Aswan, Nubian Village Visit, Aswan Market, Abu Simbel, Perfumes , Birthday Party

After a short delay to repair a broken hydraulic on the train we arrived in Aswan in late morning. Due to the heat of day Mudi decided to let us rest and freshen up (remember we hadn’t showered the day before) in the afternoon before reconvening at 5 for a visit to the Nubian village. We walked to the Aswan waterfront and boarded a small water taxi which would take us across the Nile to the...

Pyramids, Camel Rides, Seeing Ramadan, Sleeper Trains

After a quick “complimentary” breakfast of all bread at the hotel, we boarded a bus to make our way to the Pyramids of Giza. We were all pretty excited since this was something high on our list of things to see. When we arrived and started walking up to these structures, appreciating the sheer size and recognizing the effort that was needed to build these things, it really fell into...

Egyptian Museum, Egyptian Citadel, Coptic Cairo

We woke up and met our guide at 8:30 in our lobby. We were keen to explore Cairo today. We got into a small van and we lucked out that the tour would just be the three of us, our guide Samara and our driver Ahmed. Our first stop was the Egyptian museum that holds a majority of the artifacts found in all the Egyptian ruins and pyramids. From the outside the building doesn’t seem all that big,...

Grand Mosque, Travel to Cairo

We woke up the next morning, checked out of the apartment and hopped into the transfer taxi that our hotel had arranged. It was an hour and a half car ride down the highway to Abu Dhabi. Our rooms at the hotel in Abu Dhabi were not ready yet so we hung out in the lobby thinking we would check in, relax and then make our way to the Grand Mosque in the afternoon. As we logged onto the hotel...

United Arab Emirates, Desert Safari and Malls

I woke up about an hour before landing in Abu Dhabi. Because my sleep had been pretty broken over the past 36 hours, I wasn’t feeling amazing, but I was feeling MUCH better with the worst of the food poisoning having passed. I’m a bit regretful because I was really looking forward to a long international Etihad flight prior to this trip. I’ve heard amazing things about all of the middle...

One last drive, Return to Soeki’s, Travel to Emirates

We woke up early again for one last morning drive to find the elusive male lion.  We were close yesterday and our luck throughout to find what we were looking for or something rare has been good so we were confident. We set out early in the morning again into the African winter, Matthews and Raymond circled an area known to be the male lions territory looking for tracks. We spent about a half...