Family riding camels in Egypt (Image’in - stock.adobe.com)
Hi! My name is McKenzie Faggard, and for my spring vacation, I visited Egypt. My family and I are world travelers, but are moving relatively soon. We had to decide where our last big vacation in Europe would be. So, we planned, saved, budgeted, reviewed, requested, researched, and got up extremely early in the morning. Before we knew it, well, before we had woken up enough to realize it, we were on a plane to Cairo, Egypt.
Dear Diary,
Today was stressful. This morning, I had to drag myself out of bed and rip my two younger brothers out of their beds at 3 a.m. just to get to the airport. Once we arrived at the airport, we had breakfast and then waited for an hour. Then I was run over by the train of misunderstanding. sarcastic happy noises. I was told that the flight to Egypt was an hour and thirty minutes away BUT TURNS OUT THAT WAS JUST TO AUSTRIA AND THEN (here comes the best part) IT TOOK US THREE MORE HOURS TO GET THERE! I’m fine. After my exhausting TWO flights to Egypt, we escaped the airport. A driver then took us to our hotel.
Observations from the road:
Most cars on the road are banged up in some way.
Most buildings are made of wood and mostly bricks.
Lots of cars everywhere.
Lots of people everywhere.
People really like to beep at people.
Family riding camels at the pyramids of Giza (Abdalla - stock.adobe.com)
Dear Diary,
Today I visited Three pyramids and a camel. I can’t write like this because the tour guide talks very fast, so I’ll use bullet points.
Things I saw:
Lots of street dogs.
Not a lot of street cats.
Horses
And lots of people riding camels.
Things I smelled:
Very stinky camels.
Things I learned about the pyramids:
The blocks used to build the pyramids are a little shorter than me.
The Greeks renamed the pyramids.
It was a punishment to erase a king’s name.
The pyramids were 147 meters tall.
And had 10 meters of gold at the very top.
After we walked around the pyramids for a while we went on a camel ride. It was very bumpy, and my younger brother’s camel tooted, and unfortunately, I had to smell it until it dissipated. After that, we saw one more pyramid, then we went back to the Turquoise Hotel.
Dear Diary,
Today I got to visit the Aswan Dam and hop on a boat to visit a temple on an island. I found out that all the crocodiles from the Nile had been moved from the Nile River to the lake side of the dam. I also found out that the temple I was going to later was covered by water when they built the dam, so they took the whole temple apart and rebuilt it stone by stone on a similar island that was not going to be flooded. I also learned that when the Greeks came to Egypt, they built temples for the local gods to keep the people happy. You can tell the difference because the Corinthian column tops have different flowers on each column, and the Egyptian temples only have one kind of flower on all of them.
After we looked around both sides of the dam, we took a van over to a boat dock. Then we jumped on a boat and set off. It felt exciting to be on the water. It was still hot, but a lot cooler. Once we arrived at the temple, my siblings dispersed and explored the area. We saw sculptures and hieroglyphics on the walls. The main gods were Isis, Osiris, and Horace. Later we got back on the boat to go back. All of the little boats were tied together, so when we started to push off, we were accidentally dragging off another person’s boat.
Philae Temple ()
We then stopped by a perfume shop. We watched a guy create perfume bottles out of melted glass. When we went upstairs, they did a little perfume demonstration and let us smell all of the different perfumes. Personally, I liked the lavender. We bought a bottle of mint that is supposed to clear a runny nose when you add drops to hot water.
The last stop of the day was the Unfinished Obelisk. It was supposed to be the tallest and biggest obelisk in all of Egypt. But, when they were in the process of carving it out, it developed cracks and they abandoned it. The early Egyptians would drill holes in the stone and then fill them with dry wood chips. Then they would add water. As the wood expanded, it made the stone crack so that it was easier to carve it out of the quarry. Having the unfinished obelisk showed us how the Egyptians created their obelisks.
By this time we were pretty tired, so it was time to get on the cruise ship. This ship wasn’t like the normal sea cruise ships, it was a lot smaller. It was fancy, but not too fancy. They dock the boats all together in a line so that you have to walk through other boats to get to yours. The Miss Concerto II was surprisingly more fancy than our Miss Concerto ship. After we ate some food, my brothers and I went for a swim in the little pool on the top deck. It was cold!
Cruise boats on the Nile River ()
Dear Diary,
Today we mostly sailed down the river. We sat on the deck chairs on the top of the boat and watched the scenery. In the evening, we arrived at the temple of Kom Ombo. As usual, there were lots of hieroglyphics on the walls. At the back of the temple, there was a certain hole where the priest would hide to hear the prayer of the pharaoh. Then he could make a prophecy that answered the pharaoh’s prayer. I thought that was pretty sneaky.
Next door was a mummy crocodile museum. The main exhibit had 18 mummified crocodiles. Sobek was the crocodile god that the temple worshiped, so rich people would gift crocodile mummies to the temple to worship him. After this, we got back on the boat and had dinner and an early bedtime.
Mummified crocodiles (Lieve - stock.adobe.com)
Dear Diary,
We had to get up really early to get off the boat. We lined up on the sidewalk to wait for little horse carriages to come to take us to Edfu Temple. Our driver let me hold the reins, but really the horse steered the cart. It was a little bit smelly but still exciting. Outside the temple was a horse carriage parking lot. I saw one horse with a Toyota car symbol on its forehead. I thought it was pretty funny.
This temple was dedicated to Horace. He is the son of Isis and Osiris and he is shown as a falcon. There were big falcon statues at the gate of the temple. The temple was okay, but I loved trying to pet the street dogs the most. In Greece, there are cats everywhere. But in Egypt, there are dogs all over.
Thank you for reading my story and I hope you have awesome adventures in the years ahead.
Statue of Horace at Edfu Temple (Edyta Bartkiewicz - stock.adobe.com)
