My husband and I are not what we would call ‘cruise’ people. We have never done an extended cruise and have never been inclined to do so. When planning our trip to Egypt it became apparent early on that unless we were prepared to endure hours of car travel on bumpy, deserted roads with no speed limits—that would be NO—our best option for seeing the curiously named Upper Egypt, is by boat. I say curiously named because when you look at a map of Egypt, Upper Egypt (Luxor, Aswan, Abu Simbel, etc.) appears to the South of Lower Egypt (Cairo, Alexandria, etc.). I equate North with up and South with down, maybe it’s just me. In this case Upper refers to height with Upper Egypt further above sea level than Lower Egypt … it took me a while to grasp this concept!
Anyway, getting back on track, we decided to do the Eight Day Nile River Cruise on the lovely M/Y Mirage (M/Y being yacht shaped, M/S being ship shaped—it looked like most other boats to me!) cruising both directions between Luxor and Aswan. Each day there was a stop and our own personal guide would disembark with us to show us the ancient wonders that make Egypt so famous. At either end in Aswan and Luxor, all our sightseeing was included before leaving the cruise, so it really was an all-inclusive tour package. Now not that the fabulous temples and bazaars of Egypt weren’t absolutely incredible, but the real highlight of the trip was being on the cruise itself.
The staff were beautiful people, happy to help anyway they could to make the cruise as memorable as possible, and they genuinely love talking to visitors to their country. Egypt is not a poor country, however money is not shared fairly and while the rich are very rich, the majority of the population earn appalling wages and don’t have an easy life. Most will never leave Egypt in their lifetime and they know this, so curiosity of foreign visitors is high, and they are keen to practice their language skills with you. The cynic inside may be telling you ‘they want a big tip,’ but this is not their incentive. Of course they want a tip, their livelihood depends on it, but they are genuinely interested in the world outside of Egypt. They want a tip, but they don’t expect a tip, which differentiates them from a large proportion of the Western world.
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