Around the World in 50 Years (9 page)

X was deliriously happy the entire day, but the rest of us were unsportingly, albeit secretly, jealous and rather depressed by his good fortune. The next forenoon, all but X left early for lunch at Rex, not out of any sense of discretion, but from an inability to bear to see this romance unfold.

At two o'clock Iftitani, wearing her tight blue uniform, entered X's room and closed the door behind her. X could barely contain himself. She went right to the bed and pulled back the blanket. She wasn't wasting any time, and X was fine with that, so he started hurriedly pulling off his clothing.

Which is when Iftitani screamed and ran out.

X was utterly puzzled and totally frustrated because he'd been sure she liked and desired him. When the others returned they commiserated with him, but hypocritically, wallowing happily in schadenfreude.

Later that afternoon, the irate hotel manager came up to complain about X's behavior. It seems that our innocent Iftitani had thought he'd just wanted his sheets changed.

From their misunderstanding, I learned valuable lessons that helped me through years of foreign travel: If you speak a different language than the other, make sure—unmistakably sure—you and the other person are in agreement. Be sensitive when you're in a position of power, as a hotel guest is with an employee. Never assume that a member of a foreign culture will readily undertake an act that is proscribed in her society. And avoid presuming that just because a person is poor or working class, they'll do anything you want—even if you're the head of the IMF.

It was hard to move around Cairo without encountering the indicia of a police state: army camps, ordnance depots, and communications installations ringed the city. All bridges and many factories displayed signs banning photography. When we picked up our mail at the American Express office, most of it had been opened by the government censors, and we later learned that the letters we'd sent home had also been opened and then resealed with the censor's stamp. When we'd checked in at the Continental, our passports had been confiscated and held for several days while the secret police checked us out. When our film came back from the processing lab, the photos showing the poverty of Egypt had mysteriously vanished. When we made large purchases, the merchants demanded proof that we'd acquired our Egyptian pounds at the official rate, and signs warning of penalties for changing money on the black market were omnipresent. The newspapers and radio carried the official government line, and we saw no evidence of freedom of the press or speech. When the Algerians overthrew Ben Bella, Nasser's main ally, a shock ran through Egypt's hierarchy, which deployed troops discreetly—but not
too
discreetly—around Cairo to discourage the spread of anti-regime revolutions. (Those revolutions occurred anyway—but not until the Arab Spring, 46 long, harsh years later.)

But you can't dislike Egypt when it has people like Lamyi—Lamyi Ibrahim Ghoneim—the world's greatest, most charming, most charismatic, most cinematic camel driver, as he himself would confirm.

Steve and I drove to the pyramids late one afternoon to scout locations for sponsor photos we'd committed to take. As we looked around, a chubby, grinning, sixtyish Arab in a bright-green
galabeya
bounded by on a camel, shouting at us, “Howdy, kids. Dig me, baby. It's colossal. Twenty-three skidoo and away we go. Wowie!” He thrice circled us, then trotted back exclaiming, “Wasn't that the most, man? Isn't this camel the living end? Dandy, just dandy. May I present myself? I'm Lamyi, and this is Canada Dry.” He pronounced it like the soda pop and handed Steve a multiply misspelled business card:

CANDA DRAY

camel for hire

Poprietor: Pyramids Post, Giza

LAMYI IBRAHIM GHONEIM Giza, Egypt.

We were still wary after being misled by the touts in Alex, but Lamyi won us over as he enumerated his credentials in what he thought was the latest hip Hollywood lingo. “I've been making the tourist scene here for forty years. My daddy-o taught me the trade. No other cat in the sport savvies it the way I do, kid. Whenever any bigwig pays a visit, the govmen't has me show him around on Canada Dry. He's the most, gentle as a lamb, comfy as a couch. Go ahead, you want to sit on him? Why, the last king and queen of Sweden said Canada Dry was super colossal. See, here's a snap of the queen on him. He's getting old, but he's the best in the business, kiddo. Prime Minister Churchill rode him. All the European princesses and counts who come out here ask for him. Even your President Roosevelt said he was the smartest-looking camel out here. And you know those tourist posters, the ones with the pyramids and the camel? Well, baby, that's us. Everybody takes our picture. I'm very photogenic. Even Cecil B. DeMille said so; I was his favorite of all the camel drivers. Oh, certainly I know CB, and all those other producers, too. I made a lot of pictures with old CB,
Ten Commandments
and dandy stuff like that. I've been in 30 movies, kid, 30. Now how can I oblige you?”

Lamyi obliged by meeting us the next morning with his brother, two camels, three dogs, and a basketful of props and costumes to shoot photos for our sponsors. He arranged the scene, checked the sun's angle, adjusted clothing, posed himself for each picture, and, drawing on his extensive film career, instructed Willy and me how to take the photos. He was producer, director, press agent, and star all in one.

And he was magnificent. He gleefully smeared himself with Sea & Ski suntan oil, exchanged his turban for a Dobbs straw cowboy hat, modeled an Arrow shirt, poured a quart of sponsor's oil into our Toyota, and poured into himself a cup of the Bourbon Institute's best, which, he assured me, with a wink, doubtless had medicinal value and hence didn't conflict with his Islamic beliefs. He modeled a pair of Thom McAn desert boots, sprayed Canada Dry with OFF! insect repellent, lit a cigarette with our parabolic sunray lighter, posed on the threshold of our Thermos Poptent, and smilingly chomped his way through half a box of Manischewitz matzos.

In the desert beside the great pyramids in Giza, Egypt, I fulfilled two sponsor assignments by sharing a box of Manischewitz matzos and a bottle of bourbon with three Arab camel drivers, including Lamyi Ibrahim Ghoneim (right).
Willy Mettler

After the photo session—which Lamyi said was “such a dandy delight” he wouldn't accept our payment—he brought us to his home for tea and cake. The walls were covered with photos of famous people atop Canada Dry and travel posters on which Lamyi's smiling face gleamed against the backdrop of the pyramids. He proudly showed us letters from his clients (while we used the opportunity to discreetly slip his fee behind the cushions on his couch) and read favorite passages from them, discussed his life and the future of his disabled son, expressed his heartfelt hope for peace on earth among men of good will, and beseeched us to write him.

Tears filled his eyes, and ours, when we parted. We'll always remember you, Lamyi Ibrahim Ghoneim. I hope your son thrived, your tribe increased, your days were long and happy, you ascended serenely to Paradise, and may Allah forever hold you gently in the hollow of his hand.

*   *   *

It was time to get back on the road. The vehicles had been serviced, the letters answered, the sponsor pix shot and shipped, the supplies laid in, the crew rested and healed. Ahead lay the Middle Eastern deserts, now blistering in the heat of summer. It was good-bye to Lamyi and to the glorious women of Cairo, good-bye to the sparkling Mediterranean and the colorful con men of Alex, good-bye to spaghetti at Rex, to the cool hotel rooms, to innocent Iftitani, good-bye to North Africa.

We headed eastward from Cairo, planning to skirt the Arabian Desert on the north, bridge the Suez Canal, and then cut across the Sinai Peninsula to Jordan. Despite being warned that our route was forbidden and fortified, we were going to give it a go.

Less than halfway to the Canal, the narrow road was blocked by Egyptian tanks and soldiers. No amount of protests about freedom of travel did us any good. We could not cross the Suez and we could not cross the Sinai. Those doors to the Middle East were firmly shut. We were forced to retrace our route and return to Cairo, where we again petitioned the authorities for permission to drive to Jordan, and where our request was again rejected. “Next year,” the guard had said, “next year, when there is no more Israel.”

They told us that the only way to continue our journey was to take a ship across the Mediterranean to Beirut, Lebanon.

And where could we find such a ship?

Why, in Alex, of course!

 

CHAPTER 5

Into the Teeth of the Tiger

Five months later, after hard, hot crossings of Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan, I was hauling the camper down through the Khyber Pass into the Indian subcontinent. About 30 miles before Peshawar, the monsoon rains, of which we'd had a hint the night before, struck with all their fury. The afternoon turned dark as night. Lightning tore through the heavens. Down and down the rain drummed relentlessly. In 30 minutes the road was awash; in an hour the water was so high it threatened to flood the engine.

Even without the rain, the road was deadly. It was typical of the roads throughout Pakistan and India, a narrow asphalt one laner with a four-inch drop onto the mud or rock shoulders on either side. They were poorly maintained remnants of the British Raj, built in the days before heavy auto traffic, so narrow that two cars could not pass abreast, forcing one of them to put a wheel onto the dangerous shoulder. We'd been warned that the local truckers willfully smashed into oncoming cars rather than slow down or move to the side, but we didn't believe it. Believe it! Western courtesy plays no role when a punctured tire or a broken spring can mean economic disaster for a trucker's family. It had become a law of survival for the trucker to hold the road, using every manner of highway bullying, from honking horns to blinking lights, to make the oncoming driver turn chicken and take to the ditch.

We had just cleared the Pass, and were a few miles beyond Jamrud Fort, which guards its eastern approach, when the spindle that held the camper's right wheel sheared off. We skidded 30 yards before I could get the bucking camper under control and stop. We were in a bind, on the narrow approach to a bridge over a river. We couldn't move with a wheel missing, yet we couldn't rightly block the bridge. We had to manually drag the camper off the road onto the shoulder, though that was only three feet wide with a 30-foot drop-off. The rear of the camper was dug into the mud shoulder; the front end jutted out over space. We used everything we could—jacks, rocks, boulders, tent poles, gas cans—to prop it up and prevent it from sliding down the steep embankment.

For most of the afternoon we labored underneath the precariously situated camper to unbolt and remove the axle, a delicate operation where any mistake could crush us or send the camper hurtling into the river. When we finally had the axle off, we loaded it into the Land Cruiser and I headed for Peshawar to find a welding shop, leaving the others to guard the crippled camper. It was evening by the time the spindle was welded into place in Peshawar, and the monsoons intensified as I headed back.

I'd gone only halfway when I was halted at a roadblock manned by four Pakistani soldiers who told me the rivers had jumped their banks and were flooding the road ahead. No cars were being allowed through. After I explained that I
had
to get back to the camper before it was washed away, the guards reluctantly agreed to let me pass. By the time I was a mile beyond the roadblock, it was completely dark and impossible to see in the driving rain. The road was covered with two feet of rushing, muddy water. I feared I might drive off the road and go completely under, so I enlisted help from a soggy local hitchhiker, who agreed to walk in front and scout a path. I gave him a flashlight and attached a lifeline from his waist to the car bumper. In this way, with the scout half walking and half swimming, I made it to the camper, which was close to toppling down the embankment.

We installed new supports, but these were undermined as fast as we could get them into place. It was nearly midnight when the downpour abated and we could brace the camper with jacks and gas cans. But it was too dark, and much too dangerous, to crawl under the camper to bolt the repaired axle into place, so we pitched the Poptents below to wait until morning.

Several hours later I was awakened by muffled noises above and stuck my head out of the tent. Two trucks were parked on the road. They must be curious passersby, I thought, and was about to go back to sleep, when I heard someone knocking a gas can from under the trailer. I grabbed the flashlight and zipped open the tent. My light caught three men pulling the jacks from under the trailer. We grabbed entrenching tools and started up the rocky embankment, but it was hard going barefoot. By the time we reached the road the bandits were in their trucks and driving off—with all our gas cans, both jacks, and some tools. And the camper was slowly sliding down toward the now-flooded river bed.