Egypt Days 1-3: Travel, Cairo, and on to the River Nile

Hello and Happy New Year! We are BACK, our bodies are sort of on Central Time, and I am almost caught up on work emails. It's Saturday morning, we need to put away Christmas decorations, and some household object is letting out a loud beeping noise every 3 minutes that we can't find, so let's blog! It feels right.

Egypt was AMAZING. We loved it. This was the perfect time to go with the perfect age kids and I feel so lucky we got to see and do all that we did and that I have all these memories tucked up tight in my heart.

First, some background. I've kept a spreadsheet of trips we've done and trips we want to take since about 2010, and for these last few years before Landon goes to college, we've been prioritizing a couple of big ones. While of course we'll still see him after he graduates high school, he definitely wants to swim. And as former swimmers ourselves we know how little time we got at home during our college years. Christmas break is a critical time for training (championship meets generally happen in February) and we always had to report back well before New Year's. NCAA's is often over Spring Break and summer training is generally done with your team at your school. So if there's a trip we know we want all the kids to join, we're trying to do it before Fall 2026 (what/how/sob/etc). And since Landon is not a city guy (his opinion of NYC: "it's too much Mom."), there's a few specific adventures we wanted to do with him before he goes.

Like Egypt! It has long been on our list and research and stories from friends told me we'd need 10-14 days to do it properly. With summer temps hitting 120+ over there (no thank you; I already live somewhere way too hot), Christmas break was our only possible block of time. We hosted Christmas with my whole family last year, we'll do it again next year/Landon's senior year, and Cora admitted last year she knew that we were Santa, so 2024 was our year! I reached out to my dear friend Kaleigh at The Shameless Tourist last December to plan and one year later, we were off!

5 carry-on suitcases, 5 personal items, and 5 Lag Liv family members, ready for adventure.

We left on Saturday December 21st, which was a little tough since everyone had school and work through Friday the 20th, but we did our Christmas Eve on the 19th, Christmas Morning on the 20th, and were packed and ready by noon on the 21st when we left for the airport. Our first flight was Dallas to Frankfurt, Germany. About 10.5 hours, regular economy seats, no one slept, it was fine.

We had a 5 hour layover in Frankfurt (it was now Sunday December 22nd) during which everyone slept a few hours at some point. Then a 4.5 hour flight from Frankfurt to Cairo which was full and loud and in the oldest plane I'd seen in a long time, but we made it!

We were greeted by our Cairo guide, Mohammed, as soon as we got off the plane and he walked us through customs and the Visa process (I'd already applied online before we left) and then took us to our van and driver and rode with us to our hotel. The Conrad in Cairo was great! We had connecting rooms, the bathroom had a beautiful marble tub that made my tired traveling heart so happy, and the hotel had multiple restaurants that were all delicious and easy.

We ate dinner an the Egyptian one on the 3rd floor overlooking the Nile River and it was so good. We ended up eating there every night we were in Cairo and I still didn't get enough of their Grilled Haloumi Cheese, super fluffy Pitas, or perfectly crisp and seasoned Falafel (they make theirs with fava beans! All this time I thought I hated falafel, but turns out I just hate chickpeas, which I already knew but kept hoping would somehow become delicious in falafel form). After dinner we crashed hard because we had a 6:30 a.m. wakeup call to be up, pack, get breakfast, and then meet our Egytopologist guide Ayman in the hotel lobby at 7:30 a.m.

Day 3! This was supposed to be a lazy morning to recover from our flights before boarding yet another plan to Luxor to begin our Nile river cruise (we'll be coming back to Cairo to explore it post-cruise). But! The long-anticipated Grand Egyptiam Museum (GEM) is finally open (not all of it, but enough!) and Kaleigh asked if we wanted to get tickets and I said "of course!" and this was the only way to fit it in. I had some regrets when peeling my eyes open at 6:30 a.m., but I'm so glad we did.

The hotel breakfast gave Landon cartoon heart eyes and everyone was in shockingly good spirits as we met Ayman in our lobby with all of our luggage. Our driver (same one from the night before!) would be able to keep our luggage while we walked around the museum and then we'd all head to the airport for our short flight to Luxor.

But first, a note about Cairo. I did almost no research before this trip. I'm ashamed to say I didn't even realize that Cairo was such a huge city until we arrived to its bustling chaos. You guys, Cairo is an enormous city. NYC has approximately 8 million people. Cairo has 22 million. The traffic is INSANE. There are no lanes, there is no driving test, and there seem to be no real driving rules. People, bikes, tuk tuks, cars, dogs, trucks, and giant tour buses all just mesh together on 2-lane roads through this gigantic city and somehow it all just... works. Constant horn chatter between cars, spotless roads being swept continuously by civil workers, cars full of adults headed to work, everyone's windows down, shockingly few traffic incidents, and I never saw anyone looking mad at the constant cutting off and stop and go driving. It was fascinating and an experience all in itself. Everytime we'd drive somewhere the kids would ask how far away it was. The driver would give the distance and then say "but time? It's Cairo." and that was the answer.

On to the GEM! It is an architectural wonder. I generally don't take pictures inside museums- you're there to be there and if there's a particularly cool artifact there's pictures on the internet that are much better, so I keep my phone away and just soak it in. However, I took a handful here because the scale of the GEM is hard to comprehend and it is just beautifully done. Everything is well-lit, nicely described with plaques, and the employees are EXTREMELY vigilant about anyone potentially touching anything or breaking any rules. I loved it.

This statue of Ramses II is inside the entry area of the museum. It's inside! The statue is HUGE. It is also 3,200 years old. It used to just be in the middle of downtown and they moved it to the GEM only recently. Apparently they televised the transfer and millions watched its trek to its new resting place.

The museum has a ton of giant ancient statues and artifacts. The kids were so great about listening to the stories from our guide (who was awesome) and being engaged in all the history we were seeing. But we learned that Cora in particular loves a museum. The big kids like the guide, but as soon as he set us on our own they were pretty much ready to go, whereas Cora (and her dad) walks slowly from item to item, reading all its information, and pondering its history and existence. I think 11 years old is about the youngest I'd do this trip, and even then, I don't think Landon or Claire would have handled it nearly as well at that age as Cora did.

In another part of the museum our guide casually mentioned, oh if you look out the window you can see the pyramids. Egypt is amazing.

As we were wrapping up at the museum and getting ready to go to the airport for our 2 pm flight, we learned that Cora and my seats had been canceled by EgyptAir and rebooked (business class!) for an 8 pm flight. Our guide was apologetic, but there was nothing they could do. We were sad to have to split up, but as we told them, if this is the bigget wrinkle in our trip, that's pretty good.

Later it made me think how much the kids were looking to us as that news was conveyed and how glad I am that James and I are both equally good about rolling with whatever travel throws at us. I think it's one of my favorite things about him and it's why we've always been able to take big adventures with our kids since they were little. "Okay then, it is what it is," we both replied. The big kids looked a little concerned at having to go to the airport with only James- I'm not sure they had much faith in his ability to get them on a plane and off again to the right destination, but I wasn't worried.

We said goodbye as they headed to the airport and then Cora and I headed to a delicious fancy lunch the travel company had arranged for us!

After that we stopped at the Memorial to the Unknown Soldier. It was actually really fun to have a little day date with her.

Next up was the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization where all 22 mummies of the ancient pharoahs are now kept. I knew their mummification techniques were effective, but it was insane to see hair and teeth and cartilage of a body that is thousands of years old. Cora and I were simultaneously creeped out and fascinated and really enjoyed reading all about the pharaohs we were seeing. (No pictures of the mummies, but look at the colors on these sarcophaguses! These are so so SO old! Incredible.)

Meanwhile James and the kids got to Luxor without a hitch. A guide there picked them up and brought them to the Nile river boat that would be our home for the next 4 nights! The boys immediately worked out (they managed to bring stretch cords for the small pool in their little carry-ons) and Claire sat on the deck and texted me updates.

They ate dinner on the boat and let us know the food was good and our rooms were really nice.

As the night grew later, Cora and my flight was delayed (sigh) and James and the kids went into Luxor in search of additional food.

By 9 pm Cora and I were still at the airport and we were SO tired. I'd really been looking forward to an afternoon nap on the boat, but she was being such a trooper I kept my whining to myself (and my texts to James) and colored with her in her new coloring book. We finally got on our plane about 9:30 pm, landed in Luxor at 11 pm, were picked up by our guide and at the boat by 11:30 (Luxor is small and apparently has no traffic at 11:30 pm on a Monday!) and immediately saw James, Landon, and Claire waving to us from the rooftop deck! We had MISSED them!

We got on board and slept HARD for less than 5 hours before our next wakeup call at 4:30 am (sob) to see the Luxor temples before the cruise began!