We ended our time in Egypt back in Cairo where we could be ready to catch our flight home. This time we chose the island of Zamalek as our home base and I booked our Airbnb for 5 nights, though we left before sleeping on the fifth night to accommodate our 1 a.m. flight. Before…
Nubian Aswan with Abu Simbel
After our tough week in Luxor, we were eager to get to Aswan and see what life on Elephantine Island would be like. Our travel day was slightly stressful dealing with aggressive porters and the train delayed for over an hour, but we met a nice couple on the platform that made passing the time…
Overnight Train to a Week in Luxor
Luxor held the most spectacular sights of our trip to Egypt. I think it is a must-visit for any Egyptian itinerary. The week we spent there was probably a bit too long, even with balancing work with sightseeing (especially because we had internet issues there). But it was well worth it to see the amazing…
Three Days in Alexandria
Chad and I both love history, so we couldn’t resist spending three days of our Egypt itinerary to visit the famed city of Alexandria, founded by Alexander the Great in 331 BCE. To be honest, I’m not sure it was worth it and we had many challenges during our time there. But we saw some…
Egypt Arrival and the Pyramids of Giza
Our arrival in Egypt involved a little bit of luck. When we checked in our luggage at the Nairobi airport, the airline asked to see our yellow fever vaccinations cards. Nowhere in my Egypt research did I find any mention of this being a requirement, and it appears that it is only so if you’re…
A Week in Karen Hardy
Because the tourist visa for Egypt is only 30 days, we had one extra week in Kenya before the timing would be right to fly to Cairo. In our 2020 itinerary, we’d planned to spend that week in Mombasa. This year, that seemed like too much trouble since it requires a roundtrip flight or long…
Wrapping Up Our Time in Nairobi
After my We’re Home post, we had another week and a half in our Airbnb in Nairobi. It was fairly uneventful but we managed a couple of fun adventures. The first was a staycation to a hotel in an adjacent neighborhood called Kilimani. Early in our stay I thought it might be fun to find…
Doubts About Safari
I am so happy that we were able to do our safari. It is an experience I’ll never forget and is something I’d absolutely do again, hopefully with my sister one day. But I have to admit, there were times on the safari when I had qualms. Simply as food for thought, I want to…
Nairobi: We’re Home
This post is long overdue, because those safari posts took a while! And, I’ve been happily very busy with work. So we’re now closer to the end of our four-week stay in our Nairobi Airbnb than the beginning. Nairobi was not as easy to settle into as many other cities, but we’ve managed to find…
Safari Adventure Part 2
Previously in this blog, I shared how we arrived in Kenya, spent a day in Nairobi, and began our safari at Lake Naivasha and Lake Nakuru. You can read all about it here if you haven’t yet. Now we head to Maasai territory where our safari story resumes. Transition to the Maasai Mara On Thursday…