An Egyptian Encounter.

In February 2000 I (and eight others) took part in a three week Encounter Overland (EO) trip around Egypt ("An Egyptian Encounter"). This page is a record of that trip.

You can click here to see an animated map of the route.

These pages contain lots of photographs and may take a long time to load (up to 5 minutes). You can click on most of the photographs to see a larger version. If you were on this trip and would like a free copy of these pages (and all the photographs) on CD-ROM please contact me.

As well as being a record of our trip I hope this page will be of interest to anyone planning a similar trip around Egypt and anyone contemplating taking part in any other Encounter Overland trip. (I should declare an interest. In 1971/2 I worked as a driver/leader for Encounter Overland on their trans Africa and Asia routes.)

My conclusion (and I think that of everyone else on this trip) was that it was great fun and good value for money. Having said that I think our trip benefited greatly from being at a cool time of year and from the truck being only half full.

To help you find some of the places referred to I have included their exact latitude and longitude (as recorded by a hand held GPS) on a separate page (GPS).

Although I am responsible for the content of this page I hope to incorporate contributions, corrections and suggestions from others on the trip.

So far I have been contacted by - Ron, Thomas, Asad, Owen, Aymeric, Vicky...!

 

The Group (at the start of the trip).

 

5th of February 2000 (Day 0)

The Fontana Hotel
Ramses II Square from the Fontana Hotel
View inside Fontana Hotel

The trip formally started on the 6th of February at 8:00am in the Fontana Hotel (GPS) just off Ramses II Square, Cairo. Most of us arrived the day before and found the hotel with varying degrees of cooperation by Cairo taxi drivers. The taxi fare from the airport to the Fontana was between E£25 and E£40 ($7 to $12).

The hotel is described in the Lonely Planet guide to Egypt (LPgE) as "..high above the traffic and fumes, has clean rooms, a pleasant roof-top cafe/bar with a small pool...and a disco on the floor below".

The pool is currently not in use but alas the disco is (till 4:00am)! Do not accept rooms on the 8th or 9th floor if you want to sleep.

The Fontana hotel, in common with all other tourist hotels in Egypt, is "guarded" by armed soldiers/police at the front door. Although Ramses II Square is not a very attractive area the hotel is very convenient for the Metro (underground) and the staff are helpful. International phone calls can be made from the reception area.

Rooms cost (with EO discount) E£35 ($10) per person per night for a double room. Beer (Stella) costs E£8 ($2.25) a bottle. A light meal costs about E£15 ($4.25).

Introduction Week One Week Two Week Three

Home pageLast updated 2007-05-03.