CAPITAL CAIRO - POPULATION 81.7 MILLION - AREA 1,001,450 SQ KM -OFFICIAL LANGUAGE ARABIC
As popular with visitors now as it was two millennia ago, Egypt remains a perennial favorite on travelers' lists, despite intermittent security threats and attacks that have sometimes targeted tourists. Ecotourism is increasingly gaining ground here: journey to the western oases for responsible dune adventures around and about the Great Sand Sea, basing yourself at one of several eco-lodges in beehive-like Siwa (nowadays very much on the backpacker trail) or at one of the smaller, lesser-known oases that pepper the vast Saharan sands. Nile cruises, meanwhile, have recently taken a step up with the inauguration of the luxury cruiser Oberoi Zahra, with its fully equipped spa and lavishness that not even a Pharaoh could have dreamed up. |
