Pictures: Egypt

Egypt is every archeology buff’s wet dream; behind every ancient pyramid, excavated pharaoh tomb, and labyrinthine temple lays a piece of a rich 5,000 year old history. Now I don’t pretend to have a profound interest in rummaging through historical rubble, dig sites, or antiques – I’d much rather pass the hours sipping chai and playing backgammon with a thick-bearded, white-robed man named Mohammad at a sheesha bar – but that doesn’t matter in Egypt. Even the most jaded of travelers have to admit a rejuvenated child-like sense of wonder when they find themselves staring head-on at the real life models of the very pictures that filled their elementary school textbooks growing up: the mysterious Sphinx, hieroglyphic-laden walls that tell the tales of a forgotten civilization, and the beaming golden treasures of the legendary Tutankhamen. Egypt: the home of Cleopatra, the Nile River, and the only in-tact Wonder of the Ancient World (the Great Pyramids of Giza). And this is to mention nothing of the bustling markets of Cairo’s Khan El Khalili, the Great Sand Sea of the Sahara, tiny date-farming towns on the desert oases, or world-class scuba diving at the Red Sea’s underwater Ros Mohammad Marine Park.

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