We heard many strange, inappropriate or just downright bizarre comments and questions from various people in our group - we were around 70 in total, all Americans except for one lone Aussie lady traveling with her now-American sister from Kansas. But perhaps the craziest of all came from a lady from California who said that her sister had booked to be on the trip but as departure time loomed, she had become so nervous and scared about her personal safety in Egypt that she had canceled at the last minute.
The almost comical irony in this anecdote is that the sister lives in......Las Vegas, where of course just a short time earlier a seemingly normal middle-aged American man had opened fire from a hotel window killing 58 people!!
Tourism has collapsed in Egypt falling from a peak of around 15 million visitors annually to just 2 million now. The decline set in after the first revolution in 2011 and accelerated after the second revolution in 2013. There have been terrorist attacks in Egypt - against Coptic churches, tourists (although none recently) and the police just before our visit. But tourism is critical to the flailing Egyptian economy. With its unrivaled collection of antiquities (some 70% of the World’s total) many in staggeringly good condition, a 3000 year testament to Egypt’s dry weather and plentiful desert sand, the country should be overrun with tourists. Mindful of what’s happened in the past and could happen at anytime in the future, all sites visited by tourists from Cairo to Luxor to Aswan to Abu Simbel are heavily guarded and patrolled by armed police and soldiers. Bags are screened at each entrance and visitors pass through metal detectors (although quite a few we passed through weren’t switched on). And as mentioned earlier, while we were in Cairo we had an armed escort or two with us all the time
Our tour included a three day “cruise” on Lake Nasser from Abu Simbel back to Aswan. Where a dozen “floating hotels” used to cruise the lake, only three are now operating and even those with few passengers. We see the deteriorating hulks of many of the unused floating hotels moored along the quayside in Aswan. Our guide Shareen gives varying explanations - the service is unreliable, cruises are canceled for “technical reasons”, the authorities are concerned about security on the lake (a third of the lake lies south of the border in Sudan)....But whatever the real reason, Shareen tells us that we’re on one of the last cruises organized on the lake through Viking. Beginning in 2018, Viking will just be flying customers from Aswan to Abu Simbel for a day trip. Their loss!
Whether because of or inspite of the heavy security presence, we never for one moment felt unsafe or threatened during BG our visit to Egypt. Unless you’re carrying large quantities of the pain killer tramadol (like one young Englishwoman arrested at Cairo Airport just before our arrival) nobody need have concerns about visiting Egypt at this time.
Go - and you’re in for an incomparable and memorable treat.....