We’ve been back in Peru for a week and a half but it took 5 days to get our truck’s customs paperwork completed so we sat in Cuzco at the nice little campground there- Quinta Lala feeling impatient. By putting a hold on the temporary import permit, we can pick up where we left off rather than have our time in Peru shortened so it was worth it. It rains every day in Cusco and we had done everything we wanted to do in the area and were ready to get moving although we did some local hikes and kept ourselves busy enough. We were actually hanging out with another overlander from Portsmouth, NH! But we finally got approved and we pointed the bow south. While we’re dying to do the Cordillera Blanca and backpack the Huayhuash trail, it is totally the wrong season to do so. And we aren’t interested in driving further north beyond that. Maybe we’ll get there via plane.
We flew out of Cusco on Nov 25 to see Jon’s mom for Thanksgiving and cook a nice meal together for her friends. It was great working in the kitchen together and smelling the turkey cooking as it had been awhile. We caught up with each other, the neighbors and with Jon’s mom’s dog Katie. She’s a bundle of joy to everyone she meets.
We met up with my sister Ann & Bruce and biked around a bit of Lake Okeechobee, got fried oysters that were way too small and promised that the next visit would be longer. We also nipped to the middle of the state to get together with longtime cruising friends John & Cindy and Bob & Maggie. I can’t wait till we get our new camper finished and can travel around the state some visiting everyone for longer.
Then we drove back to Miami, returned the rental car and headed to Port Ghalib, Egypt because we booked a trip on the Red Sea Aggressor liveaboard dive boat. I would like to dive every year and it was good to sneak one in at the last minute because I was getting worried it wouldn’t happen. We arrived a couple of days early to be sure we were well rested before boarding the boat and to make sure all of our gear made it. So we booked a resort which is not our thing but seemed to be the easiest way to be on the beach where we could snorkel. Plus, they had a huge waterslide! So we enjoyed that and eating whatever we wanted with a whole lot of Polish people who apparently frequent the Pickalbatross Palace there. It was a little weird in that there was no other nationality represented. We couldn’t get on the ship fast enough because once again, resorts are not our thing! It worked out well though as we could walk over to the ship from there.
Then started 7 nights on the Aggressor IV heading out to explore the dive sites at Brothers Islands, Daedalus and Elphinstone and then some coastal sites on the way back. As this was our first liveaboard, we weren’t sure what to expect but were certainly ready to dive our brains out. We were a little nervous about who would be on the ship but it turned out that we had 26 total divers from all over the world and we were an awesome group with a great deal of experience. Then we were broken into groups of 6-8 for the dives, sometimes less. We could also go on our own at times. The ship was clean & comfy, the staff were incredible, food was really good, the equipment top notch and everything went according to plan. When at Daedalus, we were right in the middle of the Red Sea and the oceanic white tips hang around the area. It was great to swim with them as they were new to us and we learned about how they behave in a briefing and video. The main thing is they feed on the surface so divers need to spend no time hanging out there. All of our dives were negative entry where we descended immediately. Then we could hang at 20 feet to watch the sharks swim around and through us. Really cool. We could have seen hammerheads but never did, they are as elusive to us as cougars but at least we finally saw cougars in Patagonia. Now hopefully hammerheads someday. The reefs were really pretty, not comparable with Indonesia or the S Pacific but still really cool with a lot of life on them and you can’t beat the proximity and relative cost to get to the Red Sea. We were told that the Egyptians had a hard time during covid with no tourism and the were going to the reefs to get fish to eat. So they said there used to be more large fish perusing the reef. Most of the time we were side tied alongside atoll like reefs and at Daedalus we got to go ashore to a lighthouse which was fun. It is an Aggressor theme to make a Thanksgiving meal on Thursday of every cruise so we got another turkey dinner one night. The routine was simply dive, eat, rest a little, dive, eat, repeat. We did 4-5 dives a day unless we were underway. I love night dives and we got 2 of those in which was great. I like the small focus of just what’s visible with the flashlight and then all of the behaviors and creatures that you don’t get to see during the day. We did all 21 dives and were exhausted from getting up each day at 530, in the water by 6:15, then just an intense routine all day long but wow, what a lot of fun!! It makes me feel alive. Every time we came out of the water we would have a warm towel handed to us and a nice drink of homemade juice or hot beverage and then a warm shower and a meal. We’d get our core temps back up and then don all the gear again and do it all over! We’ll definitely be doing that again. On our last night we were back at the dock so most everyone of our group went out to dinner together for one last hurrah.
Once off the ship, we spent the rest of that day in Port Ghalib resting and getting ready for a 3am wake up the following morning. It felt good to lounge around for a change. We headed to Luxor on a private day tour where we visited 3 archaeological sites with a guide & driver. For some reason it was less expensive to do it this way than to take a tourist bus. We visited Karnak, the Valley of the Kings, the Colossi of Memnon and the Temple of Hatshepsut and had a nice rooftop lunch. At the end of the day, they dropped us at our hotel. The hotel had a cozy rooftop restaurant where we could relax and listen to the call to prayer from a few different angles. At least in Egypt it is rather soft compared to Indonesia and it didn’t feel as oppressive. The locals were very friendly and we enjoyed the hummus and tagines there.
Another early morning wake-up, we had arranged a sunrise balloon ride because it’s a famous thing to do in Luxor. You float over the ruins looking over to the Nile in a big spectacle of balloons. Having only been on a single balloon ride once before in Sedona, I hadn’t really thought much about what it would look like to have all the balloons coming to life at one time, in the darkness at first and then launching into the sky together to watch the sun come up. It was so exciting and beautiful and such a good vibe from everyone doing it. When we landed, we were met by local kids riding on burros, hoping for some cents or to sell you something. And then also the staff who takes care of deflating the balloon and storing it up for the next flight. It was definitely a highlight of our time in Luxor. We enjoyed the ruins too. So beautifully carved and painted and so old, it makes the Incan ruins look like child’s play really when you look at the numbers of years between them.
After the balloon ride, we had the rest of the day to explore on our own which felt so nice so we first went to Medinet Habu and then crossed the Nile on one of the decked out little motorboats to visit the Luxor Temple which was really interesting. There are some views where you have the Egyptian pillars and carvings, the Catholic religious paintings and then the mosque in the background. Crazy! Then we took a traditional Felucca back across the river to the west bank before calling it a day.
We took an early flight to Cairo the next morning and then went straight to Giza to see the pyramids. With a hotel looking right over to them and a rooftop to enjoy the view, we decided that we wanted to see the new Grand Egyptian Museum rather than go into the pyramid complex given the short time we had. The museum was beautifully done with more rooms to explore than we had time for. Eventually, they will have a whole gallery on King Tut but that part isn’t completed yet as the museum is so new. I liked the caskets that have the eyes painted on them. It’s so the person can still see outside of it! The people who couldn’t afford lavish graves just made what they call “soul houses” over their simple graves to adorn them. And because they believed that they would need tools for the afterword, they would bury people with model sandals and tools, almost like instructions and equipment to use in the next life. We stayed until they kicked us out and went out to dinner, once again, with a view to the pyramids. What cracked me up is at this nice restaurant there were cats tearing around within the plants up on the terraces.
We really enjoyed our time in Egypt. Of course the diving in the Red Sea is the highlight for us but it was neat to see the ruins that we learned about in high school, to compare the culture to other cultures we know, to see the landscape from above and how the Nile River gives such life to an otherwise very inhospitable desert. We felt like our money went far in Egypt and we could do a lot of things. When flying to Istanbul on the way to Boston, I could look down on the Nile Delta where it meets the Med which I’d never seen before. What a green river of life, perfect for growing things. And it is interesting to see how travel builds on itself. When we briefly visited New Delhi in India while we were shipping our boat through the Red Sea due to piracy issues, we didn’t have a good experience because we had never encountered a culture where people aren’t truthful with you. Or they chased you down trying to sell you something until you just about wrung their necks. We were worried Egypt would be that way too and we tried to book things ahead and actually insulate ourselves somewhat from that potential experience. But we got a little dose of it in the touristy parts we visited this time and we were much more able to joke back or assert ourselves and we kind of had fun with it! And the Egyptians that we did this with softened and joked back too! Arriving tired to the airport and trying to buy our Egypt visas, they did get us that one time because we fell for the “all the booths are the same; it’s the same price” and we went to the shorter line only to realize they were charging us ten bucks extra. Dam, well they only got us once!
The following day we flew to Boston to get to Vermont for Christmas. We had a morning to take a walk in some of our old stomping grounds and it felt like our working years in Boston were truly another life. Living on our boat, just next to the Tobin bridge in Charlestown, afforded us a way to work in the city, walk to work together, save up all we could and also be in an environment that felt really vacation-like (in the summer anyway) and whenever we wanted to take off sailing, we just dropped the lines and left. Not a bad life, but we don’t miss it either.
It was great to see my parents again after just 4 months. We had a proper Christmas tree, hung out around it, made numerous great meals, happy hours, did some chores, tried to help out a little and just enjoyed each other’s company. We even had a white Christmas and my Dad got to snow blow the driveway- ugg! I especially enjoyed having Chinese food dinner at Karen & Gene Kadish’s house on Christmas eve and then a lovely Christmas evening just hanging out the 4 of us together with the colored lights twinkling sipping champagne.
Because tickets were cheap, we flew in the new year and never got a sip of champagne to celebrate but we have a truckload of great memories from a fine trip. It felt so good to get back to our home and pick up our travelers life again in our truck.
We’ve seen some cool places in Peru these past few days which I will write about next time.
