Egypt

Dear lilioftheworld.com reader, here is Lili, your co-editor. Are you ready for a trip to the land of the pharaohs, pyramids and beach resorts? I guess that there isn’t a single traveler who would miss the chance 🙂 And this isn’t a surprise: Egypt is a land of ancient culture and exciting sea resorts. For years we have been postponing our visit due to different reasons, including a period of instability in the region. Until this September, when we made our summer vacation there. As you might have already read in our previous articles, we love beach vacations in September or October as they prolong the European summer 🙂 

The firtst thing that we have to outline is that seeing all the places of interest in Egypt at a single trip isn’t very easy as they are spread around the huge country. Therefore, for our first visit we have chosen a combination of beach vacation on the Red Sea and a short visit to Cairo. Alexandria, Luxor and others were left for another time 🙂  

Lili’s 6 good-to-know tips when travelling to Egypt:

• Weather

Egypt is a big country (an area of about one million square kilometers), so the climate varies. In the south the highest temperatures go up to 41 degrees in June-August, while in Cairo (north Egypt) the maximum is around 35. Even if you visit Egypt in December- January, the “coldest” months, you will enjoy an average temperature of 19-20 degrees. Therefore, you can plan your visit, based on your temperature preference. Still, Egypt is one of not so many places that offer almost full-year-long touristic season.

• Travel packages 

For a first-timer in Egypt, we would recommend booking a travel package through a tourist agency. It is one of those destinations, where self-organization of the trip can be inefficient and more expensive.

When booking our trip, we had some friends who wanted to join us from different countries in Europe. We were comparing prices and those offered by the German travel agencies are by far the cheapest ones. Below I will tell you more about our hotel and the agency we booked with.

• Where to stay

You have several options where to stay- Sharm el Sheikh, Hurghada, Luxor, etc. These are also the main airports you can travel to (in addition to El Nouzha and Cairo). What our taxi driver told us is that in Sharm el Sheikh there is nothing you can do besides staying at your hotel. Not that we came for something else than just relaxing by the beach, but when you have some other options why not using them. He mentioned that in Hurghada you can also go out, have dinner outside your hotel, do some shopping, etc.

We chose the hotel recommended by a colleague of mine- located in Marsa Alam, 250 km south of Hurghada, as it offered exceptional snorkeling experience right in front of the hotel.

Here is the place to outline that Egypt isn’t just another snorkeling/scuba diving destination. It is TOP destination for the purpose. We have snorkeling experience all over the world (just to mention a few- Thailand, Dominican Republic, Cuba, Sri Lanka, etc.). Still the sea creature abundance and great experience in Egypt are unique.

A note in regards to hotel selection: When we were in Egypt, we learnt that many resorts, located closer to Hurghada offer similar snorkeling possibilities right from the shore. Even if the beach has no natural reef, the hotels can build an artificial one. With time the wildlife moves there. If I had to book my holiday once again, I would choose a hotel which is closer to Hurghada. Thus we would skip a three hours transfer in one direction.

• Currency

The Egyptian currency is the Egyptian pound and the current exchange rate during our visit was about 18 pounds for one Euro. Within the all-inclusive resorts you don’t actually need local currency. However, it is a good idea to have some more cash (including small banknotes for tips) with you. Keep in mind that some ATMs have high withdrawal fees.

• Airport control

The security control at Hurghada airport on our way back home was one of the strictest we have experienced. We are completely fine with this- in the end they are doing this for our safety. However, it takes a long time. The hotels will advise you to get to the airport three hours before your flight. Follow this advice. The airport security personnel might check every single item within your luggage.

They check your luggage two times- before check-in and after passport control. We had taken some shells (for our collection), which we thought they would throw away. However, they allowed us to take them and I was super happy ;).

• Visiting Cairo

We were lucky as our taxi driver told us that Friday and Saturday are the days off for the locals and recommended those days for a visit to Cairo. And this was a very good piece of advice. In a week day we could have easily spent our half day in Cairo in traffic jams. Locals say that the traffic is really awful.

Egypt standard of living 

Egypt ranks 49th out of 55 countries in a list which Deutsche Bank creates for the standard of living (2019 figures). Only in Cairo there are 20 mln people living (this is almost three times the population of our home country Bulgaria). Many people in Egypt live in poverty (around one third of the population) and have never left their home towns. We have to be very careful about our behavior as tourists. You will see a lot of people begging and trying to charge you for something which is free. For example at the airport you see signs “No tipping” in the toilets- obviously the cleaners were begging and the authorities are trying to stop this.

About the Egypt holiday overall

We booked our holiday through HolidayCheck. I can say nothing, but only positive things about this agency. We had to pay one fourth of the whole package when booking and one month in advance they withdrew the remaining amount from my bank account. 

We had a connecting flight through Istanbul. I like the flights through Istanbul, because the airport works during the whole night and thus you do not lose traveling time during the day. We started our trip in the evening and arrived in the early morning at our hotel- just on time for the sunrise :). In addition to this the new Istanbul airport terminal is simply great.

At the airport in Hurghada we had an employee of our tourist agency who waited for us even before passport control. I felt like a VIP when this person was calling my name in the hall. We had a private transfer by car to our hotel. The road was not bad, almost empty, but due to the speed (our driver was so kind to try to bring us at the hotel as soon as possible), we could not sleep. Both our drivers were very polite and spoke good English.

Marsa Alam 

Although we landed in Hurghada, we were staying at a resort called Marsa Alam. It also has an airport, so check for packages with flights directly to Marsa Alam International Airport. The area is a common sight for sea turtles (and we were lucky enough to see at least one 🙂

The hotel we stayed at is called The Three Corners Happy Life Beach Resort. It is located right on the beach, with nothing else around, just desert. The hotel is quite big (I counted around 400 rooms), but somehow they manage to create a feeling of privacy. It is an all inclusive hotel, so it has all the things one might expect- food almost during the whole day, animation (different kinds of activities at daytime and an entertaining show in the evening), shops, pools, etc. 

The Three Corners is a chain and they have several hotels in Marsa Alam area. There was even a shuttle between our hotel and a neighboring one. Some of the other hotel guests said that our hotel was newer and better compared to the others.

The Three Corners Happy Life Beach Resort

Basically we were very satisfied with the hotel, but people are different. It is true that the hotel is very far from Hurghada airport (three hours drive), the beach towels are quite worn out, the air conditioning in the room is noisy and it has only two modes (the rest simply do not work), the drinks were not the best, that they did not have an iron when I asked them, but we had one of the most amazing holidays.

The friendly animation team, the extremely delicious food, the clean pools and the amazing snorkeling we could do in front of the hotel- these were the things which fully compensated the downsides.

If I have to summarize the whole trip- the best value for money we have had so far (and you know we travel a lot). Just to give you an impression (have in mind that the prices can vary in the different seasons and also from the different agencies)- we paid 630 Eur for eight full days in an all-inclusive hotel, including the flight tickets from Hamburg to Egypt and the transfers to the airport. This is definitely a deal!

Relaxing vacation

What we did during the whole vacation: relaxing, training and two day trips. One to Cairo (to see the pyramids) and a snorkeling trip to a place called Dolphin House. Read below our stories about the pyramids and how we had a close interaction with these beautiful creatures- the dolphins.

As I already mentioned, our hotel was located 3 hours drive from Hurghada and another 800 km from Cairo. Therefore, when looking for an option to visit the pyramids, we opted for a full-day trip with a plane. It included a transfer from the hotel to Hurghada airport, a flight to Cairo, a couple of hours in the capital, a visit to different places of interest and then back to the hotel in the evening. It sounds a bit too much for a day, but it is definitely worth it.

The trip to the pyramids

After checking prices of different travel agencies presented in our hotel, we finally decided for a cheaper online agency. We had seamless WhatsApp conversations with the agency (even during the night), so besides the delay of our driver on the way to the airport, we have no further complaints. In case you are interested, the name of the agency is Marsa Alam Tours. 

We started the trip from our hotel at midnight (our flight was at 5:30 AM). As mentioned, the driver somehow went to the wrong hotel and he arrived one hour later. We had time buffer, so even arriving 50 mins before the flight at the airport was not an issue. As it was a domestic flight, we did not pass through the severe security checks which you need when having an international flight at the Egyptian airports.

Arriving early in the morning in Cairo

We arrived at 6:30 at the airport in Cairo where we met our private guide and a private driver. They were with us during the whole day and created a unique experience for us. We were particularly satisfied with our guide (who btw was very patient and took good photos of us when asked), so we want to recommend him. Here are his contacts in case you want to reach out to him- Mahmoud Sultan, msultan342016@gmail.com (if you want to contact him by phone, please dm us and we can provide his number). The guy has perfect English and he had actually studied to be a guide. This is his passion and you can feel it in the way he describes all the stories about the places we visited.

As we had some time until the opening time of the Egyptian Museum, we decided to have coffee with them. We chose traditional Egyptian coffee, flavored by different herbs. They say it was a strong one, but I did not feel it – maybe it depends on what is your benchmark :-).

Grand Egyptian Museum- The National Museum of Egyptian Civilization 

After the coffee stop, we headed to the National Egyptian Museum. This is the old museum located in the very center of the city. There is a new one being built, a huge project which costs about $1bln and should be finished by October 2020. They will move some of the expositions there. Mahmoud explained that they have so many things which they currently keep in the basement of the old building due to lack of space to expose them.

The museum building consists of two floors. On the first floor they keep all big artifacts and on the second one- an exposition of wooden, lighter constructions. Mahmoud explained that the only non- unique artifact is Rosetta stone, which original lies in London.

Among all the statues we saw, there was one whose history I found quite interesting. It is about the only female pharaoh ruling by her own- if I’m not mistaken her name was Hatshepsut. There were also other female rulers, but they were mostly great support of their men. In order to be taken seriously by the people, Hatshepsut painted a beard on her face and also made some other stories in order to represent power. 

Tutankhamen and his mask

You are allowed to take pictures in almost every room of the museum with the exception of the Tutankhamen one and the mummies hall (this one is subject to additional fee). Most probably all of us have heard about Tutankhamen (also known as “King Tut”). But if asked what was the special thing about him, only few can answer. Mahmoud explained that he is a pharaoh who came to rule at the age of 9 and his sarcophagus was the only one from which nothing was stolen. There were around 5000 artifacts and you can imagine that it sparked a renewed public interest in ancient Egypt when it was found.

The most popular symbol (not only for the museum, but also in Egypt overall) is the Tutankhamen’s mask which together with other artifacts is in a separate room in the museum. I kind of disobeyed the rule and managed to take a pic of the mask (from the outside). Now reading about the “curse of the pharaohs”, I’m not sure whether it was a good idea. Here is what we can read about the “curse of the pharaohs”:

The Curse of the pharaohs

“The Curse of the pharaohs is an alleged curse believed by some to be cast upon any person who disturbs the mummy of an Ancient Egyptian person, especially a pharaoh. This curse, which does not differentiate between thieves and archaeologists, allegedly can cause bad luck, illness or death. Since the mid-20th century, many authors and documentaries have argued that the curse is ‘real’ in the sense of having scientifically explicable causes such as bacteria or radiation. However, the modern origins of Egyptian mummy curse tales, their development primarily in European cultures, the shift from magic to science to explain curses, and their changing uses suggest that Egyptian curses are primarily a cultural, not exclusively scientific, phenomenon.”

One thing I forgot to mention is that the museum has no air-conditioning. There are only some fans which don’t help when the outside temperature is above 40. The visit of the Grand Egyptian Museum takes around 1.5-2 hours, so take some water with you.

Cairo Tower

On the way to the pyramids we could see a bit of Cairo which I find also quite interesting (another reason to come back to Egypt). I could not skip mentioning one of the landmarks of Cairo- the Cairo Tower. It is still the tallest structure in the whole of Egypt and North Africa. Until the 1970s it used to be the highest building on the continent. The building which reminds a lotus (symbolizing the sun, creation and re-birth) has an interesting story.

Rumor has it that the funds for it came from the US Government. They gave the money ($6 million) as a “gift” (I would call it bribe) to Gamal Abdel Nasser (the second president of Egypt) to encourage him to end his support for the Algerian struggle against French colonialism. Offended by this act, Nasser used the money to build the tower as a symbol of Arab resistance. Just across the river is the location of the U.S. Embassy- maybe this is not a coincidence.

Cairo streets

Besides this you can see a lot of unfinished buildings in Egypt. Although it seems that they are still under construction, people actually live there. Locals do it in order to avoid taxes. These buildings are not counted as finished ones and they are not subject to tax. However, the Government realized this “trick” and is currently trying to take measures and force the finishing of the buildings.

You can see different participants in the street traffic- horses and carts being very often among them. This is when you realize that you are in a different country- not something you see every day in Western Europe.

An interesting fact we learnt about Egypt is that currently a lot of new cities are being built in the vicinity of the existing ones. Why- because the population is getting bigger and bigger and as most of the people want to live in towns, there is no space. By building new parts, they would like to create proper infrastructure (canals, roads, electricity net) and thus improve the standard of living. Even in Cairo there is a project for moving the whole administration in a town 30 km away. They believe that in this way the whole situation with the traffic will improve.

Giza pyramids

After the visit of the Grand Egyptian Museum, we headed to our next stop. The Giza Pyramids. Giza is located on the other side of the river Nile. The locals call Cairo and Giza “Grand Cairo”. I thought our trip will be longer, but it took us no more than 15 mins to get from the museum to the Pyramids. So the pyramids are practically in the city and not somewhere outside.

The Giza pyramids are the most famous ones, but not the only ones found in Egypt. Currently there are 118 or 138 (according to different sources) pyramids found across Egypt. The pyramids in Giza are the only still-existing of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. They are also one of the largest structures humanity knows. They are really huge- maybe I was not prepared enough, but it was mind blowing when I saw them for the first time. In the Giza location there are three big pyramids, several smaller ones (famous as the Queen’s pyramids) and of course the Great Sphinx. The names of the pyramids we know nowadays (which I of course forgot) come from Greek, so that it is easier to pronounce them.

Pyramid of Cheops

The biggest of the three is the Pyramid of Khufu (also known as the “Great Pyramid” and the “Pyramid of Cheops”). It took the ancient Egyptians 20 years to build it. There were 100 000 workers who participated in the construction. Not all of them were full-time workers. Some were just ordinary farmers, who were doing this parallel to their other occupancy.

The Great Pyramid is 149.5m high. In total the Cheops pyramid weighs 60mln tones and has 2.5mln pieces. If we compile all the facts stated above, this means that they had put a piece every 6 min!

The Pyramid initially was 10m higher and with time they lost these 10m on the top. There are certain theories that these 10m were made of gold and they were stolen.

These facts above are known as they found this info in the old books. There were lists with the names of workers with their salaries. Although there is a lot of information about the pyramids construction, no one knows for sure how they made it. There are different theories about this. The most famous one is that they were using a spinal road which they destroyed after the pyramid was built. Another theory is that they used the power of water (I could not even imagine how exactly they did it). 

Egyptians vs Mayans

If you follow our journeys, you know that at the beginning of the year we visited the Mayan Pyramids in Mexico (you can read about our adventure there following the link). I’m so grateful about this chance- being able to experience these two cultures in the same year. It is in human nature to compare things. If I have to be honest (I’m sure I will receive a lot of criticism about this), I was absolutely impressed by the Egyptian ones. This is due to the relationship between expectation and reality, when it comes to their size. The Egyptian pyramids were bigger than my expectation 🙂

Of course, I know that such a comparison between those two monuments is rather superficial and subjective 🙂

The purpose of the pyramids

One other interesting fact for me was that the archaeologists found radiation inside the pyramids. This has connection to the fact that it is still not clear what was the real purpose of the pyramids. Initially people believed they are tombs of the country’s pharaohs. However, there are a lot of other assumptions (and also some proofs) support the theory that they served as giant power plants. If you do not believe me, just Google it.

There is a place with an amazing panoramic view to the three big pyramids in Giza. Of course all the tourists go there, but the whole pyramids complex was not at all crowded. We always avoid having other people in the pics, but here it was not a difficult task.

The other highlight from the whole pyramids visit was the place where you face the Great Sphinx. Its material is limestone and it consists of only one building block (amazing, isn’t it)! The sphinx is a mythical creature with the head of a human and the body of a lion. There is a slight difference in the Greek and the Egyptian mythologies. In the first the sphinx was a woman, while in the Egyptian one it was as a man. In both cultures they were thought to be treacherous and merciless and also were guardians of the temples. Near the statue of the Great Sphinx is the place where the mummification process took place. I’m not going to tell you how they did it as some of you can be terrified, but don’t forget to ask Mahmoud about it.

The goddess with a body of a lion, hippo and a crocodile

The last thing I wanted to share with you with regards to the Egyptian religion is the belief about Ammit. She is something which the ancient Egyptians really feared. Ammit had a body with parts of a lion, a hippopotamus, and a crocodile—the three largest “man-eating” animals known to ancient Egyptians. I cannot say it better, so I copy what I read on Wikipedia:

“Ammit lived near the scales of justice in Duat, the Egyptian underworld. In the Hall of Two Truths, Anubis (the god of death, tomb, mummification, afterlife) weighed the heart of a person against the feather of Ma’at, the goddess of truth. If the heart was not pure, Ammit would devour it, and she would not allow the person undergoing judgement to continue his/ her voyage towards immortality.

Once Ammit swallowed the heart, the soul becomes restless forever. The term for this is “to die a second time”. Ammit also sometimes stood by a lake of fire. In some traditions, the unworthy hearts were cast into the fiery lake to be destroyed. People did not worship Ammit. Instead, she embodied all that the Egyptians feared, threatening to bind them to eternal restlessness if they did not follow the principle of Ma’at.”

The whole trip to the pyramids cost us €270 per person. This included everything- flights, transfers, entrance for the museums and the pyramids complex and a very rich lunch (like you see on the pic below- this is before the meat came :).

We only had to pay for the drinks at the restaurant during lunch. Yes, it is not a small investment, but having in mind how many people were involved in the whole private trip, this was money well-spent.

The Dolphin House , Marsa Alam

Like in every all-inclusive hotel, during the day there are different people offering trips, massages, other services. The one which we found quite interesting was a snorkeling day trip to a place called the Dolphin House.

Samadai, as is its original name, is one of the Red Sea’s most rare and diverse natural wonders. It is home to hundreds of spinner dolphins. Samadai is one of the few places in the world where one can interact with them in their natural habitat.

As we have been to many boat snorkeling trips, we were really wondering what we would do the whole day. Usually they take you with these small fisherman boats where everything is wet and a bit dirty. You do not have much to do on the boat. Most of the time you are in water for snorkeling. To our surprise, the boat was big and very nice. It had a second deck in the sun where you can chill after the snorkeling. 

The snorkeling trip to Samadai

We left the hotel at 7:00 AM in the morning and after a 30-min drive, we got to a small port where we took our boat. The sea was a bit rough, so we could not drive with the maximum speed of the boat. After an hour we got to turquoise water space where we threw out anchor. A smaller boat took us closer to Samadai, the home of the dolphins.

I was very positively surprised how they respected the privacy of the dolphins. We could go just to a certain point and not “invade” in the area where dolphins were. We just stayed on this virtual border and waited for the dolphins to come to us. If they wanted… I guess we were lucky enough. After some minutes, we saw tens of dolphins. I cannot describe the feeling when they approach you. A mixture of fear and admiration, joy of seeing them that close and an urge to touch them. I remember just staying still in the water and watching their “performance”.  I hope the video below can give you at least an impression of what we experienced.

 

We spent around an hour in the water and we saw dolphins around 3-4 times. For those of you who cannot swim, do not worry- we were all wearing swimming vests. On one hand as protection (as you spend 1 hour in water at 15-20 m depth) and secondly- in order not to dive and scare the dolphins. There was one person from the crew who was in the water with us during the whole time.

Swimming among colorful corals

The second dive on this trip was to swim among a colorful reef. Swimming in a tunnel formed by corals is something which we have never done so far. It felt like being part of a NatGeo film for the underwater world of Red Sea near Egypt. On the way to the reef, our guide showed us on his phone a picture of a fish he saw once- Spanish Dancing Fish. I put a link with some photos because I have never seen anything like this. No need to say that during the whole snorkeling we were trying to spot it, but with no success. Maybe next time we will be lucky enough.

After the snorkeling, we enjoyed some hours on the sunny deck. We had very delicious lunch and a small party with the entertaining Italian group of divers. The party happened naturally- it was not part of the program. The people from the neighboring boats were quite envious and I could see that they truly wanted to be on our boat in this moment.

The Dolphin House trip was with no doubt one of our highlights from the Egypt holiday and we want more people to experience it. If you want to try a diver course or just book a snorkeling trip with them, here it is  the link to their website https://www.diving.de/home.html. We highly recommend them.

Instead of conclusion

The rest of the days we spent at the hotel, doing snorkeling several times a day, sunbathing and enjoying the delicious food. At the bottom we created a gallery with the amazing fish and corals we saw in the Red Sea underwater world. 

Although we rarely come back to the same place, Egypt is already on our list for next year. Full of history, snorkeling heaven, coming with a bonus- amazing food. This is the perfect destination if you look for exotic near Europe. 

In case you still haven’t checked our other Long-Haul Trips recommendations, don’t waste time and see them. And we are always happy to receive your feedback. If these articles were useful or you need to know something more, get in touch with us.