We left Dahab early and spent the next 2 days driving to Aswan in the south of Egypt, breaking the journey up by spending the night in Safaga on the Red Sea coast.  The journey took a long time as all tourist traffic has to travel in convoys between the major cities which is supposed to help combat the terroism here.  A suicide bomber and 2 masked gunmen attacking in Cairo a couple of days before we arrived proving they still have a bit of work to do!

Aswan is one of the prettiest places on the Nile, mainly because there are several islands here and a few hills/mountains which look quite impressive.  We arrived in the late afternoon so just went out for a bit of dinner before getting an early night as we were all knackered (it is amazing how tired you get sitting in the truck doing nothing)!  We had a choice of getting up at 3am to catch a bus down to Abu Simbel, stopping at the High Dam on the way back, but I wanted to spend the time in Aswan so decided not to go, Joanna and Valery were the only ones keen enough to get up for the 3am start!  I spent the morning going around the Nubian museum which was very impressive, showing lots of ancient Numbian (Southern Egyptian) artifacts, meeting up with Martin and Paul for lunch and a few beers on the Nile.  In the afternoon we went off shopping in the bazar, followed by a few beers watching the sun set from the Old Cateract hotel (made famous by Agatha Cristies Death on the Nile).  In the evening we caught a private ferry over to a Nubian restaurant on one of the islands.

The following day we left Aswan at 9am and boarded our own Felucca (small sailing boat) which was our transport up to Kom Ombo (about 45km north).  This was fantastic and turned out to be one of the highlights of my trip, sailing or rather drifting up the Nile all day playing cards, drinking beer and watching the world go by - we even stopped for a little swim along the way.  In the evening we just mored up to the side of the river back and camped out on the deck of the boat while the crew cooked us up one of the best meals we have had on the trip on just one little burner.

We awoke with the sunrise which was stunning and sailed for a further hour or so to Kom Ombo which is the site of a large temple on the banks of the Nile and had a look around before meeting up with the truck again and heading further up the river to Luxor.  We arrived at about midday, so grabbed some lunch and then went to see Karnak temple which is incredible, ancient ruins which are in extremely good condition, but it is the scale of them that blows you away, one room had about 130 odd columns in it supporting a roof of solid stone, each one of these columns had a diameter of probably about 10 feet - the photographs will not do it justice I am sure.

We were staying at Rezeiky camping, which is a little campsite in the centre of the city, but the rooms were very good and cheap so we all upgraded, it also had a great little swimming poool which is a rare thing in these parts (on our budget atleast), so spent the rest of the day swimming and cooling off from the huge temperatures you get in the Middle East and especially Egypt.  We were all up early the following day to cross the river and get our next mode of transport (the donkey) to the Valley of the Kings where Tutankhamens toomb was discovered, along with 67 other Pharohs.  We crossed and then I met up with my mighty steed for the half hour journey to the valley, donkeys being surprisingly comfortable and fairly fast considering the weight mine had to carry!  We saw 3 toombs, (cant remember which ones off hand) all were very large and dug into the side of mountains, each one being carved and painted with images and hieroglyphics.  The day was excellent, definately being made by the varying characters of donkey, Martin's being the most entertaining by being damn fast and for having an eye for the lady donkeys, resulting in one lady donkey kicking him and Martin in the process - Hilarious. The following day I spent strolling around Luxor which is ok as cities go, but nothing special and relaxing by the pool.

We left very early the next morning as we had an extremely long drive upto Cairo, ariving at midnight at the hotel.  On the fourth of May we set off for a tour of Sakkara, Mephis and the pyramids at Gizza.  We started at Sakkara which is where the first stone structure on earth was built, dating back to 2700BC (yes you guessed it, a pyramid), along with a couple of toombs of noble men which had really detailed carvings on and which were painted, not bad considering they were between 4 and 5000 years old.  From there we headed off to Memphis a few kilometres away which was the capital of Egypt a long long time ago, not much remains of it, but there are a few statues, one of Ramases II which was absolutly huge.  After lunch though was the highlight of the day and the trip - the great pyramids at Giza.  They are a lot closer to the city than you expect, but can still be seen while you are coming out of Cairo looming over the top of modern day buildings.  As you aproach the first one (the largest one) they seem smaller than you expect, until you get a bit closer and realise that each step is about 5 feet tall and the people at the base of it seem like ants.  We took a few photoes and then made our way inside.  You start walking up a long steep slope and just keep going and going and going, 67 metres up into the center where there is a burial chamber.  It is not elaborately carved or painted, it is just the scale of it and the accoustics inside the toomb which makes it so impressive, it blew me away.  When we came out of the pyramid we drove upto a view point to take pictures of all 3 pyramids and then headed down to the bottom of the valley to see the Sphynx.  This is much smaller than you expect, yet it still looks impressive with the pyramids as a back drop.  When we left it was back to the hotel to get ready for our big night out - Joannas birthday (23 today).

We started out fairly early to find a few beers (surprisingly difficult in the middle east) and then went to a nice restaurant for a meal.  We then headed off to the Hilton hotel to hit their bar and then nightclub, what a great night, finally rolling back into bed at about 5ish.  The next morning we were up at 9 to have a tour of the Cairo museum, the museum was pretty good, but there are not many labels in English plus I had a stonking hangover.  The main things to see here though are the treasures found in Tutankhamens toomb, the highlight of which is his famous mask and sarcofagus.  The rest of my time in Cairo was spent recovering in my hotel room unfortunately.

We left Cairo on the Friday and drove to Mount Sinai were we were going to climb the mountain to see the sunrise the following morning (Mount Sinai being where moses received the ten commandments) before seeing St Catherines monastery (home of the burning bush).  To reach the sumit of Mount Sinai we had to get up at 3 in the morning for the 2 hour climb, only Vallerie and Joanna could actually manage this as it was bloody freezing and nobody wanted to get out of bed!  After the boys had a lie in and leisurly start to the day we headed off to St Catherines monastery which is a famous monastery located in the foothills of Mount Sinai and is beautiful.

When finished at the monastery we all headed off to drive back to Dahab which is one of everybodies favourite places on the trip.  We were not scheduled to come back, but we managed to make up some time and made a group decission to spend our extra days here, great news for me as you may remember that I was burnt to a crisp last time I was here and could not manage to go snorkling.  We arrived at about midday and headed down the local for a mega burger and beer and then went down to the beach to start snorkling.  There is a reef just along from the hotel and it is amazing, crystal clear water and loads of tropical fish swimming about, completely unfazed by us humans.  In the evening we went back to Tata's bar for a very enjoyable night.

I am finally up to date now (sorry for the long delay) and am upto today (8th May).  We caught a jeep ride to a dive site called the Blue Hole this morning which is incredible, we spent the whole day swimming around what seemed like a giant tropical fish tank, complete with giant tropical fish, millions of them.  Martin managed to get an underwater camera, so will hopefully be able to put some pictures of it up when I get back.

It is our last night in Egypt tonight before catching the ferry back to Jordan tomorrow, followed by Syria, Lebanon and then back to Turkey where most of the rest of the trip will be spent before quickly driving back through Europe.