Cairo to Valley of the Kings?

[Hindu1936]

On another forum I read that Egypt has restricted travel from Cairo to Luxor excluding private vehicles. They now require everyone to take a bus, boat or train. Is this true? I wonderbecause I have read here about a lot of riders who come out of Sudan via ferry with their bikes and nothing about them arranging truckage for the machines to Cairo.

[travelfor4]

We just did that route in a hired car in December with no problem. There's a lot of talk about needing to join a convoy if you go, but it's unclear if/whether that still applies to the Cairo/Luxor portion. We made that whole portion with no convoy, but got stopped and questioned a fair bit at each checkpoint (of which there are lots).

We took the road on the west bank of the Nile, which goes through lots of small and medium-sized towns. Be aware that there are speed bumps (often quite nasty ones) at the entrance and exit of each town, plus normal egyptian traffic (donkeys/trucks/cars/people/etc. all going both directions in each lane). It took us quite a bit longer than the 6 hours that we were told to expect for the drive - that appears to be the "convoy" time, and they must be really rocketing through (maybe on the east bank road, where there seem to be fewer speed bumps?). It took us closer to 10 or 11 hours, plus an additional hour or so changing a blown tire in Sohag.

South of Luxor the convoy requirement was officially still being enforced, at least as of December/January - though, again, we were able to talk our way through. Convoy times are 7am, 11am and 2pm, I think, and meet at the Luxor Museum. (Check, though, if you're trying to catch the convoy, because that changes frequently). We headed south at 8am and used the "but we're just going to Edfu" line to talk our way through without the convoy - which worked, after about 20 minutes of smiling politely and offering to "sign a paper" relieving them of liability if anything happened.

Good luck! It's a great drive, lots to see.