Egypt

Egypt is neither for the cynical nor faint-hearted. There are two types of people that are attracted to the region. Those that have a passion for Cairo and the country through previous travel experiences and research, eager to continue their explorations and immersion in to a culture of tradition and history. And there are those who are the adventurers. I do not mean the backpackers using a profession to tour the world in short hops, but those who are committed to their work but approach a new experience with an open mind, willing to adapt to a new way of life free of the constant whining that can be so prevalent in an expatriate population that expects everything and everyone around them to conform to their own expectations. Indeed very boring, pretentious and tiresome people!

Egyptian Eccentricity

"There'll be no such thing as normal for quite a while now: so spoke celebrity traveller Michael Palin touching down in Egypt on his televised voyage Around the World in 80 Days".

"No such thing as normal" could almost be the country's tagline, because Egypt is the most extraordinary place in the Arab World. Its not just the Pyramids and the immense wealth of awe-inspiring temples and monuments left by pharaohs, but also the legacy of the Greeks and Romans, the churches and monasteries of the early Christians, and the overwhelming profusion of art and architecture accumulated from centuries of successive Islamic dynasties, whose domains stretched to encompass all the Near East and the Arabian Peninsula.

In between and around the ancient wonders, day-to-day life goes on, with Egyptian society and culture offering just as much intrigue and magic as the country's historical treasures, whether it be the voice of diva Umm Kolthum wafting from a busy coffee-house at dusk, or taking passage on a local Nile ferry to reach a small family restaurant on the far bank. Added to all of this is the incredible beauty of the country.

The fine white sand, clean clear water, and purple mountain backdrops of the Sinai and the Red Sea coasts have long been known to divers, who come for offshore reefs with sheer drop-offs that plummet to unknown depths, for coral-encrusted shipwrecks, and for the abundance of marine life all this supports. But in recent times they have had to share their secret with the increasing numbers of sun-seekers who now flock to Egypt's beaches as an exotic alternative to Greece or Turkey. Just as other-worldly as the underwater landscapes are the vast expanses of the blinding white sand and rippling dunes of the Western Desert now being made ever-more accessible by a growing number of desert safari outlets.

Indeed the image of Egypt is changing. It is no longer just a monuments and museums destination. It's fun and sun on the beach; it's adventure, diving wrecks and treks across the sand on a camel; it's culture with Aida at the Pyramids; it's spiritual, with the promotion of the new holy pilgrimage route tracing the path of the Holy Family up the Nile; it's even sporty, with a baffling profusion of golf resorts currently under development all over the country. Golf? In a country where for much of the year its too hot to walk unshaded? Where water is scarce and usable land even scarcer? Well, like the man said, in Egypt things are far from normal.

- Edited introduction from the Lonely Planet Guide of 2002

Environment

Before we embark on our journey around Cairo and the rest of Egypt, let us take a moment to appreciate the geography and climate of the area. For most Egyptians the Nile Valley is home. Although the country covers roughly one million square kilometers, some 90% of the population is confined to the narrow carpet of fertile land bordering the great river. To the south the river is hemmed in by mountains and the agricultural plain is narrow, but as it flows north the land becomes flatter and the valley widens to 20 – 30km in width. To the east of the valley is the Eastern Desert, a barren plateau bounded on its eastern edge by a high ridge of mountains that rises to more than 2,000m and extends for about 800km. To the west is the Western Desert, which comprises two-thirds of the land surface of Egypt, but if you ignore the political boundaries on the map it stretches right across the top of North Africa under its better known name of the Sahara Desert. Suffering extremes of temperature, barren and forbidding, the desert is not completely devoid of life. A series of wind-sculpted depressions allow water to come to the surface, thereby creating a string of cultivatable oases. Cairo sits at the point where the Nile splits into several tributaries and the valley becomes a 200km wide delta, a vast green fan of fertile countryside running into the Mediterranean Sea, one of the world's most cultivated areas, known as Lower Egypt. To the east, across the Suez Canal, is a triangular wedge of Sinai, a geological extension of the Eastern Desert that stretches from the high mountain ridges that include Mount Sinai and Mount Katherine (the highest peak in Egypt at 2,642m) in the south to desert coastal plains and lagoons in the north.

Egypt's climate is easy to summarise: hot and dry. This holds for most of the country for most of the year, with the exception of the winter months of December, January and February, which can be quite cold in the north. Average temperatures range from 20C on the Mediterranean coast to 26C in Aswan. Maximum temperatures for the same places can get up to 31C and 50C respectively. So do not forget the water, the sun cream and the sun hat.