We had a fabulous week in Egypt. There are many tours arranged now from Kyiv to Sharm el Sheik and Hurgada, on opposite sides of the Red Sea. Although it’s not considered the optimal season, the sunshine and warm temperature sure beat the heck out of Kyiv in February.
We booked an “all-inclusive” trip through a local travel agency – charter flight direct from Kyiv to Sharm, 7 nights at the Oriental Resort with breakfast, lunch and dinner buffets, snacks throughout the day and unlimited local booze. We had heard that the Egyptian alcohol isn’t so hot, and apparently we weren’t the only ones who had heard – there was a rush on Duty Free at Boryspil airport as everyone stocked up on bottles of their preferred poison before departure. (We found the local beer and dry red wine to be just fine, although the hard liquor left something to be desired.)
Several people decided to dip into their stashes during the flight and get a head start on the vacation. One guy went to extreme, got thoroughly smashed on the majority of a bottle of Bailey’s, which may have contributed to him thinking it would be funny to harass the flight attendant and to tell her that he was planning to bomb the plane. None of the crew thought it was a good joke, though, and after being secured by the pilot, he was met on the tarmack by a personal Egyptian welcoming committee, aka the police.
After that dramatic start to our trip, we were pleased to settle in to our hotel for a quiet and relaxing week. We hit the beach right away
We were not disappointed! The sky was beautiful and cloudless, the water was crystal clear, the sun bright and warm. We spent most of the week on the beach or in the water.
No, that’s not the swimming pool – that’s the Red Sea!
The sea is very shallow by the shore, and rich with coral. Thus, most hotels have long boardwalks out into the water to get you to the deeper area where it’s not so risky to be barefoot. The coral is very sharp, so most people, including us, wear special swimming shoes when in the sea. It was like swimming in an aquarium – crystal clear water and the most beautiful, colorful fish you’ve ever seen. We had brought one pair of googles with us, and quickly bought a mask as well. The shops were so overpriced we decided not to buy snorkles, and we did pretty good during the week just holding our breath and getting short views of the underwater scenery. If we ever go back (which we definitely want to), we will buy good masks, snorkles and swim shoes in advance. The stuff on sale there was all extremely overpriced and of pretty poor quality. But we did OK with what we had, and were quite thrilled even with our limitations.
Sharm el Sheik is pretty much an artificial town. It reminded me of Las Vegas – this amazing oasis of life and luxury in the middle of the desert. Only Sharm has the Red Sea and beautiful beaches instead of casinos. But there is the long Palm-lined strip with countless resort hotels, lots of bars and shops and plenty of crappy souvenirs.
My first thought when we entered the hotel lobby was “Where are the women?” Of course there were female tourists, but it slowly dawned on me that there was not a single woman working there – not a one! Reception, bell hops, waiters and servers, even the housekeeping staff were all men. I mentioned it to our guide (a Russian woman who lives in Sharm 6 months of the year working for a Russian travel agency). She said no one is from Sharm, as it’s been developed as a town and tourist destination just in the last 15 or so years (with the real boom and growth only the last 7 years), so men come from Cairo to work there while their families (aka wives) stay at home. It was weird, even a bit creepy, to never see a woman working in the hotel or any of the shops in Sharm.
Sharm is located on the eastern side of the Red Sea, on the Sinai penisula. We were thus technically not in Africa, but on the land bridge that connects Africa and Southwest Asia. Across the main road through Sharm is quite a contrast to all the lush resorts:
This would be the desert that Moses and his people supposedly wandered in for 40 years.
We made a break in our suntanning to take a day trip to Cairo. And when I say “day trip”, I mean a 24-hour night-day-night trip. We left our hotel about 1:30 in the morning with a bunch of Russians and Ukrainians from a variety of Sharm hotels for the 500 km (310 mile) bus ride to Cairo. We crossed the Suez Canal, through a tunnel, and we were in Africa! After a couple stops along the way, we arrived at the edge of Cairo about 8:00 am. It took another hour and a half to get across Cairo to Giza and the pyramids. Our first impressions of Cairo were, shall we say, not the best. And they only got worse and worse throughout the day. Our guide told us that according to the law, property owners pay taxes only on completed buildings. Hence quite an incentive to never finish construction!
This was one of the more impressive examples we saw:
Here’s our first view of the Nile River.
And our first view of the pyramids:
I hadn’t expected that they are right in the city. Then again, I hadn’t realized that Cairo is a city of 20 million, so what was once a location far away is now in the city proper.
It’s hard to capture in a picture the magnitude of the pyramids. They are spectacular.
That little speck waving from his spot on a 2-ton “brick” would be Igor.
We went inside one of the smaller pyramids at this site, the final resting place of the wife of the pharaoh.
Our guide had suggested to try this one first before shelling out the $25 to go inside the big pyramid – and he was right. After the rather horrifying crawl down a very steep tunnel, we decided to pass on the 120 meter (~400 feet) descent into the big pyramid. This was adventurous enough for us:
So we had fun making silly pictures.
And exploring the area around the pyramids. Igor peeked down into an excavated pit and we were amazed to see 7000 year old hieroglyphs.
We moved onto the nearby Sphinx, where Igor continued to ham it up.
And encouraged me to ham it up a bit too.
The bottom half of the sphinx was preserved under sand for thousands of years, and the contrast with the wear on the top half that was exposed is quite distinct.
But if it looks this good even after 7000 years, can you imagine how amazing it was when first built?
We left the awe of the pyramids, and drove past this lovely view:
raw sewage being scooped up from a canal in the middle of the road. Now do you believe me that Cairo is a dump?
Ah, and of course what metropolis would be complete without donkeys?
I also saw some women washing clothes in the Nile River in downtown Cairo, but didn’t snap the photo fast enough.
We spent a couple hours in the Egyptian National Musuem. Unfortunately, no cameras are allowed inside the museum, so no photos from there. Igor was speechless as we entered the 110 year building – he later told me it had been his dream since he was an undergraduate history major to visit this museum. The collection is truly remarkable, but the condition of the museum and many of the collections was disappointing at best, shocking at worst. Many rooms were just a mish-mash of different cultures and different eras – Greek, Roman and Egyptian antiquities seemingly randomly cased together. Some cases had written descriptions in English, some in French, some in Arabic, many had no description at all. Built at the turn of the 20th century, it looked like most of the cabinets, displays and even wall signs were original. I started to understand why no one wants to return items to the Egyptians. The exhibitions in the British Museum, for example, certainly seem to be much better taken care of.
Nonetheless, it was a marvelous experience to be there. The Tutankhamen exhibition is fantastic (and is in one of the few updated and modern rooms in the museum).
We spent Thursday recovering from the exhausting trip to Cairo (we made it back to our hotel shortly around midnight), but headed out for another adventure on Friday: a day cruise on a yacht to snorkel at various coral reef sites in the Ras Mohammad National Park. The weather was chilly and windy, not exactly ideal for a day at sea, but we were excited and raring to go. We rented masks, snorkels, and fins.
About a million yachts, each full of tourists, headed out of the bay early in the morning.
Igor got sick almost immediately, poor guy. The gentle rocking back and forth of the boat just didn’t agree with him, and despite his nice tan he turned white as a sheet. He was rather miserable for the 40 minute trip to the first dive site.
We had a quick lesson on poisonous fish and other things to not touch in the water. The guide described one fish as giving you an extra super dose of Viagra – enough to set your heart racing to the extreme.
We arrived at our first dive site.
The boat stopped a bit out from the reef and drifted, as they aren’t allowed to drop anchor in this protected area. We geared up, and Igor jumped right in behind our instructor/guide, along with about 8 others from our boat. I think he was more excited to just get off the damn boat than he was to see the coral and fish.
I freaked out when I saw the deep water and rough current, and even though it was a relatively short swim to the shallower waters on the reef, I couldn’t overcome my fear enough to get in. I think the yacht crew had a good laugh at me chickening out.
After about 40 minutes at this site, everyone boarded back up and we headed across the open sea. That’s when everyone else, including me, got sick. There was apparently a storm out there somewhere, the only evidence of which we were aware were the huge and choppy waves. Igor and I discovered that our stomachs react to different motions. He hated the back and forth rocking, but didn’t mind the up and down, and I feel the opposite. “It’s just like a roller coaster,” he gleefully said. Exactly, and I hate roller coasters. And what’s even worse is that this was a one+ hour roller coaster ride with absolutely no way to get off. The crew distributed all the dramamine they had on board and it still wasn’t enough. It was one of the most miserable experiences of my life.
By the time we reached our second stop, I too was ready to just get off that damn boat no matter what. Fortunately, this site was shallower and the boat could anchor close to the reef. We dove in and swam for about 30-40 minutes. It was really beautiful. The surrounding view was also quite lovely.
As we had been bouncing across the sea, somehow the cook had managed to prepare a fabulous lunch. Igor was afraid to eat anything for fear of having it revisit on the next leg of the trip. The passengers took a vote, though, and opted to skip the third stop on the schedule so as to avoid another torturous roller coaster ride. So we stayed put for a couple hours and then headed back to dock.
As we drove back to our hotel, I got some good shots of the desert and mountains.
On Saturday we took a long walk along the beach, checking out the neighboring hotels. One hotel had an extra-long boardwalk, nearly double the length of all the others, which extended far out into the sea and to the very edge of the shelf.
The water was quite choppy from that faraway storm, but we could still see the colorful fish swimming in the shallows all along the dock.
At the edge of the dock we could easily see the dark blue line in the water marking the edge of the shelf and the steep drop into the open sea.
We were probably a good 500 yards out.
And the view was gorgeous.
Ah, this is the way to live.
The hotel grounds were gorgeous, too. And to think we’re in the middle of a desert!
Our would-be terrorist was on the return flight with us on Sunday night. He didn’t look worse for the wear, in fact, he seemed to have had a great week too. I always wondered who are the fools who buy all those crappy kitschy souvenirs? That guy, that’s who. He was loaded up with every single ridiculous thing you could buy. And he was happy. As were we.
Monday
Friday
Lots more photos here.
Anka in Kyiv 