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Dakota's Egyptian Travelogue
Hi my name is Dakota Smith & I work for Travelers Digest. Recently I decided
to take a trip to Egypt with my girlfriend Jasmine, & this is my account of our
trip.
Just like most people, I had always wanted to visit Egypt. The pyramids,
desert landscapes, the Red Sea coast, the Nile. Eventually all this proved too
much & I made the leap. I had been living in England with my girlfriend when I
decided we should visit Egypt. The cheapest flight I could find was on
ThomsonFly from London to Luxor and was about 200 Pounds R/T per person. The
entirety of our trip was to last one April week, & I was determined to make the
most of it.
Arriving in Luxor we were greeted at the airport by a representative from the
hotel I had pre-booked on HostelWorld.com, Oasis Hotel. I booked a double room
with a private bathroom & it was only $9 US Dollars a nite. With a price like
that I wasn't expecting too much, but I was wrong. The hotel was great!
We spent our first few hours in Egypt getting settled in our room & recouping
from the 5 hour flight. After a small dinner of Kosheri (a traditional Egyptian
vegetarian dish) at the hotel's rooftop restaurant, we set about to visit the
Luxor Temple (see below).
The temple is located right in the city centre, & is a nice
welcoming to Ancient Egyptian antiquities. The walls are covered in
hieroglyphics, & the avenue of Sphinxes is impressive. The entrance to the
temple is 40 Egyptian Pounds or about $8 US Dollars, this sum however is halved
by an international student card.
After a brief walk around the temple we headed back to our hotel
room for some much needed rest. The next morning we awoke at the almost ungodly
hour of 5AM in order to prepare ourselves for the upcoming day's activity of hot
air ballooning! I had been hot air ballooning before but this would be Jasmine's
first time, that & she's afraid of flying so basically it's guaranteed fun!
A van from the tour operator came to pick us up & then drove us
to the Nile in order for us to take a boat across to the West Bank of Luxor
where we were met by another van & taken to the hot air balloon.
Gently rising above the ground, hot air ballooning is an amazing
feeling that I would recommend to everyone, it's not often that you get the
ability to float. Our view that morning was the Valley of the Kings, & the
Hatshepsut temple below us, as well as the sun rising above the Nile to the
east.
After a thankfully gentle landing 45-minutes later we headed
back to our hotel to sleep away the rest of the morning. Awaking sometime around
noon, we once again dined on our hotel's roof, & then we were off one again to
the West Bank, this time to get a closer look at the Valley of The Kings & the
Hatshepsut temple.
We had hired a car for the day at a cost of around $20 US
Dollars. Not bad if I say so myself. Our first stop was the Valley of the Kings,
famous for its burial chambers of ancient Egyptian kings, including the most
famous of them all King Tutankhamun (AKA King Tut). The layout of the place is
more or less how its name implies, it's a valley with dozens of underground
walkways branching off to the burial chambers.
Once inside one of the chambers you can expect a long narrow
corridor accompanied by a low ceiling leading down into the centre where there's
an expanse of space & generally the king's sarcophagus. It's a unique experience
to say the least, walking down a dimly lit path, the walls covered in
hieroglyphics. Some of the chambers even had built in booby traps such as large
drop-offs on the pathway.
Next for our day's lineup was a hike across the mountains to the
Hatshepsut temple. The walking was tough as the way up was dominated by loose
sand, rocks, & hot temperatures. However once we reached the top of the ridge
things got easier. It was a fun day being up there almost completely by
ourselves, hiking in the Egyptian desert. That & the views were amazing as well,
with the trail having several good outlooks over the temple.
Once we reached the entrance to the temple we bought our
entrance tickets & went it. I must say while the temple is quite nice to look
at, paying the entrance fee was a waste of money. It's under renovation meaning
that all you can really do there is look at the walls of the temple up close,
never being allowed to go in. Personally I would rather have saved the money &
taken pictures from afar.
Finally after having been in the hot sun all day we decided it
was time to go back to the hotel & rest. The next day we as per our plan, headed
off to the bus station in the morning where we would catch our 10:30AM bus to
Hurghada on the Red Sea Coast. What we didn't know is that in Egypt the buses
are often extremely late. And we didn't get on our bus until two hours after our
scheduled departure time. But hey at least the tickets were cheap enough! After
five hours of driving through the desert we reached the coast, & a beautiful
coast it was. The water looked appetizing even from the bus, & it was complete
agony having to look at it through the bus window while we made our way to
Hurghada.
Once in Hurghada we were met at the bus station from a
representative of the hotel I had pre-arranged. The hotel was called El-Tabia, &
it cost about $20 US Dollars per nite. I can't say I was pleased with the
accommodations, the water at the hotel wasn't working when we arrived, & it was
quite an ordeal to get them to put toilet paper in our room. The staff seemed
pretentious & rude, a complete contrast from the sweethearts we had encountered
in Luxor. On the plus side though the hotel had an excellent location as it was
across the street from the Ministry of Sound Beach Bar. Having a private beach &
good beats is a must on any beach holiday.
The next two days we would spend the majority of our time at the
MOS listening to music, eating pizza, & drinking diet cokes in the sun. Not bad.
However our time in Hurghada & on the Red Sea was up. As we didn't have much
time in the country, we needed to get to Cairo & see the pyramids before it was
too late.
Taking a bus was the way to get there, & six hours after we left
Hurghada we arrived in Cairo. Where we were yet again met at the bus station
from our hotel's representative. Our hotel this time was the Delta Pyramids
hotel in the neighbourhood of Giza. And was it ever deserving of having the
pyramids in its name, we could see them from our room's window, & they were
close!
The next day we contracted a car to drive us around the cultural
sights. First on our schedule were the pyramids! The pyramids architectural site
is quite large, spread out over several square miles of desert. And while one
can walk to the pyramids going by way of commercial streets, you'll also have to
suffer through blatant commercialization such as the Pizza Hut across from the
Sphinx. The only true way to see the pyramids is to take a camel through the
desert & see them from the opposite side!
I however am aware from previous experience that camels are the
most uncomfortable animals men normally sit on, so I chose to take a horse.
Jasmine however had a more romantic notion of a camel in the Sahara, so she got
her very own camel.
We spent hours riding in the desert along with our private
guide, I galloping, her trotting. The views of the pyramids were fantastic,
later on we dismounted our animals & walked up to the pyramids to get the hands
on experience. There's not much inside them anymore, all of the interesting
stuff having been moved to the Egyptian Museum in central Cairo, so all we did
was touch the exteriors of the Pyramids. Or at least I did, Jasmine forgot to,
take a girl to the last surviving ancient wonder & she doesn't even touch it. As
if one comes across the chance to touch something 6,000 years old everyday.
Getting back on the animals we then rode the short distance to
the Sphinx. Now the first thing that strikes you about the Sphinx is that it's
not as big as you've always imagined. What you have to keep in mind is the
context, the reason it doesn't seem big is that it's right next to the overtly
huge pyramids. If viewed separately, the Sphinx would seem huge! And the fact
that it was carved from one stone is impressive in itself.
Leaving the area around the pyramids we then drove to Memphis,
the first capital of Egypt. There's really not much there, but hey we didn't
have anything else to do. After that we had falafels, which are served quite
differently in Egypt, much to our pleasant surprise.
Next up was a quick visit to the pyramid at Saqqara, Egypt's
first pyramid. Predating the pyramids at Giza by a few hundred years, Saqqara is
much more antiquated in its look, but still quite impressive.
After visiting Saqqara our first day in Cairo was over, & we
retired to our hotel room. Unfortunately the only place to eat around the hotel
was at the hotel, & let's just say their restaurant wasn't so great, or so
affordable either.
Anyways, the next day we awoke to a sandstorm. Yes Cairo was
embroiled in a sandstorm, & quite a bad one as well. Thinking that our day
wouldn't be too adversely affected, we met our driver & headed to the Egyptian
Museum to see the nation's most treasured artifacts.
I would say the thing that struck me first about the museum was
the heightened sense of security surrounding the facility. Egypt has a very
large terrorism concern, as does much of the Middle East & North Africa.
The museum itself was a bit of a disappointment. Personally I
found myself disinterested the majority of the time I spent there. I think that
the blasé setting took away all of the charm that the artifacts may have once
possessed. Even King Tut's coffin seems uninteresting when it's placed in a
sterile museum.
After this we headed to the Muhammad Ali Mosque, one of the
Islamic world's premier architectural pieces. This however is where the
sandstorm started hindering our day, it was horrible. The wind was whipping
through the courtyard, & the surrounding area, there was nothing we could do
other than squint & hope the driver would come back soon.
Going once more back to our hotel, we lazed around on the
internet for a few hours, & then headed to the train station to catch our
overnite train back to Luxor. Not wanting to spend the extra money on a sleeper,
we just got seats which were more than comfortable, they were actually fantastic
as far as train seats go. And then twelve hours later we arrived in Luxor. Where
we headed back to our original hotel & got a room for the half day before our
flight was to leave. What was surprising & charming was that when checking out
later in the day the manager decided to comp us the room as we were return
customers. Oasis Hotel, it is the best place to stay in Luxor!
And so, this marked the end of our time in Egypt. It was a
fascinating country with more than its share of sights & charms. It was also an
affordable country, & for that my pocketbook shall remain ever thankful. All
in all the entire week in Egypt for two people including everything cost me
$1500 US, not bad at all.
-Dakota Smith
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Egyptian Travelogue!
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