Egypt

Date: 22 April 2009 14:17:34

Well, The Mister and I had a truly amazing trip to Egypt, and finally I have uploaded some pictures. Egypt is one of the most incredible countries I have ever been to, not least because when you arrive you are greeted by the insanity of Cairo traffic. I never thought that driving could be so bad and so fast and... well... just... so everything! For me, there were a couple of highlights, driving through the desert in the early morning, watching the sunrise and then arriving at the extraordinary temple of Abu Simbel. It was amazing, not only because of the original art work and statues, but because the whole temple was moved in the 1960's as it would have been flooded when they built the High Dam. It was an amazing place. The other highlight was going to the Pyramids at Giza. I thought that they would be a bit of a disappointment as we went there very last. However, although they were not highly decorated like the temples and they didn't have amazing huge statues etc. they were still incredible. The sheer size of the place and the physical presence of them was incredible. As we were so early we managed to get tickets to go into the Great Pyramid. They only let about 120 people in each day and to get to the burial chamber at the top we had to climb a rickety path right the way through the centre of the pyramid. It was the most eerie experience, and we finally reached the burial chamber which had only a stone sarcophagus in it, it was barely lit and extremely spooky! It was a fantastic trip but totally exhausting. Most of our days started at about 6am in order to get the majority of our sightseeing done whilst it was cool, and also it meant we avoided the crowds of tourists. It was such an amazing trip, and it was lovely to spent proper time with The Mister. Here are some photos... if you click on any of them it will take you to Flickr where you can see hundreds more!!