…I did not sleep long. In the wee hours of the morning, I heard Michelle whisper groggily, “Are you guys cold?” Those few words were all it took for me and Liz to practically spoon Michelle and to pile all of our blankets (including our pillow blanket) on top of us as we lay together in one big heap of body warmth. It was freezing.
I had no idea that the desert got so cold at night. I knew that they gave us wool blankets for a reason, but good grief! When Liz’s watch alarm beeped at 5:17AM, we all scooted off of each other and acted as if we all woke up on our own mattress.
I sat up, my entire body stiff and aching with exhaustion and camel-ridden soreness, and then I looked around me. It was probably one of the most spectacular sunrises I’ve ever witnessed. Layers and layers of mountains blocked the reds and yellows illuminating from behind them. Instead of hastily grabbing my camera like the other girls, I found myself just sitting on the ledge and watching the sun come up. It was too serene, too beautiful to miss, even for a camera-grabbing moment.
We watched it for about an hour, and then we began the descent back down the Stairs of repentance. It was more terrifying walking down the stairs in the morning than walking up them in the night. If there is a fear of falling, I have it. I have no problems with heights or falling if I’m attached to something (i.e. roller coasters, skydiving, etc.), but when it comes to hiking, or even walking down narrow steps, I have an explicable fear of falling downdowndown. It’s terrible and weird, I know, but bear with me.
We hopped (well, I was carried) back onto the camels and began the painful, though exhilarating, trek down the mountain. This time, my camel was not the leader of the pack, but we took up the back. His name was whiskey, which I found to be very fitting to his personality.
We found a taxi at the end of St. Catherine’s Monastery, and we asked when we could catch the next bus to Cairo this morning. He laughed. He actually laughed. We looked at each other.
“The next bus to Cairo come six.”
“Six P.M?” We asked in unison.
“Six tomorrow in the morning!” He smiled proudly at us for using such well-said English.
No! No no no! We panicked for about 10.5 seconds, and then he offered to take us to a place where we could catch a bus on the way to Cairo for a decent amount of money. We took him up on his offer, not ever thinking that he might take us into the middle of the desert, pull over on the side of the road, and play Koran music while waving down each passing vehicle, which were few and far in between. Oh, but that’s what he did. It was amusing for a while, if only because it was so unbelievable. What kind of taxi would drive us two hours into the desert, and expect to find a passing bus traveling to Cairo? He was legit, alright.
Eventually (and this is after a good hour of sitting in the heat, in this taxi van), another van stopped and pulled over on the side of the road. A skinny, anorexic-looking kid with black curly hair sidled up to our van and smiled appreciatively at me. Our driver explained our situation and the kid looked at us, and spoke in broken English that he could drive us to Cairo for 300 pounds, total. That was an amazing deal, so we hopped into his van (after he took my bags and pushed me into the front seat with him, yuck). I turned around to talk to Michelle and Liz, and that’s when I noticed there were three men sitting also sitting in the back of the van.
They were very polite and spoke in polished English, which greatly surprised me. The one man closest to me whispered that Egyptians drive like nutcases, to which I couldn’t have agreed more, and I asked him where they were from, if not Egypt.
Pakistan. Three men from Pakistan, and my heart dropped. This van ride could not have gotten any shadier, and I chided myself for being so racist, so eager to peg these men for something. And would you believe that they actually turned out to be some of the nicest, most educated people I’ve met during this entire trip? We talked about religion, and Egypt, Semester at Sea, and their careers. A CEO for CNBC, a Unicef National Consultant for Health and Immunization, and a Corporate designer and manager for a company that alters labels, for instance, the Marlboro package of cigarettes. These men were among some of the wealthiest people, and here we were, honored to have four hours in a van to talk to them.
The Unicef Consultant confided in me, but not without asking me not to get offended for saying so, that he and his friends actually asked the driver to keep going, to not give the Americans a ride for fear an argument would flare up. I laughed. Then he heard that we were girls, students, and they agreed that the driver could stop. These Pakistani men had impressions about us too, and here we were, all growing on each other.
About two hours into the drive, we stopped at a rest stop and the men all bought us lunch, to which we were very thankful. We hadn’t eaten an actual meal in what seemed like forever. We hadn’t taken showers or brushed our teeth or deodorized ourselves in days. We were grungy. I smelled like camel poop and desert dirt and caked on sweat. How’s that for a description of my nastiness?
“If you ever need anything, you can give me a call.” The Unicef man smiled at me. “It was a pleasure.”
“If you ever come to Pakistan, you are welcome here!” The CEO shook my hand. I felt so honored, so grateful.
The skinny taxi driver then proceeded to rip us off, after taking us to a bank, he told us that we agreed to 300 pounds each. I died a little inside. We certainly did not agree on 300 a piece, and we argued with him, constantly asking him to explain the misunderstanding, but to no avail. We paid his price and he took us to a bus station.
We caught the bus to Alexandria, which was a long, exhausting 3 hour drive. We had been driving all day. I was more than ready to sleep in a comfortable bed, if only me cabin bed, and to eat a decent meal, and to get some alone time away from the smelliness of buses and the misunderstandings in the desert. On the way there, there was a 22 year old girl who was basically the stewardess of the bus. It was so sweet. She let me try an Egyptian drink for free, and she kept saying that anything we wanted, she would help us out. She only knew a few words in English though, so she asked these two young brothers to translate what she was saying to us. The one boy, who did not look a day over 11 when he was actually 14, ended up proposing to me. I laughed and told him in a few years. He and his brother giggled and kept coming back to speak in their English. It was sweet.
We finally, finally made it back to the ship around 9PM. I blew my nose when I got to the cabin, and the tissue was black. It was sickening. I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed away the scum that had layered itself on me, and I still felt dirty.
I fell into my bed with relief to be somewhere comfortable. I shut my eyes and drifted off with a smile on my face. What an adventure.
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