Light at the End of the Tunnel

As you can imagine, after being up from 2:30 AM until 11:30 PM, we were pretty tired. So we woke up late on the last day in Egypt and quickly tried to pull everything together to catch the 9 AM bus to the airport, with Pharaoh’s revenge nibbling at our innards all the while.

We barely had time for breakfast in the hotel before Surly showed up, ready to take us to the airport. Not that we missed anything, other than overpriced croissants and juice that’d been made from concentrate and toilet water.

Okay, I don’t know the water came from the toilet. But I don’t know that it didn’t, either.

This tree stump is 3500 years old. What's your excuse?

Tired, fatigued, and just wanting out of the country, we arrived at the Cairo Airport to meet our old friend, Sleazy. He was just as Sleazy as ever and quickly took our passports, our bags, and disappeared “to go check us in.”

“When they do that, do you ever feel like you’ll never see your stuff again?” I asked the group.

“I want to die!” Chester said. “Oh, please, God, let me die!”

“That’s what you get for eating the ice,” Susan said.

“Don’t you wish you’d had the chicken?” Wifey asked.

“I bet if you go stick your head in the X-Ray machine belt you’ll go quick,” I suggested. “It’s not like anybody’s watching it.”

As Susan wrestled with Chester to keep him from committing Hari Kari in the belt, I examined the signs posted everywhere. They all said a variation on “IT IS FORBIDDEN TO TAKE CULTURAL TREASURES FROM EGYPT.”

I nudged Wifey and pointed at the sign. “I’ve got a temple column down my pants. Wanna see it?”

She cocked an eyebrow at me. “Did we visit a Smurf temple?”

Okay, in all honesty, I had a rock from the foot of the stepped pyramid of Zoser in my pocket, and I was terrified that the rock detector was going to buzz me. But I hardly think that counts as a cultural treasure. I got away with it clean, too, so there.

The signs certainly didn't deter Napoleon

Finally Sleazy returned and ushered us through the passport line. A quick handshake later and we were on our own, waiting for the plane.

“Let’s do some souvenir shopping,” Wifey suggested. “We haven’t gotten anything for some people yet.”

“Where’s the bathroom?” Chester asked. “I’m gonna be sick!”

“I’m hungry,” I said. “Can we go eat?”

Wifey and I followed the signs to the upstairs restaurant, leaving Chester and Susan behind to their fate. Cruel? Maybe, but that’s what you get for eating the ice.

And what a restaurant selection it was! Call me lowbrow, but I almost peed my pants in excitement when I saw their lineup: Cinn-A-Bon, Starbucks, McDonald’s, and other restaurants I’d actually heard of. They had a better breakfast lineup than you’ll find in Europe, where they substitute attitude for food quality.

“Let’s get a Cinn-A-Bon!” Wifey suggested. “I love those things!”

My stomach gurgled angrily, threatening a tsunami of bad tidings if I disrupted it with so much sweetness. “How about Mickey D’s?” I asked. “I don’t think I can handle one of those right now.”

She agreed, because she’s basically a nice person, and we had a nice meal of hash browns and McMuffins. That’s the nice thing about McDonald’s: since it all rolls out of the same plant flash-frozen, it tastes exactly the same wherever you are in the world, which is comforting.

“You know, hash browns are an aphrodesiac,” I told her. “If you feel so moved, we could join the mile-high club.”

She rolled her eyes at me. “Not even. Besides, it wouldn’t count as Africa, so I’d have to come back anyways.”

“Well, then, we could join the ground-high club here at the airport. That would count!”

She reached for me, perhaps longingly, aching for my manhood, but accidentally spilled my hot coffee into my lap, thus interrupting what could have been a meaningful romantic quickie worthy of a non-gay senator in an airport bathroom.

At least, that’s the way I choose to interpret it.

Minutes later a flatulent mummy emerged and chased us from the valley

After breakfast I had to go pee again. I find it’s good to pee every five or ten minutes when I’m on vacation. Wifey doesn’t agree, and will go days and days without ever peeing. I don’t know how she does it; she’s some kind of reverse camel or something.

Anyways, she went on ahead to the gate while I went to the bathroom. When I came back out to join her, I found that the gate to Europe was heavily secured, with another metal detector and several sets of guards checking passports and tickets. I had ours in my pocket, so I knew that Wifey had to be out here somewhere, because surely that many layers of security aren’t permeable with a wink and a smile.

Unfortunately, she’d either been kidnapped or slathered with invisible cream, because she was nowhere around that I could find. Time was running out; I could see on the other side the people getting on the bus, which was parked next to the plane. It was either board now or miss the plane.

So I asked myself: should I risk abandoning Wifey in Egypt?

Once I’d thought about it a moment, I realized there was really only one choice: yes.

It was for the children, you see. If I didn’t go, who would take care of them? Besides, I had to get back to work. I was sure the US Embassy could work something out, or she’d get a job scrubbing toilets, or something. Besides, doesn’t McDonald’s count as US territory, like an Embassy? She was practically home, I figured.

I presented my tickets to the first guard.

“Where is your other passenger?”

“That’s a misprint,” I said. “It’s only me.”

He waved me through. “Okay.”

I got to the second set of guards. “Where is your other passenger?” he asked me.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I lost her.”

He waved me through. “Okay.”

I got to the third set of guards, the stewardesses who were checking tickets. “Your wife came through a minute ago,” she said. “She’s already on the plane.”

“What?” I asked. “How did she do that?”

“She said you had the tickets.”

“These are hers, but actually, I’m headed to Rio de Janeiro. My sister is already on the plane with the tickets. Okay?”

“Nice try,” she tells me. “Get on the bus.”

When I finally got to the plane, Wifey was seated, with a drink, getting a foot rub from the pilots. She seemed strangely self-satisfied.

“I hope you’re proud of yourself,” I said. “I was worried sick out there running around trying to find you.”

“No you weren’t,” she said. “I was watching you on the CCTV. You couldn’t abandon me fast enough. If you think you’re joining the mile high club after that performance, you’re sadly mistaken.”

“I’m gonna barf!” Chester yelled from the seat right behind us, ringing the stewardesses. “I need more barf bags!”

As promised, the Colossi of Memnon, or 'why restoration is best left to professionals'

Soon we were airborne, and Egypt delivered its final cruel blow to me: the inflight movie was The Golden Compass.

Actually, that’s not a bad movie, other than making no sense, being poorly acted, and insulting your intelligence with a transparently sequelled end. But the effects were super-duper.

Five hours later I was home, and my children waited a whole ten seconds before asking “what did you bring us?” I’m so proud of how mature they’ve gotten.

So what did I learn from my week-long visit to Egypt?

1) You must do this once in your life, because you will see things that you simply cannot see anywhere else, and be awed and amazed by the power of human achievement.

2) The sound and light shows suck, though, and can easily be skipped. Who wants to listen to a sphinx brag about how old he is? I'm glad Galactus kicked his sorry ass.

3) Close your eyes while being driven around town. Don’t worry; the drivers have their eyes closed, too.

4) Speaking of which, don’t go in the water without eye protection.

5) The guides are really sensitive about jokes regarding aliens, the lost treasure of Atlantis being under the Sphinx, and threatened spray-paint defamation of the temples.

6) Egyptian food is not inedible, it’s poisonous, and there’s a difference.

7) On a related note, you should bring your own food, water, and beds.

8) I am the greatest potato racer in the history of potato racing.

9) Just let her keep the damned panties.

The Bus of Doom

There are three reasons to get up at 2:30 AM: your significant other wants to get amorous, an intruder has just crashed through the window, and the house is on fire. And quite frankly, the last one is debatable: if it’s raining you might be able to ride out a localized fire from the comfort of your own bed.

Be that as it may, “taking a four hour bus ride to an Egyptian temple located on Hell’s doorstep” is not one of them. But, having heard from numerous people that Abu Simbel is “the highlight of any Egyptian trip” we dutifully got up at 2:30 AM for just such an occasion.

Sunrise: Not Part of a Normal Person's Vacation

If you’ll recall, I’d paid for this trip some time before, and I was morbidly curious to see if I’d get on a bus or be hijacked by thugs and left for dead. I also couldn’t wait to see if Chester made good on his pledge to be on the bus, what with his hissy fit back in Cairo and everything.

We got on the 3:00 AM ferry to go from Isis Island to the bus pickup spot, where Tardy had promised to meet us. I kept my eyes peeled for Chester’s body floating in the lake for refusing to pony up without a receipt.

About halfway across, Wifey pointed out that the only thing on the boat other than us and the ferry man was a bucket full of eggs and one cucumber.

“What do you suppose that is?” She asked me.

“Let’s hope it’s for breakfast and not some sort of horrible tool of tourist violation.”

When we arrived at the dock, the nice driver unloaded our luggage on the wharf, gave the bucket to the tourist policeman who was lounging in the shack, pointed to a row of chairs, and said “wait there.”

Then he was gone. It was 3:15. The four guys in the Tourist Police shack (one in uniform, three in jeans and T-Shirt) yukked it up, listened to terrible Egyptian pop music, and ate eggs.

I got more and more nervous, particularly since the cucumber went unmolested.

“Do you think it was a bribe from the hotel for them to guard us?” Wifey asked me.

“I dunno, but I suppose if somebody popped up at three AM and started shooting those guys’d vanish faster than Casper the Friend Ghost.”

At about 3:30, a rattle-trap bus appeared. Tardy jumped out and greeted us, and introduced us to our guide, who looked like he’d just got finished tying one on and had been poured out of a shot glass.

Bleary-eyed would have been a step up for him.

Also amazingly on the bus was a somewhat haggard-looking Chester and Susan.

“Finally get a receipt?” I asked him as we got on the bus.

“No,” he looked like death warmed over.

“How much did you have to pay?”

“Ninety-five euros a head. It’s robbery!”

I gestured at the otherwise-empty minibus. “It costs extra because the bus was so full.”

With that we were off, minus Tardy, who stayed behind to enjoy the feast of eggs and still-untouched cucumber. We quickly made our way to the convoy, about seventy-five giant busses and seventy-five minibuses, all lined up waiting for 4:30 so they could start on their way to Abu Simbel.

We were second in line, because we got there at about 3:45. The guide told us that we’d start in forty-five minutes and promptly passed out.

We’d picked up breakfast boxes from the hotel, but it’s hard to have an appetite at 4 AM, unless you have a late-night job like mill worker or lowlife. So we settled for just waiting in a daze until the convoy got started.

Our driver was an interesting man, a baby-faced Coptic Egyptian whose two passions in life were passing other vehicles and grinning insanely as he passed other vehicles. The moment the convoy started, we went from 2nd to 150th in the blink of an eye. But that was all part of his plan.

He quickly punched his minibus up to 100 mph and began passing the other vehicles on the bumpy two-lane road that ran the hundreds of kilometers through the desert to Abu Simbel. We were jostled so hard that my wife’s bosoms went from heaving to storm-tossed in the matter of a few seconds.

If she hadn’t been dog-tired it would have been arousing. Who am I kidding? It was arousing anyways.

The other peculiarity of our driver was that he drove with his turn signal on for the entire four hour trip. And Egyptian turn signals make a beeping noise, so it was like a watch alarm going off constantly.

If you weren’t hung over, like our guide, it was impossible to sleep. Have I mentioned that lack of sleep makes Wifey murderous?

Finally, in desperation, Wifey asked for the breakfast box. Inside it contained a smashed pastry, an inedible piece of coal, a boiled egg, dust from Pharaoh’s coffin, and a dead cockroach.

She opted for a granola bar brought from home, but upon finding it flattened to one millimeter in height, promised me that “they’ll never find your body once we get to Abu Simbel.”

I was content to eat two boiled eggs. No reason to waste them, right?

During one particularly jarring concussion, I smashed my kneecap into the seat in front of me. It turned purple and hurt for the next week.

Finally we arrived at Abu Simbel. If you’ve never been, let me briefly describe it to you:

Colossally large statues (120 feet high) fronting a tomb cut into the living rock. Only, it’s been moved up out of the sea, so the entire rock dome is fake. This makes it even more impressive, because you realize that our forefathers not only cut the damned thing in 2000 BC but then moved it in the sixties.

And seven years on the WTC site is still a crater.

Bury Me At Abu Simbel

Even more impressive was that our guide could eat with the rotting husks that he calls teeth. I was so distracted by his dentistry that to this day I can’t tell you what he said, other than that photos are not allowed.

We toured the two temples, mightily impressed by both of them, then made our way back to the giant open air gift shop. But since it was so hot, and so early, the touts really weren’t into it.

Then, it was back into the bus of doom for the long ride back to Aswan. It was excruciating: my knee throbbing, starving to death, with my wife’s heaving bosoms tantalizingly close, but for all her hostility just as well located on the far side of the moon.

Ultimately, this trip is worth it, but I advise you not to take the minibus. Take a big bus or the plane.

As we drove through Aswan, suddenly our guide perked up. “Don’t forget to tip your driver!” he yelled, then jumped out the window while the car was still rolling like he was dodging Boss Hogg or something.

This was not a comforting development. With nobody to pass, the minibus went slower and slower, finally stopping for no apparent reason. The door popped open, and Tardy stood there grinning at us. We were at the Aswan airport.

“Did you have a good time?” he asked us.

“It could have used a sound and light show,” I said.

Once we were through security, we were delighted to find a Sbarro’s Pizza in the Aswan airport. I couldn’t get in line fast enough.

Unlike Cairo’s local flight, we found Aswan airport well-run and well-announced. The only annoying thing was the dueling videos on the moving of Abu Simbel that were running, at least four of them with the volumes cranked full-blast.

Upon returning to Cairo we met the last of the Seven Dwarves of Naggar, Baldy. That’s all I wrote about him, so I can’t tell you anything else, other than he was bald.

He took us to the Hotel Meridien, a really swanky hotel. Wifey and I lucked out with great rooms on the deck, looking out at the pool. We planned a romantic evening of swimming, room service, and love-making.

Okay, that was my plan. I couldn’t tell you what her plan was, nor did it really matter. I’m pretty sure that it’s written into the marriage by-laws that she’s obligated to put out on the last night of any foreign vacation.

To complete the first step of the plan, on a hot Cairo afternoon, with the thermometer just over a hundred, we stepped confidently into the pool. Ice cracked as our feet broke the surface, and her nipples almost put my eye out (don’t ask what my face was doing there).

It was the coldest pool I’ve ever swam in, and I once went swimming in Wisconsin. We couldn’t leave fast enough.

We quickly retreated and decided to order room service. I figured that after a nice, romantic meal, the mood for love would be restored. And, sure enough, the meal was delicious. Very well-done, and not that expensive. It even came with flowers, always good for a nice romantic atmosphere.

All was in readiness. I started to put on the moves, when…

EVERYBODY DANCE NOW!

What sounded like a crazy Arabic dance party kicked up in high gear out on the patio. From 7 to 11:30, it was nothing but non-stop dance tunes turning the beat around. I don’t know which was worse: when they mangled English on the Karaoke bar, or the traditional Egyptian songs that sounded like a guy playing cat drums.

We complained, but always received the same response: “very sorry, it will be over in five minutes.”

If I Weren't a Puss, I'd Have Done This to the Dance Party

Finally, the music stopped, and I pulled out my last-ditch appeal:

“You know, it’s imperative that we have sex tonight so you don’t have to come back.”

“Why’s that?” Wifey asked me.

“Because I want to have sex on all seven continents. If we don’t do it tonight, then you’ll have to come back to Africa with me.”

“You better plan on fucking a penguin, then, because there’s no way I’m getting naked in Antarctica. Good night.”

At least I hadn’t pushed the beds together yet. Plus, it helped take my mind off the throbbing pain in my knee.

Escape from Isis Island

The glorious final morning of our last day on the boat found us breakfasting with about six members of our tour group. For various reasons, the other members found themselves confined to their rooms with illness. Poor Chester, Susan told us, had barely fought of death’s cold embrace the night before.

After a hearty breakfast of one croissant, I was ready to tackle the day’s challenges. These included a visit to the Aswan high dam and the temple of Philae, which would require us to take a boat out to the island where it had been relocated after the construction of the dam.

First we went to the dam. It was damn impressive (sorry, I love that joke). Having grown up in the TVA region, I have spent a lot of time around these massive edifices, and they are always an impressive reminder of how efficiently man can tame nature and kill salmon all at the same time.
As we stood upon the dam, Wifey made the tragic error of stepping out without looking both ways and found herself almost flattened by a bus. It honked at her, drawing the attention of every single person on the dam, and causing her no end of embarrassment.

I told her to be careful, because she was only insured for about twenty grand, and it’d take me a lot more than that to buy a Playboy bunny to be a naked nanny for our children.

After that it was off to Philae. As we gathered in the boat, several trinket salesmen crowded on as well and began selling their wares along the way. They had a variety of shoddy-looking necklaces, but the prices were good, so I bought some.

What can I say? I love trinkets and beads.

The temple itself is not only impressive for its size, but for the fact that it was moved up out of the water a few decades ago. Pretty cool. We also heard, again, the “won’t you please give to help us save these treasures to humanity?”

I held up the ticket receipt and said “hey, I just gave forty Egyptian pounds!”

The guide thought that was less than charitable.

The temple was most notable for having a crocodile pit, where the priests kept a pet crocodile that they fed and treated as a god, then afterwards mummified and kept in the temple. I took a picture of the deep pit the croc lived in:

How this has not become the centerpiece in a movie about Egypt, I cannot say. Can’t you just imagine the high priest and the hero struggling, only to have the priest fall into the croc pit and get eaten, and have the hero say “I thought you needed to spend more time with your god!”

I mean, can’t you just see Arnold Swarzenegger saying that?

No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Die

As we returned, our boat was suddenly overtaken by another one with about six vendors hanging off the side. Fearing pirates, or worse hyper-aggressive trinket salesmen, I prepared to do the only noble thing: throw forward one of the other tour members as bait and jump into the water to swim away

Turns out they were lazy trinket sellers who just wanted a ride back to shore. They didn’t even try to sell us anything! Amateurs.

Back on shore we were not so lucky, and found the hawkers on the street in full swing. One of them used a come-on line that was so new I had to stop.

“I know you! We went to school together!”

I stopped. “Really? Is that you?”

He nodded his head eagerly, though he was a good twenty years my senior. “Oh, yes sir, it is me! We were in school together!”

“I thought you were an asshole then, too.” I turned and left. I can’t be sure, but I think he pelted me with poo.

In retrospect, I probably deserved it.

After that it was back to the boat, and not a moment too soon, as the heat was approaching 110° F. There we bid a fond farewell to our guide, and had about thirty minutes until the next Naggar travel dwarf came to pick us up at 11:30.

The Closest to a Real Croc We Got

We meet Chester back on the boat, pale of skin and looking about ten pounds lighter. He was in rough shape but had recovered enough to move. And he was still pissed about the whole receipt thing from several days ago, and vowed that whenever the dwarf showed up they’d duke it out over the trip to Abu Simbel scheduled for tomorrow.

Chester promised me he’d be on that bus, but I told him he’d be lucky if he wasn’t on a hearse come tomorrow morning.

We retired to the lounge, and Wifey declared her long-held desire to finally have some of this ice cream from their menu. She told me to go order a chocolate shake for her, and if they didn’t have that, then order vanilla.

However, there was a problem. “We do not have chocolate, sir.”

“Okay, I’ll take vanilla.”

“We do not have vanilla,” he tells me. Then he rattles off the eight flavors they do have, ranging from strawberry to pecan rattlesnake to camel piss.

What a country! So I ordered myself a strawberry shake and got my beloved wife water. Am I a good husband or what?

Finally the Nagger travel dwarf arrived. Right on time, too, if by “on time” you consider two hours late to be on time. When Tardy finally arrived, at 1:30, we were tired, and hungry, and bored. The boat doesn’t serve you lunch if you’re debarking.

But all was not to be smooth. “Hello,” Tardy told us. “I have come to take you to your hotel.”

All four of us stood, but he shook his head at Chester and Susan. “No, not you. You will be going to a different hotel. I have come to take you to Isis Island.”

Now, I knew full well my hotel was on Elephantine Island, not Isis Island. “That’s not where I’m supposed to go,” I said. “I’m supposed to go to Elephantine Island.”

“No, Elephantine Island is overbooked. If you go now, the room is very bad. You have a room at Isis Island, it’s very nice.”

I exchanged glances with Wifey, then I made my fateful decision. “Does it cost any more?”

“No, of course not.”

I shrugged. “Then let’s go.”

So he took us out of the boat, and I bid what might be a final farewell to Chester and Susan. Yeah, we were booked on the same flight back, but I wasn’t quite sure Chester was going to make it through the night.

When we got to Isis Island, I was impressed. It was a really nice hotel.

Unfortunately, it was full of German backpackers. Smoking German backpackers, who stank like dead hippos and were everywhere with their snaggle teeth and armpit hair hanging out. Not to mention how unattractive the men were.

The Isis Island Hotel: Home of the Stinky Backpacker

We hadn’t yet eaten lunch, so by the time Tardy got us checked in, at about 3, I was pretty sure Wifey was prepared to murder somebody. I kept trying to nominate other people, but she kept focusing on me and “this dumbass trip to Egypt.”

But once we reached the room we had two surprises waiting for us: it stank of stale smoke, and the bed was a Queen bad. Hallelujah! Finally no pushing twin beds together!

After we’d approved the room, Tardy decided to try to help us out for entertainment for the night.

“There is a very nice sound and light show at the Temple of Philae. I can get you tickets, if you like.”

“I’m really tempted,” I lied. “But you know, we have to get up so early to go to Abu Simbel, I’m just not sure we can do that.”

“There is an early show!” he suggested.

“I just don’t think it could possibly compare to the Pyramid show we saw,” Wifey said. “So we’ll have to pass.”

“That is true,” Tardy agreed. “The pyramid show is quite good.”

And with that, we were on our own. So we had a forgettable lunch to improve everybody’s mood, and then we went on a brief walk around the grounds of the Isis Island Hotel resort.

I don’t know if you’ve ever gone for a walk in a pizza oven before, but that’s what it felt like. Geez, it was hot. It didn’t take much of that before we decided to go back to the stinky room and watch Egyptian TV. I ended up watching a German show about a Japanese game show. I don’t know what the hell they said, but watching Japanese women fall into pools of slime while the host chortled is good fun in any language.

Overall, we were quite pleased: big bed, room quickly aired out via the large patio, and a nice view of the Nile River as it swept by, and crazy Japanese game-show hijinks. All in all, one of our more pleasant evenings in Egypt.

Finally we turned in early, because we had a 2:30 AM wake-up call to go to Abu Simbel on the 4:30 caravan.

It damn well better be worth it.

NEXT: What could make us long for the Australian bus of death, and will Chester survive? Stay tuned!

Egypt: Even the Horses are Sick

Miraculously, the morning found both Wifey and myself in decent shape and ready to go. Unfortunately, the inebriated old man who lost at potato racing (who was in our group of 12) was stricken ill and sent his regrets and his wife.

That morning we were going to go see the temple at Edfu, the most well-preserved of all the ancient temples. As a special treat, the guide had arranged for horse-drawn carriages to take us there.

On the gangplank out of the ships, one of our tour group had what can kindly be described as a hissy fit over the treatment of animals in Egypt and the horses in particular. Declaring us all monsters for supporting the torture of these noble beasts, she ended up storming back into the boat and refusing to accompany us. Our group was further reduced, from 11 to 10.

Suddenly Agatha Christy’s “Ten Little Indians” came into my head, and I vowed that I would be the one who survived and returned to the boat, even if I had to do it riding the corpses of the other tour members.

If possible, I further resolved to keep Wifey alive with me. But I didn’t want to set my goals too high.

Just before we got into the carriage (which looked like a cross between a 1970’s pimpmobile and a Venetian gondola), the guide gave us our instructions:

“The ride costs twenty Egyptian pounds, per carriage. Not per person. Do not give the driver any money until we get back to the boat, or you will have to walk back. Have a good time.”

Our driver looked like an Egyptian version of Fat Albert. I pity the poor horse that had to take us all to the temple, but it actually looked like it was in okay shape.

I don’t know what they feed the horses in Egypt, but based on the smell, I would believe that it’s Beefaroni. And you do not want to be behind a horse that’s been eating Beefaroni. Unfortunately, if you ride in a horse-drawn carriage, you must be behind the horse. That’s kind of the idea.

Once there, the driver took a photo of the three of us sitting in the carriage (Wifey, me, and the wife of the drunken guy from the potato race). Once he’d done that, he asked for his Bakshish (this means tip).

Mindful of the guide’s warnings, I told him “when I get back to the boat, I’ll take care of you.” He didn’t seem too happy as we sprinted away. I was just glad to be away from the flies and stink of horse.

Please think of the children and donate freely

Here’s something you need to know when you visit Egyptian temples: the greatest of all Egyptian gods was Trinketta, whom they worshipped by setting up a long string of stalls full of knock-off crap from China. As you walk through this long string of stalls you will be accosted by all kinds of sellers, who will use a wide variety of methods to entice you.

I don’t begrudge these guys their living; after all, I purchased quite a few gewgaws and trinkets on my journey. But they’re very aggressive, and it gets tiring as you go through them day after day.

As we passed, one of them tried the old “hey, what’s your name?” routine. They can do this in multiple languages (French, English, German, and Spanish) so dodging through language doesn’t work.

So I decided to try the direct approach. “I’m Dick Force, and this is my wife, Pussy Galore. This is our friend, Tittius Maximus.” Fortunately he didn’t realize that Wifey was doubled over laughing at this point.

“I am Ahmed, Mr. Force. Can I interest you in something?”

I picked up a carved beetle that I’m pretty sure was pressed stone shavings. “Is this real stone?”

“Oh yes, from the granite quarries. It is one hundred and fifty Egyptian pounds, Mr. Force.”

I nodded. “I’ll tell you what, I’ll pay a hundred and fifty pounds, but only if I get to break it with a hammer. If it’s powdered stone on the inside, I then get to hit you with the hammer. Deal?”

“Um, perhaps a hundred pounds, Mr. Force?”

“No deal,” I handed him the statuette. “Five pounds and no hammer, or a hundred and fifty pounds with hammer. That’s the deal.”

“It cost me thirty to purchase, Mr. Force!”

“You were robbed, my friend.” I turned to go. “I bet Pussy here could squeeze ten of those out for a dollar.”

I walked away, with Wifey trying hard not to piss her pants. “You’re an evil man, you know that?” said the other woman.

“You must be hard to be a potato racing champion,” I told her.

This is stone; the trinkets, not so much

The temple itself is, indeed, massively impressive. There are carvings about a hundred feet high of Pharaoh holding enemies up by their hair, and the inside detail is truly awe-inspiring. I don’t know how those ancient Egyptians built all this stuff, but I suspect it has something to do with the lack of an Egyptian OSHA.

As we wandered through the temple, our guide was sure to point out how groundwater seepage is slowly causing problems, and said that “in the future Egypt will need technical and financial assistance from the other nations of the world to save our shared human heritage.”

Yeah, I notice that there’s no line item in the US budget for “Tourist Profit Sharing” from Egypt. Is it too much to ask that you reinvest some of your own money saving this “worldwide” human heritage? Or is that culturally small-minded of me?

We went back to the boat in the midmorning, and I actually paid the carriage driver 30 Egyptian pounds: 20 for the ride and 10 for the picture. I think he took back whatever curses he’d made about me earlier. I also told him to invest in horse deodorant, or at least giant pampers. He just smiled and nodded. Then I waded through the cigarette sellers back to the boat.

Small digression: everyone in Egypt smokes. I mean, everybody. I even took up smoking while I was there just to fit in. There are cigarette sellers everywhere. If I’d known, I’d have brought a case of cigarettes to dole out as tips and payment, just like in prison.

Just as we got onto the boat, Chester felt the first twinge of the Pharaoh’s wrath. “OH MY GOD!” he yelled and ran away, one hand on his butt and the other on his stomach. According to Susan, he spent the next 24 hours laying in bed trying to die, alternating which end of his body he pointed into the toilet to shoot excretions from.

Wifey leaned over to me and whispered “who’s laughing about the chicken now, bitch?”

The rest of the day was spent in transit on the boat, but there was no strip poker after my allegations of cheating against Wifey the previous day. The scenery was nice. I tried in vain to figure out how to make the movie channel work, but they were showing Lions for Lambs anyway, so it’s probably a good thing I couldn’t figure the damn thing out.

Instead of holding his enemies by the hair, he should have just served them ice

That night, Pharaoh’s revenge struck Wifey again, so she spent the entire time after dinner laying on the bed moaning. And not in a good way, in a “it feels like there’s a badger in my stomach trying to kill me” way. I skipped the Nubian entertainment, not feeling too hot myself, but the Immodium seemed to be holding me up in good stead.

In all, all but one member of our 12-person group was sick that night. No wonder Livingstone needed Stanley to come rescue him. This part of the world is a microbial deathtrap!

And the guy that didn’t get sick? He literally ate everything in sight. I think he was either an alien or a replicant.

So what did I learn? I learned three very important things:

1) Don’t eat the ice in Egypt. In fact, don’t eat anything. Just go hungry. Your ass and your laundry will thank you for it.
2) Never pay beforehand for a service for anything in Egypt.
3) Never accuse your wife of being a bad sport at a stripping game on a long trip where you’ll want to play again later. Just let her keep the damned panties and hope for better luck next time.

Tomorrow: the Aswan dam, Isis Island, and me.

A Very Moving Experience

I knew our tour guide was a sadist when he told us that Breakfast was at 6:30 and that we’d be leaving the boat at 7. Oh, sure, he gave us some BS story about the heat and beating the crowds, but I saw him for what he really was.

I tried to reason with him that we were on vacation, but he wouldn’t hear of it. I tried to bribe him, but he’s the only guy in Egypt not susceptible to being bribed. I would have tried physically threatening him, but let’s face it, I’m a total wuss who sometimes takes the stairs for exercise, and he’s a strapping young man with a physical job.

So I had to get up at 6:30 to go to the Valley of the Kings, resting place of the ancient pharaohs, and focal point of all the sun’s rays starting from about 7 in the morning. Don’t be confused by the name, though. If it goes all uphill, it’s not really a valley, right?

We entered three tombs, with the option to buy tickets to enter two more: King Tut and Akhenaton the Sixth. At the guide’s advice, we skipped King Tut, and were the only people in the group to do so. Those who chose to go down told us we didn’t miss anything. Apparently Carter was really thorough when he looted it.

As for the others; well, it’s pretty incredible to see paintings that are thousands of years old yet still have phenomenal color. I didn’t quite understand why the ancient pharaohs had themselves interred in chambers that reeked of BO and had a faint smell of pee in them, but I guess tastes change.

After that we went to the valley of the queens. I had though we were gonna see an Elton John concert or something, but no such luck. It was hot there, too, and the only tomb we went into was nothing so special. It stank too, though, which counts for something.

Finally we ended up at the highlight of the day’s tour: the temple of Queen Hatshepsut. This place was phenomenal, not least of which because it’s built in a giant, open-air microwave that gets so hot your hair will light on fire.

Okay, not really, but it’s stinking hot. Wifey pooped out pretty quickly and went to go lounge at the café, leaving me to snap pictures of this and that.

Hatshepsut was sure to build her temple near lots of souvenier stands

You have to be careful when you take pictures in Egypt, because the guards will try to jump into the shot and then demand that you give them a tip for being in your picture. To counter this, I started distracting the guards by lining up pictures of strangers, and when the guard hurried into the picture I’d say “pay the man, honey” and then walk off.

Good times.

One fateful event happened at the outdoor café: Chester and Susan ordered a couple of glasses of the revolting red juice with ice in it. Susan was very leery of drinking the ice, so Chester had a double portion. He would later regret this.

Finally it was back on the boat to cast off and head downriver. Yay, the boat actually moves!

That was fun for about an hour. But once you’ve seen miles and miles of desert pass you by, it all starts to look kind of the same. I resorted to buying a deck of ill-cut cards just to be able to amuse myself. This was how I discovered that my wife cheats at strip poker.

You can’t refuse to take off your panties just because you’re mad about the hand you were dealt. Rules are what separate us from the animals, who walk around naked all the time anyways.

At lunchtime, I discovered the long finger of Ramses the 6th reaching out to lay his horrible curse upon me. That’s right, I had the runs. I chugged some Immodium and after a couple of hours I was right back into the swing of things.

In the afternoon we went through a set of locks, which I can say was one of the most bizarre experiences of my entire life. As you approach the locks, a fleet of rowboats descends upon your ship and ties off on the side. Below, in the rowboats, the men start yelling at you: “hello! Excuse me!”

Hello! Please buy my crap!

If you make eye contact, speak to them, or even fart, they begin hurling items at you for you to buy. Cheap scarves, gowns, crappy headdresses, that sort of thing. The amazing thing is the arms on these guys: they’re in a bobbing rowboat, tied off to the side of your ship, and they can chuck a rolled-up T-Shirt to the top of a 3-story ship and hit you in the chest.

I don’t know how they feel about dogfighting, but most of these guys have better arms than a good 50% of NFL quarterbacks.

That evening was “Egyptian Night” in the dining room. You know what I discovered? Egyptian food kind of sucks. I can usually eat almost anything, and I was almost SOL. Poor Wifey had to scrape together some bread, as the chicken was beyond the pale for her.

After dinner we were scheduled for “an exciting evening of competition” between the various tour groups in the entertainment room, complete with everybody wearing Egyptian costumes. I couldn’t wait to blow it off and spend the evening up topside relaxing, but Wifey really wanted to go, so she dragged me to it.

I agreed because I was still hoping to get those panties off of her, if you know what I mean, and I think that you do. We didn’t wear costumes, but I improvised by putting a pillowcase over my head like a turban.

Then, just as it got started, she began to feel bad. Excusing herself, she told me to stay through the whole thing while she went and lay down, because she wanted to know exactly what happened. Like a dutiful husband, I did exactly that.

Here’s the best thing about having an “exciting competition” on a cruise ship when the median age is a good 20 years older than you: if it’s a feat of strength or dexterity, you have the advantage.

So it was that I found myself competing in the potato race. They took a potato that was tied onto the end of a rope and put it around your waist. Then they put another potato between your feet. The object was to knock the second potato across the floor (about 15 feet) by hitting it with the potato on the rope, without using anything else to move it.

I was competing against a guy who was about 70 and had drunk 24 beers that day and a weaselly little 50-year-old who looked like the victim from the Charles Atlas sand-kicking cartoons. No problem for a robust man like myself.

As they explained the rules, I asked one simple question: “Can I drop my pants? It’d be a lot faster for me to knock it across the floor that way.” The answer, predictably, was no.

Then they blew the whistle and we started. The drunken 70-year-old quickly gave up, leaving it down to me and Mr. Weasel. Being the engineering stud, I quickly figured out that the game is not what it seems, and there’s a trick to it. Because I am a good blog host, I will share it with you in case you are ever in a rude-looking potato-propelling contest and you, too, are denied the opportunity to drop your pants and swing for the fences.

See, you can’t keep the potato between your feet; you have step forward and crouch down and put it beneath your ass. Then, when you gyrate, the potato hanging from your body will swing low enough to hit the potato on the ground. Once I’d mastered this, I managed to quickly complete the task, all the while praying that my Immodium didn’t give out and leave me with a spattered potato.

Here's what I prayed Immodium would do for me

Fortunately it held, and I beat Mr. Weasel by a good ten feet. Dork! Who’s laughing now? And my prize? A free glass of something that tasted like peach juice.

Just for the record, it sucked, and was not at all worth air-humping my way across the stage in front of the entire boat. But I did get the pleasure of yelling “LOSER!” every time I saw the other two guys and emasculating them in front of their women. Of course, my wife was upstairs, possibly enjoying herself with Ricardo the Pool Boy, which takes some of the thrill of victory out of the contest.

When I returned to my room, I found a simple, loving note from Wifey:

“I always loved you. Please have me cremated and returned to the United States for burial. I do not want to be buried at sea. Tell the children to make me proud. Your loving wife.”

She was laying in the fetal position on the bed, trying not to die. I was concerned, and she told me that Ramses had stricken her as well, but apparently more seriously than me. I asked her if she’d taken Immodium.

“You’re not supposed to take it until 2 hours after you’ve eaten, so I have to wait.” she told me.

I scoffed at this notion. “That’s playground bullshit, like you can’t get pregnant if you don’t orgasm. Where did you hear that?”

“It’s on the bottle,” she told me. “I can read, you know.”

The cold worms of dread began to gnaw at my belly, because I had taken mine with lunch. Are my innards going to plug up now? Are my intestines converting to jelly? Will it not work, and end up with me having explosive diarrhea all over some Egyptian antiquity, leading to my arrest and torture in some godforsaken Egyptian jail, just like the guy in Midnight Express?

Only time would tell.

In the interim, though, one thing was clear: there would be no sex tonight, because intestinal distress is such a turn-off.

Tomorrow: will we be well enough to accompany the Marquis de Sade to another Egyptian antiquity? Will Plebian survive the runs? Will the boat move a second time?

Find out!

Do you have the money?

Saturday morning found us in good spirits. We’d seen the best of Cairo, entered a pyramid, eaten a good lunch, and experienced a dinner for the ages. So with all that under our belts, we were ready for a domestic Air Egypt flight.

And the Maginot Line was ready for the German Army.

At nine in the morning we met the third Naggar Dwarf, Greedy. Whatever the word is that means “grasping, shifty-eyed, unfriendly son of a bitch” he was that. His travel agent training appeared to consist of shaking us down for money.

Here’s the deal: there was this extra excursion to Abu Simbel on the next to last day. We all knew we had to pay extra for it, 85 euros for the bus or 175 euros for the plane. The moment we get into the Australia Bus of Doom and go hurtling through Cairo traffic, he turns around and says “You know you have to pay extra to go to Abu Simbel, yes?”

“We have a question,” I said as the group spokesperson. “What time do you leave if you take the plane, and what time do you leave if you take the bus?”

His response: “Same time. 85 euros for the bus, 175 for the plane. Do you have the money?”

I say: “Okay, I understand. Let us talk about it.”

He says: “You can discuss it. Do you have the money?”

He then said, every two minutes, “Do you have the money?”

Remember that the drive to the airport takes an hour.

When we finally got to the airport, Chester was pissed. We got out of the bus and Greedy asked us “Do you have the money?”

Chester asked for a receipt, and Greedy told him “we don’t give receipt. When you paid for the dinner yesterday, you didn’t get a receipt, did you?”

“That dinner was inedible!” Chester said, apparently having been embarrassed last night that his wife was not a pussy. “If I don’t get a receipt I don’t pay!”

Then he stormed off, leaving me with Greedy. “I’m gonna take a chance,” I paid Greedy the money. “But remember that I’ll be flying back through Cairo in a few days.”

“No problem!” Greedy jumped in the bus and sped away. He never once asked me my name.

So there’s 170 euros flushed down the toilet, I’m thinking.

We went through the Cairo Airport security, which consisted of a group of guards waving you through the shrieking metal detector and an old beggar woman trying to guess your language and plead for money, and found ourselves waiting for the flight to Luxor.

Not that you could tell from the only domestic departure gate, which had one sign that read “ASWAN 11:00” on it.

There were no announcements, but occasionally groups of people would stand up and leave. It was like everybody was hooked into this neural network but us and somehow knew when to get on the bus.

Eventually a big group of English-speaking tourists headed to Luxor banded together to make sure that they couldn’t leave us behind without facing major trouble. With so many hostile Anglophones (as well as six confused Chinese guys), eventually they loaded us up on a bus, drove us fifteen feet, and let us get on a plane. Even better, the plane went to Luxor, which is where the boat was waiting.

There was never any announcement. Apparently local flights are handled by first angry mob come, first angry mob serve.

In Luxor, we meet Naggar Dwarf #4, Smelly. He was a nice guy, really helpful, but he could have used a squirt of deodorant. From a fire hose. For an hour.

(Small side note: in Egypt your bags arrive promptly, about ten minutes after you get off the plane. This despite the fact that it’s six hundred and forty two degrees out on the tarmac. In Atlanta it takes two hours for your bags to come up in customs, with some jackass giving you excuses all the while. And in Europe you’re lucky to see your bags the same day you arrive and there’s nobody around to help you, although there are roving bands of teens to rob you. Which of those places is the third world, again?)

Smelly quickly and efficiently conveyed us to the pier at Luxor, where our boat was waiting. It was more like an armada; there were about ten boats moored side by side, and we had to walk from one boat to another to finally reach ours, the Movenpick Royal Lotus Deluxe. Yeah, it’s a long name. I’ll just call it the SS Lotus.

The Lotus was actually a very nice boat. The first thing Wifey saw when we came on board was the deluxe ice cream menu, listing all kinds of delicious ice cream floats, shakes, sundaes, and other delicacies. She announced, “screw it, I’m eating one of those later.” I agreed and became so excited to eat a float I took a picture of the plastic ice cream demonstration on the bar.

I’ll say this much for the boat: it was nice. From the six-foot-deep pool (at least as long as three bathtubs) to the rec center to the wide-open bar, it’s a nice ship. I wouldn’t hesitate to ride on it again, if I were ever to go back to Egypt to take a Nile Cruise.

After a brief rest on the boat, we were off on our tour of the Karnak temples. When we assembled in the lounge, we met the other eight members of our tour group (in addition to Chester and Susan).

Our group ended up being the four of us, four Australians, two kiwis, and two Canadians who were bronzed like Greek Gods. They’d spent two weeks in Sinai, apparently at low heat for 8 hours a day. It was a good group and we quickly introduced ourselves and promptly forgot names.

Our guide, a very nice young man who wore jeans despite the fact that it tickled a hundred degrees everywhere we went, took us around the Luxor temples. Since it was the Temple of Karnak, I decided to do a bit from Johnny Carson:

“The answer is: ice at an Egyptian bistro. The question: what’s overpriced and full of intestinal worms?”

Without Ed McMahon’s chuckle it really doesn’t work that well.

Did you know that the ancient Egyptian priests used to carry these big, heavy gold statues of their gods down this giant causeway that stretched several kilometers? No offense, but I’d start worshiping the Balsa Wood God if I had to lug it in 110 degree heat twice a year. I guess that’s why I’m not a member of any mystery religions.

After the temples we saw the Colossi of Memnon, which I’ll put a picture of in later. Amazingly nobody in the group but me was hot to see it. I tried to pep everybody up, telling them that these statues were Antiquity’s equivalent of a Burrito with the face of Mary, Mother of Jesus, but the only person to get out of the bus to look at them was the Canadian woman, and she’d have taken a picture of a donkey turd if the guide pointed it out.

Of course, she’d have to get in line behind me. My motto is “there’s one for the album!”

Finally, we ended up back at the boat, hot, sweaty, and tired. Dinner was a buffet affair, which Wifey was thrilled with. She chose chicken, which prompted Chester to ask “do you ever eat anything but chicken?”

She smiled at him and said, “Whose dinner sucked last night again?”

Since we were on a cruise, after dinner they’d arranged for top-notch entertainment, a belly dancer/dervish combo to highlight the joy of traditional Egyptian entertainment.

As a special surprise, they’d trained a hippo to belly dance. Okay, not really, but she was a bit more zaftig than your traditional belly dancer. The ill-fitting body stocking didn’t help, either. It was almost punishment to wait through the thirty minutes of caterwauling music and repetitive boob-shaking, and not in the stripper-gyrating-on-a-pole good way.

I thought the entertainment couldn’t go downhill, but then the dervish started. He came out dressed in hot pink with various splotches of neon green and yellow on these long, black skirts. I tried to be nonjudgmental, but dang.

He must have spun for about an hour. At one point he was twirling this multicolored skirt over our heads, and somebody flashed a camera, causing a strobe effect that set off my wife’s epilepsy. She spent the rest of the performance with her eyes closed trying not to vomit and occasionally foaming at the mouth.

Needlessly to say, this is not conducive to intimacy.

So late that night, I pushed the beds together (even on the boat it’s Fred and Wilma Flintstone!) and we drifted off to sleep.

Our third day in Egypt, largely a success.

Tomorrow: the boat actually moves!

Where Institute Equals Store

Day 2 of our Egyptian adventure started out with a fairly blasé breakfast in the hotel. The staff were all nice, although I was wracked with fear that every piece of food was laden with hostile germs that would lay me low for the rest of my vacation.

Our guide arrived about 9 AM, a very nice headscarfed woman who spoke good English. The group was just me and Wifey and Chester and Susan. My first question to our guide?

“Are we going to see where the Aliens landed their spaceships while they built the pyramids?”

Yeah, she pegged me as a troublemaker right off. Our first stop on the tour was Saqqara, where you can see a giant temple complex and the stepped pyramid of Zoser, designed and built by history’s first architect, Imhotep. I had a woody just thinking about it, since I’m an engineer and a dork (but I repeat myself).

First He Erected This, Then It Erected Me

What was most striking about the site was the mangy dogs. We’re not talking about undernourished dogs; we’re talking about emaciated-covered-in-ticks-with-open-sores-animals-staggering-about-looking-for-a-place-to-die dogs.

The day was not too bad; kind of warm, but not more than we could take, somewhere in the mid-90s. And it was sunny, which was nice. Traffic was much better, since Friday is their Sunday, and the driver was very good.

We entered one pyramid, a nondescript affair on the outside but beautifully carved on the inside. It was simply amazing, and I couldn’t help but admire the crafty thieves who stole from it so long ago without breaking their necks.

After our visit to Saqqara we stopped at a carpet school where they teach children and young women a useful trade so that they can get some money. They show you how the carpets are made (impressive), then they hock their wares to you. Since I’m never going back to Egypt, I bought a little silk panel. For no apparent reason, they wrapped it in Precious Moments paper.

Then, the carpet guy asked if he could get my opinion on something, and showed me a big piece: St. George and the Dragon. WTF? Who buys one of the premiere icons of Christianity in Egypt? Stupid people, that’s who, which is what I told him.

After this we took in lunch at a delightful outdoor restaurant. On the menu were roasted chicken, vegetables, and a fruit plate for dessert. All eaten in the delightful company of sore-covered dogs and all a cloud of hopeful flies. Bon appetite!

During lunch our guide treated us to the Official Version of Egyptian History, or what I like to call “Why the Israelis Are Filthy Liars.” The short version is this: they weren’t slaves, and the Pharaoh wasn’t Ramses II, but was rather Ramses III. Oh, those crazy Hebrews, always telling their stories.

Somehow she sounded much more educated than Chester, who chose to argue that the Red Sea couldn’t possibly be parted but the miracle was instead perfectly normal: a tide came that allowed the Israelis to escape the pursuing Egyptian army. I told him that if that was the part of the story that stuck in his craw (rather than, say, the Nile turning to blood or the rain of frogs), then he’d had a good day.

Just for fun, I asked her if Moses was actually Akhenaton, the monotheist Pharoah of the eighteenth dynasty. Her response was pretty vehemently no. Based on that, I resolved to ask every single guide if Moses was actually Akhenaton. When my wife complained, I told her that it was my vacation, too, and I was entitled to have my fun. Especially since I still hadn’t pushed the beds together.

In the afternoon we went to the highlight of the trip: the plain of Giza, home of the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid. All my life I have wanted to see these, and they did not disappoint. Words fail to describe them; they are simply massive, and ancient, and it is worth everything to stand before them once in your life.

The Great Pyramid: You'll Feel Like Herodotus

But what about going into them? Well, it costs about twenty bucks, you have to get in line reaaaaly early, and it’s physically demanding. I passed on it, but I have it on good authority that it’s like this:

You crawl up a 3-foot-tall passage, your face pressed into the ass in front of you. You try not to breathe to avoid the stench of ill-digested salmonella that fills the air. The angle is about 55°, and there are several lights out, so you crawl through the dark, crashing into people trying to crawl down as you crawl up. Finally you emerge into a tiny little room that is very hot from the press of bodies but devoid of any inscription whatsoever. Then, you leave.

I spoke to many people about this, and they were all unanimous: not worth it.

After this we went to a papyrus institute, where they manufacture genuine Egyptian papyrus. First we had the most uninspired ten-second demonstration of how to make papyrus you can imagine, then we were allowed to buy whatever we wanted off the walls. I chose a painting of the golden mask of Tutankhamen, which would be well at home in any 70’s-inspried design scheme.

What can I say? I love the classics.

I’ll spare you the further details of our afternoon, which could best be described as “how to recover from heatstroke without vomiting.” The four of us reassembled late that night eagerly awaiting our trip to see the much-anticipated Giza Sound and Light Show, followed by a wonderful dinner.

I should have known there’d be trouble when we met the Second Naggar Dwarf, Surly. He was a tall guy, bespectacled, as friendly as a German with the impeccable manners of a Frenchman.

We climbed back into the “I Love Australia” bus of death and made our way quickly to the pyramids (thankfully they were close by). Wifey, always smarter than me by a long shot, wore jeans and took a jacket. I was in Egypt, so I wore shorts and a T-Shirt.

This turns out to be a bad move, because at night the temperature drops to about 50° F.

When we got to Giza, we were amazed to find a drum and bagpipe band dressed as pharaohs entertaining the crowd. I am not making this up. They played a rousing medley of Middle Eastern-sounding tunes set to bagpipe. Yes, that is as awful as it sounds.

Then the show started. I can describe it in two words: LAME and LONG. I’ll paraphrase it for you (it’s narrated by the sphinx) so you can understand it:

“I have been here a long time. Lots of famous people have stood before me…(dramatic pause) I have been here a long time. Lots of famous people have stood before me…(dramatic pause) I have been here a long time. Lots of famous people have stood before me…”

Help Wanted: Any Creative, Lighting Talent Please Apply

Yeah, it sucks as bad as it sounds. Add in the ten-dollar laser effects, the car that drove through the middle of the show, and the fact that the Cairo airport flight path takes planes about five hundred feet overhead and you’ve got one cold night of shitty entertainment.

As we waited with Surly for the bus, I spotted a Planet Hollywood. One of my relatives collects Planet Hollywood pins, so I ran over there to buy one. It was the strangest experience inside: there was no Planet Hollywood, just a counter selling Planet Hollywood merchandise. As I puzzled over whether or not that counted as collectable, Surly came barging in and insisted that I go so we could make our reservation at this exclusive restaurant.

As I climbed into the Australian bus, Wifey pointed out a nearby restaurant and said “Look! Pizza Hut! Let’s have Pizza Hut!”

“No!” We all said. “We didn’t come to Egypt to eat Pizza Hut!”

God, I wish we’d listened to her. She’d always been against this restaurant we were going to, because it’s a seafood restaurant. She hates seafood, and had only agreed after being promised a chicken dish.

On the way, Surly said “you all eat fish, right?”

I got this sinking feeling in my stomach, like you might if you woke up and heard your one-night-stand in the other room peeing while standing up. “She doesn’t!” I yelled out. “Is it too late to go to Pizza Hut?”

“Oh, they have chicken,” Surly assured me. “I will ask.”

When we finally got to this exclusive, wonderful restaurant, the first sign of trouble was that it was empty. Sixty tables and not one damned fool inside. Secondly, we had to walk by the open-air fish display that reeked of Today’s Catch. Goodbye, any chance of booty for me.

I decided to have a glass of red wine with dinner. This allowed me to discover the there three problems with Egyptian red wine: it is served at 140° F, it is chunky, and I could detect a slight tang of battery acid when I drank it.

Other than that it was perfect.

When they brought out our plates, we had a long debate about what exactly the fish plate entailed. We settled on deep-fried rubber, crawdaddies, a piece of fish steak, two oysters, and potatoes that had been threatened but in no other way cooked.

It was awful. Susan couldn’t even eat it and ended up having dinner again back at the hotel. Thanks to strong teeth I managed to choke it down, but it was dreadful.

By contrast, Wifey told us that the chicken was absolutely delightful, well-prepared and a delight to the palate. She also told us to go fuck ourselves when we asked for a taste and said that we could enjoy the canal-dredge that they’d served us. I suppose we deserved that for dragging her to a fish restaurant.

When Surly came back, he asked how everything was.

“Fine,” I lied, being a total pussy.

“Good!” Lied Chester, being a total pussy.

“It was absolutely unacceptable. You should never bring people to this restaurant again. It was awful. You can’t eat this food. You simply can’t!” said Susan. As we looked on in horror, she simply shrugged. “Somebody has to tell them.”

“My compliments to the chef on the chicken,” said Wifey.

Then it was back to the hotel for a good night’s sleep, because in the morning, we were going to need all our strength to survive a domestic Egyptian flight.

So what did I learn from my first day in Egypt?

1) Egyptologists don’t take alien jokes very well
2) Institute in Arabic means Shop in English
3) Avoid all sound and light shows
4) When Wifey protests a restaurant, agree with her no matter what

Oh, who am I kidding? I already knew #4, I just chose to ignore it. That’s why I have dysentery more than she does.

Welcome to Egypt

[As promised last week, I’m going to blog my Egyptian odyssey. I’ll do one a day chronicling our adventure through the land of sun, sand, and really old monuments. And if I’m feeling really inspired, I’ll throw a few all-original pictures in, too. I kept notes all the way through, so I’ll write as if it were contemporaneous.]

When we landed in Egypt it was late, maybe 10 PM local time. Unlike developed countries, Egypt is more like Detroit in that there’s no tunnel that you walk up; you go down the stars to a bus. Then the bus takes you all of ten feet, to drop you at the Terminal. We spent more time waiting for the bus to move than we did driving. Oh, well, you just learn to accept the quirks of other cultures.

Once inside, you have to give your first bribe to the guy selling visas. At least it feels like a bribe. Apparently this is all legal and above-board in Egypt, but to me it felt seedy. Twenty euros later we had our Visas and were quickly through security.

Once we’d left security we did two things: first we met the nice couple who would be traveling with us the next eight days, a pair of retirees who had recently sold their hotel and were living their dream of touring Egypt. For the sake of anonymity, I’ll call them Chester and Susan. They were, I’m guessing, round about 70 years old.

Then we met our local travel contact in Cairo, from a company called Naggar Travel. If you ever travel to Egypt, AVOID THIS COMPANY AT ALL COSTS! I’m not kidding. This guy was the first of what we were to come to know as the seven dwarves of Naggar travel. This one was Dummy.

Why Dummy? Well, I got the feeling that I knew more about Cairo than he did, and I’ve never been there. Typical of our conversation was this: “what’s that big building over there?” Him: “um, it’s old.”

Yeah, I can pretty much tell that, dipshit. I kind of wanted a little more detail.

We hopped on a little minibus that inexplicably had shag carpet on the inside and a huge tissue holder that said I LOVE AUSTRALIA on it, bracketed by a kangaroo and a koala, and we were off into Cairo traffic.

You need to know two things about Cairo traffic: the paint on the roads is for decoration, and the drivers all navigate by radar and not by sight. I know this because our bus drove for an hour without ever turning on its headlights (and it was dark) yet honking his horn all along the route. Even that late at night the roads are clogged with cars. Several times I prepared myself to die in a flaming crash, and my only solace was knowing that the news reports would say “a thirty-car pileup in Cairo leaves forty dead, among them two Americans.”

And that’s something, right?

As we went Dummy pointed out various old things, saying “there’s an old thing of stone, and there’s another old thing, and look! A fountain!” He also told us sexist jokes: “only women have traffic accidents in Cairo traffic, because they get scared.”

My wife, in a rare moment of pique, responded “when do they borrow all these guys’ cars, then? Every damn one of them has a dent in it!”

He stopped narrating after that, which bummed me out because I couldn’t tell which stuff was old and which was really old without his help.

When we finally arrived at the hotel, a little after midnight, we were given some vile-tasting red juice while Dummy checked us in. Because in Egypt, you never check yourself in. I don’t know why. Probably bribes change hands or something.

Dummy returned and proposed, for the next day, a visit to Saqqara and taking in the magical Pyramid Sound and Light Show in addition to our already-scheduled tour of the Giza plateau. We, eager tourists, accepted.

Finally, tuckered out from a long day of travel, we turned in and I made a horrible discovery:

THE ROOM HAD DOUBLE BEDS! What is this, Ozzie and Harriet go on vacation? Ultimately I was too tired to move them that night so we slept apart.

End result: no sex for me.

Not an auspicious start to the vacation.