Blogs from Egypt, Africa - page 9

I can't believe how incredible the Abu Simbel Temple is. Before I get to that I want to include a few details. I am traveling with GAdventures for the "Best of Egypt, Jordan, and Israel". I have taken many GAdventures trips before and I've been pleased with all of them. Our group consist of mostly Australians, 1 Brit, 1 Columbian, 2 Canadians, and 3 Americans (14 in all). Our guide is Khaled - has great stories, very knowledable, very funny, and very talented (he is a musician and has an Egyptian cooking show). The group is compatible and fun. Also, I haven't labeled the pictures for 3 days because I'm using someone's hotspot and I have limited time. Tomorrow we get on a Felucca and do an overnight to Luxor - so I won't have wifi ... read more

I did not have wifi on the train, and the wifi at our hotel in Aswan is terrible, so the photos will not be labeled because I'm using someone's hot spot. Today our leader Khaled (aka “Elvis”) brought us to the Egyptian Museum and gave us a whirlwind tour of the highlights of the museum. This museum houses a spectacular collection of Pharoanic antiquities. There are more than 120,000 pieces on display from statues to sarcophagus, to jewelry, to boats, to ancient papyrus, with the most spectacular the items from King Tut’s tomb. King Tut only served as King 7 or 8 years and died when he was 19 or 20. He was not the most significant king in Ancient Egypt, but his tomb was intact and not raided so all of the items were there ... read more

After 22 hours flying from San Diego to San Francisco to Frankfurt to Cairo – I arrived on Wednesday, Feb. 25th. The flight to Frankfurt was not crowded so everyone found seats to stretch out on and sleep. Thankfully I arranged an airport pickup. Ali helped me with the customs steps and then we got into the van for a 1 hour ride to the hotel. Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak died and there were street closures so it took longer to get to the hotel – plus the traffic is a nightmare. I arrived 2 days before the tour starts so I figured out what I wanted to see. Ali told me I could get in touch with the trip guide but for some reason I couldn’t get through to his phone. Transportation choices here ... read more

Just as bad as a Europe flight to get here....22hrs in total...change at Dubai and then 4hr flight to Cairo. Our driver was there to meet us and it was quite easy to get out of the airport. Driving from the airport Cairo looked just like I imagined....concrete jungle of apartment blocks....that look like they should be condemned and look like they are falling down, crazy traffic most of the way, dusty with a dust haze over the city but quite mesmerising with all the sites and sounds, people going about their daily life. We came a day early to Cairo before we join our tour group for the main tour of Cairo, train sleeper overnight to Luxor and then a 4 day Nile Cruise down to Aswan, a day trip to Abu Simbel and then ... read more

We visited El-Alamein on our 2019 Africa Motorbike Trip. During our time spend in El-Alamein we visited The German Military Cemetery. Built in memory of the German Soldiers that died here in World War 2. The guide were very friendly even offered us a camping spot for the night. Unfortunately we had to travel on.... read more