For the last section of our trip to Egypt we took an all night train (more on that later) down to Aswan, and then hopped onto our Nile Cruise.
Just take a look at this beauty. This is not your typical American Cruise, it is one old ship. But none the less we were thrilled to have a clean place to stay for 3 nights.
Although, little did we know that the cruise food would make us soooooooooo sick. And we are not talking about your typical sea sickness. We got a paracite/infection from the juice they served with breakfast. The infection is called
Shigella resulting from oral contamination of feces(yep-- looks like that juice they served was more like toilet water mixed with tang.) And we were not the only ones that got sick. The next day a women on the cruise fainted during dinner. She had lost so much fluid, from well, you know... getting the runs... Slowly one by one, less and less people were showing up at meal times because they were all so sick in their rooms. I ended up getting so sick that I had a fever and a migraine... the plane ride home for both Lincoln and I was miserable. But we will get to that part later. For now we can just look at the pretty pictures and try to forget all the times that we went running to the bathroom, always keeping extra toilet paper handy...
On top of the Aswan Dam, situated across the Nile River in Aswan, Egypt. The Dam aimed to increase economic production by regulating the annual river flooding and providing storage of water for agriculture, and later, to generate hydroelectricity. It creates Lake Nasser.
We took a ferry ride over to see Philae. Philae is an island in the Nile River and the previous site of an Egyptian temple complex in southern Egypt. The complex was dismantled and relocated to a nearby island--Philae had originally been partly flooded by the first Aswan Dam for half a century.
Luxor Temple is a large temple complex located on the east bank of the Nile River in the city today known as Luxor (ancient Thebes) and was founded in 1400 B.C.E.
The earliest parts of the temple still standing are the barque chapels, just behind the first pylon. They were built by Hatshepsut, and appropriated by Tuthmosis III. The main part of the temple - the colonnade and the sun court were built by Amenhotep III, and a later addition by Rameses II, who built the entrance pylon, and the two obelisks (one of which was taken to France, and is now at the centre of the Place de la Concorde) linked the Hatshepsut buildings with the main temple.
To the rear of the temple are chapels built by Tuthmosis III, and Alexander. During the Roman era, the temple and its surroundings were a legionary fortress and the home of the Roman government in the area.
The Karnak Temple Complex comprises a vast conglomeration of ruined temples, chapels, pylons, and other buildings, notably the Great Temple of Amen and a massive structure begun by Pharaoh Ramses II (ca. 1391–1351 BC). An ancient sacred lake is part of the site as well. It is located near Luxor, some 500 km south of Cairo, in Egypt.
Don't let these smiles fool you. We were so sick that day. I don't remember one thing the tour guide told us... but I could tell you exactly where the bathroom was located and that they tried to charge me as I was running inside to use it.
I sat down every chance I could, to make it more bearable. Poor Lincoln, he was sick too. But thank goodness he felt good enough to hold the camera and take some pictures.
This was more like the sites I got to see in Egypt. I saw a LOT of these dingy, dirty bathrooms... Definitely not as amazing as the pyramids are... But at least they flush.
Not pictured was the Valley of the Kings. We loved seeing all the amazing Tombs. The best part was some of the paint was still on the walls so you had a better idea of what it all originally looked like. SO much detail! (too bad cameras were not allowed)
The next place we visited was the tomb of Queen Hatshepsut. She is generally regarded by Egyptologists as one of the most successful pharaohs, reigning longer than any other woman of an indigenous Egyptian dynasty.
Her grave/temple was carved out of the mountains in the middle of no where.
Then we had about 5 hours to kill before we had to catch our train back. Since we were still feeling really sick, we decided to pay the extra money to wait at a hotel and use their internet/pool/and of course bathrooms...
We had some fun in the pool and loved watching the sunset across the Nile. Definitely one of the highlights of the trip.
The train ride. All I have to say is that if you ever go to Egypt and decide to take a Nile Cruise, pay the extra $100 and buy plane tickets to get to and from Cairo. It is worth it. The train smells bad, is cold and MISERABLE if you are sick like we were. (not to mention that people think it is ok to smoke inside the train!) To top it off, we were told that it was going to be a sleeper train--you know the ones like you see on TV with your own room-- Not so much. Apparently first class means last class in Egypt...
And the only thing we could get to eat were cookies... For breakfast and dinner. Twice.
Lincoln and I like to travel cheaply, but after this experience all I can say is that a good nights sleep when you are sick is worth more than money sometimes...
We had to walk like Egyptions to feel better...
The final day in Egypt we were saved by our lovely tour guide Shereen. Shereen is a professor at BYU and was in Egypt for the summer teaching. She said she would spend a day with us showing us the sites. She was a lifesaver. It was SO nice to have a native Egyption with us so we didn't get ripped off at every place we went.
We went to the Cairo Museum with her and saw all of King Tut's artifacts. It was really neat to see how much they crammed into his Tomb. Turns out you really can't take all that with you when you die...
Then we spent some time in Coptic Cairo and went to see some of the Mosques. In order to cover up everything but my face, they had me put on this robe while I was in the Mosque.
Don't I look fabulous in green? ha ha
Best view of the city. If you look closely at the photos you can see the pyramids!
It was incredible to be on top of the city when the call for prayer went out. You could hear people praying throughout the whole city. It was somewhat chaotic to hear the echos of all the people singing in the megaphones throught different Mosques.
It was so beautiful inside the Mosques.
The view from on top of our Hostel.
And thats it! It was a great trip. So glad we did it. But we were so happy to go back to America!! As soon as we came back I went to Urgent Care because I was still feeling so sick. That is when they found out we had Shigella. Once they found out, by law the Urgent Care had to contact the Virginia Department of health. The Department of Health then contacted us to do an investigation to find out where we got sick. They also needed to make sure that we don't work with food or children, becuase if so, we would have had to take a mandatory leave until the infection cleared. If we had gotten sick in the US they also would have investigated further.
Not your average case of travelors diarrhea! We affectionately called it King Tut's Revenge...
