Egypt and Jordan 2025

 First thing this morning I stepped onto the balcony and took this picture.   Poking over a wing of the hotel complex were the two tallest peaks of the Giza pyramids.  The largest on in the middle of the picture is the Great Pyramid of Giza and is also known as the Pyramid of Khufu.  The other is the Pyramid of Khafre.   On the drive to the hotel the night before, we did get to see the pyramid silhouettes as we drove by.  They are lit up at night.  There is a haze in the morning sky; and I learn later from our guide Dalia that this is pretty typical for Cairo. We get ready for breakfast.  Since I’m on the second shift for the bathroom, I’ll meet Judith down in the breakfast area.  I have to ask for directions as it’s out the front door, past the fountains where the vehicles drop off.   The long entrance path to and from the front of the hotel and where the vehicles drop off.  This is one of two rectangular ponds which makes up this ...

  We get gently woken up from our in flight sleep on our Toronto to Cairo leg. The cabin lights are gradually brightened and there is quiet activity happening with cabin staff handing out neatly rolled and heated face clothes.     Breakfast comes fast.    I decide on an omelet even though I’ve never had a decent in flight omelet and I left this one unfinished too.    Judith managed some fruit and a warm cinnamon roll.    As soon as the breakfast trays are cleared, we’re given some souvenir Turkish candy and then start descending into Istanbul.     It’s a big city (16 million).     We’re quickly on the ground and start our 3 hour layover.    The layover goes fast.  We spent the time going through the stores and looking at how expensive everything was.   A small part of the shopping concourse at Istanbul.  In the other direction of this walkway were all the designer stores such as Fendi, Chanel, Prad...

Up to this point, I’ve had pretty good fortune with all my airline travel. No major delays and only one missed connection on our way back from Lima, Peru in 2016 which the airline was able to quickly fix when we landed in Houston. They had already rescheduled the affected passengers and handed out our boarding passes for our changed flights when we got off the plane. Today was a day that made me realize I shouldn’t push my flight luck. My flight path today involved Victoria -> Vancouver -> Toronto, meet up with Judith and then Toronto -> Istanbul -> Cairo. I knew I had a tight connection in Vancouver and Judith pointed out to me that my Toronto connection was also thin given I had to collect my bags and re-check in, so any delay of these flights was going to be an issue. Right out of the gate, my morning flight leaving at 10:20am was delayed to 11:10am due to a high volume of traffic at Vancouver. That Toronto flight was originally scheduled to depart 11:30am so it was clea...