Travel writing- Egypt

A word of advice: never go to Egypt in the middle of August. I found this out the hard way, after having severe sunburn almost immediately after stepping off the plane. The heat hits you very fast, and very hard in the face; you instantly start taking all the layers that you possibly can off without being indecent. The heat never decreases and you feel like you are constantly in an oven.

Although it’s not all bad, Egypt, enriched with history and myth, always keeps you on your toes and intrigued. An absolute must if you're visiting Egypt is to see the pyramids in Cairo. To see history right in front of your eyes on such a massive magnitude is incredible; something that you will never forget. The problem with the pyramids is that when you are marvelling at the exquisite features ahead of you, the street traders come out to play. A friendly tip is that if you completely ignore them, they will go away, if you so much as show as spot of interest or even eye contact, they will follow you around until you outwardly tell them to leave you alone: although this is not fool proof as most can't speak English. So don't buy anything unless the tour guide himself recommends it, or else you will be offered to be traded for five camels in exchange for a piece of rock from the ground: an offer I’m pretty sure my parents were considering.

Cairo is an adventure in itself: the roads are manic and the drivers equally insane. Instead of there being two or three lines of traffic there is about seven, with each car trying to get in front of the other, like an episode of the Wacky Racers. So, you will thank yourself later that you booked this trip with a tour guide and can leave them to try and keep you alive: you are quite literally putting your life in their hands.

Once over the initial shock of the driving without any clear rules, you look around and see a city so very different from the UK. The inhabitants are clothed in items from the Islamic religion and all the women have their hair covered: although how they manage to stay covered with the intense heat, I'll never know. Something also remarkable is seeing camels used as a way of transportation; I was told that this was common and often cheaper than buying cars. It was still a massive cultural shock none the less and highly amusing to see bags of shopping tied to the camels hump. 

Egypt is a place you will never forget, possibly because you come home with burnt feet or because you have been in the presence of an incredible part of history: either way it’s a fantastic place to cross off the bucket list.