Rhonda: We arrived here at 10pm and of course we were worn out. I wish we had filmed the scene of us choosing a taxi. We are determined to never get taken again after Santiago Chili's disaster. So I was saying NO to a cab that was dirty. Chris was bargaining and saying NO to any price he didn't like. We finally got a clean taxi and a driver who firmly agreed to a price of 800 local currency. He got to a pay toll and tried to make us pay it. Chris said not our problem. He got a friend on the phone to reason with us , I guess, because he handed me the phone. I told him that it wasn't personal but that we agreed on a price and we were not budging. I guess the driver took my nicer tone to mean it was time to start trying again. Because he starting saying 1200 was more fair. We were tired and grouchy and it was late. It was not pretty. We got out at the hotel got our bags and handed him the agreed 800 and walked away. It felt good.
We are at the Tolip Hotel in Aswan. Please look it up . It's gorgeous! The reception and bar and restaurant are on the east side of the street. There is an elevator down and a tunnel to the west side of the street where the rooms are on the banks of the Nile River with a beautiful swimming pool area.
We were sooo happy to be there. We go go go on these trips but always try to schedule a down day here and there . Tomorrow will be that day. When we get on the Nile Cruise they will show us around Aswan so we don't feel like we have to try to see it by ourselves. So we plan to rest, a lot, and enjoy this view.
As you see, we were looking out onto a beautiful pool overlooking the Nile River with all the sailboats and river cruise ships. We sat and talked on our balcony until late. But then..,... we went to bed! And slept and slept... woke up to eat room service... and slept. We didn't leave our our room until 8pm on Thursday night. And just for dinner at the hotel and writing our blog at the bar. They will pick us up at 945a tomorrow ( Friday Sept 29) for the Nile River Cruise. So we are happy to have one lazy day on the whole trip!
Chris: All I really have is, when we left the hotel bar last night and got in the elevator to go to the tunnel the doors shut, it went down it felt like a few feet and stopped. No power, pitch black. Oops, what now ? All I could think of was to call Andy and give him the name of the hotel and tell him to call them and say, uuuuhhhh, my parents are stuck in your elevator in front of the hotel, could somebody try to get them out, please ? I was just about to see if my phone would work in there when Rhonda started just pushing button after button and just like that it fired back up and took us down it probably wasn't more than a minute or two but it felt like an eternity.
Then the next day I slept, we had dinner, had some wine and slept some more.
Love y'all.
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