Before I head out again (not much time left), let me finish up my Egypt story.

My whole trip was basically planned around visiting all these ancient ruins from Luxor and further south up to Abu Simbel. They're absolutely stunning—both in terms of scale and the fact that some of these structures are 3,000-4,000 years old. They don't look as monumental in pictures, but seeing them in person is really something special. Totally worth all the hassle :)

Speaking of hassle. I had some bad luck with water in Luxor: when I got there, there'd been no water for a whole day. In the entire city! The mayor was saying to the press that they'd get it fixed soon. I needed to spend a couple nights there, and when I left, nothing had changed. Well, it came back for a couple of hours once, that's it. Even the local news was posting about water distribution points. But overall, it was pretty rough. You'd walk into a café and couldn't even wash your hands or use the bathroom.