Our Trip to Egypt

Warning: You are about to view a bunch of pictures and read lots of words!!!

Did you miss me? Did you even realize that I was gone? We have just returned from our trip through Egypt and Jordan, and we had a great time! If you are "lucky" enough to be in my e-mail address book, then you have already received an invitation to view all 138 pictures on the Kodak website. For the rest of you, I have picked some of the best, and most significant pictures to share here; along with explanations and some other highlights of what happened on our trip. If you would like to see all of the pictures, just e-mail me, and depending on who you are, I will send you an invitation to view them. (There are many family pictures, so I have to use discretion.) Okay....Ready??.....Here we go!

Friday evening we met the tour bus and headed off to the border between Israel and Egypt, at Taba. I have to say, that it felt very odd to be able to drive to Egypt. Once we arrived at the border, we all had to get off of the bus, gather our luggage and get in line to walk across into Egypt. Israel and Egypt don't exactly have the best relationship with each other, especially after what recently happened in Gaza, so they wouldn't allow any buses to drive across. Don't worry, we had another bus waiting for us on the other side. But, it wasn't exactly easy to get to it. We had to wait in line, outside, at 9 o'clock at night, to get through customs. It took 2 hours!! Every one in our group had an advantage though. We all have diplomatic passports and were given special treatment. Eventually, we got taken to a special line that was opened just for us...... boy, did we get some dirty looks from the poor people still waiting in the other line! By the time we finally crossed over into Egypt we had shown our passports no less than 7 times. That is one crazy border!
We still had a long drive to St. Catherine, where we were supposed to start climbing Mt. Sinai at 1:30 in the morning! Because the border crossing took so long, we were already a couple of hours late. By the time we finally arrived, we were two hours behind the others climbing up the mountain. (They try to reach the top to view the sunrise.) Okay, prepare yourself to be disappointed. We did not climb Mt. Sinai. The closer we got to St. Catherine, the colder and colder it became. Our tour guide explained that St. Catherine is the coldest spot in all of Egypt. When we arrived the temperature was 4 degrees Celsius. The temperature at the top was 4 below! We were not dressed properly for that kind of weather. Plus, we found out that the climb was 3 miles up, with 750 steps at the top (then back down again). We could have paid to ride a camel up, and we would have done that, if it hadn't been for our inappropriate clothing. At the time, when we had zero sleep, and we're shivering so hard we can barely speak, seeing a sunrise from the top of Mt. Sinai seemed to lose all importance. I did feel disappointed though, but the tour guide told us that the next morning we would be going to the base of Mt. Sinai and we could see it and climb up on it a little if we wanted to. That made me feel much better. Plus, our tour guide tried to help us with our decision with this funny thought. He said that Moses went up the mountain alone, and the children of Israel stayed behind at the bottom. So those of us who didn't go up were still "playing our part" and we could start collecting the jewelry. (I hope you get the joke)
I'm sure you're ready to see some pictures now, right?

This is Mt. Sinai. This is as close as I could get to have a picture of the whole mountain without the St. Catherine monastery blocking my view.
There is so much background for this monastery, but I couldn't retain all of the information I heard about it. If you're interested in it, I'm sure you could do a search to find out more. Personally, I'm more interested in the natural wonders. It was pretty neat though that people like Napoleon Bonaparte had been here and left their mark.
The monastery was built around what they claim to be the well where Moses met his wife Zipporah (Ex. 2), and also the burning bush (Ex. 3).
This plant is very old, and is possibly a relative of the original, but let's be real..... how are we supposed to know. I wasn't getting ready to take my shoes off or anything ;) (Ex. 3:5)

Driving away from Mt. Sinai the guide stopped us to look at something in one of the rocks. He said that they don't know if this is a natural wonder, or if it was carved there, but it's pretty neat to look at.

Do you see it? There's a figure of a cow in the rock. Click to enlarge, and you can see more details.

After Mt. Sinai, we started our drive up to Cairo. Along the way we stopped at several sites that were biblically significant. The first was Rephidim (Exodus 17: 8-16). Read the account in Scripture and you will find that this is the spot where the Israelites fought with Amalek. Moses, Aaron, and Hur went to the top of the rock and as long as Moses held his hands up, Israel won. When Moses put his hands down, the Amalekites would begin to win. So Moses sat on a stone, and Aaron and Hur held up his hands the whole day, until the battle was won by the Israelites. This is Rephidim:
The stone you see on top is the top of the hill; it levels out behind it. I wanted to show you a view with the top of the hill, and the valley below.

Next stop was Elim (Ex. 15:27). Here the Bible says the Israelites camped by 12 wells of water and 70 palm trees. All along this strip of road, there was nothing but desolate desert; sand and rock. But this is what was at Elim:
There is a group of date palm trees and there are springs of water as well.

Then we came to Marah (Ex. 15: 23-25). The waters at Marah were bitter and the Israelites, who had been without water for 3 days, were complaining because they had nothing to drink. God told Moses to cast a certain tree in the water, and it was made sweet. There are still several wells at Marah; this is one of them:

We stopped for lunch at a nice place by the shore of the Red Sea. We took lots of family pictures of all of us touching the waters, and we got some shells and sand as souvenirs. It really is a beautiful sight.

After lunch we headed on to Cairo. We had to drive through the Suez Canal tunnel, which goes under the water of the Suez Canal. The building of that is a whole other history lesson, but is very interesting if you want to look it up. This is the entrance to the tunnel:
This point is also significant because on this side of the tunnel we are still in Asia. When we came out on the other side, we were in Africa. I didn't realize that Egypt was actually on two different continents.

Finally, we made it to Cairo! First thing the next morning we loaded up on the bus to visit the Egyptian Museum. There were no cameras allowed inside, so sorry, no pictures. There were more ancient artifacts inside this building than we could possibly see in an afternoon. We did see all of the highlights: The contents of King Tutankhamen's tomb, mummified animals, and more stone statues and coffins than we could count. They wanted $25 a person to view the mummies.... no thank you. I can think of many other things to do with that much money than to see a bunch of dead bodies. It was an interesting museum, but very, very crowded! This is an off season too, I can't imagine what it's like in the summer.

Before we got to the pyramids, we stopped at a shop that makes papyrus, and we had a demonstration.
Yes, that is my daughter on the right, watching. They paint pictures on the papyrus and sell the artwork. We were given time to look around the shop and pick out a painting to purchase. This man in the picture picked us, out of all the people on our tour, to follow around the entire time, trying to get us to buy something. What he didn't realize is that we made the least money out of anyone there, buy half as much! Plus, we're naturally cheap, so he really lost his money that day. We bought one small picture, while the others bought up to ten large ones. I guess he should have taken the hint when we kept ignoring him!

Okay, next stop..... The Pyramids of Giza!!
The first one we stopped at was the Great Pyramid. We were given time to climb around on it and take lots of pictures.
I took many, many, many pictures, but you've all seen pictures of the pyramids before, so I'll just post one of each. This next one is the Pyramid of Khafre.
This next one is the Pyramid of Menkaure:
I think you'll all recognize this one:
Did you know that the Sphinx wasn't originally planned along with the pyramids? There was a big rock in the area and they had to decide what to do with it. Instead of breaking it all apart, they formed it into the shape of a Sphinx.

My Grandfather just sent me this picture after I sent him all of our pictures from our trip. He was in the British Royal Air Force and visited the pyramids in 1945 and had this picture taken. He's the officer in the bottom right side. I loved getting this picture from him.... I'm planning on keeping it with the ones from our trip. I've never met my Grandfather, so it's nice to feel that we have this little "connection".

I'm not completely enthralled with Egyptology, but it was interesting to see these things that are so ancient. These were all here before the time of Abraham..... that is OLD!

That evening we went on a dinner cruise on the Nile River. Unfortunately, after the meal, a belly dancer came out to "perform". Being on a boat, and with a group, we couldn't exactly just go home; but the Lord will always make a way for you to escape. At first I just held my kids' faces to my body and I talked quietly to them about why we weren't looking. But then I noticed the lady across the table from us was taking pictures.... of US!! I decided it would be better to just leave; so we went out on the deck of the boat. Much better!!! We got to enjoy this lovely view:
It was much prettier in person; the camera couldn't really capture much in the dark.

The next morning we got to catch a flight from Cairo to Amman, Jordan. Flying in the middle east is a little bit scary.... every one looks like what an American would consider to be a terr0rist. And you know it's not a good sign when you walk through a metal detector, it goes off, and they tell you to just keep walking. But we made it there safely, and in only 45 minutes! I did snap this picture of Jordan from the airplane:
No green; just dust, rocks, and hills. Imagine the Israelites walking through this wilderness.... it should have really made them appreciate the Promised Land when they got there.

After arriving in Jordan we headed to our next stop: Madaba. Honestly, I wasn't interested in this at all; but I'll post one picture anyway, just in case you are interested.
This mosaic map was made in the floor of this church in the 6th century AD. It's a map of much of the middle east, including Egypt and Jerusalem. Much of it has been destroyed by careless people over the years.

FINALLY... we were off to the spot that I wanted to see most. Mount Nebo! A couple of posts back I challenged you to find out why Mt. Nebo was so significant. I'll explain, just in case you didn't discover it on your own.
The majority of you reading this know about the life of Moses. He obeyed God in returning to Egypt to bring out the children of Israel. He trusted and believed and performed many miracles showing the power of God. He SPOKE to God many times, and even glowed from being in his presence (Ex 34: 29-35). He put up with 40 years of complaining, whining, and disobedience from the Israelites. Then, in Numbers 20: 7-12 Moses made a big mistake. God commanded Moses to speak to the rock to get water, and instead Moses smote the rock. For this, God punished Moses by not allowing him to go into the Promised Land to possess it. What God did do is allow Moses to go to the top of Mount Nebo and see all of the land. (Deut. 34:1-4) I get teary every time I think of this. IMAGINE.... all of those years, struggling with the Israelites, wandering through the wilderness, and then seeing the land you've been striving to get to.... but you can't have it. And you know it's your own fault too. There are so many lessons in that; unfortunately, this post is way too long already to get into it right now. Maybe another time. These are just a couple of pictures of the view from the top of Mt. Nebo:
I doubt Moses saw the road going through the valley ;), but this is a lot of land to see. You can see Jerusalem, Bethlehem, the Dead Sea, and beyond. I have no doubt in my mind that God made that particular day very clear for Moses so that he could see everything.

In closing, I want to thank GOD for letting us go on this trip. I am very humbled to know that God would allow us to live in a place like this, and to see the things that we've seen. I am also thankful that God protected us from the many dangers that always wait around the corner; from terr0rists, to stomach issues from the bad water. God also answered my prayers for good weather while we were away. The forecast looked nasty and cold, but every day the weather was perfect. It wasn't hot or cold, and it didn't rain at all. I prayed especially hard for good weather when we were on Mt. Nebo, so that I would have a good view; and that prayer was heard as well. It was clear and beautiful. Right after we got back to Jerusalem it began to sprinkle rain, and that evening it snowed. God held it back until we were safe and snug at home. Thank you, Lord!
There are MANY little details that I would love to share, but for sake of space and your time, I'll spare you. I do have some stories that I will post separately though; so you'll be hearing from me again soon! I hope you all enjoy living through vicariously through my photographs ;) Honestly, I would NOT recommend a trip to Egypt.... it's a nasty, nasty place. But any of you are welcome to visit me in Jerusalem!