Apologies if this is in the wrong forum, but it seems straightforward enough for General Questions…
I’m looking forward to my Mediterranean Adventure this coming June/July in which a friend and I are planning a sort of low-cost circumnavigation of mare nostrum. Plans are to start in Italy, take ferries to Greece, Turkey, Israel, and Egypt, and then somehow get back west to Morocco and Spain. The thing is, as much as I’ve googled, I can’t seem to find ANY mention of ferries to and from Egypt to anywhere. Are they just hard to find or is there just no other means to reach Egypt outside of commercial flights or by land through Israel (or Libya…)?
I don’t think you Googled at all. I searched for “Egypt ferry” and I got Ferry services in Egypt, which was the second result. (The first was another page from the same website.) That page lists regular ferry services between Egypt and Sudan, and Egypt and Jordan. Jordan’s not too far out of the way if you’re going to Israel, and is worth seeing at any rate.
Uh, folks, I’m thinking that the original poster is trying to stay within the Mediterranean Sea. Any ferry from Egypt to Jordan or Sudan would be via the Red Sea… Same with Saudi Arabia.
I admit that technically the OP said that he/she found no ferry connections at all. However the OP mentioned twice that the question is about connections in the Mediterranean and is prompty criticized for ignoring connections to one country that is nowhere near the Mediterranean and one landlocked desert country.
Actually, I remembered the Michael Palin traveled by ferry from Athens to Alexandria and googled that. His “Around the World in 80 Days” was shot in 1988, but I’ll bet his experience is still valid 20 years later.
Some people seem to mistakenly believe Jordan is land-locked. In fact, it has about twenty miles of coastline along the Gulf of Aqaba, which includes the port of Aqaba. There apparently is a ferry service which runs between Aqaba and Nuweiba, Egypt on the eastern coast of the Sinai Peninsula. But, as others pointed out, this ferry does not travel through the Mediterranean Sea.
That is a hell of a trip you are describing and, speaking from experience, you are going to need more than the time allotment you have described to really do it justice.
While Jordan is not literally on the Med, it is very close and I humbly suggest that you would have to be insane to miss it. Petra, Wadi Rum, Jerash, and The Dead Sea will BLOW your mind.
As described earlier there are ferries between Jordan and the Sinai in Egypt. The Red Sea offers astounding sea life and snorkelling there will jade you silly for the remainder of the time you spend on the Med. You have been warned.
What are your primary interests for the trip? Culture, Architecture, History, Food, Activities, Landscape, All of the Above?
Summer temperatures in the SE Med are incredible. We encountered 47C/118F routinely. Also, if you wear shorts in a lot of areas you will look like an absolute dork as far as the locals are concerned, so it’s long pants a lot of the time.
Indeed the expression ‘ferry service to a landlocked desert country’ doesn’t make a heck of a lot of sense, does it? (OK, it could be a ferry across a river, lake or inland sea that happens to span an international border). Don’t forget to pack your Swiss Navy Knife.
However, There is plenty to amaze as well and if you’ve got your A-game with you it can be totally amazing. We lasted three weeks and then HAD to leave or we would have shot someone… Unguided, Egypt is not a “Yay, my first trip!” country.
Sucks: Cairo. Beggars who put their hands straight into your pockets. Thieves. EVERYONE is trying to rip you off. EVERYONE. Everyone. Write that on your hand, the one you use to hand over money. Corrupt soldiers at check points at 4am in the middle of fucking nowhere. Mental patients driving cars: If you are destined to die in a car accident, there’s a good chance it will happen in Egypt. Mosquitoes that can actually give you full-on malaria. Traveling conditions and living quarters: mold that is so strong it busts the plaster off the walls. it goes on and on…
Awesome: Pyramids: If the interior of a Giza pyramid doesn’t amaze, you are dead inside. Cairo. Mt. Sinai: Climb it at 2am for the sunrise. Dahab. Sharm. Red Sea diving, as mentioned. Luxor area: Do NOT miss this place. Aswan, etc…
Cite? IANAD, but I’ve interviewed the head of NAMRU here and it is my understanding that there was, like, ONE case of malaria in Fayoum a few years ago, and that’s it. (Sometimes WHO or CDC maps are misleading; they will color an entire country in as malaria-endemic if there was one reported case.)
In the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report 2006-2007, Egypt ranked #1 in the world for “malaria prevalence,” by which they actually mean “had the least malaria.”
My Lonely Planet Guidebook “Middle East” 3rd Edition Jan 2000 talks about malaria, meds, treatment, etc. on page 66 and my other guidebooks address it similarly.
I have a clear recollection of my books specifically mentioning Nile towns as risk areas but I’m struggling to find the specific text. Maybe I have false memory.
Regardless, the situation does seem to be more as you suggest. I’ve looked at a couple malaria maps on the web and indeed malaria looks to be very isolated and/or nonexistent in Egypt. Perhaps the guidebooks are rather alarmist.
This random site reports a rate of 80 per 100,000 people in 2000, the same year I was there, incidentally, to give a global rank of 80th worst.
So, yes, it does seem I was overreacting when I spent an hour taping up the window gaps in my hotel room with medical tape, LOL :smack:
