Not My Last Word on Egypt

Minneapolis—I've been home from Egypt for a month and I'm still a little flummoxed by the whole experience. I was enchanted by the people, delighted by the food, traumatized by the traffic, aggravated by the noise, overwhelmed by the landscape, disgusted by the filth, irritated by the religion, awed by the antiquities, dismayed by the poverty, and captivated by the sheer length and breadth of the story. But one thing I never was, was afraid.

Friends and family back home sent me frequent messages expressing fear on my behalf, and the longer I was incommunicado during stretches on the road or in the mountains, the higher the emotional pitch. What you don't know can hurt you, and I can understand their anxiety when all the press has to say is that Bedouins are kidnapping tourists and rioting soccer fans are dying by the dozens. But I knew by being there that Muslims are rebuilding Coptic churches, that the Bedouins do have something to complain about and seizing a few tourists (while treating them hospitably) can get them some headlines for their cause, that the sinister Muslim Brotherhood has widespread support not so much for radical reasons as for humanitarian ones, and that I've never felt safer anywhere.

We've got it so wrong about this part of the world. Egypt's whole government "system" collapsed barely a year ago, yet a parliament is in place, political parties have formed, presidential candidates are running, and a diverse population with lots of ground to cover is actively engaged in determining what democracy will look like in a land that hasn't seen anything like it in 6,000 years.

The current struggle for political power is revealing some weak spots, for sure, like parliament stacking the constitutional assembly with members of the dominant political party. And it's making some strange bedfellows (the Muslim Brotherhood and the military? Hello?) But who could have guessed that Egypt would be here a year after Mubarak fled? Could the revolutionaries? Could Mubarak? America may not like how the story unfolds, but how can we help admiring Egyptians for what's gotten them here?

Meanwhile, as the headlines back home made Egypt look like a war zone, every train, bus, and plane I took was on time and running. People may have been surprised that an American was visiting at all (our Israeli policy is a sore spot) but they welcomed me and congratulated me on our president.

And while a foreign woman traveling alone might be a likely target for pickpockets or harassment, I saw no evidence of this in Egypt—even when I found myself walking back to my hotel at night. Would this be true in Europe? In America?

Imagine the situation reversed. You're an Egyptian considering a family vacation to a country where neighborhood militiamen kill unarmed teenagers. Where racial profiling is so commonplace that people of color avoid police officers altogether, much less call on them for help. Where anybody on the street could be packing a concealed weapon—legally.

Say you're not an Evangelical Christian. How welcome would you feel in a country where support is pooling around candidates who think their piety qualifies them for government? Do we ever consider how the rest of the world considers our domestic climate?

I don't know how they do it in a country that's practically quadrupled in population in the last generation, but even in Cairo I met simple kindness and generosity everywhere. Like when I was eyeing some tasty-looking thing in a food vendor's window and he just reached around the door and passed me a morsel. Or when I was running to hop into a packed microbus and a hand emerged to help me inside.

Egyptians everywhere struck up conversations with me simply to practice their English, and when I replied with my scrambled Arabic, their pleasure at my attempt was instant and apparent.

These are the things I remember about Egypt—not the events that inspired the flaming headlines or the inconveniences and abrasions of traveling in a poor country remaking itself. What I remember is the warmth and the unqualified welcome. And because of these, I will see Egypt again soon, inshallah.

About Going Alone

Everywhere I went, people asked why I was traveling alone. Mostly I just told them I was having an adventure. What I didn't tell them was that I did not want to be part of a tour—I'd done that once and if there is a hell, it's a tour bus full of strangers you can't escape.

I had never been anywhere on my own, never planned any travel that didn't require concessions to someone else, and because I'm an introvert, never so much as asked for help in a grocery store. I wanted to know if I could forget all that and make my way in a country whose language, landscape, and customs were completely unfamiliar to me. It was a good idea. Of all the decisions I made in the course of this journey, going alone was the best.

I also didn't tell them what I really wanted to achieve, which was to mark a transition from my old life as wife, mother, neighbor, friend, and career woman, through the dark years when all that blew apart, to this new, simpler life of unforeseen possibility and contentment. Six weeks in Egypt turned out to be just the ticket.

A Final Note. On Toilets.

I have been thinking of something my Egyptian-American Friend told me a few years ago. He said I am like an American toilet: You keep putting the bad stuff in and it flushes right away, while he is like an Egyptian toilet: It doesn't matter how much you put in or how many times you flush, it's there for the rest of your life.

One of the things I did with my time in Egypt was work on understanding myself better. And now that I'm more familiar with Egyptian toilets, I think I understand my Friend better, too.

A Minnesota Goodbye

Cairo—I am so sick with bronchitis or a sinus infection or something that I can't get out of bed, much less go to the Khan el-Khalili bazaar, the camel market, the Egyptian Museum, or the great restaurants my Danish/Cairene friend Christopher recommended for this last pass through the city before I go home. If I weren't so ill I don't think I'd be so travel weary, but try conveying "decongestants" to a young pharmacist who thinks you want anabolic steroids. It's just too much work to pull out the phrase book or throw any energy behind miming, so I go back to bed.

All my new Egyptian friends want to see me one more time, and of course feed me, before I go. Not without guilt do I ignore the phone and the doorbell. But no one evades Iman. I will be fed and pampered whether I like it or not, and she will draft her husband Mohammed to drive me to the airport at 11 p.m. on a work night—the Cairo airport, an hour away through arguably the worst traffic in the world. I beg to be allowed to take a taxi; they don't even have a car. Iman won't hear of it. "We love Amed and we love you," she says. "Besides. Every day I go to work, come home, make dinner, go to bed. To me, this is a picnic!"

Egyptians have a sense of family that is as alien to me as their rituals. Family simply is the measure of happiness in life, and the more overwhelming the family, the fuller the measure. In weeks of meeting Egyptians all over the country, no one has asked me what I do for a living, as a Westerner would. Instead, they want to know about my family, which at first I thought meant my parents and siblings. But no, they mean my children: How many? How old? Boys or girls? Are they good children? Do they make me happy? Egyptians are honest about theirs. With her three grown sons sitting at the table, Iman tells me (after I've told her what good manners they have) that they're no help around the house. Mohammed's dimples deepen.

On my last night before a 1 a.m. flight out, I take my keys upstairs to their apartment—early so I won't interrupt their dinner. But dinner is already on the table and a place is set for me, as if they knew when I'd emerge from my cocoon of congestion. Iman heaps my plate, then the sons help themselves until the platters are all empty and the food is all gone. Iman hasn't eaten anything and Mohammed isn't even home from work yet. While she serves me a dessert I have come to love but that I can't stand the sight of now, she tells me not to worry about her hungry sons: There's another whole casserole and salad in the kitchen, and when Mohammed comes home they will pray and then eat together.

In the meantime I return to my bed and sleep until the doorbell rings at 10:30. Mohammed is ready to take me to the airport in a borrowed Fiat wagon half a century old. We head out into the streets of the city, maybe the meanest streets on the planet, and I wonder indifferently when he last drove a car.

At the airport I try to get them to just drop me off, but no. Mohammed leaves Iman and me by the door and goes to park the car while we make our way inside. I'm insanely grateful that Iman is with me now. Besides my being sick unto death, I can't read any of the signs, of course, and every counter is strung with lines of travelers and their suitcases. I doubt I could have found a single English-speaking departure clerk to get me boarded, but I don't need to. Iman has everything under control and goes person-to-person-to-person, asking questions and getting directions until we end up clear around the terminal to the right desk for international departures.

Iman is a wonder to watch. She is half my height and twice my width, and she motors through that airport like she's jet-propelled herself. An archaeologist, she once chaperoned an antiquities exhibit to the U.S. but promised everyone she'd never do it again. Not without Mohammed.

Iman continues to ask directions until we finally arrive at the security gate. We hug each other, and then I slip away. On the other side I see that Mohammed has joined her, and I watch them both follow along mirroring me from the other side of the glass, all the way to the passage where I turn out to the tarmac and my plane. I stop once and there they are, still waving.

There isn't much in Egypt that's like home—not the food or the weather or the culture or the customs—but this long goodbye seems really familiar, like going home after Thanksgiving with my family feeling like I've left part of my heart behind.

Bless Iman and bless Mohammed. Now they're my family, too.

Travels With Omar

Cairo—I'm back in Cairo for the last time before returning home March 1, and now I can relax in the apartment where I'm staying as if I own the place. The cold that kept me in bed and shivering for a day in the Bahariya Oasis has turned into a ferocious and unrelenting cough, but I'm planning on continuing my exploring anyway, at least today. Young Omar is my guide again while I'm in town—a birthday present from my Egyptian Friend back home, Omar's uncle. Today we are going to a city about an hour north by train, beautified with gardens and stone bridges by the Turkish general Mohammed Ali who in the 19th century made himself king.

We start the day by walking to the corner microbus stop for a ride to the train station, where I learn that the suicidal underpass I've been walking to get to the Internet cafe has a parallel pedestrian tunnel. Yesterday I'd witnessed a boy getting his head cracked open by one of the zooming drivers who honk their way mindlessly through this underpass whether there's anyone in there or not. Now I can use the pedestrian tunnel with some semblance of safety and undertake my internet addiction anew.

It takes us a couple of microbuses to get to the main train station because Omar is impatient with the traffic delays and can get us there faster by foot. He pulls me by my sleeve through the narrow, traffic-clogged alleys to speed up my pace, steer me around the many obstacles, and assure himself that he knows where I am. As with many things regarding Omar, I will get sick of this.

We emerge from an alley right at the edge of the tracks, with the trains and the station on the other side. There are no trains moving right now, thank God, because Omar leaps down the four-foot ledge, puts up a hand, and tells me we're going to run across the tracks. "I'll bet you've never done THIS in America," he says. No, I have not, and I don't want to now.

But today and for the rest of my time in Cairo Omar won't be shy about telling me what to do. He tells me I should carry a toothbrush, put on my jacket, comb my hair, change my seat, hurry up—even dress my salad. ("Pour the dressing ON the salad.") He grabs my sleeve again, we run across about five sets of tracks, and he helps me onto the platform on the other side. He finds a policeman to ask about the next train to our destination. All I recognize from their cheerful conversation is the word "American."

The next train is leaving in a few minutes and it occurs to me to ask if there's a W.C. on it. Since there isn't, I run back to the station, use the loo, and run back just in time to leap aboard. Every seat is filled and once again it's a big surprise that no women or foreigners are on board.

Omar turns on the charm and pretty soon some men start shuffling and two seats open up—first for me and then for him. The men who yield their seats ride for the next hour in the wobbly space between the cars where poor Egyptians can ride free—even though these men have paid their full 1 EGP (1/6 of a US dollar) fare.

Tourists are not supposed to ride fourth class, and at first I thought that was so the railways could bilk the tourists. But it turns out to have more to do with competition for the cheap seats: Everyone uses public transportation here, and most Egyptians are poor. None of these trains runs with extra seats, no matter what class the car, so it's better for everyone if the cheaper cars are reserved for the people who can least afford them. (And anyway the first-class cars are so cheap as to make sneaking down to fourth class absurd.)

I have ridden in first class toward Luxor and second class from Alexandria, but this is my first fourth-class ride—a gift from Omar who wants me to see how real Egyptians live.

The open platforms between the cars are stuffed with the free-riders, some who look so frail they might blow away in the wind. I try not to draw attention to myself by looking around, but when I perceive something moving in my peripheral vision I can't help myself. Scooting along the luggage rack within inches of the ceiling, there's a man with a stuffed flour sack that he uses as a pillow once he reaches a point where he can stop and stare down at me. Every time I sneak a peek at him he hasn't moved—or, apparently, blinked.

As I've been warned the glass in the windows is gone. I don't think about the effect of traveling in a train with no windows until the black smoke from the diesel locomotive comes furling into the car. Add to that the dust and dirt of thousands of years of Egyptian decay and now I'm hacking violently, uncontrollably, until tears run down my face.

I have wrapped my scarf over my head (to keep my hair from tangling), around my neck (because I'm freezing), and across my nose and mouth (to maintain an airway), and now I look like Lawrence of Arabia, except for the eyes. (Ever since I bought this scarf in Luxor a month ago I would no sooner go out without it than I would without my passport. It's also camouflage for a haircut and dye-job pushed way beyond their expiration dates.)

Every once in awhile I notice Omar chuckling to himself. Finally he tells me that back at the train station the policeman he'd talked with, who asked if Omar wanted a tourist policeman to accompany us, asked also if he had gotten me off the Internet. Omar told him yes.

As we travel north it's easy to see how Omar, who was raised in relative privilege with an education and the instantly recognizable badge of white, straight teeth, can cross back and forth easily between this world and his family's. He strikes up a conversation with his seat mate, includes a man standing in the aisle, and pretty soon they're talking with the easy camaraderie of old friends. Omar does this everywhere we go—asking for directions and advice, helping someone board a bus, picking up a wallet a woman has dropped, giving money to a beggar on the sidewalk—always with that winning smile. He just got a job in reception at a hotel in Alexandria and hopes it will lead to his dream of touring the world with a backpack. He wants to meet people who are not like him—real people, he says—and with his friendliness and warmth I have no doubt he'll do it.

When we arrive we have to step over the sprawling free-riders crowding the platform between cars. We make our way through the crowded, noisy, dirt streets toward the Nile, which Omar tells me is more beautiful here than in Cairo.

As we walk along he wants to know about my city, so I give him the highlights: clear lakes, the Mississippi, bike trails and walking trails that go everywhere, a vibrant youth culture and music scene. But he wants to know if it's legal there to spit on the sidewalk. Well, I don't know, and I tell him so. He says he saw a European spitting on the sidewalk once in Sharm el Sheikh. "Disgusting," he says. I look at the donkey cart driver throwing orange peels overboard, at the goats upside down in a garbage bin, at the herd of feral cats raking through piles of garbage someone has just dumped from a window, at the steaming mounds of animal waste underneath my own feet, and I think, Really? Disgusting?

We reach one of Mohammed Ali's famous bridges, which has what looks like small, medieval castles on either end. We're out of the worst of the traffic because the bridge is too narrow, but we still have to watch for the lunatic motorcycles and toc-tocs that roar around us. (Toc-tocs are the noisy, smelly, three-wheeled roofed motorcycles you see all over Bangkok. They're new in Egypt and are the worst kind of pestilence since God persuaded Pharaoh to free the Israelites.)

The Nile is wide here as it gathers steam for the delta and the Mediterranean. Fishermen dot the blue, gently flowing waters; some of them ride the current on old tires, their feet dangling in the water. It is a tranquil scene and I'm happy to be here.

We take our time crossing the bridge to the other side, where I can see the gardens Mohammed Ali built extending far along the river. But as soon as we touch foot on the other side we are swarmed by toc-tocs. Over and over Omar says "la, shukran," we want to walk, but they won't leave us alone. They follow us step by step, shouting at us and beeping. Omar keeps putting himself between me and the toc-tocs because they're crowding us and the drivers are hollering threateningly. We escape them momentarily when we turn into one of the gardens, but then the tea sellers start following us to get us to come into their shops. By now my nerves are rattled, my chest is raw from coughing, and my breathing passages are choked with soot and dirt stirred up by traffic and toc-tocs. I agree when Omar suggests we go look at the waterfall and then get out of here.

But back on the street the toc-tocs swarm once again. One boy of about 10, driving illegally, persuades Omar to take his toc-toc to the falls for 50 piastres--1/2 a pound--for the brief ride to the falls. Omar gives him twice as much and we try to walk the rest of the way but the boy, like everyone else, will not go away until the caretaker of the lock and dam chases him off the riverside terrace.

Once we're back on the road the toc-tocs return with the boy in front, and now he's demanding 5 pounds for having waited for us. Nobody asked him to wait and in fact we did not want him to. Some obviously ugly words are exchanged and Omar is angrier than I could ever imagine him to be. I can't believe the guts of this little brat taking on a man more than twice his size. We escape him briefly but here he comes up on me from behind, practically running me over and shouting at Omar. He must be the leader of this little army of toc-tocs because they all follow us step for step the whole way back into town, shouting and honking their obnoxious little horns.

When we get to a place where we can hear each other, Omar suggests we skip lunch, hop a microbus now for the trip back into Cairo, catch the Metro to Tahrir, and get take-out koshiry to eat in the Square—the same sad, squalid Square surrounded by burned-out high-rise hotels and scraps of the occupation camp; the same bland, gut-bloating pasta as we'd shared a month before. I suggest alternatives and he snaps something about why I'm asking so many questions.

Later, on the bus, I barely speak to him and he tells me not to talk because he doesn't want the other people, who are staring at me in that unblinking way I'll never get used to, to know I'm foreign, which is so patently false that I store it away for a later fight.

When we arrive at the Square we go to order koshiry and Omar refuses my suggestion to eat inside, where it's relatively quieter and clean. It's not until later that he tells me that his pique was due to guilt because he had missed afternoon prayers. With that he turns into a covered alleyway, parks me with our koshiry on a plastic stool and joins three men who are praying in this make-shift mosque. It's clear now that the dinner and the destination were about his agenda, not mine.

When he rises he returns to me with that pearly, beatific smile and regales me for the whole walk to the park bench with how wonderful prayer is for restoring your mood.

I can feel it coming. "Are you not grateful to God?" he asks as we take up our bench. "Why do you not show God your gratitude through prayer?" He continues in this vein while I look meaningfully at the bag of koshiry growing cold at his feet.

In a pique of my own I ask him why he thinks prayers are better at demonstrating gratitude than works are, and how does he know whether I pray or not. I try to tell him that in my tradition your faith is between you and God, a personal thing, and that prayer can happen anytime, anywhere, and is free of rules.

But he's not listening. He launches uninvited into the propriety of prayer, the compulsions outlined in Islam that tell Muslims how to pray—when, where, how often, and with whom. The gulf between us—culture, religion, gender, age— is so vast there's no point in taking up my end of the conversation. Earlier in the journey this would have bothered me. Now, I'm glad that he's finally shut up.

What I'm coming to dislike about Omar is not really his fault, it's mine. He had me believing he wanted to travel the world and meet people completely unlike him—in China, Tibet, Vietnam, Russia, Eastern Europe. A lot of non-Muslims live in those places. Does he really think he'd make friends around the world telling them how wrong-headed they are?

The next day we're in a different town and it's time—again—for him to pray. But the mosque we're heading for is a lovely little example of Turkish architecture in a garden, and I drop my antagonism momentarily to see it.

Inside there's no one except the muezzin who smiles at me and lets me sit in a chair under the dome. That lasts about a minute before someone else comes along to object, and I'm moved with my chair to a low-ceilinged, curtained-off corner to stew in my own juices, in the dark.

Now my temper's really up. I grab my shoes, cut through the mosque and head for the garden. Whether Mohammed intended Islam to remain like mental handcuffs or not, the fact that women are forced to pray in a coat closet like some bad Catholic girls strikes me as reason enough to consider this religion a failure.

When Omar comes out and starts his happy preaching, he gets to a point where he describes how Islam around the world has united the people. I really don't want to get into it with him but he keeps it up and after awhile I can't stand it anymore. I say, "the men, Omar." "Islam has united the men." It's interesting that now he doesn't want to get into it with me.

This morning I was driven from the apartment by voices over loudspeakers coming from different directions preaching the Koran, since it's Friday. Once again, they were so loud there was no chance for reading, much less writing. Islam is the state religion in Egypt, its mosques and imams bought and paid for by the government. Although tolerance of minority religions is official state policy, in practice it's a different story. The largest minority, the Coptic Christians, who predate Islam by almost 500 years, suffer under a second-class citizenship that gives them inferior rights compared to Muslims, limits their access to government protection and programs, and otherwise marginalizes them.

One of the many things I love about my country is that in the beginning, religious zealots were so numerous, disparate, and afraid any one of them would dominate the others that the Framers could get away with writing a Bill of Rights that protected all of them from the government. Today, no state religion. In 200 years it's become part of our DNA to believe that pluralism is a virtue.

You Want Make Sex?

Bahariya Oasis—I have spent two nights in Bawiti, in the Bahariya Oasis, and I'm disappointed to realize I won't be going on to Siwa. The only way to get there without going back to Cairo (6 hours) and circling the desert (13 hours) is to go right over the dunes for four hours in a Land Rover at a cost of about 1,000 EGP. Since I can't find anyone to go with, don't have that much money to spare, have no interest in sleeping out in the freezing desert on one of the overnight tours here which is all there is left to do, and have four more days till I have to be in Cairo, I'm feeling at loose ends.

At my first hotel here I meet the European from my bus who turns out to have lived in Cairo for more than 10 years and has a flat in Berlin as well. He's Danish, an antiquarian book dealer, and we spend hours talking the first day, then the next morning too, when I learn that he used to have a house here in tumble-down Bawiti and was visiting to see how much that tourism has wrecked everything since the first hotel signaled the decline to come.

For lunch Christopher takes me to the only "restaurant" in town, owned by a local man who has had the same menu for 10 years: chicken, rice, soup, and bread, none of it very good, for an exorbitant 15 EGP. I'll eat there twice and be sorry both times. It is open onto the dusty road, and you get traffic exhaust and grit with your bad lunch. The owner, Faroum, sits on the road blowing a whistle to get people to eat there. With Christopher's soft voice and Danish accent it's all I can do to hear him above the din. The bathroom ranks as the most disgusting I've encountered anywhere in Egypt, which is saying a lot.

While we eat we are joined by Ahmed, who through the Bedouin underground knows that I am looking for a tour into the desert, but most importantly a way to get to Siwa. (I will get used to the fact that no matter where I am in Bawiti, everyone seems to know what I want and how to find me.)

Does he know of anyone going to Siwa? He says he will check with the military office to find out. (Anyone going through the Western Desert near Siwa, in the Great Sand Sea near the Libyan border, must have a military permit. The military would know if one has been filed, who filed it, and then I would know if there's anyone going.) It turns out no one is.

Since Christopher isn't leaving until tomorrow, we work out an arrangement with Ahmed to spend the next day touring the desert.

In the meantime I want to walk in the palm groves that extend for miles in every direction. Ahmed takes us to his own land in the midst of the groves, where he has planted alfalfa to begin the process of enriching the soil for a garden. He shows us another garden that his will look like in a few years, a large one full of onions, beans, cabbages, melons and lettuces. It is protected by a strong fence made of 6-foot-tall woven palm fronds, and the donkey tied up nearby must be the tractor.

We sit for awhile and Ahmed explains his plans. At 29 he has been taking people into the desert for 11 years, and while he says it has been fun, he has a wife and two children now and wants to turn his labors to something more reliable. With tourism so minimal, he is spending his time working on this garden, getting the irrigation set up, and starting work on an olive grove right in the sandy desert outside Bawiti.

The next day we drive out of town toward the sand and the black mountains. It is hard to imagine how caravans crossed this trackless waste, but pretty soon we turn the Land Rover off the road and over the embankment, and head straight toward the mountains and the sand dunes ahead.

Amed's Land Rover is much used but very clean and well appointed, and since he doesn't smoke it smells as fresh as the desert itself. The seats, dash, and stick shift have colorful, hand-woven covers. Ahmed is showing off some of what the Land Rover can do and I'm impressed, which pleases him. I ask him if he's given the truck a name. He smiles that private smile I'll see frequently today, and responds that the truck is named "Fajarag," or something like that, which means someone who breaks all the rules in Islam.

 
I am sitting in front and will come to regret that when Amed aims for a steep dune as fast as Fajarag can go. We can't see what's ahead, whether another truck, another dune, or one of the razor-sharp drop-offs created by the frequent sandstorms, so I'm hanging on with both hands to the roof handle generously covered with another Bedouin weaving.

When we reach the top he stops, with the front wheels just over the perpendicular edge. "It's ok," he says, looking over to me, "we go easy, like camel." And down we go, slowly.

We spend the rest of the day driving around to some sites Ahmed thinks we'll enjoy—English Mountain, so named for a battle with Britain; the great salt lake, several sites with grand vistas, and my favorite, a corral with a male and female Moroccan camel newly delivered of their rickety offspring.

The baby has been born today and is being guarded by her beautiful mother. Ahmed tells me the loose hobble on the mother is to keep her from wandering too far from the baby. I watch from a distance, not knowing how they feel about strangers, but then the baby gathers her legs under her and wobbles over to investigate me. She shows no interest in Ahmed, who's trying to figure out her gender, but after a few tries petting her she submits to some scratching from me. She has a velvet muzzle that she rests right in my hand.

We had come this way to see one of the many hot springs where everyone bathes in Bahariya Oasis. Large concrete pools have been built to collect the water, and runoff goes to the irrigation canals that course through the agricultural fields. I want to try it; I've picked up a cold and would love a hot soak. Ahmed says that one of the pools is more frequented by tourists and he suggests taking me to that one, but Christopher will be gone by then and I have to decide if I'm comfortable in Ahmed's hands.

If I'd brought my own man I wouldn't have these infrequent inconveniences, but the one thing I don't want to do is risk later regret by letting overcaution come between me and something I shouldn't miss. I agree to go and tell Ahmed, "No funny business." He thinks this is hilarious and repeats it all evening.

Before I go I tell the proprietor of my hotel what I'm doing, where, with whom, and when I expect to be back. I tell him I'll find him when I return so he's not worried. He is sitting with some people who tell me Ahmed is a "good guy" and I don't have to worry, so I don't.

The spring is in a palm grove on government property but I can't see much of it in the dark. The pool is half-full of boisterous young men who greet me with a wave. "America? Obama!"

I sit by a fire waiting for Ahmed to change and I'm asked my name, my nationality, and how old I am. It isn't just the country people with the effrontery to ask this question; several of my Cairo friends have asked the same thing. After huffing, "That's no question to ask a lady," he drops it, and I'm given a few moments to wonder why I give a damn.

Ahmed comes out of the nearby hut in trunks and I go in to put on my shorts and a long, loose shirt over my bathing suit. I have been told this is how women dress for the springs, but nobody here seems to care. The only light is by the small fire and the dome of stars, making it difficult to find my way. But when my eyes adjust I can see figures outlined in the steam rising from the pool.

The water is too hot to enter all at once, but after awhile I ease myself in and...dissolve, just like sugar in tea. I lean my head back on the ledge and look at the stars, which drop all the way to the ground on this moonless night. I'm selfish enough to wish everybody else would just go away.

I have to get out several times to cool down, and I admit to Ahmed that he was right about how long you stay relaxed and warm. Finally I'm just too hot and say it's time for me to go.

On the way back we're quiet. Finally Ahmed says, "Why you travel alone?" I tell him it's because I'm on an adventure and it's easier to meet people if I'm alone.

"You want make sex?"

"What??! NO!" I tell him.

He wants to know why not.

Well, four reasons that I can think of right off the bat: he's married, I'm in a relationship, I'm going home in a few weeks, and he's nearly thirty years younger than me—not necessarily in that order. Misunderstanding me, he tells me that he "can't make sex unless married;" his religion forbids it. I say fine, who asked you?

Then the lightbulb goes off in my head: He thinks that my adventure, on which I've said I will meet interesting people because I'm traveling solo, is intended primarily to meet interesting MEN, and that I'M asking HIM to "make sex." I find this hysterical and tell him so, and he gives me that private smile that I interpret to mean he's not sure he believes me. I have to list the names and nationalities of all the women I've met, in addition to the men, who have made this trip unforgettable. We don't have time for me to explain why this is important to me.

But once we get the sex stuff settled, Ahmed asks if he can put some questions to me.

The first one is a doozy: "Here, woman over 40 not want make sex," he says. "European women over 40, they still want make sex?"

Hoo boy. I tell him yes, I think so. But he wants to know how they manage when their men are losing the ability, not to mention the interest. I tell him I don't know, maybe they're unhappy?

Bingo. THAT'S the answer he's looking for.

It seems that in his 11 years of guiding desert tours, Ahmed has been propositioned repeatedly by "old" women. (I correct him: We prefer "older.") He's a little mystified by this but I can't tell if he's flattered. He says it's not usually a problem; the women respect his answer when he says his religion prevents it, and he understands that sleeping in the desert on a starry night can put one in the mood. But knowing that European women are not done with sex after their childbearing years is news to him, and it puts something into perspective for Ahmed that he has long wanted to understand.

My turn: I take the opportunity since we're more or less on the subject to ask why a Muslim man would ever want multiple wives. (To me, this is lunacy.)

Ahmed concentrates for a minute, mumbles something, and replies so fast it takes me a minute for it to register.

"Mango, mango, mango, mango, mango everyday mango," he says.

"You understand?"

What's Up with the Mini-Skirts?

Cairo—In the Turgoman Bus Station in Cairo I'm having a Turkish coffee when the proprietor of the shop turns the television from LOUD prayers to videos of Egyptian pop—a very Eastern kind of disco that I loathe. But then he switches the channel to stunningly gorgeous women in sparkling gowns with plunging necklines, mini-skirts, blue jeans, and short-shorts, dancing that sinuous, gelatinous, classically Egyptian dance that is so frankly sexual that I can't believe it's on any TV here at all, much less on one hanging in the Cairo bus terminal right across from several smoking Bedouin men and women in hijabs with children.

[UPDATE: May 17, 2012—According to the Associated Press, Egypt's vice police arrested the owner of a belly dancing TV station in Cairo on suspicion of operating without a license, inciting licentiousness, and facilitating prostitution.]

The issue of what is and is not covered on Egyptian women has been a matter of debate for decades, with women ultimately choosing the veil for themselves after Iran's Islamic Revolution made it a point of pride to do so. (The Salafists, radical Islamists who just won a respectable showing in the recent Parliamentary elections here, don't like even the suggestion of female breasts on statues and have moved to cover them up.) But the hijab is practically universal now, even among children; in four weeks traveling the country I can count the number of unveiled women I've seen on one hand, and I doubt they were Egyptian.

The Prophet Mohammed called for his wives, daughters and the faithful to pull their veils "down low" to cover their "ornaments," according to my translation of the Koran, which has been variously interpreted to include their hair, eyes, lips, bosom, and/or their entire body. But the "ornaments" on these Egyptian dancers are right out there, wagging, and in case you haven't noticed this, the dancers look right into the camera and flip their hair, bat their eyes, roll their hips, purse their lips, and otherwise spotlight ALL their ornaments, which in their case are considerable.

The few women I've been comfortable enough with to ask about why they wear the hijab say simply that it's a declaration of faith. But besides sounding too automatic to be heartfelt, the answer sounds dubious in a country where EVERYBODY is Muslim, or is expected to be, and if they're not, they keep it to themselves. Other than the hijab the young women dress just like girls in Europe and America, with snug sweaters, jeans, and shoes that can't possibly be comfortable on the broken, rubble-strewn pavements of the cities and towns. I will add the dancers in the bus station to my questions for Omar when I return to Cairo.

What's To Love About Egypt: A Pictorial

The Nile Valley, by balloon

Scaring yourself to death

Boys and their camels


Purple carrots

Children

Forests in the desert

Sunrise over the Red Sea

A slow pace

Challenging toilets

Street food

Actually, ALL food

Bedouin girls

Fixing things Americans would scrap

New friends

It's LOUD in This Country!

CAIRO—I'm on my way to the Bahariya Oasis today so I find my way to a full-size bus at the station and load my red bag into the compartment beneath. Some of the seats have numbers, some are broken off, and I can't tell from my ticket anyway whether seating is open or not. So I choose one near a window halfway back (to avoid witnessing the driving) and settle in. Only two other people board—an Egyptian and a European man—and I'm glad I'm early because ten minutes before departure time we take off.

Across the Nile into Giza we stop at a crowded transfer station under a bridge and take on more passengers—enough to completely fill the bus. An argument erupts about something with much shouting and waving of hands, and the driver comes to ask me for my ticket. I am relocated to a seat farther back in the bus, but it's next to a youngish bearded man who turns out to be an imam, and the shouting starts anew. This continues until the imam finally relinquishes his seat altogether rather than sit next to me (because I'm a woman? An infidel? Both?) but I'm fine with that because now I get his seat by the window. I have heard that Bahariya is a hotbed of Salafists and I wonder if this man is heading there to be part part of all that.

We're not even out of Cairo yet when the sound system starts blasting the Koran. The European man in front of me promptly puts in earphones; I have heard him speak to fellow passengers in Arabic so I'm guessing he knows what's coming. My earplugs are in my red bag in the underneath compartment. I don't know yet that this recording will last more than two hours—with a pause for the imam to lead general prayers—and by then I've resorted to fingers in my ears.

It gets to the point where I really cannot stand it. It is an assault on the senses and in my Western way I consider it the worst kind of bad manners to force me into anything, much less listening to these interminable prayers. I can't read, I can't even think because the recording gives me no peace. I wonder if Egyptians don't ever get sick of this constant noise. Later, at the lovely oasis hotel where I'll stay in Bahariya, the peace from within the palms will be shattered regularly by the whistle a woman uses to collect her family. She even uses it INSIDE the stone restaurant, forcing me up out of my skin and ultimately out of the restaurant.

Egyptians have a native warmth, generosity and sociability that are unmatched, but they can be completely oblivious to what I think of as ordinary courtesy. This woman's family will party on my terrace until well past midnight. After the second night I will change hotels. The proprietor of my new hotel, a perfect little gem in a garden costing a third as much, will tell me he never rents rooms to Egyptians. "They're too loud," he says.