The pace up until yesterday was relentless. To achieve what has to be achieved in the time allotted means all timepieces need to be synchronised, all loins should be girded and all starters should be on the grid with engines gurgling and there is no allowance for oversleeping (day 1 in Cairo), taking 1 hour camel rides when the window is half an hour (also day 1 in Cairo), lingering and adjusting for far too long over each photo (ongoing), just generally being really slack at time management (ongoing) and getting lost (day 3). Lost time cannot be made up when itineraries are to be slavishly followed. It just extends the day so on all of our heads be it.
The day we flew to Luxor started with a 4.00am wake-up call (shudder), a painfree traverse of Cairo Airport’s multiple security checks (you have to keep reminding yourself where you are) until we got to the gate. Then a full airbus A330 had to put its collective hand luggage through one secuity screening machine. A thoroughly modern airport with thoroughly India 1980’s procedures. This was followed by a one hour, ontime flight thankfully. Then the waiting began.
After half an hour three suitcases appeared on the baggage carousel. Those who triumphantly claimed them were immediately brought crashing back to earth when they realised they had to wait for the rest of us. This continued for another half hour or so as the occasional bag appeared. I assumed the worse. Maybe one of the baggage handlers was asleep and the other one’s wheelbarrow was broken. Or maybe they were only releasing bags after rifling through our undies looking for hidden jewels as has been customary here for thousands of years. Eventually the rest of our luggage came cascading out presumably when the futility of trying to open our bags became obvious. If only the Pharaoh’s tombs had the same locks as the modern suitcase, countless treasures would be intact.
Getting out of the airport carpark meant battling four lanes of traffic for one security lane. A big lumbering bus doesn’t lose its place in the queue easily so after another half hour crawl we were on our way. It was now over eight hours since we’d dragged ourselves out of bed in Cairo and there was still a tourist itinerary to complete. A few hours at Karnak, the biggest temple complex in the world was followed by checking in to our Nile cruise boat then a traipse round Luxor temple then back to Karnak for the light and sound show before getting back to the boat for dinner at about 10.00pm. The previous day in Cairo was the same. It’s fair to say we are not the fittest bunch of safari campers so it’s also fair to say the gathering this morning for another temple visit resembled the aftermath of Rourke’s Drift.
Most of the people we have got to know on this trip are keen travellers like the CB and I so are determined to battle the fatigue and the heat to take in the wonders of ancient Egypt – that’s why we came here after all, although for those who struggle walking up stairs, let alone in and out of underground tombs, you have to wonder. There has however been one activity which got zero takers. An early morning (bloody 5.00am again) ballon ride over the Valley of Kings and the much smaller (I have no comment) Valley of Queens was given an almighty swerve when our guide pointed out that of the five companies offering this service, the one they used was the one that has yet to lose a passenger overboard. You’d have to assume the odds are shortening.
This is one example of conformity. In many other fields of human activity we are annoyingly consistent. So despite the guides telling us to sit in different places on the bus each day there are some who don’t with one pair always snagging the seats immediately behind the central stairwell. I think she sleeps there. At the meal tables on our Nile cruise ship, the Royal Lotus, people sit at the same table in the same seats for breakfast lunch and dinner. Except me who moves around, much to the CB’s occasional chagrin. Bugger the cliques which are beginning to form like our version of Mean Girls. No, that’s unfair but it was the most apt simile I could think of. As The Cars used to sing, “Shake it up”.