Highlights from a Week in Egypt

Highlights from a Week in Egypt | brokeGIRLrich

Last week, I shared a post describing our slightly insane tour of Egypt, with a pretty problematic company. But I wanted to take a moment this week and talk about some of the really excellent parts of our overall trip to Egypt, for anyone else considering going.

We spent one week in Egypt and flew in from London.

On the way there, we flew with Eurowings, a budget airline that I hadn’t flown with before, for £279 each for a one-way ticket, with a two-hour layover in Düsseldorf. I found it amusing that we went through passport control as we departed the plane in Düsseldorf, went around the corner, and up a flight of stairs to go through passport control again. Germany is so crazy to me with how much passport control you have to do to never even leave the airport. But Düsseldorf airport was nice, and they had an activity where people spun a wheel to win prizes. My partner and I both won 5 Euro coupons for use at the food places.

Overall, the journey to Cairo was really smooth.

On Viator, I found an airport transfer to our hotel for less than £10 and, because I had a Viator coupon from booking so many activities there this summer, the trip cost us about £1.50 each plus the tip for the driver. It was super smooth and the driver was waiting for us when we came out with our bags.  It may have been so low because it was August but we were really pleased with it.

We stayed in the Hilton Cairo Grand Nile for two nights. I will say, this was the biggest splurge of the trip. I had some Hilton rewards points that I thought would make a bigger dent in the cost, but even using 15,000 points, it was still $275 for the two nights. However, it was a really nice hotel. We were assigned to one of the higher rooms on the 36th floor and had a great view of the Nile from our room (there were cheaper rooms on the not-Nile side too but I have to admit the older I get, the more I appreciate a nice balcony and a pleasant view – I just have to convince myself to chill out with my activity scheduling so I can better enjoy the views).

There were several restaurants in the hotel complex, a convenience store, ATMs, souvenir shops, a pool, their own Nile cruise boat, and even a movie theatre. I had done a little reconnaissance before arriving to see if I could find a place for us all to eat that night that was nearby because we met up with my brother and sister-in-law who had been travelling since the previous night from the States. I found this Nubian Village restaurant that seemed to be right around the corner and was really pleased when it was actually part of the hotel complex.

Hilton Cairo Grand Nile – lobby and the view entering the revolving restaurant

The meal at the Nubian restaurant was phenomenal. My partner and my brother were excited to try pigeon there. I had the chicken shish tawook, and there were plenty of options for my vegetarian sister-in-law. The prices were a bit higher because we were in the hotel complex, but we all ate for less than $20 each and it felt like a pretty fancy meal to all of us. There was also a Takht band playing Middle Eastern music while we ate, which was pretty cool. Then we briefly strolled along the Nile to get back to the hotel lobby.

It was a perfect start to our holiday adventure in Egypt.

The next morning, we got up to go on a one-day Viator tour into the desert called Cairo 4X4 Safari, Camel Ride, Magic Lake, Waterfalls & Lunch and it was also fantastic. I think we were all a bit nervous about how hot it was going to be in the desert, but the whole tour was managed phenomenally.

The two-hour ride from the hotel to the desert went smoothly. When we got to the 4X4 Safari place, our driver turned us over to the guys who drive the 4X4s. Ours didn’t speak much English, but it was fine because it wasn’t exactly a chatty type of tour and he was very nice.

We began by driving from the Safari business location to the entrance to  Wadi El Rayan and paid the $5 USD entrance fee. Then we were off and we spent about 20-30 minutes 4-wheeling through the dunes, which was pretty cool. Then we pulled up to the top of a tall dune and went sandboarding. We were not rushed at all, but it was also like 110 degrees in the desert, and you have to walk up the dune yourself after sandboarding down it. I only did it once. Which was really cool, but I was good. My brother managed three trips and was the only one who actually stood up trying to sandboard. He’s an excellent snowboarder, but even he struggled, so I think sitting to go down the dunes was the right call for the rest of us.

So much sand

After that it was back in the jeeps for a bit more 4-wheeling through the dunes and a respite from the heat. There was also plenty of water offered to us the entire time. There were a few times were one of us would be like, no, I think I’m ok, and the guides would just appear with a bottle of water and be like… No. Drink it. Which was probably the right call.

After about 5-10 more minutes in the jeep, we stopped at the waterfalls, which also had a place to use bathrooms and get some snacks in a shaded area. This was also where the camel rides were, which were pretty hot, but that was pretty well managed with some time to sit in the shaded area before and after the camel rides and drink some water. Then we took some pictures by the waterfall and we were off again. We all thought that might be all the 4-wheeling, but it wasn’t. I’d actually say the craziest bits were what came next. We went up the Mudawara Mountains, which is like this big cliff and stopped to take some pictures. My partner did not love sitting on the side near the sheer drop as we went up it, which I have to admit, I’m a big chicken about too, but definitely thrilling.

Then it turned out our tour guides were like phenomenal photographers and we stopped at this gorgeous panoramic photo point where you could see all the desert and the magic lake, which changes colors as you get closer to it.

After the stop, we piled back in the jeeps and rode down to the lake. We spent a few minutes there, but since no one wanted to swim (we didn’t know to bring bathing suits), we continued on to a nearby Bedouin camp where we were served lunch, which was delicious. We were there about an hour before a final brief 4-wheeling adventure out of the park and back to the van to take us back to Cairo.

We got back to the hotel around 6 PM and all agreed it had been a really phenomenal day. We put on our bathing suits and watched the sun start to set from the pool. We made reservations to eat at the revolving restaurant at the top of the hotel, with great views of the Nile as we ate. This was also a little pricey, about $50 each for dinner, but I sort of felt it was much cheaper than a few other revolving restaurants I’ve been in, and it was for a three-course meal. We all really enjoyed it.

The next morning we checked out and began our Special Egypt 5-Day tour which was, essentially, a hot mess, but I will direct you to my review here rather than rehashing that madness.

I will say that when Aswan day fell apart for us on the tour, my partner and I had a really nice day in port on our own. We paid a local driver 200 EGP each per stop and he waited for us at each one. At first I was really anxious about that cause he was pushy about being our driver all day and we just wanted a simple taxi to one spot at the beginning of the day (we really didn’t want to be rushed or have to stick to a specific timetable because of how the previous days in the tour had gone), so we told him we would pay for each leg as we do it and if he’s here when we get out of each place, great, and, if not, that’s fine too. It was definitely the most aggressive negotiating I did all week. It did make me appreciate our tour guides from both the desert tour and the crazy Special Egypt tour.

But in the end, our taxi driver wound up working out great for us. And I think he definitely saved us some money getting to Elephantine Island. So our first stop for the morning was Elephantine Island, which had several temple remains and a super curious spot marked Temple of the Ark of the Covenant on Google Maps, which piqued my interest. As the driver dropped us off, he told us to make sure to take the local ferry for 10 EGP and not to say yes to any of the other boat owners. 10 EGP is like 25 cents. So because of him we were able to find the local ferry.

A very local ferry.

On the little ferry, my partner and I were sent to opposite sides because it definitely seemed like Islamic culture was a lot stronger in Aswan than our other stops. But this was fine.

When we got to Elephantine Island, it was nearly deserted, which was so crazy. We followed the map to the ruins entrance and the museum and we have no idea why but they charged me 100 EGP to get in and my partner 200 EGP, which we laughed over and have no idea why it happened. But that was essential a $2 difference, so no big deal.

And then we were the only people at these crazy ruins, which was wild. And they weren’t small. So we wandered around a bit, and I found a podcast about tracking the ark of the covenant to see if they had any information on what was happening in that spot. Most of the claims related to this being a spot where the ark of the covenant was stored for a bit seem to come from one historian, Graham Hancock and his book The Sign and the Seal. So… kind of unlikely it was there. But interesting, nonetheless. And since no one else was there, we just wandered the space, listening to the podcast together.

A highlight was seeing the cemetery for the sacred rams on Elephantine Island and then a mummified ram in the Nubian Museum

When we were almost all the way through the site, we ran into two other people hanging out in this little hut because the wind was picking up and there had been a sandstorm a few days earlier, which was still lingering in the air and made it kind of unpleasant to breathe and see. On our way out of the complex, a local man invited us to see the museum and told us it was cold. Then he handed us some basil. It wasn’t really and then he proceeded to walk us around and tell us about each exhibit, largely by just reading the tags on the exhibits to us. We tipped him 100 EGP each and left.

After this, we walked back to the ferry, and some locals seemed flabbergasted that we chose to travel to Aswan in August. This amused us, but he had a point. If you have the choice, go to Egypt in the winter. It was 118 degrees this day.

We caught the ferry back across and our taxi driver was waiting for us. We hopped in with him and went to the Nubian Museum for 200 EGP each, which had a lot of cool info on some of the archaeological excavations in the area and a lot of information about Abu Simbel, which is where my brother and sister-in-law went that day. It was also air conditioned, which was great. After the Nubian Museum, we hopped back in with our taxi driver and went to the Temple of Isis, which was a really quick stop. This cost 150 EGP and we also wound up tipping the guy who told us about the temple another 200 EGP each, but he did share some interesting info about the place and how it was later used as a church and what the different graffiti on the walls means, which we wouldn’t have known without him. I also really liked that the way they excavated the temple was kind of maintained, and you can get a sense of how far down below the city the excavations are.

Other Asawn stops: Temple of Isis and the Souk

Then we hopped in with the driver once more, and he took us back to the ship. We cooled down, ate some lunch, and waited out the peak afternoon sun before heading out on our own to check out the Souk, which is the local market. We wound up finding a spice shop and buying some pepper and this menthol stuff that I kind of regretted not buying at an earlier stop, which is used as a decongestant. This round trip took about an hour walking and we were drenched by the time we got back to the ship. We spent the next two hours just hanging out in the lounge and waiting for the pickup to the airport to meet back up with the Special Egypt tour.

The next day was the final day of the Special Egypt tour before they dropped us off at our hotel and we were back on our own.
We stayed at the Regency Pyramids Hotel. Fun fact, there’s one in Alexandria too, so make sure you are sharing the right hotel address if this applies to you. We were also a little concerned because we drove past it late the previous night and all we could see were the light up letters of the sign and half of them were out and we were like… yes, this tracks for the week we are having. Though, by the standard for the area, it was a little pricey at £90 for the night.

But we were wrong. It was really kind of delightful. We had paid a little more again for a pyramids view room, which was brilliant. My partner was laughing at me because when we checked into the room and stood out on the balcony where we could see the pyramids, I couldn’t stop laughing with relief because the previous 5 days had been so rough and stressful.

Once you enter the gate of the hotel, there’s a little courtyard and then once you’re in the lobby, it’s like the most adorable kitschy Egypt decorated lobby you’ve ever seen. We went up to our rooms and there was so much space and we were right next to where the free breakfast was served. We sat on our balcony and looked at the pyramids for a few minutes, and laughed hysterically over how our week had been going.

Then we headed out to dinner at the King Tut Lounge because my sister-in-law and I had found that there were a few places you can eat dinner overlooking the pyramids and kind of see the light and sound show happening. We thought we might just see some bits of the pyramids illuminated, so we got there a few minutes into the light and sound show, but we found that you could clearly see and hear the whole thing, which was crazy. We would’ve left a little earlier to see the whole thing if we knew. The food was really good, too, though all our stomachs were not in great shape by this point. Also, a heads up that King Tut Lounge is cash only, which caught us off guard, though we managed to pool all our remaining cash, and it just covered the meal, since we realised this after ordering (I guess worst case scenario someone would’ve gone off in search of an ATM – none were particularly nearby though).

The view from our last hotel room and the King Tut Lounge

After this, a lovely Uber driver helped us find an ATM on the way back to the hotel. The next morning, we hung out at the pool, which was the entire reason we booked the hotel because it had a pool overlooking the pyramids. We crammed in one final authentic lunch at Zeeyara Pyramids Elite restaurant, which was a 10-minute walk from our hotel and also had excellent pyramid views, though we cut it a bit close with our flight.

We should’ve just booked a transfer to the airport, but we decided to take an Uber. When we tried to book an Uber, we struggled because it took us a while to realise the drivers were messaging us and demanding an extra 800 EGP to drive to the airport on top of the Uber fee. So after 20 minutes of struggling to figure out why people were accepting our requests but then their cars weren’t moving, we figured it out. We wound up just accepting, and we had to split into two Ubers because of all our bags, because there was absolutely no time left to sort this any other way. We made it to our gate during the final boarding call, so definitely a little closer than any of us wanted. A bit of a frantic ending to the trip, but on par with the trip overall. However, most of the beginning and end of the trip were really very nice and even lots of moments in the chaos in the middle included some really cool sites and a nice time together.

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