EGYPT - FINALLY!!!

I've divided up my trip to Egypt by day, and I hope you like it!!

Sunday

Tel Beersheba

                This was the cool remains of the military and government outpost, just 2 miles out side the modern day city of Beer’sheba, which was the winter residence of the ancients such as Abraham.  Within this tell we saw a huge 120 meter well, used anciently as a water source, a huge underground water system built beneath the compound, and what may be the remains of a destroyed ancient Israelite Temple.  It was cool to see the remains of the walls that were built here to store grain, and the structure of the homes that existed thousands of years ago.

Tel Arad

                This was much more exciting and interesting than Tel Beersheba, but I will start out by telling you the sad thing that happened when I was here seeing this tell.  I got out of the bus, and was walking in the nice hot Israel sunlight, and BOOM, I pull my camera out, and it broke!  Don’t worry, it was just the button that takes pictures, so luckily it wasn’t anything really important right?  Haha… not… It is a few years old, and did last for a good 2 years in Idaho with me, so I guess its been good… just not good enough.  Oh well.  This tell was actually pretty cool, because they have found, what they believe to be the remains of an ancient Israelite temple… INTACT!! It was very cool to see the various places of the small satellite temple, including the Holy of Holies.  It was particularly amazing, because it is to be known as the only intact Israelite temple in existence, and dates back to the time of Solomon’s temple, and appears to be a much smaller satellite version of the temple in Jerusalem.  What we found odd though was the fact that archeologists found 2 statues of worship in the Holy of Holies, which is likely to mean that they were worshipping two different Gods in the temple, and leads us to the question.. WHO were they worshipping?  We don’t have an answer for that yet, but its kinda weird if you ask me.

                At this very same site, are the remains of the ancient city of Arad, which after dating of the walls and rocks therein, they believe that this city dates back to 3,000 BC, which is pretty old if you ask me! So that was cool nonetheless to see a city that’s over 5,000 years old! THAT’S’OLD!!

Kibbutaz Keturah – Desert Experience

                After we went to those AMAZING tells… (I’m being a little sarcastic, tells are cool, but they do not hold my attention long, they’re basically a big lump of dirt, with remains of ancient cities piled up on top of each other over and over… so ya….if I had to choose between watching TV and looking at a tell… well the choice would be hard… haha) we went on a ROAD TRIP!  We traveled more in the desert, and ended up just at the southernmost part of Israel, next to the red sea, at Kibbutz Keturah.  Now, I’m going to assume that basically nobody I know, knows what a Kibbutz is….because I didn’t know either until I went to one.. its ok… let me explain.  Well… I think the vest way I can explain it is to let my favorite research friend ‘Wikipedia’ explain it to you in simple terms….

                A Kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises.^[1] Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism. In recent decades, many kibbutzim have been privatized and changes have been made in the communal lifestyle.

                So basically, it’s communism.  Well, with a much friendlier face, at least.  Everything is done as a community, and the Kibbutz we stayed at runs a motel-like thing.  After we got refreshed a little in the afternoon at the kibbutz, we headed back on our buses (where much of our vacation was spent), and went out into the desert.  It is BARREN, but was kinda cool to see because this was probably the same desert that Lehi and his family traveled in.  They said that this certain area, which I can’t remember the exact name of, has thousands of archeological remains, and they just haven’t been able to uncover them.  But we saw this really amazing HUGE sand dune, and the sand was soo fine, it felt like flour in your hands.  We got to run and play on the dunes, and it was AWESOME!

                Then we met together in groups, talked about how people in ancient days communed with God in the desert, and the one-ness one feels when alone in the desert.  We then had about 20 mintues to just go off on our own and have our own personal experience with the desert.  It really was so cool .  It was past sunset, and it was getting dark really quick, so it was fun to just look and see miles and miles of sand and rock, with no lights in sight and no sounds at all.  Then to look up at the stars , and be able to ponder, it was one of my favorite moments I’ve had on my whole study abroad here.  We then met back up in groups and headed to a little campfire, where we got to share our ‘EFY moment in the desert’.  It was really cool, and was probably my favorite night I’ve had in a long time.  It was awesome.  We then went back and the kibbutz provided us with a BBQ and we swam in their pool – which was not very well taken care of, ask a lifeguard… aka me.  But the food tasted SOOO much like American food.. you could TASTE THE FREEDOM!!  We had pita burgers, which were a huge hit, and some nice fries as well.  It was so nice to have something familiar to eat, what a treat.  Swimming was a great refreshment, especially after our desert experience.  We then went back to our rooms, and had a great night sleep, to prepare us for our big bus ride across the Sinai desert the next day. 

Monday

Basically most of the day we spent driving across the Sinai desert.  It was really really hot, but we were able to find fun things to do in the bus, which made the ride a lot more bearable.  That night we arrived in Cairo and then to our Hotel in Giza.  On our way to our hotel we got to see the Pyramids, and they were AMAZING!! It was such a cool experience to just be driving down the freeway and BOOM there the pyramids are!!  It was truly a dream come true.  I honestly thought I would never, in my entire life, get to see the pyramids in Egypt.  I remember studying them in Mrs. Fickes’ 6^th grade class, and just being intrigued by Egyptian history and culture, and thinking it would be so cool to go there, but resigning to the fate that I never would be able to.  AND LOOK!!! THERE THEY ARE!!!!  That night we got to go to a sounds and lights show, which had the cheesyness of a bad Reno sideshow, but the pricetag of a Celine Dion’s Vegas spectacular, it was… long, boring, and I wouldn’t recommend it… but it was cool to see the pyramids lit up! I think I’ll stick with the Bellagio fountains.

Tuesday

I woke up having not slept very much, as it turns out Brandt Peacock and I had been awarded the sauna room, rather than the ice chest room.  Oh well, we still managed to get some sleep, and have a good breakfast, and we were OFF TO THE PYRAMIDS!!  This really was a dream come true.  You can’t even comprehend how big they are until you are standing at the base of them!! We even got to go into the biggest pyramid, and go down this really small 4 foot high tunnel, to the tomb that is buried deep within.  It got really hard to breathe with the lack of oxygen but it was so awesome!  We also got to perform our dance to ‘Waka Waka’ and people were gathering in a huge group to watch it, and for the first time in thousands of years, the pyramids had competition!  It was so fun.  We all have transmitters for our tour guides, and so we just hooked up my ipod to it, and played it in everybody’s head sets and danced, and it was AWESOME!!  We danced it all over Egypt and are putting together a video montage, that you are going to LOVE, can’t wait to show it to you all!

Among other things we go to also see the Sphinx, just like the recommend in ‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat’.  It was so amazing, to see the only remaining of the 7 wonders of the ancient world.  They are truly amazing, and it was pretty hot, we were sweating so bad…. I’m so glad I don’t live in Egypt.  TOO hot for me.  We then went to the ancient site of Saqqara and Memphis.  Saqqara is the site of the first pyramid ever, which is the ‘step pyramid’, and Memphis was the ancient capital of Lower Egypt, where the famous statue of Ramses II lies.  It is HUGE, and it amazes me just how big these are, and how detailed and spectacular they are especially using their primitive tools.  We also got to go to an intact above-ground tomb, the tomb of Ti.  It was pretty cool because the hieroglyphs within the tomb, hadn’t been worn away by the sun, so you could still see the colors, and it was pretty awesome!

After we visited Saqqara and Memphis, we headed out to the Cairo Airport where we hopped on a plane down to Luxor!  It was so nice to be on an airplane after so many hours on a bus.  I forgot how truly much I love planes, they just make me feel so at peace, and relaxed.  It was great.  We got Luxor, and were bussed to the luxurious Sheraton Hotel, and boy, it was there that I realized the difference between 5 and 4 star hotels, and MAN was this a nice 5 star hotel!!

Wednesday

                After an amazing night’s sleep at the luxurious Sheraton Hotel, I was ready and prepped for a wonderful day at the Valley of the Kings!!! This really is an awesome place.  This is a valley where most of the most famous and infamous pharaohs of all time are buried.  Most of the tombs have been looted by thieves in ancient times, except for one, King Tut.  I remember doing research about him in school, and seeing documentaries about the discovery of his tomb, and was really excited to see it.  We were able to see a ton of tombs, including King Tut’s, and all of them were sooo cool! What I was most amazed about and surprised about was exactly how close all of these tombs were.  I had a feeling that the valley of the kings would be really big, and each of the tombs would be really far from another one, but it was exactly the opposite.  Everything was really close, almost like you were in a cemetery!! 

We then got to go to Hatshepsut’s Temple, which I originally was not super excited to see, because I had a hard time envisioning in my mind exactly what it was, but right when we pulled up, and I saw it I recognized it from books and videos, and was SUPER excited! The only sad thing about it is that its mostly a reconstruction, because it was destroyed thousands of years ago.  We ended up asking for permission from our tour guide to do our ‘Waka Waka’ dance, and he said it was fine.  So we did it, and once again we had a huge crowd watching us, but I guess one guard got mad at us for doing it, and talked to our tour guide, and our tour guide said to him, ‘Let them finish, and I will take it to your boss and show him the video and see what he says’.  So he took it to the head guard, who after viewing it said, ‘How do they do that!? That is awesome!’  haha.. it was hilarious, something that we thought was gonna be a bad thing, turned out amazing! 

Literally meters away from Hatshepsut’s temple, are a collection of tombs where the papyrus for the book of Abraham were found, which was cool to see where.  It helped to connect a lot of the dots with ancient history and church history.  We then headed back to our luxurious hotel, and freshened up before our Falukkah ride, which is an Egyptian sailboat.  We then rode down the nile, to an area where we had about an hour long camel ride on our own camels!! It was soooo cool.  I think the scariest part of it was when the camel was getting up and down, cuz I would feel like I was going to fall off.  I especially liked the hour or so to just ride a camel, and see the countryside by the Nile and think about the things I had seen that day, and to soak up the experience in general.  We then took a boat back to our hotel, and swam a little more.  Swimming literally saved my life in Egypt.  It was such a nice way to cool off and relax.  The heat wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be, but it was still very hot, and man I was so grateful for a nice pool to cool down in. 

That night Brandt, Megan and Tarah and I got a horse-drawn carriage to take us on a ride through Luxor and then take us to a big market.  It was so awesome, not only be taken on a tour in a carriage, but to see the ins and outs of Luxor.  Parts of it were pretty scary, and we were a little nervous about where our driver was taking us.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen poverty like I saw on the back roads there.  It was just very eye opening and heart wrenching at the same time.  We got to go through their open air markets as well, which were a ton of fun.  On our way back to our hotel, we drove by the Luxor Temple, and the Nile River, and it was simply stunning, the river is pretty amazing at night, especially cuz at night you can’t tell how dirty it is!

It was fun to just sit on the patio at the hotel and look out over the Nile.  It is in Luxor that Ramses the 2^nd would have had his palace, and where Moses would have been found in the Nile River.  It was just cool to think about the amazing stories and events that have happened here. 

Thursday

                Thursday morning we woke up and hopped on a motor boat on the Nile, down to the Karnack and Luxor Temples.  We had a PARTY BARGE!!             It was so fun, our driver who was about 14 or so, had what he called ‘American’ music and wanted us to dance.  It turned out to be more like ‘Hip Hop hits of 2004’, but hey, at least we knew the music!  We danced all the way down the Nile, and then headed to the famous Karnack temple.  These temples were simply awesome.  Karnack was huge, with what appears to contain an Egyptian temple for the Pharaoh, which was obviously based of the Israelite temple, and were intriguing to look at in an LDS perspective.  There was a HUGE courtyard, with pillars over 100 feet high, and hieroglyphs that were still colored from thousands of years ago.  I feel like I sound like a broken record, but these things were really amazing!!

                After those temples we went and had some time to spend in the city, before we hopped on a night train back up to Cairo.  Taking the night train was soo cool.  I had been  on trains before, but never on a NIGHT TRAIN! It was straight up like Harry Potter, and it was so cool, for a one time experience.  It was just like HARRY POTTER, which basically made my whole day.  It was a nice way of travel, but at the end of the day, I think I would choose to be on a plane rather than train, just me.  But on the other hand a plane is much more expensive, but I guess having good taste IS one of my worst faults. J

Friday

                We arrived in Cairo around 5 or so in the morning, and after a not amazing night of sleep, I was super tired.  We headed back to our hotel, dropped off our luggage and then headed to one of the best museums in the world, the Egyptian Museum.  This place was sooo cool!  It is jam packed with hundreds of thousands of pieces o Egyptian history, including all of the treasures found in King Tut’s tomb, the burial mast of King Tut, and the unwrapped mummified bodies of the ancient pharaohs including Ramses II, the pharaoh of the exodus.  I really could have spent days in there, but we only had just over 3 hours.  Once again, this was a place full of things I thought I would never see in my life, and BOOM they were just there, truly a dream come true. 

                We then went and had a super nice lunch at the Hard Rock Café , which was very nice, then headed to the famous Bazaar street market in downtown Cairo, which was supre nice, especially compared to Jerusalem’s Old City.  I really enjoyed it.  One thing that really shocked me is just how huge Cairo is.  There are about 17 million people in the Cairo metropolitan area, which just boggles my mind.  I also had an eye opening experience in just seeing the culture around Cairo, because it’s basically a huge slum with millions of people.  So many people, and so many high rise apartment buildings that look like they would just topple over like a jenga puzzle in the event of an earthquake.  That night we had special permission to have church in a nice room in our hotel, which was a special experience and made me think about people around the world who don’t have access to church and its services like I do within the united states. 

Saturday

                Saturday morning we got to sleep in and catch up on the rest we needed, and then headed out to the Muhammad Ali Mosque which was beautiful.  It was the very first mosque I’ve been to, even though it’s not in use today.  It was interesting to see the beautiful conglomeration of cultures and styles within the one place, and to see how they all worked to create a nice balance and harmony within the building.  We then hopped on the bus, and drove to the base of mount Sinai, and headed to bed only to be awaken at 2 am.

Sunday

We woke up early, and got to hike Mount Sinai and watch the sunrise!! It was probably the best hike I’ve ever done in my life, it was just so cool!  It was kinda hard cuz I forgot my inhaler, and I hadn’t eaten much the night before so I felt light headed and weak, but it was so cool.  I am so glad that we hiked it at night though, cuz when we finished around 9 am, it was already getting hot.  It was awe-inspiring to see the same mountain where Moses received the 10 commandments, and to see  the view from the top.  It was pretty cold, but I was able to just sit, ponder, and listen to church music while the sun rose, and it was one of the most spiritual and cool experiences of my life, truly a life changing experience, soooo cool! We got back to our hotel, and showered, got ready, and started our big long trip back to Jerusalem.  It was long, hot, and I was sick of the bus by the end, but man it was fun!!  We got back around 10 pm, and it was  great ending to an amazing trip. 

Overall it was a great trip.  I felt safe the entire time, had great guides, and enjoyed every single minute of it, no matter how tired I was or how hot it got.  I think that if I went home tomorrow, I would go home happy, it was a series of life-long dreams just coming true one right after another.  I hope everybody gets a chance to see what I saw, and to have the experiences I had.  I know that it’s just not possible, so I will try to collect pictures from other people and post them ASAP.  I hope all is well, I’ve just been back in Jerusalem doing homework, and getting back to school, which has been fun fun fun! I HOPE TO HEAR FROM YOU ALL, UNTIL NEXT TIME…

PEACE AND BLESSINGS!!!

JAMES