Surviving Day 1 In Egypt

Hey!  How you DUNE?

Get it?  How you dune?  I think this Egyptian heat is already making us delirious.  Or maybe it was the three flights (17+ hours) to get here.  Or maybe it was the thirteen hours we spent passing time in airports between Baltimore, Dallas, London and Cairo.  

Let's just say we are glad to finally be here.  Our Trafalgar tour officially starts in two days, so we pre-planned a few adventures in the meantime to get things started.  It seems our tour company does not recommend participating in any third-party activity where our safety is a liability.  Sorry, Trafalgar!...but Egypt has lots of camels and I'm definitely planning to put my ass between some humps on this trip!  A few other activities we deemed "must do" while in the desert included dune surfing, ATV's, and a desert safari ride.  We accept full responsibility for dying in the desert this summer.

We searched the Viator travel website in search of adventure activities prior to our trip.  Once we found a well-reviewed excursion that combined a full days worth of activities we booked it.  We would be picked up from our Cairo Hilton Heliopolis hotel first thing in the morning and the tour included all of the activities we wanted to do in Egypt.  We even splurged a bit to make it a private tour.

Yes!  Those would be the famous pyramids of Giza . . . and those are the Leonard's front-and-center.  The Giza pyramids are iconic symbols of ancient Egypt and are among the most recognizable structures in the world. They are a testament to the engineering and organizational skills of the ancient Egyptians. The Great Pyramid was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and the only one still largely intact.  What a great way to start the day!  We almost had too much fun on those 4-wheelers and could've spent another 45 minutes circling the hills in front of the pyramid complex.  So far...we're still alive in Egypt!

After a long car ride from Cairo to Wadi El Rayan National Park, it was camel time!  Do you know where they park camels?  In the Camelot.  Riding a camel is actually not as hard as some people say it is.....once you get over the first hump, the rest is easy!  We thought this would be our only opportunity to ride some camels in Egypt so we wanted to get some good photos.  Unfortunately, what you see is what you get.  Our camel operator was definitely not a professional photographer.  And, honestly, our camel ride was a bit disappointing too....but, we both tried to stay calm and camel-lected.

Camels are an iconic part of the Egyptian landscape. Called the ships of the desert for their endurance and ability to cope with the heat and lack of water, they are still used for transportation and as a tourist attraction.  Unfortunately, recent investigations have highlighted potential animal welfare concerns related to camels used in tourism. Organizations like PETA have raised concerns about the treatment of these animals, leading some tour operators to reconsider offering camel rides.  This is also part of the reason the Trafalgar tour company does not offer to provide these excursions as part of our group tour.

After a BBQ lunch the adventures continued.  The next stop was a panoramic view from the cliffs of the Mudawara Mountains before we set out to Dune bash in the 4X4 land Cruiser.  It would have been great to record some of our thrilling dune adventures...but we were too busy holding on for dear life.  Our land cruiser climbed some of the dunes at a vertical so steep we almost lost our lunch.  If that wasn't scary enough, our land cruiser then plunged over the other side of the dunes at a vertical so steep we had to close our eyes a few times.

The final activity on this trip was an opportunity to sandboard down one of the dunes.  We've both been on surfboards in Hawaii.  I took surfing lessons in Costa Rica.  But, surfing a sand dune in Egypt was next level.  Jenesa decided to pass on this activity.  She never would have been able to climb back up the steep dune.  For whatever reason...I was told to sit on the board and ride it to the bottom.  I guess we'll call it sand sledding?  Either way, it was a fun experience.