Walk Like an Egyptian

Okay so I’ve actually never heard this whole song. I just know I heard this one phrase over and over again when I was in Egypt. There are so many things I want to say but I don’t have very much time so I’m going to try and sum it up saying the highlights and using excerpts from my journal.

We had many stops on the way to Egypt. At one point we stopped to have this hike. This is one of the wildernesses that the children of Israel would’ve wandered in. It was beautiful, but I’m pretty sure I couldn’t do 40 years here:

At another stop the tour guide took us away to a dessert. We played around in the sand like we were little kids. It was so much fun. The sand was very fine so it felt so good on our feet. After a while of goofing off the guide talked to us about how many sacred things have happened in the dessert. Then he sent us with a piece of paper off to find our own little spot in the dessert. I’ve always thought the dessert was such an ugly place, but as I sat there I really came to love it. I can understand how so many prophets would go to the dessert to escape from the world. There is such a beautiful solitude out there. I was very disappointed when the horn blew and we had to go back. This is the view I saw when I was all by myself in the dessert.

While in Egypt I went to…the Pyramids! It was so incredible. They’re so much bigger than I thought they would be. They’re huge! Also I was way impressed by how rigged and imperfect they are. The pictures and movies portray them as perfect buildings, but they aren’t all smooth. You can see the layers of stone and to me that seems like you can just see the history of it. We went inside one of the pyramids and it was crazy. The walkway to the tomb was very small and short. I started getting pretty claustrophobic, which hasn’t happened since the rainbow slide at Westridge. Once we got to the opening and saw the empty tomb we sat around and talked for a little bit. We sang, “I am a child of God.”It was really cool with the acoustics, but I felt sorry for the other people around. I love singing but I just feel like sometimes when we sing at some of the sites we’re interrupting other tourists’ experience.

After we saw the pyramids we headed to the Sphinx. On our way a man in a suit asked me, “What’s your name?” Well I was kind of creeped out so I just shook my head and walked away. Later on a girl came up to me and told me he was our security guard. Didn’t know that. Well the rest of the time he’d come up to me and say, “What’s your name? ha ha ha ha.” And the fun just continued…When I was in front of the Sphinx a little boy offered to take my picture. He organized the picture so it looked like I was kissing the Sphinx. How original I know. Well after that picture he started repositioning me. He pulled me forward and had me bend down. I was really confused as to what I was posing for. Was I leaning on the pyramid or over it? It just didn’t make sense. Well the little boy took the picture and started laughing hysterically. So then he handed me my camera and I saw this treasure:

One of my highlights of the trip was riding a camel along the Nile River. It was really fun to be in this line of 40 camels with a bunch of my friends. It was such an amazing experience. I loved seeing the beautiful green fields, and I was humbled as I saw these little huts that some people call homes. I’m so lucky, I’ve been so blessed. After the camel safari we had a Felucca ride down the Nile back to our hotel. It was so beautiful. This picture doesn’t do it justice, but it gives you an idea. If you look closely you can see the other ½ of our group riding camels.

So I decided that after this extremely long post I’m going to try and post more frequently and they’ll be shorter. The problem I have is there’s just so much that I want to say so I put it off and it turns into this project. Just know that I want to say so many more things, but I’ll try to summarize as best as I can.