Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Hamed, the chef, appeared forlornly out of the kitchen to see if there was anyone to cook
for.
'Mr Wood,' he said with a forged smile. 'Just you again?'
'Just me, I'm afraid.'
It had been the same ever since I'd arrived. The tourists didn't come to Egypt any more.
Egypt has had a history of violence against tourists before, mostly perpetrated by Islam-
ic fundamentalists - during the 1990s, a spate of attacks saw trains blown up, foreigners
kidnapped and shot, all culminating in the 1997 Luxor Massacre, in which fifty-seven Ger-
man and Japanese tourists were disembowelled on the steps of the Hatshepsut Temple of
the Valley of the Kings - but, until recently, things had been good. Aswan and Luxor were
money-making machines. Feluccas and cruise ships filled every inch of the Egyptian Nile.
It was the Arab Spring that had changed all that. In March 2011, the Egyptians took to
the streets and forced President Mubarak into leaving office. Chaos reigned supreme, even
despite Egypt having its first-ever democratic elections. Somehow, the Muslim Brother-
hood - an organisation founded to resist British colonialism, and given to fundamentalism
- came to power with the clumsy Mohammed Morsi at its head. Tourists stayed away and,
for two years, there were shifts in power, political defections and more protests. In 2013, a
second revolution occurred. Some prefer to call it a coup, as the former army commander
Abdel Fattah el-Sisi ousted Morsi in what was effectively a military overthrow of an elec-
ted government. But the arrival of Sisi and the arrest of anyone with Muslim Brotherhood
credentials had done little to instil confidence in the beleaguered tourist industry. Just four
years ago, there had been hundreds of boats serving tourists out on the Nile, but now they
were all mothballed, moored up, four or five abreast, on the banks of the river with only
skeleton crews to keep them afloat. Shops were boarded up or left empty; now nobody sold
trinkets and you'd struggle to find a plastic pyramid even if you wanted one. Tour guides
fluent in ten languages were sweeping the streets or driving taxis, or otherwise sat idle in
the coffee shops lamenting the good old days. As far as I could tell, all of them seemed to
regret the revolution - the first one, at least - and blamed it on the ignorance of youth.
I came to from my daydream to see a man standing in the hotel lobby, dressed in a pair
of surfer's shorts, a trendy T-shirt and flip-flops.
'Mahmoud Ezzeldin at your service!' he declared. Then, when I only looked at him
oddly, he said, 'Mr Wood? It is me - Turbo!'
I rubbed my eyes. The man I'd been waiting for, all this time, was the most unlikely
Egyptian I'd ever encountered. Thirty years old, with fiery red hair and a hybrid American-
English accent, he looked more like a tourist than I did.
'We're set,' he announced, striding over to grasp my hand. 'Everything's in order, chap.
You ready to rock Lake Nasser?'
