West Bank Stories

Friday, October 5, 2012

The Old Winter Palace Hotel

Luxor, Egypt

Agenda

Colossi of Memnon (revisit)

Tombs of the Nobles (Sennefer, Userhet, Ramose)

Rameseum

Valley of the Kings (tombs of Ramesses 4, 3, and 9)

Lunch at El Nakhil/The Palms Hotel and Restaurant (West Bank)

Sunrise over Luxor

Days in Luxor this time of year are hot, so an early start is essential. Today, we had a wake-up call scheduled for 5:00 am with breakfast buffet to follow and then a ferry across the Nile to our waiting bus. For some reason, I awoke instead at 2:44 am and was unable to return to sleep, lying awake, mulling over various things.

This is our last day of touring as a group, something which is bound to cause a certain amount of reflection. We have done a lot of living in the last two weeks, and home has started to become something of an abstract concept. Friends and loved ones are text in an email, and one's physical home starts to become a place for your stuff, reminding me that a house is a house, but home is... well, you know the rest. It's a strange feeling of displacement.

Here then, are a few closing stories from my heat-addled brain.

Strange Cats

Yesterday, we at lunch at the Happy Habu Restaurant on the West Bank, one of my favourite places in Egypt. When we arrived, a beautiful tomcat came to visit us. While probably in search of a free meal, he was also happy to receive pets and scratches from most of the group. At one point, he saw that my lap was free, and jumped into it, and made himself comfortable. Eight pounds of spotted coat, white underbelly, and twin eye lines leading away from the corner of the eyes, just like you see on pictures of the Ancient Egyptians themselves. Eight pounds of purr. We could just stay here a while, couldn't we, I wondered. Meow, meow, purr.

In moments like that, there is nothing for you to do but stroke the cat, and feel its warmth in your lap. There are no decisions to make, no other imperatives. Conversation can even become difficult in some cases as the repeated stroking and purring can actually induce a temporary aphasia. This is why cats are not allowed in the United Nations General Assembly; a strange by-law forbids them in the fear that they will strike foreign dignitaries dumb, leading to some sort of international incident. Dogs, on the other hand, are welcome as their inclination to mindless toadying allows them to blend in with the human rabble.

As our bus drove away from the ferry dock this morning, though the west bank streets, past shops still shuttered at the break of day, I thought of that cat, and wondered if we would be back there today. Would we have another chance to say hello to our new friend (and to the lovely and friendly staff at the restaurant)? No, in a word. We had our chance yesterday, and that was it. And that should be fine, but it isn't. Something about it continues to gnaw at me.

Dancing

A colossal statue of Amenhotep III

Our first stop today was at the Colossi of Memnon, two very large statues of the Pharaoh Amenhotep III, each carved from a single piece of stone. At least until they were toppled in an earthquake, and then repaired. It's a treat to see them in the early orange light of morning, but we stop only briefly because we want to get to the Tombs of the Nobles before the day's heat has a chance to soak in. They are small tombs, but each is as gorgeous as I remember from visits past. In one of the tombs, we ask the guard if it would be possible to take pictures, even though it's against the posted rules. He agrees, with the understanding that we will take care of him when we leave. Now this is a delicate thing: we have come to an understanding, a bending of rules. The guard should be compensated for his flexibility, there's no question of it. But when another tour group comes in, you should lay low with your camera, lest the other group get in a snit that we are taking pictures and they are not. Which is what happened today. So the guard came up to me, and berated me for taking pictures, winking while he did so. I played my part and apologized, putting down the camera until the other group had left. At that point, it was business as usual. It's all a dance, you see, a quadrille with strange rules that have to be broken to be found, and once seen, to be followed. Do that, and everyone is happy, and everyone is taken care of in the end.

Anna's Watch

Last night, the first of our number returned home. Anna is a seasoned traveler and a cool hand when it comes to managing the logistics of a tour like this one. Years ago, she was given a watch which has a thermometer built in. Fantastically useful if you want to gauge how long it will be before your exposed skin bursts into flame, as in Wadi Hitan or Medinet Habu (40 and 42 degrees respectively, if memory serves).

But today, Anna was not here to give us a weather report, and while the sun still threatened to kill us like ants under a magnifying glass, it didn't seem as bad as the last couple of days. In fact, I started to imagine that given time, one could even adjust to the climate, and come to think of this as normal. Are we starting to acclimatize, or was it really Anna's watch that caused the sensation of heat in the first place?

-- To Be Continued --