Tourism in Egypt normally provides jobs for about 2,2-million people — 11% of the workforce — but tourism ministry officials estimate that the industry has shrunk by up to 40% during the current season.Government ministers, hotel managers and others in the industry speak frankly of their concern. ‘At this time of the year this hotel is normally about 80% full. This year it is barely 30%,” complains the manager of the Royal Nile Tower, one of the leading hotels in Cairo, staring out over breathtaking views of the Nile delta and the sprawling city.Others tell similar stories, with the workers who depend heavily on seasonal visitors from Europe and the United States especially grave when the topic is broached.Discussing possible solutions, the consensus appears to be that the North African country must turn its gaze south, to its own continent, in search of replacements for at least some of the European and American visitors who have failed to arrive.In a conscious effort to cultivate markets that in the past might have been deemed surplus to requirements, the Egyptian Tourism Authority recently invited groups of journalists from South Africa to display what the country has to offer.The week-long tours, as it turned out, were able to show off just a sample of the incredible riches of a country that is the product of five civilisations. Seemingly everywhere, wonder, mystery and ancient voices come echoing down through the ages.A city of 18-million people, Cairo is home also to ancient mosques, Coptic churches and synagogues standing cheek by jowl in the old town. The Egyptian museum in the city boasts among its 250 000 antique pieces the fabulous treasures recovered from the tomb of King Tut Ankh Amun.’A minor king,” we were told, ‘unique only because the entire contents of his tomb were recovered.” The riches on show alone are worth a 5 000km trip to behold. Three thousand tonnes of gold, exquisitely fashioned, are laid out in a breathtaking display, each item more stunning than the one before. One could only wonder about the lost treasure looted by Europeans from the tombs of the more important pharaohs.And, of course, towering over the city, the Great Pyramid of Cheops, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, built with two million stones each weighing two tonnes. Defying logic or understanding, it casts its shadow over the smaller pyramids built by Cheops’s son Chepren and grandson Mycerinus, and the Sphinx, described as ‘the sacred symbol of the union of the strongest physical with the highest intellectual power on Earth”.A four-day cruise down the Nile, the lifeline of Africa or, as one writer put it, ‘that mysterious, gigantic serpent that winds so fabulously, so ungraspably, back through history”, was unforgettable.Luxor and Aswan were among the ports of call. The former, described as the world’s greatest outdoor museum, is quite simply a walk through history, where the Luxor and Karnak temples throw shadows on gigantic statues with the heads of gods and animals, supported by pillars carved thousands of years ago with lotus buds and papyrus. Through the hieroglyphics carved into the walls, ancient voices speak of their desire for eternal life.In Aswan a hieroglyphic image of a virgin mother and child, carved thousands of years before Christ, hints at ancient myths and legends that still survive. Carved representations of medical instruments such as stethoscopes, and evidence of brain surgery — with accounts of patients surviving for months — are equally startling.There is much, much more in Egypt than can be told here, and some reading beforehand on what is available would undoubtedly be of value to those desiring optimum value from a trip there.It is tempting to declare that all Africans should at some time embark on a pilgrimage to Egypt — if only to collide with the realisation that this continent was once, indeed, the very centre of the world.