Egypt

We’ll have two port stops in Egypt. On Monday, we dock in Safaga, where we will take an excursion into Luxor to see the Temple of Karnak, the Temple of Luxor, the Valley of the Kings, and the Valley of the Queens. Luxor is over a 3-hour bus ride in and then back out, so lots of bus time.

Then we have 2 sea days, including transit of the Suez Canal on Wednesday.

Our second Egyptian port is Port Said on Thursday. From here we visit Cairo, the Great Pyramids, and the Sphinx. Again this will take a long bus ride.

Kathleen and I visited both locations in Egypt 20 years ago with our three children. So, it may be a revisit for us, but it is worth seeing again. Of about 22 family trips we took during my 4 years working in Europe, the trip to Egypt was by far the best.

Some passengers are taking an overland excursion that leaves the ship in Safaga, spends 3 nights in hotels, and flies from Luxor to Cairo to rejoin the ship. Some variations on the excursion include going up the Nile to the Aswan Dam as part of the total transit from Luxor to Cairo. This extended-excursion approach makes a lot of sense for people who have not been to Egypt before.

We learned from the port lecturer that the 4 sources of money for Egypt are, in order: 1) the Suez Canal, 2) oil, 3) money sent back by the approximately 5 million Egyptian working abroad, and 4) tourism. Given the role of tourism, Egypt has been working hard to make it safer and to appear safer because there is still a stigma from the tourist incidents from a decade or so ago.

Egypt has a population of 80,000,000. That is 1/3rd of the world’s Arab population. 18,000,000 of these live in Cairo.

86% of Egypt is desert. I recall seeing Egypt from an airplane. It looks like a giant dandelion plant. The bushy green part at the top is Cairo and the Nile’s delta. Once you move south of Cairo, the only green is “tap root” of about one mile in width that follows the Nile. Move further than a mile from the Nile, and it is only brown and desert.