Egypt

Hello fromt the JC! Well, we had a succesful trip to Egypt, it was fun, interesting, and only a few people got sick (I think we made a new record for fewest sick!). We started down two thursdays ago (the 21st), that day we stopped at beer-Sheeba, or Isaacs well, and the barial place of David Ben Gurian. That evening we had dinner at a Kabutz that specializes in dairy, I don't know why, but I'm really glad I don't live on a Kabutz. That night we stayed in a Kabutz on the boarder of Israel and Egypt, in a city called Avdat, it was neat. The next morning we weren't actually sure we were going to make it to Cairo, there had been heavy rains a few days earlier and the roads were washed out in Egypt, but our Egyptian bus drivers were amazing and were able to get to the boarder and pick us up. We were stuck there for over an hour because they had our Egyptian visas. That night we made it to Cairo and we saw a light and sound show at the pyramids, they really exist! The next morning we actually spent time at the pyramids. The neatest part about the pyramids was going inside. The whole group went inside one and we sang "High on a Mountain Top" in the burial chamber, that was amazing, I love the hymns of Zion! We also saw the Step Pyramid that day, it's the oldest one of the bunch. That night we flew to Luxor. Luxor was great, if you go to Egypt spend the majoraty of your time there. At Luxor we saw the Vally of the Kings, it's where many of the Pharos were buried and where they found the tomb of King Tut. We also saw the Temple of Hatcheapsuit, the Temple of Karnag, and the Temple of Luxor. These structures were amazing, it's hard to believe that they were built without modern-day equiptment. I found it interesting that the Egyptians believe that there was no slave labor involved in building everything, I don't believe it. The best part about Luxor was the Nile. I know that the Nile is in Cairo too, but Luxor has 200,000 people and Cairo has something like 20 million, therefore the Nile was a little nicer, and it's upstream from Cairo. We spent some nice time on the Nile, on boats and our hotel was on it. Sunsets in Luxor are amazing, and the Nile just made it better. We were in Luxor for two nights and three days. On the third night we took an overnight train back to Cairo, that was an experiance. I think that travaling by train should become popular again, I really enjoyed it. But if it does become popular again the rule has to be "NO SMOKING." The man in charge of our car smoked a ton, as do most people in Egypt, but it's hard to fall asleep, breath, and wakeup to smoke, I can say I hated that. But we made it to Cairo in one piece and pretty tiered. That day we did that Cairo Musiem. and the bazaar, the market. That mrket is considered to be one of the biggest in the world. I find that I get into securaty mode when I'm in places like that, no one looks at or touches my girls (the girls I'm with), in fact, I found that if you put on a hard face most people stay far away from you. Now that is against my nature, but the men in Egypt are very vocal about American girls and I don't appreciat that. The next morning we did the Citagl and Muhammad Ali Masque, those were neat. We then headed for the Siani. The Siani is a barran wilderness, that's all I have to say. At 2:30 the next morning we got up and hiked Mt. Siani. Siani was neat, cold, but the sunrise was amazing. I had no special feelings on Siani, I wasn't expecting too, but many were. I loved seeing our Heavenly Fathers creations though, the sun and the mountains were great! After Siani we showered (it was cold and Tiggers don't like cold water) and headed for Isreal again. That day was a long one but it was worth every minute because we got home to the JC!!! It's amazing that this feels like home, ya'all told me it would, and it does. Egypt was a great experience, I really loved it. The people were great and I didn't get sick, so what more can I ask for. Have a wonderful weekend!