We had a totally awesome three days checking out various tombs and ancient temples in Luxor. I got back to Cairo yesterday, and started pulling together the raw materials for a very deep think-piece here about the fate of empires etc– with our clamber over the ruins of the statue of Ozymandias providing a great leaping-off point.
Unfortunately, however, I had a late buffet lunch at the Nile Hilton yesterday that totally pole-axed me and spent much of the evening clasping the toilet bowl as I heaved profusely into it.
Lucky, really, that at this stage in life my body has enough anti-bodies in it to various Egyptian tummy bugs that it knew exactly what to do and repelled all invading microbes in efficient (I guess) and thorough fashion.
So there went “Ozymandias, king of kings” (Shelley reference needed here.)
Category: Egypt
Posting from Egypt
I’m traveling in Egypt this week. Not sure how much I’ll actually learn about What Egyptians Think, since we’re doing mainly touristy stuff (Luxor, etc.) And I am not the kind of journalist who has one conversation with a cab-driver and thinks s/he has touched something essential or even, necessarily worthwhile in the soul of a country.
I have too much respect and affection for my Egyptian frineds to do that.
Next week, I will be traveling somewhere more interesting, and shall certainly hope to blog about that. This week, let’s see what comes up, eh?
…. Of course, it has also happened that travel has in the past allowed me to think in a different, clearer way about things that obsess me at home (the US-Iraq war, Palestine/Israel, etc etc.) I recall that when I was in Africa last year I did some posts about Iraq that ended up having shelf-life. Who knows what the suns of Luxor will do for my gray cells?
I tell you one thing, though. They will make a totally fabulous change from the cold snap that settled on central Virginia about ten days before we left and held everything there in a tight, icy grasp.