Getting There...
One reason Egypt was on our round the world itinerary (aside from being a bucket list country with the only remaining ancient wonders of the world) was the anticipation of taking a ferry that connected Turkey to Egypt. We had read about this mythical ferry running from Mersin to Port Said at least weekly, taking around 24-30 hours. However, as we continue to navigate the challenge of planning land and sea routes, we are consistently discovering that information is not easily found online, and when it is, it is often outdated or incorrect. It seems this ferry may not have existed for a long time, and currently, there is no expectation of its restart due to a lack of agreement between the two countries' governments needed to allow a sea border for passengers. More so than the train, the airport and ease of air travel have vastly reduced the availability of sea travel for regular passengers. Maybe with a little more time and information, it would be possible to find a container ship for this journey. Drop a note below if you have more information or have managed to make this crossing. After getting quite excited about Egypt and our planned onward adventure to Jordan, we decided to take our first flight – a 2 ½ hour Air Egypt hop from Istanbul to Cairo.
...and Away
Our plan had been to travel all the way down to Aswan by train or bus. After some research, we opted for the former. Tips on booking and taking the train in Egypt requires a full blog (coming soon), but in brief - no, you can’t book online in advance; you must go to the special foreigners counter at Ramses station (upstairs and take a right!), and yes, you will be paying a significantly higher price than locals (a common theme in Egypt). I strongly suggest a) you read the Man in Seat 61’s blog carefully, b) book a first-class seat, and c) take the sleeper train, where fellow travellers reported much better experiences than we did on our crowded day train. Luckily, everyone is fantastically welcoming and helpful - so when your wandering around the station trying to find the desk, someone will point you on your way!
First Impressions
Okay, so I know flying wasn’t the plan, but there's something quite special when your plane takes a turn south of the city and you see your first glimpse of the pyramids. You’ve had these images etched into your brain since childhood when you first got excited about ancient desert kingdoms of golden sarcophagus and animal-headed gods who pulled out organs and weighed them on scales (just me?). The good news is, yes, Cairo does have all of that ancient history in spades, but there’s also a whole lot more to explore, from Islamic Cairo, Coptic Cairo to downtown Cairo with ageing grandeur of the early 20th-century architecture celebrating the golden age - there’s a lot to explore outside of Giza.
If you’ve read any Cairo travel blogs, there are a lot of people with a lot of different opinions on this historic capital city, and, probably, the closest to the truth is that different people will have very different opinions and have had very different experiences, some will absolutely love it but it’s not going to be for everyone. It’s busy, the traffic can be crazy, it’s chaotically laid out, and the pollution is heavy. All that said, for us, as city dwellers who are big fans of urban adventuring, Cairo was a safe and fascinating city with insanely impressive buildings that is explorable by foot and by metro (with a few Ubers here and there). On reflection, now having visited more of Egypt, Cairo had a pretty relaxed vibe compared to the touristy parts of the country. Outside of the few most popular areas, no one was pushing us to take taxi rides, tours, or trying to get us into shops and cafes. We were able to walk miles around the city with little fuss or hassle.
VERY VERY VERY IMPORTANT TIP: This is a recurring one for the travel blog, but it’s a really important you purchase a local/ tourist SIM as soon as you arrive in Egypt. These can be purchased at the airport or just by walking into any phone shop in the city at a low cost (about £7 for 6GB of data for a month). The best coverage is either Orange or Vodafone and remember to bring your passport with you as you'll need that. WiFi is slow to non-existent pretty much everywhere, even in guesthouses and hotels that promise it. When you're backpacking and booking accommodation, trips, and travel as you go, you'll really struggle to get around without a local number and mobile data so it’s worth every penny and the 15 minutes it takes to pick one up.
Accommodation
Let’s get something out of the way first and foremost - generally, the accommodation standard in Egypt is lower than pretty much anywhere else we’ve visited in the world so far. What is advertised as a 3-star hotel is probably a 1 or 2 star in reality. Yes, luxury hotels very much exist to cater to many high-end travellers and expensive package tours (we actually tried one of these out ourselves when we found a super discounted 4-star in Luxor, but that’s for another blog!). However, for budget and mid-range travellers, expect the reality of the accommodation to not quite match up with the picture. At no point in Egypt did we have usable WiFi in a hotel (yes, even in the 4-star hotel), and pretty much all our budget/mid-range options had one issue or another, either with broken bathrooms, lack of plug sockets, general cleanliness, no hot water, in addition to the daily blackouts that have been running throughout much of 2023. This is not a criticism, as we stayed in some lovely places and all with super-helpful hosts, but it’s really a word of warning that if something seems too cheap to be true, it most certainly is, and it’s worth taking the time to think about what’s important to you when it comes to accommodation and make sure wherever you book fills that need. Also, it’s important to note that the review scores for places are incredibly high in Egypt, whether it’s food or accommodation. There were so many places we trusted Google reviews only to be a bit bemused how they scored so high, so manage expectations accordingly!
So, where to stay if it's your first time in Cairo?
The first thing a lot of travel blogs will say is the pyramids are not in Cairo; they are in Giza. This is 100% true, but Giza is really a suburb of Cairo to the West of the Nile and it’s only about 7 miles away from Downtown. So you don’t need to stay in both; you can quite easily stay in the city and visit the great pyramid and back in one morning depending on your itinerary and preference. Quite a few travellers skip central Cairo altogether and stay in one of the many ‘4 or 3-star’ hotels that surround the pyramids. With evening views out across the ancient wonders and into the desert, these looked lovely for a night or two - but in our opinion, it would be a real shame to miss Cairo city altogether.
We opted to stay in the backpacker heart downtown, which I would probably recommend and do again as it's very central, and if you're a fan of walking, you can go by foot to the major must-see areas of the city (national museum, Islamic Cairo, train station), or use the very reliable and very cheap metro that basically runs north to south.
South of Cairo city is the affluent leafy area of Maadi filled with diplotmats, expats, and international schools, hipster bubble tea cafes and East Asian and vegan food. It’s a shortish metro ride or a longer Uber into the city but wandering the tree-lined avenues.
Nightlife, your thing? You might also want to consider Cairo’s islands as potential places to base yourself during your stay. Zamalek, known as Cairo's nightlife hotspot in the north of the island of Gezira, offers a vibrant atmosphere.
Throughout our stay we used Booking.com to secure our accommodation and found that leaving our bookings to the last minute yielded some really good discounts especially in the larger hotels.
Getting around
Walking was our preferred mode of transport in Cairo, the pavements were generally wide and clean and some of Islamic and Coptic Cario pedestrianised; but it’s a very big city, so to see it all, you may need other options.
Uber: Uber in Cairo was cheap, reliable, and safe. It avoided the need for any haggling with taxi drivers and all our trips went without a hitch. For Uber alone, make sure you prioritise getting a local tourist sim card so you can use data.
The Metro: The easy-to-navigate metro is another fantastic option for travelling longer distances in Cairo. Metro trains are regular and can zip from one end of the city to the other at super-fast speeds due to the stations being well-distanced from each other (although that can mean a bit of a walk to the nearest station). There’s a flat-rate fee that works out to be about 25p a ride, and tickets are purchased from the counter inside the metro stations just before the barrier - simple.
A few of our favourite things
We stayed five nights in downtown Cairo and used our hostel as a base to explore the city and surrounding areas. As usual, we don’t travel in a way that means we rush around ticking off a huge long list of tourist attractions, and we happily swap sights for the joy of exploration. So, we’ve undoubtedly missed a few ‘must-sees,’ but here’s some of the things we genuinely enjoyed the most:
The Pyramids: Yes, it’s up there because they really are worth the hype. Our hostel offered a day tour that included Saqqara, Memphis, and Giza for $40 US dollars pp entry not included. We have subsequently learned this was a total rip-off, and we could have easily Uber-ed ourselves around for a >quarter of the price and would have had exactly the same experience - so if you’re a self guided tour fan do not be afraid of building your own tour and using Uber to get around yourself. Also perhaps don’t accept the first price you are offered, which we did on this occasion (as it was through our hotel)!! Saqqara (which includes the most ancient step pyramid) was definitely a lesser-known highlight. The large site is well signposted, so you get a good sense of the history. We were also taken to Memphis, the old capital city but now little more than a small open-air museum which would be skippable compared to some of Egypt’s other sites. And then Giza… no words but, yes, you must go, it’s as impressive as you would expect, and yes, you will get asked if you want to ride a camel about 100 times, but it’s very much worth it to see the ancient wonders up close.
Stroll Islamic Cairo: It’s hard to describe the impressive beauty of this UNESCO world heritage site. Streets upon streets of historic wonder which buzz with life to this day. As usual, rather than taking a tour, we opted for a self-guided walking tour and followed in the footsteps of findingbeyond to take in the major sites. A small entry fee will allow you into all of the major buildings on El Moez Street and is definitely worth the few pounds per person. Just be aware staff will try and escort you to special areas, open locked doors, and expect an additional fee for doing so. Some of these may be worth it but many won't be, so be inquisitive as to what’s behind the door before agreeing for it to be opened.
Visit the Nilometer: Probably not on everyone’s list, but on our walk to Coptic Cairo, we took a route via Roda Island to see the Nilometer. Since Pharaonic times, these were used to measure the depth of the Nile, which was critical to understanding annual flood levels and supporting agricultural practices. Nilometers were used until the 60's when the construction of the Aswan Dam rendered them obsolete. Documentation indicates that there has been a Nilometer on Roda since the 8th C BC, but that original was destroyed in the great flood, and the one that stands today likely dates back to shortly after that event in 850 AD. The instrument of function is also one of great beauty with a blend of Islamic and Coptic art, and for a small tip, the museum guard will open the gate and let you climb down the stone steps into the depths of the machine.
The Hanging Church in Coptic Cairo: The area of Coptic Cairo is a historic area that, despite its name, includes buildings of multi-faith origin. A suite of stunning churches and the Synagogue are free to enter, and the area has its own metro station making it easy to reach and provides a fascinating few hours of exploration at little or no cost. The highlight was the hanging church, named as it is built atop/ or across the ancient walls of Babylon.
Drink Mango and Pomegranate Juice: We’ll get onto the food a bit later on, but I will stick my neck out here and say Egypt has the best mango juice we’ve had anywhere in the world. It’s thick, sweet, fresh, pulpy and reasonably priced. You’ll find it everywhere, but we drank it at…
Stroll around Leafy Maadi: As an aging millennial I have an unwavering affinity for anything that might fall into the category of ‘hipster’ as per the definition in the early 2010s. I also tend to google ‘hipster part of …’ when in any new city to see where my art-come-coffee shop venues are at. While I’m not sure any of Cairo quite fits that bill, every website was pointing me to Maadi as a hipster-ish part of the city. A craving for bubble-tea led us to the El Maadi junction metro, where we were transported to a very different area and charmed with its greenness. The streets are lined with overhung trees linking quiet neighbourhoods with coffee shops, eateries, and Korean convenience stores. Yes, it’s very international, no, it’s probably not ‘proper Cairo,’ but yes, we thoroughly enjoyed it as a complete contrast from the downtown we knew and loved.
Foodie musings
We had high hopes for Cairo’s food and especially street food after watching some of our favourite food bloggers enjoy the city's delights. The price of food (as with a lot of things) varied incredibly. From tasty falafel sandwiches for about 7p (yes really), to a very average meal (at a restaurant with widely inflated Google reviews), no drinks, costing upward of £20, so the final verdict will be a mixed bag. I was pleasantly surprised that veggie options were plentiful, meat wasn’t as prevalent as in Turkey, and the whole city seems to run off falafel 24 hours a day.
A few of our Cairo foodie experiences...
Breakfast is King: By far the most impressive food in Egypt for us was their breakfast fare. Falafel, Foul (yummy broad beans pasted cooked with onion spice), flatbreads, eggs, tomatoes, and fresh fruit are standard. Whether in a Cairo hostel or an Aswan guest house, this simple but tasty spread was pretty much the star of every day.
Koshari: I can’t tell you how excited I was to try Egypt’s national dish. It has all the best things in it: pasta, rice, lentils, chickpeas, crispy onions, tomato sauce, and so we went to…. We wanted to love it and enjoyed it but it’s just a bit plain and carby for our palate, lacking in spice. Sorry! Maybe it was the place; I didn’t try it once more during our travels, and again, enjoyed it. Nothing wrong with it at all but didn’t wow.
Falafel: It’s already been mentioned a couple of times, but you can’t go wrong with falafel sandwiches, and they are making them everywhere in Cairo. The flat pita breads are being freshly baked on street corners, creating the perfect pockets to be filled with everyone’s favourite crispy bean patties. In Egypt, falafels are green and made with broad beans, unlike their chickpea-based neighbours in the Middle East. You can get a host of fillings to add to your sandwich, like Baba-ghanoush, fried eggplant, omelette.
Eating Out: Cairo was expensive for us trying to stay within our £100 a day budget while visiting tourist attractions every day is a real challenge. So we only had one proper meal out during our time there and mainly tried to save money through munching on street food. Got some good recommendations of places to eat - shout them below.
Budgeting challenges
Egypt has undergone significant inflation in recent months, which has especially hit the prices of essentials like food and fuel. It was shocking to see menu prices over double what they were advertised at just a month or two ago, and four times what they were are the beginning on 2023. We knew we were travelling at a really expensive time in the country and it wasn’t going to be the budget-friendly destination that perhaps others experienced just a year or two ago. There have also been multiple increases in tourist tax and changes to policies that mean there’s significantly higher foreigner prices for travel essentials like trains, buses, and visiting sites and museums. Of course, we don’t mind paying our fair way, but the cumulative impact of this meant Egypt has been the most expensive of our travel destinations. Even staying in budget accommodation and eating street food/ from supermarkets, we found it very hard to stick to a £100 a day budget. There are also hidden costs everywhere, from additional taxes, multiple service charges on restaurant bills to attractions 'add-ons and tipping for everything, and unfortunately, cumulatively it can feel like you are being extracted for cash all day every day. So if you are trying to keep the costs down you do have to keep alert for hidden charges and really stick to self-tours and getting around without a guide. That said, this is a bucket-list destination and the sites are unparalleled and so you just need to be able to spend a bit more.
Onward to Aswan:
After five jam packed days we were excited to be heading to our next stop, Aswan, which we’d been reliably informed had a calmer and chilled vibe, and super excited to spend some time on and around the Nile river. We took the 10 am train, which was supposed to arrive around 7 pm. After a rather bizarre and stressful experience where we were removed from our reserved seats in second class and told to sit in first, but then removed from there because we had no reservation and so drifted from seat to seat confused for 12 long hours, we finally found ourselves on a beautiful wooden boat on the Nile, taking us directly to our Nubian guest house at about 9 pm. In hindsight, we should have paid the $90 pp and splurged on the sleeper train with a private cabin, but at the time, we thought the $25 pp option would be fine.
To be continued...
コメント