Egypt (the first time)...

How do you mend a broken heart? For me, I grab my passport.

In June 1995, I was walking through Stratford-Upon Avon, looking for Shakespeare (he moved out centuries ago) and on a cobblestone street, I found a travel shoppe with a sign on the window for 2 weeks in Egypt, 225 pounds. I walked in, booked the trip for the next week, and then grabbed my backpack and hopped on the train to London to go to the Egyptian consulate for my visa.

Soon enough, I was on a Hayes & Jarvis/ Monarch air flight to Luxor. We landed in the center of a nighttime oven, Egypt in late June is a furnace - no matter what time of the day. The glow of the street lamps reflected off the tarmac, and we were herded to our buses to take us to our hotels, delineated by star. I had paid for 3 star accommodations.

On the walk to the bus, we could see the surrounding cliffs in the distance, and young men scurried to grab our bags. I fought to keep my bag. It was my first losing battle, as was the fight that ensued when I tried to tip just one British pound for the 500 foot trek to the bus. I quickly learned that Egypt was a country of contentious negotiation. For me, a person who hates conflict; it was going to be an experience.

The bus brought us to a short alleyway, lined with lean-tos and shacks. At the end of the alley (a road called ‘the gut’) were the gates of the Pharone Hotel, on the banks of the Nile. It was a dingy spot, with out dated rooms, a pool and an in-house restaurant with formal French service. For three weeks (I extended my stay), it was home – or at least home base.

It housed mainly British tourists on low cost package tours. I was the only American. When I extended my stay, it meant that I was witness to a revolving cross section of people. For my first week, I settled into a routine of waking in the wee hours before dawn, going down for breakfast and then setting out on whatever tour I had booked for the day.

The Pharone is on the Banks of the Nile on the Karnak/Luxor side of the river. On the other side is the necropolis. Crossing the Nile is a metaphor for crossing the river Styx. All tours are booked for the early dawn, to avoid the heat. A bus picks your group up at each hotel, and drives you through Karnak and Luxor from hotel to hotel, avoiding kaleshes pulled by skinny overworked desert horses. There are always children in various states of dress, asking for baksheesh, hands outspread. They smile, teeth glistening white against tanned skin, and bare dirty legs running after the buses of fat, pink tourists. The children wave, practicing the English learned from television and a lifetime of tourist culture.

I grew up in Maine, “Vacationland”, and I remember the novelty of tourists and out of state license plates, and if those cars driving by caught a glimpse of me, fresh from weeding the garden, on bike riding to the lake for an afternoon swim? I wonder if they thought of me as an impoverished urchin. The context often adds to stereotypes, and an American world view is very small and clichéd – if my travels have taught me one thing, it is that I had as much to unlearn as I had to learn about this world.

Crossing the Nile for the first time was amazing. We lined up for the tourist ferry, and to the left was a ferry that brought locals and their camels, and piles of green that were a reminder that the Nile valley was once an agrarian community. There were boats of fishermen, and feluccas’ with patchwork sails starting out on their Nile tours.

In a few minutes, we were on the Necropolis side. People selling trinkets, post cards and t-shirts called out to us as we were led to our air conditioned coach. I took my seat by the window and watched as the bus navigated the road past canals, and field workers, tourists on small donkeys bouncing along the trails, and camels resting until they were called to duty ferrying tourists to sightsee.

The newly paved road brought us to the Valley of the Kings, where I descended into ancient burial chambers, the underworld that the masses were never supposed to see let alone visit. I felt that I was violating privacy every time that I examined a hieroglyph closely. These walls were not painted for me to see. A burial chamber is for one soul’s trip to their afterlife – and now it is a tourist attraction. I guess that is a way for the Pharaoh to live forever.

There are men who sit at the openings to the tombs who watch the tourists hour by hour burning in the baking sun. These men have skin like tanned leather, and eyes that are lined and wizened. After some conversations with a few of them, I learned that they were at most in their mid- 40’s, yet by western standards, they seemed ancient – a hard life ages a person. Yet another reminder that I was a stranger in a foreign land.

Back at the hotel, after a light lunch, it was time for a mid day nap to avoid the heat of summer in Egypt. I woke after the sun set, and walked down to the pool to socialize with the other vacationers. We were a mixed lot of strangers, couples on illicit getaways, solo travelers like myself wandering, Australians on walkabout and a older woman who walked into the local pub and asked “who wants to go to Eqypt?” A young man answered “me”, and soon he was her escort for a budget all expenses paid vacation. We sat around the pool and talked, shared edited versions of our life stories, joked and traded travel tips – all while drinking and looking out over the Nile to the illuminated Valley of the kings. It was a magical time with strangers that I will never see again, yet years later, I will remember them fondly as long lost friends.

Just as I was starting week three, my latest group of new friends had departed, and I was alone for a day or so. I booked a tour of the Temple at Karnack, was wowed by the ego of Ramses II and his boulevards, I was stunned by the graffiti from centuries past – signs of the Coptics, the Romans and the British and inspired by Hatshepsut, the woman ruling as a in a man’s world, keeping her femininity for the gods. (I wonder how she would have coped with my relationship issues? Would she have left or simply had them beheaded? I decided that leaving was the prudent thing to do.)

I wasn’t alone for long. One night, as I was fending off the brother of the manager of the hotel, a tall, dark handsome Italian man walked up to my table and asked me to join him and his friend for dinner. I saw trouble ahead, and said no. We had a brief conversation, and finally he said, “If you won’t join us, then we will join you”. I gave in. Walked over to his table and was introduced to his friend Gareth. The Italian’s name was Tony, and he was on vacation with friends from London. Gareth was a fellow vacationer staying at the hotel, who’s day job was being a butler at Buckingham Palace. I had so many questions, and we became fast friends sitting in the wee hours before dawn, poolside, drinking, listening to music, talking about life and comparing our Egyptian tourist adventures. Little was I to know that Tony was going to be a major part of my life for the next few years, and it all started on the banks of the Nile.

to be continued....