Egypt

Egypt

Eastern Time plus 6 hours

We docked in Safafga, and the tours that were offered from the ship went to Valley of the Kings. We heard that Valley of the Kings was an excellent trip. One drawback was that the bus ride was extremely long. It was supposed to be 3 ½ hours each way, but the way back was 5 hours alone. It was a huge convoy across the desert. At one point there were 200 coach buses traveling with armed guards including 1 armed guard on each bus as well as all of those in vehicles. The convoy took 1 ¾ hours to pass through each little town or crossroad. The police stopped traffic; cars, donkeys, camels, trains… you name it, so the convoy could pass. This was all reports from other passengers so I can't say it is absolutely correct. I guess that when they got there it was extremely crowded, but very neat. Breathtaking! Kazzie did that trip and loved it, so get it on her blog.

Jeff and I had decided that if we were in Egypt, we were going to the pyramids. We set up a trip with a private tour company about a year ago and everything went like clockwork. We were the first ones off the ship, our flight schedule had changed and it was leaving 1 ½ hours earlier than we had originally scheduled. They said that if we could get off by 6:30 we would be OK. We got off at 6:35.

We were met by a driver and guide to take us to Hurghada to fly to Cairo.

There were high winds and a lot of blowing sand. We drove along the coast and the visibility was quite low. Everywhere you looked there was sand, even right along the Red Sea. Sand and sand dunes… We also saw many, many bags and a lot of trash blowing and up against fences. Due to the long expanse of nothing but sand, it could have blown from 100 or more miles away. It was hard to take pictures due to all of the blowing sand and dust in the air.
Everything went smoothly and we arrived in Cairo at 9:30 and headed to the pyramids. As we passed through Cairo we saw at least 10 miles of apartment buildings that were built and empty, half built and empty, or finished, but looked unfinished. They often just leave rebar on the top or pillars on the top just standing up in the air, but the building is still finished.


To be continued...
NEXT: The Pyramids!