Back to the Beginning

Rudely awoken at 4.15am " Road is open, we leave at 4.30am" and so begins our journey back to Aswan - 3 hours through the desert, back to our river boat, 20 minutes to pack our bags and off to the airport to catch the 11.30am flight to Cairo and on to Amman in Jordan.

On the ride to the airport we are informed that the Jordan part of the tour has been cancelled - Jordan has closed its borders - the tour is over and flights will be arranged for return to Australia. Unfortunately, we were heading on to Turkey after Jordan but we felt that it is only a matter of time before the border is closed into Turkey due to the coronavirus, so we are also returning home after only 10 days.

As it was, our 11.30 am flight did not leave until 5pm. Not sure if this was anything to do with the pandemic, but I think it was because Cairo had a storm the previous day - 100mm in 1 hour - not extraordinary to our standards but because Egypt is so dry, they do not have stormwater drainage. Apparently the airport was closed for 5 hours due to flooding so there was a backlog of flights.

So, this trip has had it all - coronavirus, cancellations, delays, sandstorms along with some amazing sights. It is disappointing to miss out on Jordan and Turkey but at least we got to see Egypt.Les mer