Walking Like Egyptians

After South Africa, we flew to Egypt.  We were a little worried about going there given all the bad media coverage with the protests, but after reading some comments from tourists who had recently been in Egypt and had no issues, we decided to go for it.  Overall, we wouldn't tell anyone not to go to Egypt.  At no point did we ever feel unsafe.  The best part was that we basically had all the monuments to ourselves.  However, there were a few negatives.  Since there were so few tourists, the hawkers were especially aggressive, and in some cases quite rude.  Also, there didn't seem to be the deals you would expect in a down tourism market.  If anything, people were trying to screw you out of your money even more than usual.  Overall though, it's still definitely worth the visit.

We arrived early in the morning in Cairo and had a driver takes us to our hostel downtown which was only a few minutes walk from Tahrir square, which was a little worrying, but we ended up having no issues relating to the political situation while we were there.  After a few hours of sleep to help us recover from the red eye from South Africa, we walked across the street to visit the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities which has a lot of the goodies that have come from the ancient tombs and temples.

Sharon in front of the Cairo museum.

The museum was pretty cool, but without a guide and just coming off a red-eye, it was a bit too much to absorb all at once, so I think we flew through it in record time.  After we exited the museum, we did come across a clear reminder of the recent revolution.  Next to the museum was the old headquarters of ex-president Mubarak's party which was burnt out during the revolution.

The burnt out shell of Mubarak's party headquarters.

After a good night's sleep, we woke up early the next day for a tour of the pyramids which we were both really excited about.  Our first destination was Giza, where we got to see the Great Pyramid, the Pyramid of Khafre, and the Pyramid of Menkaure as well as the Great Sphinx.  I will let the pictures do most of the talking, but I have to say that seeing the pyramids first-hand is completely awe inspiring.  It is truly amazing that these huge structures were built nearly 5,000 years ago.

Sharon and me in front of the Great Pyramid.

Me being a rebel.

The Great Sphinx with the Pyramid of Khafre in the background.

While in Giza, our guide introduced us to a local teen who hung around the pyramids to help tourists take a few funny pics with the monuments for a couple of bucks.  Here's a sample of some of the pics he took of Sharon and me:

The Great Sphinx giving me a kiss.

Sharon giving some love to the Sphinx.

Me trying to leap over the Pyramid of Khafre.

Next up we headed to Saqqara where we saw several pyramids including the Step Pyramid of Djoser which is considered to be the oldest of the major pyramids.

Sharon walking like an Egyptian in front of the Step Pyramid of Djoser.

The final stop of the tour was to Dahshur where we saw the Bent Pyramid, the Red Pyramid, and the Black Pyramind.

The Bent Pyramid with most of its limestone exterior still intact.

The Red Pyramid.

The coolest thing about the whole day for me anyways was getting to go inside the Red Pyramid.  You start by going down this long, steep, and narrow passage down into the pyramid.  It was so narrow, the only way I could go down was to climb down backwards with my head all the way down.  Thank goodness there were no other tourists there (thank you revolution) cause otherwise I think both Sharon and I would have had claustrophobic meltdowns on our way down.  Once you get to the bottom in the middle of the pyramid there were two decent sized rooms to walk around.  It was a bit freaky to think of all the tons and tons of rock above us.

Sharon making her way down into the Red Pyramid.

The first of two main chambers inside the pyramid.

The view from the bottom of the passageway.

This was Sharon's first time in Egypt, but I visited there with my family back when I was 6.  I had fond memories of taking a cruise on the Nile from Aswan to Luxor back in the day, so I wanted us to do the cruise as well.  So after our tour of the pyramids, we headed to the train station to take an overnight sleeper train to Aswan where we would board our ship.

Me pretty happy about our first 2-berth sleeper train.

In the morning, we were picked up from the train station in Aswan by a driver and guide who took us to a few sites in Aswan before taking us to our ship later in the day.  We went to visit the Unfinished Obelisk, the Aswan Dam, and the Temple of Philae.

The Unfinished Obelisk was located in a old granite quarry that used to supply granite for many of the ancient monuments in Egypt.  The Unfinished Obelisk is as it name suggests, an unfinished obelisk that was cut out of the granite in the quarry, but was never removed from the quarry because it cracked when they tried to remove it.

Sharon and me in front of the Unfinished Obelisk.

Next, we headed to the Aswan Dam and then to the Temple of Philae.  The most interesting thing about the temple was that when the Lower Aswan Dam was built, it became flooded by the Nile river for about 50 years until it was relocated to a nearby island.  They did this by dismantling it into 40,000 pieces and reassembling them at the new location.  Crazy.

The relocated Temple of Philae.

They call me Ted Provins: Tomb Raider.

Me walking like an Egyption.

After the Temple of Philae, we were taken to our cruise ship, the Radamis II.  The ship was pretty nice, though not spectacular.  The cruise lasted for 4 days and 3 nights.  Unfortunately, it wasn't a fun as I hoped as Sharon came down with a case of Tut's trots, basically the same things as Delhi belly, but based in Egypt.  So with Sharon out of commission in the room the entire cruise, I had to visit all the temples along the way by myself.  Unfortunately, this means there will no longer be any more pictures of either of us walking like an Egyptian in front of monuments as I was a little to embarrassed to ask the guide to take pictures of me posing like that.  Shame on me I know.  Here are some pics from my solo tours while on the cruise:

The Temple of Kom Ombo.

Crocodile mummies without the wrapping.

The Temple of Edfu.

Me and my transportation to the Temple of Edfu.

One of my clearest memories of the cruise I took with my family when I was little was going through the lock at Esna.  I remember my dad telling me we were going to go through a lock and all I could picture was the boat going through a keyhole.  So strangely it was a little bit exciting for me to relive that experience almost 30 years later.  I apologize for the not so exciting photos below, but for posterity's sake, here they are:

About to enter the lock at Esna.

Lock doors closing behind us.

Water level going down...

...and exiting the lock through the other side with only a few feet to spare.

The cruise ended early in the morning when we reached Luxor.  Sharon was not quite back to 100%, but we still managed to hit up the Valley of the Kings, and the temples of Hatshepsut, Karnak, and Luxor.  Unfortunately there was a strict no photo policy and the Valley of the Kings, but here are some pics from the temples:

The Temple of Hatshepsut, who was one of the few female pharaohs.

Me rocking it like Ramses II at Karnak Temple.

Some of the 134 massive and ornate columns at Karnak.

A finished obelisk!  At Karnak Temple.

It turns out that Egyptian obelisks were a bit of a prized possession back in the day as many were taken out of Egypt and are now located elsewhere.  There's even one in Central Park which both Sharon and I don't recall seeing while living in NYC.  I guess we didn't get out much...maybe we will run into some more on our journey (future post spoiler alert!)

From Luxor, we took another overnight train which took us back to Cairo for our last day in Egypt before heading to Turkey, which also turned out to be the first day of voting for the final presidential runoff.  Making sure to avoid Tahrir Square, we visited the Saladin Citadel, which was interesting but nothing to write home about.  I must admit I know almost nothing about Saladin.  I am only familiar with the name from the game Civilization Revolution for my Nintendo DS.  As Saladin, I have conquered the world a number of times.  Great game by the way.

The Mosque of Muhammed Ali in the Saladin Citadel.

That's almost it for Egypt.  Up next, Sharon will blog about our time in Turkey and Greece.  And last but not least, and final pic showcasing my inhuman strength at Cairo airport just before departing for Istanbul...

For some reason the people in the cars don't seem that impressed.

South Africa Videos

As Sharon mentioned, here are some videos we shot of the animals during our time in South Africa.

This first video is of a dung beetle we came across rolling a piece of dung along side of a road on the reserve.  For some reason I found this quite amusing.

This next video is footage of the lion pride we saw up close and personal.  Pretty much a lazy day for the pride, but it's pretty cool to see the cubs playing around with each other a bit.

Here's a video of an encounter with a charge of Rhinos.  The male was only a few feet away from the vehicle and did a little feint charge.  Doesn't seem like much on the video, but definitely a bit scary when you're there.  It's also pretty funny when our ranger starts the car, it gives the rhino a bit of a scare.

The two videos are from our visit to a cat wildlife preserve.  The first is of a caracal going for a flying leap after being thrown some chicken meat.  The second is of a couple cheetahs getting a little frisky when it's their turn for dinner.

The last two videos are from one of the highlights of our safari.  As Sharon mentioned, we were lucky enough to be at the reserve when a cheetah gave birth to some cubs.  The first video is of just the cubs being all cuddly trying to keep warm while mom is out for a stroll.  The second video is later that day after mom has come back and the cubs are nursing.

Hope you enjoyed the videos.  Stay tuned for my blog post on our time in Egypt.

South Africa thanks to my brother in law ;)

After Mauritius we flew to Johannesburg, South Africa.  South Africa wasn't on our original itinerary, but my brother in law randomly bid and won a safari at a charity auction.  Unlucky for my sis and brother in law they had no intention of going...lucky for us, I have an awesome sister who gave it to us!  

The safari included a 6 night stay at the Zulu Naya Game Lodge in Zululand (a province right above Swaziland), 2 daily game drives, and 3 gourmet meals a day.  What we didn't know was that an airport transfer from Johannesburg to the lodge cost over $300.  Yikes.  Fortunately though a rental car only costs about $25/day so we decided to make a road trip out of it.

After picking up a rental car we realized that we didn't have appropriate clothing for South Africa weather.  It was cold!  So guess what?  We went shopping!  Yay.  There weren't any Targets in Johannesburg but we found a Woolworth's where we picked up some long sleeve shirts and a pair of jeggings for me. Score. Oh and Ted picked up some over the counter allergy medication which they put in a cage for him so he wouldn't steal it. 

We drove about 4 hours to a town called Ermelo, which was the midway point to the lodge.  The drive was somewhat uneventful, but we found that drivers in South Africa use the shoulder as a lane quite frequently.  We spent one cold cold night in a sub par hostel in Ermelo and then made our way to our lodge.

The lodge was nice.  The grounds were pretty.  A vast change from our accommodations the night before.

Our room

The pool right outside our room

There are leopards, cheetahs, and rhinos out there!

Turned out that everyone staying at the lodge were all Americans who won the safari at an auction.  This was the first time during our trip we encountered so many Americans...specifically from the midwest.  I'm originally from the midwest, so I hate to be a hater...but man, the group was definitely interesting. There were two middle age sisters from Illinois who dressed like safari twins the entire time.  I'm not talking about just wearing similar safari pants and tshirts....I'm talking zebra print long skirt with cheetah print tops and matching scarfs.  Then, there was the dude from Wisconsin who commented that all the white South Africans must be from Australia because they have Australian accents.

FORTUNATELY for us, we got grouped with the MOST awesome people at the entire lodge.  And I seriously mean that.  Our group was normal, funny, and educated.  There was a family from Denver, a couple from Connecticut/Massachusetts, and then us.  Get this though...the mom went to Yale and works in non profit for education, the father went to Harvard and is a conservationist who formerly also worked in Congress, and their two children were both NCAA division 1 competitive skiers.  The couple from CT/MA are a power couple..one is an attorney with his own practice and the other is an emergency room doctor.  Ted went to Princeton so he had something in common with the other Ivy League-ers, which made me the biggest underachiever of the group.  I was however the only Asian...so does that count for something? ;)

Group shot with our ranger, Mark.

Game drives in general are hit or miss because you can't really predict when your going to see an animal in the wild.  Our guide Mark was pretty good though so we got to see everything that was on the property except for the leopard.  Our only regret was not having a better camera :(

My favorite animals to watch.  I'm also jealous of their eyelashes.

Water buffalo remind me of George Washington for some reason

Pumba and friend

Elephants in the wild are so much better than the painted elephants we saw in Thailand and India. 

Rhino.  Poor guys are almost extinct.  Their horns are worth over half a million bucks!

Did you know a group of rhinos is called a crash of rhinos? I like.

It's crazy how much destruction elephants cause.  They just tear down trees like their twigs.

Hello stripes.

Male cheetah chillin on his mound

So crazy that we could get so close to him!

Baby giraffe and mom

The only shot we could get of a hippos body.  They were in the water most of the time so all we could see were just the tops of their heads in the water.  Apparently hippos get sunburned really easily so they never come out of the water when the sun is out.

Inyala drinking from the fountain in front of our lodge

Baby cheetahs just a few hours old!  The mother gave birth and we found the litter while she went out for a kill.  So cute.

The game reserve we were at was one of the smaller ones so we signed up to visit a neighboring reserve which was much bigger and had much more wildlife including lions.  The excursion was quite expensive but definitely worth it.  I mean, when else can you sit a few feet away from a pride of lions!

Our lookout ranger had an awesome seat!

This is a dung beetle.  Its basically a beetle that carries poop around and eats it.  I don't find it worthy of a picture, but T made me put it in. 

Pride of 11 lions!  6 cubs, 3 females and 2 males.

This is when we really wished we had a better camera.  Its hard to see all the lions but they are there...we swear.  Luckily the other people in our group had proper cameras and shared the pictures with us.

Here's some perspective on how close we were to the pride.

Giant spider crawling up to its web

We ran into two cheetahs who were hunting for dinner!  We SO badly wanted to see a kill like on animal planet, but no luck

Stop following us!  We're trying to kill something.

No, seriously, didn't you hear the guy?  Stop following us.

Me pretending to look all safari-ish

The awesome spread of liquor, jerky and dried fruits the rangers laid out for us during our drive.

Two game drives a day for 6 days was getting a little old so we decided to sign up for another excursion to a Cheetah rehab center.  The center also had African wild cats, caracals, and cervals. They were all very scary.  We saw them during feeding time where they would get thrown whole chickens.  Watching wild scary cats devour whole raw chickens is not my favorite past time but T seemed to enjoy it.

African wild cat...looks like a regular cute house cat, except its really really scary when it claws and hisses.

Caracal..similar to a linx.

T petting the caracal while it's distracted by raw chicken.

Cerval

T nervously petting the cheetah

Me pretending to pet...I couldn't actually bring myself to touch him. I'm a wimp.

All in all the safari was a great experience.  Not much to do but see animals, but we met some great people and also got to eat a buffet for breakfast, lunch, and dinner!

After the safari was over we had a few days to kill before our flight to Cairo.  We spent one night in St Lucia which was about an hour away and checked out the beaches.  We opted not to swim though given the warning signs.

After St. Lucia we spent 2 more nights in Johannesburg and visited the Apartheid museum, the Cradle of Humankind, and the SAB World of Beer.

Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take any pictures of the Apartheid museum.  I highly recommend it for anyone who ever goes to South Africa.  Just walking through the museum was quite an experience.  It was so nuts to know that in 80s it would have been illegal for T and I to get married or even date in South Africa. :(

The Cradle of Humankind is a archeological site where humanoid fossils dating back up to 3 million years were discovered.  It was an interesting visit and sparked good healthy debate between T and I on our thoughts on evolution. 

Descending into the limestone caves.

Its hard to see but it the limestone caves were pretty cool

Next up was a tour of SAB (South African Brewery) which recently acquired Miller.  The tour is kind of cheesy but really fun and a great value. 

Our tour guide explaining the hops and grain process

Recreation of the first bar to serve SAB beer

T is the strongest man in the world!

Me poking around a re-creation of a Soweto Shebeen.

About Shebeens...Shebeens were basically illegal bars, mostly run out of people's homes selling home brewed alcohol.  They came into existence during Apartheid because black Africans weren't allowed to enter legal pubs and bars which were reserved for White people only.  It's. so. wrong.  Obviously now, with Apartheid dead, black Africans can go into any bar they please, but Sheebeens still exist and have become a big part of urban culture.  We didn't get to visit a real one, but hopefully next time.

The best part of the tour was that I got to drink T's two free beers too since he was driving :)

All in all South Africa was a great time, but don't think I need to be back anytime soon.  Other parts of Africa would be a priority for me I think.  Ted wishes we could have made it to Cape town though.

Anyway, bye for now.  T said he'll post some videos of the animals later. 

Saying goodbye to Nelson at the airport.