For our final day in Egypt we definitely left on a high as we experienced the beauty of an Egyptian sunset from the air.

In the wee hours of the morning we were up and ready to go to the valley of the Queens for a hot air balloon ride. Not all of us are morning people at the Ball house. There was some cries of “I don’t want to go!” and “No!” as I woke the kids at 3:45 am. We quickly ate our treats from our host in Cairo (she deserves her own blog post) and went out into the cool morning to find our van.

We were driven down to the Nile docks and boated across (D’s favourite form of transport). We huddled together in our puffy jackets to stay warm and survived off the warm beverages presented by our skipper. That morning, encouraged by the hot coffee and tea, I signed the safety briefings for everyone. I had already provided our passport photos to our tour guide in case of… you know.

Arriving at the launch field we got to watch as the ground crews directed fans to blow air into the big balloons. They started up the burners to heat the air and we were treated to a light show across the field. Each of the 20ish balloons lit up to make a dazzling show of lights.

Once our balloon was up and ready we hopped into the basket with 28 other people and were ever so gently lifted up to the sky.

Despite the early morning protests this was easily the kids’ favourite activity. Seeing the monuments and temples from a height was stunning. We felt safe the whole time. We probably didn’t even have time to be scared because we were so in awe of this experience the whole time.