Drive Like An Egyptian

Around this time last year, B and I spent a week in Egypt. It was a last-minute decision to go away somewhere warm and sunny, a quick holiday before I started my new job. We planned on spending most of the time snorkelling, so picked a Red Sea resort called El Gouna, 14 miles north of Hurghada. Also known as the 'Venice of the Red Sea' the self-contained town stretches along 6 miles of coastline, and spreads onto several nearby islands. It comprises luxury hotels, a golf course, marina and Down Town shopping complex with some good restaurants and shops.

We landed late at Hurghada Airport, and after getting through the “Visa Auction”... yes, everything is negotiable in Egypt and there were at least 5 different visa salesmen vying for our custom in different currencies.... we were herded onto our tour operator’s bus and onto El Gouna and our hotel, the Mövenpick. The hotel itself seemed enormous.....the staff used a golf cart to get us and our luggage from reception to our oversized room, but it was difficult to get a proper impression of anything in the darkness. Exhausted from the flight, we went straight to sleep. When I woke up the next morning and pulled back the thick curtains...WOW! Blinding sunlight seared my eyeballs at first but then gradually I could focus on the beautiful turquoise of the Red Sea under the bluest sky......

The view from our room

We spent the first day exploring the resort, and decided to go snorkelling on the second. It was a bit disappointing to learn that this would involve getting a boat out to the reef with the dive school (no good snorkelling straight off the hotel jetty), and that the water was decidedly icy (the dudes at the dive school recommended 5 mm full length wetsuits at a minimum).


Hmmm, wetsuits...possibly one of the things I detest most on this planet.... yes, I can appreciate their purpose...but it’s getting into the darn things that has me huffing, puffing, squirming, panting and cursing every chocolate bar and potato crisp I’ve ever eaten. Despite asking for a L A R G E one, I was handed one that would have been too small for Kate Moss. Only after I’d made a huge spectacle of myself trying to squeeze my blubber into a too-tight suit, the dive school dude stopped smirking in the background and relinquished an appropriately ‘Fit For Wide Ass’ one.


Finally, after these exertions to get kitted up, we set off at great speed across the water for about 45 minutes....just at the point I was wondering if the guys were in fact pirates/kidnappers and we were being taken out to open sea and would have to pay an enormous random to get back, we slowed and dropped anchor at a reef, alongside a fishing boat. Unfortunately, the lack of controls on fishing mean that the fish were quite sparse....at least in that part of the Red Sea. Perhaps we’d been spoilt by snorkelling in the Maldives, where, thanks to their strict fishing policy (no nets allowed), the tropical waters teem with marine life. Half an hour in the water and we’d had enough. Despite the accursed wetsuits, our legs were cramping from the coldness, and we gratefully flopped back onto the boat, chilled to the bone. Back on the shore we decided that snorkelling was not going to be the focus of this holiday....so, onto Plan B: temples and tombs. We’d hoped to do a day trip to Cairo during the week, but now succumbed to the sales patter of our local tour rep and booked an excursion to Luxor too.

Since the terrorist attack at the Temple of Hatshepsut in Luxor in 1997, and up until December 2008,the Egyptian government made coach parties travel in armed convoys in the Nile Valley. This meant we were picked up at our hotel 5 a.m. to make it to the Safaga assembly point in time to join the 7 a.m. convoy to Luxor. There were already at least 200 other coaches lined up when we arrived at Safaga, and by the time we departed, our trusty armed tourist policeman on board, we were probably one of over 300. The road down to Luxor is interspersed with security check-points, through which the buses have to travel in single file. Between checkpoints, however, a bizarre desert road rally ensued, with each driver vying to be the one in front by the next checkpoint. The rocky mountains around Safaga began to give way to sandy hills, and by late morning we were getting close to the fertile Nile Valley.

Along the Sagada-Qina highway

We passed through the town of Qina, built along canals of the Nile. All other traffic in the town was held to a standstill, side roads were barricaded closed and fronted by an armed guard, to allow the uninterrupted passage of the convoy.

Canals of Qina

Once we reached central Luxor, the convoy split up and we began our whirlwind tour of tombs, temples and tat-selling tourist traps. After a whip through three tombs in the Valley of the Kings at Thebes and an ‘unexpected’ visit to an alabaster workshop, we arrived at the Temple of Hatshepsut, impressive in its stunning setting at the foot of a sheer limestone cliff-face.

Temple of Hatshepsut

Then it was down to the banks of the River Nile for the brief crossing by boat, from the West to the East (or from Death to Life for the Ancient Egyptians)....and onto the spectacular Temple of Karnak, with its solemn Avenue of Sphinxes, towering lotus flower columns and glassy Sacred Lake.

Boats on the banks of the Nile

Karnak Temple

By now it was late evening, and time to rejoin the Luxor to Safaga Rally. It was well past midnight before we were dropped back at our hotel and we spent the next day semi-comatose in sun loungers, trying to recharge our batteries for Cairo.

As it turned out, the day in Cairo was a far more relaxing experience than the Luxor expedition...although the driving was just as white-knuckled and frequent-sharp-intake-of-breath inducing! Forget the biblical plagues....Cairo has its own modern-day problems, in the form of horrendous traffic jams! We were picked up from Cairo airport by our guide for the day and were pretty quickly in the thick of it, heading towards the Egyptian Museum. The sheer volume of traffic in Africa’s largest city has resulted in five lanes of traffic occupying three-lane highways...giving a whole new meaning to the concept of “leaving a safety gap”. We witnessed several dodgem-car style incidents where drivers wacked into each other, then simply waved their apologies and carried on driving... typically, the cars are so old and decrepit that another dent or two is not going to make much difference.


We could have spent a week in the Egyptian Museum, but only had two hours... enough time to see the most significant finds, including Tutankhamun’s treasure and the odd mummified human, cat, snake, crocodile and so on. After an early lunch at the Cairo Hard Rock Cafe, we were on the slow road to Giza via the obligatory papyrus shop, where we were parted with our money. Giza is probably the poorest suburb of Cairo, not much better than a shanty town, with the pyramids providing a dramatic backdrop. I have always wanted to see the pyramids and sphinx in person, and they are a great sight... photographs did not give the true impression of just how massive they are, and I find it impossible to fathom how the Ancient Egyptians built them without the technologies we have today.

Pyramids at Giza

There was just time for a quick trip to the ‘City of the Dead’, the Northern Cemetery of the city. As early as the 14th century, the homeless starting occupying the tombs, living side-by-side with the dead. The cemetery has become an fully-established community, and is even rumoured to be getting broadband this year.


This is just a taste of all there is to see in this amazing country....I really hope go back one day.