The Cruise
I haven’t written a story in a while, so I figure it’s time to balance out that side of my tumblr. And in fact I haven’t really written any stories about Egypt at all (besides the ridiculous Egyptian Train Party one), so it’s about time I tell those tales.
So I’ll start with the cruise, which to be honest was a very much needed back and fourth between air conditioned cabin room and tours of ancient temples. After 20 days of being on the road moving non-stop (and cherishing both toilet paper and hot water when we found it), and then getting off an overnight train after not being able to sleep normally for three days straight, actually having someone pick us up, put us in a car, drive us to our destination, and give us an itinerary felt like heaven.
And so we showered, with warm water. And had toilet paper, and a mirror, and a sink. And we slept on a bed, with a pillow, that wasn’t on the ground. And we had a lovely tour guide named Wahleed (I hope I’m spelling it right) who had a lovely accent that was somewhere between British, Egyptian, and an unknown third, who took us to Luxor Temple and the Valley of the Kings and told us stories about “Gots and Gotsses” while we took pictures and told jokes.
It was lovely.
We shared the boat with the most random assortment of people you could possibly imagine, too: four crazy upper-middle class Indian guys from Mumbai on vacation, two Japanese girls who decided to come on a last minute trip, an Indian family with two daughters going to school for “dentistry” and “home ec.”, a Chinese family who took an insane amount of pictures, a recluse dad with his two kids who I think were dutch, a large deaf group, and us. There was a ‘party’ on the boat one evening (I was too sick to attend), and you can only imagine how ridiculous it was. Musical chairs was involved. Need I say more?
We spent most of our time taking jumping pictures in front of random monuments, playing cards, trying not to melt, and freaking out about how BEAUTIFUL the sky looked all. the. time.
Of course this wasn’t travel reality. It was a wonderful break, but I think once it was over the three of us were definitely ready to move on. I mean, when Cairo’s calling you that’s something you can’t ignore.
