Iberotel Makadi Saraya (Hb) Hurghada

... Murray to write his own journal about his few days in Alexandria without me – including the night he spent as a guest at Romani’s house – but I’m not holding my breath about receiving a journal entry from him. Hah.]

We still ended up waiting around for a while – the ferry did not depart until sometime after 6pm, and we didn’t arrive to Jordan until after 8pm. The two+ hours in between are a bit of a blur ...

... flocks of sheep grazing on nearby hillsides. It was such an interesting view of life from above – and it also felt a bit invasive at times!

As our pilot explained to us, there are three types of balloon landings in Egypt – (1) an American landing, which bumps bumps bumps along before coming to a halt (hahaha); (2) an English landing, where the basket drags along the ground for a long period before finally stopping; and (3 ...

... and did all the research we possibly could to find another means of transportation to Sharm el Sheik or Dahab. People in town weren't much help asthey had no idea that there even was a ferry!!! there were no more ferry companies that we could call (How do you have just 1 ferry going to Sharm el sheik!!) so we went to the bus station to ask if there was a bus straight to Dahab; there was. ut it was at 10:30 at night, so we had to hang out in Hurghada for the day. We made our ...

... a smaller bus this time (smaller group, smaller bus). There nearly enough spots for everyone to get two seats to themselves but not quite. Unfortunately I was one of those who got only one seat, so no room to stretch out or try to get a bit more comfortable. Plus the seats were closer together than the previous bus, so my knees were almost touching the seatback in front of me. Not the most comfortable considering we had a 12-hour drive ahead of us.
I tried to get comfortable ...

... else we could find. Had a good time and when Armando got their at 3.30pm he was quite surprised to see us. By the time he got the bar set up, we were just about ready to go to our cabins. We did have one or two with him and that was it. We sailed out of Safaga about 9pm after all the buses had returned from the Valley of the Kings. It was a four hour journey each way in the bus, which was why we decided not to do it.
Bye for now.

... us in comfort and safety to our hotel for a fraction of the local taxi cost. We used him as our driver for the whole of our stay and even arranged trips to Cairo and Luxor through him again with courteous safe drivers and at a fraction of local/hotel costs.

This service made all the difference to our holiday and I would thoroughly recommend it to all visitors to Egypt. The website is: www.goldencar-eg.org

... nice and relaxing on the beach, we read, have a siesta and watch the people around us. There is a children's program and the activity directors are doing things with the kids for a time in the morning, afternoon and then after diner they usually have them up on the stage doing action songs. They also do programs for the adults, but we have missed most of them as they just announce everything in German. In the late afternoon we played cards, forgot the time ...

... really nice resort, with a huge swimming pool that looped around the resort. The water was a little chilly, so we didn't actually swim, but it was warm enough to lay out. The temperatures were in the low to mid 70's, which was a nice change from the frigid temperatures in Prague. We spent most of the week just relaxing and hanging outside by the pool. Joe did scuba ...

Safaga is on the coast of the Red Sea & gateway to ancient temples & tombs. It was a long day yesterday as we left at 7 am & returned to the ship about 11 pm but so worth it. Safaga is arid desolate desert but the Nile valley is lush green. It was over 3 hrs. by bus between Safaga & Luxor. Our buses were required to travel in a police-escorted convoy & we saw military with machine guns all along the way. Egypt's no. 1 industry is tourism & after a disastrous event years ago ...

... but either way, we arrived bleary-eyed at 6am in Hurghada to deal with the usual outrageous taxi prices. I was all for walking, but given just how out of scale our map was, I'm glad we didn't. Of course, the taxi driver tried to double the price when we arrived by then claiming the price was each, but he got us to the Three Corners, Empire Hotel, in one piece & still married - which is more than can be said for Shanks pony. Hurhada is hardly a quaint place. It is not ...