After resigning from Microsoft and while trying to figure out my next step, I found myself with some free time. Thanks to my very understnading better half, Mary, I planned a solo trip, while she had to deal with the Seattle snowpocalypse and everything else back home by herself. Thank you Mary!

Since it was a very last-minute decision, I wasn’t able to cross one specific adventure from my “to do travels”… a motorcycle trip around Chile and Argentina to explore Patagonia. I will definitely do that soon though.

So, my backup was the exploration of an ancience civilization, to match similar trips I took in the past to explore the Inkas and Maya civilizations. I decided to go to Egypt.

Trip arrangements

I only had 2-3 days to organize the trip. My friend’s Nuno’s manager just happened to have returned from Egypt so I got the contact details of their travel manager, Dina, in Cairo. I contacted Dina via WhatsApp.

I was very lucky. Dina scheduled everything for me. I didn’t have to go to any web sites, pick up the phone, or do any coordination. I told her what I wanted to do and she scheduled everything for me… hotels, transit, personal tour guides, drivers, etc. Everything!

I used the Western Union application to transfer payments to Dina. So not even credit cards. Everything was arranged via apps on my phone, mainly WhatsApp and Western Union. That was so different compared to how my month in Peru was organized 18 years ago 🙂 Even 10 years ago, when I went on the roadtrip to follow the Maya civilization around Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala, I was making things as I was going along. This was a completely different experience. I still think that the Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala trip was the best 🙂

If you ever want to go to Egypt, ask me to put you in touch with Dina. She’s amazing. You’ll be greeted every day with messages like these…

Dina is a tour manager for X Golden Travel and a travel guide, she’s awesome, and she sings really really well…

Internet Access – Thank you T-Mobile

I didn’t have WiFi access everywhere I stayed. The WiFi on the riverboat for the Nile cruise didn’t work. Thanks to T-Mobile, I had unlimited data while roaming and I was even able to tether my laptop to my phone so I could write (travel blog entries and technology-related thoughts). It was way too slow but at least I had access. Thank you T-Mobile.

Reading

The Kindle app on my iPad was used a lot throughout the trip. I read about Egypt (both the travel book and online), two huge Java books, and continued Kim Stanley Robinson‘s “New York 2140“.

Netflix

Just before going to bed, I watched one or two episodes of Netflix’s “Explained“. It’s a series of short (15 or 20 mins) documentaries. Each episode deals with a different topic. Very very cool. I highly recommend it.

The posts

Travel posts for days: 1-2, 3, 4, 5, 6-7, 8-9, 10-11

Greece

I finished my trip with a week in Greece, spending most of my time with my family!

Next career step

I’ll write about my next step very soon.