Egypt - December, 2004

Since we had such great success with Grand Circle Tours, we tried to find a trip that we could take which would still allow us to be home for the girls’ Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks.  It turned out that there was a river cruise along the Nile River in Egypt which exactly filled the bill.

We left in early December for the long flight from Portland to Cairo.  We arrived in Cairo tired, but ready to go and see the sights.  As you can see from the photos, there are a lot of sites to be seen in Egypt.

After a night’s rest, we hopped on a tour bus and were taken out to see the pyramids.  The visit started out as a comedy.  There was dense fog at pyramid site – so dense in fact that we were unable to see the massive tombs until we were close enough to touch them.  Of course the guide was apologizing all over the place and insisting that the fog would soon dissipate.  Fortunately, she was right and we were soon able to see the sight tat millions of tourists have seen for thousands of years.

The next day, we had an opportunity to stroll around Cairo.  We were both quite nervous.  The traffic was speeding by on the road outside the hotel.  We were unable to cross until we finally found a friendly policeman who stopped the cars for us.  In addition, there were heavily armed soldiers every few yards everywhere we went.  Although some people felt more secure for this, we couldn’t help but wonder why all these guns were needed.

The next day we boarded our riverboat for a cruise on the Nile.  This part of the trip was delightful and we got to see Egypt from the comfort and luxury of our cabin.  Tourism did not seem to be doing well in Egypt at this time as there were dozens and dozens of cruise boats “mothballed” along the river shores.

Our guide also turned out not to be the best.  She immediately informed us that she had a PhD in Egyptology, and implied that being a guide was very much beneath her.  She also had the habits talking way too much and telling us to be back to the bus 45 minutes before the true scheduled departure time, I suppose so she wouldn’t have to worry about someone being late.

However, the incredible sights of Egypt more than made up for all the shortcomings of the trip and we were glad to have gotten to see them.