Safaga is a scruffy Egyptian port on the Red Sea and its only claim to fame is as an entry point to the ancient sites of the Valley of the Kings and the great temples of Luxor and Karnak. Today I would not be visiting Karnak but taking lunch aboard a Felucca – a small boat propelled by oars or a lateen sail and used widely on the Nile.
The trip was scheduled to last over 12 hours with a three-and-a-half hour drive across the Eastern Desert down to Qena (See map) and then south to the ancient capital of Egypt, Thebes and known today as Luxor. There were 9 coaches today undertaking different combinations of the ancient sites and we had to travel in convoy with an armed police escort up front and an armed escort on each bus. Since the attacks at the Pyramids, was it 11 years ago (?), security has been of paramount importance to protect the tourist industry.
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