Twinkies on the Nile

It’s before dawn and very dark. Jim and I follow a fast walking guide who isn’t groping his way down seemingly ancient stone steps or stumbling over rutted flagstones. Finally we join 10 other tourists aboard a tiny ferry draped in fringed cloths. We are crossing the Nile River. It’s a wow moment, one of those you won’t need pictures to remember.

We travel in an early morning fog and as the sun rises we hear the call to prayer echoing in the distance. It's a bit chilly and we are offered tea in tiny cups and a plate of pastries is passed around. I’ll be darned if they aren’t Twinkies. So this is where they disappeared to.

It is Egypt in April 2012 after all. The spell was broken for the moment but there was still enough of the ancient and awesome around us. This was the Valley of the Kings and we were on our way to a hot air balloon ride.

As I look back on this wonderful trip, I realize that the entire nation of Egyptians was on a hot air balloon ride of its own. It’s just that no one knew how soon the nation would be forced down to earth.

There was such an air of hope and confidence among the people we talked to. Just a year before, in 2011, The Arab Spring had felled a dictatorship. The people had gotten rid of Mubarak and were jubilant. They talked about the truly democratic elections coming up.

Our Cairo guide proudly pointed out Tahrir Square.  “ See, there are still tents, the whole square was covered with them. I was there. The people spoke and now we are free.”

“We have shown them,” our next guide, Aladdin, smiled. “They know we are watching and will rise again if they wrong us.”

I liked the Egyptians I met and observed.

I think of those happy, hopeful faces. I think of the years of subjugation these people had endured only to find themselves once again, under a new dictatorship.

We had signed up and paid for a tour of Egypt in 2011when the uprisings of the Arab Spring caused the State Department to cancel all travel to Egypt.

By 2012, and even though the situation had quieted down, we believed that we had lost our chance to visit there. Some friends of ours traveled to Cairo and assured us it was safe. They had lived in Egypt for years and felt it would be a great time to visit. They told us that, especially as tourists, we would be gratefully welcomed.

By this time the State Department lifted its travel ban. We found an agency offering guided tours to Egypt and signed up.

When we arrived at the Cairo airport, we found that our tour consisted of a party of two: us.

The tourist industry had definitely shriveled. We encountered very few Americans during our 10 days of travel but there were a number of groups of French and German tourists.

Vendors besieged us. We felt we needed to tip much more than we would normally give on a tour. It seemed we were supporting families single handedly.

If getting individual treatment is a sign of a good tour, we got that aplenty. We were given our own guide at each stopping point. We were treated to private vans and exceptional hotels.

Egypt seemed to me to be a rather benign place. Driving through Cairo and Alexandria’s snarled traffic, the thing that struck me was that there were almost no horns honking, no screams of frustration as we had seen in Delhi, Istanbul or for that matter New York City. These people just seemed to cope with the situation. Maybe everyone was in a good mood, or it was a good couple of days but it was noticable.

Besides feeling a bit lonely, I loved every minute of our tour. The pyramids were actually right across the street from our hotel in Giza. The brand new Library of Alexandria was a marvel. Sailing the Nile on a felucca manned by two very young teenagers was exhilarating. Seeing the Sahara and walking through the splendor of the massive Temple of Karnak at night were all unforgettable.

The country is now under a new more repressive dictatorship. The tourist industry must be all but totally closed down.

What a pity for the world to be denied these ancient splendors.

Not to mention Twinkies.