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Published: June 15th 2010
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Egypt
From the coast to Cairo and beyond. You better sit down with a cup of tea as this entry is a bit longer than previous ones.
I’ve never been good at sleeping on long journeys; it’s gone 4am and I should be sleeping, I’m on the overnight train from Cairo to Luxor. The train is predominantly a sleeper carriage train with two seater carriages at the back. Yes, that’s where the budget passengers go, £ 165 for the journey. That’s about $30. I‘ve come to the conclusion that the train is going so slow to allow the sleeper passengers a decent nights rest and not deliver them into Luxor any earlier than 6am. Several trained have zoomed past us so one can assume there are faster ones in existence. God knows where this train spent its previous life, perhaps in some Eastern block country, and now it’s come to Egypt to retire, a lot like 90% of the cars on the road in Cairo. I’m going to upgrade to a sleeper for the 13 hour return journey, whatever it takes!
We entered Egypt at a non descript port across the gulf from Aquaba after a journey of around two hours.
That wasn’t too long but add to that the two hours we sat waiting for the ferry to leave and then another two hours before we were allowed to get off, it made for quite a long journey. When we arrived on the boat we were ushered to a booth where men who sort of looked like immigration officials collected all our passports and explained in broken English that we would get them back once we disembarked and produced the receipt for the visa. We didn’t have a guide with us to translate or explain the process as we were picking up our fourth and final one once we arrived in Egypt. I’ve never been so happy to see a guide as I was when we walked down the ramp dodging the cars. He ushered us through the visa and immigration formalities and into the sanctuary of our mini bus. It was here that the group was split up into the ones finishing in Cairo and the ones going onto Luxor. Of the 15 that started in Turkey weeks ago, only 3 of us were going onto Luxor. Time to make some new friends.
Security is tight on the roads
in Egypt and everywhere you go there are checkpoints with armed guards. They monitor every ones movements on the road to ensure the safety of the tourists. I’ve never seen so many guns! Our first stop in Egypt was a lovely place called Dahab on the coast of the Red Sea. I spent the evening relaxing in one of the many restaurants right on the waters’ edge being pestered by the local stray cat population. Each restaurant provides spray bottles of water for you to take care of the cats in your own time should they annoy you too much. Some of them were quite sweet; they were friendly and looked very healthy, unlike the manky strays you see in the cities.
The following day was a rest day so I opted to go down the coast to a place called The Blue Hole. It’s a popular diving and snorkelling spot. The coral reef is 20 feet offshore, so you put your gear on and just float over to the edge of it. The reef forms a U shape here and the ground just drops away into a big blue hole! It was brilliant. The colours of the coral ranged
from pinks to lavenders, blues to bright yellow; sadly however there were large sections with dead coral or none at all. The area is has not been protected and has suffered as a result. I went out for four long swims, finding new fish each time; there were lots of shoals of small fish, but very few large fish.
The next adventure involved getting up at 1.15am to climb Mt Sinai to watch the sunrise, by 2.15am I was walking up the track in the dark on a camel. It was great, although this one’s saddle was a lot less comfortable than the last. Camels must be able to see in the dark, or maybe mine just knew where he was going because he (or she) had done it so many times before.
It was a long drive from St Catherine’s to Cairo via the tunnel under the Suez Canal; arriving in Cairo about 6pm. How can you describe a city with 23 million people that never stops? The traffic was manic, lanes don’t matter to these drivers, and it’s all about how many vehicles can squeeze into the space available. This morning it was all worth it as I
visited the pyramids, the sphinx and the museum.
No one with sympathise with me when I return home when I wail I need a holiday! These itineraries’ can be hectic. After a full day exploring pyramids, mummified remains and surviving the heat, a quick shower and it was off to the train station to catch the 10 hour overnight sit up and try and sleep train.
Luxor - what a place! It was worth 10 hours of hell in that train! After checking into the hotel; which I’m happy to say is a very nice 3 star this time, I’ve got a view of the Nile and the air conditioning sort of works. After a quick shower and a change of clothes we went straight up to the temples of Karnak. We were able to put some more pieces of the story together with Egypt’s fabulous history. I knew this place was special but I wasn’t prepared for the size of it, the beauty of it, and all the inscriptions and pictures through the temples. We went up to Karnak very early this morning even though we would have preferred a sleep, it just gets too hot at this time
of year, and even though it’s the quiet season, there are still a lot of people coming in by coaches from the coast to do day tours. As we were finishing at 10am in the heat, the mass of coaches were starting to arrive.
We had horse drawn carriages take us back to Karnak and back, I felt like Cinderella going to the ball. The carriages are used a lot here over cars, and it is a nice way to travel. The tipping can be tricky, ‘you tip me and you tip the horse, very nice horse, he needs food, very nice horse’ and you get that banter all the way. So I got out and said, ‘this is for you and this is for the horse’. Our driver says he has two horses and he runs them day on day off.
I ventured out downtown and into the local market. Much to the disgust of many a horse drawn carriage driver come tour guide who wished to take me other places to shop and ensure I didn’t get ripped off with tourist prices. I’ve never had so many men jump to attention as I walk past to try and
gain my attention. If only it wasn’t for money! Some of the shop keepers had the ‘hello’ with an Australian accent so down pat that you had to turn and take a second glance. One guy was so funny when I walked past he said ‘come look at my cheap crap’ to which I added ‘At least you’re honest about it!’ It was like running the gauntlet through that market, waiting for the jackals’ to pounce.
So here I am back in the quiet of my room overlooking the Nile, having a rest before we venture out tonight over to the West Bank for dinner. This is where we will explore tomorrow, the area of the dead, rising at 4.30am to beat the heat.
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Noreen Camarena
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Dahab
Hello from Cali I enjoyed two visits to Egypt. Hope to see Dahab someday. I enjoyed your blog and pictures! That train ride is the worst! Ours was 17 hours due to unplanned events. AWEFUL....but the friends I made and the pyramids were definately worth all the hassels! :)