At brekkie this morning, Greg & I were reminiscing about some of the ‘hectic & bustling’ cities we have been fortunate to explore. What made us think of that Cairo. Twenty three million citizens along the Nile make for quite a city.

We like Cairo. Nile is amazing. Beautiful river walk area – fun watching ships. It doesn’t rain in Egypt so everything is dusty. People nice- shops & cafes very interesting. Shopkeeps & cafes hustle for business – politely. Vendors selling food on streets interesting. Have Never seen so many dates in my life. TRAFFIC. Yikes. CRAZY 😜 the symphony – not – of horns doesn’t stop. We never saw an accident & have never ever seen so many misses. No one should ever think of renting a car in Cairo.

We thought Amman Jordan was bustling til we visited Cairo.ha! So civilized. There cars don’t have scratches & fender benders. should have been a clue.

We really enjoyed exploring both and felt safe enough to wander extensively in both amazing cities.

Istanbul – after Cairo & Amman – easy peasy😎 Loved Istanbul with cobbled streets, historic buildings, nice cafes & good food. Streets were marked with lanes & used by drivers ….what a concept!

We really liked all three cities & enjoyed exploring all😊

We met fun friends through Greg’s pickleball contacts. Fun pickleball & fun lunch – where we were taught the local way to eat amazing Egyptian foods.

Rebel suggested a walking food tour in Cairo — Bellies Enroute. An amazing way to take a walking tour learning about local history & culture while enjoying carefully selected food stands. Yum!

Our trip had an overnight train trip from Cairo to Luxor. The ride was smooth & took us past small villages along Nile. We saw donkey carts used for agriculture & lots of citizens caring for their crops.

Our faluca ride was peaceful & fun to see communities from water viewpoint.

We learned that Egypt subsidizes wheat so all citizens can enjoy pita bread. Since Ukrainian war – they started a farming program in desert – irrigated Nile- where citizens can buy land & work irrigated fields in an otherwise barren land.

We wandered off the tourist track in Aswan & found a locals restaurant where we had beef kabobs, hummus, rice, veggies & 2 bottles of water for $6.

We saw cute kitties & pups everywhere and they are busy keeping vermin at bay.

As we travelled from Aswan to Luxor one side of the road is a green & tropical with banana plantations & crops & other side is barren& rocky.

Luxor temple at sunset is magical

Egypt is a wrap😜

Located 4 hours outside of Aswan in southern Egypt near the border of Sudan — in the middle of nowhere is Abu Simbel. When the second Aswan dam was being planned – this site was doomed to be underwater. It was moved – piece by piece to its current location. Thank you UNESCO & others. It is remarkable.

Located adjacent to Lake Nassau which holds enough water for Egypt for 7 years. 😳

The size of Abu Simbel is immense & the thought of moving it – a remarkable accomplishment.

GAdventures supports a nonprofit that works with children. We visited their site & took a bike ride around the hood. Fun. Inspirational

Luxor is located on Nile which provides water & life. The listed annual rainfall is 0.00in /year.

All Luxor Temple at sunset

In an area outside of Luxor – along the Nile is the Valley of Kings – resting place of Pharoahs. While the tombs have all been raided of treasures- the hieroglyphs are amazingly colorful.

We were able to tour 4 of the tomb sites and each was unique & fascinating. The coloring in these sites is provided by minerals – lapis lazuli, iron, copper to name a few. The coloring is magnificent. The tomb sites quite large – with walkways around 100-200 feet. Some of them declining up to 100feet deep.

We are not huge fans of museums – and boy did that change as Marym guided us through Egyptian history & King Tut’s tomb story. spellbound.

First, the many artifacts in the museum & their stories – fascinating.

Then….King Tut his unremarkable life story & the amazing story of the search for his tomb – crazy good!

So he was not an amazing king – after all he ruled from 9 -19 years old…he should be playing soccer! Died early-tragic. What is amazing – as he was not a ‘big deal’ – no grave robbers looted his burial site. Good luck for us. It took archeologists decades to find this site & they were months away from giving up when a kid dropped an urn of water – revealing steps that lead to his burial site – again CRAZY. The amount of artifacts in his grave site for his ‘after life journey’ remarkable. I am going to post lots of photos & this is a fraction of the whole.

And I didn’t include food & chariots!

We signed up for a 8 day tour of Egypt – an amazing experience. Marym Hafez Ahmed – our trip leader amazing! She made 4000 year old rock piles fascinating & don’t get me started on The Egyptian museum. So fun & interesting. Did not have good WiFi for our trip – so am going to recap here.

Started with pyramids & sphinx. Funny that sphinx was created as they had extra rocks 😎. Immense & humbling.

We arrived in Cairo & 2 hours later went on a great Food Tour – Bellies Enroute.

Then next morning played pb with players from Amman & Cairo. Fun!

Shared an amazing traditional meal – such a treat.

Oh yea / probably want to mention the Nile – wow! Beautiful. Architecture is lovely – tho the beating desert winds have been punishing. 20 million in this fair city.