Egypt Travel | Adventure Travel with O.A.T. (2024)

Nile River

Flowing 4,258 miles from south to north, the Nile is the longest river in the world. It spans eleven countries, including Tanzania, Uganda, and South Sudan, but it is widely regarded as the epicenter of Egypt. With an average annual precipitation of around one inch in most of the country, the Nile River is Egypt’s only real water source. It comes as no surprise that most of the country’s major cities and historic sites—from Cairo to Luxor—grew up along its fertile banks. South of Luxor, the river’s lush banks are lined by palm-fringed villages, ancient temples, and granite quarries whose stones were used to build almost all of ancient Egypt’s obelisks and temples. Near Aswan, the southernmost frontier of the ancient Egyptian empire, the shallower waters of the Nile are dotted with islands covered with exotic foliage, including two of the larges: Kitchener’s Island and Elephantine Island.

Along with Nile’s life-giving waters, the river also serves as a major transportation route, particularly when the basin and surrounding roadways flood. While it’s common to see motorized barges today, the traditional mode of transportation is the felucca. With its simple wooden hull and single crescent-shaped sail, these graceful vessels have been zigzagging along the Nile for millennia.

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Abu Simbel

Johann Luwig Burckhardt's, a modern Swiss explorer, discovered Abu Simbel in the early 1800s. Drowning in the desert sands, the only visible features of Abu Simbel that caught Burckhardt's attention were the heads on the King Ramses II statues. Over a century later, Abu Simbel faced drowning again, but this time the destruction would be far worse.

In the 1960s, the Egyptian government's plan to build the Aswan High Dam threatened the existence of Abu Simbel. Lake Nasser, a man-made lake that was created as a result of the dam's construction, would have submerged the ancient temple, but fortunately, UNESCO was able to lead a team in relocating Abu Simbel to a nearby site located above water level. Nearly 25,000 workers carefully deconstructed the temple into over 1000 blocks, each weighing around eleven tons. The blocks were transferred to a cliff where they were put back together out of harms way. The project took almost five years and millions of dollars to complete.

Simultaneously, the local Nubian people who lived here were threatened as well. Around 17,000 families were displaced as a result of the dam and relocated to another area. Meet with the Nubian locals and learn about the struggles they have faced relocating their lives and the efforts they are making to preserve their distinct culture.

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Giza Pyramid Complex

Stretching out across a tawny plateau in the Libyan Desert, the Great Pyramid Complex is one of Egypt’s greatest icons, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. At its heart is the Great Pyramid, which was built around 2560 BC by the Pharaoh Khufu (also known as Cheops). With an apex piercing 481 feet into the sky and three elaborate burial chambers tucked inside its limestone walls, the Great Pyramid is not only the largest pyramid ever constructed, but is also the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World that remains today.

This impressive structure is flanked by two smaller pyramids—the Pyramid of Khafre and the Pyramid of Menkaure—built to honor Khufu’s son and grandson, respectively. These three temples are surrounded by satellite structures, including “queens” pyramids, mastaba tombs, and a workers’ village. And then of course, there is the Great Sphinx. With the body of a lion and the head of a man, the Sphinx is believed to represent the Pharaoh Khafre. Built around 2558 BC, this limestone statue is the oldest known monumental sculpture in Egypt.

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Karnak Temple Complex

The story of the Karnak Temple Complex is intertwined with that of the ancient Egyptian capital of Thebes. As the city increasingly became ancient Egypt’s political and religious center, Karnak became the singular expression of royal power for each passing pharaoh.

Comprising a vast mix of temples, chapels, pylons, and other buildings, Karnak is the second largest religious complex in history—only Angkor Wat in Cambodia is larger. Karnak’s walls and even its very foundations tell the stories of more than 30 pharaohs who contributed to the complex. The pharaoh Merneptah commemorated his victory over the Sea Peoples, a sea-faring clan of raiders, in hieroglyphics, while the pharaoh queen Hatshepsut reconstructed the complex to change its central focus to her whims. Rameses III had his own hieroglyphic stories carved deeper than previous rulers to ensure his legacy could not be overwritten.

While all ancient monuments in Egypt are windows into the empire’s fascinating past, Karnak is like the massive stained-glass tapestries of European cathedrals—complex, multifaceted, and endlessly arresting in its mysterious beauty.

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Valley of the Kings

Nestled on the western bank of the Nile River, the Valley of the Kings offers an intimate look into the life and opulence of Egypt’s pharaohs. The Valley of the Kings’ story is still being told—excavations are still taking place after over 200 years.

While from a distance the Valley of the Kings looks like any other river bank, the inside holds almost unsurpassed archaeological wonders. Between the 16th and eleventh centuries BC, pharaohs, nobles, and their families were entombed in this royal burial ground. The 63 tombs underneath the sand range from a hole in the ground to sprawling underground complexes—one named “KV5” has over 120 chambers. While the walls are covered in the stories of those buried there, you can also see the legacies of ancient Greek and Roman adventurers in their graffiti dating back at least to 278 BC. Though many of the tombs have been robbed over the centuries, the tomb of the eminent King Tutankhamun was found nearly completely intact, giving archaeologists an exhaustive look into the lives of ancient Egyptian royalty.

The Valley of the Kings is an encyclopedic chronicle for the Egyptian experience of death—understanding their journey to the afterlife fosters a deeper understanding of being Egyptian.

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Cairo

Cairo may call to mind the mighty pyramids, the enigmatic sphinx, and other pharaonic splendors, but the capital of Egypt has come into its own as a modern metropolis in the past couple of centuries. This modernization was achieved in the 19th century when Khedive Ismail came into power. Ismail had a vision that Egypt was part of Europe and Cairo was Egypt's Paris. The romantic appeal of the City of Lights inspired some of Cairo's downtown architectural treasures and was the start of Cairo's transformation from a quaint city to an urban hub.

Now, as one of the largest cities in the world, Cairo has adopted some modern features while maintaining its ancient allure. Just outside of the city center, you'll step back into antiquity during an exploration of Giza's iconic pyramids and sprinkled throughout historic Cairo, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, you'll find more ancient landmarks, including Ben Ezra Synagogue—the oldest Jewish temple in the city—and the Basilica-style Hanging Church, which is located in a Babylonian fortress dedicated to the Virgin Mary. You'll also come face to face with the glimmering gold death mask of the boy king Tutankhamun at the Egyptain Museum and explore the winding labyrinthine pathways of the medieval Khan al Khalili bazaar.

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Aswan

Set along the most enchanting stretch of the Nile, Aswan is an ancient frontier town that Egyptians used as a base for incursions into Nubia and Sudan. One of Egypt’s oldest cities and most important port settlements, Aswan was considered by the ancient Egyptians to be the “gateway” to the country, and still functions as such for travelers seeking to visit its modern and ancient wonders. These include the controversial Aswan High Dam (Sadd el-ali), which forever changed the agricultural rhythms of Egypt, and the Aswan and the Philae Temples, which were moved from their previous location (where they were frequently flooded and destined to be submerged by the High Dam) and reassembled in their entirety between 1972 and 1980. The city’s Nubian Museum displays artifacts saved before Lake Nasser flooded the area behind the dam, erasing the traditional homelands of the Nubian people. Once surrounded by nature and living off the land and the Nile River in Aswan (old Nubia), most Nubians are now relegated to a desert life in villages built for them in places like Kom Ombo (new Nubia), where pockets of Nubians are working to preserve their language and culture.

Aswan is also home to the legendary Old Cataract Hotel, whose famous terrace is renowned for its incomparable views of the river at sunset with silhouettes of swallow-tailed feluccas zig-zagging across the Nile and the luxuriant palms of Elephantine Island.

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