EGYPT!!!

Safaga, Egypt       02 APR 11

A very emotional moment today.  A few days ago the captain came over the intercom to announce yet another itinerary change.  It seems that our rapid progress through the pirate area had put us way ahead of schedule.  Combined with the U. S. state department’s easing of the travel rules to Egypt, he announced, we would be calling at Safaga, Egypt for tours to Karnak/Luxor and Valley of the Kings.  An amazing piece of work to put that together in two days time, arranging tours, pier space, immigration formalities, etc. etc.  So here we are, the first ship to call here since the January uprising.

I’m sitting in the back seat of a bus heading to the Valley of the Kings.  Our tour guide, May, is speaking of her experience during the uprising.  She cannot complete her story due to her emotions.  A brief respite of quiet interrupts her dialogue several times.  This is her first day of work in the tourism industry since January.  She resides in Cairo and is VERY proud to be an Egyptian!  She had no axe to grind with Mubarak, but now, after the fact, she is angry with him.  She traveled to Tahrir Square during the last days of the unrest.  She spoke of the long lines to get through security and, here’s what got me, the overwhelming “smell of freedom”.  What commenced as a small gathering of unhappy students swelled into a celebration of millions.  History was made and this lovely lady was there.  She admits it will be a long road to the kind of government they are hoping for but the first steps have been taken.  I wished her health, wealth and a stable, secular government.

The tour itself was an 11 hour tour with 45 minutes in the Valley of the Kings and 45 minutes in Karnak, and an hour and a half cruising the Nile and having lunch, kind of ridiculous if you hadn’t been there before.  The problem is that the westbound road from Safaga to Qena, gateway to Luxor, is littered with “checkpoints” complete with armed guards every 5 kilometers.  Busses must slow down to almost a stop to cross the speed bumps, losing valuable momentum each time they stop.  There are towers, maybe twenty feet high, containing guards armed with machine guns.  But this is not new!  It was this way in November when we were last here.  I’m not sure what the hell they’re protecting us from, but it is really absurd.  One thing we did notice was that the trash that seemed to be everywhere was no longer visible.

Happy with our surprise visit to Egypt, we can only hope the people end up with what they so richly deserve.