Over the sea to Jordan!

We left Dahab on yet another sunny, hot day, having been warned to be well in time for the ferry to Aqaba in Jordan. As it turned out, we were 7 hours in time! It was all a relatively easy process, but having bought tickets and gone through passport control, we then waited with @100 other passengers in the large barn which was the Nuweiba departure terminal, for about 5-6 hours, all the time being assured the ferry (the FAST ferry) was leaving at 3pm, and then soon, and then 10 mins. The only sustenance available were crisps ( chips for our SA friends) and biscuits (cookies), which while delighting the children, really didn't fill tummies for that long.
Morag managed, as usual, to make friends, and it turned out the family had just spent the last 3 years in Edinburgh while the Dad did a PhD. This was Morag's favourite bit of the whole trip so far, as they had a whale of a time playing with 2 scrawny kittens, much to the horror of other European travellers who kept wiping their hands with anti-bacterial wipes every 2 minutes.
Once on the ferry, it was indeed a fast ferry to Aqaba, and we swiftly arrived in Jordan.
We quickly bypassed Aqaba (which actually looked like a fun place), and headed straight out to the desert, and the first of several nights under the stars.
Gilleasbuig actually wants to write the next bit, so I shall hand over to him.

R&R on the Red Sea

Dahab means "gold" in Arabic. For us, our time in Dahab was indeed a golden stay. After a long bus journey from Suez, we chanced upon the Star of Dahab Hotel. That night Lachlan persuaded me to enroll on a PADI dive course to become certified open water divers. For the next 4 days Lachlan and I went back to school and studied buoyancy, air pressures, hand signals, dive tables to calculate residual nitrogen etc etc. We also did 4 confined water dives and 4 open water dives. It was fantastic and we are very proud that Lachlan passed, especially as he is 11 and only just qualified to sit the course. Mr Ramollo would have been very proud!


Scuba diving is an amazing experience, and Lachlan took to it like a . . . well a fish to water. He was very calm and and in control, and never panicked. 10 metres from the beach the reef starts and immediately you are surrounded by a huge variety of tropical fish. I won't even start to name all the species we saw, but Lachlan did see a Giant Trevally which was about 2 metres long. I was on my guard as I kept expecting to see Emilio Largo and Sean Connery come round the corner with spear guns.

Iona and Gilleasbuig also took a fun dive, complete with full Scuba equipment and oxygen tanks.



While Lachlan and I were on our course, the rest of the family relaxed and swam. The children really loved snorkeling as they could just swim out and float over the reef, looking at all the fish beneath them.


Morag too had a ball just snorkeling on her own out to the reef.



In total we spent 6 days at Dahab, unwinding, swimming and enjoying the stunning scenery. Across the Strait of Aqaba from Dahab is Saudi Arabia and every evening we would have dinner and watch the sun set over the mountains in Saudi.


Our last day there was Elspeth's birthday and the hotel covered the restaurant in balloons and baked a cake. The children decorated the little tree with balloons which made it look like a c----m tree (censored by Elspeth).

All in all a wonderful way to end a great stay.

Suez, school lessons, and serendipity

Every day we try to teach the children something new - concepts or words or lessons for life. In Luxor, going in and out of tombs from low humidity to high humidity allowed us (Elspeth really, as I still struggle with science) to explain concepts of air and molecules, which would later come in useful for Lachlan as he took his diving course. The word of the day at the Suez canal was "serendipity".

I had always wanted to see the Suez Canal as I love ships and was fascinated by the engineering feat of building a canal through the desert which could take the biggest ships in the world. And remember it was finished in 1869! We took the bus from Cairo to Ismailaya the town which housed the HQ of the Suez Canal company. The Suez Canal is not purely a canal. There are a number of small lakes en route, and Ismailaya sits on Lake Timsah. We went to where the ships go from the Lake back into the Canal, and watched as these huge machines disappeared off into the middle of the desert. Ismailaya has a relaxed feel after Cairo. It was laid out by the French who were building the canal, and it is spacious and airy. Many of the old colonial houses remain.

From Ismailaya, we had intended to go straight to Nuweiba, a small town at the top of the Red Sea, near the border with Israel, from where we will take a ferry to Jordan. However there was no direct bus to Nuweiba, so we took a bus to Suez from where we could connect to Nuweiba. The bus to Suez broke down, so we watched the ships sailing through the desert while the replacement arrived. A student very kindly took us under his wing and took us through the various bus times. Such kindness has been the norm in Egypt, and the people have just been wonderful to us. In the bus station at Suez, a man came up to the children, gave them all chocolate bars, smiled and said "welcome to Egypt" and walked off. In Suez, we realised the only bus would arrive too late in Nuweiba so instead we bought tickets to Dahab, a small town on the Red Sea coast, north of Sharm El-Sheikh.

We now had a couple of hours to kill in Suez. The guidebooks are harsh on Suez, as it was heavily destroyed during the various wars with Israel. However, we loved it. We took a taxi to the entry to the canal. Our rucksacks wouldn't fit in the boot, so the driver just laid the two heavy rucksacks on the roof rack, unattached, and we drove off. The canal is single lane, so for half the day the ships go north and for the other half they come south. We had breakfast in the Red Sea Hotel which overlooks the entrance to the canal, and watched the pilot boats coming and going as massive Chinese container ships glided by. As the visit to Suez was unplanned but a pleasant bonus, we explained to the children the meaning of serendipity.

More was to follow. We had a 8 hour bus journey to Dahab, following the coast of the Sinai peninsula all the way with crystal blue water on the right, and barren desert on the left. As we approached Sharm El-Sheikh, the flat desert gave way to rocky mountains which rise sharply from the sea. When we got to Dahab, we were again positively surprised. The hotel we had picked from the guidebook turned out to be very friendly, the location was great (right on the sea) and by the end of dinner we were booked on various diving courses. We sat in the small restaurant on cushions with the warm sea breeze and views across the Red Sea to the mountains of Saudi Arabia, and reminded the children of the meaning of serendipity.

Joke of the day (Lachlan)

What is Popeye's favourite fruit? Popaya! Boom, boom.

Tourists and/or Antiquities?

F0llowing our historical fun in Luxor, we took the night train to Cairo.
A constant background presence in Egypt is the Tourist and Antiquities Police (an interesting combination of jurisdictions, especially having seen some of the tour groups here!). As we arrived at Luxor Station, we were spotted as foreigners and ushered politely past the metal detector where all the locals were having their luggage scrutinised. We were duly escorted to the 1st class buffet lounge, and when our train arrived our escort reappeared to make sure we boarded the correct carriage.
Usually we manage to escape their presence as soon as we step off the trodden coach tour path, so when we entered the Cairo Underground Metro system we once again became as inconspicuous as any blond British family travelling the Cairo metro!
We checked in at the children's favourite Windsor Hotel again, and after a wee nap were welcomed back at our favourite local restaurant, Gad.
Suitably refreshed with sweetened freshly squeezed lemon juice and lentil soup with Egyptian bread, we gave the children some Egyptian pounds and set off to Khan el Khalili. This famous Cairean souk, established in 1382 around a caravansary, is a maze of small stores and coffee shops, which now features heavily on the tourist itinerary. The children promptly started haggling for Cleopatra heads, pyramids and sphinxes. I can only hope that their taste improves with age!! Andy and I settled for mint tea at one of the
numerous tea/coffee houses in the bazaar, while the children recovered from their business efforts with even more freshly squeezed juice.
In an interesting twist to the Tourist/Antiquity tale, when Andy tried to send these treasures back to the UK he discovered we would have to pay a 40 quid tax for the privilege, as they were Egyptian antiquities?! As this was way more than the meagre price paid for the assorted plastic and lurid antiques, I'm afraid they are still being lugged around in his back pack.

Hot, hot air ballooning and more in Luxor.

As the cat's away the mice shall play!! Andy is currently 3m under the Red Sea, so this means Gilleasbuig, Iona and myself have the computer to ourselves, and we thought it was time to add another post to our blog.
As we left the cool breezes of sailing on the Nile, we found ourselves in hot, dry Luxor. There is a decidedly French feel to much of our trip so far, and in Luxor we stayed on the West Bank of the Nile, where the children enjoyed the delights of crepes as a change from babaganoush and hummus. As we took the ferry to the East Bank we found another French connection in the Luxor Temple, where one of a pair of Ramesses II obelisks still stands. Its twin is to be found in the Place de la Concorde in Paris, while 2 of the original 6 colossi of the same pharaoh are still in The Louvre.
This is still a bone of bitter contention with the Egyptians, that so many of their national treasures and historical artifacts were "looted" by foreigners and now grace public and private collections around the world. This was the theme of an opening exhibition in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo while we were there.
As Andy has already touched on, travelling with children gives you a different perspective, and you end up basing activities more on "fun" rather than other criteria. In Luxor we managed a mix of fun and some history.
Luxor is the ancient Egyptian capital of Thebes (1567 - 1085 BC), and its ruins make it one of the world's greatest open air museums. We first visited the Valley of The Kings, the burial site for many pharaohs of this era, where we visited 3 tombs belonging to Ramses I, III and Tuthmosis III. Due to the number of visitors the authorities rotate the tombs visited, to reduce the amount of damage from body sweat and breath, and the 35-40 C degree heat outside quickly becomes appealing after the high humidity of the tombs. The Mortuary Temple of Queen Hatshepsut and Karnak temple were the most impressive ruins of our Egyptian leg, and we felt dwarfed by both.
The fun element was introduced using hot air balloon, caleche (horse drawn carriage) and ferry.
We took a sunrise balloon flight across the Valley of the Kings. It also gave us a unique view into various peoples' houses as our captain took us on a low level fly over of a west bank village. The children loved it, but Andy looked decidedly less impressed. He is bad enough in a 747, so a patchwork of string, assorted cloth like materials and naked flames did not put him at ease.

As we were staying on the west bank, we had to cross the river to see the numerous sights on the east bank. The simplest and cheapest way to do this was by ferry. Again the children loved sitting at the bow and watching river life flow by.

After one of these crossing, and at the special request of Morag, we took a caleche to the temple at Karnak. Iona and Lachlan took charge and drove us most of the way. At last those horse riding lessons are paying out!

Today's Egyptian Joke

Which Pharoah invented doorbells? Tutankhanum (Toot and Come in) Boom boom!

A slow boat down the Nile

A Nile Cruise is a must if you are in this part of the world. The name conjours up images from Agatha Christie's "Death on the Nile." In our case, the only death would have been if Gilleasbuig had managed to catch his brother on any number of occasions when tempers boiled over.

We hired a felucca to take us from Aswan to Kom Ombo. The felucca is a local sailing boat with a very simple yet efficient design. One of the reason that the Nile was able to be so effectively used as a trade route is that the prevailing wind is a north wind which allows boats to sail upriver and against the current. We often forget now how important geography and nature are in history.


We spent two lazy days on the boat, reading, playing cards, watching the children playing gogos (if you don't know what they are, ask any child), fight and then make up, and catching up on diaries and post cards. The captain was wonderful with the children and a great cook. We ate like kings, enjoying freshly prepared local dishes of chicken, fish, bread, rice and pasta. After our evening meal, we all stretched out under blankets on the deck and slept like logs.


On the last morning we visited a camel market, in a small town near the Kom Ombo temple. It looked very exotic, but it reminded me straight away of the mart at Dalmally in Argyll where we used to go as children with my uncles who farmed in Glendaruel. Animal markets are the same across the world, from the pens, open areas and selling rings, to the place where after it is all over, the men get together for a drink or smoke.

Egyptian Jokes, and other ways for children to pass the time.

No internet, no Gameboys, no Playstation. How do the children survive? Well apart from Lachlan and Gilleasbuig trying to maim each other and not get found out, we play a lot of cards, read, write diaries and try to broaden the childrens' education. A current favourite is also to make up Egyptian jokes. The best so far is from Iona. Lachlan has a wobbly tooth. Who will come when it falls out? The Tooth Pharaoh! Boom Boom. The childrens' Arabic is improving. They can all count to ten and are getting good at the basic pleasantries - hello, goodbye, thank you etc. So the teachers at Dainfern and Teacher Sandi needn't worry too much. They are still learning!

We are now in Luxor after a wonderful 2 day sail down the Nile on a felucca. Aswan was the start point of the trip. It is a city founded, quite literally, on granite. At Aswan, there is a seam of granite which crosses the Nile, causing the first significant sets of rapids (cataracts) which one encounters sailing up the Nile from the Mediterranean. Hence since ancient times Aswan has been an important trading town as boats from the Mediterranean had to stop and unload, and vice versa for boats from Africa. Aswan is in the north of the Nubian province, and the faces here are darker than in Cairo. This feels like the start of Africa as we know it, rather than the more Arab north of Egypt. This north-south divide was present in ancient Egypt too. The Pharaohs had two crowns, one for the kingdom of Lower Egypt and one for the Upper Kingdom which included Southern Egypt and Sudan. Sudan is only a couple of hundred kilometres south of Aswan. As a result, there is a frontier feel to Aswan which adds to its attraction. There is an attractive mix of faces, and a slightly rough edge which give frontier towns such an alluring feel.

Our hotel was just off the Nile in the middle of the souk, the old bazaar. This bazaar is more sanitised now, and more "tourist friendly" i.e. cleaner but with less character. However there are still glimpses of what it may have been like. The displays of spices and of fabrics are a riot of smells and colour.







Bread is a major part of Egyptian daily life. The local bread is like pita bread. I was fortunate to get a glimpse into the working of a local bakery. It is an incredibly efficient operation. The only stock carried is bags of flour. The dough is made, laid on trays of coarse flour and then baked immediately. As the bread comes out of the oven it is either bought immediately by waiting customers or put onto wooden trays which are then carried by cyclist to shops throughout the area. The bread is fresh, hot, and delicious. How would Egyptian consumers think of our bread with its plastic wrapping, and sell by dates?

Off up the Nile

Travelling with children requires a different rhythm. It is rather like a foxtrot versus a march. Instead of a more steady pace of sightseeing, reading, diary writing, and eating, with children it is slow slow quick quick slow. Bursts of activity followed by periods of . . . well not inactivity, but supposed quiet time, usually in the hotel. I say supposed because as all parents will know a quiet game of cards can explode in seconds into a scene from Quentin Tarantino movie.

Our last day in Cairo was a supposed quiet day. We didn't do much in terms of sightseeing, although we did walk several miles to find a Coptic Cathedral which was only a 10 minute walk from the hotel. This long meander did offer us a glimpse of life in the backstreets of Cairo. Little vignettes like men building refrigerators, threading copper heating elements through the back of new fridges and then sanding and cutting with sparks flying everywhere.

Ice cream in Egypt has been excellent so far, and after our walk, we found a delightful shaded cafe where they served delicious vanilla ice cream. This calmed the children down in advance of our night train to Aswan.

The staff at the Windsor Hotel were all out to see us off. Read into this what you will . . . Lachlan has been the elevator driver in chief as the elevator is an old style carriage with sliding trellis door and a stop/start mechanism like in the wheel house of a ship. You have to judge where the elevator is relative to the floor to stop it in the right place. Lachlan and Morag have enjoyed just going up and down and stopping and starting, with the help of a very kind old man whose job it is to run the lift.



The train was excellent. The carriages were clean and comfortable. Iona and Lachlan shared a carriage with a joining door to my and Gilleasbuig's carriage. Elspeth and Morag were next door. Just after we set off we were served with a good meal, airplane stlye on trays, and then everyone slept pretty much all the way to Aswan. The importance of the Nile to Egypt is clear as crystal from the train. The train follows the Nile all the way. 100 yards either side of the river or of the various irrigation canals, there are rows of date palm tree and green fields. Beyond that is only desert.

More to follow on Aswan and Luxor . . .

We have arrived in Cairo and after 4 days have managed to get the computer to work. Hence the slightly late start to the blog.

I couldn't start this with telling you about Elspeth great run in the 2 Oceans Marathon. For those of you who don't know this race, it is a 56 km Ultra Marathon run around Cape Town and the Cape Peninsula. Last year Elspeth finished in 6 hours 42 minutes. This year she finished in 5 hours 59 minutes, and got a bronze medal for her efforts. Over 9 km/h for 6 hours is fantastic and we are all very proud of her.

The children were not too impressed with Egyptair business class as there were no films on the TV and the beds only reclined to 45 degrees. Oh the hardship! We are staying in Cairo at the Windsor Hotel which is an old British Officers Club. It is a far cry from the Palazzo at Montecasino. One star with a faded late 19th century atmosphere rather then the full 5 star treatment with 25 metre pool.

Already Morag is proving a hit, with her cute looks and willingness to talk to anyone. Everywhere we go people want to touch her hair, and pinch her cheek. Everyone has been extremely friendly. Travelling with the children, especially with our 4, does set us apart from the usual backpackers and tour groups. The novelty means we are subject to less hassle from touts as they seem not to want to hassle a young family. Alternatively they may just be scared by what they see.

The children have taken to Egyptian food, and our diet consists of lots of lentil soup, schwarma, houmous, baba ganoosh and bread. We have our favoutire restaurant just round the corner from the hotel and we are now well known to all the waiters. Morag has made sure of that.

Cairo is a late night city rather than an early morning place. We are still on South African time so we are up before 0700 hrs and we enjoy beautiful, cool, undisturbed early mornings until around 0900 hrs, when Cairo comes to life. Traffic here is crazy, but somehow it works. There is a lot of honking of horns and gesticulating, but little aggression or road rage.

We have seen a fair bit of Cairo, much of it by foot and metro. The Egyptian museum is a bit overwhelming, but the mummies left an impression on the children. Lachlan and Gilleasbuig were not too impressed, but the girls were intrigued at the amazingly well preserved 3000 year old bodies. Gilleasbuig is now quite the expert on the mummification process, including the storage of the intestines, skin, liver and other organs in various pots.

There is a childrens' museum next door which is very well done. The Danish government donated lego replicas of the main Egyptian artefacts (Sphinx, etc) and there is a mix of lego and original artefacts. The children loved it as it was much more simple and manageable than the hundreds of thousands of exhibits in the big museum.




The children are finding the rubbush and dirt in Cairo a bit of a culture shock. Even Lachlan complained about the lack of litter bins. Walking the streets is great fun as we pass little coffee shops with men smoking shisha pipes.

Yesterday we visited the pyramids which did indeed live up to their billing as one of the wonders of the ancient world. Their size, and the fact they were built 3000-5000 years ago make them truly astounding. And these were tombs. It makes you wonder what compelled people to spend 20 years building these colossal monuments - fear, threats or a passion for construction? You make the call.



While we were there, one guy managed to climb all the way to the top of the middle pyramid. This in itself is quite an achievement, as the pyramid is around 500 feet high, very steep, and the last 50 feet is smooth limestone facade with an overhang at the start of the limetone. Of course getting to the top is often easier than getting down, and as we left, the guy seemed to be stuck at the top, something confirmed by the large group of police at the bottom who were waiting for his descent.

Today is a quiet day as we get packed and ready for the overnight train to Aswan. More to follow when we get to Aswan.

Lachlan say hello to Ciaran, Michael and all his friends in South Africa.
Gilleasbuig says hello to Ethan and all his friends
Iona says hello to Courtney and Shannon and all her friends.
Morag says hello to Nathan, Nicholas, Carris, Erry Berry and all her friends and teachers at Country Readiness.