The Upper Egypt Bus Company, or “White Kids and 700km of Desert”

Sayyid Dafda'^* and Our Wild Ride through Egypt:

(Obviously, this one is a little dated. It should follow directly on the 4 March 2007 entry about Luxor. I refrained from posting it while in Egypt simply because it details some of the less-than-stellar things that take place in Egypt, namely police—that is to say, military—brutality. For those of you curious as to why I wouldn't exercise my free speech rights, the short answer is, "I didn't have any," and the long answer is "While I was in Egypt, they were going through a phase of incarcerating bloggers who were critical of the regime or of Islam. I preferred to remain curious about the Egyptian justice system, not informed.")

We climb aboard the bus a little before 1900, when it's supposed to leave. One of the men "in charge" (all things are relative) wants to put our backpacks, etc, under the bus. With the exception of Nate (who has a gym bag, not a backpack), we convince him we'd rather keep our belongings with us.

The bus is a bit cramped, but will do okay. We can't figure out our seats. The seats are numbered, but it takes us a good 10 minutes and some frustration to find WHERE on our tickets our seat numbers appear. Turns out that the seat numbers are on the back of each pair (so the person sitting in seat 14 looks at the seat back in front of them labeled 10/11). Okay, no big deal. The eight of us occupy two rows on either side of the aisle. At least we're together.

We pull out at 1910. I start my stopwatch. The ride is supposed to be 9-10 hours. The bus is almost full of people. Maybe five seats. There are the eight of us, two other Americans from Pennsylvania who are backpacking around, and about six Japanese. The rest of the passengers are Egyptian. Mostly men, a few women (all but one traveling with a male companion). Most men look to be lower-class. Several wear gelabiyyas and scarves (generally not associated with the business class).

The first two hours, we're not sure where we are, really. The bus makes several stops. It fills quickly. A shouting match begins because one person too many gets on. He says he'll stand all the way to Cairo. He got here a week ago and now it's time to go home. The shouting gets louder and more insistent the longer this argument goes on. Other men jump in, shouting to help calm the situation. Eventually, Ahmed (a man in his mid-50s, no more than 4'10" with a small crocheted cap), who is in charge of tickets and the bus in general, allows him to stay. I think it's mostly out of frustration. The guy isn't going to budge. We try very hard not to turn around and stare at the argument in the back of the bus. It isn't easy. After about two hours, I finally see a road sign that says we're in Qena. It's a very small town a bit north of Luxor on the Nile. We passed through it on our way down, so it's a good sign to be passing it on the way back.

Quickly after this, the city streets give way to desert. The dunes are blue in the moonlight. And beautiful. I'm trying to do homework, but Will, sitting next to me, watches the sand roll by. Eventually I give up on the Arabic language and watch, too. It's absolutely gorgeous, and hypnotic. There's nothing, absolutely nothing, but sand rolling along.

Around 2330, we make our first pit stop. It's a dimly lit gas station/service station/courtyard hemmed in by high rise buildings. Most of us get off the bus to stretch our legs. Who knows when the next stop is. We find the bathroom, which is bar-none the most disgusting I've encountered in Egypt. It's the "porcelain-lined hole in the ground" type (the kind that is "trying…but not"), but the porcelain is barely recognizable under the grime. The pipes are rusted and flaking, the water in the hole (which isn't supposed to be there…it is supposed to drain) is black. I've honestly shat in cleaner woods.

Returning to the bus, we catch a glimpse of the lunar eclipse. We get back on, and after a minute or two come to a very dangerous realization. The Americans are on the bus. The Japanese are on the bus. All the Egyptians are lined up outside in front of another bus, complete with luggage. We missed this memo. So we high-tail it over to the second bus, locate our seats again (with minimal hassle), and settle in as we begin again. This bus is much smaller and less comfortable.

I do some homework, joke with Will, and doze for about 15 minutes. Then we pull into a brightly-lit area and the bus stops. The overhead lights snap on, and a man in his 30s in a black sweater gets on the bus. The two men sitting in the front seats offer him what look like driver's licenses or ID cards. He checks them, hands them back. Then he walks back the bus. He looks at each of the eight of us, making eye contact, but doesn't stop. He walks to the back. I don't turn around until a little later, but when I do he is doing the same thing: taking and examining small cards and handing them back. After another minute or two, he leaves. I ask Vivette what it was. It's a military checkpoint, she tells me. They check the Egyptian men for ID cards that say they've served their time in the military. If they haven't, they can extort money from them or simply throw them in jail. This particular stop didn't have any of that.

We continue along the desert, until something changes. We see water. Driving along the road, we look past 50 meters or so of sand, and then the color changes and light starts reflecting differently. That's water. And quite a lot of it. We start passing villas and hotels. This doesn't feel right. Luxor and Cairo are both located in the middle of Egypt (from an East-West perspective), along the Nile. There is a highway that runs right along the Nile. We assumed (unfortunately) that we were on that road. Not so. Eventually one of us sees a sign that suggests we're in the town of Hurghada. Hurghada is a relatively famous town in Egypt. It's known for its awesome diving. Because it's on the Red Sea. Instead of driving north through the desert in the direction of Cairo, we've been driving north-east (but more east than north), and have now reached the Red Sea. Something is not right.

The bus slows to a stop again in another brightly-lit area at the edge of Hurghada. This time, a man in his late 20s in a military uniform gets on the bus. He starts yelling from the beginning. Then, as he passes our group, he starts counting: itneen, arba', sitta, tamania!! (two, four, six, eight!!) He storms past us (by this time two girls in our group are asleep, as is one guy who wakes up rather quickly) toward the back of the bus. He keeps yelling. I'm getting about 30-35% of what he's saying. It's obvious he's angry and it's because of something the bus company did wrong. What do you think you're doing? He asks. What kind of operation are you pulling? The driver and Mr. Ahmed proclaim their innocence loudly, but he takes them off of the bus. They've all been on here since Luxor! shouts Mr. Ahmed. All these seats were booked from Luxor! (This is a blatant lie, but I'm not going to be the one to tell anyone that.) The shouting continues. I turn to Vivette to compile a more complete translation. But before we can do much, he returns. He pulls several Egyptian men off the back of the bus, and the yelling outside grows louder. Mr. Ahmed continues to proclaim his innocence. The soldier is furious with him, and we can all tell. Then, the driver gets back on, and the bus drives off. We've left Mr. Ahmed and about six Egyptian passengers at the checkpoint. The bus drives a bit up the road, then turns around and heads back to the checkpoint again.

We sit there, the lights on in the bus, worrying. The problem this bus is encountering is due to our presence. He counted the eight Americans and was very unhappy we were here. This is quite possibly a worst nightmare scenario coming true. I'm going to get pulled off of this bus at 3 a.m.—I don't know where I am—to be interrogated by the military in a language I only halfway understand. Six of my traveling companions (for each of whom I feel at least some responsibility) are going to get pulled off of this bus at 3 a.m.—not knowing where they are—to be interrogated by the military in a language they don't understand! (Vivette can handle herself in Arabic, obviously, and looks plenty Egyptian. Her only problem is that she's sitting with us.)

An older man with a fresh-looking black eye shuffles onto the bus. He gets off, and a minute later gets back on. He approaches me. "Do you speak English?" "Aiwa" (Yes.) In poor English with a bit of Arabic thrown in he explains to me that the tour bus company (Upper Egypt Bus Co.) has not been following the government's rules regarding tourist safety.

(N.B.: in the mid- to late-1990s, Gamy'a el-Islamiya (The Islamic Group) carried out a series of attacks targeting foreign tourists to Egypt—mostly in Upper Egypt. These included attacks on tour buses, and culminated in the November, 1997 attacks at Hatshepsut's Temple, in which over 60 people were killed by six militants wielding assault rifles and knives to kill and then mutilate. The phenomenon of Gamy'a el-Islamiya dealt a very harsh blow to Egypt's tourist industry (which is Egypt's main industry), so the government put into place steps to increase tourist "safety." Why "safety"? Because the new regulations dealt with having local Egyptians in the presence of (especially using the same transportation as) foreign tourists, demanded that tourist groups travel with armed guards, and—best of all—required tour buses to travel in military convoys along the highways of Upper Egypt. These "military convoys" are a truck with soldiers in the front, a truck with soldiers in the back, and 10-20 tour buses in between. If that doesn't sound like announcing one's presence as a sitting duck, I'm not sure what is.)

What did the bus company do wrong? The part where they spent two hours tooling around poorly-lit places picking up passengers. They are supposed to (by law) pick up only from the original station and continue directly along the route. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200 or 6 extra fares. For our safety as foreigners, he explains, we will now travel in a military convoy. What isn't clear is whether the bus itself, complete with all passengers, will travel in the convoy, or if one group: foreigners or Egyptians, will be leaving this bus for another mode of transportation. Again, Vivette and I get nervous. Vivette is a dual citizen of the US and Egypt. She booked this ticket as an Egyptian citizen to get the (incredibly) discounted rate.

Mr. Ahmed shuffles forward (complaining to the black eyed man that this has never happened before) and hands the man two pieces of paper and a pen. The man explains to me that each of the foreigners must fill out their name, nationality, hotel in Egypt, and the travel company they're touring with. I begin, but turn to him to explain quickly (in my least threatening and politest Arabic) that I don't have a hotel, I'm a Cairo resident. Can I put down my apartment (apartment and dorm room are interchangeable vocab words here) in Cairo? I know I said it correctly, but the poor man cannot for the life of him figure out why a white girl is a Cairo resident. Since it's 3 a.m., I spare the details. Passing the paper around our group, we quickly fill it out. While I was filling mine out, Vivette explained that she was a dual citizen, and should she fill out the paperwork as well? No, he says. Okay. We won't be separated, correct? We must travel together. We're students in Cairo and need to get back. Yes. It's fine. (Vivette and I are slightly relieved.) As the paper goes around, I look back and realize that two of the girls are STILL asleep. All this yelling and shouting and stress, and Christina and Jen are blissfully asleep, complete with iPod earbuds, slack jaws, and heads tipped back. I know Christina's name and where she lives, but have to wake Jen up to ask how to spell her last name. She mumbles it, I write it down and make up a room number in the dorms (she said she lived on the first floor. Close enough). We give the paper back. (Jen and Christina have absolutely no memory of this stop in Hurghada.)

A few minutes later, the men who got pulled off the bus climb back on. They are subdued. I don't want to think just how fresh that man's black eye is.

A white pickup truck with two soldiers in the bed takes off down the road. Tour buses queue behind it and begin rolling. As the last comers, we bring up the rear. Supposedly there's another white pickup with a few more soldiers in it behind us. I'm no expert, but even at 3 a.m., I feel like a sitting duck for anyone who doesn't like tourists and wants to express said dislike with weaponry. Lonely Planet has a wonderful piece about military convoys. And by wonderful I mean it's 100% true about how bad they are. The soldiers attempt to prove their machismo by driving far too fast, the tour buses, microbuses, and taxis try to keep up and generally endanger each other. The one benefit to the convoy? For the first time that night, we keep up a good clip.

(A funny piece…usually over here I end up speaking for the group a lot, because my Arabic is better than most people's. Thanks, Georgetown. This weekend we had a girl who speaks Egyptian Arabic at home, and is muhaggiba—she wears a hijab—so people automatically use her to communicate with us. When the man with the black eye shuffled up to me, I was confused. Why is he talking to me, and not Vivette? It took a moment or two to realize…oh…because I'm the white kid. She looks Egyptian and I look American. I can be a bit dense.)

Eventually (very eventually) I manage another half hour of sleep, and when I open my eyes it's almost five and the rest of the convoy has disappeared. Will and I begin trying to guess when our nerves will be back to normal. (At this writing, they are, as we say: shwayya (a little bit).) Around six, we pull into Suez. We've spent several hours driving the Red Sea coast up to Suez, and must now drive back west to Cairo. We make a pit stop in Suez. Will gets out of the seat next to me and I curl up across the two seats for four minutes. Being horizontal is blissful. (At this point please recall that in the past three nights I spent Thursday night seated on a train from 2200-730 Friday morning, spent Friday sleeping in a real bed, and Saturday night from 1900-the present seated on a bus. The train was two and a half hours of sleep, Friday was almost seven, and this past night was about 45 minutes.)

On the Cairo approach, we start passing military facilities. A base, a training camp, and then the military nuclear facility. Charming way to start your morning.

Once we reach the outskirts of Cairo, it's already 8:00 so the traffic is awful. One of the passengers suggests that the driver hurry up. He doesn't take that well. The argument swells to a deafening crescendo for those of us seated in the front half of the bus. By this time I'm so tired, my legs hurt so badly, and I am still a little jumpy from the Hurghada checkpoint, that the argument seems funny and I start to giggle. Thankfully they are too deeply engaged in the argument to notice the white girl cracking up.

After a little over two hours, the bus pulls into Ramses Square and stops. We shuffle off, stretching stiff backs and legs. That bus was far from comfortable, and 15 hours as opposed to 10 made it even worse. We take cabs back to the dorms, and congratulate each other on quite a wild ride.

To map out our travels:

1. Luxor
   
2. Hurghada (Al Gharda'a)
   
3. Suez
   
4. Cairo