Egypt - Day 1

We arrived in Alexandria at dawn in a thick fog… from our 8^th deck stateroom we could see wisps of light above the fog as the lighthouse rotated.   Eerie!!!

We hurried off the ship to catch our tour, only to be held in place in the parking lot by the tourist police.  The fog, national elections and standstill traffic were the reasons.  Two and a half hours late we got out of the port.  Our adventure began…

Once we reached the Alexandria Desert Highway we were treated to an exhibition of chaos.  Trucks, buses and vans all competing for the highway… nobody pays attention to lanes, the drivers pull onto the shoulder or a frontage road to get ahead of somebody.  When we made a pit stop at Omar’s Oases, an hour out of Alexandria, most of our fellow travelers were shell shocked.  Walking into the toilet, an attendant hands you toilet paper, and expects you to put money into the pot.  I had heard about this on cruise critic, so was prepared… others were not.

pigeon towers

The adventure continued… past salt drying ponds, a camel ranch, tall towers we were told were pigeon roosts, speed bumps that slowed the traffic to a crawl, pedestrians that run across 6 lanes of oncoming traffic, small pick up trucks with water buffalo, goats, or local produce, and trucks and buses with men and women hanging on.   Four hours later we reached Giza… it was so smoggy we could barely make out the pyramids. 

Ramses II

We had a very good guide named Hagar – a Nubian from the south of Egypt who was working on her masters in Egyptology and Tourism.  She suggested we modify the tour schedule a bit to avoid the huge crowds at Giza, so we headed to Memphis and saw the Alabaster Sphinx and several large statues of Ramses II. 

Ramses II

Alabaster or Memphis Sphinx

From there we went to Saqqara, to the Step Pyramid … the oldest pyramid in Egypt.  We toured the necropolis, and got some good pictures. 

Because the historical areas were closing we headed to our hotel, checked in, then left to attend the sound an light show at the pyramids.  Sitting in the amphitheater, you could make out the shapes of two pyramids, and we suddenly realized that the Sphinx was right in front of us.  Both of us had the same reaction… it’s much smaller than we thought it would be!  At first we thought it might be a model, but, as the show began we realized it was the real thing.