JANUARY 2024: Pasta, Vino, and a few Pyramids
From Italian wine to 5000 year old ancient structures
This year started strong with travel. We’ve just entered the start of February, and my 4th country so far this year. US—>Italy—>Egypt—>Tunisia.
La Mia Tornata a Firenze
After spending the holidays with my family in northern California, I boarded a plane in San Francisco bound for a place that has my heart, Italy. More specifically Florence.
In January 2018, I landed in Florence for a one-year graphic design program. That year rolled into another year doing an artist residency. The two years I spent in Florence were the two most creative years of my life.
Not only was I constantly surrounded by other artists and creative people, in a city that is an open-air museum, but I made some really good friends there.
I was finally able to return to Italy after 4 years to see these lovely friends again. And, of course, drink lots of wine with nearly every meal.
Chaos and Kings in Egypt
After ten days in Italy, I jumped on a plane to Cairo, with a layover in Barcelona, where I met u with my favorite travel buddy, Arthur (Gringo Nation).
We spent our first 5 days in Cairo where we discovered the joys of Egyptian breakfast, saw thousands of years old artifacts in the Egyptian museum, and saw the last standing ancient wonder of the world with our own eyes: The Pyramids of Giza.
Generally, I am not a big ‘tour person,’ but I figured if there is any place to do a tour, it’s in Egypt. There are thousands of years of history here, and to have a good understanding, we decided to do a full tour day (we used a great company called We Know Egypt) where we visited 3 main sites: Saqqara (Step pyramid and first pyramid of Egypt), Dahshur (Bent Pyramid and Red Pyramid), and of course Giza with its 3 massive pyramids.
I had never honestly put a lot of thought into the pyramids before, besides just knowing of their existence. But going to all 3 of those sites in one day was like a journey through time in the thinking process of Egypt’s ancient architects. They started with the Step Pyramid (photo above), which is 6 square layers on top of one another, getting smaller as they go up.
Next up was the Bent Pyramid (photo above on left) which shows a visual representation of what happens when a pyramid goes wrong. After hundreds of years of perfecting the step pyramid style, the architects wanted to create a more perfect pyramid with smooth sides. They began the Bent Pyramid at an angle of 59 degrees. Halfway up, it began to crack and was unstable. Therefore, they finished it up at 43 degrees, giving a ‘bent’ look to the pyramid.
The king gave the architect another shot at creating that perfect pyramid. With his second chance, he created the entire pyramid at 43 degrees, manifesting in the perfect Red Pyramid (photo above on right). These pyramids then inspired the most perfect pyramids of all in Giza with their flat sides and perfect angles.
One of the highlights of the Red and Bent pyramids was being able to go deep inside of them, 47m and 60m respectively.
If you’re thinking of going to Cairo, I wrote a very detailed blog post here about what you need to know before you go.
After Cairo, we headed over to the east coast of the Sinai Peninsula to a small town called Dahab along the Gulf of Aqaba. We witnessed beautiful sunsets, friendly people, and a big foreign community here. Prices were higher here than in Cairo, but also much more relaxed. During this week in Dahab, I took an overnight side trip up to Mt Sinai, where I witnessed one of the most stunning sunrises in my life.
I wrote an informative blog post about it here if you’re thinking of heading out that way.
After one glorious week in Dahab, we passed through Hurghada for a few nightmare days in an accidental ghost hotel with no running water. We escaped as quickly as possible and spent our last days in Egypt hanging out in banana fields in Luxor.
Luxor is famous for its numerous ancient sites all in one place. We spent our first couple of days on the chaotic East Bank of Luxor, known as the land of the living (where the sun rises). Horns, markets, cars, shouts, haggling, scamming, pleas for taxis, horse carriage rides, and donkey rides abound here.
We teamed up with two Mexican friends and two Taiwanese friends to do a group tour of 4 sites on the West Bank of Luxor: Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens, Temple of Hatshepsut, and Temple of Habu. We saw tombs of kings, thousands of years old hieroglyphics with original colors, and massive structures that make you feel insignificant.
For our last week in Luxor, we crossed the Nile to the West Bank, known as the Land of the Dead (where the sun sets, and where the tombs of dead kings exist). This side of the Nile is so much more chill. Our hotel, Nile Panorama, was in the middle of banana fields, with a rooftop swimming pool and a view of the Valley of Kings in the distance in one direction, and the Luxor Temple in the distance across the Nile in the other direction.
We visited our last Egyptian temples from here: both the Luxor Temple (above photo on left) and Karnak (above photo on right), along the East Bank of the Nile, and the Dendera Temple, located one hour north of Luxor. Dendera (photos below) is the largest Temple Complex to exist in Egypt. It was one of the most well-preserved and coolest temples I saw in the whole country. It is two stories high and has several zodiac references. The remaining colors on the pillars and walls are truly incredible. This is also the only temple to have a large carving of Cleopatra VII and her son Caesarion (son of Julius Caesar).
For my big Egyptian finale, I took a hot air balloon at sunrise over the West Bank of Luxor. From up high, I was able to look down over the Habu Temple and banana fields that made me feel so small on the ground.
I’m now sitting in a beautiful Airbnb in Tunis, the capital of Tunisia, with a view of the sea- the Gulf of Tunis, which connects to the Mediterranean Sea. While we enjoyed Egypt, we are glad to move on. Egypt is a land of contrasts- genuine and kind people, as well as people trying to trick you and scam you at every turn. An unfortunate side effect is when you realize how hard it is to trust people- it can sometimes be difficult to know initially when someone wants to form a genuine connection, or genuinely just wants to help you part from your money.
ARGENTINA TOURS WITH TROVA TRIP
The more I travel to new countries, one of the things that remains constant are my daydreams of returning to Argentina. More specifically, leading hiking trips in Argentina.
If you have 5-10 minutes to spare, I would be so grateful if you could fill out this survey with a company called Trova Trip. If I can manage to get just 200 people to fill out the survey, I can begin planning group trips to Patagonia.
In order for the survey to be considered valid, you just need to select that you are willing to spend over $2000 on a trip. You can select any countries that you might be interested in for a trip. But of course, the more people who also select Argentina, the more likely it will be that we can take a Patagonia hiking trip together. THANK YOU!
Save Yourself a Headache and Get Insured
Walking around Cairo, with its cars and chaos and honking, I kept thinking- omg what would I do if I got hit, or something happened to me here? Fortunately for me, SafetyWing exists. It’s a travel medical insurance company that was created by nomads for nomads. So if you too are thinking of traveling soon, consider SafetyWing coverage for your next adventure.
THANK YOU
As always, thank you to all of you who support me and my work. Thank you for reading my words and watching my videos. Buying me coffee and donating to my blog. I truly appreciate all your continued support and encouragement.
Keep following along as I spend the next two months in Tunisia!