Tales of the Egyptian Escapade

Well now that we have been back from Egypt for a good week and half I figured I would be do for an update about it all. Our field trip to Egypt lasted 7 days. These were some of the best 7 days of my whole life. I have always loved Egyptian culture. It's so different from any other culture in history. So I was pretty stoked to go. Our first day was a lot of driving. We stopped along to view a lot of Biblical sites. We went to Beersheba where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob lived anciently. My favorite stop that day was a hike that we took through the Wilderness of Zin. The first night we stayed at a Jewish Kibbutz. We got to play in the sand dunes which was soooooo amazing. We would run down the hill, dive-bomb into the sand no worries and keep rolling and rolling and rolling down the hill till you can't go any further. Then it would take you foreverrr to walk back up and your calves would kill at the top. I couldn't stop running the sands through my hands. It was the softest sand I have felt in a long long time. After a good while of frolicking we all separated on the dunes. We were given a piece of paper and pencil. We spent about 15 minutes just sitting and meditating, it was a great time to stop and think. There was literally nothing there except for the land and the sky. The next day we finished our drive to Cairo, customs was a major pain but we finally got there! There was an instant difference in sanitation once you crossed the border. The entire time we were in Egypt we had to drink bottled water and be super safe while brushing our teeth. Pretty much everything nasty in the world can be found in the Nile River...and that's what the Egyptians drink. We drove into Cairo and went straight to a sacrament meeting service. Egypt is an Arab country so sabbath is every Friday. I don't think I'll get very many opportunities to have the sabbath on so many different days after living here. Saturday in Israel and then Friday while in Egypt.

Our first day in Cairo was everything you think about when you imagine: The Great Pyramids of Giza, the Sphinx, the Nile, camels, heiroglyphics, oh and you can't forget the naked Chinese man washing his pants out in the men's bathroom because he got a bad case of Pharoah's Revenge! We went into the tomb in the middle of the Middle Pyramid. It was the first sarcophagus I had ever seen...and it was huge! By far Cairo was the most "touristy" place we have been. It's a lot less touristy in Jerusalem than I thought it was going to be. One of the only downfalls was the sanitation of it all. I was afraid to eat anything really the whole time that we were there. A big reason for that were the live bugs that people found in their food at lunch our first day...needless to say my appetite was completely gone after that Only about 4-5 people from our group got sick from the trip which was really good.

Site Highlights:
-Giza Pyramids
-Sphinx
-Luxor Temple-Mosque built within Luxor Temple
-Karnak Temple!!!!!
-Valley of the Kings (King Tut's Tomb)
-Hatchepsut's Temple
-Taxi rides around Egypt
-Nile Felucca Ride
-Camel Ride
-Egyptian Museum (Mummies!!!!!)-Papyrus Museum
-Coptic Churches
-Memphis (statues of Rameses II)
-Saladin Citadel
-Muhammad Ali Mosque
-Luxor Bazaar-Saqqara Step Pyramid
-HIKING MT. SINAI
Don't let the look of the Nile water deceive you...it's full of nasties. At the end of our first day in Cairo we went straight to the airport and took a flight down to Luxor. The next two days we spent running around in Luxor. Monday night we took the night train back up to Cairo. The night train consisted of a dinner...gross, I had some rice...a most unpleasant toilet...filthy blankets. But I was so tired from non stop everyday that I didn't even care, I passed out. I'm just glad I was fortunate enough to get the bedding without fleas in it. Some other girls weren't as lucky. The Valley of the Kings was really amazing because of how well preserved the heiroglyphics were. They were so colorful!! I love trying to imagine what everything must have looked like way back when. A lot of places that we went to in Egypt we weren't allowed to take pictures. One of those places was the Valley of the Kings. One of the girls in our group has an Ipod touch. She bumped it somehow so a light went off and the Tomb guard thought she was trying to sneak a pic, he flipped and held her back at the security station until they finally believed her that the Ipod didn't even have a camera on it to begin with.

Probably some of my favorite memories from Egypt are just at the hotel kickin' it. We would play night games on the lawns, go swimming, just talk or do whatever. Also the bartering was a lot better in Egypt, prices are a lot more set for things here in Jerusalem. Going to the bazaar was always really fun. You would always want to make sure you had a guy there with you though, the vendors are so so so pushy. Oh and the heat was kind of out of control....50 degrees Celsius...gotta have the whole experience right? I wish we would have had more time at the Egyptian Museum...our tour was good as in very knowledgeable but man he looooved to talk. I saw so many things there that I have been looking at in history books for so long. King Tut was a little man...but I guess they pretty much all were.

My favorite thing by FAR was the 2am hike we did up to the top of Mt. Sinai. It was on our way back home. We all woke up at 2am started hiking up about 3:30 then once you got to the top you had time to relax until the sun came up. The stars were just incredible and the mountains had such a unique to them. The whole thing was beautiful and it was one of the best sunrises I have ever seen in my entire life. I put a picture of it up on here...gorgeous. We sang hymns up on the top. It was an awesome time to look back and think on our whole trip so far. We sang some hymns while the sun rose. About 1/3 of the way back down we stopped to have a little impromptu testimony sharing with our different religion classes. I would say everyone as a whole really bonded this trip. Some of the funnest/funniest moments were on the long bus rides to places. Some suggestions for an interesting bus ride: adverb, smurf, truth or dare, psychiatry, things of that sort. Everyone loved Egypt...even the people who got sick. The people there were all really nice, hospitable and it was pretty refreshing to be in an area where there is hardly any tension. All in all it was stellar.