Today we got up early for a three-hour bus ride to Abu Simbel a temple complex built by Ramses II (Ramses the Great) at the southern border of Egypt during his reign.

We got up early for a 5:30am breakfast at the hotel before a slow drive to the airport (Cairo traffic is horrible) for a one-hour flight to Aswan in the south of Egypt. It took longer to drive to the airport than to fly to Aswan.

Saqqara is outside Cairo on the west side of the Nile. Here we visited the step pyramid of Djoser and the tomb of a high official in the sixth dynasty Kagemni.

In the morning we visited two mosques. The Al-Rifa’i Mosque and the Mosque-Madrassa of Sultan Hassan.

The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities opened in 1902. It is packed full now as more discoveries have been added over the years. There is a new museum under construction by the pyramids in Giza, it will have much more room for displaying artifacts.

We moved over to the downtown Cairo tour hotel today. Cairo traffic earned its reputation. It seems that the horn is required equipment on a vehicle driving here. Lane lines are suggestions that are taken somewhat lightly. It took 90 minutes to go the 13 miles from the airport to the hotel. We took Uber, it was around $8 for the ride. Our driver was a flight attendant that had recently been laid off when his airline went under. He had been hired by Egypt Air, but was waiting for his training class to start before he could fly. His English was excellent.

This was our last day in the park. We had stayed overnight in Terlingua on the west side of the park, so drove the Ross Maxwell drive back through the park to leave through Persimon Gap on the north side of the park.

We stopped to hike at the Lower Burro Mesa Pour-off trail and the Grapevine Hills trail on the way out.

Ross Maxwell scenic drive is the road to the western part of the park.

Like yesterday, today is going to be a lot lighter on hiking.

We headed towards the eastern portion of Big Bend this day, visiting Dugout wells, the Rio Grand Village area and Boquillas Canyon.

Given the hiking volume yesterday, today is going to be a lot lighter.

After driving for 15 hours over a day and three quarters, we arrived at Chisos Basin in Big Bend National Park the afternoon of March 6.