Since we got to Switzerland, with it being only a 4 hour flight away, we put Egypt on our list to try and visit. We tried to go in October 2010, but due to no advance planning the costs were crazy expensive, so we made a point in January to book a trip for October 2011 during the kid’s school break. However, the timing of our plans did not serve us well: the country went ahead and had this "revolution" in February – fantastic for the people, but gave us pause – would it be safe by October, especially with our kids in tow? And it wasn't just us giving this consideration: my mom was not a happy camper, and called every week up until our departure begging us not to go.
But we were determined - how could we miss out on this opportunity to go while we were so close; we had heard stories of huge drops in tourism that the country so vitally depended on, and had heard stories of the locals taking care of tourists to ensure they come home with great stories of their visit to encourage their other friends to come. Even with a demonstration the weekend before that left 25 people dead in Cairo (our interpretation was an isolated religious incident), we packed out bags and headed out…
And let me just say here: we were right. Egypt is amazing, safe, and a place everyone should visit in their lifetime. The local people were so helpful and accomodating, and they desparately need your tourist dollars (or whatever currency you work in). Plan to go now, or figure out when you should go - our experience was so great and tapped so into the history of mankind on this planet, that you shouldn't miss out on this.
We started our trip in Cairo, and I would characterize it as the “anti-Switzerland”: dirty streets, piles of garbage, and numerous half-finished construction sites or just broken old buildings (our guide the next day told us that people purposely don’t finish their buildings but live in them anyway to avoid taxes). There is chaotic street traffic, with no defined lanes and pedestrians crossing freeways lane by lane as cars fly by. Honking is a national pastime – to let the other car know you are there, to just say hello – who knows. It is constant and actually rather charming – actually all of the chaos was calm and enjoyable. Eric and I both noted that it brought back fond memories of India – there is a strong and warm spirit that just makes you feel safe and somehow conveys an optimism in life…
The first night we hooked up with our guide, Mohammed, who took us to the old market – I have to say it might be one of the most special nights I have ever had. The comfortably warm evening, the warm spirit in the air, the beautiful trinkets and charms, the lights, the random call of the guys hawking all the stuff – pushy a little bit, but as Mohammed explained, if you just ignore them they go away. We stopped for mint tea, mango nectar, and pomegranate juice (complete with pomegranate seeds) at a historical old café, complete with men and women smoking on their water pipes. The kids loved it!
Mohammed walked us around, explaining the history, pointing out beautiful mosques and actually getting us in to a free marionette show. Eric even got a haircut and a shave – which Mohammed got really mad at the barber due to charging Eric an “tourist” price of ~ $17 instead of the $9 it should have cost – serves us right for not negotiating the price ahead of time!
I have to say, before we came, that I wondered if it would be safe going the the open market – what if someone set off a bomb? What if people tried to rob the obvious foreigners? But instead it was the opposite – Cairo is a huge city of regular people doing regular daily life kind of things – and yes we were tourists that stood out, but tourist stand out in San Francisco, too, no? Mohammed actualy said that Egypt is known for very little street crime – there are just not muggings and such as we find in the US. The revolution had nothing to do with tourists, and like we were told before we came, the locals want us to feel at home so we send our friends (and their wallets) over in short order.
After a great night’s sleep we met up with Mohammed again for a drive out to Giza to see the pyramids. If I remember correctly, there are 116 pyramids throughout Egypt, but we were going to see the “great” ones. Again, the whole time Mohammed is giving advice on how to avoid the annoying hawkers, and make sure we had a great time.
Albeit it was hot, and dusty, it was AMAZING! Just like the Taj Mahal, it completely exceeded my expectations – and the kids were loving every minute. Mohammed frequently took our camera from us and made us pose for pictures – he knew all the great angles and kooky shots. He wanted to ensure we had great memories of Egypt.
From the same location we drove down to the Sphinx – again, AMAZING! Mohammed showed us pictures in a book store afterward that showed how the Sphinx was discovered buried in sand up to his neck, and how archeologists have unearthed him since. It was all too good to be true, and rivaled the specialness of the evening before.
And if that was not enough, we then drove back to the hotel to walk across the busy streets (yes, between cars and lanes of moving traffic!) to the Egyptian Museum – where we got to see amazing artifacts, especially the treasures from King Tut’s tomb. We could not have asked for a better day!
Kudos go to Mohammed – great historical facts (I don’t think we found a single question he couldn’t answer), great advice, great pictures, fought to ensure things were fair and nice and comfortable for us the whole time – anyone who goes please let us pass on his name – he made the 1 ½ days in Cairo about 10X better than if we had done it alone…
That night we flew to Luxor, where the next day we met up with our next tour-guide George – nice, nice man, but Mohamed had really spoiled us… We went to the Valley of the Kings to view the amazing tombs of a few of the Ramses, and then off to a few temples – all 3000 to 4000 years old. I have to say Egypt should do a better job promoting tourism – the ruins here were mind-boggling older than anything in Rome, and in many ways mind-bogglingly better preserved. The magic, we discovered, is that there is no rain to be had in Egypt – so even though the pyramids are made of limestone, they have all not dissolved away as Cairo gets 1 day of rain A YEAR.
So Luxor was painfully hot – at least 38C, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was even hotter than that. Some of that wonderful street café food I had eaten in Cairo was starting to disagree with me (or maybe some stomach conflict with the Luxor hotel breakfast?), and with the mix of heat I could barely stand up by then end of the tour of temple #1. Eric and the boys felt great, and forged on, while I literally slept in the van. Now it crossed my mind that children kept in cars have died from the heat that builds up in there – and it did cross my mind that it might not be the best choice – but I had no other choice, as we had checked out of the hotel to fly that night to our next destination - and my body was not going to budge another inch. I survived – actually the sleep felt fantastic – and though I missed two great temples, Eric has the pictures to prove we were there. I see it as a reason to go back some day…
So that night we flew to Sharm El Sheikh, a resort town on the tip of the Sinai Peninsula that was quite reminiscent of the Canary Islands: hotel buffet, lounging by the pool, beach nearby…and we were not going to do ANYTHING. Time to start the complete relaxation: sleeping, eating, watching movies, lounging poolside… I was still suffering from a sort of toxic fatigue from whatever it was that disagreed with me, and even both boys had bouts with something that caused the offending food to come out top or bottom – but dozing half the day seemed just fine – after our world-wind tour schedule the first three days, I think we earned it. Karl and Bennett made sure to take full advantage of the game room, and Eric (who felt great the whole time) got in some good workout time. A good time was had by all.
But on day 4 of the relaxation schedule we decided to put in one more tour: an excursion to Petra, Jordan (just watch Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade). Now normally there is a flight tour from Sharm that takes you to Jordan and then by bus to the site – with the drop in tourism the flight has been cancelled, so the only choice is a bus/boat/bus tour that requires you to catch leg #1 at 4 am from your hotel. Being so close we couldn’t pass it up, and knew we could all sleep on the bus…
So with true things-go-wrong-on-vacation precision, Eric gets an email the day before saying that the pick up time has changed – TO 1:20 AM! Eric hits the roof on this, and is virtually cursing to the guy on the phone, who has no explanation, and eventually gets the hotel concierge involved as well.
Turns out the boat schedule is messed up due to some conflict with Israel (Jordan only has a tiny bit of coastline tucked between Israel and Saudi Arabia) or something like that – so 1:20 AM it is. In a strange twist of fate, I think this was really a blessing in disguise, as I told Eric that he should now just let everything go, and whatever was to happen the next day is what happens – no point in getting angry anymore. And so both of us gave in to the lack of process, unclear logistics and passport processing, and paid enough attention to know what bus/boat to be on so we were not left behind. I don’t know if all the tourists were so lucky…
I won’t bore you with the travel details, besides this fast summary: 11 hours to get there, 3 hours at Petra, and then 1½ hours for lunch only to do another 10 ½ hours to get home – and if you did your math correctly, you would know that we got in bed at 3:30 AM the next day.
Was it worth it? This is an interesting question, especially one month later. The long hours of boredom are faded memories; the frustration of waking up our kids for passport checks at midnight is long gone; it was in all truth a lot of hassle for three hours, but it was amazing to see and experience, and did get us a feel for a part of the world and a time in history that is different than Egypt and truly a special natural wonder. Will we go back again? Not likely...
So with that we did a few more days of relaxation before finally heading back to Switzerland that was starting to head into winter. It was an amazing experience, especially with Karl and Bennett, to see parts of the world we had never imagined ever experiencing before. It was a fantastic climax to all the travel we had done in the last year and a half.
I am so thankful to Eric who diligently planned all the trips, and who kept the energy going to keep us traveling.And ironically, as the picture from the Jordan bus ride shows the beautiful sunset, so too, our story is now starting to come to an end. We had just found out that I got a new position back in the US, and we would be coming home at the end of the year. What an amazing ride these last two years had been, from finding out we were coming, to now thinking about going home. How fast would these last three months be?
