A Trip Down The Nile...

I have always been fascinated with Egypt.  I remember watching old movies with Egyptian themes as a child. The hieroglyphics were beautiful to me. Papyrus was a fascinating thing to consider. So the opportunity to visit there seemed like a wonderful vacation. Never thought it would happen.  

Until a few years ago when we planned a tour of Egypt. It would be the perfect way for me to see the Egypt that had my attention. The ancient Egypt.  Other trips let you see the pyramids and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. But a lot of the ancient history takes place along the Nile. Our tour in February 2011 would have flown us to Cairo, then to Aswan where we would take a cruise ship down the Nile (since it flows from South to North). Well, that turned out to be the same time as Egypt's involvement in the Arab Spring.  Not a good time to travel there.  So our tour was canceled and I returned to thinking I might never see Egypt.

Then we went to Ireland in 2013 and Alan McKay, our tour guide, said they were going to do an Israel tour in 2014 with an add-on of Egypt doing basically the same thing our 2011 tour would have done (sans Alexandria).  He said we could just purchase the Egypt portion if we didn't want to go to Israel again. While I would love to see Israel again, timing is not such right now for us to be gone two weeks. But a week tour was something we found within our reach.  When the official notice came of the tour, we did purchase the Egypt add-on.  We were going to this land that has such a long history and a fascinating one at that.

I will post each day of this tour separately.  Our tour began on Sunday, February 16th and we would return Monday, February 24th.

Here is Kentucky the day we left.

Our world was covered in snow.  Down the hill in back of our house by the creek a herd of deer were diligently foraging for something to eat.  I turned to Claude and said, "Just think of it, we are leaving a world covered in snow with deer feeding on the hill. We'll wake up in a world covered in sand with camels!"

We flew out of Cincinnati airport. We had to be there 3 hours early which was a good thing because it allowed us to eat our last American meal at Max & Erma's in the airport. We flew from Cincinnati to Chicago O'Hare where we would board Turkish Airlines for the 12 hour flight to Istanbul, Turkey.  From Istanbul we would take another Turkish Airlines flight to Cairo, Egypt.

I thought Turkish Airlines was wonderful.  The only downside was we got seat assignments at the airport but they did have us sitting together.  The good things were serving Turkish Delight before each leg of the flight started. This is a truly yummy treat and this version had some kind of nut in it and was particularly delightful. 

Turkish Airlines also gives each passenger a little kit on that long flight between Chicago and Istanbul. This little kit contains a pair of socks, a blindfold, toothbrush and toothpaste, chap stick and ear plugs. There was a little monitor on the back of the headrest in front of you and you could watch free movies and television shows or play games or just watch the flight path of the airplane. The fed us a meal and a breakfast each time on this leg of the trip. It does help pass the time but 12 hours is a long time in one space.

We actually made it to Cairo the evening of Monday, February 17th. There was someone to meet us at the airport since we would not join our tour group for another full day.
He took us to our driver and they took us to the hotel.

This was an eye opening experience for us.  Traffic in Egypt seemed to be like the description my sister, Junie, had given to me years before about traffic in Venezuela.  They lived in Caracas and I could only imagine, until we rode in Cairo traffic, what it was like.  If there were 3 lane of traffic it was suddenly made into 4 lanes of traffic with everyone, and I do mean everyone, changing lanes constantly to jockey for a better position. In between these lanes were the little motorcycles, often with two people on them, zooming between cars to get ahead. Add to that the pedestrians that wanted to cross the street just walking into traffic and you get a pretty fair picture of this madness. Claude and I just held on tight with no seat belt to buckle up and prayed that our driver knew what he was doing.  We also vowed we would never rent a car in Cairo. Never!!

Here are a few pictures of Cairo traffic.  The first one is a four lane highway. I am taking it from a bus which I tour group was in. There should have been 3 lanes next to us and clearly there are four.   

This one is a man on a little motorcycle with his wife in full wardrobe riding side-saddle. Claude and I rode a big Honda Goldwing for years. Riding with a passenger on the back does not make it easy on the driver. Much less if that passenger is riding side-saddle.  Now picture this gutsy couple weaving in and out of cars because that is what they did right after this picture was taken. I shudder at the thought.

But, one could have this high-risk job.  A Pizza Hut delivery guy.  No thanks!

With all this traffic and jockeying for position, there also comes a lot of horn honking.  As I was scanning the area for pictures from our bus, Claude poked me in the side and pointed to this sign. We both just laughed as I took this picture.

We did make it to our hotel in Cairo safely. We went through security at the gate of the hotel and we went through security to get into the hotel. We now were beginning to understand why Alan told us to just spend the next day in the beautiful hotel and not leave. So we tucked ourselves into a very beautiful room and went to sleep until our bodies decided they were ready to wake up the next day.