Travelling teacher

    This trip has taken me on a rollercoaster of emotions - happiness, gratitude, disgust, sympathy, peace, sadness, joy, humility, discomfort, fear, anxiety, security, and in the odd moment, complete bliss.  Israel has a way of intensifying these emotions, and I feel like this part of the journey was far more about observing, listening, and processing. Myself being one of only two people on my tour with faith, the richness and significance of the area to me personally was at times conflicting with the jokes and temperament of the rest of the group, but at the same time it was interesting to me to see things a little from their perspective. Upon delivery to the border we made our way through the security checks and customs. They were polite, but very thorough, taking one member of our group in for further questioning because apparently her name had Arabic origins, so our departure from the border was delayed. On the other side, we met our Israeli guide, and onc...

I have to confess, the one thing that almost made me not book this tour was the five days we had in Dahab. Israel has always been on my list, an appreciation for a people who have endured a lot, produced a Messiah, and carry a massive legacy I have a lot of respect for within my faith and own beliefs. Then Jordan, also, is significant in Biblical history, and therefore a place I was excited to visit. The pyramids and the Egyptian museum, well, are the pyramids and the Egyptian museum, and need no more explanation than that. But five days at a beach resort, to be honest, felt like a bit of a waste of precious holiday time. Turns out, not so much. It is 8.17am on our last full day here and I am so excited for today, and a little sad to be leaving.     Day 1: Our meant to be 2pm arrival became 5pm after several delays due to checkpoint queues. Having been on the road since 4am, we were all pretty knackered so most of us went for a nap for a couple of hours before dinne...

After our condensed Egyptian Museum visit, we headed off for the great pyramids of Giza, where we were told about the pharaohs who built them. The Great Pyramid was built by the father, Khufu, then his son Khafre built the second pyramid.  Apparently it would be dishonourable to his father to build his one higher, so he built it 4m shorter, but put it further up the slope of the hill so it looked taller. They even put air chambers in to relieve the air pressure and stop them from collapsing, the only reason they’re still standing today. It was fascinating to hear how precise their engineering was to get everything just right to last this long. Our last stop before (a very late) lunch was the sphinx, where there was a guy giving photo directions who could make the most terrifyingly realistic cat noises for the entertainment of the children that kept making me think there was an angry cat nearby. After lunch, we went to a papyrus paper maker and were giv...