Egypt- The Land of the Pharaohs Day 5

Tuesday, March 19th, 2019

This morning began with a ride on a felucca. It is an Egyptian sailing boat that travels slowly on the Nile River.

Agatha Christie wrote Death on the Nile while staying at the Old Cataract Hotel which is pictured below!

On our felucca ride we also saw some pied kingfisher and their nests.

You saw the fertile land along the Nile and then desert! It was quite a contrast.

The Aga Khan Mausoleum can be seen on the West bank of the Nile. Aga Khan was a spiritual leader of the Ismailis, a Shi’ite sect. The villa below to the left is his villa where he lived until his death and his wife oversaw the building of his mausoleum while living in the villa.

Aga Khan’s Mausoleum and his villa is down on the left.

Our next stop was to visit a Nubian village. Below are various pictures of the village as we walked through the area! Nubians are indigenous to southern Egypt and they originated along the Nile valley.

One of our stops was a school in the village. We arrived as the morning classes were ending and before the afternoon session began. It was fun to see these happy young children.

The classrooms are very stark and have nothing in materials/technology that our schools in the US have to educate our students!

We were able to visit one of the Nubian homes and they were very friendly and let us walk all through their home.

As we left the village and traveled on our boat back to our riverboat we saw gardens and farms.

Late afternoon we visited the Temple of Kom Ombo.

This temple is dedicated to two gods: the crocodile god Sobek, and Haroeris, Horus the Elder. It has twin entrances.

We were walking around the temple and also visited the Crocodile Museum. The Crocodile Museum was full of mummified crocodiles and ancient carvings.

Below are pictures of the nilometer at Kom Ombo. A nilometer was built to measure the Nile river’s water level during the flood season!

After our visit to the temple we had a Galabeya party on our riverboat. Many in our group dressed in their galabeya outfits or whatever they had to wear. Not all of our group was around for the picture. We all enjoyed ourselves! It was a fun evening.

After the party we went out on the top deck to look at the stars and the moon! The moon was almost full!

Overnight our riverboat traveled on the Nile and we are heading to Edfu.

Day 9 South Africa Adventures

Wednesday, September 19th

Today we were up at 2:30 AM! It was our earliest start of the trip because we needed to have our luggage on the bus and heading to Cape Town’s airport by 4:00 AM. We checked in at the airport for about a 2 hour flight to Johannesburg. Then we had another flight from Johannesburg to Livingstone, Zambia. When we landed at the airport in Zambia it was a long line to get our entrance visa which cost $50.00 per person. Once we were through the line and had claimed our luggage we met one of our guides, Duncan. We boarded smaller buses that took us from the airport, stopped at the Zambia border checkpoint, then drove to the Zimbabwe checkpoint and had to collect our passports a second time.

Children walking home from school. (Zambia)

After school hanging with friends on the street corner.

It’s quite interesting to see a sign earlier that said to watch out for elephants and then a sign leaving the area where elephants cross. We see deer crossing signs in Ohio!

The border crossings were quite interesting to see and experience.

Our driver said these trucks wait at the borders for up to 3 days to get their papers to cross from Zambia into Zimbabwe and vice versa.

The first time we needed to worry about mosquitoes!

As we were waiting to take our bus through one of the border checkpoints, we saw baboons around!

By the time we arrived at our hotel, The Kingdom, we didn’t have much time before our scheduled sunset cruise.

Our hotel, The Kingdom, at Victoria Falls.

The first time we’ve experienced a mosquito net for sleeping.

We had a great time on our sunset cruise on the Zambezi River. We didn’t realize that we would see wildlife as we cruised down the river. We saw elephants,

crocodiles,

hippos,

and birds.

It was a relaxing way to end our long day!

Tomorrow we will visit Victoria Falls!

Day 4 South Africa Adventure

Friday, September 14th

We were up at 4:00 AM and then boarded our motor coach by 5:00 AM to travel to Kruger National Park. The park opens at 6:00 AM. and we were in line to get to our jeeps to begin our tour. By 6:15 we were exploring the park. It was chilly in the morning riding around!

We took a 50 minute break at 9:00 AM for breakfast, then back in the jeep until almost 1:00 and then ate lunch and we had an hour. After lunch we were back out looking for animals until 3:30ish!

We saw zebras throughout the day!

A male lion with his kill, a kudo, and he had eaten most of it!

“The King of the jungle”

You don’t want tangle with the Cape Buffalo. They are known as being very dangerous animals. They are one of the Big 5!

It was amazing to see elephants roaming around. They were busy eating, drinking, and walking along the river bank.

Giraffes were spotted many times. Some of them were alone and sometimes we saw several together.

Impalas are like the deer in Ohio, they are abundant and we saw quite a few!

Notice the birds on the impala. They are getting the ticks off of them.

We really noticed how difficult it was to spot the animals. Their camouflage really does help them to blend into their environment. We saw several leopards. The one was in action and we watched him go after an animal that we couldn’t see in the distance but we watched him pounce!