Aswan

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And so I caught the train at 10 pm and it was supposed to be 12 hours…so 13.5 hours later I was supposed to be met at the train station in Aswan by another guy called Achmed….I was shown his picture even so there would be no problem…I was even given a printed out itinerary so I know exactly what I am supposed to be getting on this so called tour. Well Achmed was there at the train station, just not the one from the picture…that Achmed wasn’t feeling well so Achmed came in Achmed’s place who was supposedly Mohammed’s friend who I was introduced to by Achmed and his friend Mohammed….seems like the beginnings of a joke here. But anyways, Achmed started telling me a different itinerary than what I had printed on this apparently worthless paper and I kind of lost it. Sleeping in a chair on a train that is taking too long to a place I am supposed to be met by a specific person, whos not there, talking about a different plan makes me go crazy I guess. After it was decided that I would be sticking to my original itinerary we went to some place to eat. I read about a nice fish restaurant but we went somewhere else. Not a free day it seems….Then we spent a long time in the office just chilling listening to Achmed (the whiter one) tell me a story of how he lost his virginity to some lady from New York but his parents wouldn’t support that kind of wife so now he is engaged to his cousin……couldn’t make this stuff up…I said I would like to get to this Nubian Museum at 4 so I had 2 hours to walk around before it closes at 6 and the sun goes down. See I like to be at my home before the sun goes down in a new town where I have never been before. Makes things a little easier…so at 5:30 I find myself being led by Achmed to some gardens to see the sunset that didn’t happen cuz it was cloudy…now idk where I am or what happened to the museum but I made Achmed get me back to my hotel instead of the museum…oh and the next part of the trip got moved up as well. Instead of meeting the convoy leaving at 04:30 I have to be ready in the lobby at 03:15 to be picked up and we drive til 07:30 to Abu Simbel to see a thingy and then back to Aswan by 1pm…man…rough tour…oh, and there’s no people on this tour yet either. No people in this hotel…and no people anywhere! (except that its some school holiday so I was followed most of the day by throngs of interested children yelling things like bob marley and hello every few minutes)(plenty of those people…)(silver lining: I ate pigeon tonight for dinner…tastes like chucker…well between quail and chucker…if anyone knows….)(tastes better than the flying rat reputation would seem to allow)(I also forgot my camera to capture the moment….)(blurg)

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