Egypt part 7. Re-entry

Re-entry

(please go to part 1 if you want to read the diary in chronological order)

   From the moment we left Italy we felt a sense of unease. The coronavirus was beginning to threaten Italy although it had, supposedly, not entered Egypt. I had mislaid my official residency papers and was traveling on a temporary passport. I wondered what was going to happen when I returned. And compounding all this was the bankruptcy of our airline. They put us on an Arabian aircraft with no guarantee of a return flight. And all the while we traveled in Egypt, AirItaly would not answer a phone call or email. The details of our housing or travel after being kicked off the cruise ship remained completely up in the air. I had done some looking around Aswan Airbnbs from Italy some months before but we had nothing reserved and no idea what Aswan even looked like. And, finally, we didn't want to repeat our train ticket fiasco. The train return to Cairo was even longer than that to Luxor. The first thing we needed was a good WiFi connection. It's funny how travel today relies on that.

    Happily, Aswan turned out to be obviously prosperous and modern. Looking across the Nile from our berth I expected to see an island and a Nubian village. That's how an Airbnb host described it. What really impressed was a huge, multi storey hotel lit like Disneyland. We fired up Data Roaming, hoping the money held out, and hastily reserved the Happy Nubian Hotel I had spotted months ago. Feeling really disoriented, we clumsily climbed into the 50cent public ferry with our gear and sailed across. The gigantic tourist hotel slowly vanished behind palm trees as we approached the landing and details of the far shore came into focus. And surprise, surprise, we set foot on a crude landing giving way to a very poor, dirt paved intersection of footpaths between a confusion of mudbrick structures. Yes, this really was a Nubian village, Jazirat Aswan, its authenticity confirmed by domestic goats and a small gang of barefoot school boys. These guys greeted us excitedly, grabbing our heaviest bags, determined to personally guide us to wherever we were going. Wherever that was. "Animalia" I remembered from part of the description of the guest house."Animalia, Animalia" everybody repeated and we set off on a long walking tour taking us down alleys, around corners, across field paths and finally to a door which didn't look anything like I remembered from the Airbnb photos.

 Knock knock. "Animalia, Animalia." Animalia? An older woman pointed with authority to the kids. Off we went on a big tour of the island, ending up right next to the elementary school and not far from the landing. They got a tip and we got a good laugh.

    It was a nice place, very rustic and authentic with hand plastered walls and brightly colored accents. We occupied a third floor room with a comfy, covered balcony big enough for a picnic table and wonderful wooden benches furnished in gay pillows. We loved the contrast to the dreaded cruise vessel. But our anxiety remained because the WiFi proved too weak to stay connected. Determined to get organized, I insisted we return to the landing and either check with the WiFi at the dockside restaurant or return to the city in search of a connection. Luckily the restaurant generously offered a powerful connection as well as a great vegetable tagine, and I began to note the difference in cultures from across the river. The gagging repetition of chewy pita filled with a mysterious spiced porridge began to repel me to the point where I actually enjoyed the cafeteria food served on board the cruise. But this tagine! Wow! Finally something tasty. We found ourselves at the edge of Nubia, old Ethiopia. Skins darker, obviously poorer, probably discriminated against; but delightfully Rastafarian.  

leaving Aswan at dawn

   Train ticket done, Airbnb reserved in Cairo for the next night and we reassured ourselves with a schedule; but we still couldn't reach our Airline company. In our desperation we commandeered a friend in UK and another in Italy to continue non-stop calling to the help line. Tantalizingly, the calls were answered but would timeout after hours of waiting for a human assistant. Looking back on the experience, I realize this is where we made a mistake. We had purchased traveler's insurance before we left Europe and we were covered for cancelled flights. Aswan has an airport and so does Luxor and we should have booked our return from there rather than take the endless train ride back to dirty old Cairo. Upon investigating flight options, we ruled out a connection through Athens and chose one through Casablanca that returned us to Rome in one day. Anxiety continued to follow us on our long retreat from the upper Nile.
    Going out is fun. It's an adventure. Coming back is seldom joyous apart from the expectation of the comforts of home that beckon. Two weeks of kitchen sink laundries, doubtful meals, and the slow grind of lugging a ton of belongings takes a toll on the spirits. Yes, it's nice to have no housework or lawn mowing to think about but the strain of keeping all the details organized can be fatiguing. Have you got your passport? Why don't these socks match? I left my earbuds at the guesthouse. How much does that cost in Euros? Do we tip this guy? Why doesn't my roaming work? My batteries are dying.
     The before dawn ferry ride across the Nile proved the highlight of this day. I don't know how or why there was a boat available but we tipped the guy, you can be sure! We were the only passengers. Through some breach in cosmic logic, a private taxi had been prearranged by Ehad, our historian/tour guide. The driver was late meaning we could have slept another half hour, but at least we didn't have to drag our gear up the road to the train station. In a counter-breach in cosmic logic, the train we had acquired tickets for was one of the filthiest in service, just to prepare us for our return to Cairo. Probably. Alex, unluckily, had to use the loo only to confirm our impression of the cleanliness of Egypt's rolling stock. I held it for 10 hours. The guy on seat 61 says rail travel is the only way to go and he's very helpful with that and he says that the train from Aswan to Cairo affords one a true look into the Egyptian river life. He's right, of course, but you know, we've already seen quite a bit of it. And it's not that great second or third or fourth time around. So I tried to sleep after sadly finishing my book; but anxiety over our next connection kept me churning over how we were going to get from the Ramses Train Station in Cairo out to the far tip of Zamalek ("sa MA lek"), a new neighborhood for us.
    Uber, the only way to fly in Cairo, failed to function as soon as we arrived. No roaming. Why? Ha. too bad. It was dark. We dragged and dragged and dragged off into the night, checking every 100 meters until we finally flagged a taxi. English? Ne. Read Address? shrug. In we get. The poor host expected us hours ago. After a bizarre tour of one-way streets in the dark, the taxi reversed to a stop. Out. Pay a paltry note for an angry snarl. Where the fuck are we? Into a lit building and bewildering search for a flat number or floor number or ANYTHING...and then the phone rang. And a door opened. How this stuff happens in Egypt, I'll never know. If this were Rome or London? Past check-in? Forget it. Pitch your tent, roll out the sleeping bag. 
   Dina was our hostess and she was just painting on the face before stepping out into secular night life hidden somewhere in Cairo. No muslim restraints in evidence, in fact an obvious gay-lib attitude at play. The night was evidently young. We took our inspiration and stepped out for a walk around, finally opting for the desperate falafal take-out just outside the door (where the same hand takes your money and scoops out the ... the... what is that stuff, anyway?).
Later that same evening (or morning) familiar sounds of human eruption might interrupt one's sleep, and at 4something AM, familiar people smiled as we packed frantically for our dawn ride to the airport. We awarded Dina 5 stars as is the custom at Airbnb. She was cheerful, after all.
    This time Uber worked, thanks to Dina's wifi connection, and off to the airport we rushed. There's a lot to be said about traveling at pre-dawn hours in Cairo. One is likely to get where one is headed and in half the time. Once, while rushing to the airport to drop off Isolde, we ran into a daytime traffic jam inching our way along in stop-and-go traffic to finally arrive at the scene of an upturned motorcycle still in the center lane and a stiff, pained rider limping around in the lanes. Ah Ha! Maybe this is Trump's dream of every man for himself. Medicare for none and ambulances too. A post-apocalyptic scene. The driver swerved around and stepped on the gas.
    Air Royal Maroc flight to Casablanca left Cairo as scheduled to our utter relief. My stomach churned but not enough to refuse the wonderfully western cheese omelet and coffee (or is that tea? hard to tell). Umpteen hours later and another flight to Rome and I had to check my geography to understand that we were accumulating some fuck-all mileage that would qualify for platinum status if we were ever to contemplate visiting another muslim country. We should have flown to Greece, at least. By the time we reached Rome I had wolfed down another air lunch. The landing was one of those miracles of air travel when the pilot wrestles the bouncing craft into an impossibly smooth touch-down, generating an audible sigh of relief and rousing round of applause. At the arrival gate it was obvious I needed an unscheduled emergency stop at the nearest facility. Then, passing through the surprise body temperature screening, they stopped me. Alex had passed through ahead of me and could see on the monitor my face was defcon red. No sirens, luckily, but I was asked to try again. I was not feeling all that great and perhaps they could see I was suffering under my dual duffel bags. Somehow a squabble began over the testing instruments, I straightened as best I could and put on a Hollywood face. And passed through. Why? Who knows. I had a fever. I know i did. And at that moment, I would have enjoyed a week's stay in any old hospital. But no. They sent me through.
    We only had half an hour to make a train connection to our home station. Alex rushed ahead and I staggered along. We got directions, marched down the corridors, bought tickets somewhere and finally found the platform. There was the train, our last connection on this insane pilgrimage. We jumped on and sat heavily with a final sense of accomplishment. The train eased out, slightly early, and then announced its stops. Oh No! Wrong train. NO!! We interviewed the ticket-taker independently as well as a number of passengers and formed a new strategy. Off in Orte, back on the train we should have waited for in Rome.
    Luckily the train stopped in Chiusi and went no further of we would have slept through the stop. Then one final drag to our car, a fumble for the keys... and ... home.
    The news next morning confirmed that coronavirus had been detected on a cruise ship in Egypt. In the meantime, Italy declared self imposed social isolation and was about to shut down completely. Now we began to wonder if that dry throat, that runny tummy was actually a deadly disease. We self-quarantined and the vacation was over. Back to real life.