Beware of Camel Drivers

Egypt was very interesting, especially seeing the Pyramids, Nile River, and Sphinx. Before we got there, our guide told us to beware of the camel drivers. Tourists want to sit on a camel (while the camel is down) to have their picture taken and will pay the drivers a few dollars for this purpose. However, once the picture is taken, the driver will tell the camel to get up with the tourist on its back and start to go around the pyramids. It will then cost the tourist quite a bit of money to get off the camel. This actually happened to the son of a friend who was on the trip with us but was on a different bus since their guide did not warn them. I did not want to get near the smelly beasts.

We took a lunch cruise on the Nile River where we had entertainment by a belly dancer and a whirling dervish. The dancer even went over to my husband and patted him on the head. I got a picture of that. I was trying to get a picture of the whirling dervish and he almost knocked me over with his very large whirling skirt. The ship's photographer got a picture of that and put it on the cruise's video.

Just getting to Cairo from the port was an adventure. We were in a convoy of many buses. Each had an armed guard with an assault rifle. There were guards in front and behind the convoy and in spaces between the buses. In Haifa, all traffic was stopped for our convoy to get through. The reason for all of this security was to encourage tourism after a tour bus was hijacked in the late 90's. The guards were also visible when we visited the tourist sites.