The End

Quite possibly the worst part of any travel is the end. After almost 30 hours of flying, we have reached the end of our trip and arrived in Los Angeles this morning. However sad we are to have ended the most incredible time of our lives, we are glad to be home, glad to be with our loved ones, and glad to be able to drink water from the tap without worrying how our intestinal fortitude will fare.  We would like to thank everyone for reading our blog and supporting us during our sojourn. Sorry the pictures are coming to an end.

Love

Chelsea and Rusty

"I have just what you are looking for" or doing just about nothing by the Red Sea

     Marinating would be the proper descriptor for what we did while on the Sinai peninsula. We parked ourselves in a dirt cheap, incredibly spartan hotel room a stones throw away from the beach, and did mostly nothing for about a week. It was a delight, I will not write too much because there is a person smoking a poop flavored cigarette next to me and I want to run away.

Each afternoon when we rolled out of bed we would walk down to the local falafel stand and order a "mixed falafel sandwich" which consisted of two pita breads, hummus, cucumber, tomato, lettuce, beans, green chili, garlic mashed potatoes, falafel, scrambled eggs, and tahina (sesame paste). Needless to say, one sandwich satiated us for most of the day.

View of the Red Sea from near our hotel. You can see Saudi Arabia in the distance. The water was crystal clear.  After a leisurely lunch on some pillows in the shade we would walk down to the water a swim around a little. We bought a snorkel mask and would dive a bit too, you can see at least 60 feet in the water with the most incredible reef and fish all around. 

We we situated in the shadow of Mount Sinai as the backdrop to our oceanic retreat.

There was a lovely boardwalk in town that was home to a gaggle of overpriced restaurants ( at least to our standard).  It was fun to walk around there as there was a lot going on and we were constantly being told that the owner of the restaurant had exactly what we were looking for.

The area that we were in suffers from ambitious developmental issues. Everywhere along the coast are the not ancient remains of failed hotels and beach resorts. Walking away from the strip is like walking into some post apocalyptic world with concrete remains of some better past littering the beach. 

We walked to the next, not so touristed town, from where we were staying and found a small restaurant that was serving fresh fish from the fish mongers next door. For about 15 dollars we had an amazing meal. We were given roasted eggpant, baba ganoush, Salad, and hummus to start. 

Then we were given spiced rice and a whole fresh grilled grouper to share. The fish weighed like 2 pounds and was uber good.

We developed a small addiction to ho-hos while lounging by the beach. The shop next to our place kept a substantial stock of them at a whopping 10 cents a piece.

Thus ended our glutonous and slothful season by the red sea.

Luxor equal sign HOT

Our first attempt to take a train from Aswan to Luxor was rudely interrupted by our getting kicked off of the "local" Train. For some reason travelers are not allowed to take these trains, they say it is for our own safety, but I think that it is so they can make more money by charging the tourists an outrageous price. We were able to jump on the next train 7 hours later and we were on our way.

Upon arriving, we were greeted by a slew of men wanting us to stay at their hotel. We kindly declined because this is one of the biggest scams we ran into. Taxi drivers along with random "touts" on the street would take us to a hotel and tell the person at the front desk that they guided us here and then demand a tip from it. Thus making our rate go way up! As we started to walk away one man followed us because we were going in the direction of the hotel he was trying to sell us. Then another guy walked up and the first guy punched him in the face and screamed at him in Arabic. We then said we are definitely NOT going to your hotel. A little bit of a weird experience, but I think we are so used to weird things happening that it doesn't phase us anymore. We really enjoyed ourselves in Luxor, aside from the Heat. It is amazing to think how old the ruins are here, and that they were such a powerful and advanced civilization. I have only one recommendation for Egypt: Do not go on a tour to Egypt, go on your own, explore it for yourself and try to really imagine the civilization with out being herded around the "important" sites.

This is at the Temple of Karnak

As we are walking into the temple there is a row  on either side of Ram sphinxes, pretty amazing what great condition they are still in.

this is all that was left over of a statue, for an idea of how big this statue was: my head just reached the toes. That Ramses really outdid himself with this one- too bad it fell apart...

Scarabe beetle- in Egyptian tradition the beetle is thought to be good luck

It was also said to help with fertility. This is me walking around the statue 7 times- that is what all of the  local people said to do, I think they just like to watch the tourists make fools out of themselves.

We couldn't resist- These are the longest dread locks either of us have ever seen.

The Great Hypostyle Hall- 134 Massive pillars dedicated to Amun- Re

It was sad to see that when the Christians came through Egypt they hacked at the faces of a lot of the hieroglyphs 

The two birds represent the god Horus- the god of the sky. and the center is the Ankh the symbol for eternal life. This symbol is seen in most of the hieroglyphs.   

This was interesting, this Christian art is painted over the Egyptian art.

I think this was the back entrance to the Temple, this doorway was quite big.

Me sizing up the columns from the great hall

This is Ramses getting ready to cut off someones head- I think this was to show how much power he had.

Really? when you go to Luxor do not dress like the lady in white on the right side of the picture, it was horrible for the rest of us.... gross

In front of the Temple

This is in front of the Luxor Temple, this is the foot that is missing its body.

Ramses and either his wife Nefertiti 

Ramses

This is a statue of Ramses and his first wife when they were 13!

The main walkway at Luxor Temple

Rusty experimenting with the SLR in one of the tombs- It was completely dark in this room and he told me to run from one side of the room to the next and this is what came out.

We found it interesting to see graffiti from explorers of the past...

Valley of the Queens- Queen Hatshepsut's Temple

main walkway in the Luxor Temple

hanging out in the courtyard of the Luxor Temple

Rameses put his sculpture everywhere in the Luxor Temple

A close- up of Rameses

Queen Hatshepsut- You can still see some of the paint on the hat.

This umbrella I purchased in London came in handy in Luxor to keep the sun off.

Queen Hatshepsut's Temple

Inside Hatshepsut's temple

In front of Queen Hatshepsut's Temple

The Colossus of Memnon

Horus

Me and Horus

Colossus of Memnon

We thought these slug hieroglyphs were interesting, i don't think of slugs when i think of Egyptian hieroglyphs...

Front entrance to Temple of Karnak

Ramses statue in Temple of Karnak

Temple of Karnak

Rusty in front of one of the pillars in the Great Hall

Temple of Karnak

One of the little rooms that they would worship in. Can you see Rusty in this one??

Temple of Karnak

Yet another set of feet, however this one was still attached..

us in front of the sacred pool at Temple of Karnak

In front of the temple of Karnak ruins

The back entrance of the temple

Rusty and the statues

A pitch black room, rusty's face is hilarious. These rooms were a little eerie to be honest...

Luxor Temple- Ramses statues

In Front of the Temple of Karnak

We rented bikes to ride around in Luxor, I thought  it might be too hot, but it wasn't too bad

Eating yummy Egyptian food. Beans, Hummus and chicken stew

Rusty and the infamous foot

Luxor Temple

Queen Hatshepsut temple

Ramses and Rusty

An interesting Hieroglyph 

In the Courtyard of the Luxor Temple

The Front of the Luxor Temple

Ramses Head

This walkway goes from the temple of Karnak to the Luxor temple. They are about a mile from each other and  the walkway if lined all the way with ram sphinxes 

Our Trusty Bikes