| Click on link or picture to go to my Day by Day Blog |
 | Tour Director “Good Morning Ladies and Gentlemen. My name is Atef, A-T-E-F. You may call me A-T. It is my pleasure to be your tour director and tour guide as well.” Every morning of the tour, once we were settled on the bus, Atef gave this little speech (or something very similar). |
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 | Day 1 - Fly from Denver to Cairo I live in Colorado Springs, CO. Since I was flying out of Denver instead of Colorado Springs, I drove to Denver the day before and stayed in a hotel near DIA (Denver International Airport). Why was I flying out of Denver instead of Colorado Springs? |
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 | Day 2 - Arrive in Cairo Everyone that was on our tour (all 34 of us) were on the same flight. This had the advantage of not needing to wait for more flights. Once everybody had their luggage and those that didn’t had submitted the proper paperwork, we all got on the bus and headed to the hotel. |
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 | Day 3 - Tour Giza Area (Morning) Our wakeup calls came at 6:20 AM and 6:30 AM and then Kathy called us about 15 minutes later to make sure that we were up. Breakfast was in the same place as dinner last night. It was OK. The eggs were cold and the omelet line long. The coffee was scarce and weak, but the pastries were great. Our hotel was the Pyramids Park Resort and it was lovely. We were there for 3 days. |
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 | Day 3 - Tour Giza Area (Afternoon) Our next stop was lunch. This was at a nearby open air restaurant. The lunch was not included, but we really had no choices other than to eat or not eat. The cost was $10 (US) plus drinks if we had any (and here water is considered a drink and you pay for it.) The food was pretty good. It was, in my opinion, better than the food at the hotel. I do think that it should be included with the tour when there aren’t any other places to eat and there isn’t a menu from which to order. The fresh baked bread was wonderful. |
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 | Day 4 - Visit Alexandria Today we go to Alexandria – the city that Alexander the Great built. Our wakeup call was at 6:00 AM and departure at 7:00 AM. The bus ride to Alexandria was about 3.5 hours. Along the way, we saw lots of fields with different crops. Some of the most noticeable architecture features along the way were cone shaped structures with lot of small holes in them. |
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 | Day 5 - Fly to Luxor Ugh! Today we start with a 4:00 AM wake up call. We can eat breakfast if we want, but I don’t want at this time of day so I settle for a cup of coffee and put some pastries into a zip lock bag for later. We head to the airport. The procedures are different here than in the US. Atef collected the etickets and real tickets and went and picked up the boarding passes for everyone. |
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 | Day 6 - Visit Thebes Today, we are going to explore the West Bank of the Nile River also known as Thebes. Here lies the Theban Necropolis arguably the richest archaeological site in the world. What is the significance of the East Bank vs. the West Bank? Well, the sun rises in the east so east means life. The sun sets in the west so west means death. The structures on the east side of the Nile are for the living. The structures on the west side of the Nile are for the dead. A necropolis is basically a cemetery and here are some of the most magnificent tombs ever discovered on the planet. |
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 | Day 7 - Cruising, Edfu, Temple of Horus, Kom Ombo When we woke up this morning, we were docked in Edfu. At Edfu is the magnificent Temple of Horus. This temple was buried under silt and sand for over two thousand years. It is the largest and best preserved Ptolemaic temple in Egypt. Construction started in 237 BC and continued on until about 51 BC. |
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 | Day 8 - Abu Simbel Today started out very early. Our wakeup call was at 4:30 AM. At 5:45 we loaded up on the bus and headed for the airport only to find that our flight to Abu Simbel was delayed an hour. We went through security twice – once when we first entered the terminal and again on our way out the gate to the plane. Both times I had a bottle of water in my bag and they made no comment. Neither time were we asked to show any kind of identification. We were actually encouraged by our guide to take water with us as we should have it with us at Abu Simbel and the airport is very lax in allowing bottles of water especially to Abu Simbel. The flight was about 30 minutes long. |
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 | Day 9 - Aswan Today, our cruise officially ends. By 8:00 AM we were up, fed breakfast, checked out and on the bus for our Aswan trip. Our first stop of the day was the Unfinished Obelisk. This area of Aswan is rich in granite and much of the granite used in monuments in Egypt came from this area. |
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 | Day 10 - Nubian Museum, Fly to Cairo, Dinner Cruise This morning after breakfast, we visited the Nubian Museum across the street from our hotel. It was a fabulous museum. There were no crowds. There was a wonderful display of the structures that were moved to protect them from the rising waters of Lake Nasser. There were also mummies, jewelry, dioramas and outdoor features including a cave with cave carvings. |
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 | Day 11 - Cairo Today, we go on a tour of Cairo. Our first observation from our balcony was of fog /smog. I can tell already that my allergies are not going to be happy today. |
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| | Day 12 & 13 - Fly home We had a five AM wakeup call this morning, ate breakfast and went to the airport. Check-in wasn’t too bad. They had a well staffed area for our bus to check in. The flight left on time and arrived early. This was not the same aircraft that we flew over on and was cleaner and all restrooms were in use. |
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 | Final Thoughts As I write this, I have been back from Egypt for over a month. I’m still trying to figure out what I really thought of it.
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 | Highlights UNESCO World Heritage Sites (In order visited) |
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