The Story of Andy and The Camel

    Blame Jay's wife, Kathy.

    From our first meeting Hany was very clear about how we should avoid the inevitable swarm of souvenir sellers. They're looking for folks exactly like us, ready to pounce. At each ancient site, we would need to run a gauntlet of pushy vendors, maybe twenty or thirty booths on both sides of a narrow outdoor passageway or sidewalk, chocked with scarves, t-shirts, magnets, dolls, pyramids, cats, crocodiles, and creepy plastic King Tut heads. 

    Don't engage with them, admonished Hany. Don't window-shop or lookee-loo at the colorful displays of trinkets. Don't be enticed by their offers to "come inside, take a look, no hassle." Don't answer their questions: "Where you from? U.S.? England?" Don't fall for their compliments: "Hey, pretty lady," or "Hey big American, like Rambo, hey?" Don't be polite with this scourge, even though everyone in the tour group seemed like a nice person.

    Hany insisted that we'd have our chance to buy souvenirs when we reached the Cairo market at the end of the week. Haggle and shop and buy to your heart's content there. But not at the tourist sites, please. It would slow the group down. The stuff was terribly over-priced. More importantly, if other vendors caught a whiff of a gullible mark, you'd be swarmed like jackals on an antelope. Do not. Engage.

    Furthermore, at the ancient sites, we would encounter "helpful" men and boys who would offer to take our photo. Or offer to show us a private passage or hidden gem off the main path. In return, they'd demand a tip for their assistance. Once again, warned Hany, don't engage. Don't get trapped.

    Our tours were great because Hany would arrange them so we arrived just as the exhibit was opening for the day. It led to early wake-up calls, which we grumbled about, but they were well worth a few catnaps on the shuttle bus. We would arrive at the Giza plateau or at a temple complex to gleefully spy an empty parking lot with no lines at the turnstiles, in the relative cool of the bright, Egyptian morning. (Never a cloud, never a raindrop.) When we left later in the morning, the parking lots were jammed with cars and busses. Haha, early falcon catches the worm.

On our first morning, we visited the Great Pyramids of Giza. Private vehicles are prohibited from the sprawling, wide-open area, so the morning was a series of jumps on and off the in-park shuttle system.     Hany wisely led our group to the stop farthest from the entrance, so we could work our way back to the entrance, avoiding even the sparsest of crowds. We had the Sphinx and the first pyramid nearly to ourselves, which was glorious. As we walked the paths, we even noticed that most of the souvenir vendors hadn't even arrived for work yet. The place was peaceful and all ours. Our group of eight could spread out, not stay in a protective bunch, because we weren't fighting a crowd.

    Before the trip, Kathy, the wife of my friend Jay from Amazon, asked me to send a photo of me at the pyramids. And a photo of me on a camel. Best yet, a photo of me ON a camel AT the pyramids. Along our morning stroll, I casually mentioned this wish to my tour mates. When we saw an old man in traditional dress standing alone with a camel on a leash, Meg from Sydney piped up: "Hey Andy, here's your chance. Let me get your photo with the camel."

    The rest of our group continued along the path away from the scene. Meg and I approached the man and his camel sitting patiently with his ironing-board legs collapsed beneath him (the camel, not the man). The man held out his hand for my phone which I hadn't given to Meg yet. Fine, I thought, he'll take the photo, and Meg will get a shot of the man taking my photo. Very meta. He posed me close to the grinning, chewing camel, probably leery of me. I certainly stayed leery of any sudden moves by the beast, or, for that matter, by the man.

    The tour group had moved farther down the empty path, Hany continuing his tour remarks, unaware of my sudden detour. The old man takes my photo, then takes off his long, red-and-white scarf and drapes it over my shoulders. A little local color, very good, very charming. Meanwhile Meg has abandoned me, hurrying to meet up with the group, maybe to warn Hany of my demise. 

    The man takes a few photos with my phone, returns it to me, and sticks out his hand. I pull a 10 pound note out of my wallet, and the man suggests quietly, "One hundred."

    "No, ten," I reply calmly.

    "Fifty," the old man counters, seeing the ten stick out of my wallet. 

    From out of nowhere, a second camel man joins us, seemingly from the barren landscape. "Fifty," repeats the second man. I think I heard the camel chuckling behind my back.

    By this time, Meg has caught up with our group, possibly fifty yards away. No other people in sight. Alone on the dusty plateau. They must've seen me back there, between the two tall men.

    I repeat, "Ten."

    Suddenly, Hani bellows in his mighty Egyptian voice, "AAANNNN-DYYYYY!"

    I snap innocently to the two men, "Well, now you got me in trouble, so it's nothing. I gotta go."

    The old man settled for a ten-spot.

    I ran to meet my group, all laughing and shaking their heads in faux-dismay. To Hany, I chirped, "Come on, be proud of me. I took your advice. I haggled with the guy." And he offered a fist bump in return.

    Jenny from Ireland, a geography teacher of 3rd-grade inner-city boys, chided me with, "Next time we'll need to form a protective ring around you." And she was good to her word: whenever we entered another gauntlet of vendors, Jenny would order, "Andy! Get in the circle!"

    But Kathy, I got my picture of a camel at the pyramids. And it only cost me twenty cents.