That sounds awesome Cameron.
I can't wait to see the pictures and here about some of your adventurers.

Bill

Awesome, post some pics asap! 😀

Excellent.....Amazing palms in UK...Gotta love that!

Egypt first:

I apologize in advance to those with a bad internet connection! It will take awhile to load all of the pics 😆

MEMPHIS:

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A smaller Sphinx with some nice date palms

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The huge statue inside

CAIRO / GIZA: (Sunny with 50 C that day)

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Pyramids

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A bit closer

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The haze in the background is the city. A lot of people don't realize that the pyramids are 2 kms or so away from the hustle and bustle of Giza, and not out in the middle of nowhere! 😀

From Cairo we headed south to Aswan to catch a cruise ship back up the Nile, to Luxor. Before leaving Aswan, we took a felucca (sailboat) over to the Aswan Botanical Gardens, which are located on an island in the middle of the Nile. I know I'll probably get some of the scientific names wrong, so I'll try to edit this post over time 😀 The pics arent the greatest, since they were taken with a BB.

Aswan:

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Arriving at the island

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A bunch of plants:

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Royal palm?

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Attalea saccharifera? (huge!!)

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Hyphaene thebaica

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Phoenix reclinata

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Really tall Washie

More pics:

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This Loquat must have been atleast 15 feet tall

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Cycas cricnalis?

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Sabal blackburniana

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Tall Washie

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A tall Phoenix dactylifera. I must have seen litterally over 100 000 of these throughout the trip 😀

More:

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Rhapis?

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Cycas revoluta

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Kapok (ceiba) tree

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Roystonia regia

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Row of Roystonia

Almost done:

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View looking towards Aswan

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Psidium guavaja with developing fruit

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A tall Cocos nucifera (coconut). They had some other ones tagged as "Cocos capitata", so I think they must be some type of Syagrus

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Cycas sp.

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Tall Sabal palmetto

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TC Lab

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End of the island

Excellent. IS that aMAdagascar dragon tree in the last pic? I was in the Peace Corps in Comoros ISlands and saw loads of those and Baobab trees all over the place too..Thanks for sharing.

😀

Nearly there

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I brought back a couple of seeds from these Phoenix in Luxor 😈

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Phoenix with fruit

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These carvings are over 3000 years old and look brand new!

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Sunrise over the Nile with some hot air balloons in the distance

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Our cruise ship

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Hatshepsut's Temple

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I also pocketed a few Phoenix seeds from our hotel in Sharm el Sheikh 😈

One thing that really surprised me was that in cities, Washingtonia were actually more common than Phoenix! It must be some kind of issue with the amount of space Phoenix take up 😆 I would highly recommend Egypt as a whole, as well as the travel company, Aton Travel.

Sidpook, I think it's just a ficus that they trimmed in a weird way. I wish they had a dragon tree though!

Well worth the wait. Thanks for all the eye candy. Love the nile palms, the two headed ones or branched ones are 8)

Think the branched ones, (photo #13, and elsewhere), are Hyphaene thebaica

Great photos! Thanks for sharing, love to see all those Phoenix's at home 8)

Steve