September 13, 2019

The day after we visited Slane Castle and the Tombs of New Grange, we went back to the same area to explore the Tombs at Knowth. These tombs are larger than the ones at New Grange and there are more of them clustered in the same area. We could not enter the tombs as far as we did in New Grange, but they were totally fascinating.

We had to walk through some farmland adjacent to the park entrance to get to the shuttle to take us to Knowth. Future woolen sweaters and socks were part of the view beside our path.

These tombs were built during the Neolithic Age, about 5,000 years ago. The Egyptians had their pyramids, the Irish folk had their stone tombs also.

These tombs are made of large piled up boulders that are supported by a base ring of foundation stones. The stones and boulders are then laid row by row in a sloping manner to come to a small hole at the top. This hold is covered by a cap stone. Then the structure was totally covered by dirt to allow the grass to grow and weather proof the structure.

The entrance to this tomb is set to coincide with the sunrise on the winter solstice. At dawn, the light will enter the doorway and illuminate all the way back to the burial chambers.

The dead were cremated and their ashes stored inside the tombs. There were no riches, weapons, or any items left with the dead, unlike the Egyptians. The dead were simply entombed as a sign of respect. There was no passage to the after life as required by the Egyptian religion. As a result, these tombs were undisturbed for thousands of years. There was simply no reason to break into them.

After exploring the exterior, we were able to go inside the tomb a short way. The guide said that it was unsafe to enter more than the first 20 feet or so. We couldn’t take pictures, but they did a film presentation of the actual passageway and burial areas in a small chamber right inside the entrance. We couldn’t go inside, but were able to see what it looked like.

As this was a complex of tombs, we saw numerous smaller tombs surrounding the main structure.

The whole tomb complex is located on the top of a very large hill. Not quite a mountain, but a pretty good climb to get to the top. The dead guys had a good view.

After the fun afternoon spent exploring the tombs, we headed back to Dublin. Along the way, we drove by the port of Dublin and noticed that the tide was out. There were people taking walks and generally enjoying the temporary beach caused by the low tide.

As we wandered about, I heard a very familiar sound near us. It sounded like a golf club hitting a golf ball. How the heck could any one be playing golf out here I wondered.

Well, it turns out one guy could. He was banging around with a driver and a couple of golf balls. He would whack them a 150 yards or so, chase them down, and hit them back again. He was doing this with no tee or anything. He hit them pretty straight too.

So we ended another interesting day in Ireland. No thefts, no mishaps, just some cool history and a walk on the “beach”.

Map progress – none, still in Dublin.

September 12, 2019

After dealing with the police reports and the theft of our wallet, we soldiered on to visit the surrounding Dublin area. One of our primary interests was to visit Slane Castle.

Slane Castle was built in the late 1700’s and has remained in the same family for hundreds of years. The current owner is Henry Mountcharles, who has seen the castle through some tumultuous times, including having a major fire in the house in the 1970’s. Henry’s father saw the family fortune decline in the mid 1900’s and turned to Henry to save the castle and the family fortune.

Henry started off by turning a portion of the castle into a very successful restaurant and bar and event location. He then turned to producing rock and roll concerts.

Henry’s father had, by chance, met Mick Jagger and invited him to dinner at Slane Castle. Henry, of course, attended the dinner also. Henry and Mick got to know each other a bit and through this relationship, Henry got connected with a concert promoter. The first concert at Slane Castle was Thin Lizzy, a major Irish rock band of the 1970’2. The concert was a huge success.

The grounds can hold up to 80,000 people and have had as many as 100,000 attend a concert. U2, the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen, and Neil Young have played here, to name a few. A few months before we visited, Metallica played there in June, 2019.

In the late 1970’s a tremendous fire broke out in the eastern section of the castle, destroying about one third of the building. Over the years, the rock and roll concerts enabled Henry to rebuild the castle and continue to make it a viable business and tourist attraction.

Henry’s son, Alex, and his wife started the next phase of the Slane Castle story. They partnered with the Brown Foreman company, founders of Jack Daniels whiskey, to start a distillery in the castle. They converted the former horse stable buildings into the distillery and restaurant.

We got a fascinating tour of the distillery and managed to taste a few really nice whiskies. Of course, we bought a bottle.

After the distillery tour, it was off to see the castle. Unfortunately they wouldn’t let us take pictures inside, but it was really interesting to see a functioning castle in real life. The furniture and artwork is amazing. They managed to save a lot of it from the fire. The history of the castle and the Mountcharles family was very intriguing. The current family does not live there any more. But, the castle can be rented out for weddings and events, and of course the concerts.

After the castle visit, we had some time so we started to drive into the town of Slane. There wan’t much there so we drove a bit and came across a national park, sort of.

We stumbled across the New Grange Tumulus. This is a park built around a 5,000 year old tomb sanctuary built by the Tuatha Dé Danann tribe of Neolithic times in Ireland. The tomb was supposed to be for their kings and other honored people.

As we had just come from Egypt with it’s own 5,000 year old pyramids, tombs, and temples; we found this site very interesting.

The tomb is made of piled up rocks on the top of a hill, then covered with dirt to allow grass to grow on it and water proof the structure.

We actually were able to go inside the tomb. It was built with an entrance way and small rooms to the side, that used to hold the ashes of cremated nobility. It was pretty amazing to be inside such an ancient and well preserved structure. Not as impressive as the tombs in Egypt, but still very interesting.

The entire base of the tomb is supported by very large boulders with strange inscriptions on them. No one is quite sure what they mean.

All in all, a nice day in Ireland with no thieves or pick pockets around.

Map progress – none, still in Dublin area.

September 11, 2019

Now to be fair to Dublin, they are not the only country in the world that has pickpockets and thieves. Let’s face it, thieves are everywhere. Unfortunately for us, one of the more skilled ones found us right after we got settled into our hotel.

We flew into Dublin from Brussels on a very uneventful flight. We had arranged for a rental car in Dublin, as we planned to stay for 4 days. In case you don’t know, Ireland is the same as England, meaning they drive on the left hand side of the road. Plus, our rental car had a manual transmission. After a few miles to get used to this configuration (we have done left hand drive cars on other trips), we made it to our hotel with no issues, other than the normal navigational ones.

We checked into our Radisson Blu hotel around noon, got settled, and asked the desk clerk to recommend a good local place for lunch. He said “You have to go to Leo Burdock’s fish & chips restaurant. It has the best food in Ireland. All of the stars go there.” So, we went on line and checked it out. He was right, the list of famous musicians and actors that have left comments and gone there was very impressive (Bruce Springsteen, U2, Mick Jagger, etc.)

We drive into town, finally find a parking spot, and head to the restaurant.

Once inside, we realize that this place is little more than a diner. You order at the counter and they bring you your food in this tiny cramped seating area. I tried to get a beer, but they don’t serve beer in Leo Burdock’s famous fish & chips restaurant. They told me to go next door, get the beer and come back. I did this with no problem at all from the bar next door, even when I walked out with their nice beer mug (which I later returned of course).

The food was OK. The fish was obviously very fresh, but the chips (french fries) and coleslaw were just average. Everything was served on plastic plates with plastic silverware. I think Bruce and the boys must have very low standards to be raving about this restaurant.

After lunch we decided to wander around a bit and went into a little shop to buy postcards to send back home. The shop was The Irish Pub Store. This is the scene of the pick pocketing crime.

We picked some post cards off their rack outside and went inside to pay for them. I pulled my wallet out of my left rear pocket in my cargo pants to pay for the cards. Now, this was about the only time in the entire trip I kept my wallet there. Usually we had it secured in a backpack or fanny pack. We asked the clerk if they sold stamps, she said no and directed us to another store about 30 meters away. We went to that store, got some stamps from the clerk and when I went to pay for them; I could not find my wallet. It took all of 5 minutes from the time we left The Irish Pub Store to walk to the next store and try to buy the stamps. Someone stole my wallet in that space of time. I felt nothing at all. No one bumped into me. No one tried to talk to me, nothing. It was just gone.

We think there was a man inside the store that signaled the real thief waiting outside the store, where the wallet was. Andrea noticed that this man followed us out of the store to the doorway and then disappeared.

So, the wallet is gone, we go back to the post card store to see if I dropped it there, or on the way to the other store, with no luck. We then went to the local police station to report the theft. As I am waiting in line to do the report Andrea is on the phone trying to shut down the cards with the freeze option. This was about 25 minutes after the wallet was stolen. The thief had already figured out my PIN and withdrawn $2,000 from 3 different debit and credit cards in my wallet. What a pain!

I reported the crime to a very nice young police officer named Killian O’Connor. I am not kidding. This is his name. You can’t get any more Irish that than.

He asked us to get the details of the cash transactions, which we were able to get from our banker in the States. The thief had gone to an ATM 3 miles away from the store and done the transactions within 20 minutes of getting the wallet. He tried all of the cards (yes, I had way too cards in one location) but was only able to access three of them.

Luckily, our banker was able to dispute all of the charges and we got our money back within a few weeks. But, I still had to replace all the documents; drivers license, insurance cards etc. It took quite a bit of work.

We had been so diligent about securing wallets and our documents during our time in Eastern Europe, Egypt and Jordan. We relaxed when we got back to “civilization”. The lesson is avid reader, never let your guard down.

FYI, Andrea has her own bank account and credit cards, so we were able to continue the trip without interruption. In fact, it was kind of nice having her pay for everything.

Map progress – Brussels, Belgium to Dublin, Ireland by air.

September 10, 2019

After our great Egyptian and Jordanian trip, it is time to start heading back west. As we had booked travel to and from our Viking Cruise and post cruise excursion on our own, we had to figure out how to get back to the US after we were done with Jordan.

In case you don’t know, it is really expensive to fly directly from Jordan to Florida. Also, it takes about 24 hours. So we decided, what the heck, we’ll just take our time and wander back as we wanted. For the cost of the flights from Jordan to Florida, we were able to extend our trip, see some more cities, visit our English friends, and take a transatlantic cruise back to Miami.

The first step on the way home was to fly from Amman, Jordan to Brussels, Belgium. Why did we go to Brussels you ask? The answer is that we have been there several times before on other trips and really like the city. It also made for a good stopping point on the flight back.

We got to the airport courtesy of Viking River Cruise. We paid for their bus to get us to the airport and on the plane. We met with a Viking rep at the airport who was VERY good at his job. It actually was kind of funny. Basically he just put us in front of the various lines we had to go through and argued and pushed his way through various airline employees to get on as quickly as possible. The fact that we were the last Viking people to leave and he could go home after he saw us off, probably had nothing to do with his extreme efficiency.

We had arranged for transportation from the airport to the hotel. Usually no problem. However, we really got hung up in customs and couldn’t find our ride. We hunkered down in the arrivals section and kept looking for a guy with a sign that said Goodell. He finally showed up about an hour later and got us right to the hotel. Oh well, no real problem.

We got checked into our hotel and headed out for dinner, and drinks of course.

After dinner we wandered around this beautiful city for a bit and headed back to the hotel to sleep and to get ready for our next flight tomorrow, to Dublin, Ireland.

Map progress – Amman, Jordan to Brussels, Belgium by plane.

September 6 – 9, 2019

After our great day in Petra, it was back on the bus to head out to the Dead Sea. This is another location that we have heard about for all our our lives and were really looking forward to seeing. It did not disappoint, although it was a bit different than we expected.

First of all, the Dead Sea is shrinking. The Dead Sea is fed by the Jordan River, which flows through Israel. Israel has diverted a lot of the Jordan River flow over the years to accomplish it’s own goals of irrigation and water use. The result is that the Dead Sea is shrinking by about 3 feet every year. You can actually see the drop by the angle of the cliffs and the beach structures that are constantly moving closer to the water’s edge as it continues to shrink.

Second, everyone knows that the Dead Sea has the most concentrated salt level of any body of water on earth. That is why everyone floats on the top of the water. What they don’t tell you is about the other minerals and acidic compounds that are also in the water. These acidic compounds really burn. Achmed warned us not to get it into our eyes. He was right. One poor guy near us obviously didn’t get warned and dove under water. When he came back up and got water in his eyes, he was in tremendous pain. Also, let’s just say that every other body orifice that would normally be under water really starts to burn after a bit also. And I mean every body orifice!

It was still a fun experience. The Dead Sea is the lowest point on earth, which is very cool.

After we arrived at our very nice hotel, of course it was time for lunch and drinks.

The Dead Sea is a very important and vibrant tourist area of Jordan. The hotels there are huge luxury resorts. Our resort had numerous villas (where they placed us). We considered our hotel to be the best one we have stayed at during our entire trip, including the Ritz Carlton in Cairo. Andrea just wanted to book the room for the rest of her life and stay there.

There were people from all over the world in our hotel. Everyone just doing the same thing, kicking back, and enjoying the water and the views.

To swim in the Dead Sea, you just head down to the beach and walk in. The bottom is very rocky so definitely wear some kind of footwear.

The local scheme is to say that the mud from the Dead Sea is great for reviving your skin etc. They sell a lot of it. Most of our group did the mud bath, including Andrea. I mostly just helped apply mud to various body parts. Hey, I was there to help.

The next day it was off to Amman. As the bus made it’s way up out of the valley into the mountains, we saw this very interesting sign.

Along the way to Amman, Achmed said he had a surprise for us. We were going to visit Jerash. At first, we thought, OK, another little temple or something. Jerash was nothing like that. It is a very, very, old city right outside of Amman that is incredibly restored and preserved. They used to have chariot races in the stadium thousands of years ago. They still do it to some degree today. There is a very large amphitheater and stage where they used to have plays and events. Again, this structure is still in use today. Absolutely amazing.

We walked up the hill to get into the archaeological area and suddenly see this tremendous arch and stadium in front of us.

They used to have chariot races in here. It is estimated that the stadium could hold 10,000 people.

The stadium is at the southern end of the city. The city is huge and spreads over hundreds, if not thousands, of acres.

We load up on the bus and head into Amman. We got kind of a sightseeing tour through the city with Achmed pointing out the sights to us, including where he lived. Pretty interesting.

Along the way we passed a couple of embassies. Achmed told us not to take pictures. He said if they caught you taking pictures, we could get into some serious trouble, especially at the American Embassy. He told us a story of how one of his tourists (not me) years ago did not listen to him and snuck a picture of the embassy out of the bus window with his cell phone. A block later an American jeep pulled up, blocked the bus in the street and an American major came onto the bus. He told Achmed that the old white guy on the right side of the bus, about 2/3 of the way back had taken a picture. He wanted to take the camera and maybe arrest the guy. Achmed couldn’t do much so he let the army guy take the guy off the bus to talk to him. The major wound up deleting the picture off the phone and letting the guy go. FYI, this embassy is much more than just a normal American embassy. It is also the nerve center for all Mid East military operations. As Jordan is the only country in the area that is fairly stable and likes America, they house the headquarters there. The embassy is huge. Achmed told us it goes under ground very far and is a nuclear bomb shelter.

We made it to our hotel for our last night in Amman. We had dinner on our own, but then we decided to do a little shopping. The hotel got us a taxi driver that spoke very good English. We went downtown to several shops and then he found Andrea a store that sold more of her Dead Sea skin products. We found the Jordanian people to be very nice and polite and not at all annoying as were the Egyptians. We would love to return to Jordan some day and see more of the country.

Map progress – Dead Sea, Jordan to Amman, Jordan by bus.

September 6 – September 9, 2019.

The next morning we are up bright and early and ready to head out to the city of Petra. In case you don’t remember, Petra is where some of the major scenes of the Indiana Jones movie, The Last Crusade, were filmed. The structure in the canyon known as the Treasury was used as the entrance for the booby trapped temple that Indy had to get through to find the knight and the Holy Grail.

In reality, the Treasury is just a facade with some tombs dug into the bottom of the structure. There are no caves or rooms or booby traps inside the real Treasury. That is all movie magic.

One interesting note is that the road inside the canyon, known as the Siq, is paved. Steven Speilberg did that, with Jordan’s permission, so his camera crews could move equipment around and film the action better. It certainly makes the walk in much easier. Thanks Steven.

If you recall, the previous post mentioned that Achmed was writing a book entitled “25 years of the stupid things that tourist say”. Well, Petra includes some examples of his stories.

As you watch the following video, you will occasionally see a tree growing right out of the rock of the canyon wall. While this is kind of unusual, we have all seen this in mountains or even concrete expressways over the years. Achmed tells the story of one lady that saw such a tree and asked Achmed how a tree can grow out of a rock wall. Achmed explained that somehow nature finds a way to have life grow where ever possible. The lady considered this for a moment and said “that makes sense, but what kind of a tree is it, Achmed?”. Achmed said at that moment he could not think of a valid answer so he quickly made up a story and said “Ma’am, it is a water melon tree”, very seriously. She nodded, thanked him, and kept walking.

For those of you non agricultural types, there is no such thing as a watermelon tree. Water melons grow from vines on the ground. Now, here is the punch line. About 10 years after this occurred Achmed started getting asked by his tourists “where is the watermelon tree in Petra?”. His funny answer to the lady has started a brand new tale and a new form of tree in the Siq in Petra.

Watch the video and see the watermelon tree for yourself.

Another very important, true, fact about Petra is that you can only walk into the city. Or, you can hire a horse and buggy, or donkey, to get you in, up to the Treasury section. No motor vehicles allowed. So, it is about a 5 mile walk to get in and out of the city. There is some slope, but not too bad. The point is, this is a very big site.

Achmed did a really great job and got us to the Treasury right when the full light of the morning sun totally illuminated the building. This lasted for about 15 minutes, then the shadows from the mountains started to creep across the face of it.

After we reached the Treasury, Achmed shared another funny tourist story that made it to his book. He told us of another lady that had come to Petra to see the location of where the Indiana Jones movie had been filmed. She really enjoyed the film and wanted to see the location. After seeing the Siq and the Treasury she asked Achmed if these were indeed the places she had seen in the movie. Achmed replied, “Yes ma’am, these are the actual sights you saw in the Indiana Jones movie.”. The lady considered this for a moment and told Achmed, ” I hope you people appreciate the fact that Steven Speilberg left his movie props for you to use after he left.”

Achmed said he had no response that that comment and just shook his head and walked away.

We marveled at the Treasury, not the movie prop, and continued on to more of the city.

We walked on through the entire City of Petra. We had lunch in a very nice hotel restaurant at the end of the Roman Road. Heading back, we took a different route and climbed the hills to get up onto and into the Tombs of the Kings. These tombs were carved directly out of the sandstone mountain face and housed the coffins of various kings of the ages.

An interesting point about these tombs, versus the Egyptian tombs we had just seen, is that the people were buried without treasures and valuables to help them get to the afterlife. These Jordanian Petra residents did not believe in this sort of afterlife and therefore did not stack their tombs with great wealth. Therefore, the is really no reason to rob them or disturb them, other than for archaeological reasons or to empty the tomb to create a place for someone to live. This happened a lot. Achmed told us there are probably hundreds, if not thousands, of tombs and burials sites still unopened in this area simply because there is no real reason to disturb the dead. Up until about 40 years ago people had taken over a lot of the big tombs and set up house. It took the Jordanian government quite a while to get them out and set up the current tourism mecca that it now is.

We finished up our 5 mile hike in and out of the City of Petra and returned to our hotel. We were tired, but had a great time seeing this truly historical city and the sights.

Map progress – none, still in Petra.

September 6 – September 9, 2019

After getting up at 2:30 AM in Cairo to get to the airport on time, we have about a 2 hour flight into Amman, Jordan. This is our post cruise excursion after our Egyptian cruise of the Nile River.

Once we cleared customs, we met up with our guide, Achmed. Achmed is a Jordanian tour guide who has been in the business for about 25 years. He was a totally fascinating guy to be with for 3 days. Not only did he give us the historical facts of the sites we visited, but he gave us his opinion of a lot of the political and cultural aspects of the Arab – Westerner relationships. It was very enlightening to see the Arab point of view of the various wars and conflicts that have gone on in this area. His view on The Crusades – “Europeans look at the Crusades as liberating The Holy Land. We looked at it as defending ourselves from invaders.” He has a good point there. This point of view extended to the more recent conflicts and issues also.

Achmed also informed us that he is writing a book entitled “25 years of the stupid things that tourists say”. He gave us lots of examples. Luckily, none of us are going to be in the book.

We load up on the bus and head off into Jordan. The bus is a full sized 42 passenger model, so there is plenty of room for the 12 of us to stretch out. Once on the road, it was a lot like Egypt. Lots and lots of desert everywhere.

We are off onto a very full day. It is now about 10 AM local time. We have all been up since around 2:30 AM. We have left Amman and are heading south to Petra, a 4 hour bus ride away. We are about to stop at several historical and interesting places on our route.

The first stop is Mount Nebo. This is the site where, according to the Bible, Moses died and is supposed to be buried somewhere in the area. This is also supposedly the area where Moses was commanded by God to talk to a rock to produce water for the Israelites. Instead he struck the rock with his staff twice because he was tired of the constant complaints from the Israelites. This angered God, who then prevented Moses from entering the Holy Land across the valley, present day Israel.

The site is on top of a mountain (thus the name Mount Nebo, of course). It consists of a Memorial to Moses and great views of the surrounding areas, which include the Dead Sea and the cities of Israel.

Inside the Memorial of Moses are examples of terrazzo floors that have been saved from a previous church on the site and others in the area. These are works of art about 900 years old. This area of Jordan is famous for it’s stone work and intricate works of art and furniture made by local artisans with the locally found colored rocks.

After the Memorial, it is back on the bus to see a local artisan factory. As mentioned before, this part of Jordan is known for it’s stone work, especially in floors, furniture, and art pieces. Achmed took us to a local factory that trains young artists, displays and sells their works, and provides an economic future for them and their town.

We then head out to a local restaurant for an authentic Jordanian meal. Our group is tired, but hungry, and ready to dive into some good food.

Then its back on the bus, yet again, to continue our drive to Petra. Along the way, we saw a little local dispute. We have no idea who or what was involved, but the locals were fighting amongst themselves.

After the excitement we continue our way out of town to the desert once again. We are going to make a brief stop at the Shobot Castle along the way. This is a citadel that was built around 1115 AD as part of the fortifications for the Crusades. The local chief wanted to protect his trade route from bandits and built this very strategically placed fort to accomplish this goal. It is in total ruins now, but still an interesting sight.

It is starting to get dark as we roll into Petra. It is about 8 PM local time. We have been going non stop all day and are certainly tired. But, there is one more interesting stop to make. The place where Moses created water by hitting the rock with his staff. At least, that’s what the locals say.

We finally make it to our hotel, right across from the entrance to the Petra grounds. We all grab dinner and then back to the room to collapse. Tomorrow is another busy day.

This aspect of the trip to the Middle East is absolutely fascinating. While in Egypt, we saw the cradle of civilization, where humankind sprang from and prospered. Here, in Jordan, we are in religion country. Jerusalem is right around the corner where all of the major western religions were born. Achmed set the tone right away by talking about Moses and Bible stories. This part of the world is where it all began, and is still happening. Pretty cool.

Map progress – Cairo, Egypt to Amman, Jordan by plane. Amman, Jordan to Petra, Jordan by bus.

August 25 – September 5, 2019

After spending the night in Luxor, we get up at O Dark Thirty to get transported to the Luxor Airport for our flight back to Cairo.

We make it back to Cairo and check into the Intercontinental Hotel, right next to the Cairo Airport. This was a very nice hotel, but had one major drawback, in my mind anyway.

Yep, the hotel is adjacent to a HUGE shopping mall. This has got to be the biggest mall we have ever been in. And yes, I got dragged all over it by one member of the Goodell household. “We” were looking for a present for a friend, that we finally found after miles and miles of looking. They have about 12 floors and so many wings we got lost trying to get back to the hotel. We finally ran into some members of our cruise that had just left the hotel to see the mall and still remembered where the entrance was. Thank goodness!

Viking offered some optional tours of the city and museums that we passed on, so we had a free day. We got ready for our flight out of Cairo to Amman, Jordan the next day. Well, actually that night in our opinion.

We had to get up at 2:30 AM to leave the hotel by 3:45 AM to catch a 7:00 AM flight. We were doing the post cruise excursion to Jordan, along with 10 other members of our cruise party.

We all made it on time, but really sleepy and tired.

Map progress – Luxor, Egypt to Cairo, Egypt by plane.

August 25 – September 5, 2019

We are back on the river on the Viking Antares heading north to Edfu, Egypt. Once we dock, we head off to see the Temple of Horus, one of the most preserved temples in Egypt.

This time we have a very unusual and fun form of transportation to the temple. We get picked up by horse and buggies right at the dock of the Viking Antares. What a wild ride through the city streets.

After barely arriving alive at the temple, it is time to go in.

This temple was built between 237 – 57 BC during the Ptolemaic Kingdom. It shows the heavy influence of the Romans and has detailed hieroglyphs that record it’s building construction and mythological interpretations of the carvings.

After visiting the temple, we grab our horse and buggies and make it back to the Viking Antares. There, we shoved off up river again heading to Luxor. Along the way we picked up some interesting characters. FYI, this first lock depicted in the video is not working, so it is just like a narrow passageway to get lined up for the real lock, soon to come.

After the hilarity of these guys, it is our turn to get into the functioning lock.

We make it back to Luxor on the Viking Antares with some great Nile River sailing along the way.

Map progress – Edfu, Egypt to Luxor, Egypt by boat.

August 25 – September 5, 2019

In the morning we head off on the Nile again, but this time in small private boats. We are going to see an actual Nubian village and private home, then off to the Philae Temple.

After docking at the village, we set off to visit an acutal Nubian home. While the owner obviously lives there, his business consists of the tourists visitations and he has a small hotel next door. He is probably the local rich guy and mayor.

After the house, we visited the local school and saw some kids in class.

We leave the village via bus and stop off at a papyrus store and factory. Of course, we all had to buy a little something, which is what they were counting on.

Then it was on to the Aswan Dam again, but this time to get on another river boat to visit the Philae Temple. This temple was one of the 22 sites relocated due to the building of the Aswan Dam. It was originally located on Philae Island, a short distance away from it’s current location. Philae Island is now underwater.

The Philae Temple site is made up of 2 temples dedicated to 2 Gods. These are the God Sobek and the God Horus. They were started by an Egyptian Pharaoh about 690 BC and completed by a Roman Emperor about 65 BC. You can see the emergence of the Grecian – Roman influences as you move about the complex.

Soon, we are back on the Viking Antares, sailing into a gorgeous sunset!

Map progress – Aswan, Egypt to Kom Ombo, Egypt by boat.