The Next Big Thing: Egypt 2020

It is March 11, I think. One so bleary-eyed can never be sure of the date after the long travel route here, the connections, security checks, the dog-sniffing security patrols, customs, immigration, baggage, meet the tour guide, and on and on. Same stuff, different country. Oh, and they have added a new stop, the health check, an infrared thermometer pointed at your forehead to pick out any would-be Coranovirus-Mary’s.

Our guide, Remon, is a young, handsome, very tall, slender gentleman. He is wearing a blue suit and wingtip shoes, a gold bracelet on his left hand. He has very lovely olive skin. As he introduces himself he welcomes us to Egypt and refers to us as ” very precious treasures”, our value is greatly increased because we had the remarkable courage (or stupidity as it were) to not cancel our travel plan in the midst of the worldwide pandemic unfolding as I write. Like it or not, we are here, about 20 in my group of precious people. Remon says early in his introduction to us ” I promise you to make you enjoy this trip”.

He provides the details of our itinerary as the bus wields its way through the dense Cairo traffic pattern–a mish-mash of converging vehicles that do not seem to observe any logical pattern whatsoever, therefore, updating my definition of “bad drivers”. Still, we arrive intact at our stately hotel where we work out the complicated instructions of the tipping protocol under Remon’s knowledgable tutelage: $1 per day per porter times 4 trips, same for the bus driver, $5 per day for him, etc. It seems a complicated scam, but overall a convenient way to work things out, assure everybody a cut, and get it over with.

Tomorrow we climb aboard the 4-day cruise down the Nile. For now, I am happy to place my weary eyes against my binoculars and search the landscape for birds, any birds that define this arid country. Below the view from my private balcony which includes a view of the Nile.