[Grace] Abu Simbel Ruins in Egypt

Over the course of this trip, we have seen amazing things in all different parts of the world. In Cambodia we went to Angkor Wat, seen white sand beaches in Thailand, hiked to Everest Base Camp in Nepal and saw lions in South Africa. After South Africa, we flew to Egypt - and while it was not always the most pleasant country (it reached 115 degrees Fahrenheit), the ancient Egyptian ruins are so far beyond anything else.

After spending a few days in Cairo, our family was going to fly to a town on the Nile, Aswan, and get on a river cruise. Before that, we were going to fly down and back to a town near the Sudan border named Abu Simbel to see ruins with the same name as the town.

The day was blisteringly hot, and I was peeved that we had to take two extra flights just to see the Abu Simbel ruins. The schedule for the day looked like this:

Fly from Cairo to Aswan
Fly from Aswan to Abu Simbel

Sightsee at Abu Simbel
Fly from Abu Simbel to Aswan

Board boat

Basically, it would have been much simpler for us to skip Abu Simbel, and I was confused at why this site was so important. I am a big Egyptian history nerd and had never heard of Abu Simbel before, so I was skeptical. However,  I had done some quick research to learn the basics, and this is what I learned:

Abu Simbel was built by  the pharaoh Ramesses the II (commonly known as Ramesses the Great). At the location there are two temples, but they also serve as monuments to Ramesses and his wife, Nefertari. They were built around 1250 BC (for reference, the pyramids were built in 2500 BC).

All my uncertainty about the monuments disappeared instantly once we arrived. 

All four of those giant statues are of Rammesses. He positioned himself in the typical position of a God.

You can see how large the statues are with the perspective the people provide.

There are enormous reliefs of Ramesses carved into the red rockface. They are not in perfect condition but that does little to damper their effect. In the middle, there is an entrance into the temple. Inside, the temple walls are almost 100% covered with carvings, depicting Ramesses' victory in battle as well as tribute to the many gods. One of the most interesting things about the temple is the fact that some of the carvings still have remnants of paint.

The second temple at Abu Simbel is much smaller and dedicated to Ramesses' wife, Nefertari. The front of the temple is in a similar style to the first, if at a much smaller scale. Even though the temple is in Nefertari's honor, she is only depicted in 2/6 of the 6 large figures in front. Ramesses, who was quite the arrogant pharaoh, had 4 large statues of himself out in front too.

From left to right: Ramesses, Nefertari, Ramesses, Ramesses, Nefertari, Ramesses

The inside of the temple is, again, smaller but quite similar to the first temple.

Overall, Abu Simbel was incredible and totally worth it. The ruins were some of my favorite by far. Also, now I want to build my own version of Abu Simbel, except with giant statues of me instead of Ramesses. Stay tuned for how that goes.

[Kate] LIVE REPORT: Canceled Flight Odyssey

6/9/2018 6:34 PM

I'm currently sitting on the very hard and suspiciously wet airport floor in Granada, Spain, immediately right of the entrance.  Right in front of the doors is the big information chart that shows the gates, check in desks, and other general information of the departing flights.

We walked about half an hour ago, maybe a little more, to see that our flight to Paris had been canceled.  This is a big problem, because tomorrow morning, a plane will take off from Paris heading to Salt Lake City, Utah, which we need to be on.  And it's not possible to be on that plane unless we get to Paris pronto.

The sign that shows the flight details.

The three kids are sitting here on the floor (some of our mobile devices are plugged into an outlet in the wall) while our parents figure out what we can do.  We're not in the loop right now, so we can't be sure of what's going to happen.  So far Dad has come over asking me to look up driving time to Madrid (four hours and five minutes), and the departing trains to Paris (which we can't catch).

We haven't seen Mom since we started trying to figure this out, but we have seen flashes of Dad as he tries to get this to work.

A few minutes have passed.  Dad came over while I was typing and took my computer to look some things up.  I just got it back.  I can see from the tabs we left open that he was trying to book a rental car, and, at least on the Avis sight, there were not any available.  It looks like Expedia might have some cars though.  From the snippet of phone conversation I heard, Dad's expression, and the tabs left open on the computer, things aren't looking up.

Mood: Exasperated, Frustrated

6/9/2018 9:30 PM

At the moment all five of us and all our luggage are crammed into a car, driving to Madrid.  The computer is on my lap, and my backpack and plastic bags of gas station food (our dinner) are wedged between me and the window.  The Spanish countryside is rushing past, and it's golden hour right now.  Or, as my sister Grace calls it, picture time (okay, so I can't cite a time when she called it that, but it sounds like a Grace comment).  The car stereo system is blasting Annie's Song by John Denver as we burn though Dad's old road trip playlist, from back when we drove from Seattle to San Fransisco when we moved.

The road to Madrid.

A while after I finished writing last time (around seven) Mom and Dad both came over, telling us that we were renting a car and driving to Madrid.  Then tomorrow morning we would get on a plane to New York, and after a long layover, we would take another plane to Salt Lake City, arriving at about eight in the evening, whereas before we would get there at about one in the afternoon.

Once we were in the car, and had bought some snacks at the gas station, Dad gave us some more information on what had happened.  Since our flight had been canceled (it's not clear why at this point) we had to consider all different types of getting to Paris, but at some point it became clear that it wasn't going to work.  Dad went on all kinds of calls, trying to figure out how to get us to Utah.  He figured some flights out, but tickets would have cost $15,000.  He was on the phone talking to Delta trying to see what they could do (Dad has super-status with Delta from flying so often), when they pulled through, dropping the price way down.  Go Delta!

Mood: Hopeful and Reasonably Content,
but still Tired and Stressed

6/9/2018 11:59 PM

I'm in the hotel room, really wanting to finish up get to sleep.  A little after eleven we got to the hotel, but then we spent another 15 plus minutes driving around, trying to find the right entrance and parking.  Of course, then we discovered it was where we had started in the first place.  It took us a while to get the trunk of the car open, and even longer to get checked in.  Now I'm sitting on my hotel bed typing this up, while really craving Top Ramen.  I'm also downloading a movie for the planes tomorrow.

Mood:  Get me out of this country.  And a big bowl of ramen.

6/10/2018 7:22 AM

So...our flight from here to New York has been delayed one hour.  That can be seen as good news because we get more time to eat breakfast.  But, on the other hand, now we're carrying on baggage because we need to move quickly in our two hour layover in New York.

I'm sitting on my hotel bed, fully packed but exhausted.  We've been trying to stay up late and sleep in to get ready for the Salt Lake time zone, so waking up at seven feels really early to me.

Mood:  Exhausted

6/10/2018 9:35 AM

We're in the Madrid Airport with our gate in sight.  Boarding should begin at around half past ten, and we have our fingers crossed that our flight won't be delayed anymore.  If it is, then we're in deep trouble, because missing our connecting flight to Utah would be catastrophic.

Check in took a while because we were trying to sort out the seat arrangements, although we didn't check any bags.  It looks like our seats might be closer together now, which is great because before we were scattered throughout the plane due to our late booking.  Then we had to get through security and immigrations, which is pretty much second nature to us now.  We did have a slight hiccup with Cannon's model obelisk that he bought in Egypt.  In the scanner it looked like a weapon, so they had to check what it was.  But it made it through in the end, and I guess all's well that ends well.

We tried to get into the lounge in the airport, which we can normally do with Dad and Mom's (mostly Dad's) frequent flying status.  But for some reason there was an issue with letting us (meaning the three kids) in, so instead we're sitting in the main area a stone's throw away from our gate, separated only by a final small security checkpoint.

We're all feeling run down, exhausted and ready to get on a plane and make some progress.

Mood:  Get. Me. Out. Of. This.
Country...please.

6/10/2018 10:17 AM

Now we're just outside the gate, having gotten through the final hurdle (hopefully).  In the security checkpoint Dad and I were marked for extra security, which seems to be chosen by random.  They pulled us off to the side of the room and we sat in a roped off section until it was our turn to be screened.  We had to put our bags on a table and they looked through everything, taking swabs and putting them into a machine which seemed to search for any evidence of dangerous chemicals.  We also had to take our electronics out and take their cases off, which posed a bit of a problem since my computer case was being stubborn.  In the end they pried it off with a screwdriver.  They also did a full body scan and swabbed our hands.  After what felt like half an hour, but what was probably more like fifteen or twenty minutes, we were free to go.

I've got Oreos and chips and gummy bears for the flight, and it looks like I'll be seated next to Cannon.  Hopefully we'll have seatback screens on the plane.

Mood:  Still Freaked out but Oddly Happy

6/10/2018 3:04 PM (New York Time)

We're in New York!  Right now we're waiting just outside our gate, but it's been a trip to get here.  After we landed we went to immigrations (we have global entry so it was pretty snappy) and customs (just walking through), then went to a desk to reprint our boarding passes and to see if we could get better seats.  Once again, I was flagged for extra security, but the rest of the family had TSA PreCheck.  Dad volunteered to go through the slow line and extras security with me, so we split up.  But at the desk right before security they told us our boarding passes were not useable, because they said we started in Madrid, not New York.  So we went to another desk to try to get new passes, which took quite a while, but eventually we got them (it looks like we all have middle seats, but maybe they can change that at the gate), and this time I had PreCheck like the rest of my family.  Great!  But, since getting the boarding passes took so long, we couldn't get Shake Shack like we had intended.  Instead we bought food from a convenience store, and right now I'm eating Pesto Pasta Salad.

We're so close to the end!  Fingers crossed it goes without a hitch.

Mood:  Tired, but hey...
at least we're in America!

6/10/2018 10:10 PM (Salt Lake City Time)

We're here!  I'm sitting on my bed in our AirBnB and typing things up in the dark.  When our plane landed we left the airport to find my Dad's friend Jason with our Tesla, which was filled with the stuff that we had sent ahead to Utah before we had left America in the first place.  

We drove to a grocery store and picked up some food for the evening and morning, and then got to our AirBnB.  There was a lot of squealing and even crying as everyone was reunited with their long lost items (not all of them, just some clothes and maybe a blanket or another comfort item).  I have my blue blanket!

We had a dinner of ramen (Chicken Top Ramen, since they didn't have the oriental flavor, which is pretty much the only one I've ever eaten) and instant mashed potatoes.  Now I'm ready for some long earned rest, since I haven't slept in who knows how long.

Mood: Tired BUT HEY WE MADE IT!!!!!!!!!

[Kara] Bidet, Mate!

We have been traveling for over three months now.  We have stayed in a lot of hotel rooms, ranging from super cushy to bare bones.  The hotel room feature I didn't expect to find all around the world and in all price brackets is the bidet.  I think we've had bidets in 75% of the hotels we've stayed in.  But for much of the beginning of our trip, I didn't realize that we had bidets because they didn't look like traditional bidets.

This is what I think of as a bidet.  How does one use this thing?  I mean . . . really.  It has no seat--just the equivalent of a toilet rim, so you can't sit on it.  At least I can't.  (According to the good folks at bidet.org, you might prefer to sit on it facing the wall.  However, that necessitates removing your pants and makes it even less likely that I'd use this thing.)  The nozzle points down when the part you want washed is up (especially when you can't sit on it).  Nothing about this contraption makes me feel happy or clean.  We've had a couple of traditional bidets in our hotel rooms, but not many.  None of us have used them.

What we have seen a lot of are these hand-held sprayers.  For months, as we traveled across Asia, I had no idea what they were for.  I speculated that perhaps they were hand-held mini showers next to the bathroom sink.  You know, like the spray nozzle at your kitchen sink.  (Though why someone would want a sprayer at their bathroom sink that would spray water all over the bathroom, was perplexing.) But then I realized that the only times these were located next to the sink was when the sink was next to the toilet.  So maybe this sprayer was for for hosing down the toilet and/or bathroom to clean it?  

Eventually I Googled it.  It's called a "bidet shower" or, more euphemistically, a "health faucet."  You pick it up, point it where you need to be cleaned (with the inside of the toilet bowl as your backstop) and pull the trigger.  The bidet shower is connected to the toilet plumbing, so it doesn't require much space or significant alterations to your bathroom, should you wish to install one at home.  The only drawback of this setup compared to the traditional bidet is that you can't control the water temperature, so you might be in for a cold shock.

The final bidet option we've encountered is the bidet/toilet combination.  I thought these only existed in wacky Japanese toilets, but here is a picture of a non-Japanese toilet with a bidet feature built into it.  If you pull out the white knob on the side of the toilet, a stream of water sprays out of the nozzle in the back of the toilet bowl--it's aim is directed so that if there's no body part sitting on the toilet, the water will go quite a ways.  We know this because Grace, in an attempt to flush the toilet, pulled that white knob.  Mercifully, she was standing out of the line of fire because the water sprayed for several feet and hit the wall opposite the toilet with significant force.  (Yes, she knows how to flush the toilet.  It just so happened that the flush mechanism on this toilet was broken and so she didn't know if she was using the right knob . . . and got quite a shock when the water shot past her.)

We hit the motherlode of all bidet features in our hotel room in Cairo which had ALL THREE types of bidets in a single bathroom.  (All of these pictures came from that bathroom.)  I can't figure out why they had all the bidet bases covered.  But after so many nights in hotel rooms I've learned that there's not necessarily any rhyme or reason to hotel fixtures.  (But that's the subject of a future blog post.)

[George/Cannon] To-Do-List in America

For those of you who don't know, in about a week we are flying back to America (Utah specifically) for a wedding (Yayy!).  As you might have guessed we are very exited to return to the U.S., and when we get there we will be very busy.  Down below are some of the things that I are most looking forward to.

• FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!!!!!  My family and I (me in particular) are looking forward to having food that we know and is reliable.  We have had some weird and sometimes delicious food on this trip, but to be honest I will be happy to have predictable, reliable food.

• Exchange our clothes.  In Utah we each left a duffle bag with a bunch of clothes and other things.  And since we have been living with a limited amount of clothes for over 3 months we are all very sick of our clothes.  We might also go shopping for some new clothes while we are there.

• Go shopping!  It has been very hard to shop on this trip.  For example we can't get many clothes, or food except bread, and some fruit and vegetables.  So when we get to Utah my mom has a big shopping list of things to buy. 

• Top Ramen  This is a weird one.  My family and I like a certain brand of ramen called Top Ramen.  So when we get to Utah we will buy loads of Top Ramen and shove it into our suitcases.  Top Ramen is easy to make and really good, so it's perfect for traveling (besides the fact that it takes up space in a suitcase).

Those are some of the things that we are most looking forward to doing in America.  There are plenty of other things that we have to do, like get a haircut, and take a math test, but I'm not looking forward to that as much (for many reasons).  However I might (notice that I said might) do a blog post on the things that I'm least looking forward to doing in Utah **cough cough math** .

[Kate] The Medina

I wasn't sure if I was going to like Morocco, partially because I saw it as one more country I had to go to before I could go back to the united states and fill my suitcase with TOPramen until it burst (a constant thought in my mind).  But I had been presently surprised by Morocco.  I love the architecture, the mosques, the picturesque scenery, but one of the prominent highlights are the medinas.

The medinas are the local markets in Moroccan cities.  The only big one I've been to so far is the one in Fes.  It wasn't a wide open court like I had sometimes imagined.  It comprised of little, often very narrow streets, sprawling out in every direction like some enormous spider web.  It would be so easy to get lost there, so luckily we had our guide (Samir) guid us through the streets.  There isn't enough room to get a car in their, so any traveling is done by foot, donkey (or other pack animals), bike (not very often), or motorbike (even less often).  Those carrying large loads often use carts. One we saw a cart with live snails inside.

The small shops range in size, from barely enough room for chair, to the size of a small Starbucks.  Other vendors simply place their products out in the streets for people to see while bustling past them.

It was odd walking through the Medinas, because there were sometimes bursts of cold wind from a dark alley to our side.  Sometimes we'd have to duck our heads when entering a new alleyway through a side street or building.  Different smells permeated the air every few feet, smells of dust, freshly baked bread, fruit, gasoline, or other distinct odors. 

There were many, many goods and services for sale, some repeating, others strange and unique purchases.  Here is a list of some, but not all, of the goods/services for sale (some list below them some examples, but not all):

• Various leather products
• shoes
• bags
• jackets
• Various juices
• Many different types of bread
• bagettes
• fried bread
• local flat breads
• Souveniers
• keychains
• magnets 
• etc
• Various beauty products
• Henna
• Haircuts
• Various meats (sometimes still alive)
• chicken (mostly alive)
• beef
• lamb
• camel
• etc
• Fabrics
• Furntiture
• Rugs
• Fruits
• Vegetables
• Eggs
• Many different types of clothes

These aren't all of the things we saw, as listing everything would take up at least a page, but this is a list that represents the general kinds of things we saw.

Walking through the medina in Fes was very, very interesting, since I got to see the local markets and the way ordinary people in Morocco lived their lives and purchased their objects.  I'm excited to see the way the medina in Marrakech compares.

A street of the market. 

A street of the market.

A street of the market.

A street of the market.

A street of the market.

A street of the market.

A street of the market with some clothes.

A street of the market.

A street of the market.

A street of the market. 

A street of the market.

[George/Cannon] Obelisks

This is an Obelisk.

The other day in Egypt we went to a temple called Karnak. And what this temple is famous for is obelisks. Only two of these obelisks are standing now, though. In this post I’m going to talk a bit about how obelisks are built, and how in some ways it’s harder to build an obelisk than a pyramid.

An obelisk was built out of pink granite. All of the obelisks in Egypt were quarried from the same quarry in Aswan. What makes quarrying an obelisk so hard is that an obelisk is one big piece of granite. And it can weigh about the weight of two jumbo jets! Also the Egyptians didn’t have the right tools for it. They only had copper tools, and granite is really hard. So what they do is they take diorite (which is a stone harder than granite) and pound it against the granite. You have to pound until you have a rock is the shape of an obelisk. That couldn’t have been easy.

After you have the obelisk, you need to load it onto a barge and then erect it. To load it you need to make a canal under the obelisk and then raise the water level in the canal, until the obelisk is on the boat. You then need to travel with the obelisk. The way to do it is you get towed by a bunch of other tiny boats.

Then finally you need to erect it. You do this by loading the obelisk onto a ramp, attaching ropes to the top and then pulling it upright. Just imagine the amount of people needed to pull that big hunk of stone up.  And then you have your obelisk.  But to me erecting the obelisk isn't the most impressive part.  All that holds up an obelisk is gravity.  It's not held up by anything except it's own weight.

Some of the most impressive obelisks were made by Hatshepsut, the female Pharaoh.  She built the two biggest obelisks in Egypt, loaded them on to a single barge, and erected them all in under 7 months.  Later Pharaohs hid one of her obelisks, and destroyed the other, only to hide the fact that a woman had ruled Egypt.

This is us at Karnak.  The larger obelisk is Hatshepsut's, the smaller belongs Thutmoses I.

This is me in front of Hatshepsut's Obelisk.

This obelisk was build by Ramses the Great, or Ramses II.

[Kara] Should You Trek To Everest Base Camp?

Now that we've finished the EBC trek (that's short for "Everest Base Camp," of course), I've had a few people mention that they might be interested in doing it also.  Great!  Here are some things to keep in mind if you're considering it, especially with kids.

It is a long trek.  It's going to take you 11-12 days to hike up and back.  That's a long time to be out of your comfort zone.  You'll be sleeping in unfamiliar places every night and eating unfamiliar food all day every day.  If that's too hard for you (or your kids) to manage and still have the energy to work hard hiking for several hours a day, this isn't the trip for you.  I'd say that kids under eight years old would really struggle with this aspect.

There's a lot of hiking . . . uphill.  The adventure starts in Lukla which is at about 9,400 feet (2,860 m).  Base camp is at 17,600 feet (5,380 m).  So you are guaranteed to hike at least 8,200 vertical feet between the two.  But trust me, you hike a lot more vertical feet than that.  We estimated that we hiked about twice that in vertical feet when we factored in the acclimatization hikes and passing down into and then up out of the valleys along the trek.  Even on our "downhill" days as we hiked out of the mountains we still hiked UP a lot.

Having said that, it's definitely not too strenuous for kids.  If you can hike ten miles in a day and if you can hike up 2,000 vertical feet within two miles, then you can conquer any day of this trek.  The training hike we did was hiking up Black Mountain via the Rhus Ridge trail.  It was about five miles up and 2,000 feet up--with most of the elevation in the first mile and the last mile before the summit.  Hiking up and down it was a perfect training hike.

It's cold.  I knew it was going to be cold (the high temperature at Everest Base Camp this time of year is around 25 degrees F (-3 degrees celsius).  But what I hadn't realized was how many days you are in those very cold temperatures (about a week) and how little relief you get from the cold.  The guesthouses aren't insulated.  Their construction barely keeps the wind out.  I was incredibly grateful to not be sleeping in a tent on our trek, but I'm not sure the tents were much colder than the guest house bedrooms.

You do have a warm sleeping bag and a warm down coat--and all the other layers you brought.  But I found that the cold was most difficult part of the trip for me.  At some points, my body reacted to the altitude by becoming slightly feverish and I didn't have the ability to regulate my own temperature well.  I could pile all my layers on me and still be shivering because I wasn't generating enough body heat for those layers to retain.  I really, really wished I had some Little Hotties hand warmers with me.  Why they don't sell those high up on the mountain, I'll never know.  I would have paid a FORTUNE for them.

Every member of your family has to want to do this.  It is hard.  And it is hard every day for 12 days. My kids were amazing.  None of them complained about the hiking, the food, the cold or the conditions, but that's because they wanted to be there.  They wanted to make it to Base Camp for themselves--not because I was pushing them to do it.  We'd had a lot of family talks about whether we should commit to this trek and by the time we did commit, every one of us wanted to be successful.  It would be rotten to take someone on this trek if they didn't want to be there.  It was hard enough for me to keep myself motivated each day!

Hire a guide and porters.  Yes, you can totally hike this trail without a guide and without porters.  My brother has done it.  I met lots of other people on the trail doing it.  If you're a fit 20-something or 30-something then by all means try it without assistance. (If you want to read about my brother Tristan's experience, check out his great book Everest Pilgrim.)

But if you're hiking it with your kids, you don't want to make it any harder on the kids by making them carry real packs.  We carried just water, snacks (Snickers bars) and extra layers in our day packs.  Our porters carried the rest of our gear.  Bless them!  As the air gets thinner, hiking becomes harder.  Our guides even volunteered to carry our kids' day packs a few times when the kids were struggling, and that made a huge difference for the kids.  The whole experience would have been much more difficult for our kids if they were managing bigger packs.

And I, frankly, would not do it with kids without having a guide.  It's peace of mind--and a type of functional insurance--for you.  On the trek, you'll have to spend your post-hiking energy taking care of your kids and you'll be incredibly grateful to have someone taking even a few things off of your to-do list.  Also, you likely won't be at your best once you cross above 10,000 feet (or 12,000 feet or 14,000 feet or 16,000 feet).  You might get sick.  You will almost definitely be crabby because of altitude-related discomfort and somewhat mind-fogged.  You will want to have an experienced adult there with you who can reassure you that you're doing great . . . or that you're not.

Was it worth doing?  Yes!  We had a fantastic experience.  It was hard and it was long and it was cold.  But it was completely worth it.  It was especially rewarding to accomplish this hard thing as a family.  Plus, the views are, literally, unsurpassed.  As are the bragging rights. 😁