We first headed to Memphis, Egypt which was especially exciting for us considering we were probably the only people in all of Egypt from Memphis, Tennessee.
This place was highly secure and had guards with AK 47s on top of the buildings.
You just can't imagine how behind the times these people in Egypt are. We saw this on our bus trip to Memphis...this is seriously how you transport your cows??
Our trek to Memphis was quite a haul. We must've been on the bus for a good hour each way so it gave us a chance to see a lot of the scenery. This "scenery" included a small river that we drove alongside the ENTIRE way that people were fishing in...and bathing in...and throwing their trash in...and dumping their dead animals in. Keep in mind that I said they were FISHING IN THIS RIVER! Fishing for their food in water that dead water buffalo were floating in. In water that people threw their dirty diapers into. I actually saw someone walk from their house carrying a trash can and dump it into that water. I'm pretty sure that had the windows been down on our bus, we would have all contracted typhoid fever or dysentery.
But...funny story on our ride to the pyramids...we'd been riding for what seemed like half a day. All of a sudden, our bus comes to a stop and our bus driver gets out. He and our female tour guide start speaking Arabic and she seemed to get really ticked off. We had no idea what was going on but lucky for us, we had a girl on our bus who was originally from Jordan so she could somewhat understand what was going on. Apparently, some guy had hit our bus (we didn't feel it) so our bus driver decided to get out and beat up the guy who hit us! We were informed that in Egypt, you resolve your traffic issues with physical violence because car insurance is basically non-existent. Our tour guide was so mad at the driver bc he had left the door open when he went to go beat up the man. Egypt is so dangerous and she was liable for all of us. She didn't care that he got into a fight...just that he left the door open when he did. She demanded a new driver for our bus after that :)
We drove back from Memphis to go to the pyramids and when I say that the pyramids are in the middle of the city, I am NOT exaggerating. They are right in downtown Cairo. It's not at ALL what I imagined. I thought they were going to be in the middle of the desert. Not so much. The Sphinx is honestly right on a parking lot.
Now bare with us through all of the cheesy photos we just couldn't pass up :)
We met some great people on our cruise and hung out with them. Sophy and Travis (aka "Team Trophy") got married on the exact same day as us so we were especially fond of them. They are from the Philadelphia area and we still keep in touch with them! Garrick and Bana were from D.C. and were crazy (but fun)!
This was all of us posing for a picture and the 2nd pic is of Team Trophy on their camels.
Speaking of camels...we decided to ride another one. But this time, we rode together. Riding a camel is not comfortable nor is it something I'd want to do all of the time but again, we can mark it off our list :)
I love the next 2 photos of David. The first is an action shot that cracks me up. I have no idea what he was doing but I snapped the picture at just the right time. The 2nd one is just David being David.
We were honestly pretty happy to see the cruise ship back at the Alexandria port. We'd spent a long 2 days in Egypt and were ready for some relaxation time on our day at sea.
Once we boarded the ship, I made reservations for the 6 of us at the Italian restaurant to celebrate David's birthday. I had packed some decorations to decorate our room but was able to use them at the restaurant instead. We had a great time drinking wine and eating awesome gnocchi!
You may or may not be able to tell that we were not very fond of Cairo or Egypt. Most of this cruise was spent marking things off of our bucket lists. Egypt was definitely one of those. Everyone should see the pyramids, ride a camel and take a cruise on the Nile River. But we plan to never go back. We did go at the perfect time because one year later, there's too much political unrest for foreigners to visit Egypt. Who knows?? The pyramids may be a thing of the past based on all of the current warfare in that country. I know that many of the mummies and artifacts we saw at the Egyptian Museum were recently destroyed.
So all that to say that I am SO glad we had the opportunity to experience Egypt when we did.
No comments:
Post a Comment