More Mere
As fun as it would be to give you all a run-down Mere-style of each day, I am here for one purpose and one purpose only. To tell the tale of our final train ride from Luxor to Cairo. So as much as I hate to end my day in the blogging sun, here I go.Margot and I stuffed as much as possible in our week in Egypt. This was partially my fault as I planned the trip and I refused to miss anything. On our last day in Luxor (Thursday of last week) we topped off a day of dehydrating in the Valley of the Kings (AKA the Desert of Dead Peeps) with a wonderful felucca ride on the Nile at sunset. We then tried to kill time before our 9:30pm overnight train back to Cairo. This included taking more pictures of the pink pelicans at the hotel, eating dinner and going to the beautifully designed Luxor Museum. After an hour or so at the museum we went to the Luxor train station (AKA the dirtiest place on earth) and rolled our luggage through unmentionable camel, donkey and probably human excrement.
When we finally got on the train, we settled into our “beds” and I braved the bathroom, which was at the very end of our train, past the two entrance doors on the car. We slept until 5am when I woke up because our porter was going to serve us breakfast. (His English was not so good as breakfast didn’t come for another hour or so.) I left to go to the bathroom again and on my way back to our room, I noticed a breeze through the entrance doors. On further inspection I realized that the glass was broken on both windows. I went back to the room and woke Margot up…
Mere: Margot, do you remember whether the window to the door was open when we got on the train?
Margot: (Half-Alseep and Muffled) What?
Mere: When we got on the train, was there a breeze?
Margot: I have no idea. (Goes back to sleep.)
So I was left scratching my head as the conversation with Margot had not been very enlightening. Then I remember that I had looked through one of the door windows the night before to see what was going on outside. So I *knew* that the windows were intact the previous night.
So I left the room to find our porter to find out when breakfast was going to come and to get behind the mystery of the windows. I find our guy and ask about the windows. He tells me (in a combination of mime and broken English) that some crazy person threw a rock at the window last night and broke the glass.
I did not really believe this story but went back to the room to report to Margot and to get my camera. When I walked to the end of the car to take the pictures, the two guys in the room closest to the broken windows were talking to some other passengers. As it turns out the real story is that someone from outside the train SHOT at the train, shattering the glass of both windows. When this happened (around 4am) the on-train militia came with their machine guns and shot back. The best part? They were using a large laundry bag for cover. WHAT!?!
[Editor's note: The train we were on is the only train foreigners are allowed to take in Egypt. Supposedly for security reasons.]
So that was exciting and just a tad bit scary for M and I. Thank God we were not awake for this episode or else (as my friend Jenn put it) we would have wet our beds…more unfortunate for me, as I was on the bottom bunk.
After that wonderful start to the morning what else should happen but we find the most annoying cab driver in the world to get us back to our hotel (the Sheraton Cairo). Not only was he trying to charge us 50 Egyptian pounds, (it should be like 10 or 15) but he spoke no English, which is why I believe he took us to the Sheraton Heliopolis near the AIRPORT about 10 miles and a hundred hours of traffic away. So we’re yelling at him from the backseat and he doesn’t believe that he actually went to the wrong place so he asks some random guy on the street to translate where we are going. Once he realizes he’s an idiot we make a u-turn and drive back to Cairo…until we get a flat tire. At this point Margot and I are very late to meet her colleague and are trying to explain to our cabbie and the other non-English-speaking cabbie that we need a cell phone. (Picture the two of us jumping up and down making phone gestures with our hands…we must have looked like insane monkeys.) They had no idea what we were talking about and we eventually gave up.
I think I’m supposed to end my blog there, and Margot (AKA pukey) can tell you the rest of Friday’s story. It includes a very cute brother and sister team, lots of hangman, the Suez Canal, an entire fish on Margot’s plate (eyes and all, people), and a little food poisoning.
(Just a quick word on the food poisoning – after the embarrassment of throwing up on the side of the road in front of international colleagues – Margot had to endure further embarrassment when those colleagues told everyone else where we were going. There wasn’t a single person in the house who didn’t come up to Margot and ask if she was alright. The best comment came from the 11 year old we had been hanging out with: “Next time, don’t barf.”)
posted by Margot @ 12:29 AM
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