Cairo: 10th – 14th September
We arrived in Cairo late in the evening from Casablanca. After collecting our bags and exiting the airport it was nice to be in a city which wasn’t in curfew after 9pm. And not only was it not in curfew; it was buzzing. The drive to our city centre hotel took about 20 minutes and primarily followed a large cross-city motorway on which there was four lanes of traffic each way, all of which were punctuated with lines of wheel-to-wheel mopeds.
We awoke to the customary north-African bright sunshine early the next morning and had a look out of the window to survey Cairo. Apart from having a view of El-Tahrir Square from one corner, we didn’t think it looked too dissimilar to Casablanca. The view was remarkably similar: busy streets, bustling shops, buildings which looked like they could do with a bit of a clean and the odd pile of rubble. However, at street level, Cairo was much busier and the anecdotes regarding the level of noise and traffic pollution became obvious. It was only when were on our way to see Giza that the guide explained Cairo’s current population was greater than 10 million which was one of the main motivations for building a New Cairo – something I knew nothing about – as a commercial and administrative centre 50 miles to the east.
Cairo’s alleyways and roads were all (seemingly) a hotbed of commerce. There were few other tourists in central Cairo so everyone we saw regardless of age – some were kids, others were octogenarians – had a hustle of some sort and everyone tried their luck with us. Never before had we heard such a variety of different sales pitches from so many charming people.
Luxor: 14th – 18th September
It was nice to leave Cairo after four days. After having seen most of relics and having sampled some of the excellent food – the Lebanese restaurants were consistently excellent – we’d had our fill of the claustrophobic street markets. Buying tickets for the train to Luxor was more straightforward than I had envisaged having been forewarned how chaotic the train station could be. I am not sure why it was the case – perhaps the presence of Federal soldiers with assault rifles – but the queuing system in the train station reminded me of a Shropshire post office on old-age pension day; everyone was very polite; there was no pushing in or ‘accidentally’ joining the wrong end of the queue; and it moved at a steady and acceptable pace. The choice of tickets was as expected (there were three classes) and the first class tickets, being c. £15 each for the nine-hour journey, seemed a steal particularly given the only real alternative means of travel was another flight.
Pulling in to Luxor more than three hours late and having had virtually nothing to eat for the entire journey (we had expected a restaurant car, or at least some basic nourishment first class), we were absolutely famished when we arrived. Luxor was clearly far smaller than Cairo so, fortunately, the journey was only a few minutes in a taxi along a road which felt deserted by comparison. The train journey had been pretty exhausting, not just because of longevity and the lack of food, but sitting for such a protracted period – albeit while traversing through new and intriguing landscapes – can just be draining. Having anticipated this apathy from inactivity we had left the following day entirely free of sightseeing so we could please ourselves and take a stroll around Luxor. With the benefit of hindsight, it might have been better to have someone collect us from the hotel because as soon as we walked out of the door and away from the hotel’s security we were surrounded and set upon by all manner of salesmen: tour guides, tailors, taxi drivers, restaurateurs, hoteliers (like we didn’t already have somewhere to stay) and beggars. Needless to say, this prompted a fairly speedy return to the hotel to spend the day by the pool on the banks of the Nile which, although not a perfect tonic for previous day’s inactivity, seemed a preferable alternative to what we had just encountered…and was actually very pleasant.
Sharm el Sheikh: 18th – 24th September
The flight to Sharm el Sheikh from Luxor has to have been one of the shortest I have ever taken. We barely had enough time to drink the bottle of water that was dished up when the seatbelt light went off. Looking out of the window, however, we were glad to not have chosen any other means of transport as the terrain looked either pretty rugged, wet or grossly unappealing (the bus journey took 20 hours – and bus journeys do not have any notion of the romanticism that travelling by train does).
Initially we chose ‘Sharm’ just to have a few uneventful days in the sun and enjoy a bit of a lounge. It turned out to be be anything but. I spent a couple of days diving, a couple of days driving around South Sinai – which the FCDO would have one believe is a hotbed of terrorism, which we did not find it to be at all – and a couple of days doing our diplomatic duties with a hotel full of Russians enjoying the all inclusive beer. All in all, it was pretty exhausting and great fun.
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