It has been a very busy week and very little internet to speak of, so here is a run down of my week. I have been able to update my map, but will have to wait until I get home to upload the rest of my photos.

Tuesday

We went to Philae in the morning, this is also one of the temples move and was under water for quite a few years behind the low dam. It would have been a pretty cool dive site during that time, but was eventually moved to dry land.

We then went back to the hotel to pack and went to our Felucca which was going to take us north towards Luxor. We sailed for about two hours before parking for lunch (Xmas lunch). The wind was picking up so it was determined to windy to sail, so we were towed for an hour or so until the wind calmed down and then we sailed until sunset where we parked for dinner and slept the night.

Wednesday

In the morning we transfered from the Felluca to a bus for the rest of the trip to Luxor. On the way we stopped off at Kom Ombo Temple and Edfu Temple. The temples just start to keep on getting bigger and bigger. Once in Luxor we all did our own thing in the afternoon before meeting up to do a night tour of Luxor temple, this is a very popular temple to do at night rather than through the day.

Thursday

It was another early start this morning to do a balloon ride over the west bank of the city where all the tombs and temples are. We were picked up at 5am and driven to the launch site. It was a pretty amazing ride getting to see the sites from above. After about 45 minutes we landed and was driven to meet up with the rest of the group who did not do the ride.

We then got our donkeys which we were going to ride for about 45 minutes towards the valley of the kings. We were all expecting to be lead along, but were surprised when we were instructed how to make them go faster and stop, we were then off. The only rule we had is that we could not go past the lead donkey. It became a bit of a race and I slowly moved into second place, my donkey "white lightning" then made its final move over taking the last donkey (deciding to bite it on the way past) and I rode to glory.

We then took a ute the rest of the way to valley of the kings. Unlike all the other tombs we had seen so far, by this time the kings were working out the pyramids kept on getting robbed, so they started digging them into mountain so they weren't so obvious.

After a brief history lessson we went into three tombs - Ramsses III, Ramsses IV and Mernptah (entry ticket included access to three of the ten open tombs). There are 60 odd in total, but they cycle through them. We also paid the extra to go and see King Tutts tomb, though not spectacular it is the most famous and his mummy is on display in the tomb.

We then went to the Funerary Temple of Queen Hatshepsut which is very imposing on the landscape and then statues of Memnon, then headed to locals house for lunch. After lunch we took a boat up the river to the Temple of Karnak, the largest temple ever built in the world. It is actually a complex of temples and covers 60 acres in total.

In the evening I went out with some people I ran into at the Valley of the kings, they were staying in the same hostel I was before starting the tour.

Friday

Today our long trek to the desert began, the first leg of the trip was an 8 hour drive to the Dakhla Oasis. This was just really a place to stay the night as we could not get all the way to the White desert in one day. We did go for a walk to the old part of town which is slowly disappearing with redevelopment, but there is still a maze of old mud brick buildings existing.

Saturday

Today was our final step into the desert, though we did have a couple of stops on the way. The first stop was to visit an old Arabic village of El-Kasr, though pretty much empty now it is still pretty much intact and it was amazing wondering through the narrow streets and looking into some of the mud brick buildings.

We then stopped off for lunch at an Badr Museum in the Faratra Oasis, which is owned by a famous artist in Egypt. Here we transferred to 4WD for the rest of our journey. We stopped off looking at the amazing natural formations of the desert before stopping just before sunset to set up camp and prepare for a night in the desert. It gets quite cold during the night, but the camel wool blankets do the job to keep you warm.

Sunday

So yesterday we packed up camp and drove off to see more sites on our way to the Bahariya Oasis where we are going to spend two nights. We stopped of at the mushroom desert (where the formations look like mushrooms), crystal mountain where for some reason there is a massive crystal formation and the black desert.

We have now spent one night in the hotel and we are doing a tour today before going out for dinner for New year and probably have a few drinks on the roof of the hotel (the only place you can drink).