We got the Egypt and it was pretty easy with the e-Visa. We were in the wrong line for a little bit, of people buying the visa on arrival. Once we got through customs we called an Uber, and as expected they told a story of fees that we had to pay. Fortunately I saw the actual fee sign and we only paid the real fee, which I think made the Uber driver disappointed.
The hotel we stayed at, Jaz Amara, was really nice and had about 30 pools. Unfortunately the pools closed down at 5:00 p.m. so there wasn’t any evening pool activities for when we got there. We had a nice dinner and then walked along the beach out to the pier. The hotel seemed about half capacity and I’m guessing it was the offseason. The next morning we slept in a little bit, and then went to have breakfast. Shortly after breakfast we got into the ocean and we’re able to pretty quickly find the dugong. This bay, Marsa Mubarak, has a resident dugong named Dennis.
Dennis clearly has a big fan base because it was easy to spot where he would be based on the number of snorkelers. So we were easily able to find him I just following the largest group of snorkelers. This day he was just munching on the seagrass and eventually ran off when one of the photographers got too close with their giant camera. We also saw a good number of sea turtles both Dennis and the sea turtles had remora friends, and some of the sea turtles had small yellow and black fish that were hoping for things to be kicked up from the sand when the sea turtle pulled out the grass.
We came back in for lunch and relaxed a little bit before going out for another snorkel we didn’t find Dennis this time but still had a good snorkel and spent more time at the coral bomes. We did get to see some cleaner wrasse stations as well as some batfish and triggerfish Steph even saw a school of squid go by her rapidly.
We set the pools for a bit and swam up to the swim up bar. I don’t know why but I really love the idea of a swim up bar and so having it at that hotel was nice.
We worked out for a bit and then took a walk down to the ocean right about sunset. I was trying to make a call to Michael just to talk so Steph went out to one of the points on her own. I saw her running back which is so out of character for stuff I decided I had to go meet her to see if something was wrong. Nothing was wrong she just felt like running and wanted to be back before it really got dark because the sunset made it dark really quickly.
Paul in Yutong showed up pretty late and we greeted them as they arrived. We did another walk along the beach and then they went to bed because they were exhausted from their long travel from California.
We got up early the next morning and met them for breakfast, unsurprisingly they had already been up for hours due to the jet lag. Shortly after breakfast we went to go search for Dennis the dugong again but we weren’t able to find him for a long time. Eventually one of the snorkeling boats showed up and they took a zodiac around to try to find Dennis. The managed to find him and the people the doc pointed out that that’s was where Dennis was. We swam out to him as he snorkelers were getting in the water. Dennis decided it was time to move and he was going pretty fast despite not looking like he was trying at all. He was more animated than the day before rolling along the grass sea sandy bottom and looking like he was having a good time playing. I was the only one really able to keep up with Dennis as he was swimming quickly, and eventually I stopped to join back up with Yutong and Paul and Steph. Steph wasn’t far behind, Paul and Yutong where further behind, and the tourist snorkeling group was way back.
We spent a little bit more time looking at the coral and then hit it in to clean up before checking out. We had a long lunch waiting for the van to arrive, it picked us up to take us to the boat.
Our group was one of the first arrive on the boat and we got to settle in for the evening in harbor. Who walked around in the harbor of it but it was still under construction in large parts and the small trinket shops weren’t all that interesting.
The next morning we went north a bit to one of the nearby reefs for our checkout dive. The reef was doing well and Steph mentioned that it was much better than when was in the Red Sea in September. On one dive Steph found a dive computer, but it was from one of the other boats, so they gave it back.
After two checkout dives the boat moved to the brother Islands. Once we left for the Brother Islands we were out of contact until we got back from Daedalus Reef three days later. We started at little brother and did a few dives there where Steph saw a thresher shark, which he pointed out to me. Unfortunately not many others were able to see it as they were further ahead, and Steph had the macro lens on so we didn’t get good video. We then moved to the Big brother Island where the lighthouse is. The current was pretty strong around the Big brother Island but we got to see a couple large fish being cleaned. One of our divers lost a weight pouch as they jumped in the water but then Steph managed to find it at the bottom. Steph started referring to her finds as her treasure, and she was hoping to find another dive computer that was not claimed.
That evening we had a long journey to Daedalus reef which took about 10 hours, there was a lot of rolling and I got a sea sickness prevention patch from Yutong, which made a huge difference. Amusingly it also made me not able to see well up close as a side effect.
Next morning we woke up to the Daedalus reef lighthouse in view, and the reef itself which is really pretty. Three has some pretty steep drop offs on all sides to go down to maybe 100m. The guides focused on blue dives which means we were away from the reef trying to find some of the more pelagic creatures like hammerhead sharks, silky sharks, manta rays, and longimanus sharks. We managed to see pretty much everything on the list although many of them were just shadows in the distance. Like we could tell it was a hammerhead shark, but it was 40m down and moving pretty quickly away from us. The one major exception to this was the longimanus shark also known as the white tip oceanic shark. We found one that was very curious about us and came quite close almost close enough for me to reach out and touch it, but since I value my hands I did not actually do that. We also got to see some clown fish in anemones and large Napoleon wrasse.
We were able to go to the lighthouse for sunset and I got a silly hat for mystery prize for dive club.
The evening we spent on the reef let us see a large school of cornet fish or needlefish it was hard for me to tell which one. They were attracted to a large spotlight on the boat and it was fun covering up the spotlight and then revealing it to see them move away and move back real quick.
In our downtime on board we were able to do some yoga and have great conversations with Paul and Yutong learning a lot more about them and their past and we had known before.
The second day diving Daedalus reef I skipped the first morning dive. On the second dive we got to go to the anemone city which had many clownfish.
The final dive was just right under the boat. I was hoping to find some of Steph’s leggings that were blown off our drying line the previous night, but no luck.
We then had a long boat ride back to the coast. We got into range in the morning and found out that a diving live-aboard by the name of Sea Story had sunk just a little to the south of us the previous day. I had a number of messages to respond to assuring people I wasn’t dead yet. There were four confirmed dead, and another 7 missing presumed dead, including two British tourists.
The final dives were really nice, especially the dives with just the four of us. Steph led us well, and we got to take our time on some of the smaller things. I was also slapped by a turtle on one of our last dives, which was hilarious.
Once back at the port we had a short walk around, but nothing much is there and most of it is still under construction. We got picked up the next day to head to Luxor, which is a 6 hour drive away. I was surprised by the number of checkpoints we had to go through to get to Luxor.
The hotel in Luxor was amazing, Steigenberger Nile Palace. We checked in then immediately headed out to the sunset camel ride. We took a boat and a motor-cart to the camels at the edge of the desert. In Egypt, the landscape is either the fertile area by the Nile, or desert. There isn’t even a transition zone, just an immediate transformation to bone dry desert. The sunset ride was gorgeous and we had a good ride back to the hotel. We had dinner at the Lebanese restaurant, and a few of the dishes were absolutely amazing.
The next day I stayed in as Steph, Yutong, and Paul went to two of the better preserved temples outside the city. The first was amazing, and they had great pictures of it. The second still sounded great, but not as amazing.
The next day Steph went sailing and had a spa treatment, while Paul, Yutong, and I went to the local Temples. Karnak is the largest and most complex temple. It was started about 4000 years ago, and was built over 1900 years. There are still many parts of it that have nicely preserved paint and carvings, due to the roof on some sections not having fully collapsed. A large portion of it was also covered in mud, and those sections are distinct in color, with little remaining paint. The large display room and the entry pylons were the most impressive parts. We then went to Luxor temple, or the south temple which was smaller and built over a shorter period. However it was converted to a Greek temple, then a church, then a mosque. The remains of each period are left over the older periods, and it was interesting to see how they differed.
We just relaxed by the Nile after the trips, and Yutong got a spa treatment like Steph’s. We watched the sunset over the Nile, the headed to the Lebanese restaurant again for a lighter dinner this time. We had a great last meal. In the morning Steph and I had to get up extremely early to catch out flight to London via Cairo. The rest of the trip was thankfully uneventful to get back to some kitties that were happy to see us.
Some thoughts on Egypt travel:
- The way the tipping works in Egypt is annoying and at times hard to handle.
- In many cases it is implied that the tour or boat ride is paid to the company and then the tip is the only payment the guide or driver receives.
- There are many cases of people desperate to provide small services, like bellhops being insistent on taking your bags.
- The worst in my opinion are the bathroom attendants. They rarely clean the bathroom, and instead stand by the sink with the soap dispenser so you must ask them for soap, then they stand in front of the paper towel dispenser so you must ask for paper towels. It is really obnoxious, and then you have to tip.
- Having approximately right denominations of currency was difficult, as the ATMs gave out mostly 200’s which is what was recommended for a full day’s tour guide, not a bellhop.
- Very rarely will you be able to find out ahead of time what the right range of tips are.
- At restaurants there is a ‘service fee’ it isn’t the tip, and goes to the restaurant.
- Some of the people trying to sell things or get tips will tell you to do things instead of offer or suggest. It will be along the lines of “Come down to these tables to have a drink.” Or “Come this way, it has the best decorations.” Some of the people acting in this way are security guards at the temples, which makes it hard to know when they are telling you rules or just trying to get tips. We just said “no thank you” and were left alone in most cases. We have heard that they will offer to take pictures of your group, and then not give the phone back until they get a tip, so we just didn’t give them the phones.
- There is a lot of security theater.
- Entering buildings, airports, and driving along the main roads. If you don’t have a guide or driver to deal with this it would be very difficult.
- At the airport we had an instance where I was planning to check in and get boarding passes at the airport, but to get into the airport we needed boarding passes. The person checking for boarding passes at the security stop wouldn’t let us go to the check in desk inside the airport without the boarding passes. Then once I had checked in online, gotten the digital boarding passes, gone through two levels of security just to get into the airport, the checkin desk printed us boarding passes anyway.
- Guide quality varies massively, even at the same companies. Look at the google, trippit, and trip advisor reviews to know which guides to request from which companies.
- Overall, just have a good guide with you, and google translate with Arabic downloaded and ready to go.
This was week 102 and 103 for living in London.
