In the Hollywood movie version of our journey from Cairo in lower Egypt to Asyut in middle Egypt, we focus on police check-points, on the black-capped Isuzu pick-up with soldiers facing gun ports while gripping AK-47s, on animated exchanges in Arabic between police captains and our driver, and on the nearly bumper-to-bumper of the speeding police pick-up and our white van. The camera anxiously scans the desert for, well, we are not sure.
In the home movie version, all of these things played out -- except that the camera was focused on less dramatic things: houses that had been partly demolished to make way for the new super highway leading out of Cairo; small mosques appearing every so often along the roadway; uniformly barren desert. Or just maybe this version included buffalo being hauled in the back of a small pickup. Leaving aside the question of how this farmer got three adult buffalo onto the bed of his truck side-by-side, the camera would find mostly desert, desert, more desert.
We left Cairo on our own and picked up the first of a series of escorts somewhere beyond the greater Cairo area. For a number of miles we saw people walking beside the road, merchants selling things at the checkpoints, men selling soft drinks, older women near driver's windows holding out packets of tissues (Kleen-x).
Here and there, new cities were being built in the desert after the fashion of Badr City.
Eventually, we encountered no more foot traffic. We stopped twice for bathroom breaks and several times at checkpoints. Otherwise, there was not much to see until green fields began to appear as we approached Asyut.
Approximately midway between Cairo and Luxor, Asyut is not the kind of tourist destination upper and lower Egypt are known for. The well-know antiquities are in the north and in the south.
As noted in my last post, we had armed escorts not so much because of recent terrorist activities in the area, as to dissuade "opportunists" from stopping cars or vans to take what they could take. Which is not to say terrorism isn't possible, it just hasn't been frequent here.
As we approached Asyut, we began to see green fields alongside the road, which among other things told us we were near the Nile.
We arrived at our river boat hotel in the early afternoon. The boat, one of many serving the same function lined up at the docks, had once carried overnight passengers up and down the river, but from all appearances had long been decommissioned from that service. Its former elegance had become a bit, well, shabby since its heyday.
We slept well on the single beds. Not visible beyond the red curtains, which helped to keep the sun and heat out, was the Nile. If I hadn't been in a hurry, I could have tidied up -- closed the suitcase, removed the backpack, and so forth, before taking this picture.
On the other hand, you are seeing the whole room -- except for the bathroom, which managed a toilet, a sink, and a shower stall, with just enough room left over for one person to turn around in.
We didn't have a great deal of time to get ourselves settled before we had to head out to eat, then to find the church for an evening service.
This part of our home movie ends with the first item from our late afternoon lunch, flat bread and savory dipping sauce. So good. And a visual delight. It was only a few hours but already it seemed like our race through the desert was fading from memory.
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