Caliban – Opinion and Righteous Anger

Our last day in Aswan had us go by taxi and then boat to أنس الوجو (Philae), an island in the Nile and the site of an impressive ancient Egyptian temple complex. We were there very early in order to stay ahead of the worst of the day’s heat.

As it turned out, there was a pleasant breeze blowing. The temperature rose no higher than 34°C, which, whilst very hot, was noticeably more merciful than the previous days’ forty-something torture.

After a mediocre lunch at the Aswan Moon, which does, at least, boast an excellent waterfront location, we relaxed in the room while Lukie slept, enjoying the 15:00 check-out that we’d arranged.

When we finally checked out, we left our bags at the hotel and got down to some souq shopping. I bought a galabia (an Islamic man’s long outer garment), because they look so cool (cool as in the antonym to hot, not as in good-looking). I could imagine wearing it around the house on a hot summer’s day.

That left just enough time for an early dinner of fiteer at the same restaurant near the train station, where we ate the other day. Then, it was back to the hotel to collect the bags and head back to the train station for the night train to Cairo.

If you’ve been on European sleeper trains, the Egyptian variant could come as a disappointment. The sleeper compartments aren’t very clean and have neither a shower nor a private toilet. Outside of Western Europe, we approach everything with a very open mind, which we find helps to avoid disappointment. Accordingly, the train was more or less what we’d expected.

The bed, however, was quite comfortable and that’s the most important thing on a sleeper train. We had two adjoining compartments, which was very convenient, because we could spread our luggage between them. We put the children to bed in one of them and then sat down in the other to watch some DVDs.

I awoke at 06:00 the next morning, expecting breakfast to be served at any moment, because the train was due to arrive in Cairo at 07:00. The stories we’d heard from other tourists, however, turned out to be accurate, and it would be 09:00 before we’d finally reach the Egyptian capital. Breakfast was, therefore, served at 08:00, but turned out to be worth waiting for. It wasn’t fantastic, but it was better than expected and a vast improvement on the breakfast packed for us by our hotel on the day that we went to Abu Simbel.

In Cairo, we took a taxi to our hotel, dumped all of our gear and then set out for Coptic Cairo via the metro. The Egyptian metro is pretty good and it costs only E₤1 (about €0.15) to go anywhere on the network!

Looking around all of the churches and whatnot here took a long while and Eloïse’s patience was fraying. Nevertheless, there was enough of the day left to see something else, so we got in a taxi to ‎قلعة صلاح الدين‎ (Cairo Citadel).

The Citadel quickly became a mob scene, with hordes of Egyptian schoolgirls crowding around Eloïse and Lucas, vying for photos with their mobile phones. In a nice example of photographic recursion, these youthful photographers became the subject of my own lens. These scenes were about as close to experiencing celebrity as either Sarah or I am likely to get. The children continue to be bemused by the attention, although it became rather overwhelming on this occasion and we had to say enough is enough. Lucas, in particular, had reached his limit and was tired of being picked up and passed around like a parcel.

We took a taxi back to the hotel and then went out for dinner at a kushari restaurant.

Over the last few days, I’d been experiencing some discomfort while urinating. Actually, it began as discomfort, but had now become a sensation more accurately described as painful; very painful even. Its rate of intensification was such that I was confident we’d be back home before I needed treatment, if, indeed, I needed treatment at all. I was hoping it would subside on its own, as mysteriously as it had appeared. Other symptoms were increased frequency of urination, decreased ability to hold my pee and, on the first or second day of its appearance, a light fever and mild dizziness.

All of a sudden, though, during that kushari dinner, this ailment took on an altogether more urgent character. The restaurant we were in had no toilet, so I had to bolt from my seat and run down the road to the nearest restaurant, where I was able to use the toilet in fist-clenching, white knuckle pain. Honestly, it felt as if I was pissing sulphuric acid.

Back at the restaurant, I managed to get another couple of spoonfuls into my mouth before I needed to go again. Shit! I was losing all bladder control!

I had to bolt from the restaurant again, this time making it only as far as a dark alleyway around the corner. I had to dive between two cars and piss there, which is really not the done thing in an Islamic country, but I couldn’t make it any further. The pain was excruciating, but far worse was that I could clearly feel that whatever valve is down there was no longer closing the plumbing at the end of my urination. There was effectively a clear path between my bladder and the end of my penis and therefore, by extension, my trousers and the ground under my feet.

I could also now see that my knob was worryingly inflamed. This and the loss of bladder control made me start to worry that I wouldn’t be able to make the flight home the next day. Shit, even getting back to the hotel was going to be an adventure.

I had to do it in two legs. We got a few hundred metres down the street and made it into a branch of Costa Coffee, where I peeed at least two more times in the space of a few minutes.

From there, it was back to the hotel, where another urinary explosion wasn’t far behind. I then lay on the bed, with a towel under me, in case complete and utter incontinence overtook me and I wasn’t able to make it the few metres from the bed to the loo in time. Sarah and I discussed the situation and agreed it was in everyone’s best interests to try to make it home the next day.

Thankfully, it had been an exhausting day and I soon fell asleep, in spite of the fact that it was still early evening. This seemed to have a calming effect on my bladder, so that, when I awoke in the morning, I felt a little better. I had noticed earlier that the pain had always been the mildest in the mornings, presumably because the plumbing is relatively well rested at that point. After the rigours of processing the quantity of fluid required to keep the Egyptian sun from frazzling my body to a dessicated carcass, things were decidedly worse, so it was very much in our favour that we had a morning flight. If this day were to go the way of the one before, I still stood a good chance of making it back to the Netherlands before spiralling into a vicious circle of each pee reducing my bladder control to the point of nothingness.

And so it was to be. I made it back onto Dutch soil after about a dozen in-flight pees. Thankfully, I never had to wait too long for the toilet, so I was able to hold it in.

Eloïse was asleep at the time of landing. She woke up as we were waiting to disembark and, in a manner that I’m now all too familiar with, found herself desperate to pee. Ironically, she was the one who now couldn’t contain herself, so she let rip right there, in the aisle (and over my foot). There was nothing we could do.

Out in the terminal, I had to pee again. I began to wonder if we’d make it home before nightfall at this rate!

Whilst waiting for our baggage, I called the doctor. I have a healthy mistrust of the medical profession, but this had clearly gone far enough. The pain was such that any increase was a worrying prospect, not to mention the inflammation. When it comes to your wedding tackle, you don’t want to take any chances, do you?

The doctor agreed to see me that afternoon, so we retrieved our bags and took a taxi home, where I literally dumped our suitcases and headed out again on the bike.

I was back within an hour, armed with some antibiotics and optimistic of some relief. The diagnosis: acute bladder infection. Cause: unknown.

Things are better today. I developed some aches and pains around the lower back and kidney areas in the course of yesterday afternoon and evening, but those are mostly gone now. Peeing is painful, but not excruciating. My frequency of urination is abnormal, but not astronomic. Here’s hoping for a steady return to normal service over the next couple of days.

I don’t know. For forty-odd years, everything works according to the documentation and then, in the space of a few months, first a hernia and now this. Why the bad groin karma? Buggered if I know.

Our six o’clock awakenings were a long lie in compared to today’s 02:40 alarm call. Now that’s what I call an early start.

With sleeping babes in arms, we boarded the bus at about 03:25 and promptly found ourselves, not for the first time, in a heated exchange with someone trying to squeeze more juice out of the lemon. Well, this lemon doesn’t like to be squeezed.

This time, it was the bus driver, who was miffed that we hadn’t bought Eloïse a ticket, but the person at the reception desk from whom we purchased our tickets, had known we were travelling with children and had said nothing about requiring a ticket for either of them.

After I suggested we strap our daughter to the roof, he became so enraged that he drove the bus back to the hotel to continue the argument there. The night receptionist came out and called his colleague who had sold us the tickets on his mobile.

The ticket salesmen informed me that Eloïse would need to have her own ticket if she was to occupy a seat on the bus. My protest that he had not informed me of this fact at the time of the sale fell on (wilfully) deaf ears.

I could have demanded my money back at this point and, whilst that might have put him on the defensive to avoid losing all commission on the sale, it could just as easily have landed the whole family on the kerb outside the hotel, as the bus sped away without us. We were all awake now, in the middle of the night, and both practically and emotionally invested in going to أبو سمب (Abu Simbel).

Instead, I offered him half of the full price that he was demanding for the third ticket and he immediately agreed.

The bus finally got on its way and we got chatting to a couple of Australians as our children went back to sleep without much effort. Apparently, they, too, had had a run in with the bus driver when they got aboard. The minibus wasn’t even full, so it wasn’t about too many bums for too few seats; it was purely an effort to manoeuvre another tourist into a corner and extract some more money from him.

After a long wait at the police escort departure point, we were finally under way to Abu Simbel, arriving there at around 07:40. It was a rather dull drive with not much to see, although we did, of course, witness sunrise, a shining white metallic disc with a clearly defined edge rising over the desert.

The hotel had packed a couple of breakfasts for us to eat on the way, which contained some items that just about met the dictionary definition of food and some that fell some way short.

We had just two hours to see the temples before needing to be back at the minibus for the return journey to Aswan. From these 120 minutes, some were lost to immediate toilet stops, nappy changes and getting the children out of their pyjamas and into their day clothes.

Yet more time was lost queuing to get inside, as virtually everyone arrives at the same time, of course. Once through the gates, however, it was only a short walk along a circular path, with Lake Nasser on our right, to get to the temples.

There were thousands of tourists already milling around, but not one family with children, never mind a small child of Lukie’s age. That’s been pretty much our experience this entire trip, actually. You see a few people with children aged 5 (or thereabouts) and up, but no-one with a toddler of Lukie’s youthful years. Fellow tourists will occasionally tell us that they made a conscious decision to leave their children at home, rather than bring them to Egypt.

That all just goes to make me feel quite proud that we’ve done this trip with our two children. They’ve survived the suffocating heat, being permanently drenched in their own sweat and in possession of an unquenchable thirst. They’ve survived roughing it in dusty blankets in the cold desert, being manhandled by all and sundry, food that is at times quite unusual to them, visits to endless boring temples and tombs, and many other not insignificant hardships, such as not being able to go to the toilet when you want to and then finding yourself in a toilet so squalid that using it is only slightly more preferable to shitting yourself. They’ve weathered it all very well, especially Eloïse, who travels better than many an adult and hasn’t yet turned five. You’ll have to pardon me if I sound smug: I’m a proud parent.

Anyway, all of the hassle aside, the temples at Abu Simbel were breathtaking, and well worth getting up at 02:40 to go and see. For me, this site was far more impressive than the Valley of the Kings in Luxor and the pyramids at Giza. I’d unreservedly declare it a highlight of the entire trip.

As it turned out, the time allotted for our visit was just enough to be comfortable. We made it back to the bus in time and without feeling rushed.

While Sarah had been in the toilet, I’d purchased some snacks for consumption on the return journey. Beware of buying in the cafeteria here, because the prices can compete with those in the West in the silliness stakes. Make sure you haggle. I forgot to, because the context of a cafeteria setting aroused my social conditioning to an expectation of fixed prices. I paid the price of being lulled, quite literally.

The minibus left Abu Simbel shortly after ten o’clock, getting back to our hotel at around 13:30. During the journey back, another argument between one of the Australians and our bus driver flared up, resulting in the Australian’s calling the bus driver a “catfish eater”. Apparently, that’s some kind of insult around these parts.

Sarah went to the room with the children, while I demanded to see the hotel manager and geared myself up for another session of heated remonstration. I’m really getting quite good at this now, as the daily assault of multiple attempts to fuck me over is providing plenty of opportunity to hone my arguing skills.

Luckily, the manager was a far more reasonable man than either his minion or the bus driver. The extra fee for Eloïse’s seat on the bus was instantly waived and a complementary lemon juice was served up. OK, it was a transparent attempt to mollify me, but I was gasping for a drink by this point.

Egypt certainly is a lot of hassle. You can probably insulate yourself from a lot of it by travelling in a tour group. Everything is laid on for you then. As you leave the cruise ship and board the bus, someone sticks a bottle of mineral water in your left hand and an entrance ticket for the sight in question in your right. When you travel independently, you have to queue for tickets and there’s at least a 50% chance that the bloke who sells you your mineral water will try to short-change you. I’ve been short-changed today at least three times that I noticed and can recall. Who knows how many people have pulled a fast one on me when I was distracted or having a dimwitted moment?

Still, as much as I occasionally envy the ease of group travel, I’d never actually opt for the pre-packaged experience. The advantage of independent travel that offsets all of the hassle is the fact that you enjoy a unique experience. You will experience things that are unique to your trip, not shared with anyone else, except your own family. And, of course, there’s infinitely more flexibility in deciding where to go, what to do and where to stay.

After lunching on kushari, we took it easy for the rest of the day. It was supposedly 43°C when we arrived back in Aswan. We went for a dip in the hotel’s swimming pool and then wandered along the corniche to buy a well-deserved ice-cream.

Dinner was followed by a caleche ride back to the hotel, leaving us thoroughly spent for the day.

Tomorrow, we check out of our hotel and enjoy one last day in Aswan. At 19:00, we’ll catch the sleeper train back to Cairo, a journey that will take somewhere between twelve and fourteen hours, depending on who you believe.

In spite of dark curtains, we all awoke around 06:30 again today. This is actually a good thing, as it gives you a chance of seeing something before the sun lays claim to all of your bodily fluids and energy.

We had breakfast and were out on the street before 08:00. By eight o’clock, the sweat was already dripping off us.

We took a taxi to the ferry landing and made the crossing to the island of جزيرة الفنتي (Elephantine), home to three Nubian villages that, despite their proximity to mass tourism, seem to have made relatively few concessions to the badly-dressed, purple-skinned, sweaty-browed white people who, like us, must find their way along these alleyways in drips and drabs throughout the winter.

After a visit to the Aswan Museum and the ruins of a temple built in honour of Khnum, we walked north, stopped off for much needed drinks at one of the few cafés on the island, and eventually made our way back to the mainland.

Next was a simple lunch of fiteer, served diagonally opposite the train station, on a corner that was somehow managing to catch just a vague hint of a breeze.

With that out of the way, a retreat to the hotel was the only viable option. Eloïse wanted to go to the swimming pool and there was nothing more that could be done in the 40°C heat.

Much later in the day, we ventured out once more, hailed a taxi and made our way 13 km out of Aswan to the south, to the site of the High Dam of Aswan. It wasn’t nearly as good as I’d hoped, with no visitor centre, no tour available and not even a view that I could describe as spectacular. If you’ve seen the Hoover Dam in Nevada, this doesn’t come close, in spite of its greater fame.

On the way back, we stopped at a café high above Aswan to watch the sun go down to a glass or five of karkady, a drink made from the dried calyces of the hibiscus flower. It’s mild, but very refreshing.

A very good tilapia dinner at Chef Khalil provided an ideal end to another blisteringly hot day.

Tomorrow promises to be a very long and tiring day. We have a 02:45 wake-up call mere hours away from now, to get us up for a 03:15 pick-up for the long drive south to the Abu Simbel temples.

The bus leaves in the middle of the night for two reasons. Firstly, to get you to the site at around 07:00, before the sun has had a chance to fully wake up. It’s just 40 km from the Sudanese border down there, although how it could possibly be any hotter than here is beyond me. Secondly, all vehicles making the trip must travel in a convoy with police escort to minimise the chance of a terrorist attack.

Egypt has had too many such incidents against tourists in the last few years, incidents that badly hurt the national economy, and the authorities are keen to avoid any repetition. I suppose this route must be considered particularly susceptible, because visiting other sites hasn’t required an escort (although one of our nights in the desert did, ostensibly to protect us from wolves).

It’s just turned nine o’clock. so it’s time for me to hit the sack.

Q: What do you call the searing, blisteringly hot days in Egypt?

A: Winter.

We arrived in Aswan today at the end of our Nile cruise, a pleasantly bustling city that seems to be free of the hassle and harassment of Luxor.

Unfortunately, it was 40°C when we set out this afternoon to visit the souk. With our lily-white skin, we could scarcely be further removed from the Nubians who call this city their home. After a lunch of kofta, soup and vegetables, we walked the length of the souq and then had to recognise a superior opponent in the scorching sun. We beat a hasty retreat to the sanctuary of the hotel, where, in the dead of tonight, the temperature is predicted to drop to an altogether more human 25°C.

And so it is that we have Internet access again for the first time since leaving Cairo, some two weeks ago. That hiatus represents the single longest period that I’ve been without any kind of Internet access since, well, since I first acquired Internet access some fifteen years ago. Said suspension was apparently even long enough that Sarah’s folks had e-mailed our guesthouse in Luxor to ensure that we had arrived safely. No doubt they feared we had had our throats cut and been left as desert carrion or perhaps kidnapped and sold into white slavery on the African subcontinent.

Actually, it was nice not to blog for a while. We were doing so much in such oppressive heat that I scarcely had any energy left in the evenings. I didn’t even keep off-line notes for the purpose of tracking what we have done this trip. Many evenings, particularly in the desert, we have been going to sleep at 21:00. What else are you going to do when there’s no electricity or natural light and you’re completely knackered?

Similarly, we’ve had many a 06:00 or 06:30 start to the day, particularly on the Nile cruise, so by the time the sun goes down, it’s all we can do to eat, shower and fall into bed.

We’re here for the next three nights, after which we’ll return to Cairo by sleeper train.

I’m rather pathetically hoping for cooler temperatures in the days ahead, but the forecast is for a debilitating 42°C. On the bright side, at least it’s not summer. This is what the Nubians call winter!