My Adventure to Egypt

Day 1

Today I visited the Avenue of the Sphinxes at the Luxor Temple. This avenue is three kilometers long and loaded with more than 70 Sphinxes all together. There are about 34 Sphinxes are on the western side and 38 are on the eastern side of this 2,390 year old monument. I was amazed about the amount of these beautiful statues. I thought that it was amazing how the ancient Egyptians had built these temples so long ago and they are still standing today.

On my way back to my hotel I got really hungry, so I was lured into a local restaurant by some strange but good smells. The restaurant was a very noisy place. I ordered some grilled goat meat, and for dessert I devoured a date bar. The aroma and taste was strangely good. After a filling meal, I went to my hotel and drifted off to sleep.

Day 2
Today I visited the Great Pyramids of Giza specifically Khufu's Pyramid. I was awe-struck by the size of this colossal giant. It is truly fascinating how people from literally 4,500 years ago, built this enormous temple, brick, by brick, by brick. This pyramid consists of more than 2.3 million lime

stone blocks, and each block weighs 2.5 tons, that's the weight of a mainland elephant. That's 6.5 million tons! The base of this tomb is 13 square acres, that's 568,500 square feet! This was the most amazing structure that I have ever seen in my whole life.

Day 3
Today I ventured toward the Abu Simbel Complex. It was an amazing sight that I will never forget. These carved statues of Ramses (a well-known pharaoh) are fascinatingly giant and beautifully sculpted. Each sculpture is about 20 meters (65.6 feet) tall. I realized that they were built in 1244 B.C.E.; that's 3254 years old! What is surprising about this site is that recently these giant rocks were carefully cut into 20-30 ton pieces, and archeologists and engineers moved this historic work of art to higher ground. They did this because the water from the Nile River was rising and eroding these masterpieces, and they wanted to preserve them. This took the archeologists and engineers four careful years to get these giant rocks to higher ground. I found this sight astonishing.

Day 4
Today I saw the Philae Temple in Aswan. Philae is an island in the Nile River and the previous site of an Ancient Egyptian complex in southern Egypt. When no one else was looking I secretly brushed my hand across the walls of this temple. I felt the cool smoothness of the hand-carvings in the wall of this structure. I also feel the rough, gritty sandstone in some places. Sadly, I didn't see the tourists on the other side of the temple, and so I got busted for touching a rare archaeological sight. Actually, they just stared at me and talked with me for a while. I realized that they were from California too. Only they were from Redding, in northern California. I went to dinner with them and we talked for what seemed like half an hour when it was about two hours. We shared our stories and discoveries of ancient Egypt. They were an interesting group of people that I would like to get to know better.

Day 5 Today I stayed another night in Aswan. Instead of visiting a tourist-like area I decided to walk the streets and see how actual modern-day Egyptian people live. I saw a bunch of "locals" sailing their boats down by the waterfront. But, everywhere in Egypt there seemed to be a tourist attractions. Here, along the waterfront there was "Sailing Lessons." I thought, "Well, I guess that I should take them." Apparently I am a really bad sailor. There are a lot of things to do when you're manning a sailboat. Eventually I caught on, and after a while I was sailing on my own. I almost hit the cliff that you see in the picture, so the instructor turned helped me turn the boat away and I decided not to sail for shore. Then I took off on a hike and hiked around to that same cliff and watched the sun set over the water. I think that today was my favorite day because I didn't have to hear a lot of people say "oooooh" and "ahhhh." I actually learned something.

Day 6
The Al-Azhar Mosque was truly astonishing. It was established in 972.

That's 1,038 years old. Anyway I sort of got lost in this giant maze of a temple. It was BIG!!! My direction sense in a building is not very good. I thought that I was going to get stuck in there so after about half an hour, and feeling overwhelmed, I wandered out of there and took off.

I thought that the Al-Azhar Mosque was great, however, it was

not my cup of tea. After all my blog's name is Dylan's 3 Cups of Tea. So I decided to just make it a short day and head home.

Day 7

Today I decided to live like an ancient Egyptian. So I began by using their mode of transportation... I rode on a camel. The rocking back and forth motion didn't help me at all, but the real life experience was definitely worth it. What I realized was that the humps in the camels back are filled with water so that the don't dehydrate in the hot Sahara Desert. This was my final day in Egypt, so with sand between my toes and a smile on my face I headed to the Cairo airport. I drifted off to a deep sleep as my plane floated across the Mediterranean Sea on its way to California.