Egypt 2022

First Days In Cairo 

It’s somehow passed us by that BA are no longer providing meals on short haul flights, and it seems a 5-hour flight is classified as short haul. So there’s nothing, and by the time we make Cairo we are living up to our hungry travellers moniker.

Cairo isn’t a traffic jam, it’s a complete gridlock, a gridlock of drivers who possess neither patience nor any lane sense and it takes well over an hour to inch and nudge our way from airport to downtown apartment. Dusk arrives on the way, and the air fills with the echoing and haunting call to prayer from the multitude of mosques around the city, almost but not quite louder than the constant honking of car horns.

We’ve arrived in Cairo in an unseasonable chilly spell with daytime temperatures only peaking at around 17, at a time of year when it’s not uncommon to top 30. It’s cold at night too, temperatures dropping quickly after sundown, but we know all that will change very soon.

Food is high on the agenda after the BA non-experience and the menu at our first eatery has some English translations which are both mystifying and hilarious, with all of the following available: “feathers of lamb or veal”, “music kebab”, “banana with a gesture” and, best of all, “your chick’s breast”. Spoilt for choice with that lot!

Immersing ourselves in Cairo isn’t really a matter of choice, this is a city which imposes itself on you from the moment you step on to its broken pavements and run the gauntlet of crossing its chaotic streets. Cairo is a giant assault on the senses, our ears battered by the cacophonous chorus of blaring car horns and revving engines, shopkeepers shouting to be heard above the noise, even the call to prayer booming from loudspeakers on minarets and in trees. In no time at all our throats and noses sting from breathing in a punishing mix of exhaust fumes and dust.

But not one bit of this feels bad: the excitement, energy and life of this city is as exciting and exhilarating as it is exhausting. There can’t be many cities, even in North Africa, where going into the madness of the bazaar feels like peaceful respite from the craziness of the streets, yet that’s exactly how it feels here.

A first expedition around Khan El Khalily, one of the oldest bazaars in the world, reminds us of Marrakech or Izmir, tiny alleyways packed with activity and rammed with goods of all kinds for sale, although we by no means cover the whole bazaar on our first wander. We can’t help but notice one thing though: the female mannequins here are definitely of….errr…shall we say, Dolly Parton proportions.

In truth we are already a little weary by the time we make the bazaar, having headed first today to Cairo Tower and then on to the Egyptian Museum, home of course to Tutankhamun’s mask and a huge collection of relics and artefacts from various tombs and pyramids, all charting Egypt’s ancient history. Photographs taken at the time of Howard Carter’s discovery add awe and context to many of the exhibits.

Sections on mummification processes and on the “unwrapping” of mummies are fascinating in the extreme; the gold of the famous mask glints under the lights (no photos allowed) as King Tut’s brief story – king at 9 years old and dead at 19 – is described in detail along the way. Of course, Tutankhamun is just one of many kings represented in this extensive museum as we pass through the various ages and  dynasties.

Across the bridge from the museum, the lofty, narrow structure which is Cairo Tower sits on the large island of Gazira in the middle of the Nile and affords views which lay out the full extent of this giant sprawling city, way across to the desert beyond, the pyramids of Giza clearly visible just beyond the city limits. On the open air viewing platform 61 floors up, the howling wind is both strong and chilly as we take in the stupendous views.

Here in Cairo the Nile has all the hallmarks of a mighty river as it cuts a vastly wide swathe through the city, the skyscrapers which dot its banks a modern day foil for Egypt’s ancient history.

The vegetarian meal known as koshary is the national dish of Egypt, immensely popular with all age groups. Two sources have recommended we try it at Abu Tarek, a multi level restaurant where they serve pretty much nothing else. With a little bit of at-table theatre in the preparation – the quantities of chilli sauce and garlic vinegar (!) should be exact – the experience turns out to be great fun. The koshary, predominantly pulses, tomatoes and pasta, is delicious, filling and ridiculously cheap at just over £2 each including bottled water!

As night draws on, car horns continue to sound late into the night, the incessant soundtrack of Cairo drifting into our apartment and still filling the air as we drift off to sleep. Exhausted by the city’s boundless battering of the senses, even that won’t keep us awake tonight.

And then suddenly it’s 5am and just getting light as the muezzins’ call to prayer starts to echo around the city, waking the city and its people in time honoured fashion. As the haunting call finally ends, dogs are barking and from somewhere a car horn sounds. We smile. Another day in the life of Cairo is dawning.

The new day brings a cloudy sky and a further drop in temperature, though research tells us that this will be the coolest day of the whole trip and the mercury should start to rise rapidly from here. Battling through Cairo’s chaos is one thing, fending off vendors and would-be city guides is another; though if we had one pound for every smile and friendly “welcome to Cairo” then we’d have a lot of pounds! 

Cairo, with its 21.3 million inhabitants, is the largest city in Africa, the largest in the Arab world, and the sixth largest city in the world, measured by population. As we battle our way through gridlocked traffic, handcarts, mopeds, swamped walkways and crowded alleys, we sometimes feel as if we’ve seen most of those 21 million. 

Delving deeper into the bazaar of Khan El Khalily is another intense experience. Follow the city maps into these souks and you dive into a network of tight alleys, here a clothing section, next jewellery, of course rug and carpet shops, now trinkets and souvenirs. Rather like the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul, it’s thriving and filled with local shoppers but with a definite nod to foreign visitors.

Cross the main road and enter the other half though, the half of the bazaar not on your map, through the lofty archway and into the ancient streets, and you are in a different world. There is no nod to tourism here, this is the earthy, downtrodden world of the real Cairo, litter strewn underfoot, ferrel cats and dogs scavenging for scraps amongst the rubbish, raw meat hanging where the flies can feast long before any punters do. This is not for the faint hearted.

Now and again the tight alley way opens up to reveal another ancient mosque with towering minarets, then we stumble upon one of the ancient city gates, topped with two more towering minarets. Climbing to the top of the archway, we look out across this part of the city: beneath us the buildings around the bazaar look part derelict, like images of a bombed out city.

This is the heart of the district known as Islamic Cairo, no more devout than the rest of the city but characterised by hundreds of mosques, tombs and fortifications dating back centuries to the Islamic era. The whole area oozes history, as of course does all of Egypt.

So with ancient kings and dynasties, Tutankhamun, Cleopatra, King Farouk, Mohamed Ali Pasha the founder of latter day Cairo, and any number of Gods and figures of historical significance, whose image features most commonly throughout this heaving city? Well of course it’s Liverpool footballer Mo Salah, whose smiling face will greet you at virtually every turn. Never mind history, there’s a very contemporary hero here.

Cairo, Saqqara And The Pyramids 

It’s obvious as soon as we wake up that it’s quieter, Cairo’s volume levels have been ever so slightly reduced. It’s Friday morning, the working week here is Sunday to Thursday and today is of course the weekly day of prayer. Traffic is lighter and the streets are quieter, though as we were to discover later in the day, the respite is to be short lived.

Absorbing ourselves into Cairo life has meant abstaining from alcohol – much as we enjoy bars, beers and nights out, we have been determined to do things the local way as much as possible. In truth, it’s pretty easy to do here, with the only easy access to drink being inside the bigger hotels, although apparently there are some hidden downtown bars too if you want to go looking. We have done neither, with coffee and mint tea becoming our staples.

Egyptians adore coffee. Traditional coffee houses, dimly lit and still mostly a male preserve, are in nearly every street, but regardless of whether you choose one of those, or a set of streetside plastic chairs, or a more contemporary establishment, the coffee is always excellent. 

Watching over the city from Cairo’s highest point is the ancient citadel, an imposing castle built by Salah Al-Din from 1176 and the seat of Government for nearly 700 years. What really dominates the citadel skyline though is the Mosque Of Mohammad Ali, a mammoth structure based on Istanbul’s Blue Mosque. As well as this giant mosque, the citadel also houses a number of museums, one of which – the Military Museum – does little other than demonstrate just how much of its recent time Egypt has spent fighting one enemy or another. National pride holds the whip hand over tragedy, it seems.

Friday prayer time dawns as we stand outside the mighty mosque. From up here on the hill, the multitude of calls to prayer wail across the city, so evocative, and now it once again becomes the haunting, spine tingling sound of Asia rather than what it is downtown, where it is just another layer of decibels on the city soundscape.

In a way, the citadel is a microcosm of contemporary Cairo: a smart marbled courtyard with cafe, gardens and gleaming military hardware rubbing shoulders with the crumbling buildings of history. The entire city seems to bear the same contrast, large areas of poverty and cramped conditions sandwiched between five star hotels by the Nile and the outer leafy suburbs. There are many clashes here, but there’s no getting away from how the majority live and how unevenly wealth is distributed.

Halfway back to downtown is Ibn Tulun. In this so-called “city of a thousand mosques”, Ibn Tulun lays claim to be the oldest, but given its emptiness and partial decay, the only good reason to visit, we find, is to take in the views by climbing the steep spiral staircase of the minaret.  

Walking between the citadel and Ibn Tulun takes us through an even more densely populated district of Cairo which will be difficult to describe. We hesitate to use the word “slums” in case it’s offensive, but how else can we describe these cramped, dirty lanes where it is hard to distinguish between derelict buildings and people’s homes, where sometimes there is no such distinction.

We are eyed quizzically as we pass through, smiles and frowns in equal measure, children’s grubby hands outstretched as they beg for food or money. Older women garbed in traditional black cackle and point, older men mouth a single word which is probably not a compliment. These cramped lanes are thronged with people, maybe more than normal, it being Friday and all.

Once prayer time has passed, and we have made our way back down the hill, the streets and squares have become filled with families, kerbstones have become seating areas and parking lots have spawned flea markets. Dads play dominoes, little girls chase each other and squeal. Generations and communities mix on their day of rest and we wonder whether Cairo is like this every Friday.

And so to the Pyramids, without which no visit to Cairo is complete. On advice, we engage a guide for the full day in order to get the best experience and take in as much as possible, starting the day at Saqqara, around 45 minutes south of the city. The pyramids at Saqqara pre-date those of Giza by some 200 years and are thus the oldest of all of Egypt’s standing pyramids.

Our guide Mohamed (lots of them are called Mohamed) talks us through the absorbing history of the dynasties in a way which is informative and endearing throughout; he is extremely good. From Saqqara we head to Memphis, ancient capital of Egypt and home to a colossal statue of Rameses II unearthed in 1820 by Italian archeologist Giovanni Caviglia, still displayed just where it was discovered.

Arriving at Giza and looking up at the three main pyramids is one of those pinch-yourself moments which we’ve been lucky enough to have experienced before: an iconic sight which we have known and recognised since childhood. To stand here and look is awesome enough, to wander around the site and learn such history and detail from Mohamed is very special.

We won’t bore you with too many facts, but just to wonder at how 2.3 million blocks of stone each weighing between 3 and 8 tons could be used in construction of something so large, nearly 5,000 years ago, is a little mind blowing. And that’s just the Great Pyramid alone. If you feel inclined, Google “intercept theorem” to have a quick look at the advanced mathematics required just to conceive of the construction.

Climbing into the Great Pyramid is an adventure in its own right: our advice is, if you are unfit, can’t bend double, can’t climb, are claustrophobic or fazed by steep descents then don’t attempt it! There are in fact six standing pyramids at Giza, the three King’s pyramids (Khufu the Great Pyramid, Khafre and Menkaure) and three smaller Queen’s pyramids, as well as the identifiable remains of several other collapsed ones.

Almost five thousand years of history is before our eyes. It’s humbling in the extreme just to close those eyes and absorb for a moment exactly where it is that we are standing. 

Beneath the pyramids lies the Sphinx, nowadays gazing straight towards the cities of Giza and Cairo, originally a statement of power (the lion) and wisdom (the human) which declared to the world that Khafre was a supreme leader. It is not, however, universally accepted by scholars that Khafre was responsible for this giant creation. The sphinx, unlike any part of the pyramids, was carved from the bedrock and therefore needed significantly less transportation of material.

The traffic chaos which is Cairo is one of many conversations we have with Mohamed, who jokingly says there is a law which states that if there is a piece of spare road, you must drive on to it, just to complete the gridlock. Rather pleasingly, he also tells us that by eating koshary at Abou Tarek, we not only tasted the best koshary in all of Egypt, but also had an essential Cairo experience which most visitors miss out on. We feel rather good about that!

Doing the whole Saqqara/Memphis/Giza trip carries entry fees which are reasonably expensive in comparison to other costs here but not exorbitant by any means; doing the tour with a guide for the day adds further cost. Is it worth it? Absolutely worth every single penny, and more. Especially with a guide like Mohamed.

Concluding Cairo: Time To Move On 

Having visited parts of North Africa and the Middle East before, we know how common it is to see people spend a whole evening at an outdoor cafe table and only buy one mint tea all night, but here in Cairo there is another custom which has taken us by surprise: bringing your own food. Friends or families will occupy a cafe table all evening, order minimal coffee, tea or even just water, while tucking in to a bagful of food they’ve brought in from the bakers or from a takeaway, or even had delivered by courier to their table. How do these coffee houses make any money!?

And as another quirk on the food front, there is Fasahet Somaya. Tucked around a nondescript downtown corner, this is a proper family restaurant where there is no menu, mama just cooks two or three dishes from whatever ingredients she’s bought today – and that’s what you get. We visited twice, and on both occasions the food was simply delicious home cooking.

Cairo has one of only two metro systems on the whole African continent (the other, surprisingly, is in Algiers) and it is a good way of swapping one kind of chaotic madness for another, so popular and well used is the network. Every train on the system has two “women only” coaches in the middle, with corresponding areas on the platforms, a result of too many incidents rather than of enlightened thinking, apparently.

Taking the metro out of the centre to Old Cairo, we enter a traffic-free non-Muslim zone which is obviously therefore very different from most of the city for those two reasons alone. It’s popular with tourists too – it’s very noticeable that most of the visitors that we see at the big sights are nowhere to be seen downtown, where we’ve barely seen any at all.

Old Cairo is also known as Coptic Cairo, a tiny enclave of Christianity in this heavily Muslim city and built on what is thought to be the site of Babylon (no, not THAT Babylon, but a significant one nonetheless). Beneath the Church Of St George lies a chamber known as the “cave church”, believed to be the room in which, according to interpretations of the gospels of Matthew, the holy family hid as they escaped Herod during the Flight To Egypt. 

Other churches, and a Greek Orthodox cemetery, surround St George’s and the Coptic Museum, as a steady stream of tourists either pay their respects and pray, or otherwise take a cursory look, buy an ice cream and get back on the bus. Despite visitor numbers, it is undoubtedly one of Cairo’s more peaceful corners. We don’t buy an ice cream, by the way – although to be fair we don’t say a prayer either.

We referred previously to parts of Cairo around the bazaar as looking like newsreel images of a bombed out city; in fact we thought that, if not war, then probably earthquake. Neither thoughts were correct. It seems that during the revolution starting in 2011 which ultimately overthrew President Mubarak almost two years later, the inevitable period of lawlessness saw, amongst other things,  many residents build illegal dwellings. Once order was restored, the authorities simply took a proverbial sledgehammer to those buildings and made them uninhabitable despite them being home to hundreds of families. All that remains now is rubble and a vague plan to construct an apartment block or two.

When you’re getting close to ending your time in a place, you tend to go back to experience something for a second time, and here for us in Cairo, it’s another bowl of koshary at Abu Tarek. And it’s just as good second time around: great koshary and great fun, the whole place rammed again with everyone eating the one single meal on the menu.

So we end our time in Cairo with what is probably the most peaceful experience this hectic city has to offer, a felucca ride on the Nile. On a sailing boat with a tall mast in a city full of low slung road bridges, you don’t actually travel very far, but bobbing around on the gentle waters in the sunshine for an hour with the sounds of the city fading into the background feels like the perfect final act in our time here.

It’s fair to say that Cairo is not the easiest city we’ve been to, it is a relentless pounding of the senses from which it’s not always easy to find refuge, and, with a limited number of worthwhile sights for such a huge and ancient city, we have probably stayed a day too long. We haven’t disliked it any way at all, but it is definitely now time to move on.

Ribbons, garlands and bunting are appearing in the city streets as a sacred month approaches. The next few days will see the start of Ramadan, and it strikes us as perhaps a little odd that cafes should put out bunting to herald the fact that virtually nobody is going to buy any food or drink all day for a whole month. It will be so interesting to measure the effects of Ramadan on our journey through Egypt and into Tunisia, and see first hand how it changes daily life for the people here. And just as interesting to see how the character of the Nile changes as we move southwards.

Our next stop is Luxor.

Southwards: From Cairo To Luxor 

There is a map of Egypt in a street in Old Cairo which displays all of the ancient historical and religious sites across the country. Amusingly, there is a big section coloured red which is labelled “A large area of desert with nothing in it”. As the plane starts to descend on the short flight from Cairo to Luxor, and we drop below the ever-present haze, the vast nothingness is there laid bare for us to see: the entire landscape is one single colour. Yes there are contours and elevation changes, but there is not a single break in the ochre blanket.

That same map back in Cairo also had one bold green line twisting its way down the country – the oasis which brackets the path of the mighty Nile. And along the road from Luxor airport to the city, the scene really is remarkable: acre upon acre of lush green fields of crops, fruits and vegetables stretch either side of the highway across the totally flat plateau, yet each side, about a mile away in each direction, we can see the exact line where agriculture ends and the desert takes over.

We both remember learning about the Aswan Dam and the irrigation channels of the Nile Valley many years ago in school, and here it all is in its luscious green  glory some sixty years after creation of the High Dam. It must have been an advent which transformed the way of life here, although of course the original irrigation systems were initiated in ancient times and are widely credited with being the earliest examples of formal agriculture. 

Construction of the dams enabled control of the annual natural floods, heralding greater control of harvests and migration of peoples from mountain dwellings to the valley. Sugar cane alone is farmed to such a degree that a network of narrow gauge railway lines criss cross the plateau, carting thousands of tons of the stuff from fields to factory.

From the moment our host Walid greets us at the gates of his beautiful Luxor house it’s obvious he’s going to be a character in our Egypt adventure and a lot more than just a host. As he sits us down in his garden and makes possibly the best coffee so far in this country of wonderful coffees, he invites us to talk through everything we want to do whilst in Luxor and offers useful advice on everything. No hard sell, no “my cousin can arrange it”, no “I can get good price for you”, not even a “I have a shop in town”. He does, though, tell us he has sixteen cats. We will no doubt speak more of Walid.

Views of our Luxor home…..

The two temples of Luxor and Karnak are joined by a 2,700 metre walkway known as the Avenue Of Sphinxes, a regal pathway flanked on both sides throughout its entire length by statues in varying states of ruin. With 1,067 plinth mounted statues of rams, criosphinx (ram’s head on lion’s body) and androsphinx (man’s head on lion’s body) this must have been a terrifically impressive avenue upon its completion nearly 3,000 years ago.

The colonnade was only unearthed in 1949 when archeologists first uncovered statues near the Luxor end, the full length of the avenue being finally dug out from the covering sand in 2000. Only four months ago in November 2021, a massive Luxor town party accompanied the final opening of the walkway after seven decades of archeological toil. 

We walk its full length, of course, at the time not even realising how new to everyone this experience is, only afterwards do we read of its recent opening. The two temples, pre-dating the colonnade at around 4,000 years old, are absolutely stunning in numerous ways: for one, the sheer size of both is incredible, with Karnak mooted as one of the world’s largest temples. However, the scale of the statuary in both temples is huge, giant figures towering over us as we look up in wonder at the detail on these colossal forms.

Equally stunning is the sheer number of statues, columns and other remains of buildings, but what really grabs us and won’t let go is the ancient artwork still so readily visible. Hieroglyphics and drawings telling stories and providing detail of life in ancient society, and incredibly, hues of reds, blues and greens in these depictions of life: colours still clearly discernible thousands of years after their creation. Fabulous.

Back in Memphis, Mohamed had taught us some basics about reading these carved scriptures, but not enough for us to do anything more than marvel at the sheer extent of it all here in Karnak.

Luxor is opening its arms to us. Ignore the tourist bazaar and pass through the back into the Egyptian market where locals haggle with stallholders over prices, carry huge bags of produce home on their heads, weave their mopeds between pedestrians. Look out across the wide, sweeping River Nile and spy the great looming mountains which mark the edge of the desert. Breathe in the scent of incense, of hookahs, of spices and of meat roasting over coals.

Join the chattering locals on the ferry which connects the two halves of the city on the east and west banks; see donkeys pull overloaded carts through town; look up into the cloudless sky as the muezzin’s call fills the air once more. Of course, Luxor’s proximity to the temples means there’s a tourist element, but there is also an ordinary town here buzzing with life and going about its business. In less than a day we have connected with Luxor in a way that we never quite managed with Cairo.

Being woken up by a 4am alarm isn’t the tiniest bit of a pain when your day is starting with a sunrise hot air balloon ride above the ancient temples of Egypt. Our previous balloon trip, in Turkey in 2020, was spectacular, but this one, giving us a bird’s eye view of the vastness of the temples, is absolutely fantastic. The statues look colossal even from up here, but even more spellbinding is the size of the area covered by the temples and, further, the seemingly endless Sahara stretching its emptiness way beyond the haze which blurs the horizon.

All these temples, valleys and layouts were part of the ancient city of Thebes which must have been one mighty metropolis. We’ve seen some pretty impressive ancient city footprints in Greece and Turkey in the last couple of years but Thebes is something else. As we gently touch down from the balloon flight, not yet 7am, we know we’ve had a very special experience.

Our Luxor felucca ride is even more peaceful than Cairo, as we glide along the waters of the Nile from the city to Banana Island and watch the honey coloured sun set in the sandy haze. Pied kingfishers dive and swallows swoop while herons, ibis and egrets strut around the shallows.

Luxor is completely severed by the Nile, there are no bridges within the city limits and the east and west bank settlements are separate halves of the whole. Boats fizz across the water, river cruise crafts sit patiently waiting for the main season to begin, but the hulking, slow moving waters dictate the pace. Even the well used passenger ferry connecting the two halves of Luxor seems serene as it ambles back and forth.

Walid is busy in the garden when we return from the early balloon ride, and the smell of his wonderful coffee is in the air: the coffee pot is nestled on a cradle above the wood fire in the garden. 

“You enjoy the balloon? Are you happy?”, he asks.

“We’re very happy, thank you Walid. And you made coffee”.

“No” he says, smiling, “Come. I have made you Egyptian breakfast”.

It’s delicious if just a tad on the oversized. We tell him how tasty it was.

“Good”, he says, “because tonight I am going to cook you traditional Egyptian dinner in my special oven”.

Now THAT will be interesting.

Luxor: Days By The Nile 

Being a visitor to Egypt brings with it one absolute certainty – you are going to have to live with the utterly constant pestering by would-be guides, taxi and tuk-tuk drivers, boatmen, tour operators, shopkeepers and individuals selling everything from tissues to tat and from jewellery to junk. And of course there’s those selling nothing and just asking for money. It’s a constant barrage that you have to conquer in order to do anything or go anywhere.

Add to that a complete mishmash of haggling over prices, blatant attempts at scams and a complex “baksheesh” (tipping) protocol and you have a cauldron of unfamiliar financial dealings which takes a certain amount of acclimatisation.

But there’s another side to it. Egypt is a country devoid of financial assistance by Government, leaving everyone to fend for themselves. The political revolution of ten or so years ago destroyed the tourist market on which so many had come to rely and, according to Walid, recovery had still only reached about 20% of pre-revolution levels when the disaster of COVID struck. The tourist dollar is very thinly spread now – so, naturally, everyone wants your business.

When we return from our day, Walid is, as promised, cooking dinner for us – not just Egyptian food, but Egyptian food cooked Egyptian style, in an underground oven beneath the garden. A circular “well” is in fact Walid’s self-built sunken oven, into which he has placed a layered cradle with food at each level: a whole chicken, vegetables and rice, all cooking over the coals at the bottom of the “well”. Juices from the top two have dripped into the rice and the whole meal is delicious.

As he cooks we chat about politics (like most Egyptians he despises and mistrusts the Government), religion (his faith in the Quran is unshakeable), the power of prayer, the natural world, Ramadan and, most animated of all, how the current political regime have made life incredibly difficult for the ordinary Egyptian. He also reckons that if Mo Salah stood for President he would get 95% of the vote.

Such is the richness of ancient sites around Luxor that it would be impossible to do justice to all of them unless you happen to be a committed Egyptologist or archeologist with several months to spare, so we limit ourselves to two days of exploration. Hiring a driver, Mohamed (yes, another Mohamed), our first day incorporates the Valley Of The Kings, the Valley Of The Queens and the Temple of Hatshepsut.

Once again the wall paintings and hieroglyphics are incredible. These wonderfully preserved walls of art are effectively a time capsule, depicting the daily way of life as well as major events, legends and images of perception of the underworld. As we study tomb after tomb, cave after cave, our thoughts are drawn as much to the moments of discovery for 20th century archeologists as they are to those ancient peoples who created the city of Thebes. What wonderful moments of achievement the lives of the likes of Howard Carter entailed.

For our second day Mohamed has clearly delegated and Abdul turns up to take us to our next destinations, including more impressively huge temples, the grandest of which is not, as we expected, the Ramesseum, but Medinet Habu, in a different style from the rest and featuring what must have been a bold succession of grand courtyards. 

We also take in a visit to what was Howard Carter’s house during the excavations which uncovered Tutankhamun’s tomb, now a modest museum charting the story of Carter and Lord Caernarvon through their Egyptian odyssey.

Friday April 1st and anticipation is tangible in Luxor as the first day of Ramadan approaches: we don’t think we had realised previously just what a time for celebration and joy it is. Mohamed and Walid both speak of family celebrations ahead, starting tomorrow on the first day of the festival. It seems that the joy of the festival and the feelings of devotion and edification that Ramadan brings, far outweigh the pain of not being able to even drink water for 12 hours or so each day, even when working as a guide in the blazing sun.

It’s certainly hot now, too, the chilly winds of Cairo are a distant memory already as each afternoon breaks into the upper 30s and the hot desert breeze merely fans the flame. The desert, by the way, is an incredibly silent place: no rustling leaves, no birdsong, no human sounds…the airwaves are as barren as the arid ground. You just couldn’t get a more stark contrast than the open desert and the streets of Cairo.

As we near the end of our time in Luxor, visibility shortens and the horizon becomes ever more blurred as the haze intensifies. The ever present clouds of sand and dust have been turned into a swirling mustard coloured mist as sugar cane farmers burn stubble fields in readiness for the next crop. In the early morning light the smoky mist swirls just above the surface of the Nile, then later each day moves away to hide the mountains behind its eerie cloak.

Photo’s of the workers tombs……

On the morning of 2nd April the streets are noticeably quieter though we don’t know yet whether this is due to the first day of Ramadan or because it’s Saturday, or both. On our side, the west bank, many shops and cafes are closed with shutters drawn and no sign of activity, traffic is light and the loudest morning sound is the unmistakeable call of the hoopoe. 

These first few days of Ramadan are, we have been told, times for families. For the first time in our days by the Nile, we see no sign of Walid today, and the family home is quiet. This is their time, not ours.

Further South: Luxor To Aswan 

Luxor is definitely quieter as Saturday morning dawns and heralds the start of the sacred month of Ramadan. We’ve been told several times that the first day of Ramadan is a time for families, as first they fast together, and then later celebrate the passing of the first day with a convivial family meal as soon as the sunset call to prayer sounds. 

True to form, in the last few moments before sundown, the previously bustling streets of Luxor are akin to those of a ghost town: no tuk-tuks, no taxis, no horses, litter blowing down the market street which yesterday was rammed with people. Then, two hours or so after sunset, everything has returned to normal and the streets are once again alive – or maybe a little more than alive, there is something of a festive feel in the air. Laughter ripples from coffee bars and now and again the sound of a firecracker ricochets off the walls.

The second day of Ramadan is also our last day in Luxor. Luxor has been good, full of interest and history but also a welcoming place where we have felt very settled, not only in the city in general but also in our neighbourhood on the west bank in the smaller “half” of the city. It’s an extremely hot day with temperatures hitting 41C (106F), a tough day surely for those not permitted to even drink water.

Walid appears in the garden with a refreshing fresh strawberry drink as we take some shelter from the blistering sun, taking time to answer more of our questions about Ramadan, its meaning and purpose, and how he feels today. When he reappears a short time later, just after sundown so refreshed at last by water, he astounds us by asking us to join his family at their celebratory meal. In this very special time for families of Islam faith, we are honoured and humbled by this invitation.

We eat a delicious meal prepared by Walid’s wife, we sit around the table with Walid acting as interpreter, play with their three delightful children, and look from the balcony of their home out across the Nile. In this most family oriented, private time, we feel privileged and very, very lucky to have been invited into their home. An absolutely wonderful way to end our time in this lovely city.

And so it’s on Day 14 of this North Africa adventure that we leave Luxor with more than a little sadness, to head further south down the Nile Valley towards our next destination of Aswan. That means that it’s also Day 14 of our abstention from alcohol. Lemon juice with fresh mint leaves and a hint of sugar, karkade (a drink made from hibiscus flowers) and anise tea, are among the drinks which have been added to the current staples of mint tea and strong coffee. 

I might have to say that again. Fourteen travel days with no alcohol. Is this really us?!

The 3-hour train journey from Luxor to Aswan follows the route of the Nile, sometimes in the lush oasis, sometimes in the barren desert and now and again on the cusp of both, stopping several times at Nile towns along the way. Carriages are dated but adequately comfortable and with more legroom than you would ever get on an aeroplane.

Our apartment in Aswan is on Elephantine Island, one of the many Nile islands within the town, and renowned as a great example of Nubian culture and architecture. We’ve heard many good things when we have mentioned that we are staying on the island: “You are lucky, you choose best place in Aswan”, “Ah, Elephantine, beautiful place” they say, or “ You have made best choice, very beautiful place”.

Our first walk from the ferry to our apartment, through cramped, litter strewn muddy alley ways does not bear this out – this is not what we would call beautiful at any stretch and we find ourselves wondering if we’ve made a bad call.

Entering our apartment makes our hearts sink further. Inside are more flies than you would see around a dead animal, everything is so dirty that flies are feeding on the floor and on tables. A little bit shell shocked, we take a stroll around Elephantine to seek out its good points, if there are any, whilst across the water the lights of Aswan look welcoming and lively. We even buy a stock of cleaning products to make the apartment acceptable, but when we return, put on the light and the cockroaches scuttle into the corners, it’s the final straw. Within minutes our backpacks are re-packed and we’re back on the ferry to check into a hotel looking out on to the Nile.

After an awful lot of airbnb successes over the years, this is our first ever reject, but there’s no way we could have stayed there. We can put up with lots, but that was a step too far. It’s booking.com to the rescue and we make a last minute reservation at the CityMax Hotel right on the Corniche.

A mile south from here, and looking out from the east bank towards Elephantine Island (so named, by the way, because several of its eroded rocks look like elephants) is the elegant and colonial Old Cataract Hotel, nowadays owned by Sofitel and still a place of enormous charm and character. A favourite haunt of many famous and royal names including Agatha Christie, this is the place in which large sections of her “Death On The Nile” novel are set.

Such is the grandeur of the Old Cataract that there is a fee to pay for non-residents like us just to enter the grounds and take a look: however this fee buys a voucher which is redeemable against anything you purchase whilst on the premises. So here we sit on this fabulous terrace overlooking the Nile, the hot sun reflecting in the water, with a voucher in our hands and a guy asking us which cocktail we’d like. And so ends our alcohol ban – in some style.

The only realistic way to get to Abu Simbel from Aswan is to join one of the fleet of minibuses which leave town around 4am daily to head to this incredible monument. So with an even earlier alarm than we had for the hot air balloon, we’re off in the World’s Most Uncomfortable Minibus (official!) and heading further south towards the Sudan border long before dawn. 

Abu Simbel marks one end of a UNESCO World Heritage site known as the Nubian Monuments, which stretch all the way to Philae Temple. These unbelievably huge statues and monuments were built under the rule of Rameses II and his wife Nefetari, primarily as a show of strength by Egypt to the people of Nubia. Nubia itself, or “Upper Egypt”, was populated by people from further south who, despite being under Egypt’s control, were felt to need powerful ruling.

The sheer size of the exterior, let alone the decorated interior, is crazy, yet Abu Simbel is remarkable for a second reason: the fact that it has been moved. In the biggest archeological salvage mission ever undertaken anywhere in the world, the entire giant structures (there are two) were dismantled block by block and reassembled in identical layout some 65 metres higher, in order to avoid being submerged, and lost for ever, by the rising waters of Lake Nasser brought about by construction of the Aswan High Dam.

Such an ambitious and improbable project was rejected several times before receiving approval, but eventually, in the years 1964 to 1968, the entire site was moved to a point 200 metres from the water. What an incredible achievement. What an aberration destroying the temple as part of creating a reservoir would have been!

Some reservoir though – as we stand looking out, the water stretches to the horizon in two different directions with no land visible to the naked eye. It’s hard to convince yourself that you’re looking at a lake and not the ocean. Lake Nasser is, in fact, 298 miles long and just under 10 miles wide at its widest point. 83% of the lake is in Egypt, the remainder in Sudan, who were apparently fiercely against its creation.

These temples, the huge expanse of lake, and the fact that the temples have been shifted from their original site, is all a bit awe inspiring. Less awe inspiring is another four hours in the World’s Most Uncomfortable Minibus (official!) as we head back to Aswan through startling sand storms: the barren, empty desert is chucking heaps of sand across the highway which is rapidly disappearing. Visibility becomes poor and our driver battles the crosswind, it’s a bit like driving through an ochre blizzard.

Later, as dusk nears, the sun turns an insipid yellow as it makes its way down towards the sand dunes and islands. Below us on the Corniche, there is activity.

Before we came out to Egypt we were very interested to see how Ramadan affects everyday life, and intrigued as to what we might learn. Well, there’s one lesson that’s made a very real impression. One of the teachings of Ramadan is that, by fasting for so many hours, one can learn to empathise with those who have nothing, in order to develop a genuine care for those in need.

In both Luxor and Aswan, we have witnessed the result of this first hand. As sundown and the end of the daily fasting approaches, trestle tables and benches appear on the streets and a small army of helpers busy themselves with preparation. What follows is a meal for the needy: provided by those who can (and it may be a restaurant, a Bank, shop staff or even private households) who fill the tables with food and drink, while the benches are filled by the have-nots, those worst off in the community. Throughout Ramadan therefore, those most in need of help will get at least one decent meal a day thanks entirely to the kindness of others. 

And those benches are full, nightly. So many people with nothing, it is a sight which is heartwarming and sad in equal measure. There’s always lessons to learn when travelling.

Aswan Days 

Sunrise in Aswan is fuzzy. The sand drifting across the Sahara and around the Nile Valley turns everything into an ochre tinted blur into which anything in the distance shimmers in and out of view. And at the end of the day, the sunset hints at beauty, but then turns a strangely pale yellow as if its paints have been thinned with water. In between the two, that ochre tinge to the day rarely departs.

We had some pre-conceived ideas about Aswan which have proved to be completely inaccurate. Far from finding an increase on the rustic scale, Aswan has a river frontage sporting a number of hotels, a thoughtfully constructed corniche garden and a much larger concentration of Nile cruise boats than we had anticipated.

In other words, there is more of a touristic look to the city, or at least its Nile frontage, than we had expected – there’s even some floating restaurants which serve alcohol! You don’t have to wander too far from the waterfront though to be back in quintessential Egypt among the souks and djellabas and mosques, but Aswan has definitely capitalised on its major attraction, the Nile.

And we’re not saying this is a bad thing – it’s actually very nicely done and the Corniche is an appealing mix of Egyptian culture and tasteful riviera. At night in particular, there is an extremely relaxing feeling in looking out at the city lights and their shimmering reflections in the water. Even Elephantine Island which on our arrival was such a shock, looks lovely from a distance.

Indeed, there is much to like about Aswan. Most of the city sits on the east bank, from which the view across the Nile reveals first a number of midstream islands, and, beyond, towering sand dunes heralding the resumption of the desert. The largest dune is spectacularly illuminated at night, giving it the appearance of a giant space ship hovering above the river.

Ramadan is moving on. There are still plenty of cafes and restaurants which are completely closed during daylight hours, and some which serve juices and coffee only, out of view behind a draped curtain. Street food, such a big part of daily Egyptian life a week ago, has vanished completely until after dusk. Predictably though, in the more touristic areas little has changed and everything is open.

Generally speaking, we have found Egyptian cuisine surprisingly bland, with herbs and spices used very much more sparingly than in neighbouring countries. We have though eaten camel meat for the first time, with very tasty, tender chunks in a delicious tagine. We’ve also developed a taste for the local drink of kerkade, made from dried hibiscus flowers and consumed either hot or cold.

The current low level of tourism here, so devastating for so many, has somewhat ironic compensations for people like us. Big sights such as the Pyramids and Abu Simbel are nowhere near as crowded as normal, and it also means that it’s possible to hire a boat and skipper, design our own day out, and call in at all desired destinations, just for ourselves and without paying a fortune.

Our day doing this is superb as we make stops at The Tombs Of The Nobles (another one and half way up the “space ship” dune), Kitchener Island (see below), St Simeon monastery (a bit of a non-event but glorious views back across the Nile), “the beach” (where we take several dips in the cold waters of the river) and a Nubian village.

Kitchener Island is named after Lord Kitchener of “your country needs YOU” WW1 recruitment poster fame, who was gifted the island as a reward for military services in Egypt. Importing trees and plants from the Indian sub-continent, he set about creating a botanical garden which has since been hugely enhanced by further importation and experimentation by the Government – Kitchener gave the island back to Egypt in his Will. It’s now a lovely and varied garden to walk through……….

Being here in Aswan, we get a real sense that we are on the exact line in Africa where skin colour and DNA changes, the brown, tanned, appearance of northern Egyptians giving way to the Nubians, an ancient race with distinct black African features. Nubia, an ancient land now partly in Egypt but mostly in Sudan, was where one of the oldest African civilisations had its roots, direct descendants of those peoples being today’s Nubians. There is an obvious and fierce pride in their heritage: they are all very quick to tell you that they are of Nubian descent. Go in to a Nubian village and it’s easy to feel that you’ve left North Africa altogether……..

Day 18 and it’s Friday April 8th, and despite the fact that in my heart I’m still the same daft kid I always was, it’s my 65th birthday. 65?? How did that happen?? But what has happened is that Michaela has secured a sunset table back at the Old Cataract Hotel for a rather lovely birthday dinner, watching the sun take on its strange insipid yellow as it drops beneath the dunes, consuming a lovely (colonial rather than Egyptian) meal and enjoying a few beers and a bottle of red. A great setting for a birthday celebration……..

Wrapping up the final sights of the Aswan area, we take in first the Unfinished Obelisk – unfinished because cracks started to appear in the granite – which, if completed, would have been one third larger than any other obelisk from the ancient Egyptian era. Our last temple of this phase is Philae Temple, sited on an island within the Nile and another spectacular example of these wonderful ancient monuments.

The very existence of Philae was also threatened by construction of the Aswan High Dam in the 1960s and the consequent rising waters of Lake Nasser, and was, like Abu Simbel, dismantled and re-sited on higher ground in another amazing feat of archeological salvage. 

And on the theme of major engineering projects, the High Dam itself is worthy of a brief visit and close enough to Philae for us to visit both on the same excursion out of town. As mentioned in our previous post, Lake Nasser, created by the dam, is phenomenally huge and stretches nearly 300 miles south. Construction of the dam, the largest embankment dam in the entire world, brought an end to the annual natural flooding of the valley but also alleviated drought years which had historically caused famine and disease.

Such a giant project was not without negative impact, both in terms of environmental impact and human displacement, with scores of Nubian villages submerged beneath the rising waters. But of course the change to Egypt’s economy and overall wellbeing brought about by the Nile Valley becoming so fertile was enormous, and is generally accepted to have far outweighed the negatives. In fact, in terms of payback through improved economy, it is claimed that the massive cost of the dam was recouped within just two years, which is pretty impressive.

Our time in Aswan is almost done and our next stages are shifting somewhat, because we’ve found ourselves facing what you might call a comfort zone conundrum – well, two of them in fact. Our original plan for next stop after Aswan was the town of Qena, close to the ancient site of Dendera, and then from there on to Hurghada where a bit of coastal chill time was on the cards.

Both of these have fallen by the wayside, for very different reasons. Qena is very much off the tourist trail, and it turns out that its only decent hotel is currently open only to Egyptians; foreign visitors are barred. The remaining hotels are, according to advice from guys we trusted back in Luxor, “not clean”, and, after our Elephantine Island horror, we’re not keen to risk it.

Hurghada is the absolute opposite – for travellers like us who always want to get to experience a country or culture to the full, a 25-mile stretch of international hotels with private beaches and all-inclusive deals is absolutely not our style. As our “about” page tells you, we want our money to go directly into the local economy, not to faceless global companies.

But we’ve been forced to compromise. Indeed, we’ve shunned Hurghada, and instead we’re heading to El Quessir, further down the Red Sea coast. We’re going to be in a big, international hotel, some distance from authentic Egypt, and we have no idea how it will feel, as we’ve never done this before and it is not normally the way we roll.

There’s different ways of being out of your comfort zone. 

Egypt So Far: The Not-So-Good Bits 

Three weeks into this North Africa adventure and we guess that in a way we’ve hit the pause button. Followers will know that we are now in the previously uncharted ground of a resort hotel, out here on the Red Sea coast, kind of into international tourist territory and outside of authentic Egypt. This is most unlike us, we never thought we’d be taking the resort hotel option, not in a million years.

Apart from the practicalities – it was indeed hard to find a viable alternative – it’s fair to say that there have been other influences on this decision which mean that taking a break from Egypt isn’t such a bad thing. North Africa brings with it the inevitable hassle from hawkers of all kinds, which we’ve always previously learned to live with and in fact come to embrace at least to some degree, but there have been additional challenges here.

In Egypt, after three weeks’ experience, we can put this into three categories: haggling, hassling and one other. Let’s take them one by one.

Haggling is a way of life out here, and actually we quite enjoy it. It’s almost always good humoured, and it isn’t difficult to learn to smile and enjoy the experience, it’s all a bit of fun. In truth, the only grey area comes in working out where it’s not appropriate to haggle: generally, jewellers and restaurants and grocery stores…although haggling when buying food in a market is fine. The actual process of haggling is good fun once you embrace it.

The hassle thing is one step up on the intolerance scale. Horsemen, taxi drivers and boatmen can be quite invasive, whereas shopkeepers are generally fine and usually good humoured, in fact often witty (“I don’t know what you want but I think I have it”, “I am your helper, I can help you spend your money”, “It’s your lucky day, I have Asda price today only”) and are only very occasionally aggressive. It does though become a little tiresome dealing with it all day long.

And then there’s Egypt’s third, and most distasteful, element: dishonesty. It’s at a different level here, and Aswan was the worst. Let’s use an analogy. You could be world champion at dodging tennis balls, but if everyone is throwing balls at you from every direction, then sooner or later one’s gonna hit you. We consider ourselves to be savvy travellers who don’t get scammed easily, but we’ve been hit several times here.

It’s more than dishonesty, it’s threatening as well. Several times our path has been blocked, our space invaded, by those doing the dirty business. Such is the constant barrage that when we found an honest operator (like Abdul our boatman and Nabil who took us to Philae) we breathed a sigh of relief and felt uplifted. The rest of the time, our days were blighted by dealing with rogues at every step. We ended up being constantly on our guard, constantly thinking that every single transaction is another battle against being shafted.

An example? We agree a fee of 100LE for a ride; halfway along he tells us it’s 100LE each, not 100LE overall. We argue, he shrugs and agrees; we decide not to give a tip because of this. We hand over a 100 note. With sleight of hand, he shows a 10LE note and claims we’ve given him a 10 by mistake. We know we haven’t, we know it was 100, but he’s aggressive and threatening, he’s barring our path, and his mates are loitering just behind him. We are significantly outnumbered. There is no option but to hand over the money. He’s won.

That’s just one example. There were more.

So, as far as we’re concerned, haggling is fun, hassling is palatable but wearing. Add this level of dishonesty into the mix and actually the cumulative effect becomes too much of a bind and after three weeks we are more than a little sick of it all. 

As seasoned travellers, we pretty much love everywhere, but it’s hard to love somewhere when every move of your day is a test of your ability to spot and deal with lies and dishonesty. 

We’ve always hated the thought of a resort hotel. Arriving in this one actually feels like sanctuary. That’s a huge statement for travellers like us.

Red Sea Coast And Other Stories 

We wander around the unfamiliar territory of a resort hotel like two kids on their first day at a new school, not knowing what we’re meant to do or how the whole thing works. When researching where to stay round here, we’d had to Google the term “animation team”, as it meant nothing to us. It’s one of the things on our learning curve now.

The barman speaks to us in German and is amazed when we say we’re English. He’s delighted, too, whispering that he’s a bit fed up with bad manners and it’ll be nice to have some “polite English” to serve for a change – make of that what you will. A little later, after dinner, the “animation team” become appropriately animated and it’s clear from the noise around the corner that the Germans are gathering for some sort of evening entertainment. We can’t help but think this is a kind of modern version of Hi-De-Hi. Or maybe given the clientele it’s Heil-De-Heil.

It’s been a six hour drive from Aswan to get here, our courteous driver Mohamed (yes, really – another one), doing well to keep his eyes open as we traverse miles and miles of dead straight road through miles and miles of nothingness. The unforgiving desert is barren and featureless for an awful long time, and we probably see more police checkpoints than we do trees.

Before the desert stretch we’d passed through a number of fascinating oasis towns, including one which is surely the epicentre of the sugar cane industry, with tractors and trailers carting heaps of the stuff and one of the famed sugar cane trains loaded up waiting to go. The little town is an absolute hive of activity, and the last piece of recognisable civilisation for about three of the six hours.

So Happy Barman serves us our first beers – confusingly they serve Germans an Egyptian beer called Napoli – and it’s time for us to find our way in this unfamiliar world. This place is “all inclusive”, something we’ve absolutely always said we’d never do – but there’s nothing else here, just one resort every half mile and acres of desert rock in between. And besides, we can’t really have an opinion unless we’ve tried it for ourselves.

What’s not surprising is that, given that everyone is likely to be filling their boots in order to maximise value for money, there’s constant efforts to sell extras. Boat trips, town trips, fishing trips, diving, snorkelling and spas being offered every few minutes…and all priced in euros rather than Egyptian pounds. They seem surprised when we tell them we don’t have euros in England.

On our second evening we approach the bar feeling rather serene having indulged in our first “extra”, a hammam style treatment with full massage. Happy Barman has already seen his favourite English couple walking over and is pouring my beer as we walk in. Trouble is, Napoli beer is gassy and wheaty and feels like a perfect recipe for indigestion as it goes down.

“All inclusive”, it seems, means “local” drinks are included but not “imported” ones, which must be paid for. The cocktail we tried last night had a dominant taste of poor quality rum, regardless of whether it actually contained any rum at all. Tonight, Michaela’s gin and tonic tastes of…poor quality rum. The red wine has a bouquet of 2-stroke and tastes like an unwashed ashtray, and is impossible to like. There’s a theme developing here!

We came here determined not to fall into a trap of over indulgence given that food and drink is free – or, more accurately, already paid for – but any chance of  over indulgence is already looking unlikely if the booze is anything to go by. Disappointingly though, there’s not a fresh juice to be found anywhere in this place – the “juices” are syrup- and sugar-filled concentrates which taste like bad kids’ drinks.

The food though, so far anyway, is fine. Mass catering on this scale is never going to blow our minds but there’s plenty of choice and it’s all enjoyable if unspectacular. No complaints actually.

At certain points during the daytime and evening, one diminutive member of the animation team comes over all animated and wanders round the place announcing the next public event, using a descending 2-chord call which sounds like she’s calling the cat in for dinner. “Yoooooo-ga” in the afternoon, “kiiiiids-play” early evening and “shooooow-time” when it’s time for the Napoli-charged Germans to go see what’s on stage tonight.

Outside of Camp Sunshine (not its real name), life goes on. Waves break over the coral reef a couple of hundred yards from shore, the pale sun rises and steadily heats up, the sea breeze kisses the palms and cools the air in precisely the way the scorching desert wind of Aswan didn’t.

Between the palm trees and the pools, the lush lawns are fringed by colourful flower beds, pretty pathways lead between villas and birds are ever present, including hoopoe and a whole host of wagtails with yellow bellies as bright as canaries. Two white egrets either strut around the pool or, incongruously, raid breakfast tables for scraps, competing with sparrows and a menacing crow or two.

It’s isolated here. Somewhere out there there’s people’s day jobs, there’s life’s everyday stresses, there’s wars and there’s pandemics and there’s tragedies, but none of them penetrate the walls of Camp Sunshine and, if they do, a few Napolis and a few cocktails tasting of poor quality rum send them packing. And of course that’s why people like it. Escape from humdrum for two weeks a year, just how it used to be.

Legal Aliens: Englishmen In Resort

Day 3 at Camp Sunshine (not its real name) brings an increase in the sea breeze and the nations’ flags between the restaurant and the beach are flapping furiously – though there’s not a Union Jack or a St Georges anywhere to be seen in the collection. Colours are to the fore: the deep brown suntans of those Germans presumably nearing the end of their stay clashing with the frighteningly red raw faces and shoulders of the newcomers who’ve done too much sun too soon. They must be suffering.

There’s also the sky blue – not the sea or the sky but the shiny sky blue of our wrist bands which are intended to identify us as “all-inclusive” but make us feel more like school kids on sports day bearing the colours of our house. And we’ve got to wear the damn things for ten whole days. And nights.

A stroll along the shore takes us through large quantities of dead coral, literally tens of thousands of sea shells, some of them huge conches or parts thereof, fossils embedded in rocks and gnarled, cracked rocks encrusted with petrified plant growth. It’s fascinating but it’s like walking through nature’s graveyard.

Looking around Camp Sunshine, we’re clearly not getting into the spirit of this all-inclusive thing as quickly as we perhaps should be. The three bars open at 10am, and by five minutes past there are plenty of takers washing down their recently scoffed breakfast with a couple of Napolis. Big German Dad and his Lurching Teenage Son eat three successive heaped platefuls of hot food at lunchtime and then repeat the feat for their evening meal, while our jaws drop and we try not to stare. 

We sit here with our simple dish of barbecued meat and modest salad, washing it down with water and coffee and think, well, either us or Wolfgang & Son are getting this badly wrong. Everyone is obviously geared up to get their money’s worth on pretty much a meal by meal basis while we’re in danger of being the first ever guests to lose weight at an all-inclusive venue. Note to selves….

To be fair, we have heard Italian and French voices as well as German, but it’s the Germans who dominate and who, of course, are first in the queue when the food is ready. There are plenty of tattooed Fraus too – it’s obviously as popular in Deutschland as it is in England, and it’s sometimes hard to tell where the bikini ends and the body art begins, although in all honesty we haven’t studied that too closely.

Evening number 3, and we take a short detour to avoid Happy Barman – he’s a nice guy but we really can’t face his oddly unpleasant beer again just yet. Lo and behold we find ourselves sitting close to Wolfgang & Son again at dinner, and tonight Wolfy must be extra hungry: three dinners followed by two trips to the pudding station with three desserts on each trip. That’s three main courses and six desserts. Our “note to selves” just got thrown in the bin. We can’t compete with that.

Day 4 dawns and nothing has changed in Camp Sunshine; in this land of myths and legends it’s beginning to feel as if our 10 days here may end up feeling like a thousand and one nights. With nobody singing to us.

Whatever it is that happens in the name of evening entertainment, we haven’t ventured to see and we think it’s unlikely that we will. We do though stumble across an events listing pinned to a beachside post. One night, it seems, is a “Mr Hotel” contest, and we are cursed with a dreadful mental image of Wolfgang stripping down to his speedos after three dinners, six puddings and a bellyful of Napoli. And just as scary, a “Miss Hotel” night  where a bevvy of hefty Fraus probably get to reveal ALL of their tattoos. These are images which we need to dispel quickly in order to avoid nightmares and I try to concentrate on dead coral as a more attractive option.

We’re starting to recognise certain characters around Camp Sunshine (not its real name) as the same faces crop up at mealtimes. First, there’s a Tracey Emin lookalike, indeed if it wasn’t for the fact she’s speaking Italian we’d think Tracey herself was here. Presumably someone is making her bed for her. Then there’s Bayern Munich Boy, a lad of around 30 who wears full Bayern football kit including bright red socks and liveried trainers, plus body warmer and sunglasses, for every meal. And swaggering around the tables in an ever-so-authoritative way is Germany’s answer to Dave Angel, eco warrior. We sing “Moonlight Shadow” every time he struts by.

Today’s beach stroll takes us in the opposite direction to dead coral country and along the sand and rock to our nearest neighbouring resorts, “Utopia” and “Egypt Dreams”. Half way to Utopia there’s a group of Egyptian women with a rug spread out on the sand, covered in items of “hand made jewellery” neatly placed to induce the impulse purchase. Given that we’re half a mile from the nearest resort, and any passers by will be all-inclusive customers and therefore won’t be carrying any money as they stroll along the beach, it strikes us that this may not be the best place in Egypt to set up a stall.

Wednesday afternoon we make a break from the Camp by booking a place on the resort’s shuttle bus which leaves at 4pm daily and grants any who are willing to do so the opportunity to see the old town of El Quessir. It doesn’t quite go to plan, but we do get to see the remains of the castle, an absolutely unbelievable old house which has been occupied by the same family for 400 years, and a marina which is part new, part historic. The occupier of the ancient house, which looks like it has barely changed in those 400 years, is also the town’s real life muezzin.

El Quessir was in ancient times a port of huge importance, not just a major trade route linking Africa to both the Far East and Europe, but also the main port for those on the “Hajj” pilgrimage just before they undertook the perilous crossing of the Red Sea on the way to Mecca.

And why doesn’t the excursion quite go to plan? You might guess. The free shuttle bus turns out to be a car, one which drops us at the “family shop”, which means we have to go into the “family shop” for them to call our driver for the return journey. Hard sell time yet again. Then, as if we needed final proof that this whole country is dodgy, the hotel concierge (bear in mind we’re in an international resort hotel) demands 40 euros for arranging our “free” transport! We tell him exactly where he can stick his little scam. 

Before long back in Camp Sunshine it’s mealtime again and the usual suspects are gathering for dinner, including us. As I stand in line here between the desert and the Red Sea, empty plate in hand waiting for tonight’s treat, I feel like a cross between Aladdin and Oliver Twist. 

Day 4 draws to its close and we haven’t yet been in the Red Sea. You can’t wade out from the beach here due to the coral underfoot, and the only access is via a wooden pier which extends out beyond the reef and thus straight into deep water. Since arriving, the wind’s been too strong and the red flags have been constant, it’s easy to see why this stretch of coast has played host to windsurfing competitions. 

We drift off to sleep, stone cold sober after 2 days of opting out of bad alcohol and maybe just a little bit hungry. We definitely haven’t got the hang of this yet.

The Boys Of Summer: More Tales From The Red Sea 

Camp Sunshine beach bar has its music on a loop – a loop which perhaps should be a little longer. It’s a good job I have my headphones, given that we can hear the music from both house and beach spot and the inoffensive MOTR run of Santana, Adele, Richard Marx etc is at a certain point rudely interrupted by Tom Jones’ “Delilah”. We feel a pang of guilt laying here soaking up the sun while poor Tom is about to be arrested for stabbing his Mrs to death.

We think we might know where we’re going wrong with the all-inclusive thing. I remember chatting in a hotel bar in Sri Lanka a few years ago to an Aussie guy – his name was Phil, as it happens – about the differences between Brits and Aussies. Or maybe between Brits and everyone else. The thrust of the conversation was that a Brit will stand back and quietly try and judge etiquette in order to be polite, while meanwhile the Aussie will step straight in, help himself, and leave the Brit wondering how come everyone else gets a better deal.

It might just be that we are doing that very thing here, and may just be the explanation behind why we’ve reached Day 5 at Camp Sunshine (not its real name) and still haven’t got to grips with it all. Without realising it, we’ve been standing back and trying not to be rude, trying to avoiding looking greedy, and taking time to see what the rules are – when in fact no-one is playing to our rule book. Oh how very British of us.

For instance, we simply wouldn’t dream of loading a plate with eight pastries, knowing we only want two, and then walking away and leaving the other six on the table. I mean, that just wouldn’t be cricket, would it.

Mind you, there are some extreme examples. See the neat little toppings on these desserts in the photos below…

Well, there’s one lady here who approaches this display with a spoon, systematically scoops off the topping from 6 or 7 puddings, takes the toppings away to eat, and leaves a trayful of topless desserts for the next customer. Can you imagine!?

Maybe we’re going to have to adjust, and simply get greedy. Maybe the “all-inclusive” mentality extends to “well, I’ve paid for it, that gives me the right to waste it”. I don’t think I can do that without hearing my late Mum’s voice chastising me from beyond the grave.

Our routine seems to have become fixed. Because we haven’t been drinking alcohol, mealtime is short and is all over and done quickly. Apart from writing this rubbish and researching the rest of this trip, there isn’t much to do after dinner and we are, preposterously, in bed by 9.30pm. This makes us wide awake with the rising sun – this coast faces due east – at just after 5am. Morning stroll, lay in the sun, listen to music (me), read a book (Michaela), back in the room by 4.30pm when we’ve had enough of baking our bodies for the day, just as Tom is asking Delilah why why why for about the fourteenth time.

All this makes us ready rather prematurely for both breakfast (7am) and dinner (7pm). So having poked fun at the reputation of Germans always wanting to be there first, it is, in fact….us. There we are, slipping quietly through the doors sometimes before the coffee machine is even switched on and taking our seats whilst the metaphorical gong is still vibrating. Oh dear.

Shall we talk about Camp Sunshine restaurant/bar staff for a while? You know what, they’re really nice, and getting better by the day, lots of smiles, lots of eager-to-help, lots of engaging with Michaela and then turning to me and telling me that I am a lucky man. Well, I already know that, but it’s very nice to be told as much. I hope, given all our other comments, that this doesn’t sound hollow, because these guys are genuinely friendly and helpful, they are doing their very best and are pretty damn good at their job. No matter what our opinion of all-inclusive is, most of these guys work hard to make their visitors happy, and fair play to them for that.

So, “local alcohol” is all-inclusive, “imported alcohol” is pay-as-you-go. In our 24 days so far, we’ve discovered three Egyptian beers: Napoli, Sakkara Gold and Stella (no relation to Artois). We now establish that in fact all three are available here at Camp Sunshine – but Napoli (horrible) counts as “local”, whereas Sakkara (alright) and Stella (perfectly good) count as “imported”, despite having “premium Egyptian lager” on the label.

So on evening number 5 we give in, fall for the ruse and pay for some Stella. And suddenly we feel like we’re on holiday with a decent beer, some decent sunshine and smiles all round. What suckers we are, falling into the very obvious trap, and feeling happy as a result. Oh well, if you can’t take it with you, then you may as well spend it on beer, even if it is a bit of a con.

Consequently we are a little later for breakfast on Friday morning and, horror of horrors, have ever so slightly changed our routine. Ahmed looks mighty relieved to see us – or, more accurately, to see Michaela. Almost like a 1970s Costa Brava waiter, nothing is too much trouble for Ahmed as far as Michaela is concerned, she no longer even has to fetch her own coffee! Naturally Michaela doesn’t play up to this, not in the slightest…

There’s a small army of Camp Sunshine gardeners who keep the lawns and borders neat and tidy. One of them – name unknown – each time he notices that we are “at home”, will pick a little posy of flower heads and present them to Michaela with a little bow and a shy smile.

There’s clearly a little theme developing here, the longer we stay, and there’s no doubt that a little bit of flirtation is a million miles better than being pestered by hawkers, hasslers and hustlers all day. Camp Sunshine has its compensations.

Last Days In Egypt: Exploring The Reef

It’s Good Friday at home in England. Here it’s mid Ramadan, though in Camp Sunshine both Easter and Ramadan have become somewhat abstract concepts, for us at least, although we are having chats with staff over the effects of fasting. It looks like it’s changeover time too: new faces are appearing and wandering around learning the ropes and some of our old favourites seem to have gone back home to ordinary life. 

Dave Angel (eco warrior) is still here with his heavily tattooed entourage, but Tracey Emin is out of the picture and Wolfgang & Son seem to have gone back to wherever their normal food levels exist and left more here for the rest of us. Amongst the new arrivals are The Elegant Italians, who must be from either Rome or Milan, dressed to kill – or at least dressed for dinner – and gliding round Camp Sunshine in their finery as if they’d booked a posh cruise and ended up here by mistake. 

Heavy Metal Man is here too, his long grey pony tail pushed backwards through the baseball cap to nestle halfway down his back. His black T-shirt sports the legend “make music not war” and we’d like to bet his metal studded leather jacket came to Egypt with him and is hanging in his hotel closet. Then there’s Herr und Frau Wagner: we’ve christened them Wagner because it’s a name we associate with intellect and these two look every inch the retired professional. The Wagners have a rather civilised pre-dinner routine which comprises cocktails and card games, and, judging by the amount of scribbling Frau Wagner is doing, some serious scorekeeping is going on.

A week may be a long time in politics but it’s even longer in suntan. Seven days ago we arrived and clocked the deep tans of those already settled in: now, a week later, we are the dark brown ones and the novice paleskins are casting approving glances at us.

Camp Sunshine (not its real name) has another way of pushing the definition of the “all” in “all-inclusive” to a different level: Ristorante Al Dente, which, apparently, doesn’t translate as “restaurant on the way to the dentist”, offers an alternative to the cafeteria. Al Dente is almost a proper restaurant save for the fact you have to choose your meal at the time of making a reservation. The “all” definition is stretched by the fact that all-inclusive guests can go there…but only once per week. Make a second visit and it’s time to reach for your wallet. 

But it’s alright as it happens, and has the considerable bonus of a reasonably priced and very decent bottle of South African red. The serving staff, two in number, are so reminiscent of Basil Fawlty and Manuel that we reckon we would have giggled all night even without the Merlot. There’s nothing wrong with the food, as indeed there isn’t in the main cafeteria restaurant. We say again: mass catering on Camp Sunshine scale is never going to be mind blowing, but it is definitely very acceptable and we have had no complaints on that score.

Easter Sunday morning brings an uncharacteristic stillness and silence: the wind has gone and for the first time there is no rumble from the surf crashing over the reef. Our daily morning walk has become progressively longer day by day, and has steadily revealed more and more life in what we previously referred to as nature’s graveyard: crabs of every shape and size, starfish cunningly disguised as seaweed and colourful high-speed fish darting through the shallows. The shell collection is truly incredible, ranging from items so heavy and sculpted that they feel like moulded concrete to some which are just the most beautiful polished porcelain.

The absent wind means joy for Michaela as the red flag disappears and snorkelling is on the agenda. She comes back totally animated, describing the experience as her “best snorkelling ever”, the fish as “unbelievable” and the coral as a “riot of colour”. The beaming smile on her wet face says everything, as does the fact that she grabs multiple opportunities to see it all, now that the seas have calmed and nature’s parade is laid before her. The water is so clear, the fish life so abundant, that there’s decent spotting to be had just walking on the wooden pier even before she enters the water.

If perchance you’re wondering why it’s Michaela only, and not both of us, I seem to have a blind spot when it comes to controlled breathing techniques. Never mind snorkelling, I can’t even drink through a straw without getting in a mess.

Some sort of haze takes over Sunday afternoon. The previously scorching sun becomes fuzzy, shadows become ill-defined for the first time and the horizon vanishes into a featureless blur. It is seriously peculiar, the haze so distorting as to feel like mist, all distant views stolen by the strangely cloying stillness. An accompanying humidity replaces the dry heat – if we were anywhere other than the desert we would think a storm is coming. But of course, it isn’t.

And so we near the close of our time in Camp Sunshine and the end of our month in Egypt. We’d never done anything like this all-inclusive resort thing before and we had a pretty good idea that it wouldn’t be “us”, which has indeed proved to be the case. Nevertheless, we’re glad we’ve done it not least because you can only really have an opinion if you’ve experienced something for yourself. Now that we have, we won’t be in a hurry to repeat it.

Also, we’re not forgetting that when we entered Camp Sunshine, we felt very pleased to be getting out of the constant hassle and dishonesty which blights Egypt. We would go as far as to say that of all the many countries we’ve visited, Egypt is the least likely that we’d return to.

This interlude on the Red Sea coast has left us feeling that we haven’t really been travelling for the last ten days, not in the true sense. With five weeks touring Tunisia next, starting in the capital, we’re looking forward to getting back into that groove.