‘Paynees,’ one man murmured softly, putting his knees together.
I remember the Rameses temples of course, the howling statues on the plain, that alarmed the Greeks, and the melancholy trunkless legs of Rameses colossus that inspired Shelley to write ‘Ozymandias,’ one of my favorites from Poetry Corner. Flaubert camped in Luxor, too.
But as impressive as anything else in Egypt in terms of obsessive continuity over the centuries was the sight of the dark bump and bruise on the forehead of devout Muslim men, from striking their head on the mosque floor — the alamat el-salah, ‘mark of prayer,’ colloquially called a raisin (zabibah) in Egypt. For it was here in Luxor in 1997 that Islamic fanatics appeared suddenly at a temple in Luxor and opened fire on some tourist buses. Fifty-seven tourists died in this outrage. A month after I left the Nile six German tourists were taken hostage in Luxor, as well. The kidnapper was said to be a nutter, and the hostages were released after a week, but more incidents were expected.
One day at the Temple of Hatshepsut, a name I could only utter by slowly syllabicating it, I found myself saying, ‘How in heck did they manage to move those things?’ I took this as a sign that it was time to move on.
Because of the terrorist threat, a convoy left Luxor for the coast every morning, thirty cars and buses, led by speeding police cars, across the Eastern Desert, about 100 miles to Port Safaga, and another thirty to Hurghada, on the Red Sea. For about two hours the desert was flat and featureless, then there were low hills like rubble piles and heaps of stone, and finally tumbledown mountains of brown boulders, among which Bedouin children in dark gowns scampered, herding goats.
On the barren coast of the deep blue Red Sea the town of Hurghada sprawled, a Russian resort with all that that implied — cheap hotels, tourists in tracksuits, terrible food, joyless gambling halls and hard-faced hookers. Here and there were luxuriating Romanians and budget-conscious Poles and backpackers who had lost their way. There was nothing but sunshine here and somehow that glarey light made the tacky hotels look uglier.
‘In nineteen-eighty this was a Bedouin village,’ a local man told me.
I had found a nice hotel at the most southerly dune of the district, a place with the fetching name of Sahl Hasheesh, the epitome of splendid isolation. Though the place was arid, hasheesh in fact means greenery, and sahl means coast (thus Swahili means coastal people).
‘You can relax here,’ the manager said.
I thought: I don’t want to relax. If I wanted to relax I would not have come to Africa.
‘You can rest.’
To me, travel was not about rest and relaxation. It was action, exertion, motion, and the built-in delays were longueurs necessitated by the inevitable problem-solving of forward movement; waiting for buses and trains, enduring breakdowns that you tried to make the best of.
‘You can sit on the beach. You can go for a swim.’
To someone who lived half the year in Hawaii, doing such things here seemed perverse. The Red Sea in February was cold, ‘sand’ was just a euphemism for gravel and sharp stones, the wind was strong enough to snatch at my clothes.
What about a ship? I thought. I called an American travel agency in Cairo. The agent, a vague English girl, confused by my request, said she knew nothing of ships.
‘But how about a Nile cruise?’ she inquired.
‘Did that.’
‘Or you could visit Cairo and see real dervishes.’
‘We have dervishes in Hurghada.’
She couldn’t help: no brochure for ships, though the Red Sea must have been full of them. I went to Port Safada. No ships to Djibouti, only a ship full of hajjis to Jiddah in fanatic Arabia.
Back at Sahl Hasheesh the kindly manager could see I was agitated.
‘Just relax. Have a nice time.’
‘I want to be on the move.’
‘Where to go?’ He laughed.
‘Well, Cape Town eventually.’
This left him puzzled. It is always a mistake to try to explain plans for the onward journey. Such plans sound meaningless, because they are so presumptuous. Travel at its best is accidental, and you can’t explain improvisation. One day I got sick of being becalmed in Hurghada and, more worrying, I was told that the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha was about to begin. This six-day Feast of the Sacrifice commemorated the Lord’s providing Abraham with a ram to replace Isaac on the sacrificial altar (corresponding to Genesis, 22: 6–14). Six days of everything closed. I decided on an impulse to call the Sudanese again.
‘Your visa has been approved,’ a man named Adil told me.
But the border was closed. I would have to fly to Khartoum. I went into town to get a ticket. With me in the line was a friendly voluble man, also buying an Egyptair ticket. He had the squarish head of the urban Egyptian, and chubby cheeks and gray eyes, and a stockiness that gave the illusion of bad posture. His name was Ihab.
‘Like the captain in the novel.’
‘What novel? Like Ihab in Holy Koran.’ He wiped his sweaty hands on his shirt, darkening the smear that was already there. ‘My name mean “gift.” ’
‘You come from Hurghada?’
‘No one come from Hurghada,’ he said. True, the resort town had been a Bedouin village twenty years ago, but Bedouins were always on the move.
‘Egypt, then?’
‘I am hate Egypt.’
‘Why?’
‘I am tell you tomorrow.’
Tomorrow?
Before I left for Khartoum I called the American consul general there whose name had been given to me. What was life like in the Sudan?
‘I’m not allowed to live here,’ he said. ‘I live in Cairo. I just fly back and forth to Khartoum. Going back to Cairo tonight.’
‘I’m wondering about traveling outside Khartoum.’
‘I’m not allowed to travel outside Khartoum, for security reasons.’
‘Have American citizens been hassled in the Sudan?’
‘Hassled? Well, one was picked up by security police a few months ago and interrogated, and I’m afraid tortured, for three days.’
‘That sounds awful.’
‘That’s the only complaint we’ve had, but as you can see it’s a pretty serious one. I am obliged to tell you this.’
‘Did they let him go?’
‘Not at first. Only after they subjected him to a mock execution.’
‘Something I would like to avoid,’ I said.
4. The Dervishes of Omdurman
Even while I had been entering Sudanese air space, Ihab in the seat beside me was telling me it was a country he frankly hated. I was reading the US State Department unclassified travel advisory for the Sudan, an amazing document:
Travel in all parts of Sudan, particularly outside Khartoum, is potentially hazardous … [American] travelers in Sudan have been subjected to delays and detention by Sudan’s security forces, especially when traveling outside Khartoum … unpredictable local driving habits … roadblocks … In addition to the ongoing civil war, heavy rains and above normal Nile River levels have caused extensive flooding throughout Sudan. Nile floods have affected Khartoum … Water-related diseases such as malaria, typhoid and gastroenteritis will threaten many … The government of Sudan’s control over its police and soldiers may be limited …
My favorite phrase was In addition to the ongoing civil war. I glanced beside me. ‘You were saying?’