Exodus Begins
I am now the proud owner of a bouncing baby fiancee. I am even allowed to use her real first name on my blog.
That’s a picture of me and Rhodah at some heathen temple or other. We spent 9 whole days and two half-days in Egypt, satisfying the requirements of the American fiancee visa program, not to mention our own desire to see each other in person.
I think the photo was shot at Luxor, but I’m not sure. Our Guide Ahmed (no, the other Ahmed) shot it and sent it to me, so it comes up out of sequence with the photos I shot.
I know a summary will be more interesting than a long description of the trip, so here it is: we had a magnificent time. The weather was unbearably hot. We both got colds. The food was usually bad. We were sleep-deprived nearly every day. Doesn’t matter. In person, we get along exactly the way we get along in video chats, and that’s what counts. I have zero misgivings about inviting this woman to share my life.
We met at Cairo International. Her flight arrived shortly before mine, so she was waiting for me with our guides. We had private guides for the whole trip. It was expensive, but it was the right way to go. We never had to find ways to get to and from airports and hotels. We had expert advice on everything, including getting PCR tests before leaving for home. We were spared a lot of hard work.
We booked our flights to and from Egypt and our main hotel ourselves. After that, we left everything to a company called Emo Tours. Every penny was well spent. They handled everything professionally, and we were allowed to focus more on each other than on the difficulties of travel.
We spent two days in Giza at a pleasant hotel with views of the pyramids. Of course, we toured the pyramids and the Egyptian Museum, along with other local sights. Then we flew to Aswan and joined a Nile cruise Emo Tours booked for us. For four days, we never had to worry about food or activities. Everything was provided for us. They even did our laundry in about three hours. After the cruise, we chose to spend two more days in the hotel in Giza, doing nothing whatsoever. This was the best part of the trip. I highly recommend scheduling idle days during foreign trips. Otherwise, you start to feel like a UPS package, being hauled from this place to that with no time to think.
I suppose I should give my impressions of travel in Egypt.
First of all, I was very glad to find that the Egyptians were extremely friendly, even when we weren’t doing business with them. They were very polite. They almost always tried to be helpful. Most spoke English.
After 911 and all the friction America has had with Muslim jihadists, I felt my attitude toward Muslims and Arabs was way too negative. I was glad to see that my experiences with Egyptians took the edge off that. The Bible says God loves Egypt, and it says the Egyptians will be brothers with the Jews and Assyrians. No matter how many problems come to us through jihadis, God’s perspective is the one that matters.
In Isaiah 19, God refers to Egypt as “my people” and Israel as “my inheritance.” Obviously, God does not hate Egypt.
After landing in Egypt, we were driven from the airport to Giza, and it takes an hour or so. Cairo has a poor highway infrastructure. The president of Egypt is building modern highways, so there are some nice exceptions, but generally, you will find yourself moving slowly among drivers who appear to be trying to kill themselves.
Egyptians have no regard for lane markings, and they routinely drive with their cars less than a foot apart. Virtually all cars in Cairo have body damage. Drivers also honk the horn constantly, to the point where they have developed a Morse-like language that includes insults, questions, greetings, and expressions of gratitude. There are very few traffic lights. People just jam into intersections and negotiate.
You will see interesting sights on the road. I saw one toddler in a van, propped up so she could lean out an open window and enjoy the breeze. I saw a man driving with his tiny daughter on his lap. I saw scooters zipping around in heavy traffic with three men on them. People hang off the steps of moving buses. Women sit behind their husbands on scooters, riding sidesaddle without a care in the world.
The bottom line is that it’s a very bad idea to rent a car in Egypt, even if you’re used to driving in a place like Miami.
On the way to the hotel, we saw countless half-finished apartment buildings with bare rebar sticking out of their uppermost stories. They generally had no window glass. I was not able to get a good explanation for their state of incompletion. Maybe the Egyptians build them one brick at a time, as money becomes available.
It looked as thought some people had arrived in the area and started building a city, and then they ran off suddenly.
I saw some bizarre sights, such as an incomplete apartment building with an excavator on the roof. Who puts an excavator on a roof? How did they get it up there?
I don’t have a lot of complaints about the hotel. It was reasonably clean, everything worked, the toilets had bidets, and we had a good view of the pyramids. The restaurant was acceptable. The neighborhood was a mess, however. Streets were torn up everywhere. More of the president’s projects.
Our hotel had a sliding steel gate and a guard booth. Whenever we entered in a vehicle, they made it stop outside, and a sniffer dog walked around it before it was allowed in. We went through this in more than one place. They also had a metal detector with a conveyor-belt x-ray machine. I don’t know exactly what they’re expecting, but they are obviously determined not to let tourists get blown up.
Tourist attractions had barriers set up, and armed police were everywhere. We went through too many checkpoints to remember.
We found Giza to be a difficult neighborhood to live in. In the hotel, we were fine, but walking around the streets was not easy. The Egyptians had built strange sidewalks. First of all, they were maybe 10″ higher than the street, so there was a lot of stepping up and stepping down. Second, they were incomplete. There were many places where you could walk down a sidewalk for a long distance and then find the sidewalk ended for no reason, making it necessary for you to walk in the street among moving cars. Taking a walk in Giza didn’t make sense. Exploring required a vehicle, and for that, you had to pay a driver. Then the driver would probably take you where he wanted to go, not where you wanted to go. They were always promoting businesses.
In Athens or Paris, you can step out of your hotel, walk down the sidewalk, and take your pick of restaurants and shops. Not so in Giza. Walking a block was a difficult project, and there were very few businesses you would want to visit.
The sidewalks and streets were filthy. No matter where I was, I always smelled one kind of poop or another. There was litter everywhere. We saw an Egyptian open his car door just so he could throw a fast food wrapper in the street.
Giza, like much of Egypt, was full of construction rubble. When they performed demolition, they didn’t clear the mess away. They just learned to walk around the piles. In Egypt, there are piles of concrete and stone that have obviously been in place for years.
They say open-toed shoes don’t work in Egypt. This is true. By the end of the day, your feet would be caked with filth.
For us, the answer to the Giza problem was to eat at the hotel. As long as we had food, nothing else mattered.
Our tours started the day after we arrived. First, we went to the pyramids. A guide named Osama ran the show. He had our driver take us to the pyramid area, and we saw the two biggest pyramids up close. We felt we should not visit without going inside one, so we paid for an upgrade.
At the base of the biggest pyramid, accurately named the Great Pyramid, we found a sort of shed and some Arabs. One tore our tickets, and we were shown the angled tunnel that led into the King’s Chamber, deep inside the rock.
For reasons unknown to me, the rectangular tunnel is about one meter high, and it penetrates the pyramid at a steep downward angle. There are no stairs; just a wooden floor with slats running across it every foot or so to keep people from sliding.
An Egyptian volunteered to go with us. I didn’t particularly enjoy climbing down into the hole while hunched over and holding a heavy backpack I was not willing to leave with strangers. Rhodah was unburdened, so she was able to walk into the pyramid quickly.
After a certain distance, we reached a small chamber with more headroom, and then we had to exit the chamber on the other side, into another cramped tunnel angled upward. At the end, we came out in the King’s Chamber, which was just a room with a big, empty sarcophagus.
The man who came with us persuaded me to pose for pictures, but Rhodah wanted none of it. She had barely entered when she said she was leaving. I posed for a couple of shots and then followed her. Of course, I had to tip the Egyptian even though he had not made a deal with me.
Rhodah seemed uncomfortable as we made our way to the next attraction, which was a camel ride (her idea). We drove to an area where a bunch of tired-looking camels were lying in the sand waiting for tourists. By this time, the air was very hot, and there was a strong, constant wind. The wind picked up the powerful smell of camel poop and urine, not to mention the pungent odor of whatever the drivers were eating. It was not a smell one would strive to reproduce in one’s home for purposes of nostalgia.
The camel drivers had a tent set up, and Rhodah asked if she could sit in the shade for a bit. The drivers were very courteous and invited us both to sit and have tea. I declined, but she sat down. After a minute or so, she asked to walk back to the car. She was not feeling good, so she wanted to skip the ride. I, of course, had no excuse for not riding a camel, so they put me on one, and up it went.
You board a camel from the left, using a single stirrup to give you purchase. You hold onto a saddle horn once you’re seated. They tell you to lean back. Why? Because the camel’s rear goes up first, and if you lean back, you’re less likely to fall off toward the front. Just when you’re used to struggling not to fall forward, the camel’s front end comes up, and you have to hang on so you don’t fall off the back.
When the camel is standing, your behind is probably 7 feet off the ground. When it walks, it sways violently. I had to hang onto the horn very firmly, and I also squeezed the camel’s body with my legs. I wondered how anyone could sit one of these things in a race.
We made our way to the car, and somehow I managed to resist offers for more camel time.
This was my second time, being offered a ride on a camel. The first came in 1984. I was in Jerusalem, traveling with a Dutch girl, and for five dollars, they let her pose for photos on a camel. When my turn came, I told her and the driver to forget it. I have never had any desire at all to ride a camel, and I have only ridden horses, which smell a great deal less foul, under tremendous social pressure.
When Rhodah said she wanted to ride camels, I agreed to it because I wanted her to enjoy the trip, but my camel enthusiasm was still where it had been 37 years earlier. I should have refused to get on, since there was no point in doing it alone, but the guides had gone to the trouble to set it up, and the drivers needed money, so I took one for the team.
This was my last animal-riding event. I will never get on another camel, horse, donkey, mule, or elephant (don’t ask) again. People get offended when you say you don’t want to ride horses. It’s almost always women who get upset. They seem to be hardwired for horse riding, and they don’t seem to understand people who don’t have the gene. They seem to think you, too, secretly crave horse rides, and they appear to believe you will have a breakthrough and experience ecstasy once you’re up there plodding around.
I guess it’s like dancing. Women always think men will love dancing if they just do it enough. Not true. Love of dancing requires certain wiring which is almost always present in the female nervous system and generally absent in heterosexual males. I don’t love dancing any more than I love doing deep-knee bends or jumping jacks. I never think, “It would be great to get up and dance right now,” and I never have, even when extremely drunk. Doesn’t matter whether I’m in a crowd or alone. I just don’t feel the desire.
A famous song says, “Dance like nobody’s watching.” When nobody’s watching, I generally sit in a recliner.
The only times I’ve enjoyed dancing, I’ve enjoyed it because it let me share moments with women, or because I was deliberately making a fool of myself after drinking enough liquor to make me throw up later. Sometimes I make a small celebratory movement when a really good pizza comes out of the oven, but that’s about it.
To get back to riding horses, it’s just not for me. You’re too far off the ground, you’re on something which is nearly useless for carrying anything but a rider, it has no roof and no air conditioning, the only speed choices are way too slow and dangerously fast, and if you opt for fast, you’re pretty much asking for paralysis or a fractured skull if anything goes wrong. And sometimes horses don’t like their riders. My utility cart has never gotten angry at me or tried to bite me. I can put two people and a bunch of cargo in the cart, I can ride in comfort, and I don’t have to worry about breaking my pelvis if I hit an armadillo hole.
The whole horse-versus-machine debate was resolved for good when the Polish cavalry went up against German tanks. In 2021, a horse is a luxury, not a useful tool, and a luxury isn’t a luxury unless you like it.
Rhodah has no interest in dancing, which is one more reason why we suit each other. I don’t think she cares for riding camels, either. She just wanted to be able to say she had done it.
It’s a relief to know I have a woman who will never become bitter because I never dance with her. Some women seem to need dancing, the way a dog needs to be walked. Rhodah doesn’t even want to dance at our wedding. Tell me that isn’t a sign from heaven.
It’s wonderful, not having a bridezilla. There will be no “destination wedding,” requiring the guests and ourselves to spend six figures in order to create an event that looks good on Instagram and then ages poorly as the marriage quickly deteriorates. We will not be flying her relations over from Africa at 10 grand a pop so they can watch a one-hour event. There will be no hot air balloons or orchestras. We will not pay Jennifer Lopez to do a set.
In our hearts, we feel as though we’ve been married for years, so the purpose of a wedding will be to get legal and religous sanction for expanding our activities into all areas of matrimonial business. The wedding won’t be intended to make other people feel poor or to focus an unhealthy level of fleeting attention on the bride. While planning, we won’t find ourselves saying things like, “It has to be perfect.” We won’t get matching tattoos in Chinese. There will be no viral video of groomsmen and bridesmaids doing a dance routine. We’re just going to say, “Thank God that’s over. Now we can really live like man and wife.”
We have joked that two minutes after exchanging vows, we’ll shout, “Thank you for coming. GET OUT!”
Weddings are unimportant. Marriages are what matter.
You will put your heart into the one that really matters to you.
So, back to the camels. When my camel and I got to the car, Rhodah was saying she wanted to cancel the rest of the day.
We started talking, and I learned that something had happened to her in the tomb. She had felt that something wanted to kill her. She felt she couldn’t get air, so she ran back out. Even outside, she felt there wasn’t enough air. She wondered if she needed to go to a hospital, but she didn’t tell me that right away.
I wondered if she was experiencing claustrophobia. Before going into the pyramid, I wondered if I would become claustrophobic, myself. She said she didn’t have claustrophobia. She felt as if something were trying to take her air.
I said it sounded like a demonic attack, and she agreed. Something in the tomb didn’t like her.
The attack endangered the remainder of the trip. We had booked a Nile cruise, and the guides told us the weather in the cruise area was considerably hotter than it was in Cairo. We were headed for a place where highs were hitting 114°, and Rhodah didn’t know if she would feel she could breathe.
Our response was to have a prayer session and cast things out. Afterward, everything was fine, and the cruise was back on like Donkey Kong. It was a big relief, because I didn’t want to sit in a hotel in Giza for 9 days.
After this, we made a point of battling any spirits associated with the Satanic ruins we visited. We had no more problems, and Rhodah enjoyed visiting several more holes formerly occupied by pharaohs. We canceled the second half of our activities on the day she was attacked, but other than that, we were fine.
The next day, we visited the Egyptian Museum and Old Cairo, including a bazaar.
The museum was wonderful. King Tut’s stuff was there, and we saw a lot of other artifacts related to other prominent Egyptians. Our guide explained things to us. As we made our way around, we saw that ideas found in the Old Testament were not exclusive to Judaism.
We saw a throne belonging to Tutankhamen. It wasn’t for his use in life. It was to be included in his death goods, to be used in the afterlife. Pretty sad. A person who rejected Yahweh thought he would still have a throne and a bunch of golden treasures after his death.
There was a box in front of the throne, maybe four inches high and as deep and wide as a welcome mat. It was blue, with gold figures of men on it. The figures represented Tut’s enemies. This shows that the ancient Jews were not alone in believing their God would make their enemies their footstool. The box in front of the throne was for Tut’s feet.
I’ve also seen this concept expressed in modern times. Saddam Hussein created a mural of Bush I’s face, set into the floor of a hotel. The idea was that people’s shoes would touch his face all day. In the Muslim world, having someone show you the bottom of their shoe or throw a shoe at you is a great insult. It’s clearly related to the idea of using enemies as footstools.
We saw works depicting judgment. The ancient Egyptians believed their hearts would be weighed before their supreme “god,” Osiris. If their hearts were too heavy, they would be eaten by an evil baboon “god.” If not, they went on to become Osiris himself.
In Christianity, we become part of God if we receive salvation, and God says he looks on the heart. What ruins a man’s heart? The flesh. Our flesh is a lot like a baboon. Humans who remain undeveloped are just like monkeys, and monkeys are violent and selfish. Figuratively, you could say that if you let your flesh corrupt you and prevent you from being saved, a monkey has eaten your heart.
The cruise was very pleasant. We flew south from Cairo to Aswan, and that’s where we boarded the ship. Big Nile cruise ships are all about the same. They have several decks. The staterooms have twin beds and individual bathrooms with showers and tubs. Every ship has a big cafeteria where meals are served buffet-style, three times a day. Food is included in the cost of tickets. The cruise companies move from Aswan toward Luxor, dropping people periodically for excursions.
Knowing we had restraint, we used a single room with two beds. It was very comfortable, and everything was clean. The cleaning staff was funny. When they replaced the towels, they turned them into sculptures. One day you might get a towel crocodile, and the next, it might be a towel elephant with a rider.
The food was very good. Not phenomenal, but fine for our purposes. Every day, the dishes changed. They had a salad and dessert table, a row of entrees and sides, a large display of breads, and a daily soup. Beverages cost extra, but they were not expensive. The buffet was a good way to get familiar with a large number of dishes.
Early on, we learned we had enemies. There were people who would attack the desserts early, taking all the best stuff. I told Rhodah there were a bunch of fat German women, whom I never actually saw, going in commando-style. I said something she still keeps quoting: “Buffets bring out the worst in people.”
We resolved to be on time for meals from then on. I also decided we would collect food for all three courses at once, instead of waiting until we ate the previous courses. This way, we were nailing the good desserts while our enemies were still cramming entrees down quickly in hopes of finishing them in time for a sneak dessert attack.
We had no more problems. We cackled about our defeated foes.
The fruit and vegetables were excellent in Egypt. Unlike Americans, they don’t pick everything, and expect you to eat it, green. The tomatoes were better than anything I’ve had in America since my grandmother died. Her tomatoes were perfect.
I think our worst choice was the decision to visit Abu Simbel. This is a temple complex that was moved when the Aswan Dam was built. The Dam created Lake Naser, which rose and covered a lot of ancient sites. Abu Simbel, along with some other sites, was cut up and moved to higher ground.
The problem with Abu Simbel is that the drive to see it was three hours long, through open desert with no cell signals. It just isn’t worth it. We could have spent six hours, plus the time we spent at the complex, enjoying each other’s company. Instead we were crammed into a Hyundai Elantra, and I was behind a driver who kept his seat pushed back nearly all the way.
We spent four days on the cruise, and we had the same guide, Ahmed, the whole time. Ahmed is a young man with a master’s in archaeology. Like the other people in the area around Aswan, he’s a Nubian. That mean’s he’s mostly black. He informed us he was the King of the Nubians, so that’s how I referred to him from then on.
We saw a number of American black women while we were in Nubia. Ghetto “scholars” have convinced a lot of American blacks ancient Egyptians were black geniuses, so American blacks visit Egypt to see their accomplishments. Sadly, what they believe is not true. The Egyptians who did all the important things were olive-skinned caucasians, and later on, Greeks took over. Cleopatra was a Greek. She wasn’t Egyptian at all.
I read about DNA analysis involving Egypt, and it appears the modern Egyptians in the Cairo area are about 20% black, and that percentage comes from recent centuries. In the past, they were whiter.
Another thing critical race theorists may not like: the Egyptian temples tourists go to see were built by white Greeks. They are reconstructions and reproductions. We saw almost no temples built by Egyptians.
When the Greeks ruled Egypt, they wanted the locals on their side, so they built temples honoring Isis and all the others. The reason the temples look so good is that Greeks created them. I guess it’s probably also why they all look alike.
Egypt is full of people trying to sell souvenirs and cheap clothes. In Nubia, they have learned how to sell things to black women. They call them “cousin.” They approach, saying, “Sister! Sister!” They did this to Rhodah over and over. They thought she was an American.
Apparently, black American women are known for certain behaviors in Egypt. Our guide took pictures of us, and he seemed to be encouraging Rhodah to pose in certain ways that emphasized her rear end. Later, he admitted black American women do that kind of thing all the time. He was not happy about it, but he was willing to go along with it in order to make more money.
Nubians have a reputation for friendliness and gentleness. I found this to be well-deserved. As nice as the Egyptians in Cairo were, the Nubians had them beat.
Exploring Nubia was a little tough for me because I was sick. My nose started running a day or two after I got to Egypt. I thought I might have the kung flu, in spite of my vaccination. I never got very ill, but I felt feverish and dehydrated. Naturally, during this time, I had to do a tremendous amount of walking in the burning sun, in strong dry winds, with temperatures over 110°.
Rhodah and I fought the illness supernaturally, but she caught a little of it, too.
I felt differently depending on where I was. In the Cairo area, I felt weighed down. I thought it was a supernatural thing. I always feel heavy in Miami, which is a cursed city full of people who provoke God. In Nubia, I felt a lot lighter, but I still had to drink a lot of water and put up with feeling hot inside.
At some point during all this, I proposed. The proposal suited our natures. In Egypt, you can’t have a fancy proposal. You can’t dress up and go to a nice restaurant. You can’t hire mariachis or a skywriter. You pretty much have to spit it out and move on. One evening, I waited for a quiet moment, told Rhodah how I felt about her, which she already knew, and asked if she would marry me. Of course, she said she would. We knew what we were going to do, months ago.
For various practical reasons, I gave her one of my mother’s rings, which neither of us likes. She knew this was coming; we had a plan. Now that I’m in the States, I can go ahead and get a better ring I already chose.
I also gave her the matching watch, heavy and made from solid gold. Of course, it doesn’t fit. We plan to have it melted down and turned into something else.
During our last two days of rest at our Giza hotel, we got PCR tests. I had a feeling we were going to test positive. I was okay with it. Staying in Egypt with Rhodah until we tested negative sounded great to me. We both passed, though. I wondered whether the Egyptians were delivering false negatives just to keep tourism booming.
Rhodah’s plane landed in Zambia a couple of hours ago, so now we’re about to get to work on her American visa. We hope it comes through reasonably quickly. If not, we will just have to meet overseas a few more times.
Greece, Israel, and Italy are opening up. We’re going to start getting visas for Rhoda. I don’t need one because I’m American.
I expect things to go well. This relationship was put together while we were submitting to God, and besides, we’re crazy about each other.
As for Egypt, I can say a few things.
1. It’s not a beautiful country, although people think it is. It’s sand and rocks. Some deserts have natural beauty. Not the one in Egypt.
2. Egypt has a lot of potential. They just need to change their culture. There is too much emotion, and they don’t put much emphasis on rules and order. They work hard, but they don’t have focus, and they don’t seem to plan. They need to clean up their cities. They need to stop leaving garbage everywhere. They need to get rid of the piles of construction debris.
3. The summer weather is abominable. A guide told us to go after October. It won’t rain, but it won’t be 114°, either.
4. Private guides are the way to go. They don’t cost all that much, and you will have a very hard time without them. For one thing, you’ll have to get through a lot of security checkpoints.
5. Street crime is not bad, and they don’t hate Americans, so don’t assume everything you have will be stolen or that you will be beaten up.
6. Absolutely everyone in Egypt expects a tip. I actually met the president of Egypt briefly, and I had to give him 10 Egyptian pounds for running the country so well. Unless I’m kidding. Anyway, you will want to have tons of small notes (50 pounds or less) for tipping, and you can forget about using a public toilet if you can’t come up with 5 pounds. You don’t have to tip during a cruise, but when it’s over, they will expect the equivalent of $32 in an envelope, to be shared by employees. That’s for a short cruise.
7. Cairo’s airport is useless. There is nothing to do while you wait. Also, you can’t check your bag and then go back out to the terminal to eat. Once your bag is checked, you have to stay in the area where the gates are. There are lounges, but they are not good.
8. The restaurants stink. I don’t think this is universally true. I think the problem is that guides take people to bad restaurants where they get kickbacks. If you complain, you can get them to take you to better places. The food is similar to Arab food in other places, but it seems like other Arabs cook somewhat better than Egyptians. Egypt has a unique dish called koshary, and you should try it. It’s pasta and rice, covered with a bunch of other stuff. You add vinegar and hot sauce to it. Very nice.
9. You will be mobbed all day by people wanting to sell you things. They’re like biting flies. Smile a lot, say complimentary things, and keep walking. Do not let them hand you anything. If they manage to drape something over you, take it off gently and set it down somewhere.
10. Haggling is everywhere, and it gets tiresome. Asking prices are insanely high. Don’t be surprised if a 700-pound item goes down to 100. Personally, I was okay with being overcharged somewhat, because these people are starving due to the coronavirus hysteria. Rhodah and I practically had Egypt to ourselves.
We bought a certain amount of junk, but we avoided all the stuff with ancient religious symbols on it. We told the guides and merchants over and over: Christians don’t put idols in their houses. Of course, nominal Christian merchants insisted we were wrong, and we really offended a lot of people, but that’s their problem.
11. Don’t go into the Great Pyramid. It’s very unpleasant, and there is nothing to see. Tut’s tomb is also pretty weak, but at least there are murals. Tut died young, and they didn’t have a big tomb ready. His tomb is like a one-car garage.
That’s it. Maybe I will write more later.
