The Caves Beach Resort, Hurghada | Egypt Travel Blog: Day 6 (Part 52) 05D19

Arriving at The Caves Beach Resort | First Night at The Caves Beach Resort, Hurghada

Egypt Travel Blog: 10 DAYS Egypt Explorer - Felucca Cruise & Red Sea

After our guide handed over our room keys, I headed to my room. The Caves Beach Resort is an all-inclusive resort – all you can eat and drink for free.

The full hotel interior and exterior are designed based on unique Stone-Rock-Mountain Style. It gives you a feeling of living in caves and mountains with modern amenities wherever you look.

The outside pools, trees, and all areas are designed in cave-mountain themes and looked beautiful and distinctive. The rooms are also made of woods and rocks, including the beds.

It was night and I had to check a few direction signs to get to my room. It was pitch-black dark outside the resort boundaries, but I still felt the presence of the sea out there in the darkness. That was a good feeling.

The moment I entered my room, I felt like I entered modern-day caves with furniture made of wood and rock with modern amenities like an AC, refrigerator, TV, shower, and so on. Even the ceilings, walls, and floors looked unique and cool. I felt like I was living in the Stone Age.

I had a private balcony overlooking one of the pools, gardens and other units. Even the balcony walls looked like they were made of rock. It was a nice view and I decided to spend more time there tomorrow during the day.

I took out and arranged whatever I needed and headed for the shower, which I was craving for a while after a long day of excursions and bus rides. I would head out to eat after a shower.

Arriving at the Red Sea Resort Town of Hurghada | Egypt Travel Blog: Day 6 (Part 51) 05D19

Arriving at Hurghada | The Caves Beach Resort

Egypt Travel Blog: 10 DAYS Egypt Explorer - Felucca Cruise & Red Sea

After the stopover at the service station, our bus started moving again. We had daylight for another hour. Our bus was cutting through the desert on a narrow road and I enjoyed the unique landscapes. However, soon enough it was all dark and I couldn’t see anything out the window.

The remaining bus ride felt too long and I got impatient and began looking for lights in the distance. I felt like it was a never-ending trip.

Finally, I saw a shimmering light far away. Most people were sleeping on the bus, so I was one of the few to notice. Although it was still another hour to reach Hurghada, I started feeling a lot better at seeing our destination in the distance.

As we were getting closer, I noticed how the outskirts of Hurghada looked very different than other Egyptian cities. It quickly became apparent that it was a resort town by the sea and everything was neat and clean. The closer we got to the downtown area, I saw more and more of tourists, shopping malls and restaurants.  There definitely were vacation vibes in the air.

We passed the downtown area and after another 15-minute drive we reached a resort. This was not our resort, but a lot of people were there. I saw many other resorts along the sea. There were many townhouses and condos near the beach area as well.

Once we arrived, we were told to leave our luggage near the bus and someone would take it to our room. A funny thing happened here; the employees actually declined to carry my luggage to my room because they said it was too light.

We headed to the reception area. I will talk about the resort in the next post.

Bus to Red Sea Resort Town Hurghada | Egypt Travel Blog: Day 6 (Part 50) 05D19

5-Hour Bus Ride to Hurghada | Arriving at the Caves Beach Resort

Egypt Travel Blog: 10 DAYS Egypt Explorer - Felucca Cruise & Red Sea

After boarding the bus, I noticed lots of new faces. Unlike before, this time the bus was full. It looked like 2 other tour groups had boarded with us.

At first, we passed rural landscapes with some green crops and trees. Then a little later the scenes all changed to desert and mountains. I saw big towers carrying electricity in the middle of the desert.

It felt like we were going to another world on this road cutting through the middle of the desert. I saw that most people on the bus had fallen asleep, but I didn’t want to miss this unique road trip experience.

We had a stopover at a service station in the middle of nowhere. I saw some tribal women wearing black hijabs covering their whole body except their eyes standing with their donkeys. The donkeys were dressed up and there were baby goats sitting on top of the donkeys.

Our tour guide told us they came from faraway villages to make some money by giving tourists photo opportunities with them and their goats and donkeys. I was shocked at how far I imagined they came from just to make a little money. I appreciated their hard-working spirit.

The service station was like a complex, with stores selling a variety of items and souvenirs. I didn’t find fresh coffee or tea, so I settled for a coffee from a vending machine costing 50 LE (close to $4 CAD), which was too expensive for a terrible cup of coffee.

We had another 3 hours on the bus before reaching Hurghada.

Crossing the Nile on A Boat, Luxor | Egypt Travel Blog: Day 6 (Part 49) 05D19

Egypt Travel Blog: 10 DAYS Egypt Explorer - Felucca Cruise & Red Sea

Boat Ride on The Nile, Egypt | Bus to Red Sea Resort Town Hurghada

After finishing lunch at Africa, we started walking towards the ferry dock. We only walked a couple of blocks to reach our ferry boat. It was a hot day, but it was pleasant to walk on the street of the West Bank of Luxor.

The West Bank side looked more rural than the East Bank, but it had its charm. The ferry boat landing site was nothing fancy; there were lots of motor boats waiting for passengers to cross the Nile. We headed towards our designated boat arranged by our tour company.

The motorized boat “Hercules” had shades, but it was open on all sides. It could accommodate 15-20 people and the boat driver looked too young to be doing the job. There was Arabic rap music playing loudly, but later he turned it off when boat took off.

From where I sat, I could touch the water and put my camera low to where it was almost touching the water for different angles. There were lots of other boats crossing the Nile. A little farther away, we saw lots smoke coming out of one boat. It looked like the boat was on fire, but I didn’t see people panicking on the boat, which made me think it must have been something else besides fire.

The short boat ride was pleasant. Once we reached the East Bank, we had to walk a little bit up to reach the bus. This side looked much more developed than the West Bank. I didn’t see any planned waterfront area with paved roads, coffee shops, and shopping complexes on the West Side, but the East Side waterfront area looked modern and nice.

The East Bank is where it’s more city centric and where the fancy international hotels and restaurants are located. The West Bank is more laid back and relaxing, with smaller local places and Egyptian restaurants.  

We would board our bus shortly.

Africa Restaurant in Luxor, Egypt | Exploring the Most Distinctive Temple in Egypt

Lunch in Africa, Luxor | Egypt Travel Blog: Day 6 (Part 48) 05D19

Egypt Travel Blog: 10 DAYS Egypt Explorer - Felucca Cruise & Red Sea

Our tour guide brought us to a restaurant called Africa for lunch. It looked like a big restaurant and we had to go two floors up, taking the stairs. I noticed artwork on the walls and on the ceiling near the stairs. I couldn’t figure out what was on the ceiling on the main floor near the entrance door, but it looked like a replica of mashed bread or possibly rough mountains.

The 3rd floor was huge. There were many people eating and waiters running around to serve them. There were long rows of tables and chairs to allow tour groups to sit together. It looked like tourists were the main customers, brought over by tour guides to this hotel no doubt.

The 3rd floor was an open-air situation with a roof made of tin and canvas. The best part was the view of the Nile and the street down below. It didn’t feel hot due to the wind blowing through.

We ordered a mixture of items and shared everything. There was soup in clay bowls, bread, vegetables, kebab, grilled chicken, fried eggplant, regular rice, fried rice, and much more. Whatever I tried tasted too delicious and I wanted to eat more and more. I also tried Egyptian-bottled Coke and that tasted good too.

They refilled items without extra charges. It was possibly one of my best Egyptian food experiences. The service was excellent as well.

One of my tour mates found a hidden menu somehow and we found out that they had two separate menus: one for tourists and one for locals. Yes, the tourist menu had much higher prices than the local. It was understandable that they wanted more money off tourists and they possibly pay our tour company a commission for bringing us here, but some of our tour mates got mad upon finding these overpriced menus for us. Still, I found it cheaper than other Egyptian restaurants we had tried.

From here we would walk to the dock to take a boat across the Nile and head towards Hurghada - a beach resort town along Egypt’s Red Sea coast.