Grand Africa Cruise - Safaga, Egypt

Cruise Day 23

Tuesday, November 1, 2022

“I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way.”  -- Carl Sagan

Today we are in Safaga, Egypt.  Safaga is a port city on the Red Sea that has a small tourist industry, but is mainly known as a gateway for travel to Luxor and the Valley of the Kings.  Its population is about 41,000, so it is not a very big city.

Safaga is the red marker right across the end of the Gulf of Suez from Sharm El Sheikh.  The black marker in the lower left corner is Luxor and the Valley of the Kings. 

We slept late today and along with the extra hour we gained with the time change, we woke up feeling rested and refreshed.  We still feel conflicted and maybe even a little guilty for not taking advantage of where we are and visiting Luxor and the Valley of the Kings.  This is probably the only time we’ll have the opportunity, but it would have been a fourteen hour day with nine hours spent on the bus, and after three very busy and tiring days ashore, it would have been just too much for us.

We went out on the balcony to see where the ship was docked today, and we were sandwiched between two ferries in front of us and another to the rear.  Later it looked like another cruise ship had docked further to the front, but it was hard to tell as we could only see the back of the ship.

We had breakfast in the Neptune Lounge, and we talked to Kristine about her excursion to Petra yesterday.  Kristine was excited, telling us about how much she liked Petra and shared some pictures she took.  Being very young compared to us, she walked both in and out of Petra, plus her trek up to the high viewpoint.

We walked around the ship a bit and it seemed very empty as most everyone is ashore.  There is a shuttle that runs into the city of Safaga, but from what we’ve read, it is not very interesting so we will just stay on the ship today.

The ship was very empty today as you can see by the Sea View Pool and the Lido Pool below.

I had a lot of pictures from our two-day stay in Jordan to download and backup, so I took care of that while Val relaxed and read out on the balcony.  It was a perfect day to spend on the balcony as the temperatures were mild and we had a nice view looking out to sea.  Since we couldn’t see the port from our side of the ship, I decided to take a walk around the deck and see what the port looked like.  We are in a very industrial port and if you want to leave the port area you have to take the shuttle. 

It was a busy port with a lot going on around us.

When I returned to our room, it was time for lunch and we headed off to the Lido.  There were far fewer people in the Lido than usual and it was kind of nice to feel like we had the ship to ourselves.

After lunch, I did another walk around the decks, and this time Val came and we surveyed all the port activity going on.  There were big trucks getting off one of the ferries and getting in a very long line waiting to leave the port.  We speculated that they must have to go through an inspection of some sort and that’s why it took so long.

This was some sort of conveyor system either from or to what looked like grain elevators, but who knows what they were.

You can see in the middle of the picture some of the trucks lined up to leave the port.  If you look at the upper left hand corner you can see how long the line is.  It must take a lot of patience to be a truck driver here.

We returned to our room and Val resumed her spot out on the balcony.  The previous three days have been very busy, and I have fallen behind on the blog and needed to start catching up.  I started in on that, but grew tired of writing after a couple of hours and joined Val out on the balcony until it was time for dinner.

The ship didn’t leave the port until midnight and most of the tours had not returned so the dining room was very sparsely populated at dinner.  That put the dining stewards in a very good mood as they didn’t have to work so hard tonight.  We were able to chat with them and had a very enjoyable meal.  There was no casino tonight as it wouldn’t open until we left port, so we decided to take another walk around the deck.

It was a beautiful evening, but there wasn’t much to see so we headed back to our room where we read for a while until it was time for bed.  We are going to have plenty of time to relax as the next eight days will all be sea days.  We do need to rest up as after the sea days things will get very busy again, including our safari.