Today we visited the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, just one of the amazing and beautiful sites we have visited in Jordan and Egypt, since leaving Spain. We have not been able to blog from the Middle East earlier due to an extremely full schedule combined with sketchy wifi. Now we look forward to a last day (tomorrow) to visit the East Bank at Luxor, and then a 20-hour series of flights to return to the US and Naples, Florida.

Jordan was wonderful and we particularly enjoyed Jerash, a stunningly complete Roman city, and Petra, which was even more beautiful than imagined from the movies. Cairo traffic was an experience all its own — oh, and by the way, there are the pyramids and Sphinx.

The contrast between Spain and here in temperature (over 100 degrees in Luxor) and pace (did I mention the traffic in Cairo?) has been startling. But people have been very friendly and charming. They are happy to see the tourist business picking back up after 9 very lean years.

Somewhere between Jordan and Spain Ed caught a cold (which he shared with me) and we’ve been burdened with various and related health discomforts all the time we’ve been in the Middle East. It turns out that everyone here has a home remedy from their grandma which they insist on Ed trying: cumin, lemon, strong coffee with lemon, etc, etc. At least one result: an upset tummy! So maybe it is time for us to go home and let our systems settle down…