Cairo, Egypt
Cairo is an intense, bustling capital. It is a fusion of ancient and modern, conservative and cosmopolitan. Throughout Cairo, you will see young men dressed the same as their peers would in any European city and next to them would be a man in a traditional gelabaya, the long dress worn by men. The women may wear the hijab but they are a more glamourous version, in bright colors with sparkling accessories.
We had decided to book a tour through Egypt because the specific tour took us camping through the desert with Bedouin guides and also on a felucca cruise down the Nile. None of which we could have sought out on our own. So for better or for worse, we went along with the tour.
Our first visit was to the Pyramids of Khufu, Khafre and Menkure at Giza. It was packed with tourists but the pyramids are so enormous that we were able to wander off and find spots where it felt like we were the only ones there. We had been warned of all the different scams they try to use against tourists at the pyramids. Egyptians are literally the best sales people in the world, they all speak minimally 5 languages so they will always try to persuade you in your native tongue. What worked like a charm is that whenever we saw someone approaching us to try to sell to us, I just switched to speaking in Lithuanian and when they noticed that they didn't know the language they turned around right away.
Western Oasises
The next day we head out to do a loop through the Western Oasises. We met up with our Bedouin guide, ours was Salim. It was a lot of driving and every night we would camp at a different spot within the desert. The Bedouin would set up camp and always cook amazing meals for us. They also provide us our evening entertainment of Bedouin songs around the campfire.
We got to visit the medieval town of Al-Qasr which was constructed mostly of mudbrick and is amazingly well preserved. While in the desert, we also got to do a camel safari which may have been the highlight for me.
Luxor and the Nile Valley
Our next stop was Luxor and the Valley of the Kings. We got a chance to ride donkeys to the main complex and from there we were able to enter into several of the Pharoahs tombs. After Luxor we went to Abu Simbel and then boarded a felucca to sail down the Nile for a few days also getting to stop at Kom Ombo and the Temple of Horus at Edfu. The felucca is just a simple sail boat and was operated by Nubian guides. The Nubians are the black Eyptians and inhabit mostly Southern or Upper Egypt. They took good care of us; they sailed the boat, cooked our excellent meals and also entertained us at night with their songs.
The sites were amazing to say the least, but after a while we got tired of having to bargain for everything and constantly being caught up in the tourist stampede.
