Just for fun

We have experienced many modes of travel in the last couple of weeks. Maybe some people might have expected us to ride a camel. We certainly had opportunities to do so. We rode a camel 12 years ago in Jordan and once was enough! Our Egyptian tour guides were really nice guys. They would occasionally provide us with some little treat when we might be in need of refreshment and they really made an effort to make our tour as fun and varied as possible, despite the plethora of ancient ruins/temples to look at. The day we saw the temples of Edfu and Kom Ombo, we got there in horse drawn carriages.

Russ and I mentioned to Ahmed, our guide when on the boat, that we have been married for 44 years. Although our anniversary was way back in August, he spread the word to the ship's crew who feted us with happy anniversary messages. We were surprised at dinner with a cake and a chorus of drums and singing to wish us a happy wedding anniversary. Then when we returned to our room, we found it festooned with toilet paper and linen decorations along with a typed page saying "Happy Wedding Anniversary". It was so fun!

 It's a little hard to tell in the photo but the man made of towels on the bed is holding the typed paper and wearing Russ's hat. His face is made from water bottle caps. The green sprinkled on the hearts made of towels is mint leaves. Herb tea is pretty big here- loved it!

This last picture is sitting on the top deck as we went through the locks. On each side there were people shouting to us. We found lots of people who wanted to be friendly. We felt sad that we had to rush by all the vendors because they were just too intense and once you stopped or even made eye contact or smiled, you would get swarmed! Russ and I would have loved to talk to them. The guy that drove our horse carriage was very nice and we got to talk to a couple of little kids. They all loved the chance to speak English and often commented that they "loved America". It's really not like the impression we get of Egypt or the Middle East watching the news.