Egypt and Jordan -- Easter 2010

Well - just finishing up my 2 weeks of holidays.  Sadly will have to go back to work tomorrow morning :-(
But I can't really complain - Glen and I had a fabulous 10 days in Egypt and Jordan.  So -- to the trip...

Cairo
I think if I did the trip again, I would skip Cairo.  Don't get me wrong, seeing the great pyramid close up was amazing -- it doesn't look that big and then you get up close and the you realize one layer of the stones is taller than you.  We had an amazing photo taken straight up the pyramid with Glen standing on one of the stones, unfortunately, it was on Glen's camera, which we accidentally left on a bench outside Petra and had vanished when we remembered and treid to fetch it.

But back to Cairo, we saw the step pyramid, the great pyramids and the egyptian museum and coptic Cairo (which is the Christian area) and also the mosque of Mohammad Ali.  But the overriding impression I'm left with for Cairo, is the 28 million people that live and work there, and everyone of them has a car.  It's just sooooo many people, add to that that I was sick (combination of dehydration and something I ate) on the last day really made me think I could have skipped the city.

Luxor
What a refreshing change from Cairo, a 10 minute drive takes 10 minutes instead of an hour.  While this was the worst 'hotel' of the trip it did have one amazing redeeming feature, the roof top view of the nile.

We took a sleeper train from Cairo to Luxor, which took 11 hours, my first sleeper train and the experience was much better than I expected.  Very comfortable beds :-)  After arriving in Luxor at 7:30am, a quick shower and change and we were off out to see Karnak Temple, an amazing complex which was built from the inside out by a million different Kings and Queens.  From there it was back to the hotel for a nap and a dip in the pool, which was absolutely freezing! It genuinely was just a quick dip!

Later that evening we went to visit Luxor temple, we waited until evening because it's all lit up...

After a good nights sleep we left the hotel early the next morning to visit the Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens and the temple of Queen Hapshetsut.  We paid the extra money to visit the tomb of Tut Ank Hamun, we missed the mummy room at the Egyptian museum in Cairo because I was sick so this was our last opportunity to see a mymmy! The colours and pictures in the tomb were amazing, especially when you realize they're 3500 years old - crazy!  No cameras allowed in the Valley's though...

That's it for Egypt, the next morning we flew to Jordan, which I tell you all about tomorrow...