Monday 19th February 2008

4.15am flight to Abu Simbel, so we had to get up at 1.15am. Yawn. It was worth it though. Ramses 2nd built a very impressive temple as a monument to his wife Nefertari and then built a bigger one as a monument to himself. They are the classic iconic Egyptian temple, very cool. As well as the 4 huge statues of Ramses on the outside, the sun comes in through the opening and lights up 4 statues of 3 different gods inside (Petha, Horus, Amun-Ra) and of course, Ramses 2nd himself (maybe he was insecure). Twice a year the angle of the sun only lights up Ramses, on the summer and winter solstice. The British dammed the Nile in the 60’s which flooded hundreds of archaeological sights, including this one at Abu Simbel, but they saved it by cutting the entire mountain up into 4000 huge blocks and moving the entire site to higher ground, a truly amazing feat! We hopped straight back on the plane and flew back to Aswan where the Nubians create the best quality gold in the world apparently. I don’t know about their gold quality, but the Nubian restaurant served pretty good quality food for lunch! By the way, the restaurant in question is actually on an island in the middle of the Nile; again, very cool. Drove 3 ½ hours to Luxor in a bus. Not very cool. We’re all wasted from the lack of sleep last night. Pete

Sunday 18th February 2008
Up and on the bus to the old Egypt city in Cairo. The city was only 2acres long, they said that this was where Jesus was taken after Bethlehem. They built a church where they thought Jesus once was. We went to an old synagogue, in the 60’s they discovered the 2nd most important Christian documents (after the dead sea scrolls) Then we went to Sakkara where the oldest pyramids are, there are step pyramids, the bent pyramid and the tomb of a noble man. They used to put dead bodies under their bed before pyramids, which was not very clean, so they started burying them and put a bed looking picture on top of the grave to mark it. Pharaohs wanted a bigger grave mark, so pyramids are the ultimate monument to mark a grave. Then we went to a carpet shop, the adults looked around the shop and then we went back home. Elijah

Saturday 16th February 2008
Up at 7am for a 3 ½ hour drive in the bus with everyone to Alexandria. Alexander The Great came to Egypt on a spiritual pilgrimage and absorbed much of its culture. Many of the Greek gods had their origins here and are essentially morphed versions of Egyptian gods. Eg: Zeus came from Ra. We also went to the largest Catacomb in the world. It held 400 bodies. It was discovered in the 1960’s by a farmer who’s donkey fell in the ditch! Went to Pompey’s Pillar which also had a couple of smaller sphinxs. It’s HUGE. Solid granite. Then we went to see a palace and took a drive along the Mediterranean shore line, and went to Dodi Al-Fayed’s house that was near-by. Didn’t go inside but saw out-side. Looked abit run – down and bare. Home for a quick dinner, then straight to bed. Maddi

Friday 15th February 2008
Veg day again. Today we had a nice cooked breakfast and did some maths! We also read some pages on Ancient Egyptian history. Very interesting book. Rested abit, and had some drinks down in the lobby before we met the rest of our tour group. We will be on for a three week tour with them around Egypt. Had dinner with everyone and went to bed. Maddi