By Islam El Shazly and Susan Ryan,
You would be hard pressed to find a tourist in Egypt who hasn’t been to the Pyramids or to Sharm El-Sheikh, but finding the odd tourist who is willing to get off the beaten path and separate from the crowds to discover where the road would take them or what they will find, that’s a totally different matter. Read more…
By Islam El Shazly and Susan Ryan
Most tourists have a very limited time when vacationing, there’s the time wasted in the travelling itself, and the fact that most people barely get two or three weeks vacation at the most from their work. So they don’t have much of a choice when coming to Egypt, they’re usually stuck with the same uncreative itinerary as most everyone else, and that can lead to an unsatisfactory experience. Or so they are led to believe. Read more…
By Islam El Shazly
Conservation in Egypt is a sketchy thing; back when Mohamed Ali Pasha was in charge, it was reported that he wanted to use stones from the Pyramids to build his Nile barrages! He was trying to be thrifty: why go through the trouble of quarrying when you have some perfectly pre-cut stones right there! Thank God he was dissuaded by his accountant on the account that it would actually be more expensive to do so.
For all we know this might be an urban legend, but this very kind of indifferent attitude towards our nature and heritage is very rampant in Egypt, but only really became apparent over the last 60 years; and a phenomenon over the last 30. Read more…
By Islam El Shazly
Since the Napoleon’s ill-fated campaign against Egypt in the late 18th century and the world became enthralled with everything Pharaonic. Especially Europeans and Americans, they came by the boat load to see the tombs, temples, and palaces that were long forgotten or half-covered in sand, they came, saw, and recorded what they saw in vivid illustrations; the only record of what a lot of these ancient monuments looked like. Since then many of these monuments became lost again under the waters of Lake Nasser, or just simply collapsed for neglect. Read more…
