16-Day Egypt and Kenya Tour — Cairo, Nile Cruise & Masai Mara Safari

After breakfast, your Egyptologist guide picks you up for a full day in Cairo.

First stop is the Giza Plateau. The three pyramids — Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure — have been standing here for over 4,500 years, and nothing quite prepares you for the scale of them up close. The Great Sphinx sits at the eastern end of the complex, carved from a single limestone outcrop. Your guide will cover the history of each structure without rushing you through.

From Giza you head to Tahrir Square and the Egyptian Museum. Over 120,000 objects across two floors, including the complete burial collection of Tutankhamun — the gold mask, the inner coffins, the jewelry. Allow at least two hours inside.

Lunch at a local restaurant, then the afternoon is spent in Coptic Cairo. This is one of the oldest Christian settlements in the world. The Hanging Church is built over the towers of the Roman Fortress of Babylon. Saint Sergius Church marks the spot where the Holy Family is said to have sheltered during their flight into Egypt. The Ben Ezra Synagogue, converted from a church in the 9th century, stands a short walk away.

The day ends at Khan El Khalili, Cairo's main bazaar. Spices, textiles, papyrus, silver — it's worth an hour at minimum even if you don't buy anything.

Overnight in Cairo. Meals: Breakfast included.

After breakfast, you check out of your Cairo hotel and transfer to Cairo International Airport for the short domestic flight to Luxor.

Your Cairo Top Tours representative meets you on arrival and takes you straight to the cruise. After lunch on board, the afternoon is spent on Luxor's East Bank.

First is Karnak Temple — the largest religious complex ever built. Construction started around 2000 BC and continued for over 1,300 years under successive pharaohs, each adding their own halls, obelisks, and sanctuaries. The Hypostyle Hall alone, with its 134 towering columns, takes a few minutes just to take in properly.

From Karnak you continue to Luxor Temple, a smaller but well-preserved complex connected to Karnak by the Avenue of Sphinxes. The temple was built primarily under Amenhotep III and added to by Ramses II, whose colossal statues still flank the entrance.

You return to the cruise for dinner as it begins the sail south toward Edfu.

Overnight aboard the Nile cruise. Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner included.

An early start. The West Bank is best in the morning before the heat builds.

First stop is the Colossi of Memnon — two massive seated statues of Amenhotep III that have marked the entrance to his mortuary temple for over 3,000 years. A brief stop, but worth it.

Then the Valley of the Kings. This is where the pharaohs of the New Kingdom were buried, cut deep into the limestone cliffs away from the Nile. Your entrance covers three tombs. The scale of the painted corridors inside — the detail still visible after 3,000 years — is something that photographs don't fully capture. Tutankhamun's tomb is available at an extra cost if you want to see it.

From the Valley you drive to Deir el-Bahari and the mortuary temple of Queen Hatshepsut. The building is unusual — three colonnaded terraces cut directly into the cliff face. Hatshepsut ruled Egypt for roughly 20 years and built more monuments than almost any pharaoh before her.

Lunch is served back on board as the cruise sails toward Edfu. The afternoon is on deck. Dinner is followed by music and a belly dancing show.

If you want to add a hot air balloon over Luxor, this is the morning it happens — arranged in advance, before the West Bank tour.

Overnight aboard the Nile cruise. Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner included.

Morning brings the cruise to Edfu. The Temple of Horus here is the best-preserved ancient temple in Egypt — construction finished around 57 BC and the building has barely changed since. The falcon statues at the entrance are among the most photographed in the country. Your guide will take you through the inner sanctuary where the original shrine still stands.

Back on board for lunch as the cruise continues south to Kom Ombo.

Kom Ombo is an unusual temple — symmetrically divided down the middle and dedicated to two gods simultaneously. The left side belongs to Sobek, the crocodile god. The right side to Haroeris, a form of Horus. The medical instruments carved into one of the inner walls are some of the earliest known depictions of surgical tools. The attached museum houses a collection of mummified crocodiles recovered from the site.

By late afternoon the cruise reaches Aswan. Dinner on board is followed by a Nubian show — music and dance performed by a local group. It's a good introduction to the culture you'll see more of in the city tomorrow.

Overnight aboard the Nile cruise. Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner included.

Aswan is a different city from Cairo and Luxor. Slower, quieter, and sitting right on the edge of Nubia. The light here in the morning is worth waking up early for.

First stop is the High Dam. Built between 1960 and 1970 with Soviet assistance, it controls the Nile's annual flood and generates a significant share of Egypt's electricity. The engineering scale is easier to appreciate in person than in any description of it.

From the dam you continue to the Unfinished Obelisk, still lying in the granite quarry where it was abandoned — likely during the reign of Hatshepsut — after a crack appeared in the stone. Had it been completed, it would have been the largest obelisk in ancient Egypt. What makes it worth visiting is that it shows exactly how obelisks were carved, still attached to the bedrock on three sides.

The afternoon is free. Aswan's market street along the corniche is one of the more relaxed shopping experiences in Egypt. A felucca ride around Elephantine Island is a good option if you want to be on the water before leaving the Nile tomorrow.

Dinner on board the cruise.

Overnight aboard the Nile cruise. Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner included.

An early start if you've opted for Abu Simbel. The two temples of Ramses II sit 280 km south of Aswan, either a 3-hour drive through the desert or a 45-minute flight. The main temple was carved directly into the cliff face around 1264 BC. The four colossal seated statues of Ramses at the entrance are 20 meters tall. Inside, the alignment is precise enough that twice a year — on February 22 and October 22 — sunlight reaches the innermost sanctuary and illuminates the statues of the gods. The smaller temple next to it was built for his wife Nefertari, one of the few times in ancient Egypt a pharaoh built a major temple for his queen. Both temples were relocated in the 1960s to save them from the rising waters of Lake Nasser — the engineering operation took four years and moved over 10,000 stone blocks.

Back in Aswan, you check out of the cruise after breakfast and transfer to Aswan Airport for the domestic flight to Cairo.

Your Cairo Top Tours representative meets you on arrival and transfers you to your hotel in Giza. The evening is free — last night in Cairo before the trip moves to a different continent tomorrow.

Overnight in Cairo. Meals: Breakfast included.

After an early breakfast, you depart Nairobi and drive south toward Amboseli National Park. The road passes through open Kenyan countryside and traditional Maasai homesteads before the landscape flattens out into the wide plains surrounding the park.

Arrive at Amboseli Sopa Lodge in time for lunch. The lodge sits inside the park with direct views toward Kilimanjaro across the Tanzanian border. On a clear afternoon the mountain is visible from the grounds — snow-capped at the summit, rising above the savannah with nothing blocking the view.

The afternoon game drive covers Amboseli's open grasslands and swampy springs. The park is known for its elephant herds — some of the largest and most studied in Africa. Lions, cheetahs, buffaloes, zebras, and wildebeests are all present. The combination of flat terrain and good visibility makes for straightforward wildlife spotting even on a first game drive.

Back to the lodge before sunset for dinner.

Overnight at Amboseli Sopa Lodge. Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner included. Approximate drive: 240 km / 4 to 5 hours.

Two game drives today — morning and afternoon — or a full day out with a packed lunch if you'd rather stay in the park through midday. Most people choose the full day.

Morning drives in Amboseli start at 6:30 AM. The light is low, the animals are active, and Kilimanjaro tends to be clearest before the clouds build around the summit later in the day. Elephants move in large family groups across the swamps in the early hours — this is the park where researchers have been tracking individual elephants for decades, and the herds here are noticeably relaxed around vehicles.

The midday hours are slower. Predators rest, most of the plains game retreats to shade. A good time for lunch and a break back at the lodge if you've opted for the split-day format.

The afternoon drive picks up again as the temperature drops. Cheetahs are more active in the late afternoon in Amboseli than in most other Kenyan parks. Lions are usually found near the swamps. The light at sunset over the plains, with Kilimanjaro catching the last of it behind you, is the kind of thing people come back from and struggle to describe accurately.

Optional activities today include a Maasai village visit and guided nature walks, both available at extra cost.

Overnight at Amboseli Sopa Lodge. Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner included.

After breakfast, you check out of Amboseli and begin the drive north back toward Nairobi, then continue into the Great Rift Valley.

The route takes you through some of Kenya's most varied scenery — the flat Amboseli plains give way to highland terrain, tea and coffee plantations, and eventually the dramatic escarpment dropping down into the Rift Valley. It's a long day in the vehicle but the landscape earns the drive.

You arrive at Sentrim Elementaita Lodge in time for lunch. The lodge sits on the edge of Lake Elementaita, a shallow soda lake in the Rift Valley floor. Flamingos feed along the shoreline when conditions are right. The surrounding hills are quiet and the pace here is noticeably different from the safari parks — more open, less structured.

The afternoon is free. The lodge has a pool and the lake is within easy walking distance. There are no game drives at Elementaita itself. Tomorrow is a full day out at Lake Nakuru, so today is a recovery day between two intensive stretches of the itinerary.

Dinner at the lodge.

Overnight at Sentrim Elementaita Lodge. Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner included. Approximate drive: 360 km / 6 to 7 hours.

A full day out. After breakfast you depart Sentrim Elementaita Lodge with packed lunch boxes and drive the short distance to Lake Nakuru National Park — about 40 km, roughly an hour each way.

Lake Nakuru is one of Kenya's leading rhino sanctuaries. Both black and white rhinos are present in the park, and sightings are more reliable here than in most other parks in East Africa. Rothschild giraffes — one of the rarest giraffe subspecies in the world — were reintroduced here and the population has grown steadily. Tree-climbing lions are occasionally spotted in the yellow fever acacia woodland on the western side of the lake, a behaviour more commonly associated with Uganda but documented here too.

The lake itself draws large flocks of flamingos when water levels and algae conditions are right. Numbers vary by season but on a good day the shoreline turns pink from a distance.

Lunch is served picnic-style inside the park. The afternoon continues with game drives across the park's mix of woodland, grassland, and lakeshore before returning to Sentrim Elementaita Lodge in the evening.

Dinner at the lodge.

Overnight at Sentrim Elementaita Lodge. Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner included. Approximate drive to park: 40 km / 1 hour each way.

After breakfast, you check out of Sentrim Elementaita Lodge and drive west toward the Masai Mara via Narok town. The road descends from the Rift Valley escarpment and the landscape opens up into the broad savannah that marks the beginning of the greater Serengeti ecosystem.

Arrive at Mara Sopa Lodge in time for lunch. The lodge sits on the slopes of the Oloolaimutia Hills, surrounded by natural bush vegetation and overlooking the reserve. It is one of the better-positioned lodges in the Mara — close enough to the main game areas to be in the park within minutes of leaving the grounds.

The afternoon game drive is your first look at the Masai Mara. The reserve covers 1,500 square kilometers of open grassland, riverine forest, and rolling hills. Lions, leopards, cheetahs, elephants, buffaloes, giraffes, zebras, and plains game are all present year-round. If your visit falls between July and October, the Great Migration is running — hundreds of thousands of wildebeest and zebra crossing from Tanzania into Kenya, with river crossings at the Mara River that are among the most dramatic wildlife events on the continent.

Back to the lodge before sunset for dinner.

Overnight at Mara Sopa Lodge. Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner included. Approximate drive: 280 km / 5 to 6 hours.

The Mara rewards full days. Two game drives, or out at 6:30 AM with a packed lunch and back before sunset — most people opt for the latter and don't regret it.

The morning drive covers the open plains while predators are still active. Lions are often found near kills in the early hours. Cheetahs hunt through the mid-morning before the heat slows everything down. Leopards are harder — they tend to stay in the riverine forest along the Mara and Talek rivers — but patient guides know where to look.

If the Migration is running, the Mara River crossings happen unpredictably. The herds gather on the bank, hesitate, then commit. Crocodiles wait in the water. It can take an hour of waiting for a crossing to begin, and it can be over in minutes. There is no guaranteed timing, which is part of what makes it worth staying out all day.

The afternoon drive shifts focus depending on what the morning produced. Elephant herds move through the woodlands in the late afternoon. Hippos are active along the river banks as the light drops. The Mara at golden hour, with the grass catching the low sun and the hills in the background, is a reasonable argument for extending the trip.

Optional activities today include a hot air balloon safari with a champagne bush breakfast, a Maasai cultural village visit, and a sundowner experience — all available at extra cost and arranged through Cairo Top Tours.

Overnight at Mara Sopa Lodge. Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner included.

After breakfast, check out and transfer to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport for your outbound international flight.

End of Cairo Top Tours services. Meals: Breakfast included.