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A Sentimental Journey Across Egypt, Libya, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Italy VI
Day Seven
(continued from ish 211 and the desert rambler series)
Okay, day seven. Have a thought and an actual conversation about the fact that this may or may not be day seven due to prior logic in day two or so (call it Provisional Day Two). Also begin wondering if I didn't miss a day somewhere out in the desert. I don't wear a watch normally, in my normal life, walking around in (normal) places with lots of paved things and not a whole lot of sand and certainly no camels or Bedouins, but it seemed more readily apparent in the desert that I wasn't wearing a watch. To be more accurate, it seemed more readily apparent that I didn't have a watch after returning from the desert. Due to some metaphysics of watch-wearing and/or time, in the desert I was vastly unconcerned with time and that sort of thing, choosing instead to focus my energies on the voluminous amounts of sand, sunsets, sunrises, and scorpions all around me. Out of the desert, when there were taxis, fruit stands, coffee shoppes, book shoppes, pavement (sidewalks), palm tree-like things, and other people, all seemingly checking their watches every few seconds (or minutes, I couldn't tell exactly, I didn't have a watch). The more rushed pace of life made you realise you were missing something to keep track of how much faster everything was going past. Or something. The one thing I kept visualising for some reason, over and over, was that a watch may just save my life -- namely that I'd sense something approaching at great speed towards my head from a nearby tree in the middle of the pavement, behind which might be hiding any number of calesh drivers waiting to ask me if I wanted to ride in a calesh. And as the thing whipped towards my head I would unclasp my watch, flick it off, twirl it a few times maybe like some old West gunslinger and thwack the hell out of the flying scorpion winging it's way towards my head. Just in case scorpions were a bit like some kinds of squirrel.
Whatever, the reason, I missed having a watch, possibly for the first time in my life. And I had that feeling again that I wasn't sure how many days had passed out in Egypt.
Whichever day it was, it was a bit of an adventure.
Apparently, it started at three in the morning, involved a flight from Aswan to Abu Simbel, a mad rush for the bus from the airport to the site, a mad rush from the bus to the ticket counter upon arrival, a couple of well-placed elbows to retain the place at the ticket counter, a couple more elbows and a grip on the tickets that walked a fine balance between delicacy and ferocity just away from the ticket window, and a mad rush around the corner to the actual Abu Simbel site where they had the gigantic statue-like things and temples of brilliant engineering. This allegedly was followed by the sun coming up over the water and on the temples, a rising tide of people coming down the hill from the ticket counter, accompanied by a Tower of Babel-like influx of voices, all saying approximately the same thing and in similarly louder and louder voices as they competed with their neighbouring guide, including the guide for the Dutch that seemed to be talking about a bazooka, followed by a mad rush back to the buses, when there suddenly seemed to be no one else left around the temples and statues and the site seemed markedly quieter, mad sitting down on the bus, with heartbeats racing due to frantic run up the hill back past the ticket window and on to the nearest bus, getting back on a plane, arrival back in Aswan, collection of selves by taxi driver and depositing of ourselves back at hotel.
Apparently.
Since all of this purportedly took place before ten o'clock in the morning, there is no way of knowing for sure, barring large circumstantial evidence in the form of stunning pictures of Ramses and Nefertari's temples.
Back in Aswan, we were ready to begin the next phase of our Five Elements tour: Water.
I wasn't entirely sure how many elements we'd experienced in the first part of the tour, but there was definitely Sand, and just in the previous two days, Heat. So much so with the heat that the Nile looked very inviting, as did the feluccas, which we'd be sailing on for the next three four days, three nights.
With the sort of shakey steps you take to get on to a boat, especially when your shoes are delicately unbalanced by the shifting amount of sand inside. After falling down over the edge of the boat and down into the little area at the front of the boat where we'd store the bags and the captain would sleep at night when the sand in my shoes decided to shift and form a sand dune on the left side of both feet at approximately the same instant I was looking down for any sign of life in the water, we were off. Off and on to the Nile. And after a quick check of the cushions and pillows strewn about the deck of the felucca, where we'd be passing both our days and nights for the next little while, I settled back to squint up at the sun.
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disclaimer:
Okay, no watermelons this week, sorry.
However, maybe next week!
As of yet, you'll be happy to note, we've received no note from the Egyptian government to cease, nor have we received any cheque in the post, so it looks like we'll just keep on keeping on with the travelogue.
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Yer Weekly Horoscopes.