Wicked

"Are you OK?" a new friend asked. "You're awfully quiet."

She wasn't the only one to comment. I was quiet as I sat on the roof of a house in a Nubian village, eating dinner. My head hurt something wicked, drowning my thoughts like the Nile below.

Apparently, though, in only two days of travel, I had made an impression with the group. A loud impression. Sociable. Talking. Something. I didn't want to ask but I would start talking again despite the pain. The trip would pass too quickly to let it slow me down.

Already, it feels like we've been here for ages.

"The other day," a friend started and quickly amended, "actually, it might have been this afternoon..."

Giza and pyramids and the Sphinx. The Egyptian museum. An overnight train to Aswan with our own sleeper cabin and drinks in the club car until much too late, given the lack of sleep with the plane, the honking cars of Cairo. The next night wouldn't help with a 2:30 wakeup call for a three-hour drive via convoy to Abu Simbal and a three-hour drive back but it was worth it. It was all worth it.

I just have a headache: dehydration, poor diet, too little sleep, too much stress, the men on the streets trying to sell me a scarf, some spice, a ride on a fellucca or themselves as an Egyptian husband.

"What about the fact that I'm walking makes people think that I want a taxi?" I asked as the drivers pulled over and shouted again and again. "Madam! Madam!"

We had no answers but the luck of the draw. Sheer volume. If they asked enough, someone, eventually, would say "yes" but we kept walking. Talking. Exploring in our limited free time even though my head hurt.

It'll get better eventually. The stories I keep writing in my journals will find their way to a computer with a keyboard that doesn't stick. Today is just not the day for either, and I'm OK with that, too.

Tag: Travel