Rad Oasis

Why Cruise The Suez Canal?

1869 saw the arrival of a dramatic change to the way people circled the globe. The Suez Canal opened this year, which enabled ships to travel much more easily as they no longer had to travel around the horn of Africa to cross from Europe to Asia or back. Instead, the Mediterranean was now connected to the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, leading into the Indian Ocean.

Today, there are cheap cruises and expensive cruise holiday tours that sail up and down the waters of the Suez Canal. There are no locks in this waterway, both sides being almost equal in depth and height above sea level. There is a lake in the middle, the Great Bitter Lake, which keeps water flow steady to both sides. There are also ports of call which offer tours inland to Cairo and Luxor in Egypt, day trips that many vacationers find fulfilling.

Canal building attempts didn’t stop with Senusret II, there were many east-west attempts and only one was successful. The original attempt was to be a north-south canal; this is known as the remains of a trench were discovered in the 20th Century connecting Lake Timseh to the Ballah Lakes near Great Bitter Lake. A canal did manage to connect the Nile and the Red Sea during the reign of Darius I, but Ptolemy II later improved it and built the first known functioning sea-lock.

The original attempt at the canal can still be seen today; the remains of a trench were discovered in the 20th Century connecting Lake Timseh to the Ballah Lakes near the Great Bitter Lake. This was the only north-south attempt at a canal before the existing version. However, there were numerous east-west attempts, but only one was successful. Going back to the reign of Darius I, a canal did connect the Nile and the Red Sea, but it was later improved under Ptolemy II who built the first known functioning sea-lock.

When you visit now, you will find that most of the evidence of these ancient canals has disappeared beneath the sand, but the legends are still very much alive. When you take a cruise ship to the Suez Canal, you can see and smell the history all around you. To visit the interior of the land, Port Said and the Port of Safaga both offer day trips, and also offer amazing assortment of nightlife that might take you a few days to fully discover.

Sarah Van Rensburg is a travel lover and avid writer, focussing on a range of travel topics particularly cruise holidays.

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