Final two days in Cairo

This morning we flew from Luxor to Cairo. They chartered a plane for us so there was a lot less waiting around airports.
This was the first time we saw one of the pyramids. As you can see they are close in to the city. Not out in the desert as I've always imagined. They do have some desert on the other side.
My sweetheart holding the pyramid up. Below the three Pyramids of Giza plus one of the smaller ones. Cairo is just a short distance behind us as we take this picture.

The Pyramids of Giza built by the Pharaohs Cheop, Chephren and Mykerinos are almost 5000 years old.

Lou Anna and Glenn Fifield and (below) Lorne and Linda White four friends that made this trip special just by being there with us. They were so much fun and did we ever have to hustle to keep up with them.Notice at the top of the Pyramid in back of us. Originally the pyramid was covered completely with a smooth polished layer of limestone. This layer has been stripped off except for the top part that you can see.
We were told that the St. Peter's in Rome, St Paul's in London, Westminster Abbey and the Cathedrals of Florence and Milan could find room within it, were it not solid.

This picture will help you know how huge these pyramids are. Marv is standing by blocks the same size as the pyramids are made of. How did they move them? About 2.3 million blocks of stone, weighing on average 2.5 tons a piece, were used to erect this gigantic structure. They claim that "the Pyramids are so enormous that their construction would exhaust the skills and resources of today's technology almost to breaking point."


The great Sphinx is 57 meters longs and20 high. Sadly there has been intentional destruction on the face. The nose is gone and there used to be a long beard on it.


We stayed at Intercontinental Citystars Hotel. Top notch in every way.

I took this shot out the back of the hotel - a little piece of down town Cairo.

We spent a couple of interesting hours in the Egyptian Museum where we saw among other things all of the material that was taken out of King Tut's tomb. Outside the museum a group of young Egyptian girls came up and talked to us. They were attending a university and they wanted to try out their English. They wanted to take pictures of us. They wanted to share their snacks with us crackers, gum. Our regret is that we didn't have our cameras (we couldn't take them in the museum) so that we could take a picture of them.

Our final adventure was a boat ride on the Nile. From the boat we saw a lot of Cairo. The modern, the poor and down trodden, and many beautiful mosques. Several of the guides made the boat ride especially fun dancing for us to Egyptian music. Before they were through they had most of us up and joining them.
We also ended by doing some shopping at the Mall behind the hotel. Looked like the malls back home. People in a hurry just like here.

What a life changing thing this whole trip has been. I am so grateful for the entire trip. It will only take me a few weeks to regain my energy :) but the memories will last forever and they will enrich all I see and learn about in the future.

To Luxor and a different adventure

From Taba we flew to Luxor. On our way to the Valley of the Kings we crossed what we thought was the Nile River


Minutes later we crossed the real Nile River. Much more impressive. The other was one of many small canals.
All along the road we would saw a mixture of nice apartment buildings and a lot of the poorest of shacks.


This is a picture of the entrances of some of the tombs in Valley of the Kings.

Valley of the Kings is an area where there are sixty two tombs. Not all of those buried here are royalty but most are. Buried with the bodies were funerary objects they would need for the next life however these items have all been removed. We were allowed to see only three of these tombs. Only a few are open each day. They rotate which ones are opened. We were able to see King Tut's. We don't have any pictures to share of the insides because they would not allow us to take cameras in. What you see inside are walls that are completely covered with hieroglyphics, and pictures drawn with amazing colors and of course you see the sarcophagus. In King Tut's tomb they had his mummified remains on display. Something that has not been done before.

On our way to the next site we stopped at an alabaster factory. We bought a beautiful alabaster vase. A lot of work and energy goes into turning a rock into a vase when all you use is muscle and a few crude tools.

Our next stop was on the West side of the Nile (That is the side for tombs, funerary temples and graves. The East side of the Nile is the " living side of the river"). According to the pamphlet "The rock temple of Abu Simbel who was Ramses II is among the grandest monuments in Egypt." We really did especially enjoy this one.

The front of the temple. You can see how huge it is. The picture below is the main hall that goes directly through the whole building. Waving to us for the picture is a friendly native, his own idea.


The walls are covered with engraven hyroglyphics. There were ever so many rows of huge columns like this one. Can you find Marvin?

In many of the rooms we found murals in surprisingly bright colors. Remember how old everything is. This temple, as near as I can guess-ta-mate was built in the first century B.C.
Our manual says "Painting has been a part of Egyptian life since the first daubs were applied to the Pyramid of Unas at Saqqara in the 24th century B.C. But it was the Pharaohs of the New Kingdom who were especially keen on adorning the interiors of their tombs with vivid images of the after world and resurrection."



This is all that is left of the funerary temple of Amenhottep III. These two enormous statues stood on either side of the entrance. They are called Colossi of Memnon.

Our last stop for the day was the Temple of Karnak.

The tall obelisk is a distinctive feature of the Karnak temple.

These two statues are of the Pharaoh and the Queen. He is carved out of sandstone and she is out of granite.


A couple of the finishing touches we saw there.The entrance to this temple has an avenue of ram headed sphinxes. It was a very long avenue originally however there are still many left.



Close up of one of the ram headed sphinxes.

Now to Sofitel Karnak luxury hotel. Weary bones are sooooo ready for this.

A Respite on the Red Sea

The next two days were rest days in a most delightful place. The Marriott Hotel in Taba Egypt. It is located right on the Red Sea and is beautiful and very comfortable. We started out by sleeping in until 9:00a.m. I didn't know that I could still do that, but we did and it was delicious. When I woke up and looked out the window of our room it took my breath away. The sun was shining and the Red Sea was right there in front of us.

After a quick breakfast we went swimming in the Red Sea. It isn't red but very very blue and warm enough to be comfortable. The bottom is very rocky and made walking in the water difficult. The temperature stayed around high 70's to low 80's perfect!

That afternoon we signed up for a ride on a glass bottom boat. The Red Sea has a wide variety of vibrant colored fish but we saw some fantastic ones but we didn't see as many different ones as expected. The coral made up for it though; a lot of very unusual ones and some really enormous ones.

The next day we spent most all of our time at the beach and at the wonderful pools. It was wonderfully relaxing and just what the doctor ordered. :)







This evening Dr. Michael King gave a lecture about Egypt. Dr. King was involved in producing a television program for Discovery Channel about the death of King Tut. They did a lot of forensic research and came up with the conclusion that he was murdered by his prime minister. The program won a Tony award and was very interesting. His involvement with this program gave him a wealth of background knowledge especially about the tombs that we will see.

Through the Judean Wilderness to Egypt

We left our hotel in Jerusalem at 7:00am. I felt a lot of regret at leaving. There was such a strong feeling that there was so much more to see and experience there. But added to that feeling was one of tremendous gratitude for the time we had had there. Leaving Jerusalem we traveled south through the wilderness area where John the Baptist lived, where Jesus had gone to prepare for his ministry, where he fasted and was tempted by Satan.

We were very excited to be going to Petra. However we were not looking forward to crossing the border. Remember the last time going from Jordan to Israel took four hours. That had nothing to do with travel time. That was four hours sitting on the bus waiting for them to let us cross over. This time crossing only took a couple of hours however there was an accident just after the border and traffic was stopped completely for an hour or more. By this time it was 2:00p.m. We knew that Petra closed at 5:00p.m. By the time that we finally got to Petra we only had two hours to see what really should have taken many days.


But were we happy to be there!

Petra is totally fantastic! It is considered one of the Seven Wonders of the World. It is more beautiful and enormous than you can possibly imagine. Pictures in books and on the internet do not do it justice.

Our guide book says "Petra is one of the world's most impressive and atmospheric archaeological sites. There has been human settlement here since prehistoric times, but before the Nabataeans came, Petra was just another desert watering hole. Between the 3rd Century BC and the 1st century AD they built a superb city and made it the center of a vast trading empire." It is completely carved out of sandstone rock. Petra was also known for its engineering of a sophisticated hydraulic system. They used tunnels and tanks that were carved in the rock to preserve water and protect them from flash flood damage.

This is the Treasury it is 138 feet tall.
A little closer look at some of the detail on the face of the Treasury. Be sure and enlarge the picture.

Ancient condos anybody? Maybe a build your own project? Way too much work! :) No actually they say they are tombs.
This is our attempt to give you a size perspective.
To see Petra you have four choices: you can walk, ride little burros, ride camels or rent a two wheel carriage. We hired a horse and carriage so that we could see as much as possible. On the cobblestone paths the carriage is quite an adventure because not only is it very bumpy the driver is in a hurry to make as many trips as possible so you hang on for dear life. You get off at the Treasury and explore and then he picks you up at the same spot at a mutually set time to return you to the entrance.

If you have seen Indiana Jones or The Last Crusade you will have seen part of Petra in the last scenes of those movies.

It took fifteen and a half hours to get from Jerusalem to Taba, Egypt (our next stop). We crossed the Israeli border into Jordan then from Jordan back into Israel and from Israel into Egypt. At each crossing we had to take all of our luggage out of the bus and pass it through security, wait in enourmous lines for long periods of time. Marvin describes it as "pure hell" and I think he is being way too kind. We arrived at our resort hotel in Taba at 11:00p.m. and they had supper waiting for us.

Retracing the footsteps of the Savior's last week

We began our day on Mt. Zion at the traditional site of the Upper Room were Christ and his apostles ate the Last Supper. The room was packed with our group and a Russian Orthodox group. The Russian group sang while we were there and it was beautiful. (Marvin says it was a harmony of fifths with open chords that resolve in to each other- I just knew it was gorgeous :) Because of the crowd we didn't get a picture of this room.

Next we went down to the Kidron Valley and then up to Gethsemane. The olive trees are memorable. Some of them are so huge and look like they could weather any storm. The peace and quietude of this place is delicious.




Marvin, Lorne, Glen and Br. Cope consecrated some olive oil while we were in Gethsemane.


Next we went up to the Palace of Caiaphas where Jesus was questioned and where He was held a prisoner. This is a picture of the prison in the basement of Caiaphas's palace (Luke 22: 63-65) and below it is a picture of a pit where they kept prisoners.



We then went to the Sisters of Sion Convent which was built on the site of Antonia Fortress which is where Pilate questioned Jesus.

Golgatha the place where Christ was crucified. There seems to be a difference of opinions on where the crosses were erected, either on the hill or at the bottom. However the rocky face of the slope has a skull face on it that gives it it's name as Golgatha means skull. You can see it in the picture below.


On the other hand the Tomb where Christ was buried and the Garden that surrounds the tomb is beautiful, and peaceful.


The empty tomb.

Brother John Lund gave an impressive talk on the Atonement which was very thought provoking and stimulated strong feelings of gratitude for our Savior.


This is our last day in Jerusalem and tomorrow we will go back to Jordan on our way to Egypt.