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PYRAMIDS in EGYPT

Egypt was a riot! But I made it back to Jerusalem safe and sound. It was definitely one of the most amazing trips I have ever been on. I never would have thought that I would get the opportunity to go to Egypt and see all of the things that I've seen in movies and on postcards. But I did it! First we went to Cairo. I seriously wanted to cry when we had our first glance of the pyramids. We were driving through the city of Cairo and then bam! There were the pyramids! So crazy. That night we went to a "light and sound" show at the great pyramids of Giza. They lit up the pyramids and the sphinx "talked" and basically gave us an overview of the history of the pyramids. The next day we toured a bunch of things including the Giza pyramids and sphinx. We got to go inside the Menkaurah pyramid and it was awesome! The entrance to the pyramid was a tiny small tunnel type thing that we had to crouch way down to climb down..and yes, even the short people had to crouch down. 

My Egyptian Lover

Then we went to Luxor and went to our hotel which was right on the beautiful Nile River. Oh my gosh I'm obsessed with the Nile. It's so pretty! It's super nasty though, so no one swims in it. While we were in Luxor we found out that riots had started in Cairo the day we were there, but we had no idea! Funny huh? We watched the news while we were in Luxor just to stay updated and stuff and we found out that the gov't had shut off the internet in all of Egypt, and they shut down cell phone towers in Cairo. We thought it was so crazy that we were there when all of this was happening, especially as we kept hearing how much more serious the riots and such were getting. But aside from all that, we went to the Valley of the Kings in Luxor and got to see Ramses III's tomb which was incredible! I couldn't believe how amazing all of the decorations on the walls of the tomb were. The tomb was a huge long hallway type thing with little rooms off to the sides. They haven't even finished excavating all of it yet, so we know that it was even longer. I wish you could all see this tomb! I can't even put into words how amazing it was..and we weren't allowed to take cameras in, so I don't have any pictures. We also went to King Tut's tomb. We actually got to see Tut...like his real body that they had unwrapped from the mummy. It was weird because he's sooo old but his body is still here! It was all black and shriveled up..ew. But it was awesome! This was my favorite day because we walked down from our hotel about 100 ft. to the Nile and went on a falukah ride up the Nile to the other side. Then we all got on our own camels and went for about a 45 minute camel adventure! haha. Camels are the weirdest/grossest animals. Then we rode back to the hotel on the falukah's while the sun was setting on the Nile. So so so beautiful! It was so peaceful and relaxing.We also got to go to Karnak and Luxor temples while we were there which were also so so so amazing! It just amazes me how all of these ruins are still here after all this time! Then we took a night train back to Cairo (what an experience haha). The night we got back to Cairo we were told that we wouldn't be able to go to the Cairo Museum or Muhammad Ali Mosque or anything the next day because everything in Egypt had gotten a lot worse.

 

So then we headed to Sinai. We got to our hotel in Sinai and tried to prepare ourselves for the next morning. We had been warned that it was going to be so so so cold on top and to bring lots and lots of layers. So we went to bed and got woken up at 2 am to hike Mount Sinai. We were all wearing our headlamps and tons of layers. We started hiking around 3 and made it to the top around 5. It was honestly one of the hardest things I have ever done! I don't know why the hike was so hard..probably because it was 3 am and the hike was really steep. I was in the front of the pack just charging my way up the mountain, but I hardly talked to anyone the whole time because I was so extremely exhausted. When we made it to the top we found out they were right. It was FREEZING! We all laid on the ground and huddled together for warmth. Then we sang hymns and watched the sunrise. It was so beautiful, but hard to enjoy it because I was so cold. It was such a great feeling to finally get to the bottom and know that I CONQUERED SINAI!!!

I LOVE EGYPT!