Today was the first day of the hub and so all children and their parents were invited to see where all the action would take place over the next four weeks. We all met up on the Nile path and took the school buses together to the hub.

Louise and her team gave us an incredibly warm welcome and within a few minutes the children had become best friends with the resident little cat Jakey and two puppies (Sox and Rox).

The children were put into their hub groups (based on age) and set to on deciding what their community rules would be. They put these on posters and then shared them with everyone. The children also each decorated a flag with their name on to tell everyone a bit about themselves.

Family Arabic lesson
We all came together again for our first Arabic lesson. The focus is on speaking Arabic rather than reading/writing it (thank goodness!) and we went away knowing some basics to use in the village.

A visit from the sugar cane train!
The hub is based on a family-owned working farm out in the countryside set back from the west bank of the Nile. It’s surrounded by fields of sugar cane, banana trees, wheat, fruit trees and smaller crops of garlic and vegetables. There are also grazing animals and plenty of farm/guard dogs. Whilst we were there, the sugar cane train came through between the fields with a full load. The children were each given a sugar cane stick to suck on which was a hit with them all; it was so deliciously sweet!

I was really nervous about going to the hub for the first day but the moment we arrived I wasn’t nervous any more.

Both our girls left the hub super-excited and a lot less daunted about the next month. Both us parents left knowing our daughters would be safe, well-cared for and were going to have an amazing time with some fun-loving new friends.

I was nervous at first but then I saw the puppies and knew I’d be happy here.

Week 1: Hub Day 1 afternoon

Felucca birthday party

Today we had our first trip on the Nile to celebrate Max’s 10th birthday. The kids went in one felucca with a few supervising adults, and the parents in another. Needless to say, it was a lot more peaceful on the parents’ boat!

I felt like an explorer sailing down the Nile.

We sailed along the river to a restaurant where we shared cake and the kids played together (and found lots of stray dogs too).

The sunset was just amazing!

The first time we went on the Nile was a really magical moment.

Week 1: Hub Day 2 morning

It’s all about the food!

Today the kids went off to hub without parents so the adults went to a big supermarket on the East Bank to stock up on food.

Our first pizza at the hub was really yummy and the pool was really refreshing after the hub.

Whilst we were buying in some food, the kids were making their own for lunch. They made pizzas from scratch which were cooked in the hub’s clay oven made by a previous session. They also tried some traditional Egyptian foods.

I didn’t like falafel but I definitely liked the sugar cane juice: it was refreshing and sweet.

Whilst waiting for food to be ready, they learned how to do book-binding and used this new skill to make scrapbooks which the girls are keeping their Arabic learning in.

The girls were tired when they got back from hub, so relaxed in our pool all afternoon.

Week 1: Hub Day 3 morning

First go at meditation

Today the girls did a great variety of things. After circle time, which they do at the start of every day, they had their first session of meditation. Our girls really enjoyed it (Aggie almost feel asleep) and have said it’s something like they’d to carry on doing when we get home.

I was excited about doing meditation and it was really fun. We had a good laugh doing the face paints.

They played lots of games together, did some more Arabic and then had some fun with face painting.

The meditation was super relaxing and I nearly fell asleep!

When we went to collect the girls from the bus stop, we were greeted by an Aggie with a moustache! This caused the locals much amusement as we walked home. There’s an old man who often sits at the end of our street who we say hello to every day; he proper chuckled when he saw Aggie and, ever since, has referred to her as “the moustache girl”!

Week 1: Hub Day 3 afternoon

Temple Club – Tombs of the Nobles

Every Wednesday afternoon is Hub Temple Club. This is when all the families visit a site together with organised buses and guides if needed.

The walls were so colourful and vibrant in every tomb. I loved the fact that the tomb guard had the key to the tomb just on a bit of string

Our site for this first week was the Tombs of the Nobles. This was our first Ancient Egyptian site so we were super excited. Sadly Dom wasn’t feeling very well, so he had to stay at home and miss out which was not much fun for him.

Whereas the pharaohs’ tombs were sealed and guarded, the tombs of nobles and high officials were left open for their descendants to make offerings. The artwork inside focused on earthly life to comfort the families rather than the serious scenes of judgement and resurrection in royal tombs. The artists had a lot more freedom to paint what they wanted and the result is brilliantly coloured walls and ceilings with vibrant pictures.

We visited the tombs of Senofer, Rekhmire, Khonsu, Benia and Usherat.

The Tombs were fascinating and it was really interesting to hear about the story of the tour guide who used to live in the village on top of the tombs which got removed.

We really enjoyed these tombs and had to pinch ourselves that we were actually looking at artwork that was created as far back as 3,800 years ago.

We did a quick stop at the Colossi of Memnon, two 18m tall statues, before heading for a meal together in a hotel restaurant opposite.

Week 1: Hub Day 4 morning

Field trip

This morning the kids all took a boat up the Nile to an island which they’ve now named “Hubisland” (definitely all one word apparently!). Here they played games, did a treasure hunt, did a mini-beach tidy-up and then enjoyed a picnic. We hear they also did lots of dancing on the boat on the way back!

It wasn’t a special island but the memories we made there were really special. My favourite part of the trip was dancing on the boat.

Whilst the kids were having fun, the parents were busy packing for our long weekend away at the Red Sea.

I really liked all the little sea shells I found in the sand.

Week 1: Hub Day 4 afternoon

Travel to weekend at Red Sea

Once the kids were back from hub, all the families then piled into minibuses for the four-hour drive to El Quseir on the Red Sea coast. Here we stayed at a hotel called Roots which is a diving centre. Each family stayed in their own eco-hut and we had a toilet/shower block to share. We pretty much had the hotel to ourselves which was just as well, as we’re a noisy lot all together!

Week 1: Hub Day 5

Snorkelling for turtles

The first challenge this morning was to get everyone kitted up with wetsuits, fins, boots and snorkel masks; needless to say this took a while!

There was a turtle which I named Tiny Tim and he swam up between me and Daddy. I loved making a town with my friends and everyone had a shop or a house. We used different kinds of sand to build the shops and we had seashells which were washed up on the shore as our currency.

We then made our way down the coast to Abu Dabbab where there’s a long stretch of beach with reefs and turtles close to shore.

All four of us set out to snorkel but Susan opted out once in the water as the sea was just too rough for her.

The remaining three Wints coped brilliantly with the challenging swim and were rewarded with the sight of sea turtles feeding on the sea grass on the sea floor. They also saw lots of colourful fish and “eel-type-things” on the coral reef.

Seeing the turtles was an amazing experience. It was hard work because the sea was choppy and we were swimming against the tide.

We all then spent the rest of the day chilling at the beach. We read our books and soaked up the sun whilst Peggy joined the younger children in building a town on the beach. They fetched different coloured sands from different parts of the beach to create the separate buildings. Peggy was very proud of the bank and house that she made.

After a long day, we all returned to Roots for our evening meal together and an early night.

Week 1: Hub Day 6

More snorkelling

We hit the beach again this morning but this time just across the road from the hotel. The hotel has its own beach and reef so the three Wint snorkelers ventured out again. They saw a huge variety of coral and fish and the colours were spectacular.

The reef that we saw was even better than I’d imagined. There were a lot more fish and coral than the day before and a lot more colours.

Although Susan was a little sad not to see them too, she was more than happy sitting reading her book in peace for two hours!

There were hundreds of shells and pieces of dried coral on the beach and Peggy spent ages with the other kids cleaning some of them up so they could take them home.

After a lovely lunch down at the beach, we headed back to the main hotel where the kids hit the very chilly pool and the parents nattered away.

My favourite fish was a hot-pink and turquoise stripy fish. Back at the hotel the pool was freezing but I got used to it after a while.

We also spent time in the “snug” area which had a lovely warm fire and comfy cushions.

Week 1: Hub Day 7

Beach tidy up and back to Luxor

It was time to pack up and return to Luxor today. Whilst the parents were tidying up rooms and checking out, the kids all went to do a beach clean up.

I saw a lot of hermit crabs hiding from the wind. I picked a couple up and when they crawled across my hand, it tickled.

The kids picked up a depressing amount of rubbish from such a short stretch of beach. Everywhere we’ve been so far in Egypt, you see plastic blowing around and there’s rubbish on the side of every road and field. All of that will eventually end up in the sea but at least these bags didn’t.

The amount of rubbish we picked up was really sad. The weirdest things we found were shoes, a dirty nappy and lots of cans.

It was an uneventful four-hour drive back to Luxor where we treated ourselves to takeaway pizza after sorting out a new SIM card at the Vodaphone shop in the village.

Week 2: Hub Day 8

Egyptian bread making

Today the mother and daughter of the farmer, who owns the land where the hub is based, came to teach the children how to make traditional Egyptian bread.

I really enjoyed making the bread and I learned a lot from the ladies. This was one of my favourite days at the hub.

The kids also made soup from scratch and enjoyed eating what they’d made. Some bread actually made it home to us parents so we could try it; it was good solid bread (with no soggy bottom) and tasted lovely.

I was terrible at making the bread but I enjoyed eating it. I chopped up carrots for the soup and enjoyed eating the soup with the bread that we’d made.

Somehow they also managed to fit in learning 1-10 in Arabic and also paint their names on the hub walls.

Meal out with some four-legged company
After an afternoon in the pool, we went out for tea at Hotel El Fayrouz just as a family. We’ve learned that it takes ages for food to come in Egypt as they cook everything from scratch, so this time we came prepared with our books. Plus there’s always a cat in the vicinity of food to entertain us!

Week 2: Hub Day 9 morning

Weaving and Dyeing

Today was a full on craft morning which Peggy was particularly happy about. The kids used natural dye to dye headscarf fabric blue. They also learned how to weave with banana leaves and all about the actual banana plants too. There’s no better place to do this than on a farm surrounded by banana plants!

The weaving was fun to do. I splashed my headscarf with dye rather than soaking it because I wanted to do something different. It came out really well!

I really liked the bracelet that I made out of banana leaves and I also made a cute crown for Jakey the cat.

Week 2: Hub Day 9 afternoon

Family trip to The Valley of the Kings

Today was the day we got to see one of the most famous sites in Luxor – The Valley of the Kings.

As part of your entrance ticket, you’re able to see three of the many tombs: we chose KV14 Tausert/Setnaklt, KV11 Ramesses III and KV8 Metenptah.

Needless to say, we were blown away by these tombs. Each one had something special about it.

We also decided to visit a further three tombs which you had to pay extra for. These were: Seti I, Ramesses V/VI and, of course, the most famous of them all – Tutankamen!

Tomb of Seti I
We should have saved this tomb until last as this was by far the most impressive. Peggy sat down on the floor in the last chamber and declared “This is just blowing my mind!”

The artwork was amazing and incredibly well preserved.

The artwork was intact in a lot of places and the colours still so vibrant. In one chamber, there were just sketches on the walls – outlines of what they were planning on painting – but which never got completed as Seti died earlier than expected.

my favourite part was the room of sketches which was where none of the walls had been coloured in. It emphasised that all of these amazing tombs start with just pencil sketches on the walls.

Tomb of King Tutankamen
We were warned that this wouldn’t be a particularly impressive tomb and I’m sad to say those warnings were correct. After a steep set of steps down, you are met by Tut’s mummy and then the sarcophagus chamber. The echo of “is that it?” could be heard from many of the visitors. The girls were disappointed as they’d pictured something so much grander in their minds, and it wasn’t helped that we did this tomb straight after the splendid Seti! But we’re still glad we went in. How could we not?

Week 2: Hub Day 10 morning

Henna and Headscarves

This morning was much anticipated by Aggie as she’s wanted to get a henna tattoo done for years.

After designing a pattern, one of the ladies from the village came to do the henna tattoo on her hand. She was so proud of it when it was finished.

Using the headscarves that they’d dyed yesterday, everyone learned how to put on a headscarf; it’s not as easy as you’d think!

The rest of the morning was then spent creating mandalas out of natural materials they could find on the farm.

Week 2: Hub Day 10 afternoon

Temple Club – Ramesseum

In the afternoon, we joined nearly all the other families for a visit to the Ramesseum, the mortuary temple to Ramesses II.

This was a vast temple complex with lots of administrative buildings, stores and granaries.

One of the giant statues has fallen over and is laying horizontally on the ground. This helped us to fully appreciate the sheer size of the other statues on site.

Our visit here was sadly marred by very aggressive “guides” and “security staff” who demanded tips from us, despite doing absolutely nothing. Unfortunately this was a common occurrence at other sites too, but this was the worst experience we had. I was grateful we went here as a big group as we wouldn’t have felt safe with that aggression if we’d been alone.

Week 2: Hub Day 11 morning

Field Trip

The hub children hit the road this morning for a field trip. They visited Howard Carter’s House (which includes a replica of King Tut’s tomb), a Coptic nunnery (where they keep bees and collect honey) and then a mud brick village designed and built for local poor people by the famous Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy. A busy morning!

Week 2: Hub Day 11 afternoon

CSI and pool time

Today was the 100th anniversary of Howard Carter entering the sealed burial chamber of Tutankhamen’s tomb. What better way to commemorate this day, than to complete a CSI-style investigation into whether there is such a thing as a curse of Tutankhamen.

Thanks to the brilliant resource from Twinkl (which I’d printed off and prepared before leaving the UK) we looked at all the facts around a possible Tutankhamen curse. Some events were pretty spooky and nearly all could be explained away apart from a few….

It was a fun hour working through the investigation together. We pretty much decided that there wasn’t a curse but there was still a slight element of doubt about our conclusion.

We then finished off with some fun in our pool.

Week 2: Hub Day 12

Family trip to Karnak

After a lazy morning, we headed over the Nile to the East Bank with two other families to go and explore Karnak Temple. This was the place where the Ancient Egyptians believed creation began. The complex was built and added to over 1,300 years and ended up being the second largest religious building ever built ever (second only to Angkor Wat). The Great Hypostyle Hall is so big you could comfortably fit the Cathedral of Notre Dame inside it.

Needless to say, this was a seriously impressive place to visit. The scale of it was just mind boggling.

In hindsight, we wished we’d got a guide for this visit but that was more for the adults’ benefit: the kids were happy enough just roaming around together.

Once the kids were templed-out, we headed back over to our side of the Nile for tea where the restaurant had the friendliest cat ever. He befriended Dom straight away and sat contentedly on his lap for the whole evening; happy cat and happy Dom!

Week 2: Hub Day 13

Hub walk to the local market

This morning most of the hub families walked from the village across to the town food market 4 miles away. We walked through the fields and saw rural Luxor life in action.

It was super hot and the shade of Susan’s sun umbrella proved very popular!

The market was a bustling place with mounds of fresh produce brought by donkey and cart straight from the fields. There isn’t a huge variety of food as they really do only eat what’s currently in season but everything is most definitely fresh and very large compared to what we have back in the UK. Just look at those strawberries!

We then headed back for a meal along the Nile and then home for a quiet night of some British TV thanks to our VPN which we finally got to work.

Week 2: Hub Day 14 morning

Family day out to Dendera Temple

Today we hired a private minibus for the day to take just the four of us to Dendera Temple, then onto Abydos Temple and then back to Luxor. It was a full on nine-hour day but this was easily one of the best days we had in Egypt and put Dendera Temple firmly as our favourite temple. This is reflected in the number of photos included in this diary entry!

We all fell in love with Dendera. As we walked out, Peggy asked if we could come back again (sadly we didn’t make it).

This temple had it all. A jaw-dropping hypostyle hall, “secret” passages, crypts, a chance to go on the roof, intricate carvings and the most colourful paintings.

We spent two hours here and would have stayed longer if we hadn’t have been going to Abydos afterwards.

Up on the roof
We paid for the extra tickets to go up on the roof. In true Egypt style, there are no signs to tell you how you actually get up on the roof and no staff around to help either. Eventually we found someone who simply unlocked a padlock on a gate we could have stepped over, who let us through. We had the roof to ourselves which made it an extra special experience and worth the hassle of trying to get up there!

Down below
We loved going through the intricately decorated passageways and down in the crypts. Every inch of every wall and ceiling was covered in something. Wow wow wow!

Outside

The decoration wasn’t confined to just the inside of the temple. All the external walls were covered in carvings too.

Week 2: Hub Day 14 afternoon

Family Day out to Abydos Temple

We headed on from Dendera along some seriously interesting “roads” to get to Abydos Temple which is famous for its relief paintings and hieroglyphs. This temple is c1,000 years older than Dendera so it was brilliant to compare the two in one day.

This temple was built by Seti I whose tomb at The Valley of the Kings we loved the most.

We were in awe of the relief carvings and the famous list of kings in hieroglyphs. The detail was so incredible and again, the colours still so vibrant in parts.

After just over an hour here, full on temple-fatigue set in for the girls. They’d had enough (“we’re all egyptian-ed out”) and so we headed back on the road for the three-hour drive back to Luxor.

After the long drive back, we headed for a meal out. This time our feline companion wasn’t so chilled and friendly but was hell-bent on getting some of Peggy’s chicken burger. We spent most of the meal trying to get rid of the said cat!

Week 3: Hub Day 15

Papyrus paper making

The girls enjoyed a full morning learning how papyrus paper is made and giving it a go themselves. The end result is pretty impressive! They also made bookmarks out of papyrus paper which they decorated with hieroglyphs and learned some more Arabic.

Whilst the kids were having fun, us parents had a morning of food shopping, washing and cleaning. It doesn’t matter where in the world you are, these things still have to be done!

The girls finished off a busy day with a dip in the pool. We then had the very traditional Egyptian meal of burger and chips at home: sometimes you just need some “normal food” apparently!

Week 3: Hub Day 16 morning

Lunch anyone?

Today all the hub children spent the morning making lunch and then all the parents arrived to share it with them. The food was delicious and the company even better!

Aggie particularly enjoyed making the tomato sauce for the pasta on the juice bike. It takes quite some pedalling to keep the blender working!

They even put on some after-lunch entertainment for us too.

Week 3: Hub Day 16 afternoon

Guided trip to Hatshepsut Temple and Medinet Habu

We joined three other families for a trip to the Temple of Hatshepsut this afternoon and then onto the Temple of Medinet Habu.

This was absolutely full of coach loads of tourists; it was by far the busiest place that we’ve been. That didn’t detract from the impressive building and setting. The temple paintings though didn’t really get us excited; we’ve been totally spoilt so far with more amazing sights.

Medinet Habu
Next we moved onto Medinet Habu which was a massive surprise as it’s not one that it often visited. This was the mortuary temple to Ramesses III and is now our second favourite temple so far! Here all the pictures and hieroglyphics were carved deeply into the stone in an attempt to stop future generations rubbing them out or changing them. It sort of worked….

We had a bit of a rushed visit with our guide here. Although all ancient sites are open until 5pm in Luxor, we’ve now learned that you get harassed and chucked out at about 4.45pm!

We loved this temple and wish we could have stayed a bit longer. It was a smaller site so it was a bit easier for the kids to take it all in, and the stonework was just amazing.

Followed by pancakes!
Today was pancake day so we made some pancakes for tea using some pancake mix we found in the supermarket (we had no scales or cups to measure out ingredients to make our own). The strawberries here are ridiculously delicious (and so cheap!) so we ate the pancakes with those and some dark chocolate sauce. They were most agreeable!

Week 3: Hub Day 17 morning

Clay tile making

The kids started the day off with some meditation. After being sceptical about it, they’ve actually really enjoyed these sessions and have both said they’d like to carry on with it at home.

They then got on with the main activities of the day which were making clay tiles and decorating them and starting the process of making eco-paper.

They also played lots of games together and Peggy taught Mustafa, one of the hub staff, how to make boxes out of origami.

Week 3: Hub Day 17

Temple Club – Deir El Medina

Today, most families joined the trip to Deir El Medina. This was the mountainside village where the artisans lived who worked on the pharaohs’ tombs. They had houses on the ground and made their own family tombs deep underneath these houses.

This community was kept completely segregated from the other Egyptians so only they knew the secret of where the royal tombs and their contents were. It’s believed though that they were also the most active grave robbers!

We had to walk down steep steps into these tombs which were very warm. But wow – we were met with the deepest and most vibrant colours! Considering these tombs are c3,000 years old, they honestly looked like someone had just nipped down with their sharpies!

Deir El Medina Temple
After the tombs, we headed over to the temple on site which later served as a Coptic monastery. It’s unique as the judgement scene is depicted here, something that was usually reserved for tomb paintings only. Our guide very enthusiastically talked us through the various scenes on the walls; he had the kids engrossed.

Week 3: Hub Day 18 4.30am start

Hot air ballooning across Luxor

What an experience! This was most definitely worth the 4.30am alarm call and the best Christmas present ever (thank you Grandma)!

Once we arrived at the take off field, we were surrounded by balloons which were all inflating and getting ready to take off. The roar of all the burners was deafening.

We were all a little nervous once we got inside the basket but, once we took off, all nerves were left on the ground. We soon reached quite a height and the silence (except for occasional blasts from the burner) was incredible.

I didn’t like waking up early but the moment we got up in the sky, it was all worth it.

The wind direction meant we went over the fields and towards the Nile rather than across the historical sites but we didn’t mind one bit. We could still see some temples we’d been to and we loved going over houses and waving to people having their breakfast on their balconies and roofs.

The landing was great fun with handlers running through fields of banana trees trying to catch our ropes. It was a surprisingly smooth landing and the balloon was packed away at lightning speed.

The views were breath-taking and I said hello in Arabic to a lot of people down on the ground.

This is an experience we’ll remember always. It was so, so special. Egypt is one of the cheapest places in the world to do hot air ballooning. This adventure cost us just £30 each. What a bargain!

Week 3: Hub Day 18 morning

Sports Day

After a quick breakfast back at home, we headed over to the sports field next to the Nile in our village to take part in the hub family sports day.

We played traditional games like the egg and spoon race, tug of war and three-legged races. Both children and parents joined in and we all had great fun. There was a refreshing lack of competitive parents!

Week 3: Hub Day 18 afternoon

Family trip to Mummification Museum

After sports day, we took a water taxi over the Nile to go to the Mummification Museum. You can guess what this museum is about!

It’s just one large room, and we were only there for about 25 minutes, but we enjoyed looking round the exhibits and understanding more about the mummification process. This was our first museum of the trip and it gave us a cooler option than walking around a temple, especially after being out in the sun for sports day.

We came back across the Nile, found ice creams and then collapsed at home for a doze. The 4.30am start meant the rest of the afternoon and evening was a right off!

Week 3: Hub Day 19

Luxor to Aswan

Together with two other families, we made the trip down to Aswan by train today. Trying to buy train tickets was “an experience” but we got there in the end.

Once we arrived in Aswan. we had a lovely walk from the train station to the ferry port. We walked through the old souks and were bombarded with the most amazing smells from all the spices on sale. The colours were amazing too.

Over to Elephantine Island
We then jumped on the local ferry which cost just 13p each to get to Elephantine Island, our home for the next two nights. This island is just a maze of basic houses with narrow streets between: there are no vehicles here. There are dogs and cats on every corner though.

We were luckily met by our host at the ferry stop as we were never going to find our house on our own!

Sunset Felucca trip round the island and on for tea
After a brief refresh, we went on a sunset felucca ride around the island and then stopped off at a restaurant – King Jamaica – on the shore for some tea. We were definitely ready for our beds tonight!

Week 3: Hub Day 20

Aswan – Phillae Temple

We approached Phillae Temple by boat and we finally got to see the Aswan Old Dam which Dom and Susan had learned so much about in school.

Unbelievably, this temple ended up fully submerged once the Aswan Dam was built and so, with international help, the temple was moved stone by stone out of the Nile water and moved to this island. They even changed the shape of the island so it matched the original site.

This temple was seriously impressive and had the most amazing setting. It almost felt Mediterranean when you looked cross Lake Nasser at the scenery.

We paid for the extra ticket to go up on the roof and it was great from there to see how vast the site was.

If you were to ask the kids what they enjoyed the most, though, they’d say the cats. There were cats absolutely everywhere!

Unfinished Obelisk
We went on from Phillae Temple to the unfinished obelisk. This is an obelisk that was roughly dressed and nearly cut free from the bedrock but was abandoned after a flaw in the stone was discovered. Had it been finished, it would have weighed 1,168 tonnes and stood 42m high.

It blew our minds how the heck they were planning on getting that out of the quarry in one piece. The information boards simply said “they used levers and pulleys”!

Whilst the parents were in awe of the Egyptian engineering, the kids found a litter of four adorable puppies up on the top of the quarry. If that wasn’t enough cuteness, they then found another five puppies and their Mum on the way to the exit. This will forever be referred to as the place with all the puppies!

After an “interesting” tuk tuk ride, and refuelling stop for some lunch, we headed over to the Nubian Museum next.

Nubian Museum
The Nubian Museum is big; there was so much to take in here. It’s a really well laid out museum with so many varied displays of artefacts and reconstructions. All the information boards and labels were in really good English too.

It will always be a memorable visit as we found out here that both girls had passed their Grade 5 ABRSM music theory exams with merit. We did a happy jig and squeal in the foyer together!

An evening on Elephantine Island

We were now tired and museum-ed out, so we headed back to Elephantine Island for a relaxing evening together (with no electricity as there was a power cut) and an early night. On our way back to the house, we nearly trod on a scorpion! The picture is rubbish as it was moving quickly and it was pitch black, but it was really cool to see it.

Week 3: Hub Day 21

Aswan to Luxor

We could have stayed longer in Aswan but we felt we’d seen enough to do it justice. We therefore headed back to Luxor today via train.

The ticket buying experience was the usual fun (it took the entire hour we’d allowed time wise!) but the train was “super posh” and a lot more comfortable for the three-hour trip back.

Once we were back in Luxor, we walked from the train station to the Nile and hopped on a boat across and then walked back home. The girls got straight in the pool and hit their screens for some relaxation time. The laziness continued with takeaway pizza for tea!

Week 4: Hub Day 22 morning

A super messy morning

Today’s hub session was all about getting mucky hands and feet. The children continued making eco-paper which they started preparing last week.

A previous session at the hub made a clay oven which the hub uses for baking bread and pizzas. It was time for it to have a patch-up as the surface soon cracks and breaks away in the sun. The children had great fun creating the mud and putting it on the oven.

Somehow they also found the time to make soup for lunch.

Pool party fun
After the hub, all the families headed over to the local hotel pool to celebrate the birthdays of Nyima and Jack. We rather took over the place (with a few hotel guests looking less than impressed) but the kids had great fun playing together and eating cake. The adults loved catching up with each other and talking about what everyone’s plans were for after the hub. Fewer than half the families have full-time homes, so it was exciting to hear where people were heading onto next.

Week 4: Hub Day 23

Meditation and nail art

After playing lots of games together and doing meditation to start the day off, the kids learned the days of the week in Arabic. They then set to on the main activity of the day which was creating some nail art.

There was also much excitement today as they had pancakes for their lunch ; always a winner in our house!

After the hub session, we all headed to the hotel swimming pool again for more playing and nattering.

Mums’ Night Out
Tonight the kids were left to it with friends and Dads so all the Mums could go out for a meal together. We had a thoroughly lovely evening enjoying good food and company. The conversation always flowed as freely as the wine and laughter. It was a really special night with ladies I’d only known for four weeks yet who already felt like good friends.

Week 4: Hub Day 24

Reflection and Koshari

Today was the last “normal” day of hub so the kids set out to make the most of it. They all made koshari together and played lots of games, the favourite being Wink Murder.

In their groups, they made reflection posters where they drew/listed out their top five things for:

Their favourite activities
What they enjoyed the most
What they’ll miss the most
What they’ve learned

Lazy afternoon
The sadness of it nearly being time to leave Egypt set in today so we had a lazy afternoon back at the house and started the boring process of packing.

Week 4: Hub Day 25

LAST DAY!

The girls were very grumpy this morning as they didn’t want today to be their last day. They were determined though to make the most of it.

The girls headed off for one last time on the school bus. At the hub, they decorated t-shirts which they all signed.

All us parents then arrived to watch their reflection presentations on their posters and to lunch together one last time at the hub. We all said our thank yous to the hub staff and said a teary goodbye.

The girls will desperately miss the hub. They’ve loved it. Really really loved it.

We all headed over to the hotel swimming pool for one last time together. It was so hard saying a final goodbye to each family as they left. There were plenty of tears.

THANK YOU EVERYONE!
What an amazing community we were for four super-special weeks. We can’t thank Louise and her team enough (Luxor Learning Hub) for bringing us all together and giving us such an amazing experience. We’ve learned so much from all the other families and have enjoyed their company immensely. They’ve inspired and encouraged us to be a little braver and to live the life we want to lead rather than always dreaming of “what if….”. They’ve shown our girls that life is all about choices and in most cases these can be changed as your life views change; don’t just settle for what you have forever more if that no longer fulfils you. All our eyes have been truly opened to alternative ways of living; the girls have seen it in action. And we’ve had a right laugh along the way learning all this too!

THANK YOU TO YOU ALL!

Goodbye Luxor!

We will miss our home for the last month

Today was time to leave Luxor and head over to Hurghada before our flight home. We’ve loved our house for the last four weeks. It really did feel like home. And boy will Aggie miss that pool!

Back to Hurghada
We treated ourselves to a private taxi back to Hurghada rather than taking the bus. We enjoyed having the van to ourselves and being able to stretch our legs out more!

As soon as we arrived at the Steigenberger Hotel, the kids got straight in the pool which was a lot warmer than ours back in Luxor. We also made the most of our all-inclusive wristbands by hitting the ice cream cabinets. Luxor already felt like a dream once we were back in easy tourist mode.

That’s why we’ve written this diary. We need to keep the memories alive!

Our Egypt Worldschool Experience

Diary of our Egypt Worldschool Experience

Day-to-day Diary of our trip to Egypt

Family day at Hub