Recently I traveled to Africa. We saw the Big Five: elephants, lions, leopards, Cape buffalo, and rhinos. Along with the Big Five, we also spotted the Magnificent Seven: the big five plus wild dogs and cheetas. We viewed a lion pride stalking its prey, here is what happened:

“There! Right there!” My cousin Story pointed. “I don’t see anything… Oh, wait! Is that them?” I asked. We were looking for lions and they were masters of blending in with the landscape. “ Are they up on that ridge?” my mom asked. The guide then looked then replied with yes. And there they were, beautiful in the morning sun. The male stood high and proud. His mane framing his face and the one-year-old cub trailing behind him. The rest of the females were spread out around them. From the direction they were gazing, we could infer that they were staring at the herd of buffalo below the ridge. They started to descend to the bottom and Kirsten, our guide said “We might be able to get a better view from on top of the ridge! Does that seem okay with you? We all replied “Yes” in unison. The lions seemed to be going parallel to the ridge, so we decided to head up there! We saw the lions stalking a buffalo. We watched them for about thirty minutes. Then Kirsten said “The lions won’t do anything for a while because they are waiting for the right time to strike! I think it would be fair if we let another group in’’ We all agreed and we headed back to the lodge. 

There was also one time when we were driving along the dirt road and out of know where, a black mamba stands straight up on its tail for a full five seconds, then slithered away into the tall grass off to the side of the road. My mom was on the side of the car that the mamba was on and was definitely surprised! My moms’ phone recorded it all, on accident and we play it back and it is hysterical!

Since we were there over Thanksgiving, we had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner at the place we were staying. Since game drives were in the early morning and near the evening, we had lunch and most of the afternoon to our selves. Our schedule looked like this. Wake up at five in the morning, eat a light breakfast then start before the sun was up, so it didn’t get too hot. Then, at four we would go on another game drive and we would look at the wildlife and then before we headed back, we would have drinks and watch the sunset, then we would drive back. My sleep schedule was a bit off because I would start wanting to fall asleep on the evening game drives and was totally alert for the morning game drives.

 

To end our trip to Africa, we stopped in Cape Town and took a tour of the city by helicopter. We went to Robbin Island and learned about its great history. Our tour guide for Robbin Island was a former inmate who told us what it was like to be there. Africa was a trip I will never forget. Seeing all those animals in their real habitats was amazing and you really respect nature out in the bush country.

 

We had to get up a little early to get on the bus to drive to the pyramids! The first two pyramids we saw were the bent pyramid and the red pyramid. It is called the bent pyramid because when the architect started building the pyramid, about a third through the pyramid he realized it was going to be two tall so he had to make the angle smaller, resulting in a slight bend on all four sides. The red pyramid is called that because the limestone was from a different quarry, and it was a little red so that is how the red pyramid got its name. We got to go inside the red pyramid and we had to go up the side of the pyramid and then down a ramp in the inside. The celling was so low, that I had to bend down. The pyramid celling was in little steps too! The inside also smelled like bat guano. After those two pyramids we went to the Saqqara step pyramid. It had exactly six steps! We couldn’t go inside, but we got to touch the base! After the step pyramid, we went to a store to get travel presents. Then we went to lunch and we could see the pyramids of Giza! We went to one of the pyramids, the tallest one and we saw that the top still had the smooth texture the whole pyramid used to have! We got to touch that pyramids and then after the pyramids of Giza, we saw the Sphinx! The head was the only still detailed part. The Sphinx nose truth was cut off by a Muslim who thought it prospered paganism, but still some people believe still that Napoleon used it for target practice! After that we went back to our hotel, ate dinner, celebrated the new year and went to bed. Our trip to Egypt went by so fast!

We got up and then we got on our bus to go to the Ancient Egyptian Museum and the entrance had all of these ancient Egyptian god statues and there were mostly intact! We saw the real life Narmer pallet that recorded the first pharaoh to unify upper and lower Egypt. Upper Egypt was represented by a lotus flower and lower Egypt was represented by a papyrus plant. We saw a scribe statue, fully painted, all original colors. We also saw Egyptian figures at work around the palace. Some kneading dough, some brewing beer, some cooking, and more! There was also a statue of the pharaoh with two goddess at his side. We also saw King Tutankhamun’s jewelry and he had a bunch of necklaces, bracelets, huge earrings, and all of them either had huge charms, or all of the other stuff was made of gold. Now I think I know why a pharaoh was carried around in a chair all day. Whenever the pharaoh traveled, he had a portable cot that was rolled up with the rest of the luggage and when the night came, they got out the cot and the pharaoh slept. There was also these four shrines, which were basically huge boxes built to fit inside each other. And then inside of the smallest of the four was the sarcophagus with the mummy. We got to see real mummy’s and how preserved they were! The museum was super cool! Then we went shopping in a bazaar and I got a scarf! Then we went back to our hotel and then got ready for a dinner that we were having at one of my moms friends parents house. The dinner was really good. Then we went back to the hotel and went to sleep.

We got off the boat, permanently and our guide picked us up to take us to the quarry. Once we got there, she explained that Hatshepsut had an unfinished obelisk and when she died, her son did not use the obelisk for him self. It had a crack in it so he said he couldn’t use it. Although the obelisk could of made a nice altar. The process was the same as sand stone, although since granite is harder, it took longer. After the quarry, we visited Philae temple, dedicated to Isis, wife of the god of paradise, Osiris and mother of Horus. The temple was beautiful, although there was almost no color. But like Horus’s temple we saw in the front, the hieroglyph horizon. It was very well preserved under all the sand. All the temples had to be relocated to higher ground, where the inundation could not get them. We saw where the flood had risen up because there were lines indicating where the silt had been. Though they tried to wash it out they couldn’t. We had lunch at a restaurant called El Dokka, and I had a great lunch. Then we went back to the hotel, relaxed, then had dinner there, and went to bed.

We woke up and had breakfast. Then we went to Kom Ombo temple dedicated to the crocodile god, Sobek. Crocodiles were greatly worship the crocodiles. They thought that crocodiles were very powerful. On the walls of the temple there was a medical table and some of the instruments we use today are just the same as ancient Egyptians. The way that Egyptians could tell that it was a girl or boy is that they had the woman pee on a barley and a wheat seed. If the barley sprouted first, it was going to be a boy and if the wheat sprouted first, it was a girl. This system was right 80% of the time! After Kom Ombo, we say a crocodile museum. We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside though. The Egyptians worshiped crocodiles so much, they did the mummification process on them to. Giving them a sarcophagus and taking their organs out too. After that we went back to the boat and Sam swam in the Nile while I read my book. The rest of the day we relaxed, I played Scrabble against dad and won! Then we had to dinner and went to bed.

On day five we just had a lazy day. We woke up had breakfast and then set sail. Once we got to our destination, we got a choice to swim in the Nile. I did and it was sand the entire way I swam/waded out. That was before lunch and after lunch I painted a picture of the Nile. On day six we went to a small temple called Gebel Silsileh and there we saw where the carved out obelisks. The Egyptians made the obelisks by making cuts in the ground of the size of the obelisk, and then they inserted pieces of wood that expand if you add water to it. Then they kept repeating until you could take it out. Then they had to dig out an area under the obelisk and put boats underneath. Then they had to wait for the flood season so that the obelisk’s boat were lifted out of the ground with the water. They had ropes tied to the boats from the banks of the Nile to pull the boats along. After they got there they built a ramp then started hauling the obelisk up the ramp. It took a lot of people. They built a tall box with a door on one side. That was because they put sand in and they would start putting they obelisk in and the would let out the sand bit by bit until they had a standing obelisk. And then they had to carve it. Egyptians were really, really smart and crafty. After that we got to swim in the Nile again and it was fun! Then we got back on the boat, ate dinner, and went to bed.

Once we ready to go to the temple, these men with donkeys came by us and asked if we wanted a ride. I said yes, and somebody lifted me onto a donkey named Aziz and he was a white and grey donkey. We rode the donkeys to Kab then we got off and looked at the tombs of noblemen. We got back on the same donkeys a rode back to the boat. After lunch we went to the falcon god, Horus’s temple and it was the second biggest temple in Egypt, and the best preserved. We rode there in a horse drawn carriage and the horses name was Adula. Horus’s temple was beautiful and huge! Though it did not have many colors, it was still mostly standing which was pretty impressive! After that we rode back in the same carriages and stayed on the boat, had dinner, and went to bed.

The car picked us up around nine to go to the boat. But first we went to Esna temple. Esna has temple was far under ground and we had to go down three flights of stairs to go down to it. The reason Esna temple was so far down is because it was built on the same level as the Nile. When the inundation happened, more and more silt (fine sand) kept piling up, making a wall. Then many, many years later, archeologists dug up the temple, but they only found about two, rooms. The rest they predicted was under the houses that were on top of the wall of silt and if they wanted to figure out if there was any more of Esna, they will have to buy the land to do further construction. After Esna temple, we drove to the boat. After we got on the boat, we had lunch. Then, we sailed down the river, Sam steered a little and docked. There, we went on a walk and went to a small village. I got to try on traditional Egyptians women clothing and I got to dance with these cute, little kids. After the village, we got back on the boat, had dinner, and got to bed.

We crossed the Nile to the Valley of the Kings, where all the ancient pharaohs were buried. We saw Rameses the third, King Tut, Rameses the ninth, and Rameses the seventh. There tombs had beautiful designs and the colors were more vibrant, than the ones in the temples because it hadn’t been exposed to the light so the colors were kept nicely. Then we went to the temple of Hatshepsut, but we did not see much of her, for her son, Thutmose, erased her from history because when it was time to pass on down the throne, she stayed. So when she died, Thutmose set out to remove her name in history, defacing her from the temple walls, and covering up her name. After we visited Hatshepsut’s temple, we saw the tombs of noble men.

We arrived in Luxor, and then went to have lunch on a boat on the Nile. After that, we went to see a huge temple called Karnak Temple, and it was huge. You could see some of the colors, but most of them had faded away. We also walked down a Sphinx alley, and some of the Sphinx heads were missing. We saw all the different rooms inside Karnak Temple and the different areas for the commoners, noble families, high priests and the royalty. What was super cool is that there was a strait line, right down the middle of the temple, so even if the commoners couldn’t go into different rooms, they could still hear. After Karnak, we went to Luxor Temple which was much smaller, but it had more colors and huge statues of sitting pharaohs. After Luxor Temple, we went to our hotel, got dinner, and went to bed.