Hurghada & Cairo

Hurghada was a lot more ok than we were led to believe by the Lonely Planet. Yes, it’s very touristy and much bigger than we thought but reasonably relaxing in some ways. It certainly helps to get out on a boat for the day away from the bustle and thousands of Russian tourists and visit the reefs. We had two snorkels or dives at really great spots out in the Red Sea. Absolutely amazing fish life and pretty good coral – think we were very fortunate to be taken to very good spots that aren’t really damaged. Think much of the inner reefs are badly damaged these days so it’s worth getting out to the further away reefs as we did. For about NZ$25 each we got the boat for the day, all our snorkelling gear, a bottle of water, a soft drink, a full cooked lunch and the two dive spots – seriously good value!

 Hurghada shorefront

Snorkelling on a reef

After 2 nights in Hurghada we headed off to our last stop for the trip in Cairo by driving the very scenic road up the coast. Beautiful clear water and beaches along most of the way and seemed very popular with locals. Was nice to see the local people out fishing, camping, having a BBQ on the beach and in swimming.

That evening in Cairo we had a goodbye dinner at a nearby seafood restaurant. 9 of our group were carrying on to do the Jordan leg in reverse of what we had done before Egypt and were going to be joined by 3 new travellers. Our last morning of the trip saw us visiting the Egyptian Museum including a guide of the main pieces, Tutankhamen's treasure and absolutely amazing coffins and headdress, finishing up with the Royal Mummies. That part was quite fascinating but we had a bit of fun trying to queue for tickets and it ended up being a rushed visit as a result. Some other tourists decided it would be quite alright to try and queue jump, starting all sorts of chaos and making it very frustrating. Fortunately we managed to hold our own and in the end the ticket seller got very angry at them and sent them all back to the very end of the queue which was by that stage quite a long way back!