Information Overload

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We stood in the lobby for fifteen minutes watching several people enter holding placards tattooed with the names of likeminded tourists taking guided tours around Luxor before I leaned in and told Gina, “We’re getting stiffed.”

Having given Abdul a deposit for half the cost of our two day-long trips while disoriented and bleary-eyed the previous morning, I wasn’t completely convinced that I hadn’t been scammed. Seconds before declaring the situation a conspiracy, a portly fellow, clad in a Hawaiian shirt and slacks, walked up to us and introduced himself as Bob. Gina and I returned the salutation with smiles. Used to the chuckle that typically ensues after revealing our names, we turned the question back on the man of clear Egyptian stock, “What is your real name?”

“Baswhan. But, most people can’t pronounce my real name, so I go by Bob,” he politely retorted while motioning us into the waiting van.

Behind the wheel sat a less pronounced man who Bob introduced as Mohammad - he barely acknowledged our presence by offering a slight head nod before turning back to face the windshield in silence. Natives of Luxor, neither man seemed bothered by the sauna-like conditions brewing outside and sat enjoying the 30 C (86 F) breeze passing through their open windows as we left the parking lot. Gina and I lasted about five minutes into Bob’s rundown of our itinerary before asking the indifferent driver to turn on the air conditioning. He obliged, but seemed irritated.

Our first day was to consist of a marathon tour of the Valley of the Kings, Hatshepsut’s Temple, a tour of the Valley of the Queens and a brief visit to the Colossi of Memnon, before returning to the hotel a little after noon. While Gina and I digested the enormity of our morning, we almost missed that Mohammad had pulled along the shoulder of a bridge spanning the Nile so that we could take photos. Quickly snapping from our analysis paralysis, we climbed out and alternated posing with the river in the background before Bob acknowledged our dilemma and offered to take a photo of us. After a brief instruction, he fumbled through a few shots before returning the camera and advising us to take our time. Not wanting to bake anymore than necessary, we were on his coattails back into the air conditioned van and on our way to the Valley of the Kings.

After passing through several police checkpoints, we arrived into a valley reminiscent of an Indiana Jones movie set. Steep limestone cliffs dotted with caves surrounded us on both sides as Mohammad drove us deeper into the gorge. Gina and I could barely contain the excitement we felt about finally seeing Tutankhamun and the hieroglyphic masterpieces adorning the burial chambers of pharaohs past. While historians, grave robbers and archeologists had beat us there, the moment was still awe inspiring. Luckily, we found the parking lot nearly empty due to our 6:45 a.m. arrival, which meant that we wouldn’t be fighting Japanese tourists for elbow room in the already cramped burial chambers.

Bob informed us that our entry fee allowed access to any 3 of the 16 unearthed burial chambers opened to the public, as well as Tutankhamun’s. He seemed irritated that Gina and I rebuffed his initially suggested tombs after consulting the Lonely Planet, but took the time to discuss his reasoning. We peppered him with questions to assess his knowledge of the tombs before settling on the tombs of Ramses I, Ramses III, Ramses VII and Tutankhamun. Unlike the all-inclusive American Express tour we had taken in Cairo, we quickly found out that Abdul’s tour fee didn’t include tickets to any of the attractions. When Bob asked me to hand over 200 Egyptian Pounds before we even reached the ticket booth, I became suspicious. Even though he instructed me and Gina to wait for him near the shuttle train, we decided to accompany him. We were relieved to find that the posted prices added up to 200 and passed off our tag-along as a simple misunderstanding.

To our surprise, Bob educated us to some widely unknown facets of pharaoh tomb construction: a single hieroglyphic took an artisan one day to carve and another artisan one day to paint, hieroglyphics often depicted stories that a pharaoh must remember in the afterlife, and a doctrine forcing the halt of work 70 days after a ruler’s death. The latter often led to the hurried and premature completion of unfinished tombs for pharaohs who died shortly after taking the reins of Egypt, including Ramses I whose tomb was the first stop on our circuit for the morning. After a brief synopsis of Ramses I empire, Bob directed us to the tomb’s entrance and suggested that if we wanted to take photos in the strictly photo-free vault, that we try to bribe one of the state-employed guards. Clearly, the Egyptians don’t care much about preserving their historical sites.

The guard notched our tickets and we descended into the cramped, hastily completed burial chamber of the pharaoh who ruled for a single year. Sporting the shortest entrance corridor of the kings in the Valley, the tomb consists of the steep entry and the sarcophagus chamber, decorated with brightly painted hieroglyphics. Due to the king’s unforeseen and untimely death, artisans had little time to carve hieroglyphics and instead opted to paint them on the limestone walls. Amazed at the preservation of the natural paints, Gina and I were drawn to a scene depicting the pharaoh in front of Osiris having his heart weighed against a feather, a purported trial of one’s humility and guardianship of the Egyptian people. Alone in the chamber, I secretively snapped a few flashless photos before we heard the footsteps of a guard descending the entry stairs. We had hoped to exchange a “salaam” and smile, but instead found ourselves with a new informal guide who was conspicuously looking for a gratuity. Recognizing an opportunity when I saw one, I pantomimed that I wanted to take a few photos and the guard immediately grew irritated - until I pulled 20 Egyptian Pounds from my wallet. The deal was sealed with him passing his hands over his mouth signaling a pact of silence between us.

Gina and I reemerged to find Bob patiently awaiting our arrival and proceeded to the tomb of Ramses III, which several tour groups gathered around. A similar history lesson ensued outside the tomb before Gina and I passed an entry guard who offered us handheld cardboard fans due to the rising mercury inside the chambers. As we stood inspecting the intricate hieroglyphic work on the chamber interior, which numbered in the hundreds of thousands of characters, an unwelcome guide approached and began explaining the symbols and stories detailed on the walls. We listened half-heartedly as the man followed us around the various chambers offering broken English descriptions before heading back toward the tomb’s entrance. The man purposely put himself between us and the entrance and pleaded, “Tips?”

Thoroughly irritated by the continued harassment, we lied and told the man we’d given all of our money away to other guards in the other tombs. Disappointed, but not demanding, the man quickly turned his attention to other unsuspecting foreigners roaming the tomb. We only had to travel another 10 meters before handing the crude fans back to the entrance guard who immediately solicited, “Tips?”

Gina seized the opportunity to have some fun at the guard’s expense and informed him that we had slipped the other guard in the chamber’s interior all of our tip money. Peeved and likely wanting to ensure his cut, he immediately darted into the chamber to find the scapegoat. Satisfied with our revenge, we wasted little time finding Bob and continued on to the highlight of our morning: Tutankhamun.

Having spent countless hours and dollars seeking out the evasive mummy in Chicago and Cairo, Gina and I relished in the somewhat anticlimactic moment. King Tut’s burial chamber is extremely simple in comparison to others in the Valley of the Kings and was one of the last unearthed due to its precarious position under the tomb of Ramses VI. Discovered by Howard Carter in 1922 during the last month of his 3-year archeology permit, Tutankhamun’s burial chamber was as fully intact as the day the chamber was sealed. The wealth of treasures buried with the young king have filled museums, history books and imaginations for nearly 100 years. Unfortunately, the only thing keeping us from documenting our triumph was the compulsory camera check at the tomb’s entrance.

With our curiosity satisfied, we rendezvoused with Bob for an escort to the final tomb in the valley, Ramses VII. Gina and I spent a little under ten minutes inside the tomb examining the hieroglyphics before the hot, stale air forced us to the surface. Surprised by our abridged tour, Bob was more than pleased to accompany us back to the air conditioned van and out of the heat he’d been trying to escape at various shaded locales for the past hour. The parking lot had filled substantially since our arrival and almost every tour van looked the same. Bob looked just as puzzled as we did when he couldn’t locate Mohammad or our van. Lovely.

The temperature had risen to 40 C (104 F) and the heat reflecting from the asphalt scorched the skin on our legs. Retreating to the shade cast by a nearby tour bus, we inquired what Bob’s grand plan was to locate Mohammad. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed a number - it went straight to voicemail. Soon, the definition of insanity unfolded before our eyes as he repeatedly dialed the number expecting a different result. Admitting defeat, Bob instructed us to wait while he walked around inspecting the lot full of tour buses, hoping to locate Mohammad. Could this get any more ridiculous?

As Gina and I stood less than amused watching Bob wander aimlessly around the parking lot, I envisioned the bartering process that would be required to ensure our safe return to the Sheraton:

Gene: “We can’t find our van; could you drive us to the Sheraton?”
Random Tour Guide: “For your wife and 10 camels, I will take you half way.”
Gene: “How about a the wife and 5 camels and you take me the whole distance?”

Before I could finish playing out the scenario in my head, Bob approached with a distressed look upon his face, “He’s not picking up his phone.”

Expecting the dilemma to turn from bad to worse, I started thumbing through my wallet counting the Egyptian Pounds I could barter with. By the time I reached the last bill, Bob shouted from a nearby van, “I found it!”

He pounded on the window and a disheveled Mohammad raised himself from the back passenger bench where he’d been sleeping. Bob laid into him in Arabic while Gina and I climbed in the back seat.

An awkward silence dominated the van for the next ten minutes as Mohammad navigated us towards Hatshepsut’s temple. Along the way, Bob turned and asked if we had any interest in stopping to see an alabaster factory that specializes in handmade pots, bowls and other decorative items. Having had a similar experience at a papyrus factory during our Giza Pyramid tour, Gina and I nodded our heads in approval hoping to learn something about the traditional Egyptian process.

The “alabaster factory” was little more than a cement block building that should have been adorned with brightly lit neon blinking tourist trap. Humoring Bob’s goodwill gesture, Gina and I watched as he greeted a blatantly familiar man, who we assumed kicked a commission back to him for every souvenir sold to one of the tourists he brought to the factory. We offered salaams and smiles before being shown the seemingly time consuming process of hand carving a bowl from a solid block of alabaster. The demonstration lasted no more than a minute before the factory rep hurried us inside to peruse the wares in his salesroom.

Famous for their Arabic hospitality, the owners of the facility immediately offered us a choice of Egyptian whiskey (hot mint tea) or cold hibiscus juice. Bob assured us this gesture was normal and that it was considered rude not to accept; we took the cold juice and began wandering around the showroom The multitude of bowls, jars, vases and other vessels carved from various stones, including alabaster, that adorned the walls of the shop was spellbinding. Informed that a small bowl took an artisan one week to carve and polish by hand, we knew we couldn’t leave empty handed. The only thing we dreaded about the ordeal was the obligatory bartering process.

It took several “La Shokruns” (No Thank You’s) before the man begrudgingly accepted that we were only interested in purchasing one item from him. The 300 Egyptian Pound (~$50 US) opening price volley made us laugh. The man reiterated the time consuming process required to fashion such a piece in an effort to bolster our counteroffer. Gina and I consulted one another before telling the man we wanted to pay no more than 180 Egyptian Pounds (~$30 US). To our surprise, he didn’t try to counter and instead started into a superstitious story about Egyptian shop owners not turning down the first business of the day. A telltale sign that we got screwed.

With our overpriced souvenir in hand, we rejoined Mohammad and Bob in the van and continued down the road to Hatshepsut’s temple. A quandary in Egyptian history, Hatshepsut was the only known female pharaoh, a result of the untimely death of her husband and juvenile age of their heir. Famed for wearing a false beard, Hatshepsut is associated with one of few peaceful eras in Egypt’s pharaohic period and supposedly commanded the respect of her disciples as much as any male pharaoh who preceded her. The magnitude and elaborate decoration of Hatshepsut’s temple in Luxor, partially cut from the rock surrounding it, is a testament to the power and influence of her period.

Following a brief data dump by Bob, which we mostly ignored, Gina and I set out to photograph the temple as quickly as possible, all the while dodging unofficial guides offering their assistance along the way. By the time we reunited with Bob in a shaded eatery near the temple’s entrance, the temperature had risen above 40 C, and it was barely past 10 AM - he was remarkably drinking a cup of hot tea. After a bit of idle chit chat, we returned to the van and started toward the Valley of the Queens. The air conditioning did little to reenergize me and Gina as Bob pelted us with names, dates and details that would soon be forgotten.

Our time with the Queens was abbreviated once we determined women didn’t receive the same elaborate burials of the pharaohic men. Gina and I literally darted into the tombs, nodded in agreement that we’d seen enough and moved on. The heat was unrelenting. Bob thought our interest was waning when we finished the expedition in 25 of the allotted 60 minutes, but it was really the heat motivating our untimely departure. We almost told Mohammad to skip the Colossi of Memnon, two towering statues that used to dominate the Nile’s waterway, but feared we’d look back with regret. Our stop lasted no more than five minutes.

We parted ways with the dynamic duo, Bob and Mohammad, agreeing to meet at the same time and place the following morning. Gina and I then promptly changed into swimming suits and burned the afternoon away at the hotel’s pool, lacking the motivation to do anything else. Before we knew it, the sun was approaching the horizon and several feluccas, ancient broad-sail boats, were passing up and down the Nile. Having seen the same procession the prior evening, Gina took the liberty to negotiate an offered 1-hour, $8 US ride down to $4. We might have felt bad for the boat’s captain had our attention not been consumed by the spectacular sunset that unfolded around us. In the end, we enjoyed ourselves so much that we arranged for a repeat trip the following evening.

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Comments

[darby]

“We’re getting stiffed.”
Sometimes I think this could be the theme of the trip. You guys seem to be getting stiffed, especially in the 3rd world. They all taking 3rd world generic Viagra every day before they meet you?