Seven Nights in Egypt

We were fortunate to spend seven days in Egypt in October 2021. Our grandson Daniel joined us in our holiday stay because he had school holidays at that time. We managed to get “old prices” for the hotel. Starting with November 1, 2021, the room prices for a five-star hotel have risen, which is fair enough. JoinUp was our tour operator. We stayed at Tia Heights Hotel in Makadi Bay. It is about half an hour drive from the city of Hurghada.

Princess Tia was an ancient Eyptian princess during the 19th dynasty. She was the daughter of Pharaoh Seti and the elder sister of Ramses II. Our hotel is called after Princess Tia.

The city of Hurghada is located on the 27th parallel of northern latitude, and the inclination of the axis of the planet Earth is 23.5 degrees. Accordingly, in Egypt in the summer months you are in one of the closest points to the Sun on our planet. By the way, the Egyptian city of Aswan is the driest city on our planet. It is located on the 24th parallel. If you find yourself in Aswan on the day of the summer solstice on June 21, you will be the closest person to the Sun on Earth.

In Egypt, you should be seriously afraid of sunburn. This problem is very relevant in the summer months, in autumn and spring the threat can be called "average", and in winter it is not worth thinking about it at all. The peak of solar activity is observed from noon until 3 p.m. Our tour guide Meena from JoinUp reminded us about simple personal safety rules:

• Apply sun cream when at the beach.
• Wear a hat, sunscreen and light clothing and comfortable shoes for the tour.
• Do not forget to take a large supply of water with you on the tour. They recommend taking ordinary bottled water, not carbonated drinks or juices. Even if lunch is provided during the tour, the passengers pay for their drinks themselves.
• Be careful about the local tap water.

  

In Egypt, tap water is unfit for drinking. In the central regions of the country, water of bad purification is used, and in coastal areas water is desalinated. The use of Egyptian tap water threatens gastric disorders, poisoning and serious diseases of the gastrointestinal tract. The tap water in our resort was a little salty to taste. Our tour guide did not recommend us to rinse our eyes or wounds with this water. He said we should avoid using it for intimate hygiene, or brushing our teeth with it and rinsing our mouth. For tea and coffee, the tour guide recommended us to boil bottled water. We never used the bottled water for making tea or coffee in the hotel room, though. We were satisfied with the meals at the hotel restaurant.

• There are about 1,200 species of fish in the Red Sea, including 44 species of sharks, about 1,000 species of invertebrates and about 200 species of corals. There are many poisonous specimens among the fish varieties. The number of species here is so large that eve biologists can hardly distinguish them. The tour guide strongly recommended us not to touch any fish with our hands.

At the hotel entrance

We are grateful to our tour operator and local guides and taxi drivers for showing us the country of the pyramids, sphinxes and temples of the pharaohs that left an unforgettable impression. Wonderful climate, warm sea, quality service and a variety of tour made our holiday unforgettable and felt like returning to this blessed land again and again. We were very impressed by the Red Sea, its colorful coral treasures, the unique beauty of its underwater world, flocks of tropical fish and a great variety of underwater plants and little sea urchins.

We had read many negative comments of Russian-speaking holidaymakers about their stay in Egypt:

• They said they had felt unsafe in Egypt.
• They said that the service was so-so, the hotels were also not very good, the food was poor.
• They observed that streets were very dirty.
• The disappointed holidaymakers said they were tired of the sellers’ obsession with their “excellent goods” and their arrogance. The merchants allegedly imposed their goods running after poor holidaymakers through the streets.
• Some holidaymakers were upset with constant lies and inadequacy on the part of people everywhere.
• Instead of relaxation, those holidaymakers allegedly received so much negativity and felt as if they were prey and walking tight wallets with money.

We could not testify to those negative experiences. In other words, we were in the mood for a good stay and we got it. Egypt, for all its diversity of life, has its own charm.
Local sellers could be imposing indeed. However, you should not position yourself as their victim. It's your holiday after all! You only have to use the word "shoukran", when you are offered something you do not need, and “bookra” meaning “tomorrow”. If you learn more survival phrases, you will be able to enjoy your stay more. I used Egyptian Arabic-English phrasebooks from the Internet, as well as some useful Youtube courses to get the feeling of Egyptian Arabic since I realized that the dialects were quite different.
Overall, we had no negative experience, except for a shouting border guard officer at Hurghada Airport whom I met upon our departure. I only nodded and fulfilled his orders without asking any questions or showing any impatience.

At Aqua Park,Tia Heights Hotel

Our stay coincided with Halloween. Since there were many kids among the holidaymakers, they wore different funny and scary clothes and attended the Halloween Night. The hotel staff was kind enough to decorate the restaurant with Halloween symbols.

And, of course, no evening at the hotel was boring. The animators' team did their best and invited the Russian-speaking holidaymakers (they were in the majority) to play beach volleyball, darts, to dance some water aerobics and what not. In the evenings, they organized and held dance parties for us. The animators showed the dance movements on the stage, and we had a choice: either to sit comfortably at the tables sipping our cocktails or to join the happy dancers near the stage.

The Brazilian Dance Party was especially nice. The holidaymakers watched the show with great interest.

There are many countries, where you often want to return, and which never cease to be interesting. Egypt is a bright representative of such special countries. It is difficult to determine what is more beautiful there: the endless sandy deserts, the ancient majestic pyramids or the unusual Red Sea.