Meditation Tour to Cairo, Nile Cruise and Dahab

Our representative meets you in the arrival hall of Cairo International Airport with a sign bearing your name and walks you to your private air-conditioned vehicle. The drive to the hotel takes 30 to 60 minutes, depending on traffic.

You check in and the evening is yours, with a welcome drink at the hotel. Rest well: tomorrow starts with an early flight south. No meals are included today.

Morning: the flight to Aswan

After an early breakfast box, you transfer to Cairo airport for the flight to Aswan, about 1 hour 20 minutes. Your guide meets you on arrival and you board the Nile cruise ship.

Afternoon: the High Dam and Philae

The High Dam, completed in 1970, ended the yearly flood and created Lake Nasser. A motorboat then takes you to Philae, the temple of Isis, the goddess of motherhood and magic. The temple was moved stone by stone to Agilkia Island in the 1970s to save it from the rising water. There is time to sit in the courts or by the water before returning.

Evening: Kom Ombo

Lunch is on board as the ship sails north. At Kom Ombo you visit the double temple of Sobek, the crocodile god, and Haroeris, Horus the Elder, with its two parallel sanctuaries. Dinner is on board as the ship continues towards Edfu.

Morning: the Temple of Horus at Edfu

After breakfast on deck, you visit the Temple of Horus at Edfu, built between 237 and 57 BC and the best preserved temple in Egypt. Its dark inner halls and granite shrine are still roofed, and quieter corners away from the main hall are good for a few minutes of stillness.

Midday: through the Esna lock

Lunch is on board while the ship sails north and passes the lock at Esna, which lifts and lowers boats past the barrage.

Late afternoon: Luxor Temple

In Luxor, around 4 pm, you visit Luxor Temple, built mainly by Amenhotep III and Ramses II for the festival of Opet, when the statue of Amun travelled here from Karnak along the Avenue of Sphinxes. The late light on the columns is the best of the day. Dinner is on board.

Morning: the West Bank

After breakfast you cross to the West Bank. In the Valley of the Kings you enter three royal tombs among those open on the day, their corridors painted with the journey of the sun through the night. At Deir el-Bahari, the temple of Hatshepsut rises in three terraces against the cliffs.

Afternoon: Karnak

After lunch on board, at about 3 pm, you visit Karnak, the temple of Amun, with its 134-column hypostyle hall, the obelisks and the sacred lake, where priests purified themselves before the rites.

Evening: the flight to Cairo

A farewell dinner is served on board. At about 10 pm you transfer to Luxor airport for the flight to Cairo, about one hour, with a breakfast box for the morning. Our representative meets you in Cairo and takes you to your hotel.

Morning

The morning is free to rest after the late arrival.

Midday: the Egyptian Museum

The museum in Tahrir Square, opened in 1902, holds statues and objects from every period of ancient Egypt: the seated statue of Khafre, Rahotep and Nofret, the art of the Amarna period and the treasures of Yuya and Tjuyu. Tutankhamun's collection is now displayed at the Grand Egyptian Museum near Giza, which can be added at extra cost.

Afternoon: lunch

Lunch is at a local restaurant serving Egyptian dishes.

Evening: Sound and Light at the pyramids

At dusk you drive to Giza for the Sound and Light show, in which the Sphinx narrates the history of the plateau while the pyramids are lit in colour. It is a good first sight of the place you will enter tomorrow.

Early morning: inside the Great Pyramid

Today you enter the Great Pyramid of Khufu on a private visit, a special ticket issued for small groups outside the normal visiting flow, usually at the start or end of the day. You have about two hours inside. The Grand Gallery, a corbelled passage almost 9 metres high, rises to the King's Chamber, a room of red granite that holds the king's empty sarcophagus; the Queen's Chamber can be included when the permit allows. The chambers are quiet, warm and still, and the time is yours to meditate, chant softly or simply sit.

Late morning

You come out into the daylight for breakfast with a view of the pyramids, and time for photographs on the plateau.

Afternoon and evening

Lunch is at a nearby restaurant, and the afternoon is free at the hotel. Dinner is at the hotel. If you have energy left, the evening is free for Khan el-Khalili, a café by the Nile or a quiet walk.

Morning: leaving Cairo

After breakfast you leave Cairo in your private vehicle. The road crosses under the Suez Canal through the Ahmed Hamdi tunnel and follows the Gulf of Suez south, then turns into the mountains of South Sinai. The drive is about 600 km, eight to nine hours with stops and the police checkpoints of Sinai. A lunch box is provided.

Evening: Dahab

You reach Dahab in the late afternoon or evening, as the light turns on the mountains of Saudi Arabia across the gulf. After check-in, dinner is at a beach restaurant or in Bedouin style by the sea.

No schedule today. Dahab is one of the calmest towns on the Egyptian coast, with a long seafront walk, cafés on the water and reefs that start a few metres from the shore. Options, all at extra cost unless stated:

• Yoga or meditation by the sea: several studios in town hold morning classes.
• Snorkelling at the Lighthouse reef or the Three Pools, just south of town.
• The Blue Lagoon, a shallow lagoon north of Dahab reached by 4x4 or boat.
• The Coloured Canyon, a narrow sandstone canyon in the mountains, as a half-day 4x4 trip.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner are included, at the hotel or a seafront restaurant.

Morning

After breakfast, your vehicle takes you about 8 km north of Dahab to the Blue Hole, a sinkhole in the reef more than 100 metres deep, with coral walls that drop away just off the shore. Divers know it as one of the best-known sites in the Red Sea; for snorkellers, the rim of the hole is full of fish and coral.

Midday

You can snorkel, swim, or sit by the water in one of the cafés that face the hole. Lunch is at one of them. Only experienced divers should go deep here; snorkelling on the surface needs no experience, but stay in your depth and follow the advice of the local guides.

Evening

After a quiet time by the Blue Hole as the light falls, dinner is in a Bedouin setting under the stars before returning to your hotel.

After a last breakfast by the sea, you leave Dahab for the drive back to Cairo, about 600 km and eight to nine hours with stops, with a snack box for the road. You reach Cairo in the evening; dinner is at your hotel.

If your flight home is early tomorrow, settle the departure time with our representative tonight.

After breakfast, our representative drives you to Cairo International Airport and assists you with check-in. Airlines usually ask you to be there three hours before an international flight. This is the end of the tour.