A Trip Down The Nile
A few years ago I got it in my head that on the short list of places I wanted to go was to Egypt. I have fond memories of traveling to Egypt on a school trip in high school (keep in mind that I lived and went to school in Rome, which is only 1,300 miles from Cairo, a quick flight across the Med). Marc Antony was able to woo Cleopatra in 40 B.C. while being co-emperor in the Second Triumvirate, that was responsible for the shift in the Roman Empire from a true Republic to an Autocracy. That may be a little too close for comfort, but the pre-pandemic thought was that we should take another cruise on Viking Lines. That thought was promulgated during a Viking Cruise we took in February, 2019 to New Zealand and Australia, which was booked during a Viking cruise through the Baltic’s in 2017, which was booked during a Viking river cruise we took up the Danube from Budapest to Nuremberg in 2016. Are you getting the general picture? I’m betting that one is ten times more likely to book a cruise when one is on a cruise. That is not just based on our personal experience, but also by the fact that a disproportionately large amount of administrative staff onboard seems dedicated to selling you your next cruise. It’s a perfect way to upsell you to the next bigger size of suite since you are literally traveling abroad a floating model showroom. All the little tricks of the trade in cruising are fresh in your consciousness, like whether you want to be close to the elevators or far away, whether you prefer the port or starboard, and where along the full length of the vessel you find yourself most comfortable for motion, noise or convenience reasons. There is also a good deal of down-time before and after meals to think about where you want to go next and to discuss those options with the sales crew.
So, that old memory of Egypt crept into my psyche while spending something like five sea days during a fifteen day cruise. During our prior Baltic cruise I think we had perhaps one sea day in two weeks as we visited nine countries. The concept of the sea day hadn’t sunk in from that and when we got a feel for what having one third of our days be days with no agendas, we should have realized that we were not fully compos mentis when it came to future cruise planning. While I know some people consider sea days to be pleasant and relaxing days, I sense that those are the same people that think staying in a plush and fancy hotel for a night is a pleasant luxury in which to languish. I guess I have travelled too much, both for pleasure and business, and I simply am never as comfortable in a hotel as I am in my own home or homes. That is not to say that hotels cannot be luxurious, and perhaps even more so than my own home, but I just don’t find the experience of wallowing in the short-term rental of a hotel to be as comfortable as being somewhere where I am surrounding by my own stuff (nod to George Carlin). Sea days are just days in a luxury hotel suite on the move and I am left to our own. I am always at risk when I have nothing to do. The concept that idle hands are the Devil’s workshop is very well said and I might be the poster child for that idea. What is one to do on a Sea Day somewhere in the Tasman Sea, further south on the globe than I have ever been? Naturally, I booked a cruise for Kim and me….and for two other unnamed companions who were as yet unidentified.
We had booked our Tasmanian cruise on the Baltic cruise, as mentioned, but since we had taken that cruise with Frank and Loretta, they had signed up for the passage to Tasmania with us. It had taken them about a month after the Baltic cruise to recover from some sort of ailment that they connected with, if not attributed to, the Baltic cruise. They immediately cancelled the Tasmanian extravaganza and as we knew this was a pricey voyage, we never even tried to find a substitute for them. The one thing we knew, learned somewhere along the Eastern Coast of the North Island of New Zealand where we were thrilled to meet up with some old friends that kept a home there, it was that cruising alone is far less interesting than cruising with friends. Therefore, when deciding on our next cruise, wherever it was headed, we knew we would want to be joined by others. We figured that Frank and Loretta might be candidates (though we suspected cruises were not for them any more). Gary and Oswaldo loved cruises (we had taken an Alaskan cruise with them for a week in 2018), but they were value buyers since cruises can be highly discounted for people with highly flexible schedules. We suspected that the price tag of a Viking cruise might be weighed as the equivalent of two other cruises purchased through their friendly Vinnie at the cruise discount purveyor. There was Bruce and Sandy, who were rampant travelers who thought the more exotic the better, but they have a busy dance card so hard to depend on their participation. And then there was Matthew and Philip, who love travel (Philip is a hotelier with a premium brand chain). Hard to say about them since they were both fully employed at the time and subject to the needs of their work schedules. But we also knew that if we picked a winner of a cruise destination, we might be able to convert any of these options.
That is when my fond memories of Egypt returned to me. I thought the itinerary offered up by Viking, which included a few days in Cairo, a boat trip down the Nile to Aswan and a chaser of a few days across the Sinai (I can’t say that without thinking about Lawrence of Arabia and Aqaba!) to go to Wadi Rum and Petra, a place that I have been to once and Kim longed to see. Petra is about as remote as anywhere in the world other than, say, the Darien Gap or Tierra del Fuego. Remember that it lay hidden in plain sight for two thousand years, mostly because it is in a hot an dry part of the world where nothing otherwise happens. And yet, it is a magnificent place of great antiquity that is almost magical in the way it reveals itself to the visitor. If you are having a hard time placing it, think about the Raiders of the Lost Arc scene where Indiana Jones runs the gauntlet through the cavernous entry to the hidden valley with the stone-carved structures within.
To my thinking, this trip, regardless as of cost, was truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see several of the true seats of civilization. The Great Pyramids, Luxor, Aswan and Petra all in two weeks. Of course, there were the risks of doing anything in the Arab Middle East, always a bit of a challenge depending on the geopolitical environment of the moment. And, of course, the environment of the moment changes moment to moment in the same sorts of places. But that was part of the adventure of it all, or at least it is to me (and I think, in concept, for Kim).
But we came up with a friend goose egg, no one could or would or wanted to join us. Maybe it was us, but I tend to think it was just a bit too out there in one way or the other for any of our potential co-travelers. The good news is that the Nile isn’t going anywhere and, given its years in hiding, I’m guessing Petra will stick around to be seen some other time. But age and the passage of time, and now the advent of a global Pandemic that further raises the biomedical stakes of travel, making the odds of re-upping that particular trip slimmer and slimmer by the year. The good news is that both Kim and I have travelled enough that the jones for exotic travel does not eat at us, but we still hope that a trip down the Nile (or anywhere else that catches our fancy of the moment) will still be in the stars for us.