Our travels in Egypt

View from apartment in Luxor

Last year we were fortunate enough to have saved up enough dosh to travel to Egypt for two weeks. We spent a few days in Cairo being complete tourists being shown around by a lovely driver which we hired for the day by the name of Hussam. It was unreal travelling around a place as hot as that with humidity that high. There are approximately 20 million people who live in Cairo and most of them have cars and none of them know how to drive. Grin - honestly!

We saw the museum, the pyramids, the sphinx , the markets - it was unreal. And yet so very real - a dream come true.

After a few days in Cairo we climbed aboard one of their night trains and rocketed through the desert down to Luxor where I had arranged to go and stay in a friend's apartment. The apartment is on the outskirts of Luxor, next to the Sheridan hotel and it is right on the Nile. The picture above was our view from the roof which exclusively belonged to us.

We continued being amused by the Egyptians and amazed. Not once were we faced with impatience or annoyance at any given time - most of the kids asked for bakshees when we saw them - some we did give money to, but as we had a driver or our friends' neighbour with us, they were shooed away.

Luxor is beautiful. The temple is even more majestic than I could ever have anticipated. Some of the hyroglyphs survived intact complete with vivid colouring. Our days were spent meandering through the market (where we were hailed as "cousins" as we came from Africa too, eventhough it was the southern part!) and haggling for goods. And by the gods, we did haggle! Going to the Valley of the Kings and experiencing 45 degree heat at nine in the morning was insane but worth every single drop of it. We went to see Hatshepsut's temple - the majesty of this country and its people really dug in deep.

We left loaded with goods, haggled for dearly, knowing that we would be saving up even more to go back again.

Happy sighs, all together.

Hope you enjoyed travelling with me.