It was this week in 2010 that I boarded a Vancouver flight with Lufthansa and flew to Frankfurt, transferring there and on to Cairo, Egypt and to say it was a 'trip of a life time', is an absolute understatement.
I've said before, I am so fortunate and so thankful of my childhood... The long, sometimes excruciating drives across the continent and back, allowed me to see and get to know over 40 US states including Alaska and New Mexico. Traveling a lot will introduce you to so much culture and broaden your horizons, being able to see the Grand Canyon, Meteor Crater in Arizona, Mt. Rushmore, Mt. St. Helen's, Death Valley Arizona, to see all those places and so many more with my own eyes and not through some National Geographic documentary or book. Those Summers put the 'travel bug' in me and Dad was kind enough on a couple occasions to pay for my train ticket, so I've seen all of Canada (except NFLD & NS) by rail.
Traveling alone was no big deal to me, I'd traveled as a kid, as I said, on the train, on the bus and on the plane by myself. I'd taken trips to Washington State as well as Oregon state on my own and in 2010, after I had received some inheritance money, I decided I wanted to go some place special. But I didn't want that 'special' trip to be something 'usual', like going to Cuba or Mexico or Europe (not that there's anything wrong with those places)... In fact, it was a fellow patient at the outpatient physiotherapy that I went to who gave me the suggestion of Egypt.
One day while pondering places with my physio, the lady in the bed next to me said, "What about Egypt?" and that hit me like a bolt of lightning! "YES! What about Egypt"!!!
I had read and been bitten by the ancient curse of the ages since I was a young kid. Egypt captivated and enthralled me. I read all I could about the place as an added bonus, during my teens my favorite band in the World, 'Iron Maiden' did an album which had a few songs about Egypt and the ancient place, where 'Eddie', their mascot, had been put through the rites of mummification and was resurrected there!
And even before my trip there I had several books on ancient Egypt in my library.
So I did some investigating and I could do a 'Grand Egypt Trip' through Avalon Waterways, a tour company known around the World, they do 'boat tours' of Europe, China and now, Egypt isn't even on their list anymore, which is sad, as from what I've been told by people I know who have gone to Egypt since the 'revolution' say it's fine, just use caution.. Our tour had an armed security detail with us at all times... In fact and I'm super proud of this lol. In Alexandria, in freaking Alexandria, one of the oldest cities on the planet, I had a double armed escort to an ATM! Two dudes, who took Men In Black a little too serious, with not hand guns, but assault rifles were like clearing people out of the ATM room lol... Anyhow. when I went to Egypt, before I left, I had checked and there were more travel warnings for Mexico than there were for Egypt.
So with Avalon's tour, we had just under 3 weeks, we had a cruise on the Nile river for almost a week during which we would 'sail' at night and then show up at a new city or village, disembark to see the sites and then back onboard for supper and evening... Which was, again, mind blowing....
One of the only times and things I regret, was being 'alone' on the Nile river as a full Moon rose over the palm trees and sand dunes in the background... Probably THE most romantic scene one could see lol and I was *singing* "All by myselffffff".... But it was still cool nonetheless.
So off to my travel agent and she hooked me up. I was staying in 5 star hotels the whole tour, my first hotel was the grandest, the world famous 'Mena House' which was built as a hunting lodge in 1890... Presidents, Royalty and celebrity's have stayed where I did and Oh my gosh was the place grand! And because I was travelling alone, I got a room in the old part of the hotel, while the rest of my group were put up in the high tech new and modern part of the hotel... The difference? I had a patio that stepped out onto a private deck and the fucking Giza pyramids were RIGHT THERE!
Because I flew in at night, I had NO clue about this, as I was beat from near 20 hours of travel... Anyhow, the video will show..
Now about this video, it's frantic and frazzled, as I was. I was using the video camera to take photo's, so you might wonder why there's not much to 'see'... It's more about the trip, than the trip lol...And everything was happening so fast, I was overwhelmed, I mean, I was in fucking Egypt! Sometimes the brain was just trying to compute that this was reality.
And sadly, I lost the last day or so of the trip. When I got home from Egypt a few weeks later I took a trip home to New Brunswick and on my way, lost the camera.... I was pissed, Air Canada would do NOTHING for me.. So someone probably got themselves a nice SONY handicam... Maybe even marveled at my home movies of Egypt and I think my Iron Maiden excursion might have been on their too. It was a real bummer.
At the end of the trip was the city of Aswan and we stayed on 'Elephantine island', which has a bird preserve on it, as well as about 200 or so cats!
Also, because I was in Egypt AS the Revolution was ramping up, things started to happen, like increased security forces, more visible military and on our last day and night in Cairo, the Egyptian government had shut down all social media and email. No FB, no Twitter, no Snapcrap or whatever it's called and yeah not even Hotmail/Outlook or Gmail. There was nothing scary about this situation nor did I ever feel once that my safety was at risk.... Actually, that's not quite true...In.. Hmm, I think it was Luxor, we had gone to a museum and when the bus had parked, we had parked on a narrow street and the building was quite close to the road... As the bus parked, we had a narrow sidewalk/corridor to walk down to the entrance of the museum... So, being at the back of the bus (where all us 'cool' folk hung out), we disembarked via the middle door of the bus... As we exited, to our left and right stood some local security dudes, each with an automatic rifle.. So, we turned and headed toward the museum entrance.. All of a sudden *CLACKITTY CLACK!!!** We all jumped and turned to see that one of the 'security' guys had dropped his fuking rifle... We all kinda looked as shocked as the next person, wiped the sweat from our brows and continued toward the museum... *CLACKITTY CLACK!!!* AGAIN! the SAME guy dropped the rifle twice! That coulda gone off and shot any one of us, but, the 'Gods of Egypt' were with us and we made it out and into the museum sans bullet holes!
Here's a link to my Youtube Playlist of the trip. If ya don't wanna watch it, you can go to my Facebook page and under 'Photo's/ then 'Albums' scroll down and you should come across I think 3 galleries of Egypt trip pics.
[Just a note about the videos, the 'first day' in Egypt is footage of the fucking Mena House hotel. Because I had never traveled internationally and with my arthritis, I wanted to give myself a good 24 hours before the tour started, so I came in a full day earlier than the rest of my tour group and didn't venture far from the hotel grounds because I was alone - ALSO, the footage can be a little 'blurry'. I didn't realize that I had the footage set to a lower resolution until AFTER the trip]
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8455FB6BBAF5174C
(Yes, my videos, back then, had an 'Intro', a friend of mine from a forum I used to frequent wrote that intro for me... I know, it's annoying, you can skip past it, I won't be offended lol)
The trip was absolutely, by far, THE best 'trip//Journey I've ever been on. Had such a great time and saw so many mind boggling and wonderful things.... I know it's impossible, but everyone should be able to experience a place like Egypt, as it's part of the dawn of our civilization.
Fun fact, did you know that the time of Cleopatra is closer to our time now than she is to when the pyramids were built?
It's easy to forget just how 'ancient' some of the temples and structures in Egypt are because they look so 'modern'.. So fantastic... And it is forever etched into my soul.
Luxor temple... Luxor was the 'highlight' of the trip.. Yes, Cairo is beautiful, is Alexandria, they both have amazing sites, but nothing compares to Luxor and Karnak temples. I actually got a little weepy at karnak because I just couldn't believe I was there.
I've said before, I am so fortunate and so thankful of my childhood... The long, sometimes excruciating drives across the continent and back, allowed me to see and get to know over 40 US states including Alaska and New Mexico. Traveling a lot will introduce you to so much culture and broaden your horizons, being able to see the Grand Canyon, Meteor Crater in Arizona, Mt. Rushmore, Mt. St. Helen's, Death Valley Arizona, to see all those places and so many more with my own eyes and not through some National Geographic documentary or book. Those Summers put the 'travel bug' in me and Dad was kind enough on a couple occasions to pay for my train ticket, so I've seen all of Canada (except NFLD & NS) by rail.
Traveling alone was no big deal to me, I'd traveled as a kid, as I said, on the train, on the bus and on the plane by myself. I'd taken trips to Washington State as well as Oregon state on my own and in 2010, after I had received some inheritance money, I decided I wanted to go some place special. But I didn't want that 'special' trip to be something 'usual', like going to Cuba or Mexico or Europe (not that there's anything wrong with those places)... In fact, it was a fellow patient at the outpatient physiotherapy that I went to who gave me the suggestion of Egypt.
One day while pondering places with my physio, the lady in the bed next to me said, "What about Egypt?" and that hit me like a bolt of lightning! "YES! What about Egypt"!!!
I had read and been bitten by the ancient curse of the ages since I was a young kid. Egypt captivated and enthralled me. I read all I could about the place as an added bonus, during my teens my favorite band in the World, 'Iron Maiden' did an album which had a few songs about Egypt and the ancient place, where 'Eddie', their mascot, had been put through the rites of mummification and was resurrected there!
So I did some investigating and I could do a 'Grand Egypt Trip' through Avalon Waterways, a tour company known around the World, they do 'boat tours' of Europe, China and now, Egypt isn't even on their list anymore, which is sad, as from what I've been told by people I know who have gone to Egypt since the 'revolution' say it's fine, just use caution.. Our tour had an armed security detail with us at all times... In fact and I'm super proud of this lol. In Alexandria, in freaking Alexandria, one of the oldest cities on the planet, I had a double armed escort to an ATM! Two dudes, who took Men In Black a little too serious, with not hand guns, but assault rifles were like clearing people out of the ATM room lol... Anyhow. when I went to Egypt, before I left, I had checked and there were more travel warnings for Mexico than there were for Egypt.
So with Avalon's tour, we had just under 3 weeks, we had a cruise on the Nile river for almost a week during which we would 'sail' at night and then show up at a new city or village, disembark to see the sites and then back onboard for supper and evening... Which was, again, mind blowing....
One of the only times and things I regret, was being 'alone' on the Nile river as a full Moon rose over the palm trees and sand dunes in the background... Probably THE most romantic scene one could see lol and I was *singing* "All by myselffffff".... But it was still cool nonetheless.
The full Moon rising on the Nile river. November, 2010
So off to my travel agent and she hooked me up. I was staying in 5 star hotels the whole tour, my first hotel was the grandest, the world famous 'Mena House' which was built as a hunting lodge in 1890... Presidents, Royalty and celebrity's have stayed where I did and Oh my gosh was the place grand! And because I was travelling alone, I got a room in the old part of the hotel, while the rest of my group were put up in the high tech new and modern part of the hotel... The difference? I had a patio that stepped out onto a private deck and the fucking Giza pyramids were RIGHT THERE!
Because I flew in at night, I had NO clue about this, as I was beat from near 20 hours of travel... Anyhow, the video will show..
Now about this video, it's frantic and frazzled, as I was. I was using the video camera to take photo's, so you might wonder why there's not much to 'see'... It's more about the trip, than the trip lol...And everything was happening so fast, I was overwhelmed, I mean, I was in fucking Egypt! Sometimes the brain was just trying to compute that this was reality.
And sadly, I lost the last day or so of the trip. When I got home from Egypt a few weeks later I took a trip home to New Brunswick and on my way, lost the camera.... I was pissed, Air Canada would do NOTHING for me.. So someone probably got themselves a nice SONY handicam... Maybe even marveled at my home movies of Egypt and I think my Iron Maiden excursion might have been on their too. It was a real bummer.
At the end of the trip was the city of Aswan and we stayed on 'Elephantine island', which has a bird preserve on it, as well as about 200 or so cats!
Also, because I was in Egypt AS the Revolution was ramping up, things started to happen, like increased security forces, more visible military and on our last day and night in Cairo, the Egyptian government had shut down all social media and email. No FB, no Twitter, no Snapcrap or whatever it's called and yeah not even Hotmail/Outlook or Gmail. There was nothing scary about this situation nor did I ever feel once that my safety was at risk.... Actually, that's not quite true...In.. Hmm, I think it was Luxor, we had gone to a museum and when the bus had parked, we had parked on a narrow street and the building was quite close to the road... As the bus parked, we had a narrow sidewalk/corridor to walk down to the entrance of the museum... So, being at the back of the bus (where all us 'cool' folk hung out), we disembarked via the middle door of the bus... As we exited, to our left and right stood some local security dudes, each with an automatic rifle.. So, we turned and headed toward the museum entrance.. All of a sudden *CLACKITTY CLACK!!!** We all jumped and turned to see that one of the 'security' guys had dropped his fuking rifle... We all kinda looked as shocked as the next person, wiped the sweat from our brows and continued toward the museum... *CLACKITTY CLACK!!!* AGAIN! the SAME guy dropped the rifle twice! That coulda gone off and shot any one of us, but, the 'Gods of Egypt' were with us and we made it out and into the museum sans bullet holes!
Here's a link to my Youtube Playlist of the trip. If ya don't wanna watch it, you can go to my Facebook page and under 'Photo's/ then 'Albums' scroll down and you should come across I think 3 galleries of Egypt trip pics.
[Just a note about the videos, the 'first day' in Egypt is footage of the fucking Mena House hotel. Because I had never traveled internationally and with my arthritis, I wanted to give myself a good 24 hours before the tour started, so I came in a full day earlier than the rest of my tour group and didn't venture far from the hotel grounds because I was alone - ALSO, the footage can be a little 'blurry'. I didn't realize that I had the footage set to a lower resolution until AFTER the trip]
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8455FB6BBAF5174C
(Yes, my videos, back then, had an 'Intro', a friend of mine from a forum I used to frequent wrote that intro for me... I know, it's annoying, you can skip past it, I won't be offended lol)
The trip was absolutely, by far, THE best 'trip//Journey I've ever been on. Had such a great time and saw so many mind boggling and wonderful things.... I know it's impossible, but everyone should be able to experience a place like Egypt, as it's part of the dawn of our civilization.
Fun fact, did you know that the time of Cleopatra is closer to our time now than she is to when the pyramids were built?
It's easy to forget just how 'ancient' some of the temples and structures in Egypt are because they look so 'modern'.. So fantastic... And it is forever etched into my soul.
Myself and 'Doris' from New Yawk city! Her and her sister had me laughing the whole trip. Here we're at the Aswan dam, built by the Russian's and Egypt between 1960 and 1970. Doris was 85 years young on that trip.
In front of the Great Pyramid of Giza. Holding a copy of the 'Burnaby Now!' A local paper in my neighbourhood, that had a 'Trip section', so I emailed them my photo and this appeared in the paper before I even got back, which freaked out my travel agent because her office was just around the corner from me.
Do I need to even explain this one?
A bunch of Egyptian school kids decided they wanted to be in my picture... So, hand on my wallet lol, we all posed.
Dipping my hand in the highly polluted Mediterranean sea. After I returned from |Egypt, I dipped my hand in the Pacific and then within that month had dipped my hand in the Atlantic.
Making sure it's 'real' in Karnak Temple
Obelisk in Karnak temple. Construction at the complex began during the reign of Senusret I in the Middle Kingdom and continued into the Ptolemaic period,
The only 'known' female Pharaoh's temple, Queen Hatshepsut. The enormitty of this complex does not shine through photo's.
Temple Edfu, the temple or Horus
Temple kitty... Spirit of a long past pharaoh? I loved seeing all of the animals on our tour. LOADs of free range temple cats, lots of weird looking dogs... I was saddened that all of the 'wildlife' you might expect to see in Egypt is gone. On the banks of the Nile we only saw donkeys and cattle. Some cranes and other birds.
Temple in Aswan
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