Hello there ..
How are you ? hope that all is Ok

My name is Othman Yousha from Libya ( Great jamhiria ) .
I’m a tour operator in libya organising the desert & classical tours in my country and actually i passed tru your requirments and your question about egypt .

Eygept is good country to visit and you do have alot of option as you said and only you can make the right dicussion and injying your hoilday .

From another side i am offering to you new offer which is ( LIBYA ) .
If you are really intereasting with the history and the civilazation you will be very welcome to come overhere and i’ll really arrange for everything for you ( accomodation. transportation. visa . guiding and 4×4wd …etc ) .

You could think about this aswell and you can ask the people about liby and about what we do have infact .

The area corresponding to modern-day Libya was first colonized in the 12th century BC by the Phoenicians, who established trading posts in Tripolitania and at several other points along the North African coast.
The Carthaginians took over these Phoenician colonies in the 6th century BC and expanded them as part of the mighty Carthaginian Empire. The Greeks also settled in the area of Cyrenaica, which is mentioned by the Herodotus, the Greek historian, writing in the 5th century BC.
When the city of Carthage fell to Rome in the second century BC, the whole of the African Mediterranean coast was under Roman dominance for almost 600 years. When the Roman Empire fell into decline, however, the area was invaded first by the Vandals in AD455 and later by Byzantium in the following century. An Arab invasion of Libya in AD643 marked the end of Byzantine dominance.

Libya was then ruled by a succession of Arab dynasties, including the Umayyads, Fatimids and Almohads. A brief period of supremacy by the Normans occurred in 1146, and a longer period by the Spanish, who held sway in Libya for the first half of the 16th century. Turkish forces conquered the land in 1551, and Libya then became part of the Ottoman Empire.
At the beginning of the 18th century, the region began to break free of its Turkish rulers and enjoy greater autonomy. Its huge prosperity throughout the 18th and early 19th centuries was based almost entirely on revenue from piracy, which characterized the Barbary Coast at this time. By 1835, however, Ottoman rule was re-established in Libya.
The Italo-Turkish War, which began in 1911, resulted in Italy’s annexation of Libya, and by 1934 the country was an Italian colony. Turkey renounced its interests in Libya in 1912, but fierce resistance to the Italians continued from the Sanusi sect, a strongly nationalistic group of Sunnite Muslims. This group held out against Italian settlement in the region for almost 20 years, but were finally defeated in 1931, and its leaders sent into exile.
During the Second World War the exiled Sanusi leaders returned to Libya to fight on the side of the Allies. Both Italian and German forces were driven out of Libya by 1943, and control of Libya was shared between France and Britain.
By 1947 Italy had relinquished all claims to Libya and two years later a UN General Assembly resolution was approved, which granted Libyan independence. This became effective in 1951 and the country became known as the United Kingdom of Libya.
The Sanusi leader, Sayid Idris of Cyrenaica (1890-1963) became the nation’s first king, ruling under the title of King Idris I. A national assembly was formed, consisting of delegates from the regions of Cyrenaica, Tripolitania and Fezzan in equal numbers. A Libyan constitution was drawn up by the assembly in October 1951, and in February of the following year the first elections were held. In 1953 Libya joined the Arab League and became part of the United Nations two years later. Women’s franchise was granted in 1963, as an amendment to the constitution.
During the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, Libya did not actively participate, but gave strong support to the Arab League in opposition to Israel, giving financial aid to both Jordan and Egypt.
The oil boom of the 1960s created great prosperity for the newly-established kingdom, and a 167km pipeline was opened by the king in 1961, linking interior oil-fields with the Mediterranean. The resulting financial independence transformed Libya from a country with one of the lowest standards of living in the world to one which began to embark on substantial reforms. Employment opportunities grew and new plans were set in motion for improved housing, health care and education.

In the late 1960s anti-western feeling gradually spread from Egypt into Libya, and the country became politically unstable once more. The path of Libya’s history was radically altered in 1969 by a military coup which successfully overthrew the monarchy. Led by a group of young army officers under Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi, the country was re-established as a republic and became known as the Libyan Arab Republic.

The country welcomed Colonel Qaddafi as a strong nationalist leader. He immediately embarked on a bold series of programmes designed to establish himself as the focus of a united Arab world. Alcohol was banned from Libya, all foreign languages were vetoed in official business, banks were nationalized and all private sector economic activities were abolished. Oil resources were also nationalized, and trade embargoes were encouraged against those nations which supported Israel.

Qaddafi’s Green Book set out his ideas on Arab socialism, declaring that democracy was an unworkable system. In its place he set up people’s committees in all administrative districts, and these committees reported annually to a General People’s Congress.

Qaddafi made concerted efforts towards Arab unity, with attempts to merge Libya with a succession of countries. These included Egypt, Syria, Tunisia, Chad, Morocco and Algeria. Although a federation was formed in 1971 between Egypt, Libya and Syria, in order to strengthen their military position against Israel, this was later abandoned, and all similar attempts at unity likewise failed.

Libya under Qaddafi has maintained a permanent hostility towards Israel and a variety of conflicts with Britain, France and the US. His support of terrorist activities and provision of military training and arms to rebel groups has made him an unpopular figure in the western world. Two Libyan fighter aircraft were shot down by the US in 1981 and there were further US air attacks in 1986, in retaliation for Libya’s support of terrorist activities. As a result of these attacks, government agencies were moved from Tripoli and relocated in remote areas.

A ban on arms sales and flights to Libya was ordered by the UN in April 1992, after Qaddafi’s refusal to allow extradition of two Libyan officials suspected of terrorist involvement in the Pan Am disaster over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Coup attempts were made on Qaddafi in 1970, 1975 and 1984, but he survived them all. Foreign embargoes and sanctions served to lose him a certain amount of national popularity, but he remains as Libya’s political leader, strongly defended by his armed forces, and has no serious rivals to his position of power.

So .. after this raffly idea about my country and i am sure you will think abit about it i hope i will get something from you as soon as possible .

Othman k. yousha
Tour operator
Ghadames – Libya
E-mail / ghadamesmoon@hotmail.com
Skype / ghadamesmoon
Cell phone / +218.92.6054452

I went on the tour with TopDeck and it was amazing. Very professional, good accommodations, our tour guide was awesome and the group was so much fun. I did Essential Egypt and it was really everything you could hope to see in a week spent there. I know some people that did Egypt Explorer, which started off with our group and then continued on to a resort in Dahab for an extra 4 days.

I highly recommend TopDeck, but I would avoid anything with a Nile Cruise because people on the parallel trip to ours that spent days on a boat on the Nile were not thrilled and many got food poisoning. Hope that helps!

However you end up going, you should DEFINITELY go. Egypt is so fantastic. Hope you have a great time!