You should get yourself to Egypt!!

 

There is nothing like a trip to China to make me feel like the post-arrival drive through Cairo reveals that traffic is not really all that bad here.  It’s hard to factor in the tiny additional detail of the fact that we managed to get in a little car accident on the road that exited the airport – it’s hard to know if I should count it at all, given that, sure, I heard the loud noise and realized that something had happened, but both vehicles pretty much ignored the contact and I doubt there was any real damage and everyone kept on driving and I was too tired to really care.

We have booked this trip through a company called Egypt and Beyond Travel.  I found them as I find most travel-related things – on the Rick Steves’ website.  It’s always a little bit of a risk when I book these trips – I’m doing business with apartment owners and drivers from so far away with no real way to vet credentials.  And the same was true here for Egypt – I contacted the company that RS used when he came to Egypt a few years ago and, all via email, the CEO of Egypt and Beyond Travel helped me come up with a 10 day tour.  I looked at a lot of other ways to tour Egypt…American tour operators etc., but they were almost twice the price of Egypt and Beyond.

Now that we’re here I see that this was a spectacular choice.  We arrived at the Cairo airport after 24 hours of travel, during which I made my inevitable statements to Ron about how I was too old to travel this far, how I am not doing this again etc.  If someone had so much as reclined their seat towards my knees on the last flight from Frankfurt to Cairo, I might have become homicidal but for the fact that Egypt Air flies with a security guard on board and he happened to be in the seat right in front of me.

So we get to the airport and it’s the typical airport scene with confusing signage about immigration and lots of lines to choose from without any clear signage of where Americans might have to go.  But none of this matters because our tour package includes Nelly, who is waiting INSIDE THE IMMIGRATION SIDE of the airport somehow and she simply hands me a red rose, takes us through the lines and obtains visas and clears immigration for us in about 5 minutes and we never speak with anyone at all.

And we thought that was pretty spiffy until we met Marwa, who is our guide in Cairo.  I don’t think, solo travelers that we prefer to be, that Egypt would be fun to transit on our own.  It’s exotic and intimidating and culturally very foreign and I was grateful for Marwa’s kind assistance all day.  She’s one of the best guides we’ve ever had and she makes the city feel like a manageable place to discover.  By comparison, once we were dropped off at the hotel this evening, we walked around the block, thought about crossing the street to the Nile River, watched the traffic for a minute, and then came back inside and decided to eat in the hotel.

We saw a lot of the big Cairo/Giza sites today – the pyramids, the Egyptian Museum.  Here’s a couple of shots from inside the museum, some of many showing Ron in deep conversation with Marwa – I’m pretty sure that having an Egyptian history guide at his side to throw dates and dynasty names around with is a life highlight for him:

But me?  Well you know me.  My interests lie elsewhere.  So here’s some highlights from my day.  Here’s Ron and Marwa trying to get a machine to change our US dollars to Egyptian pounds (18.5 pounds to the dollar – makes for a math nightmare for me as I try to price things)

 

Right above here are some 3500-year-old sandals that I couldn’t take my eyes off of at the Egyptian Museum.  And here’s a few shots from the van as we drove around.  Notice the unfinished buildings.  Apparently it’s because an unfinished building is not taxed the same way a finished one is – so while they look “undone”, they’re lived in.  The other shots are a little bread cafe we drove by and an alley off a main road – they’re everywhere. And, yeah, me holding up the Sphinx.

I can’t say enough about our decision to come see Egypt – finally.  We got a ton of curious comments from people when we announced our plans but I’m glad we’ve gone ahead and done it.  Marwa says tourism is starting to pick up and perhaps someday soon it will return to the hoards of tourists, thronging the amazing sites.  But for now it’s quieter and it’s making for a most amazing experience.  China was chaos everywhere with crowds and traffic and heat.  Egypt is very different, with an almost overpowering and visual historical appeal. Even I was nearly moved to tears when we drove up to those pyramids – the scale is staggering.

We feel safe and taken care of as we travel around.  There’s security at hotels, at every site and a large police presence on the streets.  Our Four Seasons has a German shepherd I’m terrified of that hangs out with a police officer at the front door.  Our biggest risk appears to be the traffic.  Oh, and the food!!!!!!  Oh my god it’s fantastic.  Hummus, tahini, tzatziki, eggplant.  I’ll try for more food pictures tomorrow – I failed to charge the camera yesterday and it died today while we were at the Great Pyramid of Giza – really.  A once in a lifetime experience and I failed to charge the camera.  At least I didn’t lose it, I guess (see 2014 trip to Florida).

I’ll talk to you again soon.  Tomorrow we tour a bit more of Cairo and then we fly down to Luxor to start our Nile River cruise.