A Plague of Lotus

Thursday August, 12

Day four in Luxor, Egypt. We started the morning with a wonderful felucca ride down the Nile. Last night we were offered a ride by a nice-looking guy outside of a restaurant. This morning we saw him immediately and asked how much. He was very pleased that we remembered him from the day before, and turned out to be a very honest captain. He needed to get a tugboat to pull us upstream because there was very little wind. Sometimes, a felucca captain will then, at the end of the ride, add a lot of extra costs to what you had agreed on. But nothing from Abdul. Then he offered to take us across the river for free, and he took us with a driver around to two other West Bank sites we couldn’t see during our tour. It’s amazing in countries like this, that drivers will wait an hour, or six hours, while you do what you want. It was this way in Cambodia and we see it here. Abdul was a very kind man.
I’ve noticed here that some shop owners and service providers make sure to say “no hassle here.” There are so many touts who sell fakes or get up in your face, that honest business owners must have a hard time getting customers to trust them. For example, we went to a jewelry store just to look around, and the man had to repeat several times that he wouldn’t hassle us. We make the decisions, etc. Of course, in saying “no hassle” it’s a little hassle, but I’ve found generally these men who say it mean it. We found the same in one alabaster store and a papyrus store. The same was with Abdul. Continually they assure us that “this is our job, so take your time.”
After we got back from the West Bank, we went to get some soda and water. Then back to the hostel to rest, then out for a great dinner, where we ran into an Argentinean we had seen earlier in the day. We talked for a great while about his travels, what we’re doing, American politics, etc. It’s been a good trip for meeting interesting people (and making me realize just how little I’ve traveled in this world).
On Ramadan: Ramadan started on Wednesday, the third day we were in Egypt. It is a month long festival in Islam for which people fast from sunup to sundown. They eat breakfast early in the morning, and then go without food, water, cigarettes until 6:30 at night. At 6:30 everyone breaks fast with a huge meal of delicious things, in restaurants, on the streets, in homes. Josh and I have tried to keep a modified version. Because we are spending enormous amounts of time in the hot desert sun, we drink water as we need it. When the hunger gets bad and we’re starting to get sleepy/delirious we stop for a fanta. The first day we had to sneak a little bread left over from dinner the night before, but yesterday we made it on liquid. Of course, it makes health sense to eat the bread instead of drink a soda, but it goes a long way in making friends here if we can be just as happy when 6:30 comes around.