Egypt Day 9-- Philae Temple and Farewell Lunch in Aswan

Our stay at this beautiful hotel was cut short-- we left early this morning, but the breakfast buffet was amazing! So many good things to eat! And FRUIT!!! I wanted to take a walk around the beautiful grounds but woke up with a nasty migraine this morning and it felt like the whole island was rocking. I had some dizziness that lasted for a while-- even after the trip! We took a boat ride to the Philae temple this morning. Again, it was built in the typical symmetrical style that everything here is! Even the carvings are always symmetrical and repeated EVERYWHERE over and over again! I can't imagine how long it would take to do all of the carving only to repeat it over and over all over the temple and other buildings-- and then again for ALL the temples they built everywhere! It's amazing! We then headed to our last meal together as a group and with Ayman. I will miss him! He has been such an amazing guide and so much fun! We've teased him a lot and he just laughs and is so cute about it! We had another very typical meal and it was really heavy, again! They do have really good fresh squeezed lemonade with mint that isn't very sweet! It's really good and the last couple of meals I've caught on to it and have ordered it. Their desserts aren't super sweet either, which I love!! After lunch we walked through a very typical market and EVERYONE was heckling us to come buy their stuff... and we just laughed and pretended not to hear them! Honestly, I felt excited to fly home and eat normal food again. After lunch we went back to the hotel and rested for just a bit and packed and then headed for the airport back to Cairo. Our flight ended up being a nightmare and we had to make some changes, but finally flew out the next morning at 7am after spending the night at the airport! It was very stressful and with not being able to communicate in Arabic and it being Ramadan, it was hard to find help. Bill spent several hours on the phone and got us tickets on British Air through London. We will NEVER use Cheapflights.com again, or any 3rd party due to problems coming and going and Cheapflights not getting us a proper confirmation number to fly home... it was a mess! (Bill did get it all worked out after we got home, and Cheapflights is suppposed to be issuing us a FULL refund for everything.) Cheapflights wasn't so cheap and caused us a lot of stress at the end of a long and tiring trip! We were all so tired but GLAD to finally be on a plane headed home. We stopped in London and then on to LAX. We had a long layover at each airport, but were still able to make our connecting flight from LAX to Phoenix because originally we were going to have a super long layover in LA-- which ended up being a blessing, and then that flight was delayed as well. We finally flew into Phoenix at 11:30pm and made it home by 1am Tuesday morning! What a trip... and all with a huge migraine and dizziness. It was a great trip and we saw so many amazing and different things. It was a surprise at every turn we took and every day was an adventure! Goodbye Egypt-- Hello USA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!