No kidding.
Morning Constitutional
Lisa and I, after washing up on the shore of Nuweiba at 6 AM (see the keffiyeh-ed man taking his morning stroll? It felt very serene at 7 AM), waited in our little beach hut after a nice swim in the Red Sea. We waited and waited, past the climax of the sun, into early afternoon. Lisa fell asleep on the cushions. I walked up and down the packed sand that made up the main drag of Nuweiba, if it can be called a main drag.
Haji Lisa and the Blue Cushions
I approached Mr. Mohammed. “Ahem, where is the jeep?” I looked at my watch in the universal signal for, “You’d better have a good reason you’re making us late.” Mohammed urged me to just chill. “It is coming, I talked to him and he said 5 minutes.” Five minutes.
15 five minuteses later, I was no longer calmly inquisitive. “Mohammed!” my voice approached a yell. “It has BEEN five minutes. It has been THIRTY minutes. It has been TWO AND A HALF HOURS. WHERE IS THE JEEP?”
Mohammed looked concerned, but I wasn’t sure if it was concern that his jeep was late or concern that I was about to throw sand in his face. “Here…here the time, it is not exact.”
I looked dead into his eyes. “Mohammed. I have lived in this country and in Jordan.” I waved toward the Jordanian shore across the Sea. “I know that time is not exact. That is why we have waited. One hour, ok. Two hours…eh…” I shrugged, “but THREE. Mohammed, three hours is TOO MUCH to wait. Mish ma-OOL. MISH MA-OOL.” Mohammed continued to express his concern by shifting his weight and darting his eyes between me and the bright blue water.
We would have left Mohammed and gone to another (possibly fake) beduin, had we been anywhere but Nuweiba. But Nuewiba’s main drag is perhaps 200 feet long, and Mohammed looked like the only option on this sunny, lazy afternoon. We had waited since 1 PM and the clock was ticking towards 4.
“Mohammed, the sun is going down. There will be no light. HOW are we supposed to look at the canyons when there is NO LIGHT?”
Mohammed was quick to point out, “Oh, but this is the best time to see the canyons! It is beautiful!”
“But MOHAMMED! WE are not IN THE CANYON! By the time we GET there, the sun will be DOWN.” At this point I decided that the 350 pounds we had agreed upon was going to be halved.
At 4ish, the jeep approached. We got in the back, relieved that we were going to be doing something with our day, which was largely wasted waiting for this jeep. And we did indeed, see the colored canyons, which would have been more colorful in the SUNLIGHT rather than dusk, and we even got a bonus: a camel family outing on the road ahead of us. When we had strolled through the canyons, we joined the jeep driver and Mr. Mohammed for tea in the tent up in the mountains above the Canyons. Tea, as you know, makes everything better. We calmed, but I was still wondering if we should pay him the full amount. Three hours is three hours.
Camels taking a family stroll in Sinai
Lisa in Colored Canyon #1
The sun set and the starts blinked above us as we hurdled back in the Jeep toward Mohammed’s beachside resort. We still felt gypped by Mohammed, but he had promised us dinner upon return, and the promise of food lightens everyone’s mood. We waited as he prepared the fish, and then enjoyed his eagerly prepared, but ultimately mediocre, fish, hummus, and baba ghanoush. Stray cats played around us and the sea lapped up in delicate waves upon the pebbles. We finished our fish and leaned back, talking with the Jeep driver/Sheikh’s son-in-law, who told us all about his plans to marry a second wife sometime in the near future, but then warned us not to tell his first one. The Sheikh, an old, wise-looking man, joined us for a few minutes, curling himself up on the cushion the way old Arab men do, his knees twisted towards us and his hands resting calmly upon them. We didn’t manage to convince Young Sheikh that his first wife would probably be very jealous of a second wife (And besides, he had already thought of that: They would live far away from each other. Perfect.) But we were, by the end of the meal, feeling as though we had DONE something with our day. Canyons, sheikhs, fish, and discussions of polygamy in a foreign language—we were ready for bed.
Cell Phone Bedu-Our Dinner Companion
Mr. Mohammed joined us as we got ready to leave. We decided to just give him the money and be done with it. “So, 350, right?”
“..yyyes, 350 is what we agreed for the canyons and the jeep…”
“…” Lisa and I leaned in, waiting for the completion of the sentence.
“The jeep to the canyon, 350, yes…”
“..and?” Lisa inserted.
“And then there was fish, and I made you the dinner…”
We realized what he was doing. He said he’d get us a jeep to the canyon, he got us a jeep. Three hours late, but it was there, was it not? But the fish! The fish was extra. The tea with the beduins? Extra. The hummus? Extra. We couldn’t believe our ears.
“Ooooh, no.” My Arabic improves greatly when I am upset. “Oh no. You were THREE HOURS LATE. We waited ALL DAY on our ONLY DAY here, and you promised us dinner to make up for it. We will NOT pay you for dinner. You said that was a gift.”
“But I gave you tea! And fish! And…”
“I CAN MAKE TEA. I have never, ever been charged for tea, not in this country, not in Jordan, not in Lebanon…” I listed how many ways one could obtain tea for free, making sure he realized that I was not about to give him money for something that is taken for granted even in Wadi Rum, where there is no water.
The argument was loud, and our point was clear. We shoved money into his hand and left him counting it, calling back that it was exactly the amount of money he asked for and he needn’t worry, we didn’t gyp him as he had gypped us, and we wouldn’t be visiting him again.
The aggravation was not only over the extra money he wanted from us. It was a noisy night bus ride, a long day in the sun, and four hours of waiting for a jeep that took us to canyons we couldn’t appreciate in the dusk. It was the frustration of having no choice, no where else to go, and not even being near the bus station. It was being clearly, obnoxiously ripped off by a man who deserved neither the money he charged nor the money he wanted to charge. It was the concept of “Egyptian hospitality” falling flat, and with a thud. It was being taken for a stupid tourist, and occasionally living up to the title.
So we stalked back on the empty, dark street to our hostel, frustrated. We had arranged to go to St. Catherine’s monastery the next morning at 7 with a guide, and take the bus back to Cairo at 3 PM. “Plans could change,” one of us suggested. They certainly could.
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