Wadi el-Hitan

    About two weeks ago, our Egyptian neighbor, Hannah, told us that her the teachers at the school she works at are going to the Valley of the Whales the following Saturday. They had extra seats and asked if we wanted to go. We most certainly said yes after we figured out what it is. We also invited others to join with us since there was still more room to be filled; that way it would be cheaper for everyone.

    Saturday rolled around and we met everyone just before 8:30 a.m. Well Josh and Ayman had gone a little earlier to get us some lunch for the trip. We all hopped in the two vans and were on our way.

  Josh getting excited for the trip.

    We had been driving for a couple of hours at least before we had to stop and get a police escort. Whenever you go out into the desert, you need an escort. Then we started driving again for another couple of hours in the middle of nowhere. Now Egyptians don't have any patience, they always want to be first so it seems like we're always in a race whenever we are in a vehicle. Well in a car that could easily flip over if you hit the soft sand in wrong spot going the right speed, you would think they would know how to drive in the desert with no paved road. These cars weren't 4x4's and our driver found that out the hard way. The part in the desert that seemed to be the road was very bumpy and with the racing instinct they have, he wanted to go faster than 10 or 15 mph. He would also drive on the very edge of the road right where there is a very small ditch of soft sand. Our driver saw that the other van driver started going a little bit faster ahead of us. So he tried doing the same thing. Well instead of going faster on the edge of the bumpy road, he lost balance on the road and got stuck in the ditch. Oh I just loved out driver, he was so smart!  

            Well done!          

 

 

          Everyone pushing trying to get the van unstuck

                                                                                             The before shot....

                                                           ...and the after shot. Pushing real hard there, Josh.

    As you can see from the picture above, we ended up taking the rugs out of the van to help give the tires grip. It eventually worked but I don't think our driver learned from his lesson. He still tried going faster every chance he got.

   We finally got to the entrance sign but still had awhile to go on the road to the actual site. At least that's the way it felt. We were driving so slow on the road. We all got out and took pictures. Unfortunately, the picture with all our friends had the dumb driver in it. I don't know why he wanted in it. You can probably tell that he bothered me.

    Now we are at the part for all the pictures; not that you haven't seen any already ;). Thanks to Andrew and Nancy, we were able to borrow their camera since ours if officially broken. So enjoy!

The Mormon clan: Me, Josh, the dumb driver, Jaehee, Aden, and Lindsey

 

                                                                      The little cafe once you get to everything

                                                        The beginning of the walkway to see all the fossils

                                                      Partial lower jaw, ribs, and vertebrae of a whale

                                                                                           More vertebrae

                                                                              All the vertebrae for a whale

      Fossilized Mangroves. The big sand mountain in the background supposedly has whale fossils in it.

 

Just having some fun!

    Next we went to a lake to see the small waterfall. It smelt so bad there and there were mosquitoes EVERYWHERE! We also got there just in time for the sunset.

    Look at all the nasty foam.

We ended with Josh taking jumping pictures of me.

  

 

    We had lots of fun looking at all the fossils and even picking up some really old seashells when we got stuck. We also picked up some really cool rocks or fossils when we took pictures at the entrance sign. We don't know if they are rocks or fossils. They are different shades of brown from dark to medium in color. And they are wicked smooth. They just look cool.

    We arrive in the park premises around 12:30 and left the park around 3:30. We didn't get home til almost 11. Our dumb driver again took the wrong turn on the way and got us lost. The other van made it home in time, though. Not so lucky for us. On the car rides, I was able to read over half the book I was reading. But the trip overall was worth it. I'm glad we got the chance.

Our Trip to Luxor: Calesh Anyone?

In late November the Heiss family and us decided to spend part of our January vacation in Luxor Egypt. Luxor is in southern Egypt where many of the famous tombs and temples are. The train ride down was relatively uneventful. Although I did notice this on the train:

I saw this plaque near the bathroom. Notice the maker: Messerschmitt. The train was pretty old and dirty. This train is at least 20 years old.

After our 10 hour train ride we arrived in Luxor. The first thing I noticed was how clean the air was. Once you've lived in a city as dirty as Cairo you really enjoy getting out and getting fresh air. Our first stop was the temple of Luxor:

This is a line of Sphinxes that leads right up the entrance of Luxor Temple.

Entrance to the temple. In the middle of the picture you can see a minaret from a mosque that was built inside the temple.

Andrew our tour guide. He was free. No baksheesh.

Possibly an old Greek shrine.

A big obelisk right outside the entrance.

5 Temple Monkeys

Hieroglyphs below one of the two large statues in front of the temple entrance.

These are columns inside the temple.

Here is the mosque they build inside the temple.

Looks like who ever wrote this wanted to emphasize that with a "!"

This Christian mural was VERY cool. It was placed over a huge wall of Hieroglyphics

There is some color left on these walls.

This is the entrance to the Holy of Holies. You can see at the very top is where they would have help the the veil.

After our visit to the Temple of Luxor we went back to our hotel for a rest. In the evening we went on a felucca ride.

Ahhh, the dirty Nile.

One ugly, old and dirty boat.

Camels on the east bank of the Nile.

The next morning we got up real early and headed out to the east bank and went to the Valley of the Kings. But on our way up to the Valley we stopped and saw the Colossus of Memnon. Unfortunately we were unable to take any pictures inside the tombs. But they were hot, humid and VERY cool.

Colossus of Memnon

Here we are waiting to go inside a tomb.

Carolee thought this man next to her was very handsome.

Next was the temple of Hatshepsut.

David Layton, Rachel (the little one) and Nancy Heiss, Carolee and I in front of the Temple of Hatshepsut.

The view from atop the temple.

More tombs up in the hills.

Next stop: Temple of Ramses. This temple was the coolest one we saw in Luxor.

I thought we'd give you some perspective.

Carolee entertained us by explaining the Hieroglyphics and telling us the stories written on the walls. In her own words and her own interpretation of course.

Egyptian infantry

Egyptian archers

These murals on the ceiling were beautiful. The color was amazing.

How nice.

Talk about fat cow huh?

The next day we went to the Temple of Karnak and the last site we visited on our trip.

So that would be me taking pictures with a camera that broke later that day. These are Ram headed sphinxes in front of the temple.

My beautiful wife and the very cute Rachel Heiss.

These next few pictures were found within the Holy of Holies. If you've been endowed some of these actions will look VERY familiar.

Us in front of the alter in the temples' Holy of Holies.

Somebody must have not liked this guy because he was completely grinded out of the wall.

Once again, does this look familiar? Even the compass above his arm is impressive.

This is where the ancient Egyptians preformed their animal sacrifice.

Same guy, same chiseled off face.

Picture on the right: The blue line marks the highest the Nile river ever flooded inside the temple.

On our way out.

After we left the temple, searching for some lunch we passed by a Muslim funeral procession.

Our attempt to leave Luxor was the usual Egyptian headache. Andrew and I went back to the train station the day before we were to leave and asked to buy our train tickets home. The man told us that the train was all full, but if we returned the next morning, they might have more seats. Is it just me or does that not make any sense? How will they magically have more seats if we come back the next morning. So a little frustrated we returned home to research this phenomenon. Andrew found some web sites that talked about the Luxor train scam. It said that often the train station will tell you their train is full so that you are forced to stay in longer. We knew the train was not full and returned the next day to purchase our tickets on a very not full train. We were ready to go by our third day. We had seen pretty much all there was to see. Time to return to dirty ol' Cairo.