently in it's heyday it was over 20km wide! Imagine that much water turning into blood - it really is completely incomprehensible! This is Dad standing next to the river Nile:

Now, we are off to Luxor.

Egypt is Something Else

walshy — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 15:09:28 GMT

There is really no other way to describe it. The pyramids are something else, the markets are something else and the driving is definitely something else! They are all things that you just have to see to believe.

I arrived three days ago, stocked up with my family, my camera, and a lot of Imodium. Since then, I've seen the Pyramids in Giza, the Egyptian museum in Cairo, taken a sleeper train to Aswan (on which ironically, very little sleep was had), woken up at 3am to take a long drive to Abu Simbel, ridden on a camel and visited a Nubian village for dinner.

Overall, the Egyptian people are quite nice - expect for the horse cart guy who, on my way here, tried to scam me out of $50 with the old note swap (pounds for pents). He almost got away with it too.

Tonight we set off on a 3-day cruise up the Nile to Luxor. I'll update more later, hopefully with pictures and the like. But for now, it's time to sign off.