franandaj
I'm so happy, I could BOUNCE!
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2009
Welcome to another franandaj trip report.
This one is going to be completely different than any other TR that you have read from me! Why? Because there actually is no Disney Park, Disney ship, or even Disney paraphernalia (at least not planned) that will be involved!
Why am I writing this then? Well a number of you have expressed interest in the journey. Some have called it a bucket list trip. I can’t say anything to that. I really don’t have a bucket list. Now for those of you who already know me, you probably know some of this history, but I’ll give it to everyone in a nutshell.
About 30ish years ago I met my wife Fran. At the time I didn’t realize we were destined to spend a good portion of our lives together, but after a couple years of carefree romance, she was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis. This just slowed her down a little bit, we continued to have all sorts of adventures, and about 15 years ago, I started sharing them on the DIS.
If you’ve followed us, you know she had all sorts of medical issues, but she fought on and tried her best to enjoy life. So why don’t I have a bucket list? Since her passing last Spring, I’ve realized that I spent so many years making her dreams come true, I never really thought about my own. After Fran passed, Jill (@jedijill) asked me to join her on her (already planned) trip to Egypt, it didn’t take long for me to say, “yes”.
Was this trip on my radar? Not in a million years. In fact when Jill was planning it, I didn’t even think to ask about any of the details. I did know that she was going to the place where they filmed the last scenes of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and that she was going to see some pyramids, but other than that it was something so out of reach for me, I didn’t give it a second thought. She was planning this trip to celebrate a milestone birthday. The premise was that if she was going to hit this milestone (she considered old, I hit that one quite a few years ago….) She should spend it with things that were WAY older than she would be.
To help me make up my mind of whether or not to tag along, I had her send me the proposed itinerary. I researched everything that was planned, read reviews of the proposed hotels, what sights were included, all the things. The deeper I got into it the better it sounded!
Glamping in a Bedouin tent in the desert? Um, yes!
Pyramids at Giza, Memphis, Sakkara, and the Sphinx? How cool is that?
Catacombs in Alexandria? Wow!
And it all ends with a cruise up the Nile visiting Luxor, the Valley of the Kings, Abu Simbel, and all that then!
Sign me up!
This is me and Jill from January this year.
It was back in May when I agreed to join her on the trip. Since then we have just been counting down the days. I did a lot of research on Pharaohs, the various Dynasties, who ruled where and when, all kinds of stuff. Right at 30 days from our trip we got the payment link to make our final payment, and then it was just time to wait. We had a bit of disappointment when they sent our final itinerary shortly after paying in full.
One of the big things we were looking forward to was Glamping in the desert in the Bedouin camp. Well that wasn’t on the itinerary, now we were staying overnight at an average hotel near Petra. I’m glad for Jill because she wasn’t having it. She emailed them back saying that was one of the things that we were most looking forward to. It took some time, but they were able to find us another camp. They claimed that the one they originally quoted was full. The new one also gets good reviews, so we were happy that option was back on the table.
In those long months while waiting for the trip to come around, I did a lot of traveling. One trip was to visit my parents in San Jose. They have a museum there, The Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, which holds the largest collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities in the Western United States. My Mom suggested that we go there while I was visiting. We spent about four hours there and still didn’t see everything that they had to offer. I think we saw four of the five galleries.
In case you are not familiar with the territory let me use this as a point of reference. Our trip actually begins off the map in the country of Jordan, but when we finally get to Egypt we will be based in Cairo, which is just to the upper right of Giza on the map. After almost a week in Cairo we fly to Luxor, where we will board a Nile Cruise Ship. That ship will take us to all the other points on the map as far as Aswan. But we have booked a land trip to Abu Simbel before we finally disembark the ship, fly back to Cairo, and then eventually fly home via London.
If you’re worried about the unrest in Israel, the Egypt/Israel border isn’t even shown in that picture. It’s way on the other side of that land mass on the right side. And that’s a demilitarized zone with limited access in and out, so even if Egypt is near the unrest, it also really isn’t.
But back to the museum visit, one of the neatest things they had was a recreation of a burial tomb. Here you see the entrance to said tomb.
We were lucky enough to be there when a guided tour was being offered, so we got a lot of extra information. This room here is the one where the family would come to bring gifts to the tomb occupant. The door you see at the end of the room would have been sealed off once the burial took place and no one (except tomb robbers) would have passed through that door once it was sealed.
This is the actual burial room. Notice the drawings on the walls. When explained to us, the right wall depicted the sorts of things that the deceased liked to do in real life, those activities continued around to the wall behind me in the first picture, seen in the second picture below.
On the opposite wall we see “the judgment”. If you are not familiar with Egyptian mythology, when one dies they stand in judgment before a number of factors. In this tomb, the first part is depicted on the left wall (not shown) where the man faces a number of questions about his sins….Did you ever lie? Did you ever steal? There are 42 of these, and he must confirm that he is sinless.
The scene you see on the far wall is where the man’s heart is weighed on the scale against the feather of Maat. If the decedents heart balances with the feather they are presented to Osiris, who admitted them into the Sekhet-Aaru. However, if their heart was heavier than the feather, it was to be devoured by the Goddess Ammit, permanently destroying the soul of the deceased, ceasing to exist.
And because this tomb is an amalgamation of most tombs, it has been robbed.
While in Egypt, we expect that we will see a lot of these…..mummies.
Here’s a close up, what they did to preserve the teeth and everything is beyond me!
Bastet was a fierce lioness goddess worshiped as early as the 2nd Dynasty (2890BC). She is my favorite goddess. As well as Hathor the goddess of music and pleasure.
This is Ahkenaten (aka the Heretic Pharaoh), he is known as the only Pharaoh to advocate for a monotheism, worshiping the Sun god Aten.
And what good is a trip without a little joking around?
OK this one fits a little bit better.
OK everyone, buckle your seatbelts, return your tray table and seatback to the upright and locked position. This is going to be one long journey! You’re in for the long haul, or should I say the whole hog?
This one is going to be completely different than any other TR that you have read from me! Why? Because there actually is no Disney Park, Disney ship, or even Disney paraphernalia (at least not planned) that will be involved!
Why am I writing this then? Well a number of you have expressed interest in the journey. Some have called it a bucket list trip. I can’t say anything to that. I really don’t have a bucket list. Now for those of you who already know me, you probably know some of this history, but I’ll give it to everyone in a nutshell.
About 30ish years ago I met my wife Fran. At the time I didn’t realize we were destined to spend a good portion of our lives together, but after a couple years of carefree romance, she was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis. This just slowed her down a little bit, we continued to have all sorts of adventures, and about 15 years ago, I started sharing them on the DIS.
If you’ve followed us, you know she had all sorts of medical issues, but she fought on and tried her best to enjoy life. So why don’t I have a bucket list? Since her passing last Spring, I’ve realized that I spent so many years making her dreams come true, I never really thought about my own. After Fran passed, Jill (@jedijill) asked me to join her on her (already planned) trip to Egypt, it didn’t take long for me to say, “yes”.
Was this trip on my radar? Not in a million years. In fact when Jill was planning it, I didn’t even think to ask about any of the details. I did know that she was going to the place where they filmed the last scenes of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and that she was going to see some pyramids, but other than that it was something so out of reach for me, I didn’t give it a second thought. She was planning this trip to celebrate a milestone birthday. The premise was that if she was going to hit this milestone (she considered old, I hit that one quite a few years ago….) She should spend it with things that were WAY older than she would be.
To help me make up my mind of whether or not to tag along, I had her send me the proposed itinerary. I researched everything that was planned, read reviews of the proposed hotels, what sights were included, all the things. The deeper I got into it the better it sounded!
Glamping in a Bedouin tent in the desert? Um, yes!
Pyramids at Giza, Memphis, Sakkara, and the Sphinx? How cool is that?
Catacombs in Alexandria? Wow!
And it all ends with a cruise up the Nile visiting Luxor, the Valley of the Kings, Abu Simbel, and all that then!
Sign me up!
This is me and Jill from January this year.
It was back in May when I agreed to join her on the trip. Since then we have just been counting down the days. I did a lot of research on Pharaohs, the various Dynasties, who ruled where and when, all kinds of stuff. Right at 30 days from our trip we got the payment link to make our final payment, and then it was just time to wait. We had a bit of disappointment when they sent our final itinerary shortly after paying in full.
One of the big things we were looking forward to was Glamping in the desert in the Bedouin camp. Well that wasn’t on the itinerary, now we were staying overnight at an average hotel near Petra. I’m glad for Jill because she wasn’t having it. She emailed them back saying that was one of the things that we were most looking forward to. It took some time, but they were able to find us another camp. They claimed that the one they originally quoted was full. The new one also gets good reviews, so we were happy that option was back on the table.
In those long months while waiting for the trip to come around, I did a lot of traveling. One trip was to visit my parents in San Jose. They have a museum there, The Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, which holds the largest collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities in the Western United States. My Mom suggested that we go there while I was visiting. We spent about four hours there and still didn’t see everything that they had to offer. I think we saw four of the five galleries.
In case you are not familiar with the territory let me use this as a point of reference. Our trip actually begins off the map in the country of Jordan, but when we finally get to Egypt we will be based in Cairo, which is just to the upper right of Giza on the map. After almost a week in Cairo we fly to Luxor, where we will board a Nile Cruise Ship. That ship will take us to all the other points on the map as far as Aswan. But we have booked a land trip to Abu Simbel before we finally disembark the ship, fly back to Cairo, and then eventually fly home via London.
If you’re worried about the unrest in Israel, the Egypt/Israel border isn’t even shown in that picture. It’s way on the other side of that land mass on the right side. And that’s a demilitarized zone with limited access in and out, so even if Egypt is near the unrest, it also really isn’t.
But back to the museum visit, one of the neatest things they had was a recreation of a burial tomb. Here you see the entrance to said tomb.
We were lucky enough to be there when a guided tour was being offered, so we got a lot of extra information. This room here is the one where the family would come to bring gifts to the tomb occupant. The door you see at the end of the room would have been sealed off once the burial took place and no one (except tomb robbers) would have passed through that door once it was sealed.
This is the actual burial room. Notice the drawings on the walls. When explained to us, the right wall depicted the sorts of things that the deceased liked to do in real life, those activities continued around to the wall behind me in the first picture, seen in the second picture below.
On the opposite wall we see “the judgment”. If you are not familiar with Egyptian mythology, when one dies they stand in judgment before a number of factors. In this tomb, the first part is depicted on the left wall (not shown) where the man faces a number of questions about his sins….Did you ever lie? Did you ever steal? There are 42 of these, and he must confirm that he is sinless.
The scene you see on the far wall is where the man’s heart is weighed on the scale against the feather of Maat. If the decedents heart balances with the feather they are presented to Osiris, who admitted them into the Sekhet-Aaru. However, if their heart was heavier than the feather, it was to be devoured by the Goddess Ammit, permanently destroying the soul of the deceased, ceasing to exist.
And because this tomb is an amalgamation of most tombs, it has been robbed.
While in Egypt, we expect that we will see a lot of these…..mummies.
Here’s a close up, what they did to preserve the teeth and everything is beyond me!
Bastet was a fierce lioness goddess worshiped as early as the 2nd Dynasty (2890BC). She is my favorite goddess. As well as Hathor the goddess of music and pleasure.
This is Ahkenaten (aka the Heretic Pharaoh), he is known as the only Pharaoh to advocate for a monotheism, worshiping the Sun god Aten.
And what good is a trip without a little joking around?
OK this one fits a little bit better.
OK everyone, buckle your seatbelts, return your tray table and seatback to the upright and locked position. This is going to be one long journey! You’re in for the long haul, or should I say the whole hog?
