Meals of Egypt, Jordan and Turkey

After three weeks of mostly plain fare in Madagascar, Middle Eastern cuisine was a refreshing and welcome surprise.  These meals consistently ranked among the best of our trip.  Fresh tomato and cucumber salads were plentiful; yogurt as a sauce for rice was new to us, but an immediate favorite.  Desert was often watermelon or pineapple, which was a perfect finish.  Alongside Vietnamese food, it was some of the healthiest fare we had around the world.  Our pictures don’t do these dishes justice, in part because, visual presentation was not a priority—flavor was.


The slideshow version:

Cairo and Nuweiba

We returned to Cairo for a day before continuing on to the Sinai, and while we were there, we saw some some of Cairo’s newer monuments—relatively young stuff, less than a thousand years old.  We visited the Citadel and the Alabaster Mosque; the Citadel was built by Saladin in the 1100’s, and the mosque was built in the 1800’s.

Luxor

Luxor seemed to have arrays of objects, whether that was bikes, chairs, statues or columns.

Felucca Boat on the Nile

We departed Aswan by boat—we’d spend the rest of the day, and that night on a local felucca boat, piloted by the handsome Nubian man above.  The felucca is the traditional boat for Nile transport.  It uses a lateen sail, which is triangular, and the main spar pivots on the mast, which allows it to navigate under bridges when needed, while giving it a very tall sail the rest of the time.  Below, you can see several feluccas moored, with their sails tied up, but the hinged spar is easier to see.

Aswan

The night train from Cairo arrived in Aswan around 8:30; we’d been fortunate, as delays are common, but we were on time.  Mudi managed to arrange an early check-in for us at our hotel, which got a cheer, as that meant showers.  We regrouped at 11 to take a boat to Philae temple.

Across the water, it looked small, but as we got closer, it became clear how large and extensive it was.  The entire site has been moved, as the original location is now under water in lake Nasser, where the Nile has been dammed.

Cairo

We visited Egypt in May of 2013, when it was very stable.  We were not worried about physical security, but we knew it could be a chaotic place for Westerners, so it was one of three places in our travels where we chose to travel with a tour group (day trips aside). The other two were the Inca Trail hike and our boat trip in the Galapagos, both of which you can't do any other way than on a tour.  After some research, and passing (and being passed by) the groups from G Adventures on the Inca Trail and being very impressed by their gear and organization, we picked a three week G Adventures overland tour of Egypt and Jordan. Originally Lana had been looking at a tour that would have taken them from Egypt, through Jordan and Syria, ending in Turkey. Unfortunately, while things were stable in Egypt in May of 2013, they certainly weren't in Syria, and G Adventures had stopped offering that tour a while before we could have chosen it.  We couldn't have been more happy with our choice of tour company--but more on that later.

We spent 11 days in Egypt before continuing on to Jordan for another week.  Here’s an overview of where we traveled inside Egypt, with subtitled travel modes:

And to give you a bit of an idea of what G Adventures tours are like, here's a group shot that our guide insisted on:

Postcard: The Nile

Felucca captain; Nile River, Aswan, Egypt.

Postcard: Giza

Decorations on a camel’s face; Giza, Egypt

Frequently Asked Friday: Best Meals?

Anyone who knows us knows we travel on our stomachs. And we certainly ate enough this year for some weight gain. So the question is, was it worth it? And if so, what was the best meal you ate? 

First of all, it was worth it. There is some work to be done to undo the damage of our consumption in the last year, but it’s ok. Most of the time the experience outweighed any caloric overload in the decision-making process.  But we couldn’t narrow it down to one meal, as we each had some pretty solid contenders that came to mind as soon as we started thinking about it.  These are in chronological rather than ranked order, as we couldn’t choose one favorite.

Radio Silence

Hi all--sorry that things have been a little sparse around here. Since we flew to Madagascar in mid-April, we've been going at a breakneck speed, and with little and/or very bad internet.  But great transportation.

We do have some news, however. We bought a ticket home. We fly from London to Denver on July 23rd. We know some of you are very happy we'll be home (Hi Moms!), and some of you will be disappointed that the journey is over.

And while we're not sure that the journey is over, we're very weary of packing our bags, and moving them. We're weary of restaurant meals and the same six sets of clothes.  We're worried that we're not as excited about seeing things as we used to be. And that means it's time to come home.

But we still have a month in Europe and lots to tell you about what we've been up to in the last few months and we'd like the time to do it properly.  We'll catch up when we can, but we just wanted to let you know where we are (Krakow, at the moment) and that we're fine, and that we have lots more adventures to share!