Luxor meltdown

Tuesday morning I rejoined the 10:00 am convoy back to Aswan. The same charade. I started in the front and ended being followed by the last bus, until I stopped for a rest in the shadow, the bus hesitated for a few seconds and then just drove on. I picked up my stuff I had left in Aswan and drove on to Edfu. Somehow I had miscalculated the distance between Abu Simbel and Luxor, I had left out 150 km. That might not seem that much, but believe me it is on a road, crowded with people, buses, donkey carts and more indescribable vehicles. At four in the afternoon I had been driving non-stop for almost six hours, I needed a rest before causing havoc. I paused at this small stall near the canal, had some tea and ended up watching Transporter 2 or 3 with some local guys.

Totally exhausted I arrived at Luxor just before dark and settled once more in that lovely hotel on the West bank. The next days I lost my momentum. I ended up doing f*** all. Same story next day. I did not bother to visit anything. I just slept, read, ate and dozed some more. I lost the drive to go on. I was nothing more than a disoriented Belgian idiot spending all his savings on a senseless bike trip. On Thursday night I caught up with Rebecca and Evan. They had taken a two night Nile cruise from Aswan to Luxor. Two days of five star luxury, never ending buffets, lazy upper deck pool dipping and a moronic Cleopatra and Ramses II costume party, and all that among a jolly crowd of German tourists. Low season has its opportunities in Egypt, 90 US$ a head for two days of hardcore indulging, and the Germans, well they are just part of the deal.

My Friday activity consisted of some hardcore ceiling staring and watching the fan go round and round. I somehow found the courage to cross the Nile and join Bec and Evan in their ‘Bob Marley’ hotel, if you succeed in finding it, you can say you stayed in the cheapest joint in town, with a lovely roof terrace and free Friday night dinner for all who happens to be present. I decided to go on the next day, but that plan was soon dissolved in beer, bubbling sheeshas and an endless discussion on the legal versus ethical grounds of torture. One of guests was a 23 year old American and a marine. The entire evening he would pick ‘shadow’ fights with one of the guys of the hotel, and although the Egyptian was a big muscular fellow, it was clear that the American would defeat him every time. He was supposed to be studying at an American University, paid for by the Army. But somehow after a tour in Iraq, a couple of years ago, he found himself a loophole in the system and was now travelling Africa on the expenses of the American taxpayer. He started the discussion:”Should it be allowed to torture one person to save a million lives and if not if you did so (how) should you be punished?”. It was a senseless and endless discussion, going nowhere, although I must say that if all marines are as well spoken as this one, we ought to be really scared of the American Marines. It mostly reminded me of the previous discussions I had with Muslim men about their religion, the origin of men and the suppression of women in the Islam society. You end up learning a lot, but in the end you are two products of very different society and education.

It became clear that I would not be going anywhere on Saturday. It was not before Sunday that I was on the bike again, hitting the throttle, back to Hurghada.

Look on the picasa page for pictures...