I have been wanting to visit Egypt for a long time. Part 4
Part 4. A little bit about Hurghada.
Oddly enough, it looks like in the chronology of our trip, but the city in which we live - Hurghada - has become the last object for inspection. The tour cost only $10, but, as mentioned above, we took it on the advice of the guide, since it included lunch at a seafood restaurant.
The morning was beautiful, tourists were collected from different hotels and taken to the museum of sand figures, which, I must say, we really liked. Russians and Ukrainians work there as sculptors. They made everyone from the heart from different countries, eras and movies!
Sand Figure Museum in Hurghada
The Mouth of Truth and Jack Sparrow are here,
Sand Jack Sparrow
and the Indian God Ganesh, and much more.
Sand Figure Museum in Hurghada
Very beautiful sculptures
Sand Figure Museum in Hurghada
and they are maintained in this state, thanks to the treatment with an adhesive solution and the absence of rain.
Sand Figure Museum in Hurghada
Sand Figure Museum in Hurghada
But not on this day! Literally an hour after visiting the museum, a strong wind blew, pulled clouds and it began to rain. The Egyptians rejoiced like children!
They came out of their stores and joyfully exposed their faces and hands to the rain.
For us, who escaped from rainy autumn days, the rain did not cause such puppy joy.
Excursion, interspersed with visits to an incredible number of textile shops, tea and sweets, papyrus factories
Papyrus shop in Hurghada. In the foreground, real papyrus grows. That's what he looks like.
and, of course, oils, smoothly flowed to the city center. There we were able to see the mosque, however, only from the outside,
Mosque in Hurghada
and a Christian Coptic temple, where we were allowed to enter. Despite the fact that the temple is Christian, it is divided into male and female halves (like Muslims).
Sunday service in the Coptic Christian temple of Hurghada
Beautiful stained-glass windows in the temple
Stained glass windows in a Coptic Christian church in Hurghada
and mosaics at the entrance.
Mosaic of the Virgin in the Coptic Christian Church of Hurghada
Photographs are allowed.
Mosaic of George the Victorious in the Coptic Christian Church of Hurghada
Hurghada is a city that is developing and building up at a rapid pace. Not only new hotels are growing, but also new residential complexes, which are divided into complexes for Egyptians and complexes for foreigners. A two-room apartment in Hurghada in a new building can cost as little as $5.000. More elite housing up to 15. And buy. But to live in an unusual society is difficult for you, I guess. Most Egyptians are illiterate, especially women. It is difficult for them to understand the simplest things of everyday life in the city. From the windows of high-rise buildings, they can calmly, in all cities, pour sour "borscht". This is part of life. Perhaps that is why the sidewalks are useless to them. Garbage is also thrown into the aisles between houses.
True, in our opinion, the government is pursuing a worthy social policy: it practically does not charge utility bills and gives everyone the opportunity to study for free at school and university. At the end of school, everyone takes a test.
According to the results of the test, whoever scored 80 points or more will receive free education for the most prestigious professions: archaeologists and petroleum engineers. And whoever scores 60 points can study to be a TEACHER! Can you imagine who will teach others in the future? People who scored less than 60 points can only count on working specialties or go to serve in the army. And they, as a rule, stand at roadblocks. They say they pay well. The test is taken once and cannot be retaken. There is no paid education for "fools".
By the way, in modern Egypt women are still given dowry when they get married. Educated women are more expensive than uneducated, even beautiful ones. Just like in the movie "Dog in the Manger": "The Count is more expensive. "
Women, as a rule, do not work. The top of their dreams is to get married.
We remember these details from the modern life of the Egyptians from the stories of the guide "Anex Tour". It is interesting to know how Egypt lives now!
It's nearing lunch time, and we're going to the city center for lunch at a seafood restaurant. Lunch is excellent. Without an excursion, with an independent visit, I would have pulled 25 dollars from each. In addition to cream soup with a sea cocktail, they brought us a huge plate of all kinds of seafood, including crabs. And at the end of the dinner, it turned out that it was the chef's birthday, and on this occasion our group was given a compliment from the establishment - a whole dish of fried sea bass. In general, at least for the sake of these culinary joys, one should go on an excursion.
I would like to say a few words about what to try and what to bring from Egypt. I myself always read such advice on the countries I am going to visit.
There were many small shops on our promenade near the hotel, but we liked 2 wonderful shops more - this is the Carefour supermarket, designed not for tourists, but for the local public, and the Cleopatra fixed price store, where you could pay in both dollars and pounds, and at a good rate, and get change in the appropriate currency. In the evenings, we most often went to the supermarket, where we bought fresh guava for 4 pounds per kilogram, while in small shops it cost 2 dollars per kilogram. They also drank a lot of guava, mango and mix juices, which were quite inexpensive - 5 pounds per 1 liter. Their most expensive juice is apple juice, £.17 per litre.
For gifts to our relatives and friends, we most often bring some unusual goodies. In Egypt, we bought cookies filled with dates, a small jar of fig jam, and a pack of tea. All this is beautifully packaged and inexpensive.
In the Cleopatra store, we bought my husband aqua shoes (coral slippers), similar to half-sneakers, in which he even played volleyball at the hotel. Although they were not needed in the lagoon, there were enough hedgehogs in the sea beyond the lagoon. We bought beautiful tea cups with Egyptian symbols and loose henna to strengthen hair. Hibiscus did not take, we have it is cheaper. We were also not impressed with textiles: they are expensive and the quality is inferior to Turkish ones, and we are simply not interested in papyrus and magnets. Also, as a girl, I bought Egyptian face creams and hair creams in the supermarket. After the hot Egyptian sun, this turned out to be very useful. Arabic cosmetics are generally unusual. This industry developed somehow separately from the European line, therefore, everything is of higher quality, natural and the basis is made up of essential oils, and not some kind of chemistry.
Now a few words about currency exchange. Here, too, everything is not so simple. At the time of our stay in Egypt, the dollar exchange rate was "floating". Anyone wishing to exchange currency was sent to an exchange machine, where 5.70 pounds were given out for 1 dollar. But, thanks to everyone who writes reviews, we already knew that the bank rate is higher. You just need to have a passport with you, from which a photocopy will be taken. The exchange rate at the bank was, for a moment, 7.80 per dollar. So, as they say, feel the difference! Money was changed in order to pay at the supermarket. They didn't accept dollars there.
To summarize.
Reviews about hotels are a must read. Usually the ratio is 50 to 50 (positive and negative), but not in our case. I would recommend this hotel only to people for whom the location of the hotel is more important than food and room repairs. It is important to understand that this is the most budgetary “troika” in Hurghada, but with a large green area, a large beach and a private lagoon (if you wish, you can immediately go to the beach right from the room in a swimsuit). We witnessed how vacationers from 5 * hotels behind the promenade
Promenade near our hotel
on the second and third lines, in swimming trunks and towels, they walked from the beach almost through the center of the city. This is inconvenient and ugly. The second plus of the hotel's location is that it is located in the tourist area, on the promenade, close to shops, banks, cafes, police station on duty.
Cafes and shops on the promenade near our hotel
The best and newest "five" in Hurghada, which have their own territory and the first line, are located outside the city. This has both pluses and minuses. The plus is that it’s quiet and the area is great, and the minus is that you need to get to Hurghada for shopping by taxi.
Don't rush to invest 10 bucks in your passport when you check in. They will take the money, of course, but will it help you?
Try not to let everyone who is not too lazy make money on yourself. Starting from currency exchange and ending with "tips" at all attractions. You have already paid for these excursions, and for entrance tickets too.
Remember the Egyptian "tricks", they are in store for you everywhere. Even at the airport, on the way back, they try to make money on us tourists. We weighed our suitcase and knew for sure that it weighed 17 kg. But at the airport at the check-in counter, the scales suddenly began to jump, as in the program "Weighted and Happy" - then they soared to 25, then collapsed to 18. As a result, they wrote 22. In general, everything is clear! With whom and what will you dispute? "Overweight", of course, is solved with the help of a few dollars.
Leave a "tip" only if they really earned, and you liked this work of theirs. I left several times to the cleaner, because I liked his imagination, with which he twisted all sorts of animals from towels and blankets for us, and then also decorated it all with hibiscus flowers.
Swans in hibiscus petals in our room at the Samaka 3* hotel
There is no carbonated mineral water in Egypt! I suffered without her. Of course, I always take a package with me (4 bottles of 1.5 liters), but this is not enough for a very short time. This is a trick: you can always put gifts on a place freed from water).
Properly prepare for excursions (this also applies to water supplies). It seems to me that then spending $ 2 for 0.5 liters of tap water is somehow a little expensive.
Take small souvenirs from home - magnets, for example, chocolates. After I gave the bartender at the hotel a magnet with a view of Kyiv, he was especially attentive and kind to us.
If you are a positive person who is not afraid of difficulties, then feel free to go to 3 * in Egypt. The rest is better to take a hotel of the highest star rating. This is not Europe. But a trip to Egypt is a must! Watch and watch! Absorb everything: culture and customs, enjoy watching the charming fish of the Red Sea and go on excursions to antiquities!
Speaking of fish. There are many of them and all sorts of different ones. In any hotel you can rent a mask and fins. The fish are very beautiful! Unlike the Mediterranean Sea, there is someone to see in the Red Sea. And you just have to stop and stand in the sea, as striped fish swim up and do a fish pedicure for free. In Greece, in the salon, they asked for 35 euros for this! So we went home with pink heels.
And you also need to immediately get used to the idea that after 17 hours no one is allowed on the beach. Well, they do not understand that our people want to swim at night and naked! Do not understand! Although, apart from jokes, that's not the point. In our hotel on the beach, in the rocks, right next to the place where we sunbathed, lived moray eels, a whole family. Elsewhere there may be sea urchins. That's why they don't let you in the dark. Reinsurance.
We said goodbye to the hotel. The plane was in the evening. At 12.00 the room was vacated, things were put in a storage room. We sunbathed and swam all day long.
The last sunset in Egypt on the beach of the hotel
We were given a lunch voucher because on the day of arrival we missed it and arrived at dinner. Everything is great! Satisfied, tanned and with a lot of impressions, we went home.
Travel and explore! It's so cool!
