Well, we’re on the road again. This time we’re enjoying Viking’s Pharaohs and Pyramids cruise on the Nile.

But first a little about Egypt and Cairo. It took us 27+ hr to get from Lake Jackson to Cairo via London. As they say, you can’t get there from here. Egypt is part of the Muslim World. With an area of 384K sq miles, it is about the size of California, Arizona and Nevada combined. It has a population of almost 116M. It was ruled by a monarchy until 1953. Following a revolution, a presidential form of government was installed with presidents theoretically serving six year terms. However, if you look at the political history of Egypt, the presidency is somewhat of a revolving door. The current president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, has been in office since 2014. Egypt is 90% Muslim and 10% Christian. This time of year, Christmas decorations are everywhere, not so much to celebrate the Christian holiday, but as we saw in Vietnam, a commercial opportunity to encourage sales. The inflation rate in Egypt is about 25% which has devastated the currency. The Egyptian pounds is worth about $0.02 US dollars.

Cairo, the modern-day capital of Egypt, has a population of 23M and growing. Overpopulation and population growth are major issues facing the government. Located on the banks of the Nile, Cairo has a semi-modern downtown with shiny banks and all of the major upscale hotel chains represented. But the vast majority of the city, at least that we’ve seen, is in a state of mild decay due to a lack of maintenance. The streets are literally packed with vehicles day and night making their way through streets with virtually no operational traffic lights. As we experienced in India there is a constant cacophony of horns being blown, not so much to say “hey, watch out you almost hit me” but rather to announce your presence and intent to try to pass. And this situation exists despite the fact that Cairo has a well-used public bus system and even 48 miles of underground trains carrying 4M people a day. Cairo gets only 2.2 inches of rain annually, so everything just looks a little soiled and dusty.
Security in Egypt, particularly Cairo, is very high since tourism is a major industry for the country. In fact, when we booked the cruise in 2023, one of the Vikings rep’s sales pitches was there would be an armed guard on every excursion bus, and there is. Not sure if I’m supposed to feel safer or wonder why I’m even here. Even the luxurious Fairmont Nile City hotel has x-ray machines and metal detectors on every public entrance.

Monday, we took in the Egyptian museum and the Cairo Citadel, but more on that later. Wednesday, we fly to Luxor to board our ship, the Viking Anton, to start our 7-day river cruise.