One of the top tourist destinations in the world, Egypt sparks the imagination.
As I had to consume my vacation days at the end of this month before they would expire, for the first time, I was absorbed by the ¨stress of choice¨ as to where I would go on vacation on such a short notice. Last-minute offers did not interest me, and although I wanted to go on a single or group tour, the available dates and itineraries were not convenient or intriguing to me.
So I was going to travel solo again, and plan ahead my own itinerary. In 8 days, I managed to see Alexandria, Aswan, Cairo and Luxor, seeing all of the highlights, while almost seeing everything I wanted to experience, minus the inside of the national military museum, and the Aswan botanical garden.
After landing on the airport, getting my Visa on Arrival, obtaining a prepaid Egyptian sim card and arranging my first Uber drive, I checked into my AirBNB spot, and I started my journey out at the Citadel complex with the various mosques, while checking out the open air part of the military museum as well.
I would visit a 13th century monastery as a tip from a local taxi driver next, while the Khan El-Khalili bazaar confused my navigation despite Google Maps being my best travel app, and although the sights and smells immersed me, unfortunately, it is here where I would get a first taste of the worst aspect of visiting Egypt.
One of the elder men basically guided me towards a tourist trap of selling too expensive ingredients for drinking tea, and then the well known cultural phenomenon of bargaining and hassling started. I am used towards this experience now, what with the difference between tourist and local prices, but these Egyptians really started getting pushy and aggressive especially in Luxor as towards selling me services or products.
Especially at that archeological town, I would get approached by at least 10 younger and older men per day who kept walking with me, sometimes with intervals of merely seconds. This pressure or cultural aspect was the only thing I really disliked when traveling.
I also noticed in this hot June week(with degrees of reaching up to 50 Celsius at Aswan, my first time feeling so much heat!) that it was rare to see other tourists. The reason is that the locals told me that tourists prefer to visit during the ¨winter¨ months instead, as this temperature reaching an
average of at least 45 degrees of Celsius in the country was even letting the Egyptians sweat much like me.
And I never drank as much water as during my week really, while I also noticed that I almost never had to go to the toilet, or that I was tasty for food. Anyhow, at Alexandria, I saw the fort of Qaitbay, the national museum, Pompey´s Pillar and the Bibliotheca Alexandria, which is an attempt reflection of the glorious knowledgeable past of Alexandria´s ancient library.
Carl Sagan and his wonderful Cosmos series inspired me to visit, and although the new library was impressive in size and content, I liked walking the coast line of the city towards the Mediterranean Sea the most.
Next day, back in Cairo by train, the objective highlight would begin; doing a private tour of most of the pyramids available, including Gizeh´s, Saqqara´s, the Red and the Bent ones. Yomna is my female Egyptologist guide. I went inside the Unas and Red pyramids, and the latter with a descent of 65 meters was especially quite a joyful moment of discovery.
Riding a horse for the first time in my life towards the panorama spot where you can make excellent pictures of the Gizeh pyramids was also one of the best moments of this trip. After seeing the famous Sphinx as well, I bought souvenirs (with tourist prices...), which is very rare for me.
Yomna and her driver also let me visit various factories and shops where papyrus, lotus perfume and Alabasta or granite would be produced, the processes were shown to me. This tour was more expensive than I anticipated thanks to the numerous tips I had to give towards the locals, but it´s all part of it too.
In the evening I would visit my AirBNB owner´s restaurant, and here he cooked up some nice Egyptian food for me, while I also participated in smoking the shisha, and the locals were all frantically looking at the ongoing African Cup of Soccer 2019.
The worldwide known Egyptian Museum was visited the next day, and I needed a full afternoon before I saw everything inside of it, including the Mummy rooms with Ramses the 2nd and Tutankhamun´s stuff. In the evening I would take my night sleeper train to Upper Egypt, but 1 minute later, and I might have missed it! It reminds me of similar close calls at Shanghai, Manila and Belgrado.
For my stay at Luxor, the weather was really getting hot now, and even the air ventilator which constantly was spinning around plus the water bottles of 2 liters could not contain my sweating, but
luckily, I managed to sleep with content despite this extreme new condition for me. This also goes for the 4 times I took a domestic train.
I let my next AirBNB owner arrange a local driver for me, who would drive me to the highlights on the West Bank of the Nile in Luxor. These included the Valley of the Kings, where I would visit tombs number 2, 11 and 14, then the Hatsheput Temple, then the Ramesseum Temple, the Medinat Habu Temple and then the Colossi Memnon.
I drank my first Egyptian beer named Stella during the extended lunch, and then I chilled and sunbathed back at home. The next day, I would visit Aswan, where I saw not only the Nubian people living there, but also the beautiful temple of Isis on a southern island, the Obelisk, the Nubian Museum, the F garden and then I walked the east coast line back to the train station.
As I earlier said, I wanted to see the Botanical Garden on Kitchener Island too, but because my first train was delayed for 2 hours, I could not see it. Nevertheless, I saw the impressive temple complex of Amon-Ra and Luxor Temple on the East Bank next day, and skipped the museum because I already saw 3.
Finally, as I took my second night sleeper train back to Cairo, I took panorama shots on the Cairo Tower, and as the last attraction, I went to Old Cairo to enter the Hanging Church, which is one of the oldest churches in the world(1700 years).
Egypt enriched in overall my stay, and I´m glad to have seen it. It´s ancient ruins are the number 1 reason for visiting, but it´s Islamic society, it´s beach resorts and (if you avoid the tourist hot spots with the annoying sellers) the people are genuinely friendly and helpful too, as several of them helped me along the way and even invited me over for food or to meet their family.
