Visiting Abu Simbel And Getting Stranded In Aswan, Egypt, 1984

People often ask me to name my favorite travel destination. This is nearly impossible since each place I've visited is very different, not to mention the fact that many I traveled to a long time ago. Out of all of the places I've been to, though, I definitely have the most number of memorable stories from Egypt. The following tale counts among one of the most bizarre stories of my life, period. It's going to sound like I'm going off on tangents, but everything comes together. Because my parents always traveled in the summer (this is when we all had off since they were school teachers), we often saw places during the off season -- including Egypt, where it was about 90 billion degrees outside. However, one advantage to traveling during this time was that we were often upgraded to fancier hotel rooms. This happened when we stayed in Aswan, Egypt. The hotel itself was lovely to begin with; it was very modern (for the '80s, anyway) and had a gift shop and huge outdoor pool. We checked in and were told to walk down the hall to our suite. We figured that this was just an expression until we actually entered the room and discovered that it was a duplex. A duplex! Our room had two floors and I had my own private space. After settling in, we relaxed for a while and I went for a swim. On the way, I passed through the book shop and was pleased to see that they had some books in English. I've always loved horror movies and especially liked gory films at that time, so my attention was caught by a book that had a severed head floating on the cover. It was titled Truly Muderous and cost $5 USD. I asked if we could purchase it and my parents refused -- not because they thought that I was too young to read it, but because they wanted me to get souvenirs that were relevant to Egypt. Anyway, I soon forgot about the book and looked forward to the next day's activities. We were going to see Abu Simbel, one of the most impressive ruins in Egypt. Not only that, we'd be flying there so we'd get a really cool view of the structures. The next day we awoke around 3 a.m. to make our flight. The idea was to fly in before sunrise so we could be there as the sun rose over Abu Simbel. My dad, of course, planned to take a photo as we flew in over it. When we reached the airport we learned that our seats weren't assigned so we came up with a game plan to snag a window seat for my father. Meantime, we sat in the waiting room with a bunch of young adults from Europe. For whatever reason, they decided that they hated us. They kept making faces at our family and my mom overheard them calling us "American pigs." My dad managed to get his window seat and picture and the ruins were awesome -- but these 20somethings kept bugging us. Wherever we turned, they seemed to be and they always had a nasty comment. I couldn't understand them, but when someone sticks her tongue out at you, it's never nice. They eventually shut up when my dad flipped them the middle finger. Things got even weirder when one of the guys propositioned my mom -- in front of my dad. Though I guess that was sort of flattering, at least... After dealing with all of this craziness, my mom suggested that we do something relaxing once we were back on the mainland. We'd seen many horse and buggies being led around so she chose that as our afternoon activity. She wanted to a visit a nearby village and thought it would be nice to just walk around and chill out for a while. We climbed into a buggy that was led by two kids who were maybe 13 or 14, a few years older than I was at the time. They promised to get us to the village in a short while and my parents negotiated on a price. However, it soon became evident that these boys had no idea where they were going because we were in the middle of nowehere. It was hot, I was tired and we all wanted to go home. Things quickly went from bad to worse when the buggy broke down. My parents refused to pay them in full and they angrily dragged their cart away, leaving us stranded on this dirt road. Now we were stuck in the middle of nowhere with no known way of getting back. Plus, it was midday so the sun was beating down on us. I began to panic. I'd say that it was because I was a kid, but truth be told, I'd probably panic now, too. Happily, luck was on our side and a few minutes later, a car came by. The driver stopped to offer us a lift and it turned out that he was an American expat. He drove us back to our hotel and warned us to be careful when getting around by ourselves. But did my mom learn her lesson? No! After relaxing for a while, we went back out. This time, she suggested that we take a ride on a felucca boat. I thought that she was nuts but my dad agreed. I guess they were determined to try every type of Egyptian transportation available. Fortunately, the felucca ride was delightful. It was early evening so there was a breeze. Also, the driver, a Nubian man, took us to his village and showed us around his home. We met his family and got to see how some of the locals lived. Later, when we returned to the hotel, we went for a swim. I'm not a great swimmer but used to be able to stay underwater for long periods of time. I also like to make little bets with my dad, so I bet him $5 that I could swim across the entire length of the pool underwater without coming up for air. "Fine," he said, "but you'll never be able to do it." I jumped in began swimming. I guess the other people heard us discussing our bet because they all cleared out of the pool for me and I had an audience. Everyone was cheering me on as if I were an Olympian. I swam until I thought my lungs would burst, but I made it! Everyone applauded and my dad promised me my money. I then enjoyed the pool for real and commented, "This ended up being such a nice day, so much better than when those girls were bothering us this morning." I then turned around ... and they were sitting right there! One of them gave me a little smile and wave, and I sunk back under the water. But I think that my swimming feat earned me some of their respect. After, my parents gave me my money and I'll bet you can guess what I purchased: Truly Murderous by John Dunning. It turned out to be a great book about real-life crime stories, including one that involved a wannabe vampire. But that book -- which I still have -- symbolizes more to me than my victory. It always reminds me of this crazy day in Egypt and how you just never know what's going to happen when you travel.