A Grand Tour of Egypt – Limited Website Activity
As you might have noticed there haven’t been many updates on the website in the last few days, although the reason behind it is simple: I’m currently making a grand tour of Egypt.
Holiday
Despite having done quite some domestic weekend breaks in the last months, I was badly in need of a holiday abroad, preferably somewhere sunny.
At one point I was considering either Mexico or Tanzania as both countries do not require PCR testing, but eventually decided against them both. In the case of Mexico, I managed to find a good flight deal. I however wavered and needless to say the deal suddenly disappeared.
With more and more airlines cancelling flights to Mexico or introducing PCR tests just to fly back to Europe, it also seemed somewhat like a risk.
In the case of Tanzania this all mattered a lot less. There were some good deals to Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar, but I didn’t feel like flying all the way there for Zanzibar alone.
Although I do love a good stretch of fine sand for a few hours, I’m not a beach person at heart. If I would visit Zanzibar, I’d want to combine it with a mainland safari – and unfortunately this is not the best time of the year for that.
Egypt
Thus Egypt came into the picture as holiday destination. Not as far away as Tanzania or Mexico, but in these corona virus pandemic times that isn’t exactly a bad thing. In the (unlikely) case borders would close or airlines would stop flying, it would be much easier to get out in time.
And then there is the country of Egypt itself. Having a deep interest in history, I always wanted to visit Egypt before. It is one of the great ancient civilisations, and there is just something mysterious about Egyptian mythology and all those temples and pyramids.
Of course, Egypt is much more than that. Cairo itself is one of Africa’s biggest, most thriving cities and a cultural heart of the Arab and Islamic world. That is the case right now, but perhaps was even more the case in the past under famous rules like Saladin.
On the Nile
As I’m writing this I’m setting on the deck of a river boat on the River Nile. Currently we are still moored in Aswan but we are soon to embark downstream towards Luxor, visiting a couple of ancient sites on the way.
So far I’ve already visited the Giza pyramids, the Medieval old town of Cairo and the sights around Aswan such as Philae and Abu Simbel.
One thing which has surprised me so far is how few other tourists there are around. I literally had Abu Simbel to myself alone – a rare feat as in normal times you have to share such sights with thousands of others.
Needless to say, I’m tremendously enjoying my trip so far. So far all arrangements I made and vague plans I had worked out extraordinarily well, so let’s hope that will continue as well for the remainder of the trip. *knocks on wood*
Updates
Although I do not have the time to post regular updates during my trip (and even if I had, I’d rather not do so as to fully enjoy my time away) I have posted some impressions on my Twitter feed.
If you like to follow along for the last week as I sail down the Nile from Aswan to Alexandria, you can always follow me on Twitter!
When I’m back home from this vacation, the normal flow of travel news and articles on Paliparan will again resume, which for sure will include a full account of my Egypt trip as well as there are lots of things I want to share.
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