Who better to ask for a personally guided tour of the greatest wonders of Egypt than the world’s foremost Egyptologist, Dr Zahi Hawass? In his position as the Secretary-General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, a post he has held since 2002, Hawass has been a tireless warrior in the fight to regain Egypt’s lost and stolen treasures while preserving those endangered by the environment and mass tourism.

Last month, Hawass took et on an exclusive tour of what he considered the nation’s must-see sites.

HAWASS: There is so much in Egypt the average tourist doesn’t know about. Tourists, they come to Egypt and they just take the regular tours. That, in my opinion, is not really Egypt. Every site in Egypt has some magic. I always advise people not to come for just a week because this is not enough. It takes at least two weeks as there are many things to see in Egypt and visitors have to get away from these classic tours that repeat everything.

There are a few places though — Luxor, Giza and the Egyptian Museum — that if you can’t go to, then, there’s no point in coming. Make week one the classic tour of Egypt and week two a tour of the little-visited sights most people don’t know about.

Although a noted scientific archaeologist, it was only in 1987, when Hawass became director general of the Giza Pyramids, that his star began to shine as a public figure outside academic circles.

The Sphinx had suffered immeasurable harm, once even being dynamited by a treasure hunter searching for what he thought was a hidden tomb. Hawass launched an ambitious series of restoration and preservation projects and enshrined policies that would ensure future generations have these and other relics at the site to enjoy. Hawass himself has made a number of discoveries surrounding the site, most incredibly the Pyramid Workers’ Village, which has literally rewritten history. The Pyramids and Great Sphinx of Giza are the first stop on Hawass’ tour.

HAWASS: The first things that people need to see in Egypt are the Pyramids, because they are magic, especially the great pyramid of Khufu: How it was built, who built it and all the secrets it hides. And those secret doors we found inside the Pyramids? This just may be the year when we will start looking into them.

Next is the Sphinx. Just today we started the restoration of the chest area. We finished one restoration of the Sphinx 10 years ago, but the chest was previously restored with mortar, lime and sand, and this wasn’t good. The wind affected the area badly, and the Sphinx has suffered deterioration because of the older restorations. It also lost its shoulder in 1988. When I came to see it, I felt that if it were a human being this structure would have been crying because of the bad restorations. It took us 10 years to restore and when we finished, I stood in front of it and it was smiling. It is true! I truly felt that!

Aside from the Pyramids and the Sphinx, there are many beautiful places in Egypt that people don’t know as much about. If you are interested in archeological spots, there is Abrawash, just a few kilometers from the Pyramids. It has the pyramid of the son of Khufu, Jet Uf Ra, and is unique because it is an adventure in itself. You enter the pyramid through a pit and it is a very impressive sight, yet nobody knows anything about it. You do not even need to take a guide for the three-hour excursion, just a guidebook. Beside it was discovered another subsidiary pyramid, which is also fascinating.

Courtesy of Zahi Hawass Checking out Luxor’s latest treasure trove

The Bahariyya Oasis area boasts some 400 hot springs and has for centuries been an essential stop on the long and thirsty trek across the Sahara desert. For most of its modern existence, it has been a quiet, perhaps even sleepy, area with very little tourism. That was forever changed in 1999. That year, an antiquities guard was riding a donkey across an open area of sand when the donkey’s leg caught a hole in the ground and threw his rider. The guard dusted himself off and looked in the hole and realized that his donkey had literally stumbled across something fantastic.

Hawass was called in to inspect the find and immediately realized its importance. For the next three years, he excavated the area under great secrecy to keep the site free of plunder. When the discovery was finally announced to the public, Hawass was hailed as the discoverer of one of the greatest archeological finds in memory: A Greco-Roman burial cache that measured a full six square kilometers with thousands of gold-encrusted mummies and other treasures that are, to this day, still being cataloged.

Bahariyya is stop number two in a tour of Hawass’ Egypt.

HAWASS: I really believe that only the people who can appreciate it should go. It is an oasis and is the paradise of Egypt. I call it the ‘lost paradise’ and I made a big mistake with it: When I found the Valley of the Golden Mummies in this oasis, there were only a few tourists that came to the site, and now there are thousands arriving.

In March of 1999, I took a team of archeologists, architects, conservators and engineers and conducted the biggest excavation ever done in Egypt. We found many, many beautiful mummies from the Greek and Roman period with other artifacts such as pottery in the shape of gods, jewelry and coins. I ruined the site. But you learn from your mistakes: Look at the mass tourism in the Valley of the Kings — 5,000 tourists a day!

I have tried to make peace between the tourists and the preservation of the monuments through site management. I close tombs and then open tombs. I opened a visitors’ center to teach people what is happening and I am lighting the Valley of the Kings so that people can visit by reservation in the morning, the afternoon and the evening. I did the same thing at the Pyramids 10 years ago. I close one pyramid a year for restoration and I open two other tombs, and it is the only real way to accommodate the traffic.

We put up a conservation map inside and trained the personnel on adapting the site for tourists. Outside, we put shops, a cafeteria, clean bathrooms and parking. This is what we did for the unfinished obelisk, and the tourists love it. Edfu, Kom Ombo and others will all get the same. This is the only way to preserve the archeological sites because with mass tourism, they just don’t behave. People who come to Egypt have paid $500 and they come for 14 days with their bags and backpacks and they enter the tombs and scratch things. The guards, they can’t stop them and it is a disaster. Now I am changing this. We are getting more security and we are putting gates up.

The tourism people have to understand that only people who really can spend money should come here and visit. If you go to Sardinia, a hotel is $3,000 a night. You have got to make Egypt expensive so that the people that can come are the people that will value the experience. Tourists come and they are happy when they see that I am closing Nefertari’s tomb because if you open Nefertari to the public, it will be damaged. If you need to see it, pay LE 20,000! One person or 20, it doesn’t matter. That is a way to let the tourists really see what they want but at the same time help us preserve the monuments, and we need a lot of money to do that.

Even so, I still believe that people who love the desert and people who really need an unforgettable time should visit Bahariyya. It is about three-and-a-half hours from Cairo and it has very nice hotels. Very primitive but beautiful hotels.

The Western Desert stretches from the Nile to the Libyan border and from the shores of the Mediterranean to Sudan. Today, it is one of the most arid regions on earth, with the occasion of rain so rare that an entire generation could miss rainfall completely.

Ancient artesian wells have given rise to a handful of oasis: Bahariyya, Farafra, Dakhla, Kharga and Siwa. Bedouin tribes have moved their families and herds between these areas for millennia. A host of archeological sites can be found from the depths of prehistory on through to the Pharaonic period and into the later Christian and Islamic settlements of the area.

Greek mythology recounts that Medusa and Hercules each spent time in the Western Desert, and Cleopatra romanced both Julius Caesar and Marc Antony here. As Hawass often says, “There is still 70 percent of Egypt left to be uncovered,” and the Western Desert likely contains much of that, as the mummy cache of Bahariyya has proven.

For its wealth of adventures, the Western Desert is stop number three on Hawass’ trek across Egypt.

HAWASS: For a truly thrilling adventure, start at Bahariyya Oasis and end at Gilf Kebir. It takes 14 nights and it is something just incredible. You take a four-wheel drive and a tent and a guide with you. If you go on this adventure to the Western Desert, you will never forget it. Visit the Black Desert and then go on to the White Desert for dinner. The White Desert is incredible, with gigantic wind-carved stone structures. Some say that these structures were the inspiration for the Sphinx and the Pyramids, but I disagree because the monuments at Giza were religious monuments.

Still this Western Desert trip and Gilf Kebir is the best adventure you could ever have.

Upper Egypt has one of the most densely packed collections of temples and monuments in all of Egypt. The temples of Luxor, Karnak and Hatshepsut are nearly as famous and as visited as the Sphinx and Pyramids of Giza — and equally as beautiful — but there is much more for the adventurous traveler willing to venture off the traditional tourist paths.

Upper Egypt is the fourth stop on Dr Hawass’ list of must-see sights in Egypt.

HAWASS: In Aswan, everyone goes to Philae, but Philae has become very touristic. There is another island that I like and no one really knows anything about it. It’s called Kalabsha and the best time to go is before sunset. Stay until daylight so that you can see the temple of Kalabsha and the 19th-century temples at both sunset and sunrise. It is a sight that you will never forget.

If you are in Aswan, close to the other side of Cataracts you will find another beautiful island, Elephantine, that people again often overlook. It has a site museum and it is simply wonderful. Then, if you drive just half an hour more to Gabal El-Silsila, you will find the quarries where the Ancient Egyptians used to make statues, something that people will love to see. The cruise from Abu Simbel to the High Dam is really something unique and much better than the cruise from Aswan to Luxor.

Akhmin, Abydos, Dendera, Malawi, Ashmonien and Amara [along the way] are all incredible sites with incredible history.

The Valley of the Kings near Luxor has been the center of the Egyptological universe in popular culture since Howard Carter uncovered the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922. Though many important discoveries have been made in the intervening years, nothing has created as much excitement as the recent discovery of a shaft tomb containing seven sarcophagi only meters away from the tomb of Tutenkhamun.

The new find in the valley has sparked more tourism to the area and spawned renewed international interest in Egyptology. Hawass happily announced the discovery two months ago, but warned that though interesting and exciting, it may not be all that significant. He was proven correct — it appears to have been a storage chamber for empty sarcophagi — but stresses that people still have ample reason to continue coming to the Valley of the Kings.

HAWASS: You can’t come to Egypt without seeing the mummy and the tomb of King Tut or the tomb of Nefertari. When I go to the Valley of the Kings, my favorite thing to do is to climb to the top of the Valley and really take in the magic of the Pharaohs.

I have to tell you about this new tomb. You know they found coffin number six and they found another smaller coffin for a child, so that is seven altogether. They have opened five of these coffins and they have also opened five sealed jars. Inside the coffins they found no mummies. They found pottery, linen and other materials in the coffins, and in the jars they found natrom. It seems now that this was a cache or a store room for embalming. They have not yet opened the biggest coffin or the smallest one. They left those for later. In one of the jars, they found hieroglyphic inscriptions that read: ‘To see what is sacred.’

So, what is sacred? Embalming material! They have also found some hieroglyphic inscriptions that have not yet been translated. They found another 28 jars of pottery and about three more made of alabaster and the five that they have opened had natrom and other mummification materials. Maybe this was designed as a tomb but ended up being used as storage for mummification materials, a warehouse.

Still, people are fascinated by it. Every documentary program in the world wanted to make a film about it. I told them that it was not a big deal, but it does have a story; you know, it is in the Valley of the Kings and near the tomb of King Tut.

Nova, National Geographic, Discovery and all of them bid for the right to show it and I gave it to National Geographic because they offered us the [most] and like I said earlier, we need a lot of money to preserve all of these wonderful sights in Egypt.

Antiquity museums all around the world hold special exhibits featuring small collections of Ancient Egyptian artifacts and charge exorbitant prices for the privilege of admission, but for a relative pittance the Egyptian Museum offers full days, even weeks, of glorious exploration.

An entire floor is dedicated to the find at King Tut’s tomb alone. Multi-volume tomes have been issued that still come up short in the attempt to showcase all that the Egyptian Museum has to offer, and that is why it is the last stop on Hawass’ journey through Egypt.

HAWASS: No one should leave Egypt without having explored the Egyptian Museum. The golden hoard, King Tut’s burial chamber contents, the curse of the Pharaohs and the tale of how the whole thing was found is available nowhere else.

And, finally, the mummies: You know the mummies have magic. There is too much to list, but if you miss the Egyptian Museum, you have not seen Egypt!

HAWASS: I will tell you something: I never really relax at the seashore or go to Hurghada or other resorts. I am a workaholic. I work 24 hours a day.

Today, I was out at my excavation site at 6am and at 11am I came into the office, which is why I am still wearing these work clothes. Archeology is the only thing that I do in my life. Still, I like to go to the Hilton on Fridays after I finish my work. I have a shisha, dinner, maybe go see a movie, but I never really take a vacation like normal people.

The only vacation that I really ever took was in 1999. I was exhausted from working at the Pyramids all day and I decided to take a short holiday. I wanted to leave the Pyramids, and so I decided to go to the Bahariyya Oasis. I owe that vacation for the best discovery of my life. This is why Bahariyya Oasis is the one place that I go when I need to be alone. Sometimes, I go and come back the same day. It’s become the place that gives me peace.

The other thing I sometimes do is go to Alexandria and stay at the Palestine Hotel. If I need to finish an article or finish one of my books, I go to the Palestine, but I do it rarely, perhaps once or twice a year. I couldn’t go every week like some people do. That is really my only vacation, because I work seven days a week. et

As told to David Lee Wilson