Well, the 18-hour bus ride from Luxor wasn't too bad. The bus was far nicer than I had expected and there were enough seats for everybody - that automatically makes it an improvement over some of the sleeper buses I've taken. All but seven passengers disembarked at Sharm el-Sheikh early the next morning; those of us continuing on to Dahab were all tourists. From Sharm it was an easy two hours to our destination. Once we arrived I said goodbye to Christoph and...

I've been rather rushed in Luxor. I boarded my felucca in Aswan and we sailed all day down the Nile. It was quite lovely. There were 7 others on the felucca with me: 5 French-Canadians, 1 Kiwi and 1 Dutch woman. It was a good mix and our captains were of the better sort (I've heard stories from other travellers who had felucca captains who provided nothing but bread for meals and didn't offer blankets at night). We stopped off at an island along the way to s...

So, the train to Aswan was as I expected it to be: cold and late. Fortunately I had prepared for both so I was both warm and resigned to the fact that we arrived in Aswan four hours late. I was met at the train station by a representative from my hotel who brought myself and two other American girls, Kate and Anna, through the chaos and to our hotel. We settled in and chatted and then we left together to go see the High Dam (which was just a dam, though if had...

Merry Christmas from Egypt! The trip here was long but uneventful. My mom was kind enough to drive me to the airport early Tuesday morning where I checked in for my shuttle to JFK. We grabbed some breakfast and said goodbye. I meandered over to my gate and watched episodes of Bones on my iPod until we boarded and then I slept the whole way to JFK. I had to wait a couple hours to check in for my flight to Cairo, and then I wandered around the terminal until my fl...