Tag Archives: egypt

The Pyramids of Giza and Cutting a Cake in Cairo

Image 10 Mar 2024 aam 3 Comments

When we met last, we were on the VIB overnight train from Luxor to Cairo. We had a private coupe and it was a comfortable journey.

Day 6

It was a special day. Nam’s birthday! Also, our last day of sightseeing in Egypt – we would leave next morning to Amman, Jordan (don’t forget to check out those blogs after this one).

We woke up early expecting to reach Cairo. But to our dismay, the train was running more than 2 hours late. I was annoyed – this meant that we would have to cut off something in our itinerary for the day. Our tour operator, Massimo from Cleopatra Tours, called and told us to get down at the Giza station. Franco, our interim guide, was waiting for us at the station. We picked up our actual guide, Mohamed Gamel, on the way to the pyramids.

After turning at a signal, we spotted the pyramids at a distance – they were huge even from here! We went on a round-about route that gave us views of the pyramids from different angles. The pyramids complex had very high security – we had to unload all our bags from the car (we hadn’t checked into our hotel yet) and put them into the scanner.

These were the oldest structures that we would see on our trip.

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Africa, Travel Blog

Meeting Tut in The Valley of The Kings, Luxor

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We reached Luxor, Egypt – our destination after the Nile cruise. It was evening and the orange setting sun covered the city with a very warm and welcoming vibe. It was a lot cleaner than Cairo and far less crowded.

Luxor, known in ancient Egypt as Waset and later Thebes, is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. It was the capital of Upper Egypt at a time when Egypt was split into two kingdoms. Today, it is called the largest open-air museum in the world as it is home to temples, tombs, monuments and giant statues.

We headed to the Luxor temple. The promenade near the temple, called the Luxor corniche, was beautifully landscaped and would make for a nice evening walk.

A city view of Luxor Egypt while touring Luxor temple — The city of Luxor – near the Luxor temple

The ancient path connecting Luxor temple with Karnak temple — The city of Luxor – near the Luxor temple

We entered the temple and spotted an obelisk. Our guide, Karma, told us that there were originally two obelisks here – one of them was gifted to the French and could be seen at Place de la Concorde. Regular readers of this blog would have encountered these obelisks in many of our other trips – like the one in the Vatican, Istanbul and Paris (blog coming soon).

Obelisks from Luxor temple in Egypt, the original home of the obelisk in place de la concorde paris — The home of the obelisk which is in Paris today

The temple had statues of Ramses II, Tutankhamun and his wife. The temple was dedicated to the sun god, Amun. The statues of Ramses depicted different stages of his life – one was made for every 10 years that he ruled.

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Africa, Travel Blog

Going on a Nile Cruise like a Pharaoh

Image 24 Feb 2024 aam 4 Comments

After a thrilling drive to Abu Simbel, we were now on our boat, all set to depart for the Nile river cruise. Our guide, Ahmed, was also joining us till the first stop, Kom Ombo. After lunch and a short rest (we had started our day at 3:30am), we climbed up to the sundeck to enjoy the breeze and the view. We could see some giant pillars in the distance – presumably of the temple we were visiting next.

The Nile is the longest river in the world. It runs 6650 kms long starting in Uganda (the White Nile) and emptying itself into the Mediterranean Sea. It is the reason for Egypt’s existence (the Gift of the Nile) and was home to one of the most advanced civilizations of the world at its time.

Going on a Nile cruise the longest river in the world — The Nile offers views of greenery and desert at the same time

Here’s a bit about the Nile cruise. There are many companies that operate these multi-day cruises on the Nile. Some go downstream the river from Aswan to Luxor and few even go onwards to Cairo. You can also find cruises in the opposite direction – it would depend on how you plan your itinerary. If you want to experience the Nile river’s glory and also not get bored by the long travel, we highly recommend that you pick the Aswan-Luxor stretch for your Nile river cruise.

The lobby of Nile cruise ship in Egypt — The lobby of our cruise boat

Looking out of the window of a boat with waves outside — The lobby of our cruise boat

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Travel Blog

The Southern Tip of Egypt – Abu Simbel and Aswan

Image 19 Feb 2024 aam 4 Comments

We continue on our Egypt adventure (check out Part 1 – The Egypt Itinerary). It’s day 2 of the trip and we woke up in our hotel at Giza. Breakfast was included with our stay and we ate veggies, yogurt, sausages and croissants – I love breakfast buffets! Our cab driver was waiting outside to take us to the airport. We were flying out to the southern part of Egypt, to the city of Aswan.

At the Cairo domestic airport, a person met us who took our bags. He spoke to our guide as well – so we assumed they were part of the local team to guide us through check-in. He walked with us till the security check-in, turned back and asked us for money. It was a con! We told him to collect his dues from our guide as we didn’t have any cash. But he had our bags and we were forced to part with 50 EGP (roughly 120 INR at that time). Anyway, lesson learnt – do not accept help from anyone for bags!

It was a small airport with few check-in counters – we had to wait till our flight’s name appeared on the boards. We were travelling by Air Cairo and it was a 90 mins flight. On the way, the sight was desert everywhere. At one point, we could spot the Red Sea in the distance to our left.

view from plane in egypt on the way to aswan — The entire country is desert and the Nile

We passed over a giant lake, saw a highway that was as straight as a road could be – thanks to no obstacles in the landscape (we would be covering both later in this blog) and finally landed in Aswan.

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Africa, Travel Blog

The Egypt Itinerary

Image 12 Feb 2024 aam 5 Comments

I remember this moment very clearly. We were on a flight from Madrid to Abu Dhabi and luckily it was a day flight. I spent most of the time looking at the on-screen map and the landscape below – something I absolutely love to do. At one point, we were crossing over Egypt and I spotted the Nile river. It was quite a stunning sight – there was an endless desert except for a green portion that bordered the river. Indeed, the gift of the Nile!

Spotting the Nile river on the flight from Madrid to Abu Dhabi

That’s when the seed was planted – wouldn’t it be so awesome to visit the land of the pharaohs! Around 6 months after that moment, we found ourselves planning our trip to Egypt.

Egypt had fascinated me right from childhood. There were chapters in English and History about Howard Carter discovering the tomb of Tutankhamun, hieroglyphs and the ancient Egyptian monuments. It was truly amazing how these structures still stood tall after so many centuries – most of them very well preserved – including the human bodies! It is considered a cradle of civilization – a land that the most ancient humans inhabited before they spread across the rest of the world.

Contrast that against the Arab Spring and the volatile political landscape of the country. So, it’s quite tricky to confidently go ahead and pick Egypt as a holiday destination. Especially since we were traveling alone. But reading always helps. As usual, I pored over dozens of blogs and forum articles till I got the confidence to put together our itinerary.

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