1.     Bring a fairly empty suitcase so you’ll have room for galibayas and gorgeous shawls (great gits and very economical) I even bought a tablecloth and napkins while others were shopping for Egyptian cotton sheets.  (They’ll ship rugs for you for free.) 2.     Any time is a time to travel to Egypt. Every season has its traditions….

This was the long ride through the winter desert. It took from 6:30 am until 4 pm to get to our hotel in Amman, but we did make one significant stop. Besides the “coffee out” stops, as Sal likes to call them, we stopped at Gerash, the most significant Roman site outside of Italy.  When we…

Today wow! We met at 8:30 AM and were on the road to the Petra entrance across the street. Our guide, Salah, walked with us slowly down the pitched trail,  toward the rocky outcroppings that were like the beginning of a gentle valley. As we looked closer, we could see lots of caves, and even some…

In Jordan, we left the Movenpick Hotel for the long drive to Petra. We will be driving pretty much the entire length of the country today, making stops along the way. Our first was Mount Nebo— a monastery restored by the Franciscans who discovered layers of mosaic floors. They carefully removed and reassembled all the floors and put…

The drama today started at 3 am when we were supposed to be on the bus— not still in our jammies! After some shouting and scurrying, we managed to get downstairs in 15 minutes. Oh my. What happened to our wake-up call?  We traveled from Cairo, Egypt to Amman, Jordan, through many scanners and finally…

After flying back to Cairo this morning and… new day! Today we had a fairly easy day. A small group of us boarded buses and went across town to the Coptic neighborhood to visit the synagogue and the Coptic church. The synagogue was important because baby Moses was thought to have been found in a river there….

We knew what was coming. Still, it was great fun. We got to ride— and me, drive (!) a horse-drawn buggy to the Edfu Temple. The Edfu Temple is famous for being the most complete of all the temples, including the surrounding neighborhood of 2000-year-old houses, because the whole thing had been preserved under the sand for…

Today started with a cruise up the Nile on a little boat that was like the Jungle Cruise at Disneyland. It was very charming and even had fringe. We went around lots of small islands and little boats, which reminded us of Antarctica sailing around icebergs. There was lots of wildlife along the sides of the river,…

It was another early day, but since we moved from Esna to Aswan yesterday afternoon, we were not awakened by morning prayers at 5:40 am. Instead, we got to sleep in until 6:00 am because today was going to be a big day. Breakfast, bus, and off we went. This is a much smaller group today because…

Early this morning, we were awakened by the call to prayer from a very loud singer in a very nearby minaret. The first prayer is at 5:49 am.  Good morning. Today was a much quieter day, just when we needed one. The choices were either to do a walking/shopping tour in the beautiful town of Esna…