Egypt part 4. Comfy interlude

Comfy Interlude

     Our challenge is to get out of Cairo and up to Luxor and on to our 5 star luxury liner. This Nile cruise is the whole reason we are in Egypt and something we began to really look forwarded to. 

    Luxor is located at the big kink in the river about 700 km up river. Luxor used to be Thebes and it was the capital and cult center of middle and late kingdoms. East bank is the city, west bank is the grave yard. It takes some 7 hours by car and over 10 hours by train to reach from Cairo. A line of three in front of a ticket window never, ever moved so we followed online advice and decided to buy our tickets after boarding. Early in the morning, we dragged our stuff onto an empty train feeling smug and paid the fare, receiving a scrap of torn paper with arabic pen strokes. One stop later and our seats were challenged. Two stops later and we found ourselves standing. With ten hours to go. I retired to the noisy space between the cars and sat on my duffel trying to read my paperback. Alex succeeded in being given a seat by an egyptian gentleman who even now chats with us on WhatsApp.

   Luxor: what a relief! Oh my goodness! Our Airbnb on the west bank offered a clean rooftop terrace all to ourselves. I got very excited identifying the Temple of Hatshepsut on the far hillside. At our feet, farmers tended lovely green plots of grain and sugarcane starts. I wiped my finger on the tile. No black. Just a bit of Sahara dust which never left us. From here we had an electrical outlet and a wifi contact with our bankrupt airline and coronavirus. We spent the whole day up there, and in the evening watched a loud, muslim wedding reception in what must have been the grange hall. Free apple juice in back-to-school cardboard boxes. Simple, dirt streets. Cheerful children. Steet falafal for supper.

     Next digs lay across the river where the other half lived. We had a night in the palatial Pavilion Winter, an extension of the old Luxor Winter Palace Hotel. From the grand staircase, almost 100 years ago, Howard Carter announced the discovery of Tut's tomb. Lavish reviews show up on Trip Advisor, and, yes, with its enormous private garden it did look like a suitable place to spend one's winter. Alex swam in the heated pool and I began to feel far more important than I deserved.