Well, what an awesome time we have had so far. Since our last blog, we caught an overnight train from Cairo (north Egypt) to Aswan (south Egypt). In the early 60's the Egyptians built a huge dam in Aswan so that they could control the flooding of the Nile and also power Egypt (and a few other countries) with Hydroelectricity. After that we took a 15 minute boat ride to an island just down stream of the dam. On the island was an ancient Egyptian temple called Philae temple. The next morning we rose at 3:30am to catch a bus to a very famous temple at the far south of Egypt (near Sudan) called Abu Simbel. This temple was built built by Ramuses II who was said to have had several wives (and many concubines) and somewhere in the vicinity of 150 children. He built an almost as equally impressive temple next to his for his 'favourite' wife, neferteri.

The next day we boarded a small sailing boat (called a fellucca) which we were to spend 3 days and 3 nights on. This boat is like a primitive yacht with a single deck and no crapper and definitely no motor. 14 of us are in the tour group and we all lounged around on the boat deck on mattresses under a shade cloth while the crew of 3 sailed and cooked for us. We stopped and ran into the nearby paddocks to do our thing when we had to go. This was often quite interesting as there was often kids appearing out of nowhere just when you had your dacks down. They are still curious and excited to see white folk. We sailed north which was down stream yet upwind, so we tacked the whole way. The weather is very dependable in Egypt, the wind always blows in the same direction (strength may vary) and it never ever ever rains. Aparently it may occasionally get a shortlived shower in Cairo but in the rest of the country no one can remember when it last rained. It would be somewhere in the vicinity of years though. This is why the monuments are so well preserved considering 6000 years has passed.

The boat crew cooked excellent healthy food and we had an esky full of booze and softdrink which we sucked on for most of the trip. At night we pulled into a private paddocks on the edge of the Nile. We didnt have equipment to sail at night, but the cruise boats happily cruise through 24 hours a day. Each night we all slept on the boat and rose to a sunrise over the Nile the next morning. Yesterday we docked in a small town called Edfu where there was Yet Another Temple (YAT) which we did over and then drove 150km north to Luxor. In Luxor is some very famous sites to see. Yesterday we saw Karnak temple which sprawls over 200 acres. Each Egyptian Pharoah added an item to the temple for over 2000 years so it has some awesome monuments and most Pharoahs have made a mark there.

Today we rose at 4 to be hauled into a hot air balloon and we were flown over Luxor for about an hour. There was about 26 people in the balloon and there was a heap of balloons, it really is the thing to do in Luxor. We watched the sun rise and saw the valley of the kings from the air. The balloon ride was a little bit chaotic as the balloon pilot very very (and i mean within half a metre) narrowly avoided some powerlines on landing approach and then after almost landing on a tree, landed on a busy road. No sooner had we landed, we were turfed out of the balloon and another load of 26 tourists were piled in and off they went again. We were left standing around laughing, wondering what had just happened, but it was really just the norm for Egypt. It was Kerry's xmas present to me :)

After the balloon ride were matched up with a Donkey and rode 8km to the Valley of the Kings. The donkeys made the trek in about an hour, it was a real highlight for us to be riding through the valley which is about as desert as desert gets. The valley of the Kings is famous for having over 60 tombs and it also contains the tomb of Tutankhamun discovered by Howard Carter this century with all its original treasures. We went down into 3 of the tombs which still had exquisite heiroglyphics in them. Tonight we hop back on an overnight train for Cairo where we will spend tomorrow exploring the Cairo museum and fly to Barcelona late tomorrow night.

All the people on our tour are aussies and we have made good friends. Tonight we will bid most of them farewell as we all go our separate ways. Thats about it for now. Will write more from Spain.