Enjoying Exotic Egypt

Egypt Made Simple and Easy

Bassam was the name of our Egyptian tour guide. He was, in his own words, "a genius guide." He idolized Elvis Presley and struck pharaonic poses for the women and a few of the men. He claimed to have an extensive Presley music collection and an '83 pink Cadillac back home in Alexandria, but the desert heat creates mirages and all is not what it seems in Egypt.

During our one-hour drive from the old airport to the Mena House Oberoi Hotel next the Pyramids; I had the opportunity to fully appreciate the Egyptians' total lack of regard for traffic lights and regulations. The traffic was bumper-to-bumper, door-to-door, metal to wooden cart, Toyota to donkey, Ford to camel. There are as many donkey and horse carts in Cairo as there are cars. The only law drivers obey is that they must honk there horn every 4.5 seconds - -day and all night. The din is constant, loud, unnerving, and must have some meaning for the natives. They intuitively ebb and flow with precise disorder while bringing their vehicles (motorized and otherwised) to the brink of collision before adroitly executing dips and banks that would be the envy of the Blue Angles.

One bumper sticker I saw read in English, "I'm not deaf. I'm honking, too."

After a few days doing the tourist sites, we left the bustling bazaars of Cairo for the quiet of an uncrowded off-season Nile cruise. It was the fulfillment of a PBS/BBC Masterpiece Theater inspired dream to join Agatha Christie, Florence Nightingale, Liz and Richard in floating down this mother of all rivers.

Midnight and I was alone at the bow as we headed south into the dark evening of Africa. Mosquitoes breezed around the dim railing lights. A warm wind swarmed from the western desert. Shooting stars fell before us and the light from the lunge softly illuminated the starboard bank in a gentle beacon. Memories of those who have come and gone surfaced in the hot soup of the equatorial night.