Egypt

Breakfast after our first night in Egypt

 Without getting into too much detail, we went to Egypt over the winter break. The first thing I'd like to mention is that there was no reason to worry about going to Egypt with regards to any kind of political instability. There was only the usual hassles (challenges?) with traveling in a developing country. Since this was the first time my wife and kids have been traveling apart from visiting family, I was a little concerned, but there was little to worry about.

We arranged for our tours through a Japanese hostel in the center of Cairo, the Venice Hosokawaya hotel. about 75% of the people staying there were Japanese. The staff spoke English and Japanese and the place was run by an Egyptian man who lived in Japan for 14 years and is married to a Japanese woman.They can arrange for both Japanese and English language tours.

You'll have to ask my son where these hieroglyphics were. It's all a blur for me now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The street outside our hotel in Cairo.

Relaxing in the Sleeper train.

After sightseeing in Cairo, we got dropped off at the train station for our overnight trip to Luxor where we transferred to our Nile cruise. The kids really enjoyed the sleeper train. Traveling with a family of four was really convenient because each compartment holds two people and there was a door between our compartments that opened up to make one large compartment for four.

An old-timey boat in the Nile.

The swimming pool on the deck of our Nile Cruise.

This guy happily drove us and posed for this picture. Then he asked for a tip.

Christmas hit our Nile cruise ship.

After we arrived in Luxor by train, we were met at the station by a driver who took us to our cruise ship, let us rest for a while, then took us on a tour of Luxor. The cruise was pretty nice, thought I was in the minority of English speakers. Most of the people seemed to be  either on a Spanish-speaking tour or from a group of eastern Europeans with the rest of us on our own. We were able to make friends because if we didn't meet on the boat, we were generally in the same tours on land seeing the same sights.

Once our cruise ended, we took the train from Aswan to Giza where we saw some pyramids. We all had a pretty good trip while meeting some new friends. I now feel confident with our ability to travel as a family without anyone freaking out.

No heads at Luxor Temple.

Family hijinx at an Egyptian Temple

Tia really getting into the Temple at Abu Simbal.

Pyramid magic makes you fly.