Luxor, Egypt

Thursday, May 26 and Friday, May 27, 2005:

On Thursday KC and I checked right the hell out of the Luxor Wena Hotel and headed down a series of narrow winding alleys into the local Egyptian streets of the city. We passed butchers, grocers, beggars, donkey carts, men praying on blankets in the road, women selling chickens and assorted birds crammed violently into cages. Meat sizzled on portable grills and the call of the muezzin to morning prayer came from mosque after mosque, staggered each after the other as if a holy relay were in progress.

We came to the Happyland Hotel, a place I had inspected briefly the day before when it became clear to me that any more time in the Luxor Wena would find me dead from the ceiling collapsing on me or a faulty wire electrocuting me. I wouldn't be surpised if the entire massive facade buckled in, imploding at the slighest push on the wall by a weary, unsuspecting new guest ("don't!" screams the terrified bell-hop, but sees it happen too late). For $8 per night --- about half the price of the Luxor --- I received a very clean private room with a working hot shower and a nice, powerful airconditioner. It didn't have a TV or refrigerator or phone, but since these didn't function at the Luxor Wena, it didn't make a difference.

KC left to go on a tour of the tombs of the pharaohs on the west bank of the Nile. It was her last day of travel with me; she had to catch a night train back to Cairo and then another flight out of Egypt the following day. I decided that I would delay the west bank trip for a couple of days and take a "Culture-Free" day or two, since my head was about to expode from all of the irritating and undoubtedly unhealthy culture it had been forced to process in the last several days. "Too... much... culture," I gasped, then headed to McDonalds for lunch.

McDonalds. I'd gotten through eight months without eating there more than a mere handful of times. But as much as I liked Egypt, much of the food there didn't have me doing backflips. I wasn't coming down with typhoid or e-coli or anything, but having been through numerous countries that westerners associate with dubious hygiene, I'd been 99.9% fine until the day after I first arrived in Cairo. Some of the stuff was bland at best and a lot of it just didn't sit all too well. And so, sadly --- ever, ever so sadly --- I turned to McDonalds of all things to serve as a tonic for my off-equilibrium system, a known entity to put an end to the unknowns I had been subjecting myself to. Oh yeah --- if it helps to exculpate me in even the slightest manner, I should add that Luxor was a brutally hot inferno and that the McDonalds was a frosty, airconditioned paradiso (complete with milkshakes). I ordered a tasty McNugget combo and shake and sat for a while in the blissful artificial air, eating my artificial food and reading. Also, I had a nice spot on the second floor from which I could look out the window and watch the myriad horse-and-carriage men stalking the passing mobs of group-package tourists. Suckers, I thought, cramming an oil-spattered fistful of fries up my face.

That night I walked KC to the train station and saw her off. I realize I haven't been very charitable towards her on the site, but she actually made for a good travelling companion for most of the time. I just hadn't been too partial to having one at the time. And the way she spoke English to foreigners very nearly made me break into Mary Hart-style epileptic spasms.

The next day I did more nothing, some of it back at McDonalds. Finally, I picked myself up (several pounds heavier) and set about arranging a tour of the west bank for Saturday the 28th. Then, after thinking it over, I decided I really would rather be in Cairo than Luxor on the 29th. It was my birthday on the 29th and I didn't want to spend it in an Egyptian jail cell after snapping and killing the 4,000th horse and carriage man to clippity-clop up behind me and "hello my friend!" me into a murderous rage. Cairo. Yeah. Less chance of insanity. I went to the Thomas Cook office and booked a private bunk back on the Saturday evening sleeper train. Then I wandered for a bit near the Luxor Temple, which sits in the center of the (tourist part of the) city. Having purchased the train ticket out, I now had some impetus to see more of the sites while I had the time.

That night I went to Luxor's museum where I ran into some of the Dutch girls from my Nubian binge a few nights before. The Luxor Museum is a lot smaller than the Egyptian Museum in Cairo but its also a lot more manageable because you can go through the whole thing in 60 - 120 minutes and see a wide range of items, many of which are as impressive as what Cairo puts on display (but if you can only go to one these museums, the one in Cairo is the one to see without a doubt).