I’m referring to Victor, who was in Egypt just under two years ago, and recounts some of his experiences then:
This is where all my feelings for Egypt go downhill. We visit a Mosque first thing, we arrive between prayer, but honestly, you wouldn’t know it. We’re trying to move with the crowd, when suddenly a woman steps between my girlfriend and I (not current girlfriend), and smacks her before running off. Both a bit disturbed by this, we talk to our tour guide, who acts awkwardly, and apologizes to us. Once in the mosque, we are sort of at a loss for what to do with ourselves. It’s a beautiful place, but positively hostile; we’re glared at everywhere we go.
Leaving the Mosque, we head to the Pyramids, those claustrophobic (Me!) get to wait outside while everyone else goes in. Apparently it was dark, hot, smelly, and genuinely unenjoyable, so I’m just as glad I saw from the outside. Crossing a bit of a sand plane between the Pyramids and the Sphinx, however, a friend of mine was accosted by a man with a camel. He made the mistake of shaking this guy’s hand, and was suddenly wisked onto the camel, and they began to ride off. My friend jumped down and ran back after about 50 feet, but yeah, not great. Sphinx was sketchy as all hell, people constantly eyeing us, watching where we moved, etc. One small boy, egged on by an older man, followed closely behind us, and made several attempts to get into people’s pockets. We were all so flustered, I’m not sure anyone enjoyed the Sphinx.
After the Sphinx, we were moved to another location, where we were to have our camel rides. Cool, not a lot can go wrong on a camel ride that was arranged and paid for, right? The first group went out and came back without a hitch, so my group boarded, and our camels began their galumphing walk around the block. [. . .] two girls from the tour group are missing, and they went out on the same Camel ride that I did. [. . .] I witness some boys trying to torture a dog while sitting on the bus, and want to go smack them about. Then a police officer does my wishes for me himself, waving his bully club at them and letting the dog down. The girls appear around a corner, scrambling back on foot, relating that their camel drivers dropped back from the rest of the group and took a different rout from the rest, and when they got too far, the two of them jumped down and hauled back.
[. . .]
The author of the book talks about how resourceful and friendly the Egyptians are, and how nicely they treat foreigners, I saw none of that, to be honest, more a willingness to take advantage, or play on Westerner’s emotions. I won’t go back to Egypt, it was my worst travelling experience.
The joys of tourism . . .
