Felt safe in Egypt, Jordan

My wife, Nancy, and I took the “Egypt & the Nile Tour with Jordan Extension,” Jan.12-29, 2016, with Go Ahead Tours (Cambridge, MA; 800/597-0350, www.goaheadtours.com). The cost for each of us was $4,500, which included airfare from Kansas City to Cairo via Zürich, with the return by way of Amman, Jordan.
There were 24 people in our group during the Egyptian part of our tour, and 10 took part in the Jordan extension.
Our Egyptian tour director, Amr, an Egyptologist, not only knew about the ancient sites in Egypt, he shared his personal involvement in current events.
But the real reason I’m writing is to let people in the United States know how safe we were on this tour.
We had an armed guard with us on every bus. In the cities, we had police or military escorts. Hotels had barriers and armed protectors. All of the famous sites were very well protected. Never did we ever feel under threat, even when there was an apartment bombing in Giza. (We were in Aswan at the time.)
The sites in Giza were almost vacant while we were there, and we had a great time looking around. We even went inside and climbed three-fourths of the way up the Great Pyramid!
January was a good time to be there, as it wasn’t hot. At times, we were even cold!
JIM SCHOTTEL
Basehor, KS