Egypt Day 11 - Balloons and Boats

Itinerary Day 11:  Luxor - Esna

"In the early morning you have balloon trip over Luxor. After breakfast our Car and guide will pick you up from your hotel and start our journey to Esna, crew will welcome you on board and have your bags taken to your cabins. We will then set sail on your voyage to Aswan. Overnight close to El Hegz Island"

 Sunrise over the Nile in Luxor 

Journal: 
As instructed, we were in the lobby by 6:00 AM, along with a few other hotel guests intent on a balloon ride over Lexor. Our ride didn't get there until almost 6:30. We were shuffled onto a crowded tourist van, transported to a Nile river taxi to get us over the river, then another tourist van to the launch site. The sun was well up in the sky by the time our balloon was inflated.

Mohammed and Akhbar were coordinating logistics on the ground. One of the guests said she expected a sunrise ride. Mohammed explained that early fog this time of year meant there would not be a visible sunrise.  I showed Mohammed the picture I took as we cleared the river (see above). He shrugged. I asked how many passengers would be in each basket - thinking it would be 5 or 6 like our prior balloon experience. He said 30-35.  He then gave us a 30 second safety demonstration on how to prepare for a hard landing. I was beginning to have doubts about the whole deal.

Mohammed and Akhbar in charge.

Once we were off the ground, all misgivings melted away. It was magical...

Back to the Sofitel Winter Palace by 9 AM, said our fond farewells and checked out.

Sigrid says she is never leaving. She wants to live in this hotel. Good to know in case we feel we need to make a major lifestyle change with our newly elected president.

Ismael picks us up and we are off to Esna, where we will meet the dahabiya, crew, and fellow passengers who will accompany us for a 5 day cruise up the Nile to Aswan. But before we get there, I request one stop. I wasn't sure of the drinking arrangements on this cruise, so I asked to stop at Liquor store to pick up an emergency bottle of whiskey for medicinal purposes. Ismael found a store along the way.

You won't believe the deal I got on this "Johnny Walker Black Label" or "Jani Water Black Labl" as translated into Egyptian.  I just hope it doesn't blind me when I drink it.

Finally we meet the Amoura - our home for the next five days.

Think of a dahabiya as sailing barge. No engine, with large triangular sails on the bow and aft, it can only sail before the wind. It's accompanied by a towboat, which pulls the boat upwind or when there is no wind.

I am accustomed to great trip planning from my wife, but she outdid herself this time. We have the aft suite with our own private deck. Since the boat is always towed from the front, we enjoy nothing but quiet while we drift down the Nile.

As the sun set, the Amoura was under sail. So a few of us climbed aboard the towboat to take picture of the boat under sail.

Sigrid may want to live in the Luxor Winter Palace, but I am going to move to the Amoura Dahabiya.

WORK IN PROGRESS - BLOG POST UNDER CONSTRUCTION - MORE PICS COMING

Editors Note: I intend to pre-load and schedule automated blog posts with the daily itinerary for our Egypt and Jordan adventure. For those interested, this may be an easy way to follow along. Internet access is always a crapshoot. My hope is that by pre-loading the itinerary it will be easier to add some pics and journal commentary as time and the internet permits. If there are no pics or commentary, you'll just have to wait until we get back. Further!

Yooper Autumn

Frosty Sunrise

We arrived to a warmish sunset on the 28th, but the temperature dropped throughout the night. By morning sunrise, things were quite frosty. The wood stove kept us toasty in the lake house.

Warmish Sunset

 Awoke to frost on the dock in the morning.

 Apparently, no one ever wonders about the lack of returning footprints.

Color change is underway.

Forecast indicates this will this will be the weather pattern this trip - highs in the fifties, lows in the thirties.

Northern Michigan in the fall is always great.

Sunset, sunrise at Sea Ranch.

The sweet siren song of the red abalone is calling me North.

Arrived Saturday in time for a spectacular sunset.

And an equally impressive dawn. 

The swell forecast was promising.

Will it be a good day to dive?

Sent from my T-Mobile 4G LTE Device

"Days Like This" - The first day of summer in the U.P. was a doozy

You don't expect to see articles about the Upper Peninsula in the Huffington Post. But..

The Upper Peninsula Is Underrated, And We Have The Photos To Prove It

"In Marquette, a remote Michigan beach town further north than some parts of Canada, the only thing more enchanting and boundless than the views of Lake Superior is the sky above it. Most of the year, the northern coast of the Upper Peninsula is too cold for the average person to sit for hours marveling at the scenery, though weather won’t deter locals and hardy adventurers like Marquette's own nature photographer Shawn Malone.

And when her city does get its few months of warmth, coinciding with increased hours of daylight, Malone rarely strays from behind the camera, even to sleep. She's determined to capture all of the beauty the North Country has to offer. That’s how she ended up documenting the spectacular variations in the sky over Lake Superior in one 24-hour period last month, catching bright stars, moody clouds and the vibrant colors of both the Northern Lights and a double rainbow."

The article references Shawn Malone of Lake Superior Photo and an album she posted on Facebook "Days Like This..." featuring six remarkable photos of the Michigan sky, including a spectacular dawn, rainbow, and northern lights, all shot on 6/22/2015.

The cool thing is that while Shawn was shooting these pictures over Lake Superior, we were also mesmerized by the U.P. sky and shooting pictures over Big Shag Lake.

Our Big Shag Lake 6.22.15 "Day Like This" started with a spectacular sunrise...

Finished with a gorgeous sunset...

But the best was after dark, when, forewarned by internet alerts, we observed a spectacular Northern Lights show when the planet was hit by a mega solar storm.

The display was augmented by a power blackout at the lake that eliminated virtually all light pollution. My GoPro efforts to capture the display were a waste of time, but Harlan has a real camera and the mad skillz to capture it all:

It turned out to be one of the bigger solar storms of recent years:

"On Sunday, the summer solstice, a major explosion on the sun propelled a coronal mass ejection toward Earth at about 4 million miles per hour. It then swept up two smaller, slower coronal mass ejections from last week, creating one big smorgasbord of geomagnetic exuberance. The whole mess reached Earth Monday afternoon with a bit more energy than expected."

Quite the show, quite the day. After seeing one small Norther Lights display during my first 50+ years of  Shag Lake sojourns, I've now seen two full sky displays in the last 3 years. When you pick the right day in the U.P, there's no place like it on earth.