Wednesday, 16 May 2012

May 15 (Leah's)

 
We had a good sleep last night, although my hip felt like it was going to fall off, I could feel the board through the mattress when I laid on my side. Besides that though I had a good sleep. We had our breakfast and then we waited for about ½ hour before we went for a run. We haven’t run in what felt like 3 years and when we started to run it felt like we were running a marathon in hell. It was so hard because we felt so out of shape and it was stinking hot! We probably only ran for about 30min- of that! It was brutal. I felt so heavy and out of shape! Holidaying isn’t always a good thing; you get out of routine and sometimes its hard to exercise depending on where you are! We are looking forward to being in Tanzania and hopefully being able to exercise consistently.
             We did some hand washing in our bathtub after our run. That in it self is quite the work out! We hung them on the roof and I am pretty sure they dried in less than an hour! It is so ridiculously hot out! I had another cold bath- seems to be the only way to cool down- complete submersion of cold water.
            For lunch we had something Spencer has been wanting – Mac Donald’s. I had a caramel sundae and he went for the Big Mac combo (even big sized it). It was a bit cheaper than back home. I also had some bananas and bread that I brought along- you know I don’t like fast food, although I did steal a few fries and had my first bite of a MacDonald’s burger in about 5 years! We sat there for about 2 hours. It has nice AC.
            We decided to go for a felucca ride on the Nile (which is a sail boat). We took a cheaper deal with one guy- only 35 EP (which is only$6). He took us in his old sail boat- that was the “cheaper” deal, as opposed to his nicer boat. But least if floated and we got to go for an hour sail on the Nile. There is an Island right where we are on the Nile and we sailed around it. Our drivers name is Ahmed. He lives in a local village with his wife and daughter. He sails boats for a living but he also grows mango, lemon, and bananas at his field near his house. Income is very low in these parts if you don’t have a “city” job, especially since the tourist business is so low. 
            Our felucca ride was quite relaxing and fun- we even hung our feet off the boat into the nice cold water- praying that no crocodiles would come, (don’t worry, they told us there aren’t any in this part!!!). We headed back to our hotel after. We got our super dried clothes off the clothesline and bee lined it inside-like I said, so hot out!
            We recuperated from the sun inside our air-conditioned room until we could muster up enough motivation to go out into the streets in search of dinner. We ate dinner at this local place that was quite good. I even was able to eat it after I seen I guy mixing the salad with his hands and the little boy server picking our pita brad from a huge bucket that all the waiters stuck their hands into to grab pita for the customers. It was only $7 for the both of us, and we got quite a lot of food!
            Spencer really wanted a darbuka (Arabia hand drum) so we went to the market to get one….We got hassled, lied to, and cheated, but Spencer got his darbuka! Paid a more than we should of, but its really hard (and annoying) being white and a tourist because all prices are jacked up for you!
            We walked back to our hotel. Settled for bed, and mentally prepared for our train ride back to Luxor as we slept!

No comments:

Post a Comment