Favorite Travel Quotes

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts."
-- Mark Twain
Innocents Abroad

"Stop worrying about the potholes in the road and celebrate the journey." -- Fitzhugh Mullan

"A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving." -- Lao Tzu

Egypt In Chaos – A Travel Writer’s Perspective

Pyramids2

Here are the pyramids

©Bert Gildart: Turn on the TV and you’ll see the news dominating American airways concerns Egypt, and little wonder. We provide $1.5B in funds to this economically challenged country, which is now in total chaos.

We provide funds because of Egyptian oil and and because Egypt is our strongest positive link with the Muslim world. Some fear all this unrest will result in replacement of President Mubarak with a militant Muslim group that may support al-Qa’ida, a concern that seems justifiable in the wake of 9/11, ten years ago though it might have been.

Other Americans say this could simply be a wake up call, and that we should get out and wean ourselves of foreign oil. There are, of course,  counter arguments that can go on and on until you are blue in the face.

Currently our State Department is recommending that Americans leave Egypt with haste. Other nations are urging their citizens to avoid traveling to Cairo as days of protests descend into chaos. What a sad state of affairs our world seems to be in, for as most realize, Egypt has always been one of the world’s most interesting places to visit.

TRAVEL/HOLIDAY

About 25 years ago Travel/Holiday, one of the most respected travel magazines of the time, sent me to Egypt. For almost a month, I was privileged to meet an interesting and accommodating group of people, but how those memories contrast with the images we’re now seeing on TV.

Sunday morning Airplanes were flying overhead, soldiers were policing the  streets — and rioting had disintegrated to such a point that some of the country’s more responsible citizens were encircling their museums and their precious antiquities, hoping to safeguard them from looters.



My adventures there began on the cruise boat Osiris, which transported me along much of Egypt’s Nile River. Each night crewmen placed a bottle of Queen Nefertari wine in my stateroom.


Pharo Sphinx BoatPilot


Statue of pharaoh; the Sphinx, showing lack of nose, which Napoleon shot off;   pilot of small boat.


The cruise boat provided me with access to tiny villages, and it is true, many were impoverished, certainly part of the reason residents are rioting today. They believe the Mubarak government does not represent their economic interests.

“I’M JOHN WAYNE”

From the cruise boat, I also disembarked near Cairo, and one morning as the sun was rising, I visited one of the World’s Seven Wonders — the Pyramids of Giza. The Sphinx was located near the entrance, and as I studied it I recalled Napoleon had shot the nose off the Sphinx.

Though I thought I was alone, before I could set up my tripod, a “camel jockey” rode toward me, “firing” at the air with his staff. “I’m John Wayne,” he called out in a sing-song voice. Then he commanded his camel to perform several “Western” tricks.  But this guy was a con artist and soon got around to the subject of tipping. “Baksheesh, baksheesh,” intoned John Wayne, “and my camel  can do so much more.” I laughed and coughed up a few dollars.


PeoplesBoat BetweenV-O-K&V-O-Qeens

 

People’s Boat; trail connecting Valley of Kings with Valley of Queens.


Near Luxor I took a bus to the Valley of the Kings, and then hiked five miles to the Valley of the Queens. I was hiking through a culture that had reached a stage of development and sophistication that none of its contemporaries surpassed and few to this day have equaled.

PEOPLE’S BOAT

Somewhere during the course of my extensive  journey along the Nile,   I boarded  a “ People’s Boat,” and then described the experience in my Travel/Holiday story:


The People’s Boat is a barge-sized vessel with a second deck aft… Donkeys stomp and bray, complaining about their backbreaking burdens of sugar cane. Robust men sit arm in arm, joking… Veiled women stare but mask their thoughts with expressionless eyes.


When I disembarked a man on a motor scooter offered me a ride back to my hotel. “Hop on,” he said. And I did. At the time I found the people friendly and helpful, though some asked for baksheesh. This man didn’t, and refused when I offered.


CamelJockey

Camel Jockey, "I'm John Wayne."

 

Near the Aswan Dam in northern Egypt, I took a Felucca, a sailboat which provides Nile River residents with a means of transportation. It was the conclusion of an adventure through one of the world’s oldest and most enduring cultures, and whether or not it will be possible to duplicate it again soon will depend to some extent on choices Americans make in response to this crisis.  It is a situation we should all follow and hope our country can make  appropriate decisions about an issue that is complex and now riddled with mistrust.

Wouldn’t it be a shame if the doors on visitation to  a culture that appeared four thousand years before the birth of Christ were suddenly sealed shut.


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THIS TIME LAST YEAR:

*Gator Drama In Shark Valley

 

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3 Responses to “Egypt In Chaos – A Travel Writer’s Perspective”

  1. Charles Spiher Says:

    I recall, Bert, when Pelton’s book, the World’s Most Dangerous Places, was first published. It seemed a polite challenge to the adventurous spirit. Now, sadly, it has doubled in size as political strife shrinks much of the earth’s most interesting venues.

    Can you imagine the Capetown to Cairo trip of 1959 being duplicated today ? Here we are, 12 miles north of the Mexican border, yet few (other than money launderers, gun runners, drug and immigrant smugglers) dare to cross into one of the most charming cultures in this hemisphere.

    And in the margin of your blog, a Google ad promotes a 15 day Egypt Nile River cruise, an irony difficult to ignore. Or a Tour Egypt, from a luxury yacht. How likely will these now set sail ?

    Friends in New Zealand reported yesterday the rains that converted Australia to a continental sponge have now reached the north island ( ten inches in 12 hours) threatening to make the Coramandel peninsula equal to the California coastline mudslides.

    Ah well. I’d select nature over politics any day of the week. Safe travels to you and Janie.

  2. Bert Gildart Says:

    Thanks, Charles, for your insights, and you are exactly right. I’d love to go to Mexico — but FEAR safe travel there is a long time down the road. And even if I could return to Egypt, I’d be mighty apprehensive about an early morning excursion to the pyramids, like I enjoyed several decades ago. Nor would I board a People Boat. So many things have changed and are changing. But even in our own country, there are places where I’d FEAR shouting out my political affiliation. What’s it going to take to restore sanity both at home and abroad?
    Thanks again for your posted insights.

  3. History Safari Express » Blog Archive » Bert Gildart’s art Says:

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