EGYPT

Egypt: photo and travel diary

Below some of the most fascinating photos from Egypt and a fun and interesting travel diary full of information and anecdotes that describes the entire itinerary. If you haven't read it yet, take a look at the travel information and the itinerary map here: www.wildrips.net/egypt.htm.

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In view of the Christmas holidays, I was struck by the idea of visiting Egypt. This travel desire was not born thinking of the pyramids or the Red Sea, but finding a photo of the white desert by chance on the internet. It was a place too absurd to not run to visit it.
before leaving, booked a return flight from Cairo to Luxor, a B & AMP; B in the city of temples and the three-day trip In the desert (the latter through the local Select Egypt travel agency, found on the Internet: he didn't seem reliable at all, but the very low price convinced us).

As per the programmed itinerary, then, on December 23 Alitalia first and Egypt Air then took us to Luxor.

Casener at the hotel (the Beit Sabee, a double 40 euros per night) and went to sleep. Breakfast on the guesthouse terrace was scarna but allowed to admire the spectacular red mountains around luxor .

We came to take our taxi driver/guide for the day (which we paid 50 euros each including all tickets and lunch, but maybe we could have treated for something less). That sightseeing tour took us to Medinat Habu, to the famous temples of Karnak and Luxor, at the Valley of the Kings.

A travel itinerary in which the grandeur of the buildings and columns mixed with that of the landscape, making the views amazing. Even the typical lunch was very tasty.

In the evening we walked in the center of Luxor, which we reached thanks to a taxi and a ferryman who made us cross the Nile (throughout for 3 euros).

The sunset was splendid on the Nile and succulent dinner on the river. Turn around the city, observing with interest that mix of huge millennial monuments, modern tourist facilities and flapsed catapies.
The return to the hotel was a sign of the efficient system of Egypt (and other Arab countries) of agreements, friendships and bakshish (tips) between Egyptians and tourists: ferryman and taxi driver were always ready to accompany us.

At dawn of the day after our trusted taxi driver took us to the airport from which we flew to Cairo to continue our travel itinerary in Egypt. At the arrivals there was to welcome us a shorter guy with a sign with my name written. He didn't speak a word of English. Moreover, we had paid those three days of tour 140 euros each, including sleep, eat, drink, driver, guide, jeep, entrances to parks, etc ... really too little to be true, even for a low cost trip to Egypt.


Anyway, we arrived at the Baharyia oasis to lunch time. It was amazing to see the palm groves and the houses suddenly, in the midst of that dish nothing sandy.

The town of Baharyia was dusty and seemed to fall to pieces, but fascinated. The Silent Driver CI & QUOT; released & quot; In a nice hotel where other tourists waited to leave for the white desert.
my girlfriend, our guide and I mounted on a beautiful Toyota 4x4 whose flying was a very nice and vaguely crazy driver. We left this way for our travel itinerary in the Egyptian desert, no longer the monotone situated seen in the morning, but a fascinating alternation of colors, rocks, hills and dunes.

We stopped in an area of dark terrain (the Black Desert), then on a long sandy dune, and then continued in the itinerary through the extraordinary Akabat Mountains .

The two Bedouins went crazy for two things (like many others in Egypt): tea, which filled with sugar, and shisha, ie the water pipe with whose tobacco smoked.

We arrived in the dark in the middle of the white desert , where the Bedouins set up a campsite and began to cook.
A few hundred meters from us another mobile campsite was built for the Occupants of three or four jeeps. We reached them and spent a wonderful evening under the stars.

After a good sleep in the sleeping bags (the night temperature deceived certainly below 10 degrees) we woke up at dawn to finally admire the spectacular white desert in sunlight, with the incredible calcareous formations.

We then started with the jeep and continued to move along off-road routes among spectacular landscapes . We had lunch under the shadow of the trees of a small oasis (the only plants within miles).

The next day, the adventurous jeep travel itinerary continued. The driver drove a hundred per hour in the middle of the desert between sand dunes and strange rock formations. We also saw some typical camels.

Finally, we went back to Baharyia, where another driver loaded us to his veal that took us to Cairo , in the center, where we had booked a private room in a hostel.
We went out for dinner, finding a Nice restaurant near the gigantic Tahrir Square . The city seemed safe, lively, attractive.

The next morning we rented a taxi for twenty euros for the day, contacted by the hostel. The driver spoke Italian and tried to offer us souvenir shops, until he led us to the periphery of Il Cairo, where the entrance of the main site of the Pyramids were located , that of Giza. Here we rented a dromedary, on which we argued in two, and accompanied by the camelman vampammo among the famous tomb monuments of the Pharaohs.

The pyramids are located in the desert, but a few hundred meters from the ugliest condominiums de the Cairo; However, seeing them is really exciting, these are absurd and gigantic buildings.
We also saw the Sphinx, which instead was not surprised because of its small size.

Oltre alle Pyramids of Giza There were similar sites not far from Cairo, almost equally impressive places in the middle of the desert. Thus, our driver proposed us a travel itinerary between the pyramids of Egypt who took us to Saqqara and a dahshur . In the latter site we could climb the steps of the red pyramid of Snefru and from here entering the heart of the pyramid, through a close and steep descent. You couldn't see anything, but you could imagine that that was the tombstone, over 3,000 years old.
In the afternoon the trip ended. We then vanished alone for the center of Il Cairo, where I became a lover of the bakhlava (a set of honey, walnuts and other goodness). Showing the passport we could then enter the building complex of the Italian consulate, in which there was a restaurant that served pizza, pasta and other typical dishes of the Bel Paese.
We dedicated our last day of vacation to the visit of the center of center Cairo. We walked for the lively souk , stopping for lunch at a bar with two outdoor tables where they served excellent Falafel (chickpea meatballs).

A parte il traffico Insensed, walking for Cairo, in the monumental center, between alleys and mosques, was really fascinating.

A cena ci concedemmo The last typical Arab dishes, because the next morning we returned to the airport and Italy, already feeling nostalgia for the epic and sunny Egypt.
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