“People don’t take trips, trips take people.”
-John Steinbeck
While we were missionaries in Austria, many people gave money to support us and our work. One of these wonderful people was my Aunt Sally. When we got pictures of the checks our faithful friends and family had sent, Aunt Sally’s check would have a note on the memo line. “For vacation” she would write, every single month. Seeing this I would smile, say a prayer of thankfulness for Aunt Sally, and go about my business.
We had been living in Europe for two years when I finally talked my husband into visiting Egypt. I had great reasons why now was the time to go including how close-ish we were. Plus, we wouldn’t just ramble our way through so unfamiliar a locale. We wouldn’t set off alone to explore like we had in Venice or Prague or Paris. We would take a tour. We would be on a bus with other loud Americans, all wearing white socks and telling everyone our life’s story at the drop of a hat. Aside from the bus, our other mode of transportation would be a cruise ship on the Nile, for heaven’s sake. How could Bobby possibly say no to that?
Turns out he couldn’t. Bobby reluctantly agreed.
I had always wanted to go to Egypt. The depth of history, the exotic nature of the land, the underlying sense of danger. It seemed romantic and mysterious.
When I was in elementary school, just starting to pick my own books at the Bradshaw Library, I chose and read a book about King Tut. The book said in the process of readying the boy king’s body for burial, the Egyptians used a hook to pull his brain out of his head through his nose. I mean, who wouldn’t want to visit the land where that happened?
However, on September 18, 1997, less than one month before our trip, gunmen attacked tourist buses parked outside the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square, killing nine. We checked with the American embassy in Vienna who said we should go ahead with our plans.
So, on October 8 we arrived in Cairo. The trip had been long. We took a train from our home in Baden, Austria to Vienna. There we got on another train which took us to Budapest, Hungary where we got on a brand new 737 operated by Malev, the Hungarian airline. From Hungary, we flew across the Mediterranean Sea in the middle of the night to Cairo. The upside of the odd flight time was the plethora of empty seats. We could each lay down and try to sleep.
When we arrived in Cairo it was still dark. We were greeted by a shuttle driver sent by the tour company. He helped us load our suitcases into his van, then sped us across the countryside with his lights off, flashing them only to let oncoming traffic know he was there. We were relieved and exhausted when we arrived at our hotel.
That relief was unfortunately brief. We were soon told we couldn’t check into our room for several hours. I was so disappointed. All I wanted was sleep. While I was preparing to get embarrassingly comfortable on the plush lobby couch and begin snoring, loudly, in hopes of getting us into a room faster, Bobby was cooking up a plan of his own.
He suggested we take a taxi to the pyramids and hopefully see the sunrise. “What a glorious idea," thought my 25 year old naive self. What an adventure!
There just happened to be an unoccupied cab in the hotel parking lot and we were able to stow our bags in a secure room off the hotel lobby. The taxi driver assured us he “knew a guy” who could get us in to see the pyramids.
So, off we went in the pre-dawn Cairo hours, Bobby and I, snug in the back of a very old taxi, bumping down tiny backroads in a nondescript neighborhood. The driver stopped by what appeared to be an open garage. He excused himself and ducked into the house. Minutes later he reemerged with another man who jumped into the passenger seat of the car. “You want to see the pyramids, yes?” he said, amazingly cheery for being woken at such an early hour. We agreed and off we went again.
A few minutes later we emerged from the streets of the crowded, maze-like neighborhood to face a tall chain link fence enclosing sand as far as we could see. The taxi stopped. Our driver and his friend got out beckoning us to follow. We walked through a hole in the fence and were soon approached by a man in a turban and robe. Our taxi driver’s friend spoke with him and the man turned away, evidently satisfied with whatever explanation was given.
We made our clumsy way forward, up one of the mountains of sand and there they were. The pyramids. I was awestruck. They were sitting a mile away from us in a sea of sand, the ancient tombs blurry in the haze of the early morning.
The taxi driver’s friend interrupted our staring and asked if he could take our picture. We happily agreed. Then, thinking he was clever, the friend told me to raise my arm high over my head pretending to hold the point of the Great Pyramid of Giza. I complied, feeling a little silly, but willing.
Weeks later when we finally developed our film, I was excited to see those “first glimpse of the pyramids” pictures. To our great amusement, the pictures showed that I was standing with my hand hovering above the horizon while the pyramids were over my opposite shoulder. My hair was standing on end and the dress, tights, and flats I was wearing (what was I thinking?!) were all looking crumpled and schmutzy.
My first thought about my appearance was, “I don’t remember it being windy. But, it must have been. My hair looks crazy.” But, no. Other pictures of us during this early morning jaunt revealed that my hair looked like that the whole time. No wind needed.
In this state of disarray, we slid down the sand dune where we had been trespassing and climbed back into our taxi. After dropping the friend off at his home, we were delivered back to the hotel where our room was finally ready and we were able to clean up and take a much needed nap.
The rest of our tour was beautifully choreographed. Our guide was suave, but likable and spoke English like an American. He told jokes and stories and taught us history that was alive and exciting. We visited tombs and markets, gardens and shops. We ate exotic foods in interesting restaurants with spices I had never tasted. We sailed, played games, danced, and bought souvenirs.
We saw where the Lighthouse of Alexandria once stood and museum displays with artifacts thousands of years old. The tour guide who led us around Alexandria seemed to grow bored of her own tour, walking quickly past museum displays with a wave of her hand and hardly an explanation. Everything is so old it’s hard to distinguish one amazing find from another.
We walked around temple columns so big it would take six long-armed people to join hands around them. We fought off beggars and declined to buy smooth, mass produced vases. We saw then-president Mubarak in the Luxor airport less than 20 feet away across the baggage claim. I got disapproving looks when I thoughtlessly wore a sleeveless shirt to a public market.
We also got sick, like many of our traveling companions. I was the first in our group to feel the effects of being in such a different place. So careful to drink bottled water and wash my hands, I still found myself lying on a few pieces of lumber in the dust outside an ageless temple. There was a friendly dog (we nicknamed him Rover-afa) lying beside me and my husband standing guard nearby. After my little rest, I was able to rejoin our group heading to the next destination.
One night, as I was brushing my teeth and complaining about being sick, I told Bobby I was puzzled about how it had happened. I dutifully swished my mouth with bottled water, then rinsed my toothbrush under the bathroom tap. You’re not supposed to do that. Ah. Mystery solved.
We visited a Nubian village with the added adventure of riding camels. My camel had woken up in a bad mood and needed to be led to our stop, yelling the whole way. At some point in the journey, Bobby, who’s camel was completely fine and had clearly made the trek to the village before, passed me with a smug smile (Bobby, not the camel), in complete control.
We met lots of people; a young Australian woman who was traveling around the world by herself, a couple from South Carolina who tried, unsuccessfully, to teach us how to play bridge, a pilot and his wife from Texas who got to sit in the very front of our plane. I continue to be fascinated by the history and culture, and I’m still particularly amazed when I read the parts of the Bible that take place in Egypt.
After our 10 day trip, we returned to Austria. We needed to pack and ship our things, decide what work we would do when we returned to the U.S., and say goodbye to our friends. But, I continued to reflect on this trip to Africa and what it had taught me. I learned once again that travel is good and taking advantage of your opportunities is good too. But, you should always be thankful for those who help you along the way.
Back when Bobby finally agreed to the tour of Egypt, we had lots of things to figure out; is it really ok to leave our passports at the Egyptian embassy in Vienna in order to get a visa to travel there, can a woman wear shorts in a Muslim country, and is there any way we had saved enough money for this? We were missionaries, after all, and we never wanted to be flippant or careless in how we spent those dollars. Then, I remembered the monthly checks from Aunt Sally. I figured out how much she had given us over our two year stay in Austria and compared it to what our trip would cost.
In Aunt Sally’s desire for us to use her contribution for vacation, she had given us just what we needed for that trip to Egypt. Thanks to Aunt Sally, we got to go.
The Luxor Massacre took place on November 17, 1997 just a month after our return. We had visited the very same site where 62 people were killed. That effectively ended any hope of Bobby Britton returning to Egypt, ever.
"Ancient Egyptians believed that upon death they would be asked two questions and their answers would determine whether they could continue their journey in the afterlife. The first question was “Did you bring joy?” the second was “Did you find joy?”
– Leo Buscaglia
The picture quality is not great, I realize. But you're more than welcome to come by my house any time to see the whole story lovingly memorialized in our scrapbook.
