Blogs from Lower Egypt, Egypt, Africa - page 5

From the air Cairo is compelling, a dusty monochrome of building blocks stacked and formed in rows. The sunlight cast harsh shadows emphasizing the uniformity of color style and shape rows of buildings looked like sentries. From the air nothing was moving. Sand, dusty ochre and red bricks, template buildings, blocks with window squares punched out. No relief. Treeless. No shade. One color. Sand. Hazy sky. Sahara dust. Temperature 34 degrees. A Lego blocks city in sand and ochre. With dust. On the ground layers of Sahara dust smother everything. It's Grey in the sky. It's on trees leaves streets cars buildings. Some people too. Men wear flowing robes, cotton. White robes look pristine, greys and greens look grimy. Women with colorful Headwear open faced. Some though in full cover, wearing black, only their eyes visible. ... read more

I'm back on the road and back with the blogs for a few weeks, and as the title suggests I'm EGYPT!. My earliest memory of learning about the ancient Egyptians comes from when I was in year 4, so when I was around 8 years old. Ever since it's been a dream to come and visit some of the oldest structures in the world, built by some of the most amazing humans to ever walk the planet...or aliens ;). I wanted to come when me and Dave first set off 15 months ago, but due to flight prices going up when we wanted to book we went straight to India, much to my dismay. Given the current “situation” in the country, now seemed like the perfect time to visit Egypt. A situation that doesn't exist by ... read more

Geo: 30.0982, 31.2461I am going to try to do Egypt in 3-4 postings. This is the first. Egypt is an amazing place to visit. I chose to do a tour with G Adventures. This is a small group tour company that I also used last year to go to Israel and Jordan. Brenda, my travel buddy, also did the tour. We have known each other since 6th grade and first traveled together, to Europe, right out of high school. I realized very quickly how little I know about its incredible history. Of course, I knew it was ancient and could name a few historical figures – Tutankhamen, Ramses II, Nefertiti, Cleopatra etc.. I had no idea of the actual periods of time of their existences and how important or not important they were in the overall ... read more

Egypt part 3 So on Saturday we set off by taxi for Luxor with a stop off in Edfu to see our final temple. We passed through Kom Ombo in the car and it looked worse than from the train and it gets our vote as the worst place we have ever been overtaking Berastagi, in Sumatra and Varanasi in India. The temple at Edfu was magnificent and there were only about 20 other people. Back in Luxor we checked into the Iberotel with a pool on the banks of the Nile. The setting was fabulous. However as with most of Egypt nothing is quite what it seems and having unpacked the bags we found out the shower didn’t work and after checking it couldn’t be fixed so we had to move rooms..............and that needed fixing ... read more

When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable. - Clifton Fadiman We met our travel companions last evening for our short meeting, then we walked to downtown Cairo for dinner together. We have 12 in our group, 6 Australians, 3 New Zealanders, and us 3 Canadians. We walked over the bridge, through Tahrir Square, to the Felfala restaurant. On the way I asked our tour guide, Amr, whether the restaurant served alcohol. He gave me a sidelong glance and said no (I had asked during the meeting whether the sleeper train had a bar car so he clearly thinks I'm an alcoholic). The restaurant seemed like the type that might serve alcohol (some locals but also tourists were there) so ... read more