Egypt 2nd week

Thursday 30th August

Dave and I woke up early and walked to visit the Temple complex of Karnak which was built over a period of 1 300 years and covers over 100 acres which is big enough to house 10 great Cathedrals! At the height of it’s supremacy Karnak’s wealth was staggering and a list of it’s assets during the reign of RamsesIII included 65 villages, 421 662 cattle, 83 ships and 81 322 workers and slaves to mention just a few of the assets! Ordinary folk were barred from entering Karnak and only priests, the pharaoh and his representatives were allowed entry. We only looked at the beginning part of the Precinct of Amun which is the grandest of 3 separate temple enclosures within Karnak, as it was hot and we are a bit ‘templed out’ as the overlanders say. However, you can’t help but marvel at the magnitude of these ancient monuments and we feel very privileged to be able to see these wonders for ourselves.
We then walked back through the back streets of Luxor towards our camp and were amused to see sheep and chickens right there in the city streets.

Luxor N 25 42.682 E 32 38.920

The overlanders were busy doing a major truck clean, so we joined them and cleaned out Garfield, even washing down our awning and tent. Then we all left at 1.30pm to join the convoy to Hurghada on the Red Sea. There were about 30 tourist vehicles in the convoy and it took us about 4 hours to reach Hurghada. As soon as we turned E and left the Nile, we were reminded that Egypt is actually not a green paradise, but rather a huge land of desert! Just inland from Hurghada, the barren desert plains erupted into the Red Sea Mountains which were stark and dramatic against the blue, blue sky. These are the highest mountains in Egypt, bar the ones in Sinai.
Hurghada itself stretches over about 20kms along the beach front which is just wall-to-wall hotels – a lot still under construction. We arrived at our hotel at 7pm and after booking in and making arrangements for tomorrow, we all went out to dinner. Jeff, has been a real help to us and has basically ‘adopted’ Dave and I – he books us in at their preferential rates and so we are only paying R25 each for bed & breakfast at a very decent hotel.

Johan has been the only ‘bad’ part of my day today as he notified me that he won’t be making it through Libya and so I have had to contact the agent and cancel his applications! And that is, after he asked me to add 2 extra people (passengers he had planned on picking up), only a few days ago. So I feel a real idiot and can’t imagine what the Libyan agent is thinking. The problem Johan has, is that he never had a carnet and now is unable to orgainise one, so Toyota (who sponsored his vehicle) have instructed him to make a U-turn and return to South Africa. Anybody planning to drive to Egypt must have a carnet for their vehicle and the carnet needs to be in the drivers name and not for example a company’s name.

Hurghada N 27 15.564 E 33 49.142



Friday 31st August


After breakfast all 10 of us went on a day snorkeling trip out to Giftun Island. I had vowed not to go on a sea cruise again, after my terrible sea-sickness in Shimoni Kenya, however the Red Sea looked so calm that I decided to chance it. The day was really enjoyable and the sea colours and clarity were amazing. We stopped at 2 different reefs to snorkel and we snorkeled off of Giftun Island itself. There was good coral on the one reef and at all the sites we saw plenty of colourful parrotfish, clownfish, etc. They served us a very tasty lunch of fish, rice and vegetable ratatouille, so all in all it was a very relaxing day and we all returned with better tans. Jeff is trying to compete with Dave – with no success! The tourist trade is certainly flourishing here in Egypt and we counted 50+ boats in the Red Sea on similar trips to ours, and our boat had between 30 and 40 people aboard.
We got back at 4pm and then our work began, as we had promised to cook for the crowd! We went and bought some beef – the butcher just hacks off a chunk from the carcass, selling from the top down, so we got meat from near the bottom of the carcass as it was near the end of the day! We cooked them a good ‘Durban’ curry with rice, a veggie casserole, sliced bananas and papadams. They were all very impressed and a pleasant evening was enjoyed by all, with some of them smoking the sheesha after dinner.

Things are quite cheap in Egypt, although nothing is marked with a price and they always try to ‘add it on’ for tourists. Teachers only earn LE 250 a month which is about R330! And one of our guides told us that her husband, after 35 years in the government was only earning LE 750 so the people are relatively poor.
We have suddenly become aware that the people are no longer ‘black’ but have lighter complexions. This change seems to happen around the Sudanese border with the Nubians being the last of the darker complexions.


Saturday 1st September

We had a leisurely start as the convoy for Suez only left at 11am. We had been told that the ‘tourist convoy system’ peters out N of Hurghada and sure enough, I don’t even think we would have been made to wait until 11, as we got to the check point at 10.30am and were just waved through with no register etc being written down. The overlanders are staying in Hurghada till Monday and we will meet them again in Cairo on Wednesday. We traveled N through flat desert with the Gulf of Suez on our right – at times it was lapping (no waves as such) within 10 metres of the road. There were fields of wind turbines along the way and the temperature was around 35 degrees which is manageable. Along the way there was loads of construction – 100’s of hotels and holiday apartment blocks – one wonders who is going to occupy all of them?
Since we left home we have now done a total of 25 800 kms.
We reached Suez Port at about 3pm and saw all the ships waiting to enter the Canal. Twelve kms further N we went through the Almed Handi Tunnel (for a toll fee of R3) under the Suez Canal and then we were in Sinai and traveling South! We traveled for a while and then stopped and set up camp on the beach, overlooking the Gulf of Suez and back towards Egypt. Soon we were seated with our sun-downers and there in front of us were a whole lot of dolphins! They say it is good luck to see dolphins in the Red Sea so we were very pleased. The sunset was beautiful over the sea with just Garfield, Dave and I all alone on the beach.

N 29 17.297 E 32 52.191



Sunday 2nd September

We didn’t have the best nights sleep as it was very windy and the tent flapped a lot. Anyway, we were on the road by 7am and carried on down the coast for a while before turning to travel E across Sinai. Inland there were stark, ragged mountains and it was quite beautiful. We stopped for breakfast at about 10am and within minutes 2 Bedouin men had joined us – we offered them tea and bread and then they took their leave. The Bedouin are the local people who live in the Sinai. We continued and reached Dahab on the Gulf of Aqaba at about noon. What a beautiful town – colourful streets lined with bougainvilleas and palms led down to the sea front, where on crystal clear turquoise water, there were 100’s of windsurfers, all at different levels of expertise. And all this is set against a backdrop of jagged, golden mountains. There are hotels with palm lined frontage on the water’s edge, but we can only take photographs of these – we have to then hike down the road until we find more affordable accommodation – like backpackers!! We actually found a very nice place also on the beachfront with a helpful manager and he pointed us to the first dive site, before we set up camp at Alaska Camp.

The site is called The Canyon Coral Garden and is honestly the most amazing snorkeling that Dave and I have ever done. The coral was spectacular and the fish amazing – we were both enthralled. We thought of Andrew & Dee and how much they would enjoy being here. Of course, I wished we could share this beauty with our kids, and I truly hope that they will all get here one day to see such underwater beauty. The coral ranges from bright iridescent green to pinks, purples, blues and then the more subtle creams and pale yellows. It comes in all shapes and sizes – big succulent looking ‘carpets’ that cover whole rocks, clam-like shaped ones, little upright bonsai type corals and then huge delicate lacey ones, to name but a few. The fish are a rainbow of colours and sizes – bright yellow anemone fish, blue and yellow angelfish, ornate brown and cream lion fish, turquoise and pink parrotfish and so on.
After we had set up camp, we took a stroll along the beach walkway which is paved and lined with cafes and restaurants. Right in the hub of things there is another dive site called Lighthouse. We thought it would be completely destroyed with all the 100’s of people diving and snorkeling, but we were wrong – it too was wonderful with sheer 20 metre drop offs, covered in every type of coral you can imagine with 1 000’s of fish. Dave and I are completely blown away with this snorkeling and can’t wait for tomorrow.
Back at our backpackers we have met several other travelers, a South African from Hilton, Pietermaritzburg and even a young Russian couple, who have invited us to contact them in Russia!
We made dinner at the campsite and then took a stroll along the beach walkway which had come alive at night! After a long walk we stopped at one restaurant and had ice-cream for dessert.

N 28 29.830 E 34 30.960


Monday 3rd September

We woke up and after early morning coffee, packed up as we were going to drive to ‘the Blue Hole’ to snorkel. This is a 80m deep hole in the reef and the sheer sides are covered in coral and of course fish. As Dave says, if you took every type of coral you could imagine, and then added 1000’s of tropical fish of every colour and shape and size; you could not create a wonder as good as we are seeing! The Red Sea basin was created by the same tectonic stresses that formed the Rift Valley and the Dead Sea. It is cut off from the Indian Ocean by an underwater ‘sill’ where it is only 100m deep. The Gulf of Aqaba is cut off from the Red Sea by the 200m deep Tiran Strait. Neither the Red Sea nor the Gulf of Aqaba are fed by rivers and the rate of evaporation exceeds the rainfall, so they are exceptionally warm and salty which makes them the ideal environment for tropical fish and coral reefs, the warmth in particular is responsible for the brilliance of colours of the coral.
We then drove back a bit to snorkel the Canyon again and then came back to camp for breakfast. After breakfast we went to snorkel Eel Garden. We really just can’t get enough – even Dave is loving it, as the water is warm and the sights so amazing – a kaleidoscope of colours and shapes. Eel Garden was as wonderful as the other sites but on the sandy sea bed there were 100’s of snake-like eels all waving in the water. All these sites are right on the shore and you just wade in ankle deep, before snorkeling over the coral reefs.

We relaxed at camp over lunch time and then went for another snorkel at Lighthouse just before sunset!


Tuesday 4th September

We woke up and went for one last snorkel before heading back into the interior of Sinai to visit Saint Catherine’s Monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai. This is where Moses heard the Lord speaking from a burning bush and where Moses received the Ten Commandments. The St Catherine’s Church within the monastery was very ornate with lavish chandeliers and a superb mosaic depicting Jesus on the cross. Outside we saw a thorny evergreen bush which is said to be a transplanted descendant of the Burning Bush. All attempts to grow cuttings from this bush in other locations, have apparently failed. The monastery’s Bell Tower was impressive against the blue sky and the backdrop of Mount Sinai.
Mount Sinai is also venerated in the Islamic faith and the prophet Mohammed is said to have visited the monastery in 625AD and in the 11th century a mosque was added to the monastery. This Christian outpost has thus always been protected in an otherwise Muslim country throughout the ages.
There was a very well laid out and informative Visitor’s Centre which we spent a while at and then we were back on the road. We made quite good time and decided to push through to Cairo. We reached Cairo just as the sun was setting at 7pm and then started negotiating the traffic! Even if I say so myself – we did really well! Dave drove like an absolute star in the chaotic traffic and I managed to navigate and keep us on the right road – what a team! We went over the Nile to the West Bank of Cairo and a bit S towards Giza, where we knew there was a campsite. It took us 2 hours but we didn’t have to make one U-turn so we were pretty chuffed with ourselves!


Wednesday 5th September

We got going early and traveled 20kms S to see the pyramids at Dashur. There were 2 Old Kingdom pyramids we wanted to see – the Red Pyramid and the Bent Pyramid. These were both built by Snofru (2613-2588BC) who was the father of Cheops who built the Great Pyramid of Cheops at Giza. The Red Pyramid is the second biggest pyramid and is open to the public. There were only a few tourists at this site and in fact Dave and I were alone in the burial chambers, which added to the eerie feeling down there in the middle of such a gigantic stone structure! You have to bend in half to creep down the tunnel right into the middle and it is really hot, so by the time we came out we were sweating profusely. We then visited the Bent Pyramid, a km away, where Snofru was buried. This pyramid is very well preserved and has most of its limestone cladding still intact, so you get a feel of how the pyramids used to look – all smooth and white. This pyramid is peculiar as it is steeper for ¾’s of its height and then tapers off to a gentler slope, thus giving its sides a ‘bent’ appearance.
Dashur Pyramids N 29 48.331 E 31 12.289
We then drove back up into Cairo to meet the overlanders at the Havana Hotel.