Well, I've been home for a week by now but I figured you all deserved a wrap-up.
On Wednesday, one day after our Cairo trip, we all assembled for another foray into the Red Sea. Jill wasn't feeling well after Cairo so she stayed at the Resort with Rebekah and Sara came out on the boat with us. In hindsight, this was a good thing, because if she wasn't sick that morning she certainly would have been sick after a few hours on the boat that day! There was quite a bit of rough sea goin' on, and Jill isn't the biggest fan of boats even on calm waters.... We dove over a large field of coral called 'The Garden' and saw some of the best underwater scenery so far.
About twenty minutes into our return towards shore the good ship 'Ta Ta' blew out a few gears in her transfer case, and although the crew acted quickly to drop anchor the wind and waves pushed us up onto a small reef. Three other boats responded as soon as they saw that we were in distress and came by to assist, and one of them pulled us off the reef in short order. By that time another boat (Isis) from our pier happened by and they towed us in to shore. Well, that could have been worse!
The desert starts where the Resort stops. On Thursday, Rob, Sara and I got early (again!) and boarded a bus to ride four hours through over 100 miles of desert for our day trip to Luxor. I have to admit that I wasn't particularly looking forward to this trip. After seeing the Pyramids, how good could this place be?!? Well, it was awesome! Over 60 acres of tombs, temples & ruins remain in Luxor, with the Valley of the Kings just over the river. While none of it was as large as the Pyramids and Sphinx in Cairo, there was certainly a lot more of it and everything seems to have been carved to tell some sort of story.
Friday came and it was back in the water for one last day of diving. Jill rejoined us, and Sara and Rebekah also came along for the day. These last two days of diving were great sinced we could finally skip the exercises and just swim around & look at stuff!
And that's pretty much it. We slobbed around on Saturday, got some last-minute shopping in and checked out at 2:30am Sunday morning. Rob, Sara & I stayed overnight at Jill & Jake's place in Germany and then flew back to the 'States. It was, overall, just about the best trip I've ever taken. Scuba diving was a blast and the sights in Egypt were really cool. I'm already looking forward to a return trip in a few years!
Here's a few final things we learned to leave you with:
1. Cheeseburgers from McDonalds are exactly the same in the US, Germany, and Egypt.
2. Over-irrigation has begun to cause the Nile to flow backwards near the mouth and become salty.
3. There are security checkpoints/metal detectors at many locations such as the entrance to the resorts. These are not for the tourists, but for the locals in order to protect the Tourists.
4. Pizza Hut renamed their 'Big New Yorker' the 'Big Italian' for Egyptian consumption.
5. 'Pressure Point' may well be the worst movie ever made. I think I lost several... uh... Oh, yeah - I.Q. points... while being subjected to it on the return bus ride from Luxor.
6. Rebekah likes Egyptian music. She apparently knows something the rest of us don't!
7. If you can find a wet suit you fit in, it's likely that you look pretty good in it.
8. Turkish coffee Rocks the House!
9. King Tut was not discovered inside a Pyramid - He (and about 100 other Pharaohs) were buried and discovered in the Valley of the Kings across the river from Luxor and Karnak.
10. I wrong about not being anything left to discover in Egypt... There are at least 30 tombs that are unaccounted for and some believe that there is evidence of another Sphinx near the Pyramids.
11. Everyone reading this needs to learn how to scuba dive so I'll have more people to go diving with in the future!
Thanks for taking the time to read along!
Topic: Greetings from the land of Sun, Dead Pharohs and Cabbies from Hell! (Read 4411 times)