Egypt with Adventure Center

I took a trip to Egypt with Explore, booked through Adventure Center (1311 63rd St., Ste. 200, Emeryville, CA 94608; 800/227-8747), in December ’06-January ’07. Adventure Center is a broker listing hundreds of trips run by other operators. Explore is a British company specializing in low-cost small-group tours.

I wasn’t aware of it in advance, but our 17 days on the ground comprised two tours, one from Cairo to Sinai and the other a Nile River cruise, with much of the group leaving and being replaced with another group in Luxor before the cruise. The starting tour group was 13 people — five men and eight women — two American, one German, one Swiss, two Australian, one Irish and six English.

The tour cost $1,400; fees and visa were $85; meals added about $300; optional side trips cost $400, and mandatory insurance was $120. Airfare was separate and could be booked by Adventure Center (they were very helpful); it cost $1,900.

There was so much packed into the tour, I’m obliged to skim over much of it. We saw Cairo, the pyramids, the Sphinx and museums. For transport, we were in and on pickup trucks, taxis, donkeys, camels (optional), a high-speed catamaran, slow-speed ferryboats, jeeps, riverboats, trains, horse-drawn carriages and a hot-air balloon. To get from Cairo to Sinai, our van drove under the Suez Canal.

We ate well, dining at Moon Beach Resort on the Gulf of Suez ($4), having a cooked lunch with a Bedouin family living in the desert, feasting on fish at Friends Restaurant in Dahab and facing more food than we could eat for New Year’s ($27).

Many got up at 2:30 a.m. to walk up Mt. Sinai in the dark to see the sunrise. My Lonely Planet guidebook adequately described the ascent as uneven and slippery. Our tour guide, Taso, did not. I passed.

At the Valley of the Kings, I did get up at 5 a.m. for a disaster of a donkey ride in the bitter cold. The saddle had no stirrup and no horn to hold onto, so it was a balancing act to stay on the donkey. Taso said to hold on with both hands, so I did.

Twenty minutes into the ride I lost all feeling in both hands and was slowly freezing to death, even with four layers of clothes on. Halfway up the mountain, the saddle, with me on it, decided to rotate. Fortunately, a donkey guide caught me before I hit the ground. Then came the section too steep for the donkeys, where we had to walk up the equivalent of eight stories using frozen leg muscles.

On top, there was a 400-foot drop off the cliff to my right, and I prayed the saddle wouldn’t slide off again. Then the donkey ride was over and we had to walk down the cliff. Some sections had a 45-degree slope, and all of it was strewn with gravel and loose dirt. Fortunately, one of the donkey guides helped me or I’d be buried in the Valley of the Kings. If I had been told of these conditions beforehand, I’d have taken the taxi.

What are my grades for Explore? For the variety of things to see and do, “A”; for food supplied and bought, “B+”; for their taking advantage of things to make the trip interesting, “A”; for their informing us about hazards, “D”; the Nile boat owned by Explore, “B,” and for value for your money, “A.”

Would I recommend this trip for a 30-year-old son or daughter? Yes. Would I do it again? No.

JAY J. STEMMER
Glendale, CA