Bob and Ann in Egypt and Jordan 2009

River boat to boat to bus to hot air balloon – all before 6:00. Yes, we rode in a hot air balloon over the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens and watched the sun rise at 2500 feet. Ann was thrilled. I was nervous. The views were hazy but still fantastic but I couldn’t look over the side of the basket. We were in the air for about 45 minutes with around 20 other people. There were seven other balloons in the air and we were all spaced out both vertically and horizontally. Our pilot was very skilled and professional. He patiently described all of the sights below repeatedly. Our landing was in the desert. It was extremely smooth with the ground crew catching us perfectly. You can watch a video of us leaving the launch pad here.

After we landed, we were picked up by our bus, driven to the boat and transported across the Nile to our river boat so that we could eat breakfast and pack our bags. We said good bye to our river boat at 9:00 and took another small boat across the Nile back to the west bank. It was time to take our “Day in the Life” bus tour.

Our first stop was to an experimental school for young children. The school is prepared to teach children from pre-school through high school. We only saw the pre-schoolers and a couple of primary grades. We were met at the entrance by several kids who greeted us in English. Then we visited some classrooms where we were shown lesson books and given demonstrations of oral and written lessons. The children were very eager to show us their skills. All of the teachers and the principal were women. They seemed to be very happy and comfortable in their environment.

Farm Visit

After the school, we drove back to the Nile and visited a farm. Our host was a 30-something man who was the middle child of 7. He and his sibs with their children and wives all lived on their 2-acre farm with his mother. They farm wheat in the winter and eggplant, etc. during other seasons. There is a large vegetable garden along with sheep (for wool and meat) and ducks and chickens for food. They baked their own Nile bread from wheat ground on their own grinding stone that has been in their family for many years. Typically, he served us tea and gave us a tour of his farm and house. He was an extremely pleasant and friendly man.

Our last visit was to a fair trade hand craft work shop. This shop is run by a woman originally from Turkey and trained as an archeologist. She quit that work and opened a work shop that trains local women in crafts and sells their product. This had helped the local economy as well as given the local women more freedom and confidence.

Lunch came next in an outdoor restaurant on a second-story terrace. We had the usual salad choices plus grilled chicken and kofta (beef sausage).

We headed back across the Nile and checked into our hotel, the Steigenberger Nile Palace . It was one of the nicer hotels on the trip. We had a large room overlooking the atrium in the center of the building. This gave it an airy feeling, but it was pretty noisy.

Ann took a swim in the warm pool while I worked on photos and my blog. At 4:00 we were off again, this time to visit the Luxor Temple. This is another large temple built in the late kingdom and modified by Ramses II. Samy did an excellent job showing us a progression of hieroglyphics of the Pharaoh being barged from the Karmak Temple to the Luxor Temple and then back through the Avenue of the Sphinxes.

A papyrus shop was the final visit of the day. We got a demonstration of how it is made. Ann and I refrained from buying any.

We stopped at a fish restaurant for dinner where we had some delicious grilled sea bass.

We were back at the hotel by 9:00. There was a noisy show going on in the courtyard of the atrium outside our window. We were afraid that it might keep us awake. It stopped at 10:00, so it was OK.

Here is a map of where we went today: