This post will be a whirlwind tour of the past several days.

We spent two days at Port Ghalib then two days in Luxor and are back at Port Ghalib. As for Luxor, if you like ancient Egyptian history, ancient temple ruins, and ancient tombs, you should absolutely go. Part of our enjoyment of this outing included seeing a fairly wide variety of “vehicles” on the road vying for space. I am impressed with how they get around without running into one another. I would not want to be the one behind the wheel or reins.

We spent the majority of the first day in Luxor on the east bank of the River Nile (as they refer to it in Egypt). We took a boat named “Ghost” to the west bank for a short visit. We stayed overnight at the Lotus Hotel – very nice, but we were so tired we didn’t take advantage of the beautiful swimming pool. In fact, when we got to the room after a long drive and full day at Luxor, we took a nap and woke just in time to go out to dinner.

The Karnak temple was the most impressive, in my opinion. There is SO much history over such a long period of time contained in it and one could probably develop a semester-long course just to cover all of the information. Since I am not an educator, I humbly recommend that you utilize your online tools to learn a bit about it. Quite incredible, really.

We spent the second day on the west bank of the River Nile visiting three tombs. I perhaps, maybe, possibly, but I am not sure I enjoyed the tombs a tad more than the temples. The tomb of Ramses IV was beautiful. Sadly for him, he died a mere six years into his reign. The chamber was intended to be a pillared hall but was converted to a burial chamber when the king died sooner than expected.

Sailing vessel Aquarius came to Port Ghalib two days ago. The couple on board are very nice. . . and experienced sailors. They invited us to their boat for wine and conversation last night. We did the same on our boat tonight. It is delightful to spend time with other sailors. We have SO much to learn from them. It seems that every day or two we are reminded what newbies we are. But that is part of the fun. It is also part of the learning process, even when the lesson isn’t entirely pleasant.

We will go to Hurghada tomorrow to provision and hopefully find some of the other things we need.

We ordered a dinghy sight unseen today. We have all of the details but they are “making it for us” so we do not have a picture of a completed dinghy. This is 100 percent new territory for us and a bit nerve-racking, especially given language challenges. But we need a dinghy. We should receive it in about 10 days. We also purchased a Yamaha 2-stroke engine for the dinghy. Now we just need some more nylon dock lines. We are on our third attempt at getting the right material and size. But we trust we will get there!