Ever Get Caught Up In A Revolution?

Cairo, revolution

-by Eden Bowditch

I met Eden Unger because I used to do a alt-metal rock show on KUSF in San Francisco and she was in an all girl hard core band, Rude Girl. Great band! Eventually, Sandy Pearlman (Blue Oyster Cult, Black Sabbath, The Clash) was going to produce their debut album for my record label and CBS, which had bought my company, was going to release it. But it never happened and I can't remember what exactly why or what transpired next. I remember Eden being a metal sculptor working with a blow torch and then the next thing I knew decades had passed, she was an author with a family and living in Cairo, teaching at the American University. Time flies. Her new book The Strange Round Bird is coming out in a few months, the third book in her trilogy, The Young Inventors Guild. It must have been at least a couple years ago that I asked her to share some of her thoughts about the Egyptian revolution with DWT readers. There's already been a counter-revolution, but today she sent in her post! You know metal people, right? And sculptors? Writers? Egyptians?


Aftershocks of a Revolution
-by Eden Unger Bowditch

The strangest thing was that we learned to live with the sounds of gunfire. As daylight began to fade each evening, Nate and Julius, our eldest son, who was 15 at the time, would join the other men in our building and barricade the glass entry. This was how the Egyptian revolution unfolded for us, in Cairo, in 2011.

Actually, that was how the unfolding continued. The beginning was just as much of a surprise for us as the rest of the world. Lyric, our daughter, was in Abu Dhabi for a Global Issues Network conference with other 7th graders from Cairo American College. She had plans for a slumber party with her two best friends when she returned that Friday. Julius had the lead in the HS musical, and Cyrus, then 6, was hanging out and being cute. And there was Olive, the dog, too.

The first night of the HS musical was Thursday, 27 January. There had been a massive protest on Tuesday, 25 January (now the date considered to be the Egyptian revolution) but that was on the other side of town. In truth, it was the 28th that everything went crazy. When Julius went to school to prepare for the Friday performance, he was told the school was closed. Closed? After months of preparation, his first thought was ‘Crap! No show?’ Looking around, he realized everything was closed. It wasn’t until later that the revolution dawned on us all.

Actually, technically, it wasn’t a revolution. It was the deposing of a dictator with nothing to fill the gap. At the time, we only knew we were in the middle of it, whatever it was. At 3am on Saturday, our car disappeared along with fifty other cars on the street. Tanks were filling the streets. At dusk, we and the other tenants barricaded the glass front doors of the building. Curfew was set at random hours, one day 4pm, the next day 1pm. We’d have to run home, hiding behind the ad hoc militia’s safe points (broken fences, benches, tires or chairs or other detritus blocking the road) where the local shop owners and bawabs (doormen) would band together to check for bombs and guns and folks who did not belong. Every few blocks, there was a different color of arm band, made from plastic bags. We had yellow. This allowed us to pass without being searched.

Then, they shut off the internet and mobile phone service. We had the only land line in the neighborhood that could call out of the country. This is how we contacted friends in Germany who contacted the hotel where Lyric was in Abu Dhabi. They found the teacher and told her to assure the kids that parents were OK. The teacher had no idea what was happening. They had been at the conference and had gone to sleep, never checking the news. Once they knew, The Global Issues Network kids crowded around the television, watching the tanks in the streets and the burning buildings. Still, it was surreal to them and they could not relate this to their own neighbourhood.

Back in Cairo, we had lines of friends and colleagues coming to our flat. Everyone was calling loved ones abroad to let them know they were alright. Many were scrambling to get to the airport. Those who tried to leave first were stranded at the airport for days before getting flights anywhere. Evacuations began in earnest and buses of colleagues started leaving. One of our dearest friend, former bureau chief of the New York Times in Cairo, now in Berlin, would call every few hours to let us know what was happening since we were cut off from our own news. He wanted us to leave, but we couldn’t. Lyric was still in Abu Dhabi and we had to be here when she got back. She was, we had heard, en route.Then we heard that flights were blocked leaving from Abu Dhabi to Cairo. The kids had to fly back through Bahrain. They flew from Bahrain to Cairo. Days later, Bahrain fell under a violent rebellion. That was too close.

When Lyric returned from Abu Dhabi, life had changed. Utterly. The friends who were planning the slumber party had evacuated, never to return. There were blockades in the streets, our jeep was gone, and there were tanks in the streets in front of our apartment building. The curfew sent people running through the streets for shelter. Lyric arrived at curfew. We ran.

For the next week or so, we would close the window when the gunfire became too loud or if we could smell clouds of teargas coming. We’d make whatever we had in the house since, without internet or ATMs, no use of credit cards or means of getting cash, we had few resources to buy food. Then, Cyrus began having nightmares of Bionicles taking over the city. The curfew became The Curfew, like The Bogeyman, and make us all run through the streets for shelter. It was time to get out of Dodge.

When you evacuate, you are flying away from something, not going to something, so you just get on the next plane out. We were put on a plane to Germany. In Frankfurt, they met us with blankets and fresh water. It was surreal. We called our New York Times friends when we landed and took the train from Frankfurt to Berlin. I remember thinking how strange the tanks at the airport looked… until I realized they were luggage vans. In Berlin, I was anxious about making lunch plans because of the curfew. But of course, we left that behind. Or did we? We were touched in ways we could not measure. Having been in uncertain circumstances has made us all more aware of the residual effects, the reverberations, of every experience we have in our lives.

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Is The World's Foremost Egyptologist, Dr. Zahi Hawass, Laughing At GOP Crackpot Ben Carson?

The first I remember hearing about the pyramids was when I was just 10. "You Belong To Me," the song with the lyrics, "See the pyramids along the Nile," was first released in 1952 by Sue Thompson, Patti Page, Jo Stafford and Dean Martin. It's been covered by Patsy Cline, Bing Crosby, Gene Vincent and even Bob Dylan, but the 1958 version by The Duprees was the one that stuck in my mind and made me dream about the pyramids. I finally got to see them in 1997. A few years later I wrote about the experience for my travel blog.

In Cairo the biggest deal is, of course, the Pyramids. And were we in luck on that score! You know the guy always on CNN whenever they do a story on mummies or anything old in Egypt-- Dr. Zahi Hawass? Well, one of the musicians, Andy Paley, in a band on Sire Records, where I used to work, was friends with some well-known American Egyptologist, a Rockefeller no less, and through this guy we had an introduction to Dr. Hawass, then Governor of the Pyramids (now Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities). This turned out to be a golden key to the most amazing visit to the Pyramids imaginable.

Dr. Hawass treated us to a tour usually reserved for heads of state. He literally closed down the Great Pyramid and made everyone else wait while we had it to ourselves! It's pretty awesome. Most things don't live up to expectations; that one did. He said we could sleep in it if we wanted to. We didn't at the time but now I'm sorry we didn't take him up on it. We didn't climb any pyramids... We didn't because a U.S. marine climbed up and fell off and died; so it's forbidden now. Afterwards he showed us a small, locked up pyramid that no one is allowed in except Charles De Gaulle and other people they wanted to impress. They don't want general traffic in there because of breathing. Next door they had a little museum with an ancient ship with a bunch of mummified pharaoh's servants on it. The Sphinx, on the other hand, was covered in scaffolding and seemed to be crumbling into the sand. Roland claims they were injecting silicon into it.

Well, thanks to Republican crank Ben Carson the pyramids have been in the news this week... and so has Doctor Hawass, explaining how Carson is "completely wrong" about his crackpot theory that Joseph built the pyramids to store grain (which, of course, Carson is standing by). Todd Zwillich of PRI called Dr. Hawass yesterday and interviewed him

Dr. Hawass, have you heard the statements about the pyramids being used to store grain and the controversy here in the United States?

Yes I have.

What Ben Carson said is completely wrong. There is plenty of evidence that it is wrong, and it is wrong for the following reasons:

1. The Canaanites did not come to Egypt until the Middle Kingdom. They have nothing… not one thing… to do with the Old Kingdom.

2. We as Egyptologists and archaeologists have all the evidence that the pyramids were made as tombs, simply because there are pieces of the bodies of the dynastic Kings named Zoser (Djoser) and Menkaure, the builder of the first pyramids, at Giza. The pieces from their bodies-- from their mummies-- were found in those pyramids.

3. If you look at the Valley of the Kings and you look at the tombs of pyramids from the New Kingdoms, you find extensive, exhaustive writing that says plainly what they were for. They were tombs.

If the pyramids were made to store grain, why do we have in Egypt 123 pyramids for kings and queens? If they were used for grain, Egyptologists and archaeologists would have excavated this at least once. They have not.

What about claims that the pyramid builders were Canaanite or Hebrew slaves?

I discovered the tombs of the pyramid builders at Giza that showed that the builders were Egyptians. The builders were not slaves. They were buried near the pyramids themselves, and of all the many names of builders that were found inside the tombs of the builders, there is not one name of a Canaanite, not one at all.

Have you heard Dr. Carson’s theory before?

The theory from this man is not new it has been said before. Almost every time I walk through the pyramids I meet a visitor who wants to talk about this theory. A Canadian director came once to make a film to prove the grain theory.

There are hundreds of theories about the function of the pyramids in America. Some people believe aliens. Some people believe Atlantis. All of these are completely wrong. We have excavated around the sites and in the sites and it proves that what this man says is completely wrong. I want to say: There is not one piece of evidence to show that it is correct.

The pyramids were solely to represent the power and the dignity of the Pharaohs. And there is every piece of evidence to prove it.

Does it frustrate you when you hear theories like this from well known people?

No. I’ve written hundreds of books. I hear theories like this all the time. When I hear them, I just laugh. This man wants to use it for publicity in his campaign because it references the Bible and people will believe it. But what happens in the Bible and in the Old Testament happened in the Middle Kingdom. It had nothing at all to do with the Old Kingdom and nothing to do with the pyramids.

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Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go Back To Egypt...

18 years ago I finally got to fulfill a childhood dream-- visiting Egypt. We planned to spend about a week in Cairo and a couple weeks roaming the country (including a Nile cruise to Aswan). Although it didn't seem so at the moment, some real misfortune for everyone else turned into a break for me and Roland. Just as we were leaving L.A. in November a bunch of religionist fanatics slaughtered a busload of tourists from Switzerland, Japan and the U.K. It was really a spectacular horror show with scimitar-wielding terrorists chasing unarmed tourists around the Temple of Hatshepsut across the river from Luxor and mercilessly slashing them to death. It was a bloody slaughter that went on for almost an hour; 5 dozen were murdered. Egypt, one of the world's biggest tourist destinations, immediately emptied of tourists. And they stopped coming (at for a couple weeks). I feel terrible for the Swiss and Japanese, of course; I mean what a way to go! But... well, Roland and I pretty much had Egypt to ourselves. I mean it was just us and the Egyptians, who, except for the scimitar-wielders, are an extremely generous, friendly and gracious people.

I think Luxor-- ancient Thebes, with goes back to about 3,000 BC-- and its environs (basically the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens) are the biggest tourist attractions in Egypt after the Pyramids. Tourism in Egypt brings in around 10 million visitors a year and accounts for about 10% of the economy. It was devastated by what happened in Luxor and devastated by subsequent acts of terrorism since then. Friday was a biggie, although American media has been pretty quiet about it. ISIS terrorists planted a bomb at an intersection close to the Hotel Medidien where many tourists visiting the Pyramids-- about a mile away-- stay. The bomb was found around 6AM, before it killed anyone but 4 Egyptians (2 policemen and two hotel security guards) were wounded, one critically, trying to defuse it with a water canon.

Last week Morgan Freeman was working at the Pyramids filming part of a #ThisIsEgypt tourism campaign meant to persuade western tourists that tourism is completely safe again. And, yes, he also visited lovely Luxor. It all looks safe to me:

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Trip Advisor's "12 trips of a lifetime"

Soar in a balloon above unique landscapes: This is the most striking image of the Trip Advisor "12 trips of a lifetime," and looks like it might indeed be a cool thing to do -- except for someone with a pathological terror of heights, who probably has no business in a balloon.

by Ken

[Click to enlarge]

You'll be pleased to hear that Howie is back on terra firma, in Quito (Ecuador), after his sea galavant around the storied Galápagos Islands.

Long-time readers know that his travels often take him to off-the-beaten-path destinations, while my gadding is pretty much confined to the service area of New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority -- or, more specifically, anyplace my unlimited-use MetroCard will take me. At least as regards actual travels, that is. For travels of the armchair variety I'm prepared to go wherever a real-world traveler of the right sort volunteers to take me.

Once upon a time this was the province of writers in newspapers, magazines, and books. Video crept into the picture as early as the old newsreels but eventually got a big kick with the expansion of TV programming and more recently with the home-video boom. When I think how hard it was to follow along on the travels of Michael Palin when they could only be caught by synchronizing your schedule with such times as the various series happened to be shown on TV, I'm delighted by the ease with which they're now available on DVD. I know there are a plethora of other camera-accompanied travelers whose journeys can similarly be bought or rented at our convenience; at some point I suppose I'll have to troll for guidance as to which are worth pursuing.


See the Northern Lights: Those Northern Lights sure look cool, but the trip is to northern Iceland, and with all good will toward the sturdy folk of Iceland, do I really want to journey to the north of their island?

Since there are gazillions of places I regret never having been, I was a sitting duck for a feature offered in a recent e-mailing from Trip Advisor, called "12 trips of a lifetime." I got on the Trip Advisor mailing list by writing a review after a memorable walking tour I took a year or two ago around the World Trade Center site, including a visit to the memorial itself. I had already done tours of both the Trade Center area and the memorial, but wanted an updated view, and by the end of the tour, "the amazing Debbie" (as I described her in my review) had become a dear friend to everyone. So when she asked just one thing, that we add a review on Trip Advisor, I felt obliged, and proceeded to find out what the heck Trip Advisor was and how it worked.

Of course, since that was -- and remains -- my only review, anyone who tries to vet it will discover that it is my only review, and that it must therefore be bogus, when in fact it is scrupulously truthful, and from someone who's hardly inexperienced in the world of walking tours. Anyway, I've never had any reason to write another review, but I do now get all sorts of e-mail from Trip Advisor, as well as notifications anytime a college classmate (presumably located on my paltry Facebook friends list) either plays a new golf course or visits a new inn -- or anytime anyone "likes" one of his reviews. (This is someone I last saw probably 40 years ago, though in that time we've spoken a few times on the phone and e-mailed a few times, and insisted that we really should get together at some point. That point just hasn't arrived, apparently.)


Walk the Great Wall of China: I love reading about the Great Wall, which sets my imagination, both geographical and historical, running wild. But I also have some idea of the ordeal you have to go through to get to any of the segments of the wall that are open to tourists, and the actual hiking doesn't sound quite as romantic as the image -- look at those steps! Also probably not a good place for a committed acrophobic.

Okay, so I clicked through to the "12 trips of a lifetime," and they're to places that pretty much all lurk in many people's imagination, including mine. And there are lovely pictures of all 12. So I got the idea that I might like to share this feature with our readers, incorporating, say, three or four of the pictures. Only when I took another look at the list, thinking I might choose photos according to the three or four places I would still most like to visit, I came to the realization that I'm really not inclined to add any of them to my list of Places I Most Regret Never Having Been.

The closest, in fact, is the one place on the list I can give myself partial credit for having been: Niagara Falls. It's only partial credit because the Trip of a Lifetime is to the Canadian side, whereas the visit I made with my family when I was maybe seven or eight was to the U.S. falls. I'm thinking it must have been on the late-summer cross-country car trip we made from our home at the time in Milwaukee across Lake Michigan to pick up my older brother at the summer camp where he had been a counselor, then somehow or other across the northern U.S. till we swung up to the Niagara area on our way to New York City, where my grandparents lived.

(Actually, I wish I remembered that trip better, since it must have taken me to or through places I've never been again. Apart from Niagara Falls, my one vivid recollection is of the ferry trip across Lake Michigan, which was rough enough that most everyone on board seemed to be vomiting, many of them publicly enough that the stench was itself a threat to the digestive equilibrium. I recall that they showed some kind of movie, but the thought of being trapped in a room with all that aroma was hurl-inducing.)

All that said, let's proceed to --

Trip Advisor's "12 trips of a lifetime"

The text comments are presumably comments submitted by Trip Advisor readers who have taken these trips.

See the Northern Lights
North Iceland, Iceland

"Great swathe of green light with hints of red sweeping across the sky and down to the horizon. Breathtaking!"

Sleep in an over-water bungalow
Bora Bora, South Pacific

"The bungalows are beautiful... We certainly don't know how we'll be able to top this trip!"

Tour the canals in a gondola
Venice, Italy

"Venice is amazing, the Grand Canal is one OHHH AHHH after another . . . very relaxing, informative and romantic."

Marvel at the wonder of the Taj Mahal
Uttar Pradesh, India

"Magic - just magic! You don't realize until you go, just how stunning this place is."

Explore the ancient pyramids
Giza, Egypt

"You feel like part of the ancient history. The heat, the dust, the sun. The spirit of a long gone civilization."

Walk the Great Wall of China
Beijing, China

"You feel like part of the ancient history. The heat, the dust, the sun. The spirit of a long gone civilization."

See an awe-inspiring sunset
Santorini, Greece

"It's the perfect spot to enjoy the beautiful sunset, amazing volcano views in the Aegean Sea, peaceful ships..."

Dive into the Great Barrier Reef
Queensland, Australia

"The deeper side of the reef was extremely beautiful... the sheer beauty of the coral is unimaginable."

Visit gorillas in their natural habitat
Ruhengeri, Rwanda

"The gorillas came very close to us - one even pushed me aside to get past with her baby. It wasn't scary."

Soar in a balloon above unique landscapes
Cappadocia, Turkey

"Cappadocia is probably the best place on Earth for hot air ballooning... to the canyon and all the way up to the sky."

Trek the famous Inca Trail to Machu Picchu
Cusco Region, Peru

"The trip of a lifetime. Inca Trail was such an experience. 4 days of hiking... worth it when you see the view at the top."

Journey to the edge of Niagara Falls
Ontario, Canada

"Maid of the Mist will make you feel alive . . . hear the thunder, feel the swells and pitches! A fantastic life long memory."


Now this is more like it! Niagara Falls from the Canadian side! But didn't we ride on the Maid of the Mist back in the '50s, from the U.S. side? I know we were on some boat. Still, I've always thought I might like to go back to the falls, especially now that I know so much more about how they were formed and have evolved.

#

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Is Egypt Ready For A Primetime Tourism Redebut?

Roland and I had such a beautiful house picked out to rent in Damascus's old city, Beit al Kamar. I hope it's still standing. I doubt we'll ever see it-- and I'm happy the owners are living in Nashville. But, right now I would say Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Afghanistan are probably not places you should consider going on vacation-- not unless your idea of a vacation includes gunfights and staying out of the way of Predator drones and chemical weapons attacks. But what about Egypt? Is it time to start thinking about a nice holiday along the Nile? Most travel agents will say no. CNN says no, Condé Nast says no and the international tourism industry says Egypt's tourist sector is on the verge of collapse.

“Four million Egyptians are employed in the tourism sector, millions of families live off of this, the bread to feed their children is at risk,” said Egypt’s Minister of Tourism, Hisham Zaazou, addressing around 30 Italian journalists hosted in Sharm El Sheikh, (to witness and report that it is a safe place for tourists) as he struggles to convince the Italian and European governments to reconsider their travel advice.

"We are appalled at the position of the European governments that do not recommend travel to Egypt,” the Minister said. “We are moving full steam ahead towards democracy. Riots in Cairo are in decline; we are a people who love peace. The decision of the EU to limit the financial aid only to the economic and social sectors does not help foreign visitors to come to us.

Now even Roland has given up advocating that we go to Damascus or Yemen. But he's gotten it into his head that now would be the right time for another vacation in Egypt. He has a feeling there are lots of good deals now and that the main sites won't be as crowded. Remember two things, last time we visited the Pyramids, Zahi Hawass himself closed the whole thing down so we could tour the Great Pyramid all by ourselves while hundreds of Belgians and Italians sweltered on line in the sun. And, last time we were there, the country nearly emptied out of tourists because a bunch of scimitar-wielding religious fanatics slaughtered, beheaded and disemboweled 60 or so foreign tourists at the Temple of Hatshepsut across the Nile from Luxor. We had a huge cruise ship to ourselves (plus a couple of elderly Brits returning to London after a life in Oman). So, we really did get to see everything there was to see without any annoying crowds of tourists to spoil it. I say, let's not push our luck. Roland insisted I read this account which, makes revisiting Egypt now sound attractive... at least to him. (Apparently Chinese tourists, who we noticed are starting to dominate Europe, are also dominating Egypt. The travel in huge groups and hold everything up at every conceivable bottle neck.

The lone tourist bus curved through the desert past the limestone-topped Pyramid of Khafre, leaving the camel handlers and postcard sellers trudging through its dust. It rounded one last turn, then settled atop a plateau overlooking the pyramid and its two mammoth siblings.

The bus door flapped open, unleashing a dozen Chinese tourists into the empty parking lot. They strolled toward the plateau's edge, cameras and parasols in hand, just ahead of the vendors scrambling at the prospect of a few paying customers. For a moment, the scene was perfect-- the solitary caravan approaching from the desert, the heat shimmering off the stone blocks, the majestic desolation.

It helped that we were mostly alone that hot, late-August morning in the heart of one of the world's best-known tourist destinations. I was in town to help cover the troubles that had seized Egypt over the past two months and had found a calm morning to make it out to the Cairo suburbs, where the pyramids mark the start of the vast brown desert. I didn't expect to find the usual crowds there, but still the emptiness and quiet were a surprise. Closer to the pyramids, the crowds weren't much thicker: a British family, a scattering of Arab couples, Somali women posing for pictures in flowing headscarves, everyone easy and unhurried.

Years ago, before the 2011 revolution that started Egypt's political roller coaster, visiting the pyramids could quickly become a two-hour flight through clouds of tour groups. Visitors, guides and vendors jostled in front of the ancient marvels, as a steady line of buses emerged from the brown blocks of the city.

Now, after a summer of coup, protests and massacres, the flocks have flown to other spots, abandoning such draws as the Egyptian Museum, the ancient ruins of Luxor farther down the Nile and, of course, the pyramids of Giza. In mid-August, arrivals at Egyptian airports dropped by more than 40 percent after the military brutally cleared two sit-in camps protesting the July ouster of President Mohammed Morsi, of the Muslim Brotherhood.

That has devastated the country's all-important tourism industry, which makes up more than a tenth of all economic activity. But it's proved a boon for travelers willing to defy official warnings from the U.S. and other countries against coming to Egypt.

Hotel and restaurant prices have dropped, sometimes by half, as has the Egyptian pound, making the already affordable country even more so. Once at the sights, travelers find themselves usually alone with some of the world's greatest treasures, be they gold death masks of pharaohs or the sublime centuries-old mosques soaring above old Cairo. Tourist sites have become forlorn, even serene-- more befitting these dignified survivors of the millennia.

Australian Mary Hill said she had been traveling across Europe with a friend over this summer and hadn't kept up on the news from Egypt. However, they had already booked a visit, and were set on going, even after they heard about the bloodshed.

"We were at a stage in our trip where we had to take a chance," Hill said as she stepped out of the child pharaoh Tutankhamen's exhibit at the Egyptian Museum. "And in the end, it's been positive."

"From the country's perspective, of course, it's not good."

The dearth of business has driven already predatory vendors and guides into a frenzy, with the U.S. Embassy in Egypt even issuing an alert in June about "over-aggressive vendors." Visitors had come across "angry groups of individuals surrounding and pounding on the vehicles," the embassy reported, "and in some cases attempting to open the vehicle's doors."

On my pyramid trip, one young guide jumped onto the back of our car and clung to the rear window, while our driver abruptly braked and zoomed ahead and wove from lane to lane to try to shake him off. Only a block later did the driver convince the guide's friends to keep the young man off the bumper.

Then came the vendors inside the pyramid complex, who tried out their usual pitches before moving onto more desperate Plan Bs.

"There's no business here, there are no more tourists," one camel rider said, the ache in his voice sounding genuine. "I have a family. We need to eat."

In the winding alleys of the Khan el-Khalili bazaar in old Cairo, merchants tried to physically stop what rare visitors they spotted walking through as they hocked limestone miniature pyramids and bright cotton fabrics.

Shop owner Mohamed Hafez said his sales had fallen by "100 percent" since Egyptians first took to the streets 2 1/2 years ago.

"There used to be a lot of tourists, a lot of nationalities," Hafez said, while cooling down in the air-conditioned inner sanctum of his souvenir shop. "Now, it's nothing. We just want safety, no more revolutions."

Wooing back those visitors has become a top priority, even with all the military vehicles and checkpoints in the streets. Dallas-based college student Deniz Mustafa had, in fact, flown into Cairo as part of a volunteer project inviting youth from around the world to visit and tout Egypt's top tourist sites.

Two weeks after his arrival in July, however, Morsi was violently removed, and the volunteer project was cancelled. Mustafa responded by hitting the road and seeing Egypt, flying down to Luxor and up to the Red Sea resort of Dahab, where empty restaurants were offering 50 percent discounts on entire menus.

Mustafa and a fellow volunteer from China had since moved onto the Egyptian Museum, where they were studying the ancient granite statues of Egyptian nobles and the small wooden ships buried with pharaohs.

"Any time you go to a temple or climb Mount Sinai, you have a more personal experience now," Mustafa said. "It's just you and the tour guide up there."

That peace was without a doubt a fragile one. The city still goes dead every Friday afternoon in anticipation of Muslim Brotherhood protests that can turn violent in an instant. Nighttime curfews were also in effect while I was there, effectively shutting down Cairo's buzzing nightlife.

Everyone was nervously waiting for the Brotherhood's response to the repression and expecting the worst. On one night in the bar of my hotel, the pops of explosions outside immediately silenced all conversation, as we wondered whether the violence was indeed back. A quick check out on the street confirmed they had only been fireworks.

For visitors, it all made for a rare glimpse into a proud country trying to figure out its future and also a chance to see Egypt free of many of the usual hassles. The dangers were real but mostly manageable.

The threat of a U.S. strike on Syria, however, made some Americans nervous about revealing their nationality. And if the political troubles flare up again in Egypt, even the bravest traveler will have to think twice about coming.

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Finally, Today The State Department Warned Travelers Away From Egypt

The State Department is very cautious about harming the tourism business of allies and client states and for the entire week-- with dozens killed, including an American student-- the State Department didn't issue a warning about Egypt, despite the turmoil. But tourism is a gigantic part of the economy and warning away tourists is almost like declaring economic warfare. Some say that Morsi fell because Egyptian tourism was down by about 25% this year. But today, the State Department did warn tourists to find another destination instead of Egypt.

Egypt
July 3, 2013

The U.S. Department of State warns U.S. citizens to defer travel to Egypt and U.S. citizens living in Egypt to depart at this time because of the continuing political and social unrest. This Travel Warning supersedes the Travel Warning issued on June 28, 2013.

On July 3, 2013, the Department of State ordered the departure of non-emergency U.S. government personnel and family members from Egypt due to the ongoing political and social unrest.

Political unrest, which intensified prior to the constitutional referendum in December 2012 and the anniversary in 2013 of Egypt's 25th January Revolution, is likely to worsen in the near future due to unrest focused on the first anniversary of the President’s assumption of office. Demonstrations have, on occasion, degenerated into violent clashes between police and protesters, and between protesters supporting different factions, resulting in deaths, injuries, and extensive property damage. Participants have thrown rocks and Molotov cocktails and security forces have used tear gas and other crowd control measures against demonstrators. There are numerous reports of the use of firearms as well. While violent protests have occurred in major metropolitan areas, including downtown Cairo, Alexandria, and Port Said, the security situation in most tourist centers, including Luxor, Aswan, and Red Sea resorts such as Sharm el Sheikh, continues to be calm. Of specific concern is a rise in gender-based violence in and around protest areas where women have been the specific targets of sexual assault.

On June 28, a U.S. citizen was killed during a demonstration in Alexandria. On May 9, a private U.S. citizen was attacked with a knife outside of the U.S. Embassy after being asked whether he was an American. Additionally, Westerners and U.S. citizens have occasionally been caught in the middle of clashes and demonstrations. U.S. citizens are urged to remain alert to local security developments and to be vigilant regarding their personal security by knowing the locations of police and fire stations, hospitals, and the U.S. Embassy.

If you wish to depart Egypt, you should make plans and depart as soon as possible. The airport is open and commercial flights are still operating, although cancellations may occur. Travelers should check with their airlines prior to their planned travel to verify the flight schedule. There are no plans for charter flights or other U.S. government-sponsored evacuations. U.S. citizens seeking to depart Egypt are responsible for making their own travel arrangements.

The U.S. Department of State strongly urges U.S. citizens to avoid all demonstrations in Egypt, as even peaceful ones can quickly become violent, and a foreigner could become a target of harassment or worse. Because of the proximity of the U.S. Embassy to Tahrir Square in Cairo, the U.S. Embassy has sometimes been closed to the public on short notice due to violent protests. The Embassy will notify U.S. citizens as quickly as possible of any closing and the types of emergency consular services that will be available. Should security forces block off the area around the U.S. Embassy during demonstrations, U.S. citizens should contact the American Citizens Services section before attempting to come to the U.S. Embassy during that time. U.S. citizens are urged to remain alert to local security developments and to carry identification and, if moving about alone, a cell phone or other means of communication that works in Egypt.

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Were You Thinking About A Trip To Luxor In Egypt?

Egypt is one of the world's original tourist destinations. People have been traveling there to see the wonders-- whether built by man or alien-- since the beginning of recorded time. Roland and I decided to spend a month there just after Thanksgiving, 1997. Egypt is usually overrun with tourists from around the world. But the month we were there, we basically had Egypt to ourselves (not counting the Egyptians). Luxor (ancient Thebes), with the Valley of the Kings, the Valley of the Queens and the Temple of Karnak, were especially empty. That's because just as we were leaving L.A. in November, a bunch of religionist fanatics slaughtered a busload of tourists from Switzerland or Austria and Japan. It was really a spectacular horror show with scimitar-wielding terrorists chasing unarmed tourists through the ruins and mercilessly slashing them to death. It was a bloody slaughter; 5 dozen were murdered. All the tourists left Egypt just as we were arriving. And they stopped coming (at for a couple weeks). I feel terrible for the Austrians and Japanese, of course; I mean what a way to go! But... well, Roland and I pretty much had Egypt to ourselves. I mean it was just us and the Egyptians, who, except for the scimitar-wielders, are an extremely generous, friendly and gracious people.

As for modern Luxor, the prosperity and the economy is almost entirely based on the steady influx of tourists from around the world. So when President Mohammed Morsi appointed a new governor of Luxor who was connected to the scimitar-wielding Gamaa Islamiya terrorists, the people of Luxor freaked out. The Minister of Tourism, Hisham Zaazou, resigned, saying the appointment would have "dire consequences" for tourism in Egypt. The new governor, Adel al-Khayat, is best known in Luxor as a member of Gamaa Islamiya, a group remembered for devastating the city's economy for several years. Demonstrations haven't been as reported on as the ones in Turkey and Brazil, but they were big and they were getting out of hand all last week. Some started calling for Morsi himself to step down.

Yesterday, there was some confusion over whether the new governor would step down or not. Rumors that Morsi had told him to forget the whole deal were denied on Saturday.

Khayyat told Turkish news agency Anadolu that he is not thinking about resigning, although he is currently in his hometown of Suhag, awaiting the outcome of recent events. “There will be no resignation Insha'Allah (God willing),” Khayyat said.

Senior figures from the group’s political arm, the Construction and Development Party, told the London based pan-Arab daily newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat earlier Saturday that Khayyat had resigned over mass protests demanding his ouster.

“Al-Khayat resigned so that people could realize that we are not interested in the job and are not clinging to it,” Construction and Development Party head Nasr Abdel Salam reportedly said.

...The governor failed to reach his office on Wednesday as angry protesters blocked the road to the governorate building, setting tires on fire. Residents, tourism sector employees, and secularist groups have all joined the demonstration.

Khayyat had postponed starting his work to “ensure everyone's safety,” according to Abdel Salam, and in fear of clashes between his opponents and supporters, after the latter have had to form a human shield around him to protect him.

But today he made it official; he resigned "to prevent bloodshed."

"I discussed with my brothers from the Construction and Development party, and we agreed that I should present my resignation as Luxor's governor because we don't want bloodshed," he said in a statement. "We cannot accept the shedding of even one drop of blood for a position that we never wanted."

El-Khayat was one of the 17 provincial governors appointed last week by Islamist President Mohammed Morsi. His appointment steered anger among tourism workers and activists in Luxor and hundreds of people have protested Morsi's choice outside the governor's office.

El-Khayat's party calls for strict implementation of Islamic Shariah law, which includes imposing an Islamic dress code for women, banning alcohol, and preventing the mixing of the sexes. Workers in a city as heavily dependent on tourism as Luxor worried that such policies would further hurt their business.

Officials of the Construction and Development party said on Sunday that el-Khayat's resignation decision was not made under pressure and that it showed the party's political maturity.

The party has in recent weeks emerged as a strong backer of Morsi against the opposition, which plans massive protests on June 30 to force him out of office. Leaders of the group have declared the protesters non-believers and have vowed to "smash" them on June 30, the first anniversary of Morsi's assumption of office as the nation's first freely elected leader.

UPDATE: I Hope You're Not In Egypt Today... Totally Unsafe

An American student was killed this weekend and millions of Egyptians have taken to the streets to try to oust Mohamed Mursi and the Muslim Brotherhood, who have been overplaying their hand. This isn't just in Cairo's Tahrir Square. This is everywhere.

At least four people have been killed and nearly 200 wounded in clashes between supporters and opponents of Egypt's Islamist President Mohamed Mursi, security and medical sources say.

All four dead were shot in Nile Valley towns south of Cairo, one in Beni Suef and three in Assiut. Across the country, the Health Ministry said, 174 people were given medical treatment as a result of factional fighting in the streets.

In Cairo and Alexandria, more than one million took to the streets on the first anniversary of Mursi's inauguration to demand that he resign.

Waving national flags and chanting "Get out!", a crowd of more than 200,000 had massed by sunset on Cairo's central Tahrir Square in the biggest demonstration since the 2011 uprising that overthrew Mursi's predecessor, Hosni Mubarak.

"The people want the fall of the regime!" they shouted, echoing the Arab Spring rallying cry that brought down Mubarak-- this time yelling it not against an ageing dictator but against the first elected leader in Egypt's 5000 year recorded history.

Many bellowed their anger at Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood, accused of hijacking the revolution and using electoral victories to monopolise power and push through Islamic law.

Others have been alienated by a deepening economic crisis and worsening personal security, aggravated by a political deadlock over which Mursi has presided.

As the working day ended and 38 Celsius heat eased, more protesters converged through the eerily deserted streets of the shuttered city centre, while smaller crowds protested in several other areas of the capital.

The veteran leaders of Egypt's secular, liberal and left-wing opposition, including former chief of the UN nuclear watchdog Mohamed ElBaradei and leftist presidential candidate Hamdeen Sabahi, joined protest marches in Cairo.

A Reuters journalist said hundreds of thousands of anti-government protesters marched through the Mediterranean port of Alexandria, Egypt's second city, and a military source reported protests in at least 20 towns around the country.

The are rumors that Morsi has fled from Cairo-- on the one year anniversary of his election victory. You don't want to be walking around in this:

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Egyptian Tourist Industry Still In A State Of Collapse-- A Matter of Safety

People have been visiting Egypt since before records were kept. But with all my traveling all over the world, I didn't make it there until 1991 or something like that. It's not really on the way anyplace. It's its own destination-- and a worthwhile one for sure, obviously. The food's nothing to write home about, unfortunately, but the history, the culture, the people and the sites... all make it more than worth the time and effort. But U.S. tourists have almost completely stopped going there now. It's just considered too unsafe by most American tourists and travel agents. In 2005, Egypt had around 5.5 million foreign tourists. By 2008 that had jumped to 12.8 million, bringing in around $11 billion and employing approximately 12% of the country's workforce. It peaked at 14.7 million tourists in 2010 (with $12.5 billion in revenue). It's been seriously downhill in the last couple of years.

And that's not because some sharks off Sharm el-Sheikh developed a fondness for Germans, Russians and Ukrainians. Wrecking the country's tourism industry hasn't been a goal of sharks; it has been a goal of revolutionaries. The 2013 Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report was another bad blow to Egypt's tourist sector. It ranks 85th in the world, between Colombia and the Dominican Republic, not as highly recommended as trouble spots like Sri Lanka, India, Israel, Lebanon, Mexico and Azerbaijan... but still a better bet than places with open warfare, like Mali, Syria, Yemen, Burundi and Pakistan. A consideration that hurt Egypt was the safety and security category which looks at "the costliness of common crime and violence as well as terrorism" and considers road the prevalence of road accidents and the reliability of police.

It is perhaps little wonder that tourists are spooked — amid ongoing political unrest, Molotov cocktails, gunfire and tear gas have become almost commonplace in some areas.

Two years after the revolution that toppled President Hosni Mubarak, protesters still return to Cairo’s Tahrir Square-- where it all began-- to demonstrate against the Islamist President Mohamed Morsi and lament the country’s failing economy.

Earlier this month, Bedouin gunmen kidnapped a British couple who were on their way to the glittering beaches of Sharm El Sheikh. They were quickly released, but Bedouins have taken other hostages and also attacked police stations and blocked access to towns to show their discontent with what they see as their poor treatment by Cairo.

Last month, thugs attacked and entered the InterContinental hotel in Cairo, forcing it to close down while it implemented heightened security measures.

...Emile Asaad, manager of an American Express travel agency in the ancient city of Luxor, home to King Tut's tomb and the famous temples of Luxor and Karnak, said that “the important thing is that when people need to walk in the street they want to feel safe."

"We have over 400 boats on the Nile, there is still 20 to 25 percent occupancy on some of the most popular boats, but others are just sitting and not operating," he said. "We don't know how the future looks."

...[T]ravel companies said many people were staying away.

Bob Atkinson, a travel expert with the U.K.-based price-comparison website TravelSupermarket.com, said unrest in Egypt had "seriously affected the tourist trade."

"The Arab uprisings very much put the Egypt market into a tailspin," he said. Flavia Jaber, owner of Toronto-based company Road to Travel, which includes Road to Egypt, said that "our business to Egypt is dead in the water at the moment."

"People are not going to Egypt right now, at least not from North America," she said.

I've told the story many times how Roland and I arrived in Egypt a day after a massacre of tourists near Luxor. The whole country emptied out of tourists. We had the whole place to ourselves. It was just "too dangerous." We literally shared a gigantic Nile luxury liner with 2 other people-- instead of 200. It was one of the best trips we had ever taken-- and it wouldn't have been if it was packed with tourists. And we never felt unsafe anywhere for one second. Is it more dangerous than Manhattan? I'm not sure-- but I would take the same precautions... and Egypt is a lot less expensive. It's the fourth cheapest tourist destination in the world. Everything is a bargain... as long as you're not in the wrong place at the wrong time.

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