Egypt

Benefits: History; people very friendly; cheap country; Red Sea, shopping whenever you want (they just close when customers left)

Concerns: Everyone smokes, but even worst they smoke everywhere; It is OK to tip them but to do it after service charge of 12% and with a tax of 10% added makes no sense!; Traffic & streets information in Cairo
Number of Days: 17 - from 4th till 20th April
Places visited (& days): Cairo (3); El Gouna (2): Hurghada (3): Sharm el Sheikh (4); Dahab (2); Mt Sinai (1); Nuweiba (1)

Transport (time or distances): Cairo to El Gouna by bus (550 km - 6 h); El Gouna - Hurghada by car (20 km); Hurghada - Sharm el Sheikh by ferry (2 h); Sharm el Sheikh - Dahab by bus (80 km; 2 h); Dahab - Mt Sinai by bus (110 km - 1h30); Mt Sinai - Nuweiba by taxi (140 km - 1h); Nuweiba - Aqaba in Jordan by ferry (60 km - it should be 2 hours but it took me one day!!!)

Currency: E.£ (Egyptian Pound) - 1 Euros = 7,5 E.£ ; Taxi 20 E.£; beer 15 E.£; average meal 100 E.£; 1 h internet - 5 E.£

Some funny experiences:
I forgot that in Arabic they write from right to left, and therefore when at 2.am I arrived at my room and turned on the TV, I was very disapointed to see that Sporting (my soccer team) was loosing 1-0 against Sporting Braga;
Meet another SAP colleague (she is also on a sabattical leave) in Hurghada

3 days in Cairo was enough since I was here 3 years ago when I visited Cairo, Luxor and Answan. Even hough I decided to visit again the pyramids what I felt was the same as when I was there for the first time.

The Tuga at Giza

Apart from visit to the pyramids, I spent my days mainly walking around Zamalek and downtown. The traffic and noise were incredible and sometimes were driving me crazy. I was lucky that I spent at least one Friday there (holiday - the day were Muslims go to the mosque for praying) and therefore the city was less crowded. This time I didn' t smoke any sheesha (water pipes).


Egyptians (Muslims) praying

I moved then to El Gouna by bus. Travelling by bus is very good specially coming from Tanzania and Kenya. The landscape was impressive, especially along the Gulf of Suez where on my left I had the Read Sea and on my right the desert with some mountains. I met in the bus a very nice Egyptian lady with whom I had a nice conversation. She was excited about my round-the-world trip but when I told her that I never booked anything she told me that I would have problems to find a hotel in El Gouna since it was Easter time. But I was lucky, as her son, Amr was the Reservation Manager of the Sheraton hotel and managed to find me a room there. I spent 2 days, mainly enjoying the resort facilities and seeing some kitesurf experts. Those days were very windy, around 30 knots! (too much for me!).


Tocotoco - my transport in El Gouna

Next stop: Hurghada! I stayed 3 days here. That was not my goal since Hurghada has been under massive construction during the last years and it is not the most attractive place to be. The problem was the ferry hadn´t been operating for some days and therefore I had to wait, otherwise it would have been a 12h bus trip instead of 1h30 by ferry. Here, I met Ann and George who are kitesurf instructors. The funny thing (what a small world!) is that Ann is also working for SAP (Belgium) and on a sabbatical leave as well. The only difference is that she is already on her 2nd year (maybe I will apply for another year then!)


George & Ann (SAP colleague)

During my last evening, I met 2 Russian girls from St. Petersburg (Lena and Valentina) with whom I had dinner. They taught me some russian words (very helpful for the coming days). Unfortunately at midnight, they had to leave for Cairo since they had booked a visit to the pyramids. I hope to see them, when visit Russia after my round the world trip.



Lena & Valentina

I then took the ferry to Sharm el Sheikh and I decided to go to Na' Ama Bay.



Na' ama bay (Sharm el Sheik)

Here, I did two dives (the first after my Open Water course in Mozambique). The first day I went to the Temple and the second one, to the Ras Mohammed Park, considered one of the best diving sites in the world. To my surprise I enjoyed the corals better than the fishes (maybe because I haven' t seen so many!).

Here I met Lena (not the one from Hurghada but another one), a pretty russian girl. We met at the Sushi Lounge where we chated and danced all night. She was with her sister and a friend. It was funny because when I approached her she thought that I was Egyptian and her sister pointed out her finger showing a ring pretending that she was married. The day after we didn' t manage to meet, I was really tired on that day and the following day I was diving at 8.00 am and therefore decided not to join them. To my surprise and after a good starting night, we never met again....
Lena was one of thousands of Russians that come to Egypt, mainly to the Red Sea, for holidays. Later on I was told that 70% of the tourist during that time, were from Russia!!! (My friend Dundee would really love to be here). I was happy as well because, I wanted to visit Russia on my round the world tour and since I cannot make it, this was at least a taste of it.

From here I moved to Dahab. Although the tourism has increased in this area, it is still possible to get in touch with a lot of bedouins (inhabitants of Sinai). Dahab is probably the best place to dive if you want to avoid crowded areas. I didn' t dive here since I had planned to climb the Mt Sinai the day after. On top of that I got some fever and therefore stayed here an extra day just to recover.



Bay of Dahab

When I was in the bus, ready to leave to Mt Sinai, I decided to check if i had the passport with me and this time i hadn't. I jumped out of the bus and told the driver that he shouldn´t leave without me. I am sure he didn't understand a word but seeing my face was enough to understand that something was really wrong. Glad that Dahab is a small town and in 5 min I managed to go by cab, get my passport, come back. Checking in and checking out each 2/3 days it was probable that it would happen one day.

Climbing the Mt Sinai after climbing Kilimandjaro is peanuts. it is just 2 hours trekking till the summit (2285 m). I climbed during the night to see the sunrise.



Sunrise at the summit of Mt Sinai

There are two routes (the camel trail ant the Steps of Repemtance) I took the camel to go up and the steps for the descent. Unfortunately it was very crowded and therefore difficult to get silence at the peak. The summit of Mt Sinai is where God gave Moses the ten Commandments.



Back to the St Catherine Monastery after climbing


The end of my trip in Egypt was tough. Leaving Mt Sinai, while i was waiting for the bus i was informed that it was broken. The only way to leave was by taxi and i was the only one so a long negotiation was needed to be sure to make a good deal. By taxi, it took me just 1 hour to reach Nuweiba. We were driving quickly to see if I could get the ferry. When we arrived I couldn't take the ferry neither buy the ticket for the next day since the ticket office was already closed. So instead of enjoying my last swim on the red sea, the day after, I had to go earlier to buy my ticket. Due to an Europeean inspection on the ferry instead of leaving at 14.00 we just left at 19.30!!!

Ferry from Nuweiba (Egypt) to Aqaba (Jordan)