2020-2029

Israel/Egypt (February/March 2020)

In 2019 my friend David Tan came up with the idea of going to Egypt. While I was in Italy in the Fall of 2019, I mentioned the trip to my new friend, Yoav Bruckner. Yoav invited me to visit him and his family in Tel Aviv since it was so close to Egypt. I found out that isn’t the easiest thing in the world to do even though the two countries abut each other. There are no direct flights and other transportation from Israel to Egypt. Going via Jordan isn’t any easier because it takes about eight hours to go 70 miles when you are dealing with visas and borders and then flying from Ammon to Cairo.

So I ended up flying from Tel Aviv to Athens and then to Cairo. What’s 6+ hours to go 100 miles!

I left LAX on Saturday, February 22 on Air Canada to Toronto. From their I flew direct to Tel Aviv arriving their on Sunday, February 24. Yoav met me at the airport and took me to his condominium in downtown Tel Aviv. He had to go speak at a secret organization, so I took a nap and rested up for my tour of Tel Aviv the next day. From there we drove to Jerusalem to stay for a couple days. While there we visited the Holocaust Museum, the Old City, the Wailing Wall, and the BYU’s study center.

From Jerusalem we went to the Dead Sea valley to visit Masada. The ancient hilltop city that King Harold built. We then returned to Tel Aviv to spend my last day driving up to Caesaria and Nazareth.

I departed Tel Aviv on Sunday, March 1 and stayed at the beautiful Marriott Le Meridian Hotel at the Cairo Airport. The hotel is connected by a short bridge from the terminal. The next day I met up with David and our tour group where we stayed at the Swiss Inn Pyramids Hotel way the heck outside of the city! The next day we visited Memphis and Sakkara in the morning and the pyramids and the Sphinx in the afternoon. The following day we went to amazing the Egyptian Museum, the Citadel, Old Cairo and Kham El Khalil in the afternoon.

On Thursday, March 5th we flew to Luxor to visit the Luxor and Karnack temples – amazing! From there we boarded our Semiramis ship for our cruise up the Nile. The next day we visited the Valley of the Kings, Hatshepsut Tempe and the Colossi Memnon in the morning and Edfu in the afternoon. I had never heard of Edfu before, but the temple complex there was spectacular!

On Monday, March 9th we took a very long drive in the middle of the desert to see the High Dam, the unfinished obelisk and Philae Temple and felucca ride in Aswan. Later in the day we flew back to Cairo and stayed at the Sonesta Cairo Hotel – this time a little closer in the city. We had one free day in Cairo to do some shopping – rather, I had one free day to do some shopping. David was a good sport and went along for the ride. We departed from Cairo on Wednesday, March 11. David flew on Emirates Airlines via Dubai. I flew on Luftansa via Frankfurt to LAX.

While on the cruise I got a really bad cold that laid me low one day. I tried to hide the effects because of the Covid-19 scare. I didn’t want to be delayed at the airport leaving Egypt. Fortunately, all went well. The flight wasn’t very full. I had a whole row to myself. I got home just in the nick of time because the international borders were closed two days later due to the pandemic.

So much for traveling in 2020!