The last month we have spent 2 weeks in Mexico and 2 weeks in Egypt.

Bins Mums lifelong friends Don and Nevionne Crawford have a time share apartment in Puerto Vallarta and invited us to stay with them. While we were there Pats Mum, Colleen and sister, Kathy flew down from Edmonton, Canada so we had a great reunion. Colleen had her 81st birthday Mexican style and we walked all over Puerto Vallarta and watched all the free dancers and entertainment in the centre square every evening. These "oldies" kept us going all day and we fell into bed absolutely exhausted each evening!

We then had a long flight to Cairo, Egypt and it took us ages to get over the jetlag. The traffic was amazingly congested and we had to learn to "walk like an Egyptian" to make it across the street alive! We stayed in Cairo for 4 days and visited to Egyptian Museum with 5000 year old Mummies with visible teeth, hair and lips!! Amazing! We also visited the Pyramids, of course, the Sphinx, Memphis and Saqqara, the oldest Pyramid in the world. Everything here is so VERY ANCIENT.

Next, we took an overnight sleeper train to Aswan and stayed in a hotel with a window overlooking the Nile. Aswan was very photogenic and warm and relaxed with a great souq. The museum was wonderful and we visited the temple of Philae which has been relocated stone by stone to save it when they built the Dam- amazing effort.

We then found a great cruise ship and went down the Nile for 2 days to Luxor- very relaxing way to travel for a few days! We arranged everything ourselves as we went along. Most people in Egypt were on package tours. We didnt take our motorbike as the Egyptian Government doesnt like independent travellers and make it expensive and difficult to get your bike in and hard to travel around. Buses have to travel in convoy at pre arranged times with police escourt. Tourism is so vital to their economy they dont want anything to happen to any tourists and there are tourist police everywhere.

Luxor was any amazing place and we spent many days exploring. The Temples of Karnak, Luxor Museum & Luxor Temple. We hired a bicycle and rode to the Valley of the Kings, which is a city of the dead with magnificent temples to honour the Pharaohs entombed in the cliffs. The tombs were colourfully decorated and designed to resemble the underworld: a long, inclined, rock-hewn corridor descends into either an antechamber or a series of halls and ends in a burial chamber. So much emphasis on the afterlife! Sailing on the Nile in a Felucca and riding around town in a horse carriage are Tourist Must Dos. They hassle you so much you end up doing it and it was fun!

We then flew back to Cairo over the Nile, visited Islamic Cairo area and the Citadel.

Next stop was Athens, Greece which is where we are now with our friend Orestis who has had his mechanic get our motorbike, Miss Adventure II ready for the next 8 months travelling around the Middle East. She is now in top running condition and we are ready to head East any day now.

As Linda and Con Diamond said "You two are having too much fun!"