A Visit from Our Son and a Trip to Egypt

In early October our son, Josh, and our Irish son, Daniel, visited us for not quite a week. Daniel lives in Belfast and spent a few summers with us as part of the Irish Children’s Program many years ago. When Daniel found out Josh was coming to Albania, Daniel decided to come visit at the same time. We loved hosting both of them and as I have said before, there is nothing better than spending time with our adult children.

Following the usual routine, Josh and Daniel visited my classroom and met my second graders. It was fun to watch them all interact,

As we travel, I always find it interesting to see the different car license plates. Of course, everything is written in Arabic in Egypt.
Here is a diagram of the inside of the Great Pyramid. You can see where we entered the Pyramid and then how we climbed to the King’s Chamber. Loved this experience!
I think one of my favorite experiences in Egypt was riding on a camel. I know it is a very touristy experience to have but I still loved it. The camels seemed to have such personalities and going out in the desert while riding one of them was amazing!

Before riding on the camels we asked our guide if she thought the camels were mistreated. She said she did not think so because so many Egyptians depend on the camels to make a living. If they mistreated their camels it would negatively impact their income.

After visiting the Pyramids, our guide took us to the Egyptian Museum back in Cairo. This museum houses the largest collection of Egyptian artifacts in the world. We were glad to have our guide with us to show us the highlights.

This ivory statue measures not quite 3 inches tall. It is the only portrait of the Pharaoh Khufu (builder of the Great Pyramid) that exists.

These statues are life-size and are of Prince Rahotep and his wife Nofret. It is believed that Rahotep was the brother of Khufu. When the first excavator found them underground with only a candle for light, he was frightened because they look so realistic. Rahotep’s skin is painted reddish-brown while his wife’s skin is painted a much paler color. The pale color suggests her sheltered life.

Our next and final stop with our guide was the Old Cairo Bazaar which has existed since the 14th century. We were advised that tourists need to have a guide with them when they visit a bazaar like this because the shopkeepers can be so aggressive. That was good advice. It was difficult to really look at much of the merchandise because we were being approached to “buy this, buy that” so much that it simply made you want to move away from the shop. Another interesting part of buying anything in Egypt was that the shopkeepers all wanted us to pay in American dollars. Of course, we did not bring any with us because when we travel we usually use the local currency. The shopkeepers would take Egyptian pounds but they much preferred to have American dollars. I am not sure but I think this is because the rate of inflation in Egypt is over 40% and they see the dollar as a more stable currency.

Just a few of the beautiful mosques surrounding the bazaar.
After our very full day in Cairo, we took a cab to the airport the next day. I loved all the decor this cab driver had added to his taxi. The driver spoke nearly prefect English. We thoroughly enjoyed our visit with him as he shared the ups and downs of living in Egypt
I added this map of Egypt with the green circles to show where we traveled. To give some perspective, Egypt is a bit larger than the state of Texas. It took us an hour and a half to fly from Cairo to the southern city of Aswan.

Flying over Egypt includes a lot of brown desert plus Cairo is such a big, busy city that it was a pleasant change of pace to land in the very green city of Aswan.

The first temple we visited was Philae. It was built in the middle of the Nile River 2,000 years ago and can only be reached by boat. The temple is dedicated to Isis, the goddess of birth, healing and magic. The temple is also known for being one of the last places that the ancient Egyptian religion survived before Christianity swept through in 550AD.

After we returned from visiting the Philae Temple we boarded a small boat to travel up the Nile River to visit a Nubian Village. The two pilots of the boat looked to be about 13 or 14 years old. They knew exactly what they were doing and they seemed happy doing it. I kept wondering if this was child labor and if so, was it okay? I also wondered about their schooling or perhaps lack of it. The small boats had nice artwork drawn on the inside of the boat.

One of my favorite activities while visiting Egypt was getting to see this school in the Nubian Village.
On our first full day of being on the cruise ship we woke up at 3:30AM so we could drive three hours south to visit the Abu Simbel Temples. We drove within 30 km of the Sudanese border. This picture was taken out the bus window when we had been on the road for about an hour. Driving through the desert at sunrise was a different, beautiful experience.
We have arrived at the temples in the village of Abu Simbel which is still part of the Aswan region of Egypt. The temple on the left (The Great Temple) was built by Pharaoh Ramses II in roughly 1200BC. The temple on the right (The Small Temple) was also built by Ramses to honor Nefertari, the favorite of his 200 wives.

If you remember earlier in this blog I showed some pictures of the Aswan Dam. One negative part of the building of the dam was that it would flood the Abu Simbel temples. It was decided in the 1960’s that they would need to move the temples in order to preserve them. An international team of engineers and scientists moved the temples about 200 feet to preserve them from the rising water of Lake Nasser. The moving of the temples was paid for by more that 50 countries contributing to the project. In 1979 the temples were designated as UNESCO Wold Heritage Sites.

Another interesting part of these temples is that they were buried until 1813 when a Swiss researcher rediscovered them.

After spending the afternoon cruising the Nile, we toured another temple in Kom Ombo. I was so glad we could see it at night because of how beautiful it is.

Kom Ombo Temple is located right next to the Nile River and was built in 180 BC. It is called a double temple because it was dedicated to two gods: the crocodile-headed god Sobek and falcon-headed Horus.

Can you see the ankh and eye of protection in amongst all the other heirglyphics?

Since this temple is dedicated to the falcon-god Horus, we saw lots of falcon depictions throughout the temple.

Look at the smiling child in the front seat of what I am guessing is a school bus.

Our next and final stop on the cruise was Luxor. These posters sum up our impression of Egypt, a country full of hospitality and history.

We had a short, picturesque walk from our cruise ship on the Nile over to visit the Luxor Temple.

The Luxor Temple was built in 1400 BC and unlike most temples is not dedicated to one god or pharaoh. Instead it was a place where many pharaohs were crowned. The obelisk was built by Ramses II and has hieroglyphics showing his military victories. This obelisk is one of a pair. The other obelisk is in Paris.
This is the 2.7 km road that connects Luxor Temple to Karnak Temple. It was built 3,400 years ago. It is called the Avenue of the Sphinxes or the Road of the Rams because there are hundreds of sphinx and ram headed statues along either side of the road (see below).
Posing like an Egyptian pharaoh and his queen. 🙂
We are now headed to the Valley of the Kings which was Randy’s favorite spot that we visited in Egypt. It is hard to believe when looking at these barren hills that there could be such beauty hidden beneath them.

The Valley of the Kings contains 65 tombs varying in size from a simple pit to a tomb with 120 chambers for Rameses’ II sons. These burial sites were used over the course of 500 years from the 16th to the 11th century BC.

Walking down, down, down into a many chambered tomb.

Another common Egyptian symbol is the scarab beetle which stands for good luck and good fortune.

I have probably overdone it with the pictures but I simply could not get over how absolutely beautiful the painted scenes were inside the tombs. What I found to be the most fascinating was that these are the original colors. They have not been enhanced. They are so far under the ground that they are protected from the sun and do not seem to fade over time. These paintings are more than 3,000 years old. The paint was created from natural resources like plants and rocks.

Even today there are archeological digs happening at the Valley of the Kings, as can be seen in this photo. Archeologists from around the world regularly come to discover new tombs and learn more about ancient Egypt.

Here we are approaching the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut. A mortuary temple is a temple built close to a royal tomb. Valley of the Kings is only 5 km away. Hatshepsut was the only woman to have full power as a pharaoh during the 3,000 year old history of ancient Egypt. Hatshepsut is considered to be one of the greatest pharaohs (male or female) because she brought great wealth to the region by having many trade expeditions with other parts of Africa. These trading expeditions brought back gold, ebony and incense. She is also known for the many building projects she oversaw. She reigned for more than 20 years and during much of that time she portrayed herself as a male by wearing traditional male clothing. This was done as a way for her to establish herself in the Egyptian patriarchy.

Karnak Temple was the last temple we visited. I must admit that by this time of our tour we were actually getting burned out on seeing one temple after another in the space of three days. A friend had told me that Karnak Temple was her favorite but we did not see it that way just because we were tired.
This model of Karnak Temple shows it’s immense size. It is considered to be the largest temple complex constructed anywhere in the world.
Ancient Egyptians believed that the obelisk could guide the souls of the dead to the afterlife. One of these obelisks was built for the Pharaoh Hatshepsut.
Some friends had suggested that we consider staying at the Winter Palace after we got off of our Nile River Cruise in Luxor. We looked into it and tried to make an advance reservation for one night but their was no availability. We did end up getting a room at the last minute because several tourists had canceled. The Israeli War had made them decide not to come to Egypt. Of course we were glad to get to stay but sad for the reason.

The beautiful gardens were by far the part I enjoyed most about our stay at the Winter Palace. This hotel was built by the British in the early 1900’s to host English nobility. Although Randy and I thoroughly enjoyed our stay we felt that the experience did not seem authentic. We felt like we were not in Egypt but instead visiting a lovely British hotel.

On our last day in Egypt we made arrangements for a local guide to take us on a two hour tour of Luxor. We said we were interested in getting to know more of the culture of the city rather than seeing anymore tourist attractions. Our first stop was a local market where we saw no other tourists. 🙂

Next our guide took us to an Egyptian Coptic Church. The Coptic Church has similar beliefs to the Orthodox Church. Our guide pointed out that Christianity was part of Egypt before Islam came to Egypt. He also said that there are Copt schools in Luxor to help preserve the Copt language.

Our local guide also took us to get falafel which is a traditional Egyptian food made from chickpeas and fava beans. Delicious!!

We loved our time in Egypt and found it to be full of so much history that it was hard to take it all in at times. The people were friendly and welcoming, the sights were amazing and cruising on the Nile River was majestic. Personally, I would rather have had more time to spend but I only had a week off from school.

Just a few extra points that we found interesting about Egypt were some of the tight government control that we were unaware of most of the time. For example, VPN’s are not allowed in Egypt. It seems that the government wants total control over communication. One of our taxi drivers told us that he had taken a family group of four Israelis to tour the country for a week. As a result, he had some government officials at his home questioning him. I asked if he would be allowed to communicate with the Israeli tourists after they returned to Israel. He said that would be forbidden by his government. Also, when we were checking out of the Winter Palace we had made our own arrangements for a taxi, we did not do it through the hotel. When we were waiting outside the hotel, our taxi arrived and asked if we were staying in room 361. How did the taxi driver know what room we were staying in? It turns out we were being tracked the whole time by what is called the tourist police. It felt a bit “1984ish”.

Flying through Athens on the way back to Tirana. This is how Randy and I both felt…

It had been a long time since I had run more than a 5K so I decided to run the Tirana Marathon 10K. I started training in early September but had always told myself that I might not do it if I was too tired after our trip back from Egypt. As it turned out, I ran the 10K because if I did not do it then, then I would never get the chance since we will be moving back home in July. There were more than 4,000 participants (in several categories) from a total of 47 different countries. It was such fun to be part of it all!

One quick update about my class, I no longer have 24 students! My class was split when the school hired another international teacher. My teaching life and my students’ learning life has become much, much more productive. Yay! This Halloween photo was the first one taken after the class was split.

Well, it only took me two and a half months to get this blog update published. I thoroughly enjoy reflecting back on our adventures using this blog but I often don’t seem to have the time to actually sit down and work on it. This post seems especially long because there was so much to share as we visited Egypt. I am going to try to do a short blog about December. Hopefully, it won’t take as long to get it published. 🙂

Thank you so very much for allowing me to share our experiences with you!

30 thoughts on “A Visit from Our Son and a Trip to Egypt

  1. Wow!  Your adventures never end.  Love reading your posts/stories and seeing the pictures. I was fortunate to have been able to visit Cairo a few times back in the 80’s, and loved seeing your pictures.  I too did the camel ride-something you ‘must’ do.  Touristy-yes.  But pretty awesome as well.  

    Enjoy your remaining time -I know you will! Jan

    Sent from AT&T Yahoo Mail for iPhone

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  2. Sarah, you and Randy make quite the Pharaoh and his Queen! One of the many things I adore about you is that you check on the camel’s welfare. I have wanted to visit the Valley of the Kings since I read about it before I even met both of you; your pictures do such a great job of bringing it all to life. When you said at one point you were reminded of the Erie Canal, I had just been thinking the same thing! Thank you so much for taking the time to make such a great post and continue to enjoy your time there.

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  3. Brilliant blog Sarah!! I felt like I was on the tour with you! Loved all the photos as I’ll probably never get to Egypt. You and Randy are very adventurous which is great! Loved the photos from Josh and his friend from Belfast visit as well. Your class photos were super! And a 5K!! Sarah, you are amazing!
    Love and miss you, Pat

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      1. Yes, all good here! 👍 BTW, Ben and Carolyn are expecting their 5th child July 13th! We’re very happy for them. 💕

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  4. An amazing trip, Sarah .. loved reading about it! I especially enjoyed reading about the Great Pyramid (always had a fascination). Neat that you actually went inside! Did you see the Kings Chambers? I never heard of the Valley of Kings .. wow! Thanks for “taking us along” .. sending big hugs from home! 🫂

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  5. OMG Sarah, what an amazing trip! I am so happy that you and Randy got to experience all of that. Hoping one day I will get there too!

    It was so cool to see all of the places that I am currently teaching about in 6th grade! Would it be ok if I share your photos with my students? So cool!!!
    Glad you’re having another memorable year!

    Enjoy!
    Ellen

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    1. I would love to be sitting in your 6th grade class learning about Ancient Egypt. I felt like we just barely scraped the surface when it came to knowing all there is to know about this stunning part of the world. It would be good to learn more from you. 🙂 Yes, of course, you can share these photos with your students.

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  6. Sarah, thanks so much for continuing your blog. I was aware of how long it’d been since the last one and was hoping everything was okay. So glad to get this one. You and Randy never cease to amaze me with your adventures! Thanks for taking us along. I look forward to your Dec. update (when you get the chance!). 🙂

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  7. Sarah-I absolutely love when you share your adventures! The details and history you include make me feel like I’m right there with you! Wishing you and Randy continued safe travels!

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  8. Sarah, what a wonderful update! You have experienced so much in your teaching overseas journey. Thanks for taking us along with you on your many trips. It seems a long time ago we were roommates and teaching buddies, doesn’t it?

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    1. Kay, you are so right! It seems like a whole other world. Were we ever really those young and ambitious teachers at Chapel Hill Elementary School??? I hope you and your family are doing well.

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    1. I am glad you enjoyed the blog. 🙂 30 years of teaching ancient Egyptian history, amazing! It must have been such an interesting topic to teach. I am jealous of all the knowledge you must have about that part of the world. I wish I had known more of the history when we started our journey to Egypt.

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  9. Sarah, your hearts must have been full having the boys join you. What an absolutely wonderful blog and you can never have enough pictures. Happy you had the opportunity to see so much of Egypt. Egypt was our most favorite of all our adventures. Was the new museum open yet? Your class looks adorable. They were so lucky to have you for their teacher. Memories that last forever. Let’s get together when you get home.

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