Thread: Pics - from my trip to Egypt

I took a trip to Egypt at the end of January, and have been starting to funnel through all my pictures from the trip. I got some great suggestions from everyone in the Travel sub-forum, so thought I'd share a few photos.

I flew into Cairo for the first weekend, then spent part of the week in Hurghada scuba diving in the Red Sea then returned to Cairo, a day trip to Luxor to visit some of their temples, then back out of Cairo.

I was there for the first few days of the protests and riots, but there was no way I was taking my camera near them after seeing what happened to photojournalists there. We had one crazy-scary taxi ride from the Cairo airport to our hotel that was past the curfew, but for the most part the riots were away from our area in Cairo. We stayed at the Marriott in the Zamalek area of Cairo (residential island in the middle of the Nile river).

Anyhow, here are a few of the photos that I liked from our day of touring the Pyramid areas around Cairo, which included the Great Pyramids and Sphinx at Giza, Saqqara Pyramids, the Memphis Necropolis, and the Egyptian Museum.

Conditions were far from ideal for photography - Cairo is incredibly hazy from all the smog and pollution and the mid-day desert sun is pretty harsh, but the pyramids are still incredible and worth sharing.

I'll add more photos to the thread from the Red Sea/Hurghada and Luxor as I go through those.

Link to full Pyramids Album: https://picasaweb.google.com/JPeacot...midsJan232011#


Pyramid of Khufu with the Cheops Pyramid in the background:



Khufu Pyramid again, notice the police guard in the foreground for a size reference, it's huge!



Vantage point from the Eastern cemetery area:



Some of the local "wildlife"- I actually found the camels to be really neat to see out there. The guy walking away was heckling us the entire time and wouldn't leave us alone - something we found to be common at the tourist areas. The regular locals were quite nice and friendly once you were outside of the normal tourist spots.



View of the Sphinx (best I could get that wasn't loaded with people or scaffolding in the picture)



The Step Pyramid of Djoser in Saqqara - there's a small white dot under the scaffolding located mid-pyramid, that's one of the workers for size reference, this one was quite huge as well



Everyone needs to take a nap sometimes, a little sleeping on the job....



Thanks for all the tips on where to visit!
~Jason

Sweet! I would love to go to egypt, thinking of it for the next vacation, just need the political unrest to stop.

Nice pics.... But camels are not local to egypt. I know, shocking.

Thanks for sharing those pictures. Excellent.

awesome pics! Now is the time to go!

those are great pics, how hot was it this time of year?

i LOVE Egypt specially Cairo - Luxor - Aswan & Sharm el-Sheikh....it's safe ...lovable ppl. ...not eXpensive country....sunny mostly...not that much HOT like Gulf region...Luxor & Aswan best place in winter...Cairo all year..sharm between ( september till March ), u'll never forget it...belive me.

Great Pics! I would like to go one day

Thanks guys! It really was a memorable trip, the pyramids are one of those checkmarks of things to do in your lifetime. I'd love to make it back sometime once things settle down, we didn't have enough time to visit Aswan and Abu Simbel.

The people were mostly very friendly and nice, it was inexpensive for the most part, and I found some tasty food. One of the common local dishes was called Koshari, sorta like an egyptian version of spaghetti with rice and mixed noodles, fried onions, lentils and chickpeas topped with a spicy vinegar tomato sauce. Good stuff.

As for winter temperatures there - it was very comfortable in the day with temps mostly in the 70s and sunny; at night it was fairly chilly and you needed a sweatshirt, maybe low 50s or so. The Red Sea area around Hurghada was a little warmer, but windy all day which made it chilly after diving. Luxor was probably pushing 80 during the day and the bright sands reflect the sun at you making it feel pretty hot. After the bitter cold in the DC area, it was a welcome change!

such a man-made masterpiece, hope you had fun! and glad your back before that sh**-storm erupted over there