Pay No Attention

All of my Egypt/Kenya trip entries are now up!

I'm now done blogging about my recent trip to Egypt and Kenya, and included some pictures.   I've composed 17 back entries (starting on September 29), which I've numbered so you can keep track of where you left off in my saga.

I'm back from Egypt and Kenya

The internet was absurdly expensive in Africa, and I didn't have much time to access it, so I kept a paper journal instead.  I'm going to be adding back-dated updates from that journal to this blog (along with some photos) over the next couple of days.   It was one hell of an interesting trip, so the entries should be entertaining. 

 This blog puts the most recent entries first, and then the rest in reverse date order.  Reading them in that order works just fine for most purposes.  I suggest, however, that for purposes of my Egypt/Kenya travel journal, you consider reading the entries in date order instead, starting with Trip Entry 1 on September 29, describing my day in Amsterdam.  (I flew through Amsterdam, and spent a day there before going to Egypt.) 

I've numbered each entry heading (e.g., "Trip entry 1", "Trip entry 2") so that those of you who are reading them while I'm still getting them up on the blog will be able to easily keep track of where you are in the story.  Isn't that convenient?  I introduce some characters along the way, and you'll be more able to keep track of who they are and exactly what I didn't like about them if you read them in order.

To give a summary of the trip in a couple of sentences:  Kenya was amazing in just about every way, and I highly recommend you go there.  Read my shopping tips first, though!  As for Egypt -- well, the temples and pyramids are incredible, and it was all very interesting.  But essential accessories for the savvy single girl include a man, a wedding ring, and a lot of Imodium. Oh -- and a shitload of Egyptian pound notes.

Trip Entry 9: Exodus

Not a moment too soon, Tracy, Mark and I left the cruise ship early on the morning of October 6. 

Yeah, I know I haven't mentioned Mark and Tracy since I've been on the cruise ship, but they were there.  I just saw less of them and have less to say about them -- the Aussies and a few English folks I met on the boat were much more fun, and the Canadian entourage, Hani and the cruise ship people infinitely more annoying.   

One downside of not hanging out much with Mark and Tracy was that I had no idea of what was going to happen next on my itinerary.  You see, despite the fact that I had booked the trip on my own and paid a small fortune for it, and despite the fact that I'd never seen Mark or Tracy before in my life, the Voyages group decided on their own accord, without consulting or informing me, to tell Mark and only Mark what would happen next on "our" itinerary.  And here I was thinking that they were holding out on me and springing surprises, when in fact they were just changing things around and informing Mark about it.  My mistake.  It might have been nice if they'd at least told Mark that they were only communicating with him -- he thought they were telling me what was going on.

As I discovered at breakfast that morning, Mark knew (as I did not) that our flight back to Cairo had been moved back from afternoon to early morning.  But this is where my schedule diverged from Mark and Tracy's.  Their itinerary gave them a free day in Cairo, and another night at the Cairo Grand Hyatt before heading home.  My itinerary had me staying at the airport to get my flight to Nairobi. 

The problem was, my flight to Nairobi wasn't leaving until 12:30 am (as in past midnight).  My flight from Luxor to Cairo was now getting in at 10:00 am, leaving me 14 and a half hours at the completely repugnant and annoying Cairo airport, with its disgusting bathrooms and cluttered duty-free shops filled with dusty merchandise I'd never want,  before boarding my red-eye four-and-a-half-hour-long flight to Nairobi.  This plan was completely unacceptable, especially since I was not feeling well that morning.  I summoned up my inner horrible Canadian woman (see my previous trip entry) and demanded that they take me back into Cairo and the Grand Hyatt for the day, and then arrange for an airport pickup later at night.  They agreed.

By the time I got back to Cairo and the Grand Hyatt, my bowels had rebelled, I had a blazing sinus headache, and it was clear I had caught a cold or the flu.  I was exhausted and ill, and the last thing I felt like doing was traipsing around Cairo alone and getting sexually harassed, and the next last thing I felt like doing was going on an organized tour.  I blew $100 and engaged a "day use" room, which was the most intelligent thing I'd done in a while.  A good long nap would sort me out and get me in shape for Kenya.

My first stop was at the pharmacy (the hotel has a shopping mall attached to it).  While I had the necessary Imodium and other stomach preparations, I had nothing for my sinuses or my cold.  Bedraggled, feverish and exhausted, clutching my stomach, sniffling and squinting my eyes against the pain of the headache, I went to the pharmacy, where luckily the proprieter knew some English.  After a brief discussion, he gave me some sinus pills and some mild antibiotics.  (They're available over the counter in Egypt.  I don't usually believe in taking them randomly, but something told me that they'd do the trick for me.  And so they did:  by the end of the next day I felt infinitely better.)  He gave me directions on their use and I thanked him. 

"You're welcome," he said, and paused, looking me over.  "You're a very beautiful woman." 

"Thanks," I muttered glumly.  Sniffling, I shuffled back to my room for a nap.

* * * * *

I was awakened abruptly by the phone ringing.  What the hell?  Who, except Mark, Tracy and the tour company even knew I was here?  They must be changing my damn schedule again.  Maybe my flight had been changed.  I had to pick it up.   I leapt up from bed and crossed the room to answer the phone.  (Alas, the phone was not next to my bed.)

"Hello?"  I said, completely disoriented.

"Hello, Miss?"  said a male voice.

"Yes.  Who is it?  What do you want?"

"Hello Miss, it's Mohammed."

"Mohammed?"

"Yes, Mohammed.  From the airport.  I picked you up on the 30th of September."

"Um . . . yeah . . . hi." 

"You never called me.  I waited to hear from you.  I was very disappointed.  I wanted to show you around the city."

"Um . . . I've been on a cruise for the last three days.  I haven't been in Cairo,"  I said.  (WTF?, I thought.)

"Yes, I know.  I have your itinerary.  Your driver told me you were back at the Hyatt.  I will be at your hotel at 5 pm.  Can I see you then?"

"Um Mohammed, I'm trying to get some rest."

"What is your room number?"

"Mohammed, I don't want you to come to my room.  I'm very tired and I don't feel well.  Thank you for your kindness, but I think I will be sleeping.  OK?"

(pause)  "I will be at your hotel at 5 pm, if you come will come down and see me."

"I think I'll be sleeping, Mohammed.  Good-bye."

Christ, I thought.  They're absolutely relentless.  Can't they leave me alone?  I got back into bed, but sleep was shot to hell for me (alas, if you wake me thoroughly out of a sound sleep, I find it very hard to get back to sleep).   Plus I was worried about Mohammed showing up at my room despite my express request that he not do so.  I left instructions with the front desk that I was not to be disturbed under any circumstances, and then lazed around watching "Dumb and Dumber" on TV, ordered some soup and just chilled out. 

Later, at 9 pm, I pulled my crap together and headed down to the lobby for my airport pickup.  And who did I run smack into but Mohammed.  Oh crap, was he my airport pickup?  Was I going to spend the next forty-five minutes in a car with him?

No, he wasn't.  Turns out he'd come to the hotel at 5 pm and asked for my room.  They had told him I checked out.

"But I knew that wasn't true," he said.  "I had your itinerary.  I knew you were there until 9 pm."

So he waited there, in the lobby on his night off, for FOUR HOURS hoping I'd come down.  FOUR HOURS.  Hoping some bedraggled sick woman he'd barely met might possible come down to the lobby and give him the time of day.  The dude was maybe in his early 20's and not bad looking.  What the hell?

"I'd hoped we could go on a picnic," he said, gazing down into my face exactly the way my dog used to look when she wanted to go for a walk.  "Oh, and I brought you a gift."

"Oh Mohammed, you shouldn't have done . . . "

"It is only a CD of Egyptian music.  I hope you will like it." 

"Thank . . . Thank you."

"I would have liked to have given you something much more beautiful," he said, and gave me that look again.   "But I have to go.  My colleague, your driver, does not know I am here."

"And you're not supposed to  . . ."

"I must go.  He is here.  Goodbye.  I wish you a good journey."

And he was gone, leaving me feeling like absolute shit.  Yeah, it was totally unwanted attention, and yes, it was annoying.  But somewhere in that last five minutes I saw just how much it would have meant to this young man simply to sit with a halfway pretty woman -- hell, any woman at all who wasn't his sister -- and have a picnic.  It wasn't just about getting in my pants.  I suddenly saw that Mohammed probably never even got that far in his thoughts.  He just wanted to be alone with a woman, have a picnic, look at my face, give me a gift. 

Hani had mentioned at some point that Egyptians didn't date -- that they had marriages arranged for them.  Mohammed -- hell, maybe Hani too and the cruise captain and the rest -- probably had never had a date, had never sat alone with an unrelated woman, had never held hands.  Maybe they'd had sex with a prostitute (although I'd bet any money Mohammed was a virgin), but they had never had a relationship.  No wonder they didn't know how to flirt with -- or even have a normal conversation with -- a woman.  I was a creature beyond their ken.

Mohammad had almost certainly never had a loving romantic relationship with a girl.  He'd never experienced the fear and mystery and exhilaration of that first goodnight kiss, had never hesitantly settled his arm around a girl's shoulders, never reached for a girl's hand in a movie and had her fingers close around his.  

And so Mohammed spent four hours waiting for me in a hotel lobby, hoping to see me for even a few minutes before I left.   I tucked his CD into my bag and headed off to catch my plane to Nairobi. 

I still haven't listened to it.

Trip Entry 8 -- Luxor: Squashing a week's worth of sightseeing into one exhausting day

For some reason, Hani, our cruise ship tour director, decided to collapse into one day all of the sightseeing we had on our itinerary to do in two days (today and tomorrow morning).  I have no idea why.  Perhaps he realized that I wasn't going to sleep with him, and so it behooved him to get this lot  of tourists off the boat and try again in the hopes of another crazy single Western woman. At any rate, it was exhausting, and it would have been much better to leave well enough alone.  It would have been much easier to appreciate the temples and sights and to spend more time at each of them.

In the morning we went to see the Valley of the Kings, the Valley of the Queens, the Temple of Hatshepsut, and the Colossi of Memnon.  (Yes!  That's all before lunch!  Isn't that just preposterous?)   

Valleys of Kings and Queens

In the Valley of the Kings, I decided to give old Tut a miss.  He wasn't a particularly important king, he was buried in someone else's unfinished tomb, and it was an extra 100 Egyptian pounds ($20) to see his tomb, on top of the entrance fee to the Valley of the Kings.  It's not like Tut's treasures were still in there -- they're all in the Egyptian museum, except for the ones that are currently trotting around the U.S. on tour.  It's just an empty tomb, with whatever wall art the ancient Egyptians had time to slap up before burying him.  I was betting that Egypt was capitalizing on the fame of Tut, and scamming the tourists for an extra $20. 

At any rate, my time was short, and in general I prefer to take a long look at one or two things, rather than rush through as many as possible.  (Another reason I should never, ever take another organized tour.)  If I'd been on my own, I'd have taken a day to do the Valleys of the Kings and Queens alone, and then I might well have paid the extra fee and seen Tut's tomb, as well as going into more tombs than I did.

Be that as it may, I had only about forty five minutes in the Valley of the Kings, and a long line at the entrance of each tomb, so I saw only the tombs of three Ramses:  King Ramses I, III and IV, which Hani informed us were the best.  I guess I'll never know whether he's right, unless I make it back to Egypt (after I'm safely married, of course).  In any event, they were pretty cool.  (Actually, I apologize -- that's totally the wrong adjective.  They were in fact stiflingly, unbearably hot.  But they were quite beautiful and interesting.) 

 Unlike the pyramids, you didn't have to double over as you scuttled through the passages but like the pyramids, there were steep, airless, incredibly hot and humid ramps to go down to get into the tombs.   They are painted with brilliantly beautiful hieroglyphics and paintings (unlike the tunnel I entered under the pyramid, which wasn't painted at all), and the colors are surprisingly bright and fresh.  However, I must note they are clearly suffering from the humidity of having millions of sweating, panting tourists shuffling down into them.  I have to say that I think it would be better for posterity if entrance to the tombs was more limited.  These tombs may have lasted for thousands of years left alone in the desert, but I don't see them surviving for many more with the constant traffic going in and out of them.

We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the tombs (although I saw the usual assholes sneaking some), so I can't show you what I saw.  Each one was different, and each one was brilliant and amazing, every inch covered with gods and Pharaohs and hieroglyphics.  The hieroglyphics had been neatly cut into plaster rather than rock, by the way, and then painted with very fine brushes. The detail on the tiny birds and symbols that comprised them was quite stunning.  The ancient Egyptians must have had half the population at work carving, designing and painting these things (not to mention all of the temples and such).

Our alloted forty five minutes being up, it was time to scramble over to the Valley of the Queens for a few minutes of history and art appreciation there.  We saw a tomb devoted to one or another of the Queens -- I think it was Queen Titi, but I wouldn't swear to it -- and the tomb of prince Amenhikhopeshef.  The latter actually had better preserved paintings, overall, than the tombs we saw in the Valley of the Kings.  It was smaller and not as fancy as those tombs, but it had wonderful winged snake gods and such.  I really liked it.  It also had a baby's skeleton in it, supposedly of a baby that Amenhikhopeshef's mother miscarried after learning of the death of Amenhikhopeshef's father, Ramses III.   Sounds like the poor queen must have lost a baby, a son and a husband in a pretty short time span -- somehow the baby's skeleton makes her more real to me than any tomb could do.

Temple of Hatshepset

Wheee!  Only half a morning gone, and I'm already onto my third major sight of the day!  It's actually taking me longer to write about than it did to see it!  Isn't that festive? 

  The Temple of Hatshepset at Deir el-Bahri was spectacular to look at from a distance.  It's in three immense tiers carved into the hillside, which can't fail to impress. 

Hatshepset was a woman pharaoh, by the way (although all of her representations present her as a man, beard and all). She ruled for around 20 years, refusing to step down for her stepson.  When she kicked the bucket, her stepson, who apparently hated her guts, did his best to obliterate all of her images and cartouches forever.  He didn't totally succeed, but he made a good go at it. 

While many of her images have been obliterated, the other paintings and carvings of gods and people and animals and such are in good shape, with some color still remaining.

We then sped on to sight number four, the Colossi of Memnon.  These outsized statues have see better days, but their size still impresses.  Forgive me if I sound underwhelmed; we only spent three minutes there to take a quick picture, so it was hard to really get in the mood for them.  I freaking hate tours.

Time for lunch already?  Mercy, how time does fly.  After checking out the Colossi of Memnon, we went back to the ship for lunch (which took longer than any of the tours, by the way).

Karnak temple

At lunch, I managed to attach myself to a lovely Australian family from Melbourne -- a mother, her grown son, and her goddaughter, and by sticking to them all afternoon and into the evening, I managed to ward off Hani and the Cruisers.  I endeared myself to them by telling them that I'd preferred Melbourne to Sydney, and from there on I was a member of the family, and had a lot of fun with them at the Karnak and Luxor temples.   

The Karnak temple is absolutely enormous, and had a magnificent double row of ram statues leading up to it.  Fantastic.   I could have spent all day there.  We did spend a good hour or so, which was more than we spent on most of the temples.  Going past the double row of rams and past the impressive pylons, you enter a forest of enormous carved colored columns.  Wow, it was spectacular. 

Evidently, until comparatively recently, it used to be in even better condition than it is now, with much more color evident on the columns and walls.  Unfortunately, one of those brilliant Egyptologists of the late 19th century had the bright idea of "cleaning" the columns by releasing the Nile flood waters amongst them.  Instead, the waters knocked a bunch of the columns down and washed most of the color off.  It's still amazing to see, but frustrating to look at 19th century drawings of the temple and realize how much more spectacular it used to be before the Egyptologists got their grubby mitts on it. 

(Aside -- since we're on the topic of the Nile flooding:  The Nile no longer floods since they built the High Dam at Aswan.  This was a great feat of engineering, but unfortunately it's had a bad side effect.  The floods were responsible for making the land along the Nile so fertile, and now that the Nile doesn't flood, the fertility of the land is declining.  Since Egypt doesn't have much in the way of fertile land outside of a narrow strip along the Nile, that's a problem.)

The Australian family and I wandered around, marveling at all of the columns and carvings and obelisks in the Karnak complex, and took a lot of silly pictures.  We walked five times for luck around some statue, as the ancient Egyptians allegedly used to do.  And then it was off to the races again to see the Luxor temple.

Luxor temple

The Luxor temple has two statues of our old friend Ramses II and one enormous obelisk in front of its two pylons.  Evidently it used to have a matching obelisk on the other side, but the Egyptian government, in a fit of brilliance, traded it to France in 1835 for a clock that promptly stopped working.  The obelisk now stands proudly in the Place de la Concorde; I've no idea where the broken clock is.  But man, would I like to see that obelisk back where it belongs.

Passing the lonely obelisk, the Ramses twins and the pylons, and you enter a courtyard with some fantastic carved pillars, and weirdly, a Mosque that was built smack on top of some of the ruins.  Much of the temple complex was buried under sand for a long period of time (probably why it's still there), so there's a door to the Mosque that leads out into thin air a good story and a half above the ground. 

Beyond that, there's another avenue of stone pillars, which interestingly the ancient Egyptians had to carve out a bit after constructing the temple because they hadn't left quite enough room for the passage of a Solar Boat.  (It was apparently sacrilegious to adjust the wooden Solar Boat, which would have been a lot easier.)  One of the few statues of boy king Tut is here, along with his wife, although another Pharaoh, Horemheb, took Tut's name off and pasted up his own over it.  (The ancient Egyptians did that a lot.  Seems bizarre to me.  Can you imagine Bush removing Lincoln's name from his statues and monuments and putting up his own?)

In ancient times, a 2 or 3 kilometer double row of sphinxes connected the Karnak and Luxor temples.  They've found and resurrected a number of the sphinxes, and apparently there's a project to try to unearth the rest.  What they've restored so far is quite awe-inspiring -- it must have been unbelievable a couple of thousand years ago.

The sun had set by the time we left the Luxor temple, so I got some lovely moonlit shots, a couple of which I've included here.

Back on the Love Boat

After the Luxor temple, it was back to the boat for a shower and a lovely glass of Moet champagne with the Aussies.  Buoyed by the champagne and the Aussies, I decided to make my way to dinner for the first time on the cruise.  Dinner was pretty good (although let it be said that my bowels didn't return to normal until I got to Kenya).

After dinner, I went up to see the ship's belly dancing show, a move I regretted.  Not that she was terrible or anything, but I was tired, and she kept trying to drag me up to belly dance.  Absolutely the last thing I was going to do in front of Hani and the Cruisers was wiggle my hips provocatively.  But of course, the obnoxious Canadian woman got right up there and went at it.  When the belly dancing stopped and the show morphed into a makeshift disco with horrible music, I seized the moment and slithered off to bed.

The horrible Canadian woman and her entourage

Now that I'm done with the temples and have a free moment, it seems like a good time to tell you why I keep abusing this Canadian woman and her entourage.  I can forgive her husband, I can almost forgive her paid companion, but I cannot forgive her.

She was a spoiled rotten, rather attractive, obviously wealthy woman, I'd say somewhere in her late 40's.  I'd bet money she never worked a day in her life.  She was loud, she bragged constantly (about everything), she insisted on having absolutely everything done specially for her, from moving her favored deck chair to the other end of the ship (and then back again when she decided she didn't like it there after all), to special food and drinks.   Whatever was done, it wasn't good enough, and she'd complain.  A lot.  And she was never, ever, wrong.  About anything. 

My first encounter with her was on the very first day on the ship.  We were all packed into a small space.  Rumor had it that there were drinks and snacks somewhere, but being petite and stuck in the middle of the room, I couldn't see over anyone's heads to determine which direction I should head to find them.  Therefore, I was trying to discreetly peer between people and over people's heads to see which direction I should head (my other alternative was to just keep shoving my way through the room until I found them).  I dared to peek over the shoulder of the horrible Canadian woman (who was loudly holding forth on one of her houses at the time), and she gave me a filthy look and said loudly (she said everything loudly) "I think EXCUSE ME is the phrase you were groping for".  (Please mind that I never touched her or came close to touching her.  I was merely looking over her shoulder in a crowded room.  From that moment, I admit she had an uphill battle with me.

Her husband was a lawyer.  That's about all I ever found out about him, because trust me, it was all about her.  I don't feel sorry for him though -- he seemed happy with his marital bargain and that's crime enough.  He should at least have the sense to regret marrying such a harridan, although I suppose it's best for him that he remain oblivious.

Knowing in advance that any tour guide good enough for a group would not be good enough for her, the horrible Canadian woman had demanded that her husband hire her own personal Arab dude to come along for the ride.  I never did get his name (FYI, I know hers, but prefer to call her the horrible Canadian woman).  Therefore, I fear I'll have to call him the Arab dude.  Let me clarify that I am not setting him up as a stereotype of all Arab men (although I gotta say he did seem representative of a particular type of Arab man).

Now,  I wasn't crazy about Hani's romantic advances, nor was I a fan of the speed with which he moved along our tours, but I do think he knew what he was talking about (more than any of my other tour guides in Egypt).  And while I didn't much like standing around listening to his lectures when I want to be exploring temples, I really, really didn't like trying to listen to Hani's lecture while this Arab dude was giving a louder private lecture to the Canadian couple.  I'd bet money that Hani knew more (he had a history degree and was trained to give these tours), but I kept hearing (and Hani must have heard) the Arab dude telling the Canadian couple that Hani had it all wrong, and giving his own version. 

The Arab dude also would push ahead of everyone else (I think EXCUSE ME is the phrase he was groping for) in order to get to the front of every line and obtain the first and best of everything for the horrible Canadian woman, from donkey carriages to desserts to chairs.  They must have been paying him well.  The only thing I have to say in his favor is that he was less unpleasant than the horrible Canadian woman, which isn't saying much.  Oh, and he didn't hit on me, which was a plus.

Trip entry 7: Kom Ombo and the Temple of Horus

Temple of Kom Ombo

I slept until the ripe old hour of 6:30 a.m. – Good Lord, the sun was almost up! I didn’t have a wake up call, but after going to be so early, I naturally woke early. I then got to have my first leisurely breakfast of the trip before we docked at the temple of Kom Ombo.

Half of the temple of Kom Ombo was dedicated to Sobek, an "evil" god with the head of a crocodile, and the other half to Horus, a "good" god with the head of a falcon. (Hani explained that the ancient Egyptians dedicated the temple partially to an evil god because they were afraid of him.)

This temple was my favorite so far, because (1) I was awake for a change, having had a sufficient amount of sleep at last; (2) because I liked the three mummified crocodiles (which I photographed for free, although the police later got wise and started charging people 20 pounds apiece to photograph them); (3) it was beautiful, with a lot of color still intact on the carvings and pillars; and (4) a lovely Egyptian family was there and the children clamored around me. They didn’t want money; their mother and aunt (who spoke wonderful English) told me that they thought I was “so pretty” (and no, she didn’t ask me for money either – they were fairly clearly a family on their own vacation, not panhandlers).

Now, I’m pretty damn sick of sleazy leering compliments from Egyptian men, but I’ll take them happily from nice women and sweet little children. I romped with the children a bit, playing hide and seek around the pillars, and then got a couple of pictures – one with the children alone, and one with me and the family.

Sexual harassment, part 2

After visiting the temple of Kom Ombo, we then had a few hours of just sailing, which would have been just lovely if the ship’s captain and Hanni the tour guide could have left me alone. Alas, it was not to be. And no – they’re not just being friendly. I’ll give you my favorite incident, and you can judge for yourself

After lunch, Hani the tour guide, a short, plump, jovial-looking guy with glasses, came and joined me on the sundeck. I really just wanted to sit and watch the Nile scenery flow by, but there’s just no polite way to tell someone you just want to be left alone when you’re stuck on a cruise with them for three days. And he at least wouldn't hit on me. Right? Right? Ha.

In the middle of the conversation, he said suddenly, “you are very beautiful”, which I have come to regard as equivalent to a cobra rattle. I said, wearily, “thank you”, wondering if he was referring to my big sloppy shirt, or my shiny sweaty face. He said “your black hair with your white skin – very beautiful.” I said “thanks.” He said “Are you married?” I said (stupidly), “No.” He said, “Do you have a boyfriend.” Seeing where this was headed, I lied and said “Yes.” He said “Do you live with him?” I injected a fair amount of ice into my voice, and said “No” and turned my head back to the scenery.

I thought I’d stymied him, but alas, he was just beginning. He paused for a second. “Do you have hobbies?” Thinking he’d gotten the idea, I relaxed a bit and told him that I ran and biked and read etc., etc.. That seemed to confuse him – maybe Egyptian women don’t do that stuff or maybe that just wasn’t where he wanted to go with the conversation.

At any rate, he had no interest in talking about any of the hobbies I’d listed. He asked, “Are you going to the Captain’s party tonight?” I said I probably would, if I wasn’t too tired after dinner. He said “You should. It’s fun. There is dancing and it gets a little crazy sometimes.” I said nothing. He leaned towards me and said in a lower voice “Do you ever do anything crazy?” I put the ice back into my voice and said “What do you mean?” He said “Crazy. You know, things you don’t always do.” I said “Well, I go on trips to Egypt. I run marathons. I guess many people would call that crazy.” He said, “That isn’t what I mean.” I knew damn well what he meant, but before I could say anything, he leaned forward and said “Sometimes it’s good to do crazy things.” I excused myself and went back to my cabin to write it all down and shudder.

On my way back to the cabin, the captain stopped me to ask if I was going to go to the party, and leeringly asked if I was going to dress up pretty and dance with the crew.

Alas, I’m stuck with these guys for the next couple of days unless I either jump ship or stay in my cabin the entire time. I’m going to tough it out and go see the temples. However, I think I’ll be skipping the captain’s party tonight and staying in my room. It’s just not worth it.

The Temple of Horus

At 5 pm or so, the ship docked at Edfu to see the Temple of Horus. We got into individual donkey-drawn buggies in groups of four to get there. Alas, good old Hani put me in a cab with an obnoxious Canadian couple (more on them later), and the aggressive show-off of an Arabic guide they’d decided to bring along on the cruise as a paid companion. (They were apparently too good to share a guide with the rest of us. You’ll hear more about all three of them later). Then Hani hopped in our cab as well, squishing in as close to me as he could. Eewwww.

That buggy ride should have been really fun, but good Lord was it annoying. Let’s take the Hani issue aside for just a moment and get to the obnoxious Canadian couple and their pet Arab dude, shall we?

Stay with me for just a moment while I digress, won’t you? My five-year-old niece Bridget and I have a little game we play where we argue over which of us is “the bossy one”. Well, Bridget, I’m now in a position to tell you that in fact neither of us is “the bossy one.” “The bossy one” is an Arabic guy with a bushy mustache hanging out with a Canadian couple somewhere in Egypt. And sweet pea, we’re not even in the running for second – there’s a loud, spoiled exhibitionist Canadian woman out there who took that title right out from under our noses. I’ll tell you all about the nasty people in a minute, sweetness, right after I’m done telling about the buggy ride and the temple. But don’t worry, Smidget – we can still argue over which of us is “the silly one” (although I still think you’re a shoo-in for that one).

Where was I? Oh yes, the buggy ride. Well, it would have been delightful to just amble slowly through the streets and take in the sights on the way to the temple, as all of the other buggies were doing. But for some reason the Arab dude was having none of that.

He ostentatiously and ceremoniously rejected several buggies as not looking sufficiently speedy. In fact, he took so long rejecting buggies that we ended up getting the last available one by default. He then demanded that the driver whip the poor donkey mercilessly to get us past all of the village sights at a photo-defying blur of a pace, so that we could spend plenty of time at our leisure waiting for all of the other buggies at the temple site while dozens of souvenir venders hovered over us trying to sell us things. Oh, it was delightful.

For some reason, Hani did nothing to prevent the Arab dude from doing this, and it’s not like anyone listened to me at all. The Canadian woman hooted with laughter the entire time – Ha ha! Ha ha! she cried. We’re beating them! Ha ha! Ha ha! Oh, I thought I’d freaking clock her.

The temple of Horus itself was really fine, once you beat your way past all of the souvenir venders and ditched your tour guide. It was lovely at dusk, although if we’d gotten there earlier (as had originally been planned), we would have been better able to appreciate some of the more detailed carvings, many of which were still colored.

The temple still had a roof, blackened from the fires of the inevitable early Christians who had lived there for a while and who had, of course, spent their spare time in the approved godly fashion by defacing the ancient and priceless carvings and paintings of the temple that sheltered them. I sent a hearty curse their way and hoped the early Christians in question had all been rounded up by the Romans and sent to the lions.

* * * * *

The Canadian’s pet Arab dude insisted that our buggy take the same breakneck pace back to the ship, causing us to arrive much earlier than those other silly sauntering sightseeing buggies. (He also didn’t bother to wait for Hani, and I didn’t remind him.) In fact, however, our earliness and the absence of Hani ended up causing a spot of trouble for our driver.

It took me a bit to figure out exactly what the trouble was, but since I ultimately found out, I’ll just explain it to you and spare you the suspense. The buggies were booked to and paid for by our tour group (except, of course, for the inevitable baksheesh to the driver), and were not supposed to pick up any individual passengers until they were done with us. Since no other buggy, no tour group and no tour leader were anywhere in sight when we returned, the Master of the Buggies (ok, I’m sure that wasn’t his actual title, but that was clearly what his role was) assumed that our driver had broken the rules and turned gypsy cab.

A earsplitting screaming fight ensued between the driver and the Master of the Buggies. The Canadian’s pet Arab dude joined in. None of them would have listened to a word from me under any circumstances, so there was no point whatsoever in intervening and explaining, even had I been able to do so. At any rate, they all seemed to be really enjoying themselves. A certain class of Egyptian men seems to love loud arguments where everyone shouts over everyone else and waves his arms dramatically – I saw such fights several times a day in the streets.

Finally, Hani pulled up (having squished into someone else’s carriage) and put an end to the quarrel, much to the disappointment of everyone involved, except for the Canadian couple, who at long last were irritated at their pet Arab for “showing off”. We all went back to the ship.

By the way, one of the weird features of the Nile cruise ships is that there are so many of them -- the Nile is positively infested with them -- they dock side by side lengthwise out into the river, sometimes several deep. We ended up walking through three or four ships to get to ours, which was docked all the way at the end. But because we were at the end, I had a nice view of the Nile from my cabin. The cabins in the middle ships must have simply faced into each other’s rooms.

* * * * *

I ultimately decided to blow off both dinner and the captain’s party, and dined on dry bread and water in my cabin before collapsing in bed. I wasn’t hungry, I was totally wiped out, and I had diarrhea. I didn’t want any damn dinner and I was in absolutely no mood for the shipboard Romeos to tell me that I was a very beautiful woman. I know I'm freaking beautiful. Leave me the hell alone, OK? Good freaking night already.

Trip Entry 6: Abu Simbel and the Death March

Sweet Jesus, was this day a death march. I was up at 2 a.m. to get to the airport for our flight to Abu Simbel. (I skipped dinner again last night and went right to bed – I seriously needed some sleep, and going to bed at 8 pm was the only way I was going to get it. At least I’ll lose a couple of pounds.) The flight left at 4:30 a.m., stopping at Aswan before going to Abu Simbel.

Temples of Ramses II and Nefertari

We got to Abu Simbel around 7 a.m. to see the temples of Ramses II and his favorite wife, Queen Nefertari (not to be confused with Queen Nefertiti). The temples were quite spectacular, with amazing and memorable carvings inside and out.

These temples, like about 20 others, were going to be submerged by the huge artificial lake that was created by the high dam at Aswan. With the help of UNESCO, however, the Egyptians sliced the temple into pieces, created an artificial cliff-side (the original temple was carved directly out of the rock of a hillside), and put in the pieces of carving sliced off the original hillside.

It’s a wonderful and fascinating piece of engineering, and you’d never know that the temple had been moved. Nonetheless, knowing that the temple has been moved takes a certain amount of magic out of it for me. Part of the magic of going into an ancient building is the feeling that you’re standing in the same place that Ramses or Nefertari or Cleopatra once stood. But if they’ve moved it, you’re not. You’re standing where a bunch of modern engineers once stood. It’s all very clever, and the carvings are still beautiful, but to me it just isn’t the same.

As I noted, I’m shed of Nagla at last. The guide at Abu Simbel was an archaeologist, quite knowledgeable and quite exhaustingly enthusiastic. Normally I’d no doubt be peppering him with questions, but quite frankly (a) I’m exhausted, and (b) I just want to go look at the freaking goddamn temple.

The guides are not allowed in the temples themselves, so the way it works is that you stand out in the broiling sun for half an hour listening to a lecture before you’re allowed to go look at what you came to see. And the lectures are quite a bit of work for the listener – they won’t let you just hang out and listen, and they’ll reproach you if they think your attention is wandering

For some reason, the guides here in Egypt all seem to have cultivated the Socratic Method for leading a tour. I thought it was just Nagla, but no – they all do it. For those of you who didn’t go to law school, the Socratic Method means that they’ll ask questions and then abruptly call on you to provide an answer. They will not answer their own question – they’ll let you just flounder around and guess, and if you can’t guess, they’ll let a long awkward silence fall before providing an answer. And all the time you’re sweating profusely and longing in just about equal measure to either sit down in the shade with a cold drink or go look at the 3000 year old temple you came to see.

Goddamn, it’s annoying. I got passive aggressive about it after a while – I wouldn’t give them an answer even when I knew the answer (and since you tended to hear the same damn stories over and over again, after a while, you did know the answer). I’d take a grim satisfaction in the long silences, which, though painful to me, were obviously equally painful to the tour guides. It was quite bracing – I haven’t done that since 9th grade English. I had forgotten how fun it could be.

(UTTERLY UNRELATED FLASHBACK: I hated my 9th grade English teacher – the things that woman could do to Shakespeare would curl your hair. For one thing, she made all the worst readers read the major parts aloud, and wouldn’t let the good readers read at all. Instead we had to listen to the poor readers struggle through hours and hours of Julius Caesar. God, it was insufferable, I don’t know who suffered most, but I do know that most of us learned absolutely nothing. I got my revenge by refusing to answer any of her questions, even though I always knew the answers. Painful as it was, I’d let her stand there at the blackboard for hours going “Anyone? Anyone?” a la Ferris Bueller rather than help her move the class along a single minute faster. I suspect many of the other kids were doing exactly the same thing. END OF UTTERLY UNRELATED FLASHBACK.)

Where was I? Oh yes, Abu Simbel. Anyway, to listen to his half-hour long lecture, the guide had us stand under the one forlorn “tree” on the landscape, under the ludicrous pretense that it was “shade”. It was not shade, but it was filled with tiny birds that shat directly on his broad shiny forehead. I was highly entertained by this at first, until I discovered that the birds had peppered all of us to some degree and that we’d be stuck in these same clothes for the next twelve hours of that exhausting day. Luckily for me I was wearing a hat and a backpack, and had my hair up – I escaped much better than most people.

At last the bell rang – I mean, at last the lecture was over -- and I could look at the temples in peace.  I tipped the guide in lavish gratitude for my freedom and set off untethered to look at them.  They were quite amazing. The front of the Temple of Ramses II was flanked with four enormous statues, all supposedly of Ramses II at different ages.  (Since they all looked very much alike, I assume he aged well). Between his legs were statues of his favorite wife, Nefertari, and his favorite children. The inside had a room full of huge carved pillars and carved walls, and smaller carved rooms around the edges of it. It was quite amazing to imagine the Egyptians carving all this out of solid rock.

Judging by the temples, old Ramses seemed pretty full of himself, by the way – probably not surprising given that he was a living god. I’m sure he’d be pretty chagrined to know that his shriveled corpse is now on display for tourists to gawk at. Poor dude.

Anyway, the temple of Ramses was filled with scenes of Ramses’ military might, and filled with enormous carvings of him and various gods. The smaller temple of Nefertari had additional carvings of Ramses’ military exploits and feats of strength, and some of Nefertari in sheer negligee looking on in adoration.

 The Temple of Philae and the granite quarry

After the Temples of Ramses II and Nefertari, we were off on another plane for Aswan, where we boarded our cruise ship (which would be our base for the next three days) and had lunch. Honestly, at that point, we’d been going for more than 9 hours already and I just wanted to lay down in my cabin and sleep instead of going on another tour, but I didn’t want to miss the Temple of Philae (known as the “Pearl of the Nile” -- I've posted a picture at left) or the felucca (Egyptian sailboat) ride, so I sucked down some coffee and made the best of it.

The temple of Philae was beautiful enough to wake me up a bit. Before we could get to it, we had to visit a quarry and the dam of Aswan, and listen to a series of exhausting half hour long lectures from Hani (our guide for the next three days), but once we got there, it was well worth it.

To be fair, the granite quarry was actually quite interesting – even the lecture was quite interesting because Hani explained how obelisks were made, and I hadn’t heard any of it before (most of these guides seem to repeat the same stories again and again). Apparently, the Egyptians repeatedly dropped rocks of diorite (an extremely hard rock) on the granite over and over again until the shape of the obelisk was carved out. (All obelisks were carved of granite.) The quarry contained one enormous one the ancient Egyptians had started but never finished because it cracked halfway through. (Man, the ancient Egyptians must have been pretty bummed after all the work they’d put into it.)

As for the High Dam at Aswan -- frankly, I stayed on the bus and slept during the visit to the High Dam at Aswan. If it were an ancient Egyptian dam, I’d be interested. As it is, I figured I could look at my pictures of the Hoover dam and get more or less the same experience, and a nap was by far the more appealing option. (Many of the conversations I’d have over the next couple of days on the cruise ship began with “Hey, aren’t you the girl who was sleeping on the bus at the High Dam at Aswan?”)

At last we arrived via boat to the Temple of Philae (it is on an island).  Like the temples of Ramses II and Nefertari, this temple was also moved to a higher island to avoid being submerged by the building of the high dam.

The temple is remarkably preserved. Much of it would be just about perfect, except for the freaking early Christians, who deliberately defaced many of the exquisite carvings. The assholes took refuge there from the Romans, because they knew that the Romans respected the Egyptian temples and would not molest them there. In return for the welcoming refuge of the temple, the self-righteous early Christian creeps attempted to chisel away all its amazing carvings, which they deemed profane. Looking at the mutilation, I began to understand why the Romans were so keen to toss the early Christians to the lions. I’d have done the same if I’d caught them with their chisels.

Anyway. After a tiresome lecture, most of which one has already heard a million times already, one approaches the main temple building through a long double row of magnificent carved pillars, and gives Hosanna in the highest that the lecture is done at last and one is free to explore.  Both the outer and inner walls of the main buildings are carved, and what the early Christians didn’t get around to defacing is of exquisite beauty and in wonderful shape. The building surrounds a courtyard, also filled with carvings and exquisitely carved pillars. It was just lovely, as was the setting.

The felucca ride

After the temple, we took a felucca ride, which was also worth staying awake for. (A felucca is an Egyptian sail boat, by the way.) Nubians run the felucca business, apparently – they’re all staffed with Nubians -- and they sell cheap homemade wooden jewelry and toys while they’re at it. However, the stuff was clever and a bargain (it was made of sandalwood, so it also smelled nice), so I bought a necklace, bracelet and a little carved crocodile, all of which set me back less than $7. On the felucca ride, the Nubians sang for us, and had us join in. I liked them; they were rather charming,and the boat ride was fun.

At last, after sunset, we got back to the ship. I was so tired I skipped dinner (yes, again) and the Nubian dance show afterward and went right to bed at 8 pm (when dinner began). The captain actually called at 8:10 to ask why I wasn’t at dinner! And some other dude called at 8:30, after I’d drifted off, to ask if he could bring dinner to my room. Jeez Louise, just leave me alone already.

Sexual Harassment, Part I

Which reminds me -- the cruise ship personnel (all male) are rather unpleasantly attentive to me. I got about 57 “you’re very beautiful”s in the first hour on the ship, but I’m used to that by now whenever I address any remark to any Egyptian male – it appears to be pretty much an automatic kind of comment like “hello” or “how are you” or "gesundheit." 

I don’t think it has much to do with my actual beauty – I don’t see how it can, given that I’ve never looked worse.  I think it has more to do with the fact that Egyptian men by and large have no access to women that aren’t their sisters or mothers until they get married.  Thus, they're simply rabid for a little action, and they regard a single Western woman as potentially willing to give it to them. After all, if she dates men in the U.S., why wouldn't she sleep with them in Egypt?   Indeed, I believe they think that is my purpose for coming on the cruise.  And they all call me “my sweetheart,” as in "Good morning, my sweetheart".  Eww. 

Before retiring for the night, I realized I was running low on clean clothes. I saw that it was possible to have laundry done on the ship, and asked one of the crew members where I could hand in my laundry bag. I happened to have it in my hand at the time, and he said he’d take it and turn it in for me. I thanked him and handed him the bag. He leered at me and asked if my underthings were in the bag. (Thank heaven, they weren’t – I washed those out myself.) I said no, and he said “Are you sure? I’m going to check.” Eewww.

In another charming incident, the captain told me that “a pretty girl like [me] does not need to tip. She can tip just going from man to man and giving some kisses.” I really, really, really, am getting tired of this, and it is seriously starting to gross me out. 

You think I should be flattered?  Come on over and try it out for a while, and see how flattered you are.  You think I should have complained?  To whom, exactly?  They all did it.  I don't think there was a blessed person in Egypt who would have understood.  

I might not mind so much, but I feel like these guys don't regard me so much as a fellow human being with thoughts and feeling as they regard me as a commodity.  They're like little boys chasing an ice cream truck -- they don't stop to consider whether the ice cream truck reciprocates their interest.  They just see that there's ice cream around and they want some.  It doesn't seem to occur to them that my ice cream might not be for sale.

On the last day, I managed to attach myself to a lovely Australian family on the cruise (I confided my difficulty to them.)  By sticking to their side at every waking moment, I managed to defuse the worst of it.  I even made it to dinner that night!

Which reminds me – the men seem to leave the married women, and women traveling with their fathers or brothers or other family members, strictly alone. The crap I'm getting seems to be behavior they reserve for loose crazy women like me who dare to travel without an appropriate male chaperone.

Take it from me, ladies, if you ever go to Egypt, the truly essential accessories are a man and a wedding ring.  And some Imodium.  And a lot of small bills for baksheesh.  Or just say fuck it and head straight for Kenya.

Trip Entry 5: Alexandria

 Nagla and the driver picked us up for our Alexandria excursion at 6:30 a.m.  It was supposed to be 6 a.m., but Tracy whined about getting up, so Nagla agreed to move the excursion later and just hustle us along even faster than we were hustling already. 

Thus, I got a certain amount of schadenfreude-ish glee out of Tracy’s reaction to Nagla’s announcement that our pick-up the following day for our trip to Abu Simbel would be at 2:30 a.m. in the morning (although let it be said, I was deeply dismayed myself at this announcement).  Since we were going on the cruise directly from Abu Simbel, we also had to be fully packed at that hour.  It really sucked – I had only had two nights’ sleep out of four so far – but I wasn’t quite as unhappy as Tracy, so that consoled me a bit.

Anyway, if I had to do it over again, I’d probably sleep in and give Alexandria a miss.  The name of the place had a certain magical ring for me – it is, after all, where the great library and lighthouse were, and where Antony and Cleopatra met and coupled.  Etc., etc.  However, the lighthouse and the library are long gone (the modern library is quite an interesting-looking building, but I wasn’t in Egypt to see interesting-looking modern buildings – driving by was quite enough for me), and Cleopatra didn’t leave anything behind. 

There were a few not-particularly distinguished Roman ruins to be seen.  If you haven’t seen many Roman ruins, you might find them interesting, but I’ve seen many, and most of them were in far better shape.  To boot, I had the aggravation of hearing Nagla misname the theater an arena (they are not the same thing, Nagla!) and continually call the remains of the Roman baths “the bathrooms”, which for some reason irritated me very much.  (Perhaps because she’s still making nasty unprovoked comments about my head injury being nothing.)   It’s all I can do not to correct her and snipe at her, but I figure that would ruin Tracy and Mark’s time, and although they’re not my ideal traveling companions, they’re nice people, so I’m restraining my natural grouchiness.  I saved it all for you, dear reader.

The coolest thing about Alexandria were the catacombs.  They were evidently discovered quite accidentally by a donkey tumbling into them.  A third of the catacombs are still underwater.  FYI, there are no bodies there; apparently they’d all disintegrated into dust  because of the damp air.  Nagla said that they had found one “mummy” there (I don’t know whether she meant “mummy” or just meant a skeleton – she used the word “mummy” indiscriminately to describe any type of dead body.  If I'd liked her better, I might have found her lapses of English charming, but as it was, they irritated the shit out of me.

The next coolest thing about Alexandria were the children we met outside the fort.  (The fort was allegedly was built on the site where the ancient lighthouse used to stand, by the way.  Nagla said that the bricks from the lighthouse were used to build it, if you believe Nagla).  The kids in Egypt in general were great.  They were so eager to meet us and take a picture with us, they were generally pretty well-behaved (even if all the boys were carrying toy guns), and they weren’t looking for baksheesh or candy or anything.  They just wanted to say hello and meet us and hear where we were from, even though their English was minimal – they didn’t have much beyond “Hello”, “Where are you from?” and “New York” (they all were delighted that I was from New York – found it exotic beyond belief, apparently).  Yes, the Egyptian kids were just delightful.

In addition to the kids and the Roman theatre, baths, and catacombs, we saw Pompey’s pillar, and a tiny, non-descript museum in Alexandria, which sported some coins, vases and one or two mildly interesting artifacts.  Frankly, I can see similar and much more interesting artifacts home in New York.  (Which is not true, for example, of the stuff at the Cairo Egyptian museum, which you absolutely should visit if you go to Cairo.  Old Ramses II alone is worth the trip.)  The apparently much larger and more interesting “Greco-Roman” museum in Alexandria, which is where we were supposed to go, was closed for renovation – or so Nagla said. 

 

I don’t believe much of what Nagla said, frankly.  She pretty clearly wanted to get shut of us as early as she could, and so hustled us through every day at a pace that left the magic and mystery of Egypt quite in the dust.  Nagla was particularly eager to be done in Alexandria because she’d arranged to meet her family there – she abandoned us to the driver at 3 p.m. and let him take us alone for the three hour trip back to Cairo.

Tracy and Mark had informed me earlier in the day that they intended to tip Nagla 200 pounds – which is at least twice the top end of the going rate for a tip.  (Oh yes!  The tour guide gets baksheesh too – everyone, absolutely everyone, gets baksheesh.)   I flatly refused to do the same.  I tipped her (I daresay she would have clubbed my still-tender head and taken it from me if I hadn’t), but I tipped her the minimum of the range that had been suggested by my tour company (they gave me a sheet suggesting the appropriate amounts for baksheesh for all the various baksheesh seekers I’d meet).  And I begrudged her every damn cent of it.  (I'd like to note for the record and in my own defense that I lavishly overtipped my Kenya tour leader, who was absolutely fantastic and a delight to be around.)

 

Interestingly, Mark and Tracy had no problem under-tipping the Toilet Paper Women, the wait staff, and the porters, who make a whole hell of a lot less than Nagla and truly depend on their tips.  They also suggested tipping the driver less than the going rate, although I talked them into tipping the correct amount by showing them the sheets my tour group had given me.  I found myself over-tipping such people to compensate for them, which they no doubt felt they made up for by over-tipping the supremely unhelpful and unsympathetic Nagla.  I just don’t get that at all.

At any rate, perhaps my barely adequate tip and Mark and Tracy’s ludicrously generous tip account for the fact that, at parting, Nagla hoped that Tracy’s headache (she had a bit of a headache that day, although an Advil soon cleared it up) was feeling better, but said nothing whatever of my little headache.  Of course, though, I forgot -- my head didn’t really hurt, now did it. 

The freaking bitch.  But at least I’m quit of her now.

Trip entry 4: Memphis and Old Cairo (I think)

(Once again this entry is on the long side, so I'm going to break it up with subtitles.)

Memphis

Frankly, my second day in Cairo was a bit of a blur.  I’m not quite sure what I was seeing at any given time.  This was partly due to the still fairly severe pain in my head, to which Nagla was almost unbelievably and aggressively unsympathetic. (Before I had any opportunity to complain about it, she informed me authoritatively that my head no longer hurt.  I informed her that, actually, in fact it did hurt, quite a bit in fact.  And then she told me that I was making a big deal out of nothing.  God, she was a bitch)  However, it was also, I think, due to Nagla’s flat and blurred description of where we were going and what we were seeing, because Tracy and Mark seemed to have even less of an idea of what we were looking at than I did.

Then again, that may have been about Tracy and Mark.  They’re very nice people, but seem stolidly determined to go through life without any intellectual curiosity whatsoever.  As long as they walk away from this trip with photos of themselves in front of recognizably ancient-looking Egyptian ruins, I suspect they’ll be happy. 

 

I, on the other hand, want to wallow in atmosphere and history.  I want to wade hip deep in ancient Egyptian lore.  I want to walk in Cleopatra's footsteps, to thrill to Nefertiti's beauty and tremble before Ramses's power, to watch with my inner eye as ancient scribes and stone cutters create the marvels before me.  That all being the case, I fear that I may be more or less doomed to disappointment on just about any trip I don’t organize on my own and take at my own pace.

 

I just hate being rushed through places, and I hate having someone talk at me when I'm trying to look at something.  I would much prefer to read up on sites on my own, sans guide, than hear Nagla talking at me when I’m longing to explore the sites at leisure.  Instead, alas, I must stand in the hot sun listening to her drone on for 10 minutes, and then am given an entire 10 minutes to explore the ruin “in my own time.”  

 

Tracy and Mark, neither of them history buffs or Egypt enthusiasts, are contented, but I know for a fact that Nagla’s got much of the stuff on the “Greco-Roman” period wrong – I know a fair amount about that time period and have been tempted to correct her a couple of times.  I know a lot less about the ancient Egyptians, but I suspect she may have garbled some of that as well.  At any rate, after a while, I didn’t trust anything she told me.  In general, she was simply an annoyance that prevented me from looking at the fascinating and beautiful sites in peace.

 

I’ve already mentioned that Nagla avoided answering any questions about modern Egyptian culture. (Her stock generic answer to every question regarding every issue from dress to marriage to work:  “We have everything here:  modern and traditional.”)  She also gave elusive answers to historical questions – even Tracy and Mark noticed that, although it didn’t bother them.  (They assumed she just hadn’t perfectly understood my English; I assumed she didn’t know the answers.)

 

In any event, we moved at such a pace and her speeches were sufficiently confusing that I couldn’t keep track of what was built in 2700 BC and what was built in 27 BC, which I found extremely disappointing.  After a bit, I started dragging behind to look at things beyond the time deemed sufficient by Nagla, and after a bit more, I started walking away from her while she was giving her speech and just looking at the damn ruins, which were a hell of a lot more interesting (and for that matter, informative, in a mute kind of way).

 

* * * * *

 

Where was I?  Oh yes, Memphis.

I think – I think – that the first thing we saw was Memphis, the first capital of ancient Egypt (I looked that up, by the way).  There’s not much left of it except for a fairly outsized statue of my old pal Ramses II, looking much more dapper and muscular than his mummy, despite missing most of his legs.  There was also a very nice alabaster sphinx, some remnants of statues and carved hieroglyphics – all that remains of what must have been an absolutely enormous and extremely impressive temple complex.

From there we went to what I’m pretty sure, extrapolating from my written itinerary, must have been the step pyramid of King Zoser and the Necropolis of Sakkara, the city of the dead.  Mind you, I wouldn’t know any of that from what Nagla said, but we only saw one step pyramid, and since King Zoser’s is the one listed on my itinerary, and since it’s supposed to be in close proximity the Necropolis of Sakkara, it seems like a safe assumption.

 

OK, enough sarcasm for the moment (although can there ever be too much?).  I’ll describe what I saw.  I saw a tomb with fabulous and extremely detailed colored reliefs – beautiful work showing people hunting and fishing and farming and warring, and animals playing and mating, all wonderfully preserved.  Just lovely.  What’s left of the (I think) Necropolis is fabulously carved – the ceiling and parts of the walls are stone (of course), but carved to resemble wood, and there’s a wall topped with carved cobras.  It’s quite amazing.  The complex must have been absolutely huge, too, judging from what is left.

 

One big damper on the experience, besides Nagla, is that (as at the pyramids), the place was swarming with shabby, smelly berobed men with bad teeth who try to get you to take their picture, and then demand money for the privilege, or grab your hand, and force trinkets into it, and then demand payment for them.  You think I’m making this up?  Go there and see.  I’d already been warned ahead of time not to go on a camel ride – evidently they ride you out into the desert and then demand all of your money. 

 

The only thing to do is to avoid all eye contact, don’t answer demands of “Where are you from?” “What is your name?”, refuse all “free” trinkets and promptly drop any that are forced on you.  (If you keep them, they’ll cry “thief!”  No kidding.)   You feel rude as hell, but it's the only way.  Trust me on this one.

 

Oh yes, and don’t take pictures of them, even if they beg you to do so.  If they hop in your picture unbidden, demand they get out, even if you'd like to get a picture of them. And whatever you do, don’t hand them your camera to take pictures of you.  Actually, that’s true even (or especially) if it’s a policeman making the offer.  Tracy did just that and the policeman – who had a very big gun – demanded a 5 pound tip.  Apparently, they’re very poorly paid and have no problems shaking down tourists who, oh, ask them for directions to the toilet, or let them take their pictures, or God help them, allow the policemen to tell them something about the ruin.  (At one site, a policeman blocked off a portion of the temple ruins – which we’d paid to go into – and demanded we pay him an additional 20 pounds to go in.  Luckily, I’d already gone into that section (I was busy ignoring the guide and exploring on my own), but other tourists paid him without a murmur.

You may be getting the impression that I’m not crazy about a lot of stuff in Egypt.  (And I haven’t even begun describing the sexual harassment part yet! Or the diarrhea! Or the 2 a.m. wake-up call!  Just wait!)   The ruins are completely magical and amazing, and I’m not sorry I went, and really and truly, I did meet some nice people along the way.  But honestly, if I had it to do over again, I’d go with a man posing to be my husband, and a more exclusive, slower-paced tour than the one offered by this “Voyages” outfit.  (Note:  it was not at all clear from my itinerary that I’d be traveling with this Voyages outfit, nor that the pace would be so relentless.  But don’t get me started – oh wait, I already have gotten started.)

Old Cairo

Where was I?  Oh yes.  After (I’m pretty sure) Memphis, we went to old Cairo – I think.  I know for sure we saw the Ben Ezra Synagogue (the sign said so), which was very beautiful, and an ancient Christian church called “the Hanging Church” because, basically, it was built over a Roman tower and there’s not much underneath it supporting it.  (Since it’s been around for close to 1500 years, I assumed it would hold up for another 10 or 15 minutes, so I didn't worry much about it.)

An interesting point – Nagla seemed to assume we would have more interest in ancient Judeo-Christian sites than in the ancient Egyptian ones.  She’s just exactly wrong in my case.  At any rate, we spent more time looking at the ancient Christian sites (and they just weren’t as interesting or as photogenic as the Egyptian sites), and she gave us much more information about them -- I saw her reading up on them in the car so as to tell us all the Christian history related to them (I think she learned most of what she told us in the car on the way there).  

 

She was Muslim, so I don’t think it’s that she herself found the Christian stuff more interesting.  I think, as I said, that she simply assumed that we would be more interested in stuff that related to Christianity than in things related to ancient Egypt .  That probably says more about her own absorption in her own religion than it does anything else – she assumed we’d be equally absorbed in ours.

Anyway, Nagla told us that the entire Holy Family lived in a vault under the “Hanging Church

” for three months, hiding from the Romans.  Now, although a lapsed Catholic today, I was once a fairly well-informed one (I even read the entire Bible – nyah, nyah).  However, I don’t remember hearing anything about this story before, and honestly, I don’t believe it.  So there you are.

 

The Toilet Paper Girl (with a complementary lesson on tipping customs in Egypt)

What with all the sarcasm and bile and discourse about ancient ruins, I forgot to mention my favorite part of the day, which was lunch.  

 

I don’t mean the food – the food in general has not been very good so far except for the tahini and eggplant.  (If I didn’t know better, I’d swear that the same limp, cold, overcooked French fries that I didn’t eat during the first lunch were being re-served to me at every meal.  And of course I eventually got the obligatory case of diarrhea, which everyone seems to get in Egypt.)  No, the best parts of lunch were the musicians at the entrance and the Toilet Paper Girl in the bathroom.   (Yes, I’ll explain what a Toilet Paper Girl is – actually, she’s usually an older woman.  Just keep your shirt on already).

When you walked into the restaurant, there were two musicians, one playing some kind of flute, and the other a little hand held drum, with, of course, a baksheesh (tip) tray next to them.  Every time someone came into the restaurant or walked out, they played (although not otherwise).  I liked them a lot – they were quite festive.  I happily gave them a little baksheesh when I walked out, and took a picture of them in return.  (As discussed below, I’m not always so happy to give baksheesh.)

 

I went to the bathroom before the food came, and there was the inevitable Toilet Paper Woman as I walked in the door, but unlike the usual Toilet Paper Woman, she looked maybe 18 years old instead of the usual 88, and had a remarkably sweet face.

 

I’ll get to the story relating to her in just a moment, but first I have to do a brief aside for those of you who haven’t traveled in Egypt and don’t know about the inevitable Toilet Paper Woman. 

The Toilet Paper Woman is in every bathroom in Egypt outside of private homes and hotel rooms, from those in restaurants and tourist sites to those in public areas of expensive hotels to those in airports.  When I took internal flights in Egypt, I was half afraid I’d find a Toilet Paper Woman wedged into the tiny airplane toilet stall. (Thank God, there wasn't.)  Her sole function is to stand at the door with a mangy roll of toilet paper and hand you a minute square in return for a pound or so in baksheesh.  

The Toilet Paper Woman's appearance and her demeanor may vary from place to place, but her demand for baksheesh does not.  (Try walking out of a bathroom without giving her baksheesh, and trust me, she’ll let you know about it.)  For example, if you’re at a high class joint, the Toilet Paper Woman will be in a smart uniform and she may hand you a paper towel instead of toilet paper.  If there are no paper towels, sometimes she merely gestures at the air hand dryer.  However, she is always there, and regardless of what she does or doesn’t do, you are still supposed to supposed to give her baksheesh.  The only place you can escape from her is your own hotel room, where mercifully, the Egyptians have not yet had the idea of placing Toilet Paper Women, although I suspect that it is a mere matter of time.

 

The baksheesh has nothing to do with the service provided, or the lack thereof.  Frankly, I don’t want someone with grubby hands handing me a mangy square of toilet paper, which isn’t enough to begin with.  (Word to the wise, you’d best be well provided with tissues and wet wipes or Purel in Egypt, and you're well advised to carry them everywhere you go.  Soap is also an unusual commodity.)  I asked Nagla if I still needed to give baksheesh to the Toilet Paper Woman if I had my own tissues and didn’t need the toilet paper square.  Nagla gave me a dirty look and told me I had to tip whatever I took or didn't take from the TPW.  Hey, I was just asking. 

 

No, the real function of the Toilet Paper Woman is not to hand you toilet paper – it is simply to collect baksheesh.  Actually, this seems to be the occupation of many people in Egypt.  You are continually tipping people for services that you don’t want, and indeed, would much prefer to dispense with. 

At the airport, people snatch your bag off the carousel before you can grab it.  They then hand it to you – and demand baksheesh.  (I discovered this when taking the little internal flights in Egypt, which did not allow me to carry on my luggage.)  They hop into your photographs unasked – and demand baksheesh for spoiling your photo.  They will follow you around all afternoon until you give it to them.  They are in tombs with a flashlight – and want baksheesh for being there, even if you have your own damn flashlight and don’t need their stinking flashlight.  You are in Egypt to give them baksheesh, goddamn it – that is your function.  Their function is to receive baksheesh.  The sooner you accept all of this, the less hassle you’ll get.  (And you'll get enough hassle for an army, whatever you do.)

 

Since the typical tip is one Egyptian pound, and an Egyptian pound is only about 20 cents in U.S. money, you might wonder why this practice pissed me off so very much.  And, oh, it really did piss me off.

Well, for one thing, it is a serious pain in the ass to keep all of the small change around that you need.  I mean, you are constantly obligated to tip -- constantly.  For everything.  It’s just the way they work over there.  It’s not just the tourists -- the Egyptians are always tipping too.  They tip everybody.  They tip policemen for doing their jobs, for Pete’s sake, and they tip policemen for harassing them.  I saw Nagla tipping policemen numerous times, seemingly for, oh, letting our car continue down the road to a tourist site, or letting us walk into a site after we’d already paid to do so.  Twenty cents here, twenty cents there – they want it, and they’ll demand it.  Egyptians know this already – and they’ll make damn sure you know it too, by the time you’re done.

As a result, Egyptian bills in small denominations are as scarce as manna in the desert, and disappear like droplets of water on a hot Egyptian day.   You are in continual anxiety of trying to obtain them and then dispense them before you are publicly chastised.  Banks, shops and hotels don’t want to give them out in change – no fooling.  I guess they all need them too.  I had to continually give big bills in restaurants and shops even when I had small ones, lying and saying I had nothing smaller, in order to obtain the necessary flow of small change for tipping.  I really, really, really, really hated it.  

 

One service I would have happily tipped for would have been to have someone come around with me with a bundle of small bills and do all of the tipping for me so I didn't have to worry about it.  Alas, that was the one service no one offered.  However, if I needed someone to pick up a paper towel and hand it to me, it was good to know that a whole professional platoon of women had it covered.

 

* * * * *

 

But wait a minute --  I had a nice story to tell.  What the heck was it?  Oh yes, the sweet Toilet Paper Girl in the restaurant with the festive musicians.  Let me tell it now before I forget. 

 

Well, as I mentioned, she was very young and sweet-looking, which in itself was refreshing (for some reason, the Toilet Paper Women tend to be grim and old, perhaps from years of demanding baksheesh for an utterly useless and unwanted service).  

 

As I walked into the bathroom, someone must have walked in or out of the restaurant, because the musicians began to play their little tune.  The Toilet Paper Girl and I both smiled, and then she began to do a funny little dance to the music, which made me laugh.  I did a little dance too, which made her laugh.  She handed me the toilet paper (more than usual), I did my business, came out and washed my hands, and then went to leave her the inevitable baksheesh.  

 

My sunglasses were hooked into the front of my shirt.  She pointed hesitantly at them, looking up at me (she was quite petite), and then gestured at her face.  I didn’t understand.  Then she slowly and delicately reached out and took the glasses, and tried them on.  I wish I'd brought my camera to the restroom.  My enormous sunglasses looked so funny on her small sweet face, with her traditional headscarf and robes, that I burst out laughing and gestured for her to look at herself in the mirror.  She did so, and then she started laughing too.  

 

She took off the glasses and gestured at me to put them on.  I did so and then decided that I looked pretty darn silly as well, in my baggy untucked shirt and loose skirt, and my huge fashion sunglasses.  We both laughed and bowed to each other.  I double baksheeshed her (she earned every penny), and then went back to lunch with my (much less congenial) companions.

 

Mohammed redux

 

Remember Mohammed?  The guy who picked my up at the Cairo airport?  He called me at the hotel to see how I was doing and whether I had any free time that evening (“I waited for you to call me but you didn’t.  I was very disappointed,” he said.)  I told him I was exhausted and had to get up early the next day, and would be gone all the next day in Alexandria, and after that would be leaving Cairo, and so I got rid of him.  I mean, he’s very nice and all to want to show me around, but I’m exhausted.  (N.B. -- as you'll see in a later entry, I still had not heard the last of Mohammed.)

Trip entry 3: The pyramids, King Tut, and a nasty accident

(This day's entry is rather long, so I'm breaking it up with subtitles.)

 

Refreshed (har har) by my four hours of sleep, I met my tour guide in the lobby at 8 a.m.  My companions for the first three days in Cairo will be a female guide, Nagla, and an American brother and sister, Mark and Tracy.  By the way, Tracy’s luggage was lost on her flight to Cairo, so I’m more than ever convinced of my wisdom in traveling light and carrying on my luggage.  Indeed, I’m quite smug about it.

The Cairo Streets

Today was the last day of Ramadan, so the streets were relatively empty of traffic, given how bustling they were at 3 a.m.  Again I had to marvel at how many white-uniformed, armed police were on the streets and at every site we went to.  Half the men in the country must be policemen.   Our van has been stopped continually for security checks, and we go through metal detectors and barriers every time we enter any building.  I’ve seen Nagla tip the policemen more than once.  It’s kind of giving me the creeps, but it’s apparently a fact of life for the Egyptians.  We Americans are aggravated by all of the new security in place in the U.S. since September 11, but trust me – it’s nothing compared to what they do routinely in Egypt.

If you’ll recall, a bunch of western tourists were kidnapped in a remote section of Egypt about a week before I left for my trip.  Nagla kept talking about how foolish the kidnapped tourist group was to have strayed away from the areas where the police and barricades are.  I think maybe they wanted to get away from all the police and barricades.

Mark, Tracy and I have all noticed that all of the little boys are carrying very realistic looking toy assault guns.  Nagla dismissed this observation, saying “all little boys like guns”.  Yeah, well, maybe, but I’ve never seen so many of them all carrying guns as their only toy.  It, uh, kinda makes you think. (By the way, Mark, Tracy and I have all noticed that Nagla is totally non-responsive to any cultural questions and comments – it’s quite disappointing, as I’d hoped to learn about the culture from her.  I’ll just have to keep my eyes open and learn from observation.)

Mark, Tracy and I are guessing, from what we observe, that being a policeman is a very prestigious job here.  Nagla did not opine.  However, she did inform me, upon hearing that I was a lawyer, that being a lawyer is not prestigious.  Bitch.  (N.B. – I came to seriously dislike Nagla by the end of my Cairo stay.)

I also was struck by the fact that just about every woman I saw in the streets was wearing a head scarf, most were in full-on robes, and many in burkas.  While while many men were wearing western clothing, half the men were in robes with head coverings.  I’d been under the impression before planning this trip that, although predominantly Muslim, Egyptians wore modern western dress.  In general, though, they apparently don’t.  Nagla does not wear a robe and headscarf  -- she wears loose long-sleeved blouses and loose trousers.  I’ve noticed that the women tour guides and hotel staff, to the extent they exist (most seem to be male), tend to dress more in more modern, although modest, dress than most other Egyptian women.

 

I was glad I’d brought very modest clothing.  I saw plenty of tourists wearing skimpy shorts and tank tops (and might I add that very few of them had the bodies for it under the best of circumstances), but frankly, I would have felt extremely uncomfortable wearing clothes like that, despite the blistering heat (it’s at least 95 degrees Fahrenheit).  I’m wearing skirts almost to the ankles, loose tops that cover my arms, shoulders and chest, and I’m still getting ridiculous amounts of attention from Egyptian men  (N.B. -- more on that issue later).  I’m not even blonde (I hear they love blondes) – but they seem to particularly admire my very white skin and my green eyes.  I get compliments on them continually, from men, women and children, and am told every five minutes, by every man from the hotel staff to the ticket sellers at the tour sites, that I’m a “very beautiful woman.” 

 

It’s enough to turn a girl’s head, except that I know perfectly well that I look like a nun who’s been dragged backwards through a hedge, for chrissakes.  I wonder what they’d say if I wasn’t shrouded in cloth, didn’t have my hair in a ponytail and was wearing a cosmetic other than number 85 sunscreen (yes, they make a number 85 sunscreen).  I’m afraid to ask.

 

The Cairo Egyptian Museum

The first stop was the Cairo Egyptian museum, which I was rather sorry about as I was dying to see the pyramids, which my itinerary had listed as the first stop.  I think the whole tour schedule was changed because of the Ramadan holiday – many things apparently closed early today.  (We didn’t get lunch until 3:30 or so – since Nagla had to fast until sunset, she wasn’t all that eager to take us to lunch.)

 

The museum was pretty neat, though.  We saw King Tut’s treasure (I’d seen the traveling Tut exhibit in Philadelphia a year or two ago, but that was just the tip of the iceberg – most of the most magnificent stuff is in the Cairo museum).  

We also saw a whole bunch of mummies, including Ramses II, who was allegedly the biblical Pharaoh who gave Moses such a hard time, and taking that aside, was one of the big-time Pharaohs – his statues and temples are still everywhere.   Old Ramses still has his hair, his skin, his ears and his nails intact.  Weeeeeeirrd-o-rama. 

 

Poor things – buried with all that pomp and magnificence to await the afterlife, and there they are thousands of years later, denuded of their treasure and their bandages, lying naked, shriveled and pathetic under a sheet (I wonder – are their genitals mummified and intact too?) for fat vulgar tourists to gawk at in a museum.  I thought about that a lot as I saw all the magnificent ruins and treasure left by Ramses and the other Pharaohs.  So much for eternity, peace and dignity. 

 

Don’t get me wrong – I was gawking with the rest of the tourists, and terribly interested in the mummies.  But I couldn’t get over feeling rather bad for the poor shmoes.  If there is indeed an afterlife, I'll bet they're spending it being pretty damn pissed off.

 

Mandatory shopping

 

After the museum, we stopped for some shopping at a papyrus shop, and a more general knick-knack shop.  This is only my second trip with a tour group – the other was in Thailand – but from my limited experience with them, this enforced shopping shit is part of the deal.  Evidently the tour guides get a commission if their clients buy anything. 

  

Anyway, I really hate it.  When traveling alone, I might stop in an interesting shop, but in general I’m not a shopping girl, and these stores the tour groups stop in don’t tend to be all that interesting, and do tend to use high-pressure techniques.  That said, I did end up buying a couple of little papyrus paintings – I’m not sure I could have avoided it.

 

The Pyramids of Giza

And then, finally, we were off to Giza (across the Nile river from Cairo) and the three great Giza pyramids.  It was thrilling to catch my first glimpse at them, looming in the distance over ramshackle modern apartment buildings. 

 

By the way, Nagla mentioned that about 45 percent of Cairo's population lives in these ramshackle modern apartment buildings, which she said were "ugly slums" (her word, not mine, but I'm not arguing) that had sprung up like mushrooms in areas where they weren't supposed to be built.  Many of them had no glass in the windows, and some apartments must have had no windows at all, from the looks of them.  And all of them had wiry looking bars sticking up from the top story.  Nagla said that was so the occupants could easily add more stories to the building if they needed more later on.  Despite the apparent poverty of the buildings, I saw a lot of satellite dishes.  Apparently satellite TV is both readily available and quite cheap.

Oh yes, the pyramids.  I must say, my very first impression, once I got a bit closer to the pyramids, was that they looked shabbier than I expected.  They were originally covered with a smooth facing (two in white and one in red stone), but it’s mostly fallen off, leaving bare and bumpy rock beneath.  However, when I got bit closer still, I was at last deeply impressed by the sheer size of each stone block – absolutely huge! – by the size of the pyramids themselves, and by the fact that the damn things were still standing and in such good shape after so many thousands of years, without even any mortar.  They’ve survived earthquakes and wars – it’s simply amazing. 

Nagla tells us that archaeologists believe that the treasure buried inside the largest pyramid (Cheops’) is likely still intact.  Tut’s treasure looks pretty damn magnificent, and he was only a minor king (he was buried in someone else’s unfinished tomb).  It’s hard to imagine what the treasure of a major king like Cheops, with a whole pyramid to himself, would be like.  But since there doesn’t seem to be any way of finding it without ripping apart the pyramid, we may never know.  Huh.

 

Tracy, Mark and I wanted to go inside a pyramid, of course.  Nagla gave a big sigh, and told us it wasn’t worth it.  (In general, she was not exactly enthusiastic.  She gave us a whole 20 minutes to “explore” around the outside of the pyramids.)  We ended up going into the second largest pyramid (which was 25 Egyptian pounds, or about $5, to go into, as opposed to 100 E.P., or about $20, to go into the largest one).  Nagla assured us that they were more or less an identical experience, and on this I was willing to take her word. 

 

I’m glad I went inside for the experience – I wouldn’t have missed it – but I must frankly admit that it wasn’t exactly fun.  You scuttle down this long, hot, narrow, airless, humid, low-ceilinged shaft, doubled over all the way like a crab, until you get to a narrow passage.  You get to walk upright for a minute or two, until it’s time to double over and scuttle up another tiny shaft, where there’s an empty, undecorated tomb and a guy in a robe and turban with a flashlight whose sole purpose seems to be to collect tips (I didn’t give him one, which seemed to really piss him off).  You look around politely, and then scuttle back down the shaft, back through the passage, and back up the other shaft, sweating profusely all the way, until you come out blinking into the sunlight and the relatively cool and dry 95 degree heat of the desert.  (All that said, Nagla, how could we come all the way to Egypt and not go into a pyramid?)

The Solar Boat

 

After looking at the outside of the pyramids, we went to see the Solar Boat, and that was really cool.  For those of you who don’t know what the heck the Solar Boat is, the ancient Egyptians buried their kings with big wooden boats to take them into the afterlife.  Apparently they buried five such “solar boats” with Cheops.  The boats were not buried whole, but rather as sort of ready-to-assemble kits, complete with ropes and tools.  They’ve dug up one of them and assembled it, and put it on display it in a small museum behind the Great Pyramid of Cheops.  (Apparently, they know where one of the others is buried, but it would cost a fortune to dig it up, so they’ve left it where it is for now.)

 

The boat was not designed to actually be sea-worthy (or Nile-worthy) – it was designed more for style -- but it was built using techniques the Egyptians used to build real ships.  It reminded me a bit of the style of Viking funeral ships I saw in Norway – long and narrow with a funny pointed prow. 

They make you put on these silly big floppy canvas booties to go into the Solar Boat building.  I’m not sure why, as the floors were no great shakes and not antique – it’s not like you’re walking on the boat or anything.  The floors were quite slippery and there were a lot of stairs to get overhead views of the boat.  I was afraid I’d slip and fall, but I didn’t.  (Alas, though, I was fated to have a nasty accident by the end of the day.  Stay tuned.)

 

A ridiculously late lunch and a nasty accident

 

It was 3:30 by the time we were done with the Solar Boat, and we were good and hungry by that point, having had nothing since a fairly early breakfast.  (I was also exhausted, having had a total of at most five hours of sleep in 48 hours, and a lot of moving around -- three continents! -- in all that time.)  Unfortunately, lunch was pretty damn mediocre, except for the tahini and eggplant appetizers we started with, which were quite tasty.  They were followed with nondescript lukewarm fried fish and weird, limp, cold overcooked french fries.  Luckily, I was the only one at the table who liked eggplant so I loaded up on that and the pita bread and tahini, and devoured it under the glum eye of Nagla, who kept reminding us that she was not allowed to eat anything until sundown.

 

On the way out of the restaurant and into the van, I smashed my head on the very low doorway of the van while getting in.  I was quite tired and disoriented at this point, and was wearing a hat, so I totally misjudged where the door was.  I hit my head so hard that I fell backwards onto the sidewalk, and blacked out for a second.  I was totally dazed for a while.  Believe me, it hurt a lot (then and for four days afterward).  I actually felt sick with the pain.  Trust me, I've never come close to hitting my head quite this hard. 

 

Tracy and Mark cried out in horror (Tracy told me later that the sound of my head thudding on the van was sickening).  Nagla initially was quite upset (she kept rubbing my incredibly painful head – I feebly tried to pull away and tell her it hurt when she did that, but she didn’t pay attention -- and called to the restaurant manager for ice.  However, perhaps out of fear of a lawsuit, once I was able to stand and get into the van, Nagla tried to pretend my injury was no big deal:  “It will be nothing tomorrow”  “You are fine.  Be strong.”  “This happens all the time.”  The freaking bitch.  The enormous, hot, painful lump on my head – it hurt even when I was lying down – put the lie to her “it’s all fine” bullshit.  It was right about then that I moved from not particularly liking her to seriously hating her.

Mark and Tracy were quite concerned and wanted me to see a doctor.  (I didn’t, although ironically if I’d felt a little less bad and a little more like myself, I probably would have insisted on seeing a doctor.  And I probably should have.  I may have had a concussion.

 

On the drive home, Nagla told the driver to stop at a shop, and informed us that we had twenty minutes to shop.  In tremendous pain, and feeling like I was going to throw up, I said I’d wait in the car.  Tracy informed Nagla that they didn’t want to shop either and that we should get me straight back to the hotel.  Nagla seemed a bit put out, but since we all agreed and refused to get out of the van, she had no choice but to go along with us.   Mark and Tracy saw me to my room, and checked up on me once or twice.  I skipped dinner (it was a late lunch, and I was more exhausted and sick than tired), and went straight to bed.

FYI, Nagla continued for the remaining two days to make nasty little remarks on my head injury, how it was nothing and how I had made a big deal out of nothing, etc.   (In fact, I did not make a big deal out of my injury, except to inform her, when she gratuitously remarked brought up my head injury in order to assert that it was "nothing," that it did in fact really hurt quite a bit.  I did not cry.  I did not complain.  I did not threaten to sue or demand to go to the hospital.  Indeed, I would have shut up about it completely if she hadn’t felt the need to mention it continually and mention how minor it was.)  As Mark commented, “There’s no way that didn’t hurt.  I couldn’t believe how loud the thunk was.”  Mark, Tracy and I joked that the tour group was probably insured by AIG and extra nervous, so Nagla felt that she had to constantly emphasize for an imaginary record that I was not in fact hurt.  God, what a bitch.

In retrospect, Tracy, Mark and I agreed that I was very lucky the top of the door had a rubber bumper, or it would have been a lot worse.  The bumper was hard, but at least it prevented my head from being cut, if not bruised.

Trip entry 2: Flying into Cairo is an adventure in itself

My plane landed at 1 a.m., and wow, was it chaotic.  

 

The plane had touched down – barely – and was still moving at top speed on the ground, when half the passengers stood up and began getting their luggage out of the overhead bins.  Since the plane was still traveling at least 60-80 miles an hour, they could barely stand up and luggage was toppling out of the overhead bins into the aisles and onto people’s heads.

 

The KLM flight attendants kept asking over the loudspeaker – in English and in Dutch – for everyone to please sit down.  However, since everyone standing appeared to be Arabic, and apparently didn’t understand either English or Dutch, the flight attendants’ pleas didn’t do much good.  It was quite funny, really – we were taxiing for a good fifteen minutes before we reached the gate, with all of those people standing and toppling over each other and luggage tumbling down from the overhead bins, all talking at once in Arabic, punctuated with the occasional English or Dutch curse word from an unfortunate seated passenger who got bonked in the head with a bag.  For once, I was glad I had a window seat – the folks in the aisles were fairly well trampled. 

 

Getting off the plane was also crazy and chaotic – apparently, no rules apply.  Everyone from the back of the plane had crowded to the front of the plane (and when I say crowded, I mean crowded -- shoulder to shoulder, buttock to groin, chest to back) and wouldn’t let those still in the rows get out.  As a result, although I was in row 26 and therefore close to the front of the plane, I was one of the last ones out.

 

I’d managed to get my luggage down to under 12 kilograms (KLM’s international coach weight limit), and had carried it all on.  I was very, very glad I had done so – I couldn’t imagine how chaotic the luggage collection would be.

 

The confusion didn’t end there.  My tour group company had arranged for Mohammed, a nice young man with not such great English, to escort me to my hotel and assist me through the immigration and custom procedures.  However, unfortunately, Mohammed had only my last name, which was badly misspelled on the sign (it is not “Gones”, for the record).  He did not know my first name, nor my nationality, nor whether I was a man or a woman.  To compound matters, I’d booked my trip through “Born Free Safaris”, and his sign bore the name of a company called “Voyages”.  I’d never heard of Voyages (I didn't realize that Born Free used differently named agents in each country), and Mohammed had never heard of Born Free Safaris.  Needless to say, I’d never heard of Mohammed either.

 

We both were there for some time, he looking for his passenger, and I for my escort, before we both started wondering whether we were supposed to be meeting each other.  However, I was reluctant to get in a car in Cairo at 2 o’clock in the morning with a strange Arabic man unless I was pretty damn sure that he was the right Arabic man, and it took us a bit to get past that impasse.  Finally, I dug up the Cairo contact name that Born Free had given me; Mohammed showed me that the name was in his cell phone directory, and after a good laugh, we were on our way. 

 

I arrived at the hotel at almost 3 am.   I could not believe how much traffic was still in the streets – it was much busier than New York would be at that hour – and the hotel lobby was absolutely bustling.  I hereby take the title “the city that doesn’t sleep” away from New York and award it to Cairo .  We at least take the occasional catnap – Cairo is a chronic insomniac.

Driving up to the hotel was an adventure in itself.  We had to drive through a barricade where several police officers questioned the driver and Mohammed.  Then, at the door, we had to go through a metal detector, and our luggage through an x-ray machine.  I didn’t mention shoe bombs, lest they also make me remove my shoes.  This security isn’t some temporary measure, by the way – this is what they do in Cairo, everywhere, every day, in every hotel and every tourist site.  There are armed police doing road checks everywhere, as well.  I was definitely not in Kansas anymore.

A very irate middle-aged American couple was waiting for Mohammed to pick them up and take them to the airport (I learned later that a ton of flights leave the Cairo airport in the dead of night – the airport is just as busy at 3 a.m. as at 3 p.m.).  Mohammed apologized profusely as they bawled him out for being late.  I attempted to intervene on his behalf, explaining that my plane had arrived late, there had been a lot of traffic, and that it wasn’t Mohammed’s fault.  “That doesn’t help,” they snarled, “we don’t care what he was doing.  He’s late and we’ve been waiting here a good 20 minutes.”  I pleasantly wished them a journey as delightful as themselves, and wished Mohammed luck.  Mohammed gave me his card and told me he’d be glad to show me around Cairo in my free time.  I thanked him, although I told him I didn’t anticipate having much free time on this trip. (N.B. – as you'll see in future entries, I hadn’t heard the last from Mohammed.)

Mohammed took off with his charming new passengers, and I checked into my hotel for an entire four hours of sleep before my 7 a.m. wake-up call.  My first tour is to leave at 8 a.m. in the morning.  Ay caramba.  I’d blow it off and sleep, but it’s the pyramids, and I can’t miss that.  I’m not sure I want to wander around alone in a city filled with armed police officers and metal detectors, and the tour is paid for, so I guess I’ll just have to sleep tomorrow night.  Kee-hrist.