Egypt before the "revolt on the Nile"

With the events still unfurling in Egypt, I thought I should mention our recent visit there. She is after all, a part of my African adventure, and she could never be the same again.

Papyrus

There is a great connection between Uganda and Egypt - the River Nile.  It is like a 6,500 kilometers umbilical cord.  In Uganda, I see people cutting the papyrus and stringing them into mats; in Egypt I saw them making   specialty sheets for painting on. 

While we were in Dahab, along the coast of the Red Sea celebrating New Year's eve, a Coptic Church in Alexandria was bombed killing 21 people.  It disturbed the tranquility we saw a few days before as we imagined how Alexander the Great ruled his empire from there.

Midan Tahrir became the center of the mass protests which ended the 30-year rule of their president, Hosni Mubarak.  A few days before the protests, we frequented Midan Tahrir to eat at  McDonald's, KFC, and Hardee's (a local burger house) and cross-over to the Corniche el-Nil for a stroll along the Nile.   We were also impressed by the collection of the Egyptian Museum, which was reportedly looted during the unrest. We felt safe in Egypt with the tourist police making their presence felt everywhere.  We loved our guide,  Ahmed Khedr, an Egyptologist, and our travel agent (deluxe travel) who put their best foot forward to make Egypt a remarkable tourist destination.   Tourism is Egypt's  No. 2 source of revenues, next to the Suez Canal. Cairo's traffic is chaotic and it seems every car has a dent and everywhere is a parking lot.  Donkeys  create traffic jams too.

Of the "12 great places to see in Africa before one dies",  4 of them are in Egypt.