Wolfe Island

Wolfe Island is one of my favourite places around Kingston, especially in the summer. The ferry dock is a five minute walk from my apartment and its FREE. And a tip for all you Kingstonians-take the 9 pm ferry on Wednesday nights in July for a great view of the Fort Henry fireworks.

I think the reason I love being on the island so much is that it is like a little piece of the country so close to the city. There are no chain stores allowed so walking through the "town" feels a bit like stepping back in time when businesses were run by local families. A must-stop location is the Wolfe Island Bakery, which is a bit of a legend in Kingston, for cinnamon buns and lemon tarts. Wolfe Island has also recently become a large scale wind farm, which was a big adjustment for the Islanders.

A couple of weekends ago, Evan and I packed a picnic and headed out for an Island stroll.

View of the Kingston harbour from the ferry

Windmills on the island

My dream home

A bit blurry, but this was our yummy potato salad from our picnic (see recipe below)

Nothing but blue skies and farm fields (and windmills)

Livestock

Wolfe Island Potato Salad (modified from the Roasted Potato Bacon Salad recipe from the Best of Chef at Home cookbook)

Boil 20 or so baby red potatoes until tender, set aside.
Cook 4 or 5 slices of bacon.
Toss the cooked potatoes and bacon with a sprinkle of salt and pepper, a handful of parsley, a few pickles (diced small), 1 tablespoon of grainy mustard, 1 tablespoon of mayonnaise, and a splash of red wine vinegar.
Mix well and leave in the fridge overnight.

Egypt: Around the Nile

For the last entry on my Egypt trip, I wanted to post some general pictures from the places I visited in the southern part of the country.

Aswan
After our Cairo adventure, we headed to Aswan on an overnight train. I think the concept of "first class" is a bit different in Egypt but at least we had a bed to sleep in. Southern Egypt was incredibly hot, which seemed to be the theme of the trip, with most days being over 50 degrees Celsius.

First stop off the train was the unfinished obelisk. Workers were halfway through constructing this obelisk for one of the pharaohs when it split. Bummer.



Next was the Aswan dam. This was the southern tip of the Nile and led to the construction of the world's largest man made lake (Lake Nasser).

River Side

Lake Side

Monument built by the Egyptian and the...Russians?

Next we boarded our three night cruise of the Nile on the M.S. Medea. The buffets were awesome and the room had a big window with a great Nile view.



We spent the night docked in Aswan and went to a bazaar. I bought my Mom a necklace for her birthday and I have to say I was quite impressed with my haggling skills.




Cruising

The next three days were spent visiting Temples and occasionally cruising (I was surprised by how little time our cruise actually spent sailing). Between the sites it was nice to lounge in the room and watch the Nile go by...









Luxor

When we reached Luxor, we visited one of the most popular tourist sites in Egypt: The Valley of the Kings. Here, thousands of tombs (including the famous ones like King Tut's) are constructed in the desert and many of them have yet to be uncovered. There were no cameras allowed, but I did snap a shot of the valley from afar at sunset.



In the evening we got to go on a donkey ride and explore a "traditional Egyptian village". I was a bit skeptical on the authenticity of this since I'm pretty sure this village had seen Contiki travellers go through every week for the past few years. But the donkey ride (and in one case, race) was pretty fun and just seeing the layout of the village was neat.









Overall, my trip to Egypt was well worth the travel. It was difficult in many ways (including the heat, not being able to eat many foods or drink tap water and being stared at leerishly by Egyptian men) but this was far outweighed by the beauty of the country. If you are thinking about travelling here, do it!

Egypt: Temples

While in Egypt we explored many temples and even though they all had a similar feel, I never got over the awe at how elaborate these sites were. Luckily since this is low season for Egyptian tourism, we got to see many of these sites without a huge crowd.



Kom Ombo

The temple in Kom Ombo was built during the Ptolemaic dynasty and construction began around 180 BC. This temple was unique because it was built to honour two different gods: Sobek (the crocodile) and Horus (the falcon). They actually had a pit for crocodiles to live beside the temple (although for safety reasons this is no longer in use). This was one of the more recent Egyptian temples and was a place where Cleopatra worshiped.

This is of Cleopatra's kartush!

Edfu

This was a temple which was built to worship Horus (exclusively this time) and was also built during the Ptolemaic period. The walls have carvings depicting the scenes that inspired the Egyptian themed opera called Horus where the falcon god is trying to kill his uncle (the crocodile) to avenge the death of his father.











Karnak

Karnak Temple, which is located in Luxor, was constructed by Ramses II beginning in 1391–1351 BC. This was the largest temple we visited. Outside of the temple is the avenue of the Sphinxes which was 2 km long and used to connect Karnak temple to Luxor temple. Unfortunately the people of Luxor built their homes over the Sphinxes that ran through the middle of the city and there is a big relocation effort now underway to allow the city to dig under the houses and uncover the Sphinxes.









Luxor

This temple was also mainly built by Ramses II. This temple had a great atmosphere, maybe because we visited at dusk and had the call to prayer from a nearby mosque as a background soundtrack.

Here is the other segment of the Avenue of the Sphinxes

The matching obelisk (which used to sit beside the female on the right) was given to France as a gift for helping to build the Suez Canal.

Egypt: Cairo and Giza

The first thing I noticed about Egypt was that driving seemed like a nightmare. I ended up taking a taxi from the airport to my hotel and I have never feared for my life more. There were three lanes on the road, but most of the time the traffic was four to five lanes across. Everything seemed like fair game as long as you honked as you squeezed in between cars. On the sides of the road there seemed to be an alarming number of cars that had overheated and caught on fire. And...wait a minute...are we REVERSING ON THE FREEWAY??? The 401 suddenly seemed very tame.

I spent my first night at the Victoria Hotel. It had a lot of character, but it seemed a bit grungy (although it might have just been the contrast from staying at the Athens Hilton for the week before).

After initially looking into doing Egypt solo, I eventually settled on doing a tour since there seemed to be a lot of restrictions on travelers and I had heard some negative things about women travelling alone. I booked Contiki's Egypt and the Nile Tour and was happy that most of the people on the tour were young professionals around my age.

The first stop in Cairo was the Egyptian Museum. I'm not usually much of a museum person, but this place was AMAZING. I couldn't take any pics inside, but they had mummies (people and animals), treasures, and statues that were over 4000 years old. The highlight was probably the treasures found in King Tuts tomb including his burial mask.



Next we were off to the most anticipated site of the trip: the pyramids! They were impressive and there were hardly any other tourists there. Maybe it was because the high was 47 degrees Celsius that day.

A view of Cairo from the pyramids

Next we hopped on some camels and rode around the desert to get a better view of the pyramids. Camels are not happy creatures. Our tour guide said that this camel ride would be very relaxing, but I felt like I was constantly on the brink of falling off. The views out the in desert were worth it, though.







The final stop at the site was to see the Sphinx.



Lunch was at a traditional Egyptian restaurant. I wish I remembered the name because the food was fantastic.

Dips! Hummus, Baba ganoush, and something with feta.

This doesn't look like much, but it was the best falafel I've ever had.

On the last day of the tour, we came back through Cairo and went to the Step Pyramid. This pyramid came before the Great Pyramids and was created before they knew how to calculate the angles required to build the continuous side walls.



The final stop of the trip was the Alabaster Mosque, named for the domes that were made of alabaster stone. Beautiful inside and out.