I have not been very good at keeping this up to date, but hope that as at least a lot of my photos are now on here you can all see what I have been doing. So, in a nutshell.... I spent just under a month in Egypt with a tour company called Explore. There was a really nice group of people on the trip and you will see some of their faces in the pictures. The first part was in Cairo, which despite being noisy and a bit dirty, I really liked the place and found it interesting an lively. The pyramids did not disappoint and are huge. At a later date we went to some earlier ones at a place outside Cairo called Saqara and Memphis and one had a huge vaulted ceiling like in the films. We then went into the Sinai and it was fantastic there. It is very barren and desert like, but then you come across an oasis or town like Dahab, which I really liked. We camped in the Ras Mohamed National Park and there was great snorkelling there with loads of different fish and corals. Whilst there we took a nightime trek up Mount Sinai to see the sunrise. The trek took about four hours to get up and was very steep in parts. However, the path has a number of tea houses along it and you can see them in the distance when you are climbing so you know you can stop for a rest and refreshment along the way. The sunrise was breathtaking as you could see the light creep over the rocks. From Sinai we caught a ferry across to Hurghada. I did not really like this town as it was very commercial and you got a lot of hassle there. However, its' redeeming feature was a day out doing some scuba diving. I saw some blue spotted stingrays, a crocodile fish and a scarily enormous moray eel. After Hurghada, we went to Luxor and saw the sights there like the beautiful temple at Karnak, Luxor Temple and we had great fun on a donkey trek to the Valley of the Kings. Many of the tombs were really ornately decorated and we got to the Tutankamun's tomb as well. After Luxor, we caught a train down to Aswan and saw some more sights such as the Temple of Philae (where Cleopatra's Needle was taken from) and also visited a nubian village. From Aswan, we had a day trip out to Abu Simbel (in the picture) and this was incredible. It is all built out of a rock face and the whole thing was actually moved out of the way of water erosion a few years ago. We then boarded three felucca's for a four day trip up the Nile. The felucca's were so relaxing as you just slept, ate, read, chatted and slept a bit more. We all swam in the Nile every day and were assured by our guide that it was ok as the current was strong and we were not in still water. I am not entirely convinced, but did swim in it anyway and it was lovely to cool down as the temperature at times reached fifty degrees! We stopped off a couple of times on the felucca's to see some more temples at Edfu. Also, every night we moored and had a camp fire, food and the crew would sing and play the drums. After leaving the felucca's we arrived back in Luxor for a night before going out to the western desert. This week was probably the most suprising as I had no idea what to expect from it. As you will see from my pictures, the scenery is spectacular. It ranges from expanses of golden sand, to hills, to the strange sights in the White Desert that look like faces, mushrooms and igloo's. We camped out twice in the desert and slept under the stars, which were the clearest I have ever seen them. We returned back to Cairo where the trip ended. However, I stayed on for a few extra days and decided to go to Alexandria. I did not like it there so came back to Cairo again and finished off some of the other sights I had missed before such as the Coptic area, the Citadel and having a second visit to the huge Cairo Museum. All in all, I had a great time in Egypt and would really recommend it as a fantastic place to visit.