In September, anticipating that we would want to escape the cold of London's winter, we booked to go to Egypt for Christmas. The closer it got, the more anxious we became about the idea of traveling to Egypt with Charlie wondered if we had made the right decision given the different stories about people getting sick (with "Pharaoh's" belly). However, once we got there and into the swing of things we had a great time and fortunately none of us got sick and came back in one piece!
Our first stop was Luxor and we arrived on the evening of the 22nd Dec. We stayed at
Mara House which was brilliant - a neighbourhood location, off the tourist track - and Mara herself made our stay very comfortable with Charlie and gave us great advice on what to do in Luxor.
We realised that the way we normally sightsee and explore new places would need to change now that we are travelling with Charlie. So on our first day, we didn't rush out after breakfast but after Charlie's morning nap we went for a walk into town.We had a long distance look at
Luxor temple and the Nile. I had been told by friends who'd visited Egypt that you get hassled a lot so we were bracing ourselves but I didn't think it was too bad. No worse than cyclo drivers chasing you around Saigon although we did have one hantoor (horse & cart) driver who was pretty relentless in following us around and bargained himself down from 5 Egyptian pounds down to 1 Egyptian pound to drive us around for an hour. He walked next to us in his cart and when we crossed the road he followed and just went against the traffic in his cart. We were totally uninterested, especially as we had been warned that once you get in they take you to their 'friend's' shop or give you sob stories about their families to get more money out of you.
Luxor Temple... Charlie missed out as he was asleep under his hat
Nile with a felucca in the background...
That night we decided to do the light show at
Karnak temple. It's a very touristy thing to do but was quite interesting and atmospheric at night. We were hoping to go out for dinner afterwards but Charlie got really restless (typically, right in the middle of the quiet bits!) and so we went back to Mara House and had takeaway again.
On Christmas eve, we went on a day trip to
Abydos and Dendarra. Abydos was the first stop and it was quite amazing to see the amount of hieraglyphic carvings in the stone. Some whole sections were done in relief and were even more incredible.
Abydos Temple
Relief carvings
Hieroglyphics
One of the carvings that is talked about a lot contains what looks like a helicopter and submarine (or spaceship) which you can see in the picture below (I pinched this from the wikipedia page). It's hard to imagine what else they could be other than what they appear to be today.
Christmas day saw us visit the Valley of the Kings (which was incredible) and then an early dinner (around 5pm) and early to bed.
Howard Carter's (explorer who discovered Tutankhamum's tomb) house near the Valley of the Kings...
Charlie, looking at his first Christmas tree...
We then went on to Cario for two nights. The main attractions were, of course, the Great Pyramids, the Egyptian Museum and the
Khan el Khalilli souk in the Islamic area.
Cairo would have to be the dirtiest city I have ever been too. The roads have dirt and rubbish piled up in the curbs and the buildings look like they have centuries of dirt plastered all over them - they probably do! The traffic is ridiculous - so many cars on the road and crazy drivers. In many of the large intersections there were police directing traffic in addition to perfectly functioning traffic lights. Drivers don't seem to pay much attention to the lights or the policemen, they would just do what they wanted. For example, we saw about 5 or 6 lanes of traffic ignore a set of red lights and just keep going despite the fact that they were on a red signal. One gutsy driver, who had been waiting on the green signal, just decided to launch into a real life version of Frogger and edged his way across these 5 or 6 lanes of traffic to get to the other side - this was all before the police finally decided to step in and lend a hand.
The Great Pyramids/Sphinx by camel...
Charlie's first swim... in the pool at our hotel in Cario. He wasn't that excited much to Nick's disappointment ;-)
Our next and final destination was Sharm El Sheikh. A significantly quieter and calmer place than Cairo. After a short flight we were in our hotel and sitting by the pool. Charlie went for another swim here with Nick.
By the water at the resort... no swimming due to recent shark attacks :-(
Sitting poolside in Sharm El Sheikh
Charlie chilling in the pool...
