alilou's Adventures in Wonderland 2 - all over the map

sk8pics said:
Great pics and memories, ali! I took a Nile cruise almost 20 years ago, Luxor to Aswan, I think. Very cool.
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Thanks @sk8pics. Nile cruising is sooooo special. We only had 3 days cruising, but it was amazing. Plus we had the three short trips from Aswan that are in the latest blog post. How long a cruise did you do? We looked at a 2 week one but there are so few tourists these days to Egypt that they're not running.
 
alilou said:
Thanks @sk8pics. Nile cruising is sooooo special. We only had 3 days cruising, but it was amazing. Plus we had the three short trips from Aswan that are in the latest blog post. How long a cruise did you do? We looked at a 2 week one but there are so few tourists these days to Egypt that they're not running.
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I think is was only 3 days or so. I was visiting friends who lived in Cairo at the time, and they didn't go with me, so it was a short trip.
 
Even only 3 days it was one of the highlights of all our travels. I fell in love with river cruising and would love to do more.
 
alilou said:
New blog post: The Nile cruise - one of the best things we did in Egypt

The Nile, Forever New and Old – Cruising From Aswan to Luxor
https://alisonanddon.com/2016/08/31/the-nile-forever-new-and-old-cruising-from-aswan-to-luxor/
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Great post! Are you referring to the SS Oriana? After it was withdrawn from service, it became a floating hotel until it was damaged in a storm in 2004. It was broken up a year later. P&O eventually built a new cruise liner with the same name (MV Oriana), which came into service in 1995. It is still in service.
 
skatesindreams said:
What an adventure!
Your photos really capture all of it so beautifully.
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Thanks so much @skatesindreams. It was an amazing adventure. I just loved it (in case you couldn't already tell :))

Maofan7 said:
Great post! Are you referring to the SS Oriana? After it was withdrawn from service, it became a floating hotel until it was damaged in a storm in 2004. It was broken up a year later. P&O eventually built a new cruise liner with the same name (MV Oriana), which came into service in 1995. It is still in service.
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Thanks @Maofan7. Yes it was the SS Oriana. I'm not surprised to hear it has reached the end of it's days, but I love that it was a floating hotel for a while. That Pacific crossing was one of the best times of my life. I got on the ship in San Francisco. We had day stops in Hawaii and Fiji. I got off in Auckland and spent 3 months in New Zealand, then got back on the same ship and spent another 10 days to get to Sydney via Fiji, Tonga, and New Caledonia.
 
ali, I am late to the party here, but loved all these recent blog posts. I did the same Nile cruise, also at a time when tourism was way down, it was very sobering. Thank you too for sharing about your struggles. Since you are getting into meditation again, you might like an app called Insight Timer. You can use it just as a timer or it also has some guided meditations available. I use it to track my contemplative prayer sessions (more than 200 consecutive days now!) too. It was free when I got my version.
 
sk8pics said:
ali, I am late to the party here, but loved all these recent blog posts. I did the same Nile cruise, also at a time when tourism was way down, it was very sobering. Thank you too for sharing about your struggles. Since you are getting into meditation again, you might like an app called Insight Timer. You can use it just as a timer or it also has some guided meditations available. I use it to track my contemplative prayer sessions (more than 200 consecutive days now!) too. It was free when I got my version.
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Thanks @sk8pics. I wrote a whole post about Egypt - that people should go now, partly because Egypt sure needs the tourist income, but also it's a tourist's dream - since there are so few of them. There are no crowds anywhere. Very hard for the people whose livelihood depends on a healthy tourist industry.
It has been, and continues to be a whole new journey with pain, a new experience for me who has been active and healthy all my life. I'll look into the app - I imagine it will help with discipline to stay in the meditation when I know I have to wait 'til the dinger goes. Thanks for the suggestion.
 
dinakt said:
@alilou
Once again, I am in awe of your pictures. Stunning, and so very alive- the colors, the faces, the details. Thanks!
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Thanks so much @dinakt. What a day that was - there was so much to try to capture of a place and culture so unlike my own western perspective. I get a bit carried away I think, trying to somehow document the place and the feeling.
 
skatesindreams said:
Thank you for the fascinating "guided tour".
My favorite photos are of the lady who gave you the sweet smile; and the two churches.
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Thanks SID, and you're welcome. Those churches were lovely - I'm glad we made the trek out to the Coptic Quarter. I can't even remember how we got there and back - it wasn't a trip the whole group did. Anyway it was worth it. And that lady in the cafe was so sweet. I was wanting a photo of her or her friend smoking the hookah but it just didn't work out. Then she saw me and smiled. It was a lovely moment.
 
New blog post:

Dancing through a Long Dark Tunnel. San Miguel Revisited.

https://alisonanddon.com/2016/10/09/dancing-through-a-long-dark-tunnel-san-miguel-revisited/

It's taken forever to get the blog caught up. I try to keep it chronological. Finally I got all the posts about Turkey, Jordan and Egypt done. After a couple months back in Vancouver we then went down to Mexico for five months. This is the first installment of that sojourn. So I'm still eight months behind, but slowly catching up.
 
alilou said:
New blog post:

Dancing through a Long Dark Tunnel. San Miguel Revisited.

https://alisonanddon.com/2016/10/09/dancing-through-a-long-dark-tunnel-san-miguel-revisited/

It's taken forever to get the blog caught up. I try to keep it chronological. Finally I got all the posts about Turkey, Jordan and Egypt done. After a couple months back in Vancouver we then went down to Mexico for five months. This is the first installment of that sojourn. So I'm still eight months behind, but slowly catching up.
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Great post. Thank you!

Some old photographs which highlight how unchanged the centre is: photo 1, photo 2, photo 3, photo 4, photo 5, photo 6
 
Maofan7 said:
Great post. Thank you!

Some old photographs which highlight how unchanged the centre is: photo 1, photo 2, photo 3, photo 4, photo 5, photo 6
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Thanks @Maofan7. SMA's a pretty amazing place, even if I was having a hard time there. Those photos are incredible. They must be really old, but the basic structure and layout hasn't changed at all. The last one of the Jardin shows the laurel trees all straggly and wild. They're pruned into perfect round shapes these days. I love the photo of the guys on donkeys. You still see that a little outside town.
 
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