One of the joys of travel is the expectation. Sometimes you build a place up in your mind, either based on facts derived from research or based on romanticized imaginings. Can anything match the possibility created from one's imagination? Often, for me at least, the reality exceeds the expectation. So with great anticipation and expectation we left our Nile cruise for a week in Cairo and another four days in Giza.
Mrs. Pavey was my high school English teacher, senior year. Among the many things she taught us was that in life as well as literature it is important to notice and remember instances of foreshadowing. Unfortunately, when traveling there is not always an opportunity to avoid a situation even when we have strong clues that it is coming. Perhaps worse is letting an expectation drown out words of caution from those who went before us. And so like teenagers in a horror movie we headed to Cairo.
There are many great cities in the world but few inspire the exotic romance of Cairo. Pharaohs, mummies, sphinx and pyramids: who hasn't imagined seeing these legendary treasures of Egypt in person? From textbooks to travel shows the allure of Cairo was not to be denied and now was our time.
And then came the clues. Quietly at first, a message from a friend in Egypt a month before we went describing Cairo as crowded and dirty. Later on our cruise others in our group spoke of the dirtiness, rudeness and trashiness of the city. They told stories of the inside of the pyramids, hot, small, claustrophobic chambers filled with too many tourists pushing to see…. Nothing. The great pyramids of Giza have been empty for years. Knowing this we did not plan on going inside. And knowing this we dismissed any observations by those who didn't know.
As we toured Luxor and Karnak with our guide Hanni, he spoke of Cairo with thinly veiled disdain. He considered it a disgrace, an example of the failure of the Arab Spring and the current government. He advised us to cut short that part of our trip. But he was from Luxor and regional competition is strong. His job is in tourism which suffered during the years of political reform following the 2011 government overthrow. His opinion must certainly be biased.
Finally, we encountered the challenge of actually getting to Cairo. Our information led us to believe that we would be cruising at a leisurely pace down the Nile to Aswan then quick returning to Luxor by sailing all night. Imagine our surprise to discover that we would be disembarking at Aswan. We had a flight scheduled for Cairo from Luxor at 9am, yet we would be in Aswan, three hours away by car.
We had been advised by friends, cautioned by locals and now physically unable to catch the plane. The universe had given us our last sign, but we didn't notice.
Helpful to the end, the cruise arranged a car for us at five am, packed a breakfast to go and even sent a crew member to wait with us for the cab to be sure the driver knew exactly where to take us, what time we needed to be there and exactly what the price would be. We arrived safely at the airport in Luxor and were soon on our flight to Cairo.
If this were a novel read in class I am certain Mrs. Pavey would have led a fairly lively class discussion as to the protagonist's character. Were they ignorant or arrogant? Neither or both? Perhaps they were just optimistic.
