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Journal of African trips

African trip [I]

Agelasto
2004-05-20 20:57:33

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me to the Tourist Police for further
filing. There I had coffee and was told to wait. I was there for about 4 hours, taking a break to
go to the GPO to buy a stamp for my former student who collects stamps with maps and flags. (I
go to every GPO in every capital city of every country I visit; these visits serve as good ways to compare countries). Anyway, the Tourist Police - I dealt with General Mohammed something-orrather
(I am told that about a quarter of all Egyptian males are named Mohammed) - were very
accommodating. They took my complaint seriously. I alleged that Amigo was mismanaged and
had deals with so many agents around the country that no one - not customer nor agent nor
vendor - could agree on what was being promised. The general got on the phone with the
president of Amigo and each of my points was discussed. All of us on the felucca (the Czechs
and Australian were apparently hunted down) were given refunds. Maybe the system works well,
or maybe the current dearth of tourists in Egypt leaves the tourist police with so little to do that
they made a concerted effort to handle my complaint.

The best aspects of Egypt were, for me, its food and its antiquities, especially the tombs and ruins
in Luxor.

Eritrea and Ethiopia

You wonder where Asmara is? It's the capital of Eritrea (pronounced air-ri-TREE-ah). You
wonder what Eritrea is? It's the newest country in Africa, having split from Ethiopia at the start
of the decade. Now it's coming into focus.

Ethiopia, next to Somalia at the rhino horn that sticks out of the east coast of Africa, you know
as the land of starving children on the nightly news. Somalia is where a U.S. mercy mission went
and for its effort, American soldiers were killed (or murdered depending on your view of whether
or not we were participating in a war). ...