in the middle east

After two weeks of being on the go, we came back to two final days in Cairo before heading back home. It is a great city, bustling with the activity of 20million people. Given that Cairo has been a major Egyptian city for over 2,000yrs, there's plenty of history to see that has nothing to do with ancient pharaohs and temples. We spent a day in the section of 'Coptic Cairo' home of one of the most ancient Christian centers in the East. We also saw a bit of 'Islamic Cairo', i.e. the part of town built up in the period of Egypt's great muslim sultans. Even though Cairo is the quintissential Middle-Eastern city, it's modern character felt much more familiar to us than the small Nile towns we had been in for the previous week. We spent our evenings reading at the "Cafe Americane", or along the waterfront of the Nile. It was a great way to round off the trip. We've documented our last couple days for you to get a feel for Cairo. Click Here.

I hope you're not getting bored with all these pictures of Egypt. We've been back in Jerusalem for a month now, but we still have more share with you all. Just two more Egypt posts, and then we'll get back to talking about life here and now.
After Aswan, we headed up to central Egypt, the city of Luxor on the Nile. This was the ancient capital of Egypt for many centuries, and thus there grew up around it dozens of ancient monuments from the royal families. Tombs, temples, statues... it's all here in Luxor. The city is divided by the Nile, and both West and East banks have major sites. So we took two full days here, one on each side of the river. The temples were magnificent, as were the sunsets. We found the town itself to be less pleasant than Aswan or Cairo. The main industry of the town is tourism, and thus every corner and street is full of vendors who are more than happy to take your money. They were quite aggressive: someone wanting to sell you a t-shirt, statue, or boat ride will walk along side you for a block or two. Thus, it was hard to have any quiet moments along the waterfront, or really anywhere in the town. Since our hotel had a nice roof-top patio, we spent quite a bit of our "down time" up there, swimming, reading, and overlooking the town and the Nile. There are many amazing things to see here in Luxor, and we couldn't show you everything. But here is a sample of what we thought were the coolest things: Click Here.

After the pyramids, our adventures carried us to a city in southern Egypt, Aswan (for a map, click here). In ancient Egypt this was a strategic city for the Egyptians to maintain military control over the Nubians to the South (in modern Sudan). Today it is a large tourist attraction, due to the gigantic ancient temples in the nearby vicinity. We stayed in the city for two days, and even went 175miles further South to some magnificent ancient Egyptian temples; at that point we were just 50 miles North of the border with Sudan. Aswan itself sits on the first large opening of the Nile, creating a space for dozens of islands and beautiful desert scenery. It is quite a unique place, and we really enjoyed the quiet and rather serene setting on the Nile. Click Here to see a bit more.

Upon arriving in Cairo, we spent our first full day exploring the great ancient pyramids of Egypt. This is obviously one of the country's major tourist attractions, and even though it was "low" season, we were among thousands of visitors that day. But it's obvious why this is so: the pyramids are simply one of the most astounding things to see up close. The pyramids we saw were built in the 3rd and 4th dynasties of Egypt's "Old Kingdom", i.e. from the period around 2600-2500 BC. They were made as royal tombs for the deified pharaoh's, to give them a magnificent place to rest as they began their journey on the other side of death. We spent the day just circling them, walking around and looking at them from all angles, marvelling at their size. By the end of the day we were pretty spent, and packed up our bags to board an overnight train that would carry us South almost the entire length of the country, to Aswan. But for the moment, our pictures from the pyramids will do. Click Here.

After our adventure in the desert wonderland of Wadi Rum, we hopped on a bus to Petra, about 2hrs North. Petra is, obviously, quite famous; in fact it may become one of the new 7 wonders of the world. It was made most famous by appearing as a set for an Indiana Jones film, but other than that, I really didn't know too much about the place or its history. Petra was a royal burial city for the ancient culture of the Nabateans. This was a people group of Arabian descent (from the Southern desert that is today Saudi Arabia) that came to build a large kingdom in this part of the mountainous desert SE of the Dead Sea. They reached the peak of their culture in the 2nd cent. BC to the 1st cent. AD, when they were taken over by the Romans. Petra was built to house the tombs of their royal leaders, as well as the upper class who could afford such tombs. There are literally hundreds of these elaborate tombs here. But what makes Petra spectacular to visit is that all of these structures were carved right out of the soft sandstone mountain sides. The rock is really unique because you can see the layers and swirls of different colored sand that piled up and made the mountains; thus the buildings are a swirls of red, brown, blue, and purple rock. It is the unique combination of natural beauty and Nabatean massive-style monumental architecture that make Petra such a breathtaking place to visit. We spent a day and half just walking around this massive place. After our stay there we hopped on another bus 2.5hrs further North to the city of Amman, the capital (and largest) city of Jordan. After cruising around the city for a day, we woke up the next morning to board our flight to Cairo. But that's for the next blog. For Petra and Amman, Click Here.

On the morning our Blackhawk friends stepped onto a plane back to US, Jessica and I boarded a bus down to the southernmost coastal town of Israel, Eilat. From there we crossed the border into Jordan, and began our two week adventure. We stayed that night outside of a Jordanian coastal town named Aqaba at an interesting place called "The Bedouin Village". We met some random people there and ended up driving into town with them to buy a cake to celebrate someone's birthday. Random indeed. The next morning we woke up and went to our first destination in Jordan, the Wadi Rum Nature Reserve. It is located in South Jordan and runs up against the northern border of Saudi Arabia. It is a gigantic desert, with large mountains of granite and sandstone that burst up from the sandy floor hundreds and even thousands of feet tall. We did an overnight Jeep tour with a guide from the area, and saw breathtaking desert beauty. It was the most silent place I'd ever been in my life, only the sound of the wind as you look over miles of trackless desert. We got to see and do a number of cool things in the desert, a it was a great way to start our Jordan-Egypt adventure, so take a look. Click Here.