The title of this blog is the first line of the infamous pyramid sound and light show. We saw the sound and light show the first night we were in Cairo, the pyramids are amazing, but the sound and light show was probably not my favorite thing in the world. It was much more fun to go back the next day and see them in the light, and go inside one of them. I think this was so neat because the pyramids are something I have heard about my entire life, and I would never have even dreamed of going inside one of them.
So if I could only choose one word to describe Egypt I would probably choose “grand!” Or at least to describe things like the ancient ruins, the pyramids, and the Nile. It’s amazing though that among these amazing sites are people that live in complete poverty that don’t even have clean water to drink. Needless to say my 8 day trip was amazing, and dare I say slightly life changing. I saw so many things that I’ve learned about since a young age and I also experienced visiting a developing country for the first time. There is no way to describe even a small portion of my adventures in Egypt, but here are some of the most exciting parts…
One of my favorite things was all the different types of transportation we used. We used 9 different types of transportation: bus, train, camel, airplane, taxi, shuttle, felucca (the boat we took down the Nile), a horse drawn carriage, and walking of course. My two favorite were the camel and the felucca ride. My hotel in Luxor was on the Nile, so we took feluccas down the Nile to ride camels, went on a camel ride, and then sailed back down the Nile while the sun was setting. Can you say incredible! It was the most beautiful sunset, and it was so peaceful! I also saw the most beautiful sunrise while in Egypt. One morning we got up at 2:30 to hike Mount Sinai. We started hiking by 3:30 and we were at the top by 5:30. The coolest part of the hike up was the “camel parking lot.” So when we were 2/3 to the top all the people that rode camels up, had to get off and walk. So we got to weave through all the many camels in the dark. Also on the hike up we had to always be aware because getting run over by a camel was a common threat. Camels will never have quite the same excitement they once had. Anyway when I got to the top of the mountain, the sun was just beginning to peak over the mountain. We sang hymns as we watched the sunrise, it was incredible!
Another one of my favorite parts of our Egypt trips was visiting the Valley of the Kings. While there we had the opportunity to go in the tombs of Ramsees the I, III, and IX, as well as King Tut’s tomb. We weren’t allowed to bring cameras into the tombs, and I think that was something that made it one of my favorite places. It was nice to be able to just enjoy being there, and not worrying about documenting everything. I loved being in the tombs and seeing all of the amazing hieroglyphics. Sometime in the last month I learned that hieroglyphics were carved and then painted. In these tombs there were places that still had the original paint, so cool! It was also fun to think about what it would have been like when they buried the Pharaohs with all of their treasures. While I was in one of the tombs the power went out. How exciting to be in an ancient tomb with no power, but it was also nice that a couple of us had flashlights on us.
Going to the Egyptian market was really fun and exciting! I became excellent at getting everything down to at least 1/3 of the price they originally told me. All of us girls agreed that we had never received so many compliments in our lives. You would walk down the street and they would say “oh beautiful eyes” or “hi baby face.” They also loved yelling “no hassle” or “Obama” at us. The neatest part was going past the tourist market to the real Egyptian market. People ignored us a lot more while we were in the real market. We got to go through and just observe the Egyptians in their everyday lives.
We were extremely spoiled the whole trip, staying in 5 star hotels, and going to nice restaurants. One day we had the chance to eat at the Hard Rock Café for lunch, and we most definitely had a dance party while waiting for our food. It was pretty great! J
Although the pyramids were grand and amazing, I think that the Luxor and Karnak temples amazed me even more. I just simply couldn’t comprehend that these were built anciently. They are incredible, and HUGE! The pillars, the hieroglyphics, and just the structure of the building were incredible! With arms stretched out as far as they could, it took 10 people to go around one pillar.
I could probably keep going on for forever, but here are at least some of the highlights. Going to Egypt was probably one of my favorite weeks of my life. I couldn’t help but think how spoiled and how blessed I was the entire time.
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