Definitely not for sissies

Just having returned from a very ambitious two-week trek across Jordan and Egypt, we are exhausted from the adventure, yet excited at the prospects of our travel schedule for the next few months. We start with an explanation of our exploratory Arabian/Egyptian expedition. As you may or may not know, Vivere Travel’s business plan is based on travel agent accompanied group adventures to bucket list locations throughout the world. Before we ever consider taking a group, we first scout out locations and tour ideas to provide our clients the best experience possible. With that in mind, we set off for our mission to Jordan and Egypt on March 11^th.

We first arrived in Jordan for visits to Petra, Amman, Wadi Rum, and the Dead Sea, before transitioning to Egypt to tour Cairo, the Pyramids, Karnak, Luxor, the Valley of the Kings, a five-day Nile cruise and finally, Aswan. Planes, buses, and automobiles not to mention camels, donkeys and horse drawn carriages were to be our mode of transportation and let’s not forget a ton of walking. The average westerner will no doubt experience true culture shock on several levels. In the cities, five times a day you will hear the “call to prayers” blaring simultaneously from the minarets of dozens of mosques while strangely clothed men and women narrowly avoid death in their attempt to cross overcrowded roadways full of ruthlessly determined relentless traffic. 

While we certainly are not complaining about this visit, we found the pace on this exploration to be somewhat challenging both physically and schedule-wise for a couple of seniors. This was a working holiday by all accounts with most days starting before dawn and then spending ten to twelve hours touring with lots of steep, difficult terrain. Keep in mind, there is no OSHA in these countries and level sidewalks, handrails and organized cues are noticeably missing just about everywhere. On the other hand, the rewards were great and bearing witness to monuments and structures built four thousand years ago went a long way to soothe sore muscles and tired bones. Our highly educated tour guides were also an indispensable part of our adventure without whom we would not have enjoyed the trip nearly as much. We are currently putting together a custom, slower paced version of this adventure for possibly 2023 or 2024. Please let us know if you have an interest or would like advance notice of our plans.