July 9, 2008

Woke up early again, but this time instead of hoping on a smelly old bus, we boarded one horse carriages to ride to the Karnak temple. Well, you see, lots of people like to sit in the back of the carriage and take pictures out the side and just enjoy the sound of the hoofs on the road and bells on the harnesses. So, obviously I jumped up on the front seat next to the driver and eventually talked him in to handing over the reins. So, yes, I piloted a one horse carriage down the streets of Luxor, Egypt screaming at the top of my lungs “Hi Ho Silver!” Yes Shellie, I thought of you the whole time, if I could have had anyone next to me instead of that Egyptian man it would have been you. The guy later turned on Notorious B.I.G. and we bumped down the streets of Luxor, blaring rap music in a one horse carriage. It was amazing! (side note: I am sitting in the hall of the Jerusalem Center and the security guard just walked by and said what’s up Mr. Moustache! Ha ha ha His Arabic accent on Moustache was awesome) So, we did the Karnak temple, and the Funerary Temple of Ramses III and then back to the hotel for some categories and Marco Polo in the hotel pool before we organized the dance party of all dance parties. So, we rented a motor boat this time with a top, kind of like a ferry. There were 20 of us and we had it for an hour. Naturally, we got on the roof of the boat and rolling down the Nile River showed the viewing tourists and Egyptians how big wheels really keep on turning. It was ridiculous. Seriously, we had a walk off up there, Rusty and I did Michael Jackson moves, it was so fun! The last 20 minutes consisted of Tricia and I talking each other out of jumping into the nasty green waters of the Nile. You see, the Nile is gross. One girl jumped in last year and had to wear depends on the bus ride back across the Sinai. It took a lot of convincing but we both eventually talked each other out of jumping in, even though it was going to be sweet.

The night ended at the train station. We flew from Cairo to Luxor but we took a night train back to Cairo. The train was a step up from India trains on the niceness level, but that was only cause we all road first class. And of course we added to the experience by throwing a dance party in the train lounge. Like 30 of us all piled in the lounge car, Rusty grabbed his Ipod and there was a legitimate dance party in the train car. It got really awkward at the next stop because everyone from the whole station came to check out the car full of dancing white people. The dancing lasted for about 15 minutes before the guy at the counter finally realized that we weren’t going to buy any drinks and killed the music. It was sweet until then though.