February 22-23, 2022

February 22-23, 2022

Traveling internationally today is not for the faint of heart. Covid has introduced lots of complications. Months of planning can be undone in a heartbeat with a positive Covid test, or a sudden change of government policies. Signing up for a tour and making our flight arrangements was the easy part. Egypt requires a negative Covid test for entry. Fortunately our PCR test came back negative so we are good to go. Egypt would have accepted our Vaccination status alternatively but our bureaucratic and bungling CDC can’t figure out how to convert that into a scannable QR code, despite a multi-billion dollar budget.

Our afternoon flight to Atlanta was uneventful. Once past the Rockies we crossed the Permian basin of New Mexico and Texas, scarred with hundreds of miles of fracking wells. It was followed by thousands of wind turbines, Texas’ new gold.

In Atlanta we boarded our overnight flight to Paris. In Paris, we pass a Concorde airplane on display in front of the Air France office. It last flew in 2003. I would have loved to have flown on it, at least once. Without its speed, and even with upgraded seat and lounge access, international travel is grueling.

In traveling to Egypt from Paris, we are retracing the footsteps of the birth of Egyptology. In 1798 Napoleon was sent to conquer Egypt to thwart the British trade route to India. His soldiers accidentally unearthed the Rosetta Stone while building a fort. In 1822, two hundred years ago, a brilliant French linguist using this discovery, finally solved the hieroglyphic riddle allowing archeologists to decipher the texts decorating all the tombs and temples of Egypt.

We get into Cairo just after midnight. We pass through customs, and meet our driver who delivers us to our downtown hotel location. We think he must be practicing for the Indy 500. Our hotel room overlooks the Nile.