Time to move on, and this time we head off to Hurghada. This was not part of our original itinerary, and has been added in place of the White Desert and then Fayoum. We headed out of Luxor and travelled through rural communities, hurtling along at 130kph amidst cars, trucks and donkey carts. As we got into the desert area we drove along a new highway - at 80 because it was monitored by radar. Yep - go figure. Nothing makes a lot of sense here in Egypt!!! ...

Luxor - Valey of the Kings OMG - Gobsmacking, Unbelievably amazing. The Venus brochure says "Just when you think you have seen enough temples and tombs to last you a lifetime, we visit the West Bank of the Nile in Luxor and the infamaous Valley of the Kings. See where the Kings of Egypt were mummified and laid to rest with all their treasures. Amazing." And it was. There are 63 tombs on this site and we visited just three of them. Carved into th...

We pulled back the curtains this morning at 5.30am to see hot air balloons floating by - so Leader Linda and I went up on to the deck to take photos. It was rather chilly up there - and because our room is air-conditioned I was expecting it to be warm outside and had just thrown my gelabaya on over top of my nightie- aha big mistake . The balloon ride had been an optional extra, but at $125 US we gave it a miss. I wasn't too worried as I did a balloon ride ...

10.11.15 Kom Ombo We spent the day quietly cruising along the Nile before arriving at Kom Ombo - the Temple of the crocodile God. Yep more of that gobsmacking stuff. We get an hour or so to wander around after Mervat has told us the stories of each place, but it is nowhere near long enough, and photos don't really do them any justice at all. Linda and I had the most amazing time here with all the hawkers trying to sell us their bits and pieces. They fol...

Oh dear, time to check out of the Movenpick Hotel. It is certainly a very nice hotel, and such a shame to see so few people staying there. The staff are wonderfully polite and attentive and we felt like goddesses. We met up with Mervat and our driver over the river and we loaded our luggage into the van and were driven to the cruise ship to unload. We handed over our passports - which they kept hold of - I must admit to feeling a wee bit anxious about...