Big Trip ‘09, Day Eighteen: To Luxor, by Taxi

August 8, 2009

Day Eighteen started around 5am, when the mosque next to the dock we had tied up at started its Adhans for the day, and the goats and sheep that people had brought down to the dock the night before started their bleating.  It was, maybe, a little earlier than we wanted to wake, but [...]

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Big Trip ‘09, Day Seventeen: Felucca, Nile, Bliss

August 7, 2009

I’m tempted to leave today’s entry with the title, because it feels like there’s not a lot else to say.  So it’ll be a brief post, today.  We woke up on our nice felucca after a mostly good night of sleep, and we headed down the Nile.  The big event today was a stop [...]

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Big Trip ‘09, Day Sixteen: Escape from Aswan!

August 5, 2009

So, if you read yesterday’s entry, we just really weren’t that thrilled with Aswan.  On the bright side, that last evening turned out pretty well – we ended up wandering through the market and it was much livelier, and somewhat less annoying, than it had been during the day.  The colors were brighter, the [...]

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Big Trip ‘09, Day Fifteen: Aswan. Yuck.

August 4, 2009

Right, so we’d made it from Sharm El-Shiekh to Aswan in only two days of travel, with one weird police/bureaucracy experience.  Aswan itself promised some sights, like the Philae temples, the High Dam, the Temple of the Nobles, and so on. And we even had a car to take us around, which seemed like [...]

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Big Trip ‘09, Days Thirteen & Fourteen: Getting to Aswan

August 4, 2009

I’m combining these days because they really felt like a single (long) experience.  We start the morning of August 1, waking up in Dahab.  The plan: head down to Sharm El-Sheikh, catch the high speed ferry to Hurghada, take a taxi to Luxor, spend the night there, wake up, and take a taxi to [...]

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Big Trip ‘09: Jordan Wrap-Up

August 1, 2009

Even though Anna and I only spent four Days in Jordan, we both felt that we really got to know the country and the people.  It’s a pretty interesting place, in lots of different ways.  So I wanted to take a minute to write up some general thoughts, stuff that didn’t fit into any [...]

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Big Trip ‘09, Day Twelve: Dahab and a Birthday

August 1, 2009

Day Twelve starts with us waking at Abu Hamza, our unexpectedly nice beachfront hotel-of-sorts on the Red Sea.  As nice as the place was, it did still suffer from what seems to be Egypt’s complete domination by flies.  We were sleeping inside our small room, but as soon as the sun came up, the [...]

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Big Trip ‘09, Day Eleven: Mt. Sinai, the Hazards of Tourist Traps, and an Unexpected Treat

July 31, 2009

It’s hard to believe that we’re already on Day Eleven, and nearly done with the Sinai portion of the trip.  Good writing would dictate that I allude to a fantastic ending to the day, and make you read through the whole thing to get to the payoff.  But screw that, I’ll just come out [...]

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Big Trip ‘09, Day Ten: Bedouins, more Bedouins, and an Early Alarm

July 31, 2009

If you read Day 9, you know that our heroes (that’s us) are bedded down near a small Bedouin camp in Sinai desert, just south of Jebel El-Tih, and that Lars has just survived a vicious surprise attack by a scorpion.  Well, I’m happy to report that the rest of the night passed uneventfully [...]

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Big Trip ‘09, Day Nine: Off Jebel El-Tih and a Scorpion Attack

July 31, 2009

When we left off, we were settling down to sleep on Monday night, near the edge of the Jebel El-Tih plateau we’d been hiking for a few days.  Well, Monday night was… interesting.  It was very, very windy, all night. And cold.  Cold and windy.  And cold.  Anna and I huddled under blankets, behind  [...]

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