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So nice to be home with the fireplaces roaring to heat up the house. Special thanks to our friend Mary Ann for watching over the house and kitty, and leaving us a fresh baked treat for our homecoming!

We'll try to catch up with everyone in the next few days after we catch up on some sleep and chores.

Happy Thanksgiving from Dubai

It is not quite the over the top belly filling experience we thought we were going to have. Welcome to the Business Class lounge...it could be worse by far.

Happy Thanksgiving from the Sky and Dubai

We have landed in Dubai after saying goodbye to our new best friend Stella, traveling around the Sinai peninsula instead of over it, sampling some wines from around the world and still smiling. We have hit a few hitches in our final arrival. But it is nothing that Lyft can't help us out with. We hope to share pictures of our Thanksgiving feast soon!

Cairo Sites

Egyptian Museum, the Square of the Revolution, Donkey carts pulling everything all over the City, street vendors and out of code buildings.

Back in Cairo for a Day

We'll post some pictures later.

Sent from my iPhone

Local flavor

We found this little bar when we got here a few days ago. The beers are 1/3 the price of the resort, and it was fun to sit on the promenade watching the other tourists and vendors.

The owner is well traveled. He has visited 69 countries. He made us feel very welcome and supplied us with beers to take back to the resort.

Laundry day

Time out for a little laundry and pool work.

Trip to Hurghada

The 3 hour drive ended up being 5 hours, partially due to the 10 or so police checkpoints along the way and the fact that our driver and guide decided to have a full lunch while we stopped for a quick bathroom break, making us stand around for 20+ minutes.

The drive was primarily through desert and mountains. We didn't feel at risk except when our driver was passing trucks around blind curves going uphill. 😧
We did arrive safely and did a little swimming in the warm pool then exploring around town. It is a lot like Cabo. We are happy that there are not as many street vendors pestering us. Today we are off to dive the Red Sea. This is this morning's sunrise seen from the balcony of our room.

Luxor Sights

There are amazing colored hieroglyphics in the tombs and temples of Luxor. We also saw some the largest temples, some of which took over 2000 years to build.

Morning Balloon Ride

Here are a few stills from this morning's balloon ride. It was awesome! Funny coincidence is that the operator' name is Alaska Balloons. Alaskaballoon.com.

Balloon

What a great ride!

Flying

We took an amazing balloon ride over the valley of the Kings before we went on our tour.

Aswan Tombs of the Nobles

The night we arrived in Aswan we saw this incredible temple up on the hill across the Nile on the West Bank where the Nubians reside. We decided we had to explore it when we finished our traditional guided tour of the sites. Our guide pointed us to where we could catch the "public ferry", but being from Aswan in a higher class was not familiar with the pricing or schedule since he had never taken it. We scampered on down to the landing to find it cost EL5 (60 cents US) per person to cross. We paid up and boarded after an elderly gentleman with crutches was assisted down the steps and aboard. Terry quickly moved to the front of the boat to find a seat for us. I noticed a strange reaction from the passengers as well as the fact that they were all women in burkas in the front. I gestured to him to move back to the men's area. A little oops on our first experience with gender segregation.

After reaching the other side, we let everyone else disembark before us only to find the elderly gent had no one to help him up the steep stairs. Terry offered up his hand and helped him all the way up. With good Karma, we set about getting tickets and climbing up the stairs to the tombs.

We got up there, explored a bit and were then greeted by a 20 something Nubian that offered us a few insights including that the tombs were closed. We thanked him and poked around a bit more.

Apparently we met his approval and he asked if we would like to go inside. He was the guard or keeper and had the keys. We said sure but were warned that we could not take pictures. We respected that and had a beautiful tour of the first tomb.

Apparently we gained his trust so he took us to 3 more tombs that were even more spectacular and then let us take pictures from there on out. He was kind and we tipped him.

The best part is that we had an adventure exploring where few people from the US or any where go for sightseeing and found new kindness and some really cool sites and experiences that we never expected.

If you would like see more of the pictures, we are happy to show you!

Hmm?

The locks in Seattle need water vendors like these. It would make the transit much more interesting.

Smiling

The Gods are smiling on us during our visit to the temple at Edfu.

Welcome to Aswan!

A new day and new views on the Nile. We flew in at sunrise and are lucky enough to have a beautiful view of the sunset from our ship.

On the Nile

Just boarded our ship. Tomorrow we set sail.

Surreal last evening in front of the Pyramids

We are off to Aswan tomorrow. We'll be picked up at 3:00 am for our 6:00 am flight.