Egypt is the oldest tourist destination on earth. Ancient Greeks
and Romans started the trend, coming to goggle at the cyclopean
scale of the Pyramids and the Colossi of Thebes. During colonial
times, Napoleon and the British looted Egypt’s treasures to fill
their national museums, sparking off a trickle of Grand Tourists
that eventually became a flood of travellers, taken on Nile
cruises and Egyptological lectures by the enterprising Thomas
Cook. Today, the most popular places to visit are not only the
monuments of the Nile Valley and the souks, mosques and
madrassas of Islamic Cairo, but also fantastic coral reefs and
tropical fish, dunes, ancient fortresses, monasteries and
prehistoric rock art. The land itself is a freak of nature, its
lifeblood the River Nile. From the Sudanese border to the shores
of the Mediterranean, the Nile Valley and its Delta are flanked
by arid wastes, the latter as empty as the former are teeming
with people. This stark duality between fertility and desolation
is fundamental to