Venus Hotel Luxor

... hang up which meant that we wanted the taxi to pick us up. Whilst we were waiting a young fella came by with his cart of nuts. His name was Rajhad and he was selling nuts during the day to send money to his family as well as earn money to become a tour guide. He has great passion for his country. Lovely fella – we had a good laugh with him. Back to Mara's where we fell into an exhausted sleep as usual.

... to Cairo! I went back down to McDonalds during the break to grab some chicken nuggets for dinner [that and a drink was about 33 pounds] since I was getting a little burned out on Middle Eastern food and did not want the horrible food that is served on the train. We then headed to the station and caught our train and promptly passed out without dinner making our way back to Cairo and ending our time in Pharonic Egypt. Onward to Islamic and Coptic Egypt and to Arabia!

... and cooling down and reading up on our destination tomorrow.
I couldn't face much of dinner due to unsettled stomach..didn't drink any tap water I swear! Dan has the same problems, lucky we have medical supplies ..although 6 Gaviscon tablets later and Dan is still in some pain. In search of milk, our tour guide Mohammad gave Dan a ranitidine tablet and that seems to have done the trick. Late start tomorrow morning with 7am wake up call :)

... It was 100 more pounds per person to get in. At the start of our trip our travel agent Tim at STA Travel sold us two student and youth traveler ID cards which we had not used since our very first day in Auckland, but here admission is half price for all students. I wasn't going to skip the mummy room at the Cairo Museam! It was pretty cheap of GAP to not include that on our tour...oh, but I have more stories like that to come....UGG.

Actually, I forgot ...

... into hummous. Today, we are in relaxation mode. Bonnie is at a museum nearby while I am worshipping the God of Byte at the altar of the keyboard. Afterwared the hotel pool awaits. Tonight, we have a special treat in store. We are on another felucca ride to Banana Island to visit the banana plantation and the crocs which reside here. Another sunset is in store, so I will have my camera at the ready. It has, of course, been in overdrive this entire trip. Let's just say I've taken ...

... graphic art and associated hieroglyphic writing.  The art is more stylised and circumscribed in its range of forms than, for instance, the ancient Greeks (for whom there are far fewer artefacts in good condition), but its quality and attention to fine detail is amazing and one cannot say that today's artists do any better, or even as well. Because ancient Egypt is best known for its monumental and treasure crammed tombs, many people think of the civilisation as having a ...

... so I decided to head in with them and head that way. I was glad I didnt cycle as it was quite away to the sites and in the heat would of not been to much fun. The first site we came to was the valley of the kings. The valley of the kings is basically where all the tombs are of the old kings, I was not overlly impressed by it to be honest but the scenery was pretty. Our next stop was the Deir al-Bahri which was really ...

... One of the zips is broken and has left a huge hole in the case and now the handle is broken!! I will have to buy a new one in the bazaar. Once the meeting was finished with balloon man the group went out for dinner. We went to El-Kebabgy which is right on the Nile and had a really good dinner. after that we went back to the hotel as the group has to be up at 4am or something insane like that for they balloon flight. I'm looking forward to finally getting to ride a donkey tomorrow though.

... absent, casque de chantier en plastique, casque normal... Signe de la vigueur de l'économie touristique, de nombreux vans flamboyants neufs se démarquent du reste du parc automobile. Ils sont aux couleurs des tour-opérateurs et drainent leurs lots de touristes aux devises alléchantes.

Il ne se passe pas 1 minute sans que nous soyons harangués par des Égyptiens qui nous offrent leurs services : calèche avec visites pléthoriques de la ville, course en taxi ...

... with the tour organised from the hotel which was visiting the Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens and also the Hatshepsut (try saying that 10 times quickly) Temple. I thought I would sign up to a tour as it saved the hassle of trying to find my own way around the sights and was a very cheap price also.

First stop was the famous Valley of the Kings. For those of you who are oblivious to Egyptian History this is the place were many of the Pharoahs of ...