Egypt – The Travels of Eric and Eva

May 8 – May 11

Even though it says we were in Egypt for four days, we were in fact here for only two. One in Sharm-el-Sheik and one in Alexandria. The other 2 were days at sea including one day to get through the Suez Canal.

Sharm-el-Sheik

The city sits at the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula and was a logical stop on our trip from Saudi Arabia to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. There are only 73,000 permanent residents here but they play host to 6 million tourists each year. Security is incredibly tight here with a well-armed police presence at nearly every major corner. Packed with hotels, restaurants and nightclubs for the tourists, it sits in a beautiful spot with good weather, nice beaches and amazing coral reefs that are protected as a national park.

My apologies for a stock image off the web, but we don’t have any good pics of the city.

I was able to go out snorkeling here and it was by far the best I had done on the cruise! The reefs were not as bleached (dying) as the others we had visited, and the fish were abundant. I was able to record some nice videos using my GoPro, and since I am unable to post videos to this site, I am including just a couple of sample frames. Samples of my videos were used in one of the presentations by the marine biologist since people wanted to see the reef and I was the only one who filmed it.

Next, we passed through the Suez Canal which was a highlight of the cruise. The passage fees charged by Egypt comprise the country’s largest source of income, with tourism being second. The 2022 blockage of the canal by the Evergreen cargo vessel cost the country a great deal of money. The passage fees for ships are quite steep. Our ship for example had to pay somewhere between $250,000 – $350,000 USD just for the one passage, which took around 10 hours! For non-passenger vessels they apparently charge by the tonnage so the largest cargo ships must pay a fortune.

Each ship must be accompanied by a pilot ship, a small vessel that knows the local waters and is routinely used to guide large ships into ports. This is a new procedure implemented after the 2022 debacle. The ships must wait near the entrance area and are given a priority number for the following day. We were given first position in our convoy of 46 ships, potentially since we were the only passenger vessel.

Pilot ships are between each ship for safety. Must be a boring job to pilot one.

This was the ship behind us in the convoy. I estimated it carried 1000+ large shipping containers.

Apparently, Ever Given ran aground here and blocked the canal for 6 days, costing Egypt $15 million daily.

This is one of many moveable bridges in the canal that allow vehicle traffic to cross the canal. Trucks are typically lined up for miles waiting for the day’s convoy of 45-50 ships to pass.

The Friendship Bridge links the continents of Africa and Asia. In a visit by the Egyptian president to Japan in 1995, they agreed to pay for 60% of the construction cost of the bridge. The road is hardly used today, but the bridge is beautiful.

Alexandria – The Pyramids and the Grand Museum

Alexandria was our next port of call and used as a base for our long drive to Cairo for the Old Grand Museum and then Giza for the Pyramids. Alexandria is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It was founded in 336 BC by Alexander the Great, hence the name.

Since our visit here was only a day, we did not get to see the city. We got on a bus early in the morning and drove to Cairo, whose metropolitan area attempts to support 22 million people, most of whom are quite poor. A drive through Cairo is met with too much traffic and constant views of very old and dilapidated concrete buildings. It feels like a city that has no hope of ever being modernized. With the stated reason of reliving congestion in Cairo, Egypt has an ongoing project to create the New Administrative Capital (NAC) to the east which will replace Cairo as the country’s capital. It has yet to be given a name. The future of Cairo seems very uncertain.

This is one of many government funded housing projects we passed that are geared towards relieving the housing crisis in Cairo and supporting the growing population. These projects are huge and seem to contain 50 or more of these buildings in multiple identical rows. One article says that in 2020/2021 alone, nearly 750,000 units were built.

Taken by somebody else from the bus on our way to Cairo.

The Old Grand Museum

We visited the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities (currently also known as the Old Grand Museum) that houses the world’s largest collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts (more than 120,000 items on display) featuring the famous Tutankhamun collection with its beautiful gold death mask and sarcophagus and the royal Mummy room. The building is well over 100 years old and is simply packed with tourists. One walks around here seeing a ton of items described in great detail by the tour guide and then you forget most of it Here are just a few sample photos of items thousands of years old.

The New Grand Museum

The current museum is being replaced by a spectacular new Grand Museum that sits on land next to the pyramids in Giza, a much better location away from the congestion of Cairo. The building has been finished for some time but the opening keeps being delayed for reasons that even the tour guides don’t understand. We got permission to go inside and view the atrium and it is spectacular. This place will be quite the attraction once it opens.

The Statue of Ramesses II is a 3,200-year-old figure of Ramesses II. It is made from red granite and weighs 83 tons. The statue was found in 1820 broken in six pieces and earlier attempts at restoration failed. It provides an amazing introduction as you first enter the museum.

The Pyramids

If you are going to visit the pyramids, you might as well do it in the middle of a sandstorm with sand blowing into your eyes and nearly every other opening of your body. Add in overly aggressive vendors pushing goods, camel rides and carriage rides and the visit was not the serene setting we had hoped for. Additionally, they have built hotels and shops way too close to the structures which I feel tends to contribute to the loss of the true sense of the site. But, it is the pyramids and seeing them in person is still cool. Here are some photos.

Gives a good sense of the effects of the sandstorm.

On to Greece and Albania.