My trip to Egypt...by road!

---

My trip to Egypt by road...
An unbelievable and nearly deadly experience...

One of those things that you 'must do' if you are in the Middle East is to visit Egypt, and while I was living in my Kibbutz in Israel I was able to take a few days off to head over to Egypt.

One of the good things about that was that I could leave most of my gear in my room and travel light!

Well, this trip was, in just about every way, quite unique and unpredictable.

As usual, for this trip, I was following other people's tips and guidance from a 'Let's Go Egypt' book...
To begin with, after arriving in Tel-Aviv I got on a bus with a friend of mine from Mexico and we headed towards Gaza...
Yes, in those days the Gaza Strip was part of Israel, it was actually a gained/occupied territory after the '6 day war' of *1967.
(*Israel captured and occupied the Golan Heights, the West Bank (incl. East Jerusalem), the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula)...

I was oblivious to all this history, as I had never read anything about it and back then there was no internet or google to look up information fast...
After we got there we had to locate the place where we could catch a 'Collective TAXI' to take us to the Suez Canal...

There were a few 'modified like a limo' Mercedes Benz taxis, all lined up at the sort of 'taxi terminal'.
Each one could carry up to 10 budget-travelers, primarily backpackers, to the Suez Canal. 

We were all packed in like sardines...
2 people could travel in the front seat next to the driver and there were 2 rows of seats, more like benches at the back which could fit 4 passengers in each one, it was a bit of a squeeze but we fitted in just fine...
All our backpacks were sitting on the roof-rack and were tied up with some kind of bungy rope, they seemed quite secure up there.
Anyway, after paying our fees we got on our way, not quite sure exactly how many hours it took to get to the Suez Canal but I guess it was roughly 4 to 5 hours...

The drive was pretty much through a well-built road with the desert on both sides!!
There was nothing by the road apart from sand dunes and a few rock formations. So it was definitely not an intriguing view, maybe at first we were like...."wow... check out this road"....but after an hour of the same, most of us were sleeping...
The driver had his Arab music blaring on the radio and he seemed to know his way around...

As soon as we got to the Suez Canal we saw a few people gathered by a Ferry terminal...so we went there and got our tickets to get across, it was a quick ride...

Now, I must mention that up until that point we were travelling on Israeli territory, still in Asia, and by crossing the Canal we were entering Egypt and...Africa!
(I was stepping onto another continent...so, thus far on this trip, I had just walked on Europe, Asia and Africa! I even did a bit of a dance after crossing, I couldn't believe where I was!...)

Note: This backpackers' road trip, through this road, does not exist anymore, as The Gaza Strip and the Sinai have now been returned to the Palestinians and Egypt. (The Sinai was returned to Egypt in 1982 and The Gaza Strip to Palestine in 2005)

After crossing the Canal we went through 'border control' and then...guess what? 
We had to take a similar 'Collective TAXI' ride into Cairo, which only took a couple of hours...not too bad..

I had no idea what to expect of Cairo, all I could imagine was an ancient city, like from the pharaohs time, like Tutankhamun, with majestic temples, pyramids and the Nile, the largest river in Africa and, to some, the largest in the world, I guess I was being a bit naïve, but I am sure that what I saw right from our arrival was completely beyond my imagination...

It was like a slap on the face...
After the tranquility of the desert and the Suez Canal to a massive metropolis full of people (20+ million), There were cars everywhere and the noise was coming at us like... how to describe this... It was like waking up, after a peaceful sound sleep, in the middle of the night in the middle of a nightclub where everybody was moving frantically, dancing, jumping, talking, yelling and... and, for no apparent reason...they were blowing their car horns non-stop...
It was like stepping out of a peaceful dream and rushing into a nightmare … I'd say...

This reminded me somehow of my beloved Mexico City, which is also a bustling gigantic metropolis, and made me think of the unaware tourists when they arrive in Mexico City not knowing what to expect and how they too...must get a slap on the face at first sight...
​
The traffic in Cairo was twice as bad as in Mexico City, in my opinion, I even began thinking how well organised the traffic was in my home town, in comparison...at least back in 1981...

Anyhow, after seeing this, I truly just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible and travel south down to Aswan...

However, we had to do the 'MUST DO' in Cairo first, and that was to pay a visit to the remarkable 'Giza Pyramids and the Sphinx'...which date back to the 26th century BC...

I didn't know what to expect...but somehow I had envisioned the Pyramids to be sitting in the middle of the desert...out there looking like an unworldly mystical sight...just as you see them in the pictures or postcards or history books...

No one warns you about the actual reality and that you could be in for a true and sad disappointment...
Don't get me wrong...The monuments are, just as you have pictured them and as remarkable and captivating as you imagine them to be...

It is the location of this site that has a bit of a cringe factor...

The day we arrived we got a room in a budget guest house/hotel, we spent the night there and we got ready to go to the pyramids, nice and early in the morning...
We asked the hotel staff how to get there... I truly was expecting it'd be like an hour or 2 out of the city on a special 'tour bus'...
But they said, "Take the 'local bus 355' from downtown and you'll be there in 25-40 minutes depending on the traffic"...cool I said, that's a bit odd I thought, but it was going to be a quick and inexpensive ride for sure...

Well, it did take us over an hour but not because of the distance, it is only about 25 km from the city.. but we primarily sat on traffic for quite some time...

It was a plain local bus, overcrowded and we were standing most of the way, the bus made a lot of stops, just like any other local bus would, picking up and dropping off people along the way through the busy city streets...we stayed close to the driver and asked him to let us know when to get off....and then after a long and tedious ride... all of a sudden...he said... "There they are! You get off here"... 
He was pointing at …'The Pyramids!'
What?! It can't be, I thought...
I hunched over to see through the bus window and...he was right!

There they were, right there across the road!
We got off the bus and walked across...

We walked up a pretty busy street, there were people everywhere, tourists and merchants alike and several vendors started approaching us... "Want to get a guided tour? Want to get a camel ride? Where are you from?"
We kept walking towards the entrance...

​I remember seeing a couple of kids playing 'pretend football' (soccer) with a Coke can (instead of a ball) right there on the street as we were walking up to the majestic Giza Pyramids...

I wasn't sure what to make of this initial experience thus far... All I knew was that it wasn't what I had imagined...
We paid our entrance fee and walked in towards the pyramids...they are absolutely breathtaking and one cannot help but be in awe...

I remember just standing there looking at these majestic man made structures...and just like everyone else, I started wondering...How did they build them?...
I think there are many theories about their construction but I think there's still some mystery around them...

I wish I'd had a smartphone back then, I would've taken a thousand pictures of that place, unfortunately, they didn't exist. I had in my hand a practical 110mm Kodak camera, and with a small budget I didn't want to risk taking too many pictures, and whatever few pictures I took there came out blurry and they are not that great, a bit sad but no problem...
Regardless of that, those images will remain in my mind for the rest of my life...

We even got on a camel and had a wee walk around and got our picture...a classic tourist moment...

We also went inside one of the pyramids, though exciting as it may sound it isn't really, as you need to go into a narrow tunnel to get into the tomb, once we were in the big tomb chamber we were able to stretch and look around...all that was on the walls was graffiti from previous visitors, I couldn't believe my eyes... there was nothing else historical inside or on the walls... 'sigh' …
What?! Yup...never mind...

I climbed out of that place and revelled for a moment in the minor thrill of being in a king’s giant tomb.

After that unsavoury experience inside the tomb, we went to check out the Sphinx, which was getting some restoration work done and was in some parts covered by scaffolding...nonetheless a quite impressive gigantic sculpture/monument.
We wrapped up our day in Giza and headed back to our hotel and got ready to travel down to Aswan...
We spent the next day in Cairo and went to the national museum for the day and then decided to take an overnight train, as it is a 12-hour ride to Aswan, so we figured it'd be a night's accommodation taken care of...

We got on our 2nd class car and sat in a long seat/bench for about 3-4 people...
We sat next to a couple of Egyptians, who after a while on the train took out some cheese, it looked like feta cheese, which was wrapped in newspaper... they had some Arab flatbread with them and started eating... and immediately they offered us some of their food, they said "take take" with a big smile on their faces, and we certainly did, we were quite hungry by then, somehow we started a conversation and they started teaching us how to count in Arabic, this went on for hours and it was quite a fantastic experience...
That experience right there made our entire trip worthwhile!…
​
I don't remember exactly when but we must've fallen asleep at some stage...

I woke up just before arriving at Aswan and it was a magnificent sight....
On one side of the railway, it was the desert and on the other side it was lush green pastures... we could see this contrast just as the train was dashing towards Aswan...all the greenery was simply lining the amazing Nile river...which was glowing in a bright blue colour...

After getting there, we got settled in a guest house and had something to eat at the markets...then we headed towards the waterfront to get on a felucca to go over to the other side of the river to see some of the sights there, it was without a doubt a fantastic experience crossing the river at a slow pace on that wonderful felucca for just a few dollars...

​The old fellow that was sailing it was quite friendly and slightly toothless...which showed only when he smiled...
Being on that felucca over the Nile river was also a true highlight of that trip...It was an...'I can't believe I'm here moment'...

We returned to the guest house at the end of the day and we were going to plan the rest of our visit there and then go up to Luxor, however, my Mexican friend started experiencing a tremendous rash all over his body and was feverish, and he started feeling quite ill...

So we decided to cut our trip short and head back to Israel pronto!
We simply backtracked the same way we got there, I don't even remember the train ride or anything else, we just wanted to get back 'home' to our respective Kibbutz, as we had medical cover by the kibbutz organization insurance and they would be able to help my friend right away...

One thing I do remember though is that after crossing back through the Suez Canal we got on another 'Collective TAXI' and we headed back towards the Gaza Strip...and this was a bit of a terrifying experience...

The desert road was practically empty and I was unaware that there had been a sandstorm the day before... 

The driver was speeding and had his Arab music going real loud, most of the passengers were sleeping and I just happened to wake up halfway to Gaza, for whatever reason...

I was admiring the amazing sand dunes until I saw that some of them were covering most of the road and the driver would need to drive through the bit of road that wasn't covered, he was not slowing down, he just kept on speeding, and then as we were heading towards another dune I was watching it with some fear, as we could not see if there were any other cars coming towards us and then... it happened!

A car appeared out of nowhere from the other side, another Taxi, driving over the same bit of road we were on and we nearly collided head-on, they both swerved fortunately in opposite directions and both cars ended up in the sand on top of a dune!!
We must've missed each other by a few inches but I was sure, for a second, that that was going to be it...

Fortunately, no one was injured and some didn't even realise what had happened as they were sleeping...
The driver laughed it off and we helped him get the car back on the road...
I must add that those taxis had no safety standards whatsoever, no seat belts or anything else...

WOW, what a real near-miss head-on collision...
That might've been the end of my adventure and probably my life as well, right there in the middle of the Sinai desert and no one around...I get the shivers just to look back...

After that incident, I don't think anybody slept any longer...
Back in Tel-Aviv, we took a bus back to our respective Kibbutz... and fortunately they were able to look after my friend and he recovered after a few days...he had contracted some infection when working on the 'date trees' in his Kibbutz but the symptoms, the rash, the high temperature and all that, didn't show until a few days later...

Well, that was an adventure and a half...
One day I shall return to Egypt and finalise my trip there, so much to see and learn...

Shukran, Egypt...
It was indeed, an unforgettable experience...

---

Spanish Version

About us

Current Projects