Egypt

Matt typing

Sunday the 28th of October

After waving goodbye to our ex Kumuka travellers we headed to Sinai for our much anticipated climb to the top of Mt Sinai. We headed off around 8am and made our way past the Suez Canal before stopping for the usual truck lunch. I don't think we have spoken about the lovely truck lunches that we are treated to so i'll give them a quick plug. The first day we had the experience we thought it was great. Pita bread, cold meat, tuna, and basic salad. Sounds nice huh? Trying having that everytime we have a truck lunch with sometimes stale bread and you soon get over it! Krystal ended up aborting the bread and just eating tuna and some salad. Shouldn't whinge to much though, the food is better than somethings that I have seen around here being sold.

After our lunch we packed up and headed to the base of Mt Sinai. We arrived before dark so it was good to get things set up and ready for an early dinner. After dinner we threw on our hiking boots (first time ever worn), packed our day packs and got set for our hike up the mountain.

We were greated by our guide, Akmal who was going to take us to the top of the mountain. This huy is 18 years old, speaks 5 or 6 different languages, and climbs up the mountain everyday! Pretty impressive! There were a couple of options that you could take to get up this mountain and they included the following:

1. Get a camal to the base of the stairs and climb the final 750 steps to the top.

2. Hike the camal trail to the base and climb the final 750 steps which takes about 2 1/2 hours and is approx 8kms

3. Chuck a right at the beginning of the mountain and climb the 3000 steps that Moses appartently took on his journey.

We opted for option 2 which was a good idea because 3000 steps would have been an absolute nightmare, and option 1 was a cheats way. Well thats what we thought but a couple of our team took some camals due to some niggling injuries they have encountered in their life.

After a 2 hour hike up the mountain which was surprisingly not too bad we made our way to a little cafe/coffee shop where you got to hire a sleeping mat and blanket for the overnight camp. We then headed to the base of the 750 stairs which was the final part of our journey up Mt Sinai.

After 15 minutes of vertical climbing we made it to the top and to our delight there wasn't another sole up there. Good thing we left so early becuase it gave us 1st pick of where we wanted to set up camp for the night before anyone else came up. We were told that there is a little Monistary that fits a small number of people on the rooftop so we hulled our stuff on the top of the roof and had the best spot on top of the mountain, ready for the sunrise. We set up our beds and fell asleep pretty quickly after the eventful day and evening we had.

Monday the 29th of October

3am we were treated to some lovely Russians shining torches in our eyes asking one another "are they asleep? Are they sleeping?" Well we were until you started shining torches in our eyes you silly vodka drinking bastards! For the next couple of hours more and more people made their way up the top of Mt Sinai and began the crazy push for the best possible spot. To our delight we had the best spot and the power to tell them to get off the ladder whenever anyone tried to come up with us!

As the time got closer for the sun to come up (about 5:30am) I began to feel rather ill. Actually I began to feel like shit. I tried to hold onto my bodies desires but it became too strong and I had to make a mad dash through the crowd to try and find somewhere to relieve myself. Now as you can imagine this would not have been an easy task and with very limited facilities on top the mountain and limited light I had few choices. I rammed through people before giving up and sheltering (well as best I could in the situation) myself, dropping my shorts and blasting away. Sorry to disgust you all but this story has to be told. Top and bottom I let rip with everything I had in me! This was not a pretty site at all. Not only for me, but also for the others who proberly got the pleasure of watching a very sick Aussie demolish the mountain top.

After trying to clean myself up I made it back to the rooftop with minutes to spare to see the sunrise over Mt Sinai. Something I couldn't care less about due to the circumstances. Once the sun came up and Krystal snapped the camera to capture the moment I was off like a flash to get down this platou.

During my dash down I made numerous stops before we managed to reach the bottom much to my delight. During our dash down, Krystal also started to go downhill (not only in the walking area) and needed some urgent toilet assistance. We ran to the toilets and both started our day from hell.

Soon everyone else made it to the bottom and we ate (well the others did) and packed up the truck and headed off to Dahab. We arrived at Dahab around 12 and Krystal and I headed straight to our room where the only movement we made for the next 21 hours was back and forth to the bathroom. Clearly the sickest we have been on the trip by far and something pretty bad would have to occur to beat it!

Statistics for our day from hell were the following.

Matt = 10 poos and 4 spews
Krystal = 5 poos and 6 spews

21 hours sleep

100mls of water consumed between the two of us in 1 and 1/2 days

Tuesday the 30th of October

After a looooooooooooong sleep we both woke up feeling 500% better than the previous day and made our way down to meet the others for breakfast. Everyone was quite glad to see us alive and looking better than the last time we had seen them all. After some breaky we arranged to go and have a snorkel at the Blue Hole. The blue hole is a reef about 30 minutes from Dahab that is meant to be fantastic for snorkeling and diving. It was an amazing place as the drop off from the shore is massive. Back in the 70's some bloke blew up the section of the reef to see what was below. He managed in making a 100m deep hole in his efforts that is now a great spot for tourists to see. We snorkeled for a coupe of hours and saw some pretty cool coral and fish along the way.

Once satisfied we headed back to Dahab for some lunch and I was pretty keen to see if I could do an Inro Dive through the hotel. I was lucky and a dive master took we out pretty much within the hour of me asking. I had never dived before so this was going to be an interesting experience but was I got geared up and into the water I never looked back! We were underwater for 32 minutes, about 9-10 metres and and was fantastic. The coral colours were awesome and the feeling of being underwater was a sureal feeling. Once I completed my dive Krystal and I headed out with the others for some "Happy Hour" drinks by the beach before heading to dinner for some great seafood. For AUD24 we got a massive snapper, 4 prawns, stacks of calamari, bruchetta, bread and dips, and a fruit platter! After scoffing our faces Krystal headed back for bed and I had a couple of night caps with a bloke from the tour before turning in to complete a great day. One completely opposite to the one we had previously.

Wednesday the 31st October

We had been pre warned about this day weeks ago by both the tour leader, the driver, and previous passengers that today is called the day from hell! Reason being was because we were headed to the port to catch the ferry from Egypt to Jordan. We arrived at the port around 10am and there were two choices we had. Either the slow ferry which takes about 4 hours or the fast ferry which takes about 1 1/2 hours.

Thngs looked to be going well early with us booked to go on the fast ferry leaving at 2pm, but then the Egyptians decided that our truck wouldn't fit (even though the driver has driven the truck on this boat before) so we had to wait until 4pm to get the next fast ferry. We boarded around 4:30 and the boat took off about 5:30pm with a ETA of about 7:00pm. We arrived and were then held on the boat for another 2 1/2 hours for some reason (no one would tell us why) we finally got off at 9:30pm and headed towards the duty free shop and onto the truck. By this stage everyone was pretty done so we headed out to the desert where we would be sleeping under the stars for the evening. To cap things off the driver managed to get the truck bogged in the sand and then proceed to drop out his clutch! We tried to bleed it and fix the thing but it was too hot and everyone was pretty well done for one day. We all fell into bed about12:30 knowing that is was going to take some serious digging to get the bastard out. All this to go a distance of 130kms from Egypt to Jordan!!!!

As you might remember a few entries ago I mentioned that I would write the 10 most random things about Egypt (In our eyes) that we though during our travels so here they are.

(And a random photo that we could have got injured taking!)

1. 3/4 of the buildings are only half complete throughout the country. They begin building one, stop, then start another???
2. The bigger the bump on the head of an Egyptian the more devoted they are to Allah. Reason being is due to the number of times they prey increases the number of times they bump their head on the ground.
3. Tourist police are the dodgiest and the dumbest people of all. They are also all issued with rifles and automatics!
4. Rules do not exist on the roads of Egypt and speed limit and non exisistant.
5. Anything can be bought at a Pharmency with or without a prescription.
6. Egypt and Jordan have the worst border crossing in the world. 11 hours to travel 130kms!
7. 4:30am is the first call to prayer. Moaning and singing would wake us up at this time every morning!
8. Only 2 names exist in the male race in Egypt. Mahhamed and Akmal
9. Apparently it isn't rude to stare in Egypt.
10. And my favourite is, you are only classed as gay in Egypt if you receive sex from someone and not give it!

Even though Egypt had alot of strange things going on, it was clearly the best place both of us have ever been too! NOW BRING ON JORDAN!

Wednesday 24th October

Hi all, its my turn to have a crack at this blog writing as I have been pretty slack with it lately and Krystal has been getting angry with me. Only joking but I think i'm overdue for a go!!!

This morning we were treated to a sleep in which was fantastic considering the previous morning we were up minutes after we went to sleep. Due to the fact that I cannot sleep in these days I was up around 7am and was bored so I went for a little walk downtown in Aswan. After trying to go into a 24 hour internet cafe that was closed I decided to head back and annoy Krystal. To my amazment she was already up and ready to go to breaky! We headed to breaky and then got ourselves ready for a couple of very very relaxing days.

We boarded our Felucca (Similar to a sail boat) around lunchtime and sailed out onto the Nile which was to be our home for the next 48 or so hours. After an hour or so of sailing we docked ashore for some lunch. We didn't expect to much variety for our meals as they had very limited cooking sources but for what they had, they did pretty well.

After lunch we sailed for another 3 or so hours which was very relaxing and we all used our time effectively by drinking ourselves to a pretty drunken stage. The captain brought us to shore around 5:30 (which is pretty much dark) and we had dinner and continued on the drinking for a little while longer. We called it a night at the impressive time of 9:30pm (sounds very early but it feels like midnight) to prepare ourselves for another day of doing nothing.

Thursday the 25th of October

With the thanks for the wonderful call to prey I was awoken around 4:30am which is not uncommon in Egypt considering they sing everyday at this time! The sun surfaced around 5:30 which was as always an awesome sight. The sunrises and sunsets throughout Egypt would have to easily be the best in the workld. Also so clear and the colours and brightness are fantastic!

Once we managed to crawl out of our sleeping bags we rolled onto the 2nd felucca and had some breaky. This consisted of bolied eggs, stale bread and figjam?? A few of the boys thought beer at 7am would also be a good idea but I steered clear of that option and stuck with some tea, fresh from the Nile.

We sailed for a couple of hours before docking on a island that is "Apparently" a good place that is ok to swim in the Nile. For those who are not aware, the Nile is not the cleanest river in the world. There are many many different things that you can catch if you come in direct contact with the water but hey, you could get hit by a bus tomorrow so in I went for a swim! One thing that you can appentely become friends with while swimming in the Nile is Snails! These little buggers get into your skin, or up your holes and then make you extremely sick! They eat off your insides and grow bigger and bigger while you become sicker and sicker? Who knows if I have it or not but at least it will keep my weight down! Its ok though, our Egyptian guides said that they only really habitat in the weeds on the banks of the river and we docked on a sand island.

After a couple of hours of swimming and a few beers we had some lunch and then sailed off for a little while longer before docking for the evening around 4pm. Seems we had some light left in the day we went for a wonder into the town centre of this village we stopped at. Was a pretty interesting walk and we seemed very much the centre of attention due to the fact that this village was very remote and on the banks of the Nile. We headed back and had a few drinks before having some dinner and an early night. It seems to be the tread on the boat as the days are so long and you are up nice and early.

Friday the 26th of October

Same deal as the day before with the wonderful wake up call and the sunrise. The good comes with the bad I guess. We sailed for a little before docking at 7:30 for the final time. Had a quick breakfast and headed off the felucca and wondered to the temple of Kom Ombo. Was a pretty cool temple but after seeing all the temple that we have seen they all begin to look the same. We headed back to Luxor with another quick stop to the temple of Edfu. Same deal pretty cool but same same, but different. We had a 2 hour drive back to Luxor where we had the afternoon and evening to kill before our train to to Cairo. I had a swim at the pool and decided I might as well have a few beers to help me sleep better on the overnight train. We boarded the train around 11pm and drifted off for a much needed rest.

Saturday the 27th of October

We woke up nice and fresh (well as fresh as you could be from the overnight train) in Cairo and left the train station to make our way back to the original hotel where the tour started. Scoffed down some breaky and chucked our bags into our room before hopping on a mini bus to make our way to the Cairo musuem.

This place is an awesome building with so much history and ancient pieces you could spend a month here. Only problem was everyone else wanted to go there also on this day so it was chaos! There are a couple of things I hate while travelling and one of them is crowds! Especially when they are European and rude! Anyway after getting over that whinge we headed through the Old and New Kingdom sections and then into Tutanhkamoun’s claim to fame. This guy would have to be richest Egyptian in history. He had everything you could possibly imagine and they were all made of gold. He even had gold sandels! We saw the golden mask of Tutanhkamoun and also the golden coffins that his body was placed in. After looking at these impressive pieces we wondered out and still couldn't work out where his body was! I think this is all a secret that they like to keep the tourists guessing as we had many random responses from different people over the past couple of weeks. Our tour concluded at the front of the Mummy room where you could go inside (for a price of course) and look at some corpses. Even though expensive this was something that we both wanted to do so we shelled out the pounds and headed inside for a look. Inside there were around 12 different mummies, the most significant being King Ramsi the II. It was quite unbelievable how well preserved the bodies were as you could still make out things like their hair, teeth, lips, and fingernails. Even though impressive, it still had the strange feel about looking at dead bodies. I first for us both I think. Once finished at the museum we headed to a Pirpirues (bad spelling) shop for the usually tour special! Had a look at some art and then caught the minibus back to the hotel for a desperately needed shower. As this was the last night for about 1/2 the tour we all made our way upstairs for drinks and dinner. Had a few beers and some dinner before heading off to bed around 12 ready for our drive to Mt Sinai.

Hello peoples, It's Krystal typing. Just got back from our two nights of sailing up the Nile in a Felucca (tough life but someone has to do it)!

Sunday 21st October

Welllll stretching the memory a little here. What did we do this day...

We were up reasonbly early to try and beat the heat as we were heading out to the vallies of the kings and queens. Made it to the valley of the kings first, which was pretty impressive. Entry allowed us to go down into 3 tombs, two of which the tour guide took us down into, and then one we got to choose the 3rd. So we got to see one of the biggest tombs, which was pretty far under ground, took us about 5 minutes to reach the tomb. And also got to see 2 average sized ones. There wasn't anything inside the tombs, just the writings on the walls as everything was now in the Cairo museum or had been stolen by tomb robbers. There were heaps and heaps of tombs, we could have spent a few days there I reckon, well if you were keen! But 4 was enough for us, as we got the chance to go down into Tutanhkamoun’s tomb. We were pretty wrapped that we got the chance to do this, as our tour manager said this was the first time she had ever seen the tomb opened as it is nearly always closed because of humidity levels. (Not to say that it didn't feel humid down there!) We had to pay extra to go into this one, but although it was the smallest out of the lot we both thought it was the best. It still had all the colours on the walls and was the only one that had not been found by tomb robbers. Tutanhkamoun's sarcophagus was still in there, laying on his tomb bed made of gold. We got mixed stories about whether his body is still in that sarcouphagus, but we will find out for sure when we get to Cairo Museum I guess.

We then headed over to the valley of the queens, which is where the young princes and princesses also have tombs. Went into two prince tombs, and one queen tomb. They were no where near as good or as big as the king tombs. One had a baby fetus inside a glass box which was pretty cool to look at.

By this stage it was later afternoon and we headed back to our 5 star hotel in Luxour (we thought we were on a budget trip too???) This time we headed out to an english pub to watch the champions league. So happened that mine and Matts new adopted soccer teams were playing each other. Unfortunately Matt's team (west ham) won 3 to 1, but was only because Sunderland accidently kicked a goal for them. So guess you could say we drew since we both kicked 2 goals each???? Well that's my arguement!

Monday 22nd October

We were up early again today to catch a train from Luxor to Aswan. We had a little bit of free time to wonder and then had the choice of doing a tour. Matt decided it was too hot and hung around by the pool at our 4 star hotel over looking the Nile (loving the fact that we are doing a budget tour and staying in really nice hotels) with another guy. The rest of us made it out to see the Aswan dam and the wall which had been built to control the levels of the Nile to prevent flooding. We then took a boat ride out to Phile Temple. The temple was like an oridinary egyption temple, but what got me was the fact they had moved the site of the temple when they had created the dam so that it wasn't under water. They cut the temple up into a few thousand pieces and then moved them back into place like a huge puzzle. There were no signs of the fact that it had been moved. That was pretty cool.

After looking at the temple, wasn't that much else to do, plus the fact it was like 40 degrees, so headed to the cafe with a few others. Our local tour guide Mohammed joined us and told us how he just got engaged, was a pretty interesting story. His best mate had a sister that Mohammed hadn't met before. Anyway the mate was around at his house one day and said he had to go coz he had to let his sister into their house coz she was back from uni and had no keys. Mohammed rang a few of his friends to find out about this sister and then decided that night he wanted to marry her, without even meeting her! He rang his mate to ask her to see what she would say. She agreed, and then he had to ask her family. The family thought about it for a week and then agreed and set up a meeting. So yeh now they are engaged! They are only allowed to meet up if one of her family members is present, until the actual day of their wedding. He said he calls her on his mobile but said it's really awkward but is getting better. We were all saying how strange their engagement was and he said that this kind of engagement is very common.

We asked him what he thought about our culture, and he said he didn't like it at all. As he had watched some kind of ricki lake show on tv where all single girls get up on stage who have had kids to one night stands and try and find the father of their child. He thought this was pretty common among white people! But we set him straight. I seriously think that the majority (a very high majority) of the arabs in egypt just think we are sexed crazied animals or something.

Anyway headed back to the hotel to find matt a little churpie in the pool. We all got up on the deck above the pool to watch the sunset over the Nile. Was quite lovely, then headed into town for some din dins :P

(that's how a feclucca looks)

Tuesday 23rd October

Today we were up at 3am for a 3:30am departure to head out to Abu Simbel as it was a 3 hour drive out there and we had to get another convoy. Was either get that one and beat the heat and have the rest of the day free or the opposite. So yes... 3am get up. Nice.

The convoy was meant to leave at 4, but we are in egypt and we left at 5, who knows why! We arrived around 8am and had an hour and a half to wander around, which was more than enough time anyway.

Abu Simbel... wow, was really really impressive. It's a temple for king Ramsi II who was the most popular and successful egyption pharaoh. The temple was carved into the face of a sandstone hill, and showed Ramsi II during 4 different periods of his life. It was absoultely huge. And the even more amazing thing was that this temple and hill had also been sored up into thousands of pieces and put back together at this site because of the construction of the dam. Again there was no hint that the structure had been moved. You would have liked it dad.

After we got back from Abu Simbel it was early afternoon. We wander around Aswan for a little and got some lunch. Also got an Egyption sim card as Optus pre paid sucks overseas, but didn't have much luck with it.

That night we got a boat across the Nile to the otherside and went into a little Nubian village that was off the beaten track. The Nubian people are from inland Africa, maybe Sudan? anyway they are the darker skinned population that live in southern Egypt along with the Arabs. We were invited into a family home that was pretty much open to the sky and had some dinner there where we sat on rugs and ate off tiny tables. Afterwards they played some african drums and got us all up for a booggie african stype. That was pretty cool and it is making us want to go to Africa one day, yes add that to the list!

After being up for about 20 hours we decided to call it a night.

As you can tell from the title of this entry this is what we here everyday from every bloody Egyptian trying to sell us shit! As you can proberly tell its Matt typing this time.

Wednesday the 17th

This morning we were up around 8ish and got ourselves ready for a day touring around Luxor. This place is a really nice city to walk around in Egypt and is nowhere near polluted like Cairo. We headed off from the campsite about9 and made our way to our first stop Karnak Temple. Was a really impressive temple with massive pillars throughout the ruins that stand 40 odd metres in height and would easily be 8 metres to walk around the base of the things.

After here we headed over to another temple, Luxor Temple. I liked this one a little better but my knowledge on these are pretty darn bad. I just really admire how impressive these buildings would have been back in BC times and the difficulty it would have been to construct them.

Once we finished up at the temples we headed off for lunch and then to a jewelry shop where I bought a ring (For me for anyone who is thinking anything else!) and then we made our way back to camp.

As you are aware from Krystal's last entry we were treated to a great dinner of Pig on the spit. A whole 31Kgs of the bastard! It was a great feed and we all headed off to bed nice and satisfied with ourselves.

Thursday the 18th

This morning we were up nice and early for our morning drive to Hurghada. Hurghada is a town about 250 odd kms from Luxor that is placed perfectly on the Red Sea. This is proberly all the place has going for it as besides the Red Sea there isn't much else to do and it is very heavily populated by tourists. For some reason due to the fact there are so many tourists heading to Hurghada you have to be escorted by a police convoy to the place. There are 2 convoys that run a day, one at 8am and another at 2pm. If you miss the first one then you have to wait 6 hours till the next one arrives. Strange people the Egyptians are but I guess at least it gives them something to do with themselves!

We arrived at our hotel around 1ish and chucked our bags in our rom and headed off for lunch at a local bar. After lunch Krystal decided she needed to catch up on some sleep so me and another guy headed to the beach to have a swim and cool off a little. Stopped by another coffee shop for some Shisha and got back to the hotel around 5 to get ready for dinner. We made our way to a Cavery for dinner and had some great roast beef and chicken and washed it down with some beer and vodka. Headed back to the hotel around 12 and called it a night as we had a early get up the next morning.

Friday the 19th

Today we were off to the Red Sea for a cruise out to some reefs and a snorkel. We signed up for this extra a couple of days ago which was really good value for money. For 25USD (30AUD) you got a cruise which lasted about 8 hours, snorkel equipment, lunch, and drinks. Can't really complain about that!

We headed off around 8am and made our way to the marina to catch our boat. Once we got going it was a really relaxing ride which lasted about an hour or so. Once we arrived we dived into the sea and had 45 minutes to look at a pretty cool reef. The reef had a stack of coral through it and the colours of the fish were really cool. After our snorkel we headed back onto the boat and had some lunch before heading off to another reef.

We stayed at the 2nd location for 2 hours and had another snorkel and swim. This time we saw alot of the same things but also this massive dirty eel sliding through the reef. I reckon it was at least 2m long and due to my phobia of snakes, I was steering well clear of the thing.

Once we had enough we hopped back on the boat and made our way back to land to finish up for the day. We got back around 4:30 and went for a few drinks before having some dinner and heading back for an early night.

Saturday the 20th

We were up early again to catch the morning convoy back to Luxor. Got back into town around lunchtime and picked up my ring from the jewelry shop that i had bought the other day. We wondered around town for a while and then headed back to the hotel to head out for dinner. We had a quick bite to eat which was shit but was proberly the first ordinary meal we have had so far.

After dinner 75% of us headed to an Irish pub to watch the rugby World Cup final. I stayed to the end and was very happy to see the Saffa's beat the Pom's. No Aussie can ever barrack for the English. Krystal made it half way through the game so I am proud of her for that much at least. Had a couple pf night caps before heading back to bed to call it a night.

I must be off now but will write another blog very soon to get us up to date. Will also give you the list of Matt's top 10 random things about Egypt.

Until then bye to all, especially Ella the newest addition to read our blogs!

Matt

PS. Deano, for your info I have only been pissed once in the last 3 and 1/2 weeks.

Krystal typing again, Matt the slacker just jumped off the second storey balcony of where we are staying into the pool. One of the tour guides a while back did that and smashed his heals apparently. Going to kill him! Anyway he is on blog duty next entry.

Sunday 14th October

Yuck, early starts again! We were up early to start our Kumuka tour. First thing up we headed out to the pyramids. Today it was really really hazey tho, I think it was too early for the smog to have cleared. We had a local tour guy to give us some general info about the site and show us around. We got about 30 minutes free time to have a wander around, which was not much time at all as we were on foot and the site is pretty big as you can imagine. We were absolutely wrapped that we were suckers yesterday and did the camel ride, as the sky was so much clearer the day before and we had heaps more time.

After that we headed over to the pyramid named Katherine, which is the middle one of the three main. The three main ones were built for a father, a son and a grandson (being the smaller of the 3). So Katherine was the son's pyramid that we were headed for. We got to go down into the pyramid and see the tomb. We had to crouch down for about 25m where you got to a little room where you could stand up with a little tunnel heading off into another direction but it was blocked by a gate. We continued down a little further, crouching again until we reached the tomb. The tomb was completely emplty apart from a plain cut out box at one end where the body used to lie. Everything that was originally in there had either been stolen by tomb robbers or was now in Cairo Museum. Although there wasn't much to see down there, it was pretty cool to go down there and see what the tunnel was like. The sweat was abosultely dripping off us while we were down there, it was like a sauna. As we came up to the surface we thought outside in the desert was cool!

Next we went upclose to the syphix, and the building right in front of it where they actually prepared the mummies for the tombs.

After that we headed to the look out point where we got some awesome views of the whole site. I think we did yesterday perfectly as everything we didnt do then, we had done today. Would have been pretty annoyed if that was the only time we spent at the site, so yeh we were wrapped!

We grabbed some lunch and then we were on the truck headed for the western desert. And when I say truck, I mean truck. It's an ex army truck that sits up really high, has no air con but it's much more roomier than the contiki bus and actually feels like we're back packing around abit more. Matt was involved in the first drinking session on the bus. Would you expect anything less???? They have cold beer available in eskis on the truck. Matt is in heaven, although they did run it dry and we are yet to stock up!

Tonight we were to spend the night in the desert. We arrived after dark, so pretty much couldn't see a thing. We were off the truck and out came cookers and tables and all the rest to cook up a feed. They have a pretty good setup! After dinner we all sat around a camp fire looking up at the stars, never seen so many before, smoking a shiska which we shared around (flavoured tabaco smoked out of a massive bong)!

We then made it to our sleeping mats and stared up at the stars for awhile before falling aswell. Saw a few shooting stars aswell.

Monday 15th October

We woke up and it was like "suprise!" we got to see the site of where we had actually stopped at, as it was dark when we had arrived. The views of all the sand dunes with the sun making it's way up over them was amazing. Having gone to bed in the middle of the western desert with the stars and then waking up to that has been one of my highlights I think. Matt thought it was pretty cool aswell.

Out came all the brekkie stuff from under the truck and after eating (and a toilet stop behind the dunes) we were off again.

We travelled to the white desert, but stopped off at a 'mountain' type thing on the way. Turned out it was called crystal mountain and had crystals all over it. Do you have a mountain named after yourself???? Was pretty cool, and we might have accidently stole one of the crystals. Whops. Anyway made it to the white desert which used to be a sea a few million years ago. It's called the white desert coz it literally is white, the coral type bolders that you would find on the bottom of the sea where still there, giving it it's white appearance. There were all stray bits of coral around the place aswell. Was amazing to think that this desert, as dry as could be was one day the ocean.

Instead of spending the night there we pushed to our next stop, Dakhla Oasis to spend the night. At Dakhla there was an ancient mud brick village, they're not sure how old it is (I dunno how you couldn't work it out) but that is egypt for you I guess. Got a little tour of that as it was getting dark and then we headed back to our hotel. Tonight we spent the night on the roof top, again open to the stars.

Tuesday 16th October

We were up at 4:00am this morning. YUCK. And on the truck by 4:30am to try and make it to Luxor before it got too hot. After about 8 hours on the truck and stopping off at a modern art muesum we made it to Luxor by about 2pm. We were all stuffed and in desperate need of a shower. We hung around the hotel and Matt had a little dip in the pool. Smoked another shiska (apple flavoured) and then were in bed by about 11.

Wednesday 17th October

Brings us to today. Yay our travel blog is up to date! Well almost. Feels like we're back at school and we have homework due when we get far behind in our blog.

Anyway I'll let Matt fill you in with the details next entry I'm off to grab a cold drink before I pass out!! We bit hot! Might check on the pig that we are having for dinner. We're staying at a christain site tonight rather that a muslim place, so our truck driver (who looks and acts so much like you Nick it's crazy!) has decided to buy a whole pig for dinner and roast it on a spit. He has been looking after it all day. Pretty funny there's pork out there roasting and we're in egypt!

Will try and put some photos up for the last entries over the next couple of days, this computer is too slow to upload them.

Love yous all

K & M xx