Travel Magnets - 2022 Fall Travels Edition

Seventy-Five.  That is the number of travel magnets we purchased on our travels through Israel, Turkey, Egypt, and Ethiopia.  It was a long trip with many things to see but that number still feels a bit excessive, even for me.  There are also some accidental duplicates (i.e. two magnets commemorating the same place) but that really doesn't account for the number.  There were just so many places to commemorate.

The magnets are a mix of generic and unique.  I always prefer the handmade one over the generic photo magnet but handmade ones can be hard to find. Here are a few of my favorite ones:

Jars similar to the ones the dead sea scrolls were found in.

A hand painted picture of a Gulet.

I hated my camel ride but I like this camel magnet.

The face of an Ethiopian woman.

The Travel Magnet folder now has six hundred and seven magnets.  We are once again running out of space to display them all.  I will have to add more metal panels to the pantry hall walls to display them all.

I've always had trouble photographing the 3-D magnets.  The flat ones can be scanned on our flatbed scanner.  The 3-D ones always had issues with weird shadows.  I fixed it this time by purchasing a cheap ring light.  The one I bought is a piece of sh!t but it works for me.

You can see all our magnets in the Travel Magnets tab at the top of the blog.

2022 Fall Travels, Part Three - Egypt - The Nile, Aswan, Abu Simbel, And Cairo

Our relaxing, and fascinating, cruise up the river Nile was coming to an end.  We arrived at Aswan, location of the Low (old) and High (new) Dam that controls the flow of the river Nile and generates forty-five percent of Egypt's electricity. While the river is very photogenic the dam is almost too big to take in.

When the Dam was built lake Nasser, one of the largest man-made lakes was created.  This created some friction with neighboring Sudan that had a large parts of the Nubia region flooded forcing the evacuation of the Nubian people. The conflict continues today as the Sudanese are damming some of the rivers that source the Nile.  The strategic importance of the dam to Egypt is evident by the conspicuous military presence in the area around the dam.

The Temple of Philae.

When Lake Nasser was created many temples were submerged.  A few were saved and one of those, the Temple of Philae was our next stop.  The temple had been moved to an island.  We took a small boat out to the island and toured the temple dedicated to the Goddess Isis.

Young entrepreneurs.

In the afternoon, after having lunch on the ship, we took another small boat, this time a sailboat, onto the river Nile.  Our luck was not so good as there was no wind this day so we had to hire another boat to tow us up the river.  While we waited for our tug boat kids on surfboards paddled out to us and sang a few songs for a tip.  It was fun.

We were pulled to another island that had an extensive botanical garden.  We took some time to admire the extensive collection of trees and plants and to buy some magnets naturally.  This was kind of a filler activity I think.  We were to see the Nubian museum but I believe it was closed when we were there.

Views of an Imam's grave overlooking the Nile from our Sailboat.

The next day we said goodbye to the Oberoi Philae and flew to Abu Simbel.  Here we were met by our third Egyptologist who took us to the magnificent temple of Ramses II.  This was one of the highlights of Egypt.  This temple was moved stone by stone while the water level of lake Nasser was rising to a safer elevation.  The work of the conservationists is amazing.  It looks like it has always been there.

The Temple of Ramses II at Abu Simbel.  They left the one
statue broken as they originally found it when they moved it

After a couple hours at the temple complex - quite enough as it was 112℉ (44℃) this day - we returned to the airport and flew to Cairo for our last night in Egypt.  We were at a hotel near the airport and there were weddings going on everywhere.  Very fancy weddings with lots of music and dancing.

The Temple of Ramses II and his Wife Nefertari's Temple next door.
(He put his statues in his Wife's temple …the guy was a narcissist.)

Our travel agent had booked an extra night in the hotel since our flight out wasn't until 10:35PM so we didn't have to check out and wait in the lobby for nearly twelve hours.  We will have to thank her the next time we see her.

The Pyramids in Cairo … ✔ 

Egypt was magnificent and amazing in so many ways.  We'd tried to get here three times.  The first two were stopped by the Arab Spring demonstrations and the military coup a few years later.  The third try was the charm.  It was worth the wait.  Everything was incredible - the sights, the experiences, and our guides.  All amazing.

Later that night we boarded our plane to our last country.  We said goodbye to Egypt and hello to Ethiopia where our adventure would continue for two more weeks.

Pictures can be found in my Egypt 2022-09 Google Photos album.

2022 Fall Travels, Part Three - Egypt - Luxor And The Nile

We left Cairo and flew to Luxor where we were picked up by our second Egyptologist (I suspect all tour guides in Egypt are considered Egyptologists).   Now I want to say something before I go on.  We were in southern Egypt for five days.  Every day we were there the daytime temperatures were above 105℉ (40℃).  It may have been a dry heat since we were on the edge of the Sahara desert but it was hot.

The massive column of the Temple of Karnak.

Our first stop in Luxor was the Oberoi Philae, our river cruise ship and our home for the next four days and night.  We went to our rooms to freshen up and had lunch.  The food onboard was a bit high end for my tastes but I always found something I liked and they had incredible crème brulee ice cream.

Mid-afternoon after things had cooled down a little bit we (the Wife and I, our tour mate, and two solo travelers who joined us on the cruise tours) joined our guide and visited the Temple of Karnak.  The temple has magnificent painted columns, obelisks, and ram-headed sphinxes.

After Karnak we went to the Luxor temple.  One time the road between these two temples were lined by ram-headed sphinxes.  Only a few remain or have been restored.  This temple had incredible statues of Ramesses II and painted walls.

Rows and rows of ram-headed sphinxes once lined the roads connecting Karnak to Luxor temples.

As the sun got low we went back to the ship for a formal dinner (oops … I wore shorts … big no-no … back to the room to change into long pants).

Inside one of the tombs.

The next day we went to the Valley of the Kings and explored several tombs including King Tut's.  There are at least sixty-three tombs here.  We explored four.  The size (and depth) of the tombs were essentially based on the age of the King when they died.  They would start digging a tomb shortly after the Pharaoh got on the throne and would stop when he died.  This resulted in a great variation in size, decoration, and depth of each tomb.  King Tut's tomb was rather small as he died very young but the tomb did have King Tut's mummified remains on display.

Next on the agenda was the Temple of Hatshepsut.  Hatshepsut was the mother of a two year old who had inherited the throne.  Hatshepsut ran the country as he grew older and, when he came of age, she decided to remain Pharoah (The second confirmed female pharaoh).  When she died her son became pharaoh and erased all evidence that his mother had ever been pharaoh.  A tragic story.

Statues outside of the Temple of Hatshepsut.

Next was the burial places of the workers who built the tombs often as decorated as the king's tombs followed by a stop at an alabaster workshop where we saw them work the stone and where I purchased nearly all my small treasures for my collection.  This included a carving of a cat, jackal, and a falcon.  The Horus figure of a falcon with a crown is my favorite.  I ended up with a fascination with Horus after the Jordanian Falcon incident.  I ended up taking a lot of pictures of Horus in his various forms.

Cruising up the river Nile.

We had a brief stop to learn about the Colossi of Memnon before we returned to our ship and it set sail up the Nile.  The cruise was relaxing.  The wife spent most of her time on the top deck near the pool.  I avoided the topside most of the time … I can not handle the heat. The ship went through a set of locks.  Small boats with people trying to sell things to the cruise goers went in the locks with us.  They threw up products in plastic bags.  If people wanted them they would yell out prices and, after negotiating, would put the money in the bag and drop it back to the small boats.

Horus on the left and Ra, king of the gods in the middle. Very similar but Ra has the large sun.

The next day we went ashore at Edfu to visit the Temple of Horus where I saw more of my falcon-headed god.  While I liked every temple we went to, I was getting a bit templed out.

Mummified crocodiles.

We returned back to the ship and cruised further south to Kom Obo.  That evening we visited a very crowded Temple of Kom Ombo.  The temple is special as it is dedicated to two gods instead of only one - Haroeris (an old form of Horus) and Sobek (the crocodile god).  After the temple we visited a small museum with mummified crocodiles on display.  By this time I was hot and tired and a remember moving through the hot museum very quickly so I could get back to the ship to cool off and eat.

The Temple of Kom Ombo lit up at night.

The next day our adventure would continue is Aswan.

Pictures can be found in my Egypt 2022-09 Google Photos album.

2022 Fall Travels, Part Three - Egypt - Cairo

Cairo from the Mohammed Ali Mosque.

We flew into Cairo in the late afternoon and were met by our facilitator before we entered passport control.  Egypt was the only country that allowed us to be assisted before baggage claim.  It made things a lot easier.  We sped through the airport and were dropped off at our hotel overlooking the river Nile.  Like in Israel and Turkey we had a free day to acclimatize before our tour started.  These off days saved us I think.  They gave us time to regroup, for me to edit photos, and for us to recharge before going back on tour.

View of the Nile and Cairo at night from our hotel room.

On our free day we were going to take a walk around the area of the hotel.  Our facilitator and the doorman of our hotel both repeatedly warned us about being careful while crossing the street.  I wondered about this until I realized that there were no stop signs or stop lights.  I can understand a traffic roundabout not having stop signs but even the four way intersections had no signs.  You soon learned that the way to cross the street was "to walk with purpose and a prayer."  People just stepped out in the street and walked across.  It was up to the drivers to watch out for them.  Note, they do not have formal driver's ed in Egypt - they are all self taught.  As far as I could tell the order of vehicles going through a four way intersection was solely based on the size of the vehicles.  Trucks and buses had the right away.  Cars just got through when they saw an opportunity.  Pedestrians just walked with purpose.  Oh, and there wasn't a single horn honking.  The whole city transportation system was just organised chaos.

Colossal statue of Ramesses II.

We didn't walk too far.  Our hotel was in the embassy area .  We ended up in Tahrir Square where the Arab Spring protests took place.  We later walked to a coptic christian church not far from our hotel.  The guard at the door would not let us in and stopped us from taking pictures of the outside.  Not sure what the deal was but there has been violence against coptic christians in the past.

When we weren't walking around we were most likely at the rooftop pool swimming and eating.

The tour started.  We met our tour mate.  We were surprised that our tour group was only three people.   We thought Egypt would have attracted a larger group.  Our guide, we had three on this tour, were all Egyptologists, very knowledgeable, and actually fun to be with.  It turned out the Israeli guide had been an anomaly.  Our facilitator met with us every morning before handing us off to our guide.  We even met the tour company representative a couple times.  Egypt, and our local tour representatives, were trying very hard to sell Egypt to us.  Tourism is important in Egypt and Covid has not been kind.

First stop was in the city of Memphis where we visited a small museum where we saw the colossal statue of Ramesses II.  We learned about Egyptian sculpture style and the symbolism in their statues.

Saqqara Necropolis Gate.

Next we went to the Saqqara Necropolis where we entered a recently discovered burial chamber where we admired the vibrant paintings on the walls.  We then visited the oldest stone structure in Egypt, the step pyramid of King Zoser (Djoser).   The pyramid is four thousand six hundred years old.  There are older structures but only rubble has survived.

Lunch was approaching so we stopped at a hotel with views of the pyramids to have lunch.  We used possibly the most sumptuous bathrooms I've ever seen.  The only negative thing was the over eager bathroom attendant who practically washed my hands for me.  I can wash my own hands, thank you very much.  Back in the restaurant Egypt fed us well though not as extravagantly as Turkey in my opinion.

The Step pyramid of King Zoser.

Next on the itinerary was the highlight - The Great Pyramid of Cheops.  The pyramids were exactly what I expected.  We could have paid extra and gone in the pyramid but the interior is unadorned and my head was still tender from the low ceilings on the Cappadocia underground city.  The idea of being crouched over and smacking my head on random rocks didn't sound appealing.  It was actually hard to get a good picture of the pyramid of Cheops because it was so big.

Pyramids everywhere.

We next drove to a viewpoint where you could see multiple pyramids in a line.  This was also where we were to ride camels.  I want you to know that I had zero desire to ride a camel but the Wife insisted that we would ride camels in Egypt.  We got on and I hated it from the start.  I constantly felt like I was falling off.  I kept looking down trying to find a piece of ground without rocks where falling off wouldn't hurt too much but there wasn't such a place.  Not only did I feel like I was falling off but every step of the camel sent a jolt up my aching back.  Did I say that I hated it?  Well, I hated it.  It is something that I will never do again ... ever.

The sphinx and a pyramid.

The last stop of the day was the Sphinx.  It is smaller than you imagine but it was not disappointing.  We walked around it to get some good shots of the Sphinx with the pyramids in the background.

The dome of the Mohammed Ali Mosque.

The second day of our Cairo tour took us to the top of a hill in central Cairo where we visited the Citadel and the Mohammed Ali Mosque.  Mohammed Ali is considered the founder of Modern Egypt.  There were nice views of the city from the top of the hill.

The interior of the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities.

Coptic Church Mary.

After the Mosque we toured the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities.  We saw lots of interesting history there including King Tut's golden mask.  The Wife and I had already seen the mask and other Tut treasures when they toured the US.  We saw them in Los Angeles sometime before 2006 I think.  This is the old museum.  The Grand Egyptian Museum is not open yet and the opening date keeps slipping into the future.

After lunch at a local restaurant we visited the Hanging Church, a Coptic Christian Church.  We walked through some streets lined with shops before stopping at the Khan El Khalili Bazaar.  The guide pointed out some mosque minarets and said we could use these to guide us back to a coffee shop where he would be waiting for us.  We did some shopping and when it was time to go back we looked around and realized the bazaar was ringed by mosque minarets.  It took a bit of lucky navigation to get us back to our guide but we managed to find our way out of the maze.  Our tour mate wanted to visit a scented oils shop which we visited on the way back to our hotel.

It was a busy day and we were ready to go to the next part of our Egypt tour - A cruise down the river Nile.

Pictures can be found in my Egypt 2022-09 Google Photos album.

Egypt Travel Photos

We are in Egypt!  We've reach the half way point on our adventure and we are still going strong.  The rooftop pool and restaurant have been very helpful in this regard.

I've started posting pictures and will post more as we see more cool stuff.

You can find the photos in my Egypt 2022-09 Google Photos album.

Our Next Travels Abroad ... It's A Long One

Next month, and half of the one after that, we will venture outside America for the first time since December 2019.  We will be hitting several things on our bucket list while visiting two continents.

Our travels will start in Israel, move on to Turkey and Egypt, before ending in Ethiopia.  This will be our longest trip - forty-five days - nearly two weeks longer than our previous record.  The travels begin with a fifteen hours worth of flights from Omaha to Tel Aviv, Israel via Chicago and Frankfurt.

• The first part of our travels will be seven days in Israel.  During our stay here we will be visiting: Tel Aviv, Sea of Galilee, Tiberias, Capernaum, the Golan Heights, the Jordan Valley, Jerusalem, Mount Zion, The Tower of David, Bethlehem, the Dead Sea (our second visit here - the last time from the Jordan side of the sea), and Masada.
• The second part of our travels will be thirteen days in Turkey.  Our first couple days here will be free for us as we get here a couple days before the start of our tour.  After the second day we will be visiting: Istanbul, Topkapi Palace, Cappadocia (including a hot air balloon ride), Izmir, Ephesus, Bodrum, and a ride on a gulet on the Aegean Sea.
• The third part of our travels takes us from the Asian continent to Africa starting with nine days in Egypt.  In Egypt we will visit: Cairo, the pyramids and the sphinx, the Egyptian Museum, a four day Nile cruise with stops at the Karnak Temple, the Valley of the Kings, the Aswan Dam, and Abu Simbel.
• The fourth and final part of our travels will be thirteen days in Ethiopia.  In Ethiopia we will visit:  Addis Ababa, Harar, Lalibela, Arba Minch, a boat safari, visits with the Konso, Karo, Hamer, and several other tribes.

This trip is a combination of four tours given by our favorite tour company, Anderson & Roberts.  We have done fifteen of their tours, nineteen with this next trip.  They hit all the best spots and the groups are always small (often less than eight people).  It's nice to just sit back and not have to worry about how to get there and where to stay but it can be expensive.  This will very likely be our last tour-centric trip.   After this one we will do more of the legwork and cut out the middleman to reduce costs.