This month we recieve an email from Monica, an adventurous nzgirl who had the time of her life on a recent trip to Egypt!
Dear nzgirl,
I'm sending you this postcard from...Sunny, HOT Egypt
My first thought when I stepped off the plane was... Oh my goodness, it is 35 degrees and midnight, what is it going to be like at midday?
My craziest night was... Out in the Western Desert. After spending the day on a 4x4 safari, sand-boarding down some serious dunes and having our very own desert Vogue photo shoot, we camped out in the desert, in the absolute middle of nowhere. A mattress on the ground, the stars above, and the desert foxes trying to eat leftovers. We drank some beer (so refreshing, if a little dehydrating) smoked shisha and sang some classic Egyptian songs, such as ‘In the jungle’...
The coolest thing I saw was... The columns at the Temple of Karnak. There were 134 of them and they were HUGE! I can’t believe that people built them thousands of years ago.
It's so different from home because...It is a whole different world to what I know. It takes some adjusting to the heat, humidity and people staring because you are a different colour to them, but also the poverty and they way that the women are treated. It really opened my eyes to how lucky I am to have the freedom to make my own decisions, speak to whomever I like and have the opportunity to go to other countries to experience their culture.
I'd like to come back next time and...Spend more time relaxing on a felucca (open-air flat deck boat) on the Nile. It was so peaceful and beautiful, stopping off along the way to see temples and tombs or check out the small towns.
I'd recommend this place to you...Because there is so much to see, explore and absorb. There is thousands of years of history to learn about, new food to try (camel isn’t as bad as I thought it might be) and incredibly interesting people to talk to. If you do go I would recommend going on a tour – I did Intrepid and it was so well organised – simply for some piece of mind, making sure you respect their customs and if you make it to Luxor, go to Sofra for the Khodar Mahshi and a Sahlab; yum.
(599).jpg){kind=small}