Aswan, Egypt: Day Three (11/22)

We desperately needed a hearty breakfast of Western and Egyptian foods before we were to check into our boat, the Sonesta for our Nile Cruise. Egyptian breakfast food includes foul which is a brown fava bean cooked down. Some beans were mashed and some beans were whole and it was topped off with herbs, lemon and freshly baked pita bread. The best part it was served in a beautiful, giant ceramic pot with a long ladle. A side note, they made the falafel to order and it was the lightest and tastiest falafel I had on my entire trip. After breakfast, our tour representative, Mustafa met us at our hotel and took us on board to check us in. We were then passed of to our tour guide, Ahmed El-Prince and 4 other people who were part of Memphis Tours. Even though we booked a private tour, the Nile Cruise part was shared and despite being the high season there were only 10 people on the boat due to the recent events in Egypt with Morsi.

The Sonesta was like one giant, gawky houseboat. Everything was gold and gilded, it was something out of the 80's but clean and comfortable.

A quick lunch on board the ship and we headed offshore to visit the Unfinished Obelisk. For less than $2 USD, we were able to climb onto the obselisk for an awesome picture.

After we finished climbing to the top and back, we had to brave the vendors to reach our car. Due to the lack of tourism which is so vital to the Egyptian economy, 80% of the stores were closed and the few vendors that were out desperately tried their goods to any foreign looking people. It seriously felt like I was some famous superstar being bombarded for an autograph or something. Then we were off to the High Dam.

Next stop was the Philae Temple. We had to take a tiny boat out to Elephantine Island where the temple was. We were lucky to have a native Nubian onboard to sell us some jewelry. I ended up buying a camel bone necklace. Pretty cool and handmade. I love this kind of stuff. Philae Temple was my favorite temple during my visit as most of the structure was still intact and the story behind the temple is so interesting esp. with our tour guide Ahmed El-Prince who made the story come to life. I love how he left the story hanging until the next day to keep us intrigued. He also taught us our first Arabic word, meshi which means okay.

Last and final stop before dinner was an essence shop for a free massage, tea and sample.

Back on board, a quick dinner and a long hot shower before bed.

Aswan and Abu Simbel, Egypt: Day Two (11/21)

After a long day of traveling, we had what I would define as a quick nap as we were up at 4:30 AM local time to catch our flight to Aswan via Egypt Air. With a quick hearty breakfast of instant cup of noodles from home, we were set to head off to finally see something. Our tour representative, Mohammed Basheer met us early in the morning to walk us through Cairo Airport. For us US-based globe trotters this was a new experience. Mohammed was able to walk us all the way to our gate until the final bag scan. The only downside to this is that because you have a final scan before you board, you can't bring any water on-board your flight. But the actual process of boarding was def. an experience worth writing about. You think Chinese people don't know how to line up? Egyptians are even worse. It doesn't matter if you are in first class or no status, everyone rushes the door and pushes to get to the front, they have no concept of a line or waiting patiently. The second part of it is that there is no jetway, you actually have to take a shuttle bus to your plane and then haul your own luggage up a set of stairs all while fighting all the Egyptians pushing and shoving you to get ahead.

After a quick 1 hour flight, we arrive in Aswan which is at the southern most point of Egyptian and about 10 degrees warmer. It was a humid 85 degrees when we landed and we were greeted by another tour representative, Mustafa.

We had a nice drive by our driver, H through central Aswan with the city on one side and the Nile River on the other side. We arrived at the dock to take the ferry boat to our hotel, Movenpick Aswan. Upon arrival we were greeted with fresh hibiscus juice, which is similar to cranberry juice but sweeter and less tart.

After a quick refresh, we went to the main side of Aswan to meet with our tour guide, Friday and our drive H for the 3 hour drive to Abu Simbel. Sadly, due to the current situation of 80-90% less tourists as a whole, Abu Simbel airport only had 2 limited flights per week so most tour operators are now forced to plan a 3 hour drive from Aswan for tourists. Prior to all this, Abu Simbel had a busy airport with multiple daily flights shuttling tourists in and out. On our way, our tour guide picked up a local roasted chicken, hummus, french fries and pita bread for our lunch. We had a strict deadline to meet at 11 AM at a tourist checkpoint at which point our car was inspected. We were lucky enough to be the last car in the caravan and given a back up driver and a tourism police officer armed with a machine gun.

The drive to Abu Simbel was nothing but dessert, red sand for stretches. There was only one highlight, about 1 hour in there was a mirage on the left hand side of the freeway. It looked like there was a palm tree and huge pond. After 5 minutes when we passed what looked to be the center of the mirage, you saw nothing but sand. It was pretty cool and def. worth waking up for!

We knew after 3 checkpoints, we knew we had reached the city of Abu Simbel. There were small villages, each government subsidized. They had built from the center of the city out and as we proceeded into the city center, you could see the lush trees and flowers in bloom. Who knew a desert could look so green and lively?

Finally, we reached Abu Simbel. Friday gave us a brief overview of the two temples we were visiting and gave us 45 minutes to explore ourselves. An interesting fact about Abu Simbel is that the government moved the entire 2 temples in fear of the it sinking in the Nile River after the completion of the High Dam. Every single piece was cut and put back together and reinforced. Can you imagine the process of taking apart and putting together? A side note, we were the second group to head to Abu Simbel from Aswan but while here we only saw 4 tourists not including ourselves. It was so sad to see how much tourism has died in Egypt. It was nice to be VIP but it was terrible knowing the consequences it had on the Egyptian people.

Temple #1 was a tribute to Pharaoh Ramesses II built for himself. Temple #2 was temple Pharaoh Ramesses II built for his Queen Nefertari. To read more about the history of Abu Simbel, click here.

After some pictures and exploring, we headed back into the car for the long three hour drive back.

Finally, we arrived safely backed in Aswan famished. We decided to eat at the rooftop restaurant of our hotel which gave us a fantastic view of Aswan at night. I had the Egyptian lentil soup which was served with fried onions, croutons and fresh lemon juice. It was hot, thick and exactly what I needed. My main course was spaghetti bolognese which was sour and salty but I just didn't feel like eating stringy, dry meat. For dessert, we ordered strawberry and vanilla ice cream. Movenpick is famous for their ice cream and it is sold all over Egypt but we were lucky enough to have it from the source. The strawberry wasn't creamy but more of a sorbet. The vanilla was to die for. Creamy and a true vanilla flavor that only a vanilla bean could provide versus vanilla extract. After dinner, it was time to hit the sack as tomorrow would be another long day of sightseeing.

Frankfurt, Germany & Cairo, Egypt: Day One (11/20)

With no direct flights to Egypt, we flew on Lufthansa and transited through Frankfurt. Being a Star Alliance Gold Member, we went to the lounge to have some free food and drinks. We had some awesome pretzels, pickles, sausages and mushroom gravy. Why can't airline food on the plane be as good as the lounge?

The first day in Cairo was a quick one. We arrived at 7:00 PM local time and went through Egyptian customs, bought a $15 USD visa and headed through crazy traffic to our hotel, the Fairmont Heliopolis hotel near the airport. When we arrived, we went through a metal detector and our bags were scanned. That def. made us feel safer that they took security seriously. While waiting in the lobby to be checked in by our tour representative, Mohammed Basheer we were lucky enough to see an Egyptian wedding that was about to begin. Apparently, the Fairmont hotel was famous for hosting rich and famous Egyptian weddings. After checking in, we explored the Fairmont hotel which was host to 15+ restaurants under one roof but being jetlagged with an early flight the next day, we skipped dinner and went straight to bed.