The Eighth Part in which Steve recieves a Free Beverage
Booked on an evening flight back to Athens, we had yet to visit the pyramids. Bright and early we parked our packs at the hotel desk (baksheesh was, alas, unavoidable) and hopped a bus to Giza. We had perhaps LE10 between us, just enough for two admissions to the Great Pyramid and maybe some cheese and a can of pop for lunch. Our travails had rendered us irrationally cheap, and although we were about to stand in the shadow of truly extraordinary history, to walk in the footsteps of the Pharoahs, to immerse ourselves in ageless mysteries of the human experience, we weren’t about to change a $20 traveler’s check and have to eat a second five-percent cambio fee changing half of it into drachmas the next day.
- A grand finale
A young man seated at the front of the bus moved back and parked himself directly across the aisle. His name was Mahmud. He was tall and skinny and dressed in sneakers and a mis-matched sweatsuit. Were we going to see the pyramids? Yes we were. No baksheesh.
Mahmud asked if we would be hiring camels while on the plateau. We told him we had no money for camel rides. He clearly didn’t believe us. His cousin rented camels, he said, and he could get us a sweet deal on a couple of real cream puffs. Thanks, but, like we said – no money. To this day I’m not sure how it happened. We knew with absolute certainty that we weren’t going to rent a camel at any price, yet a short time later found ourselves marching behind Mahmud through the narrow streets of a 17th-century Cairo suburb wondering how we were going to get out of it without embarrassing ourselves.
Mahmud’s home was built along classic local lines – two stories, plaster domes atop square blocks, an interior courtyard where all the work of the house was performed. Also along classic local lines, his mom and sister were busily performing all the work of the house. A half-dozen chickens clucked and strutted around them. Mahmud shooed an honest-to-gosh goat off the stairway and showed us up to his receiving room. It was large, completely unadorned, and unfurnished save for a shiny, like-new, four-piece, green velvet Louis XIV livingroom set huddling against one wall. He motioned us to be seated in the two chairs, then lay back grandly on the sofa, like an Oriental potentate, throwing both arms over the back and breaking into a broad smile. He could get us two camels for only LE35. Each. We were getting nervous. We were on his turf, far from friendly tourist haunts, and we were about to waste his whole morning.
We complimented his home (we were both genuinely charmed) and praised his command of English. We waxed eloquent about Egypt’s many wonderful attributes. We said it again. “Thanks, Mahmud, but no. We really don’t have enough money to rent camels.” He leapt from the couch and stuck his head out the glassless window. “You see? You can see the Great Pyramid!” Sure enough, by leaning dangerously far out over the rutted dirt street below and craning our necks west, we could discern through the maze of buildings a thin sliver of tan blocks that appeared consistant with ancient pyramid construction. “That’s awesome,” we said. “But we should probably get going.”
I think that’s when it occurred to him that we might actually leave without renting camels. If we’d blown half the morning getting sucked in by Mahmud’s hyper-persistent gravity, he’d blown it buttering up a couple of pikers. He barked a sharp command and in short order his mom appeared with three cans of local-brand lemon-lime soda on a gleaming silver tray. Sweet Apricot and I exchanged uneasy glances. By accepting refreshment we’d be beholden, and that meant baksheesh, or worse. “Thanks a lot, but we’re really not thirsty.” Mahmud would have none of it. His hospitality had taken on a slightly desperate edge, and he watched intently as we sipped our drinks, all the while lowering his cousin’s bottom line on camels and determinedly ignoring our increasingly firm rebuffs. It was Sweet Apricot who finally saved us. She stood up. “We have to go,” she said, and simply walked out the door. Mahmud looked at me with a mixture of disbelief and dawning realization. Like the coward that I am, I shrugged a weak apology and skipped out after Sweet Apricot. We were wending our way through close, littered lanes in the general direction of the pyramids when Mahmud suddenly appeared behind us, walking fast. I expected an unpleasant scene, but he hustled past without a word. A single glance – an accusatory blend of bewilderment, disappointment and bone-deep irritation – served as our just rebuke. We’d come into his home, drunk his lemon-lime soda, and let him down. He was doubtless heading back to the highway in hopes of salvaging the day with a better class of tourist.
- A long walk
The episode with Mahmud cast something of a pall over our Giza adventure, but only a little one. If our escape hadn’t exactly been graceful, it had been decisive. We’d gotten ourselves into a tight spot, but acquitted ourselves with dignity more or less intact and with all the money we came with. We were still the reigning kings of Egypt, and that happy thought saw us through the long hike up to the plateau.
Next Time: The startling conclusion!