Day 30 & 31 - Suez Canal & Port Said
Day 30 - Suez Canal
Day 31 - Cairo - The Pyramids (Tour: Pyramids and Nile Lunch Cruise).
Ok - now this is one of the big stops on the tour. After missing Safaga/Valley of the Kings/Karnak/Luxor we finally got to see some of Egypt. First thing - Egypt isn't just a big desert, although there are lots of desert, the main highways we travelled (for 3.5 hours each way!) were surrounded by green! lots of crops/etc. Not many big trees/etc. The route from Port Said to Cairo was very flat - in fact we didn't see any hills/etc until we got into Cairo.
It was a little disturbing having to travel in a military escorted convoy - all 30 or so buses from the ship. We had at least 2 small trucks with a half dozen guys with AK-47 machine guns that roved up and down the convoy as well as a couple of vehicles with machine guns mounted on the back.
The Pyramids were awesome! It was hard to get the right perspective from our first stop, we were on a large hill overlooking them (3 large pyramids, plus a couple of smaller ones, along with tombs for the workers/etc. You didn't really get the right perspective until the second stop right at the base of one of the large Pyramids. I know there are probably more books describing the Pyramids than any other man-made structure, so I won't try to describe them, but lets just say the blocks that make them up were HUGE and there's no way I'd want to have had to figure out HOW they built it.
Anyway the last stop at the Pyramids was the Sphinx, it's only little compared to the Pyramids, but is impressive in it's own right! The stonework was amazing, ask Dave and he'll go on about how nicely they fit the stones/etc together.
Lunch was on a floating resturant that cruised us up and down the nile for an hour and a bit. It was quite a nice diversion - they had a bellydancer and whirling dervish perform for us! the bellydancer was awesome - sorry no photos, but lots of video of the bellydancer! :)
Egypt was quite a contradiction, a desert country with lots of green, but in the capital people still ride their donkey's to work and herd their goats along to market.
We had a good, if tiring day. We were also advised of a change of schedule when we got back to the ship - we're now going direct to Athens, due to a general strike happening on our scheduled date. So we're going there early and changing things around a little. Still haven't had it confirmed that the ship is fixed - but it feels like she's running more smoothly this evening.
Well you read about these things in history, see documentaries/etc - but it's really hard to get a feel for the place unless you actually go there. The suez canal is one of those places - it was opened back in the 1800s and is quite amazing to think about diging by hand such a huge distance. Luckily the Red Sea and the Mediterranean sea are at the same level - so there are no locks/etc, it's just a big ditch! but quite an amazing acomplishment. One thing I didn't expect was the green on the south bank of the canal - it's amazing to see how much of what was essentially desert turned green! The north side is still mostly desert, but with a few patches of green along the way. As you can see from the pic below - it's a real contrast.
Day 31 - Cairo - The Pyramids (Tour: Pyramids and Nile Lunch Cruise).
Ok - now this is one of the big stops on the tour. After missing Safaga/Valley of the Kings/Karnak/Luxor we finally got to see some of Egypt. First thing - Egypt isn't just a big desert, although there are lots of desert, the main highways we travelled (for 3.5 hours each way!) were surrounded by green! lots of crops/etc. Not many big trees/etc. The route from Port Said to Cairo was very flat - in fact we didn't see any hills/etc until we got into Cairo.
It was a little disturbing having to travel in a military escorted convoy - all 30 or so buses from the ship. We had at least 2 small trucks with a half dozen guys with AK-47 machine guns that roved up and down the convoy as well as a couple of vehicles with machine guns mounted on the back.
Each bus had it's own security officer aboard that got out before any passengers did. Our's caused a minor stir on the bus when he suddenly (and for no visible reason) started dressing in his body armour, which he hadn't touched until that point! Cairo itself was like an armed camp - every other cop on the beat was carrying a machinegun. Admittedly it was reassuring there were that many police around with big guns incase of trouble.
The Pyramids were awesome! It was hard to get the right perspective from our first stop, we were on a large hill overlooking them (3 large pyramids, plus a couple of smaller ones, along with tombs for the workers/etc. You didn't really get the right perspective until the second stop right at the base of one of the large Pyramids. I know there are probably more books describing the Pyramids than any other man-made structure, so I won't try to describe them, but lets just say the blocks that make them up were HUGE and there's no way I'd want to have had to figure out HOW they built it.Anyway the last stop at the Pyramids was the Sphinx, it's only little compared to the Pyramids, but is impressive in it's own right! The stonework was amazing, ask Dave and he'll go on about how nicely they fit the stones/etc together.
Lunch was on a floating resturant that cruised us up and down the nile for an hour and a bit. It was quite a nice diversion - they had a bellydancer and whirling dervish perform for us! the bellydancer was awesome - sorry no photos, but lots of video of the bellydancer! :)
Egypt was quite a contradiction, a desert country with lots of green, but in the capital people still ride their donkey's to work and herd their goats along to market.We had a good, if tiring day. We were also advised of a change of schedule when we got back to the ship - we're now going direct to Athens, due to a general strike happening on our scheduled date. So we're going there early and changing things around a little. Still haven't had it confirmed that the ship is fixed - but it feels like she's running more smoothly this evening. 
Comments