Egypt is a fabulous country with plenty of historical sights and temples. Nowadays traveling solo in Egypt has become harder because of the bad economical scenario of the country. Tourism has strongly decreased and the hassle for tourists increased in the main sights.
Day 1: Cairo
I arrived in the city of Cairo and spend my first night in The Australian Hostel. It wasn’t the greatest place but allowed me to meet Mostafa Hashad, a great human being that organized my entire trip in Egypt for a reasonable price. He has a personal page on Facebook . We partnered and if you are visiting Egypt, message him and say it was Franz Explorer’s reference!
Day 2: Cairo (Giza Pyramids & Saqquara)
On my second day I went early to see the Pyramids of Giza and the Great Sphinx. Constructed between 2589 and 2504 B.C., the Egyptian pyramids of Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure, built in that order, are a testament to ancient planning and engineering.
In the afternoon I proceeded to visit the Step Pyramid of Zoser at Saqqara. Built during 27 century BC, it is considered to be the first Egyptian pyramid, it is seven levels high and four-sided. This old men was desperate for money and charged only one USD for a small camel ride and a picture.
At night I went back to the hostel for a shower and took a overnight bus to Luxor.
Day 3: Luxor East Bank
The east bank of Luxor consist of Karnak Temple and Luxor Temple. Karnak is the second most visited historical site in Egypt and 30 pharaohs contributed to its buildings.
Day 4: Luxor West Bank
The day began in the famous Valley of the Kings where you can enter some of the most incredible tombs of the New Kingdom Pharaohs, like Tutankhamen. After lunch time we headed to Temple of Queen Hatshepsut and finished with the great Colossi of Memnon. In the end of the day I headed to Aswan.
Day 5: Aswan (Abu Simbel, Philae Temple and Nile River)
The first activity of the day started at 3 AM, a bus drove us all the way to the border with Sudan to see the temple of Abu Simbel. Cut into a solid rock cliff and located about 230 km southwest of Aswan, archaeologists have concluded that the immense sizes of the statues in the Great Temple were intended to scare potential enemies approaching Egypt’s southern region, as they travelled down the Nile from out of Africa.
In the afternoon we headed back to Aswan where a guide was waiting me to show the Philae temple, an island in the reservoir of the Aswan Low Dam downstream of the Aswan Dam and Lake Nasser.
For the sunset I Sailed in the Nile river with a Felucca, a traditional wooden sailing boat used in the Red Sea, Mediterranean and the Nile River. The guy was great, he gave me his facebook and asked me to tell tourists coming to Aswan in Egypt. For those who interested his Facebook is Momen Kobany (Jamaica Momen).
Day 6: Back to Cairo
In this link I describe top things to do in Cairo and surroundings. One of the must-see is the Egyptian museum of Museum of Cairo, that contains the world’s most extensive collection of pharaonic antiquities; no visit to Egypt is complete without a trip through its galleries. The original collection was established in the late 19th century under Auguste Mariette and housed in Boulaq. The objects were moved in 1891 to the palace of Ismail Pasha in Giza before being transferred in 1902 to the current building at Tahrir Square, which is the first purpose-built museum edifice in the world.
Designed in the Neoclassical style by Marcel Dourgnon, the Egyptian Museum boasts 107 halls filled with artifacts dating from the prehistoric through the Roman periods, with the majority of the collection focused on the pharaonic era. The museum houses approximately 160,000 objects covering 5,000 years of Egypt’s past.
Day 7: Bahariya Oasis
One of he highlights of my Egyptian trip, the first day of the tour to Baharya Oasis started in a hot springs and ended in some dunes where we did sand boarding and settled camp.
Day 8: Bahariya Oasis & Cairo
Our second day in the Oasis included a visit to the Black Desert, Crystal Mountain and White Desert respectively. All of this with a 4×4 crossing all types of land.
My trip ended in Cairo where I had a flight to Kenya.