We are coming from a completely different cultural environment and we are the same mystery for them as they are for us. Their approach differs from ours but if you know how they function, many situations become funny or even comical. Now even Peter starts laughing from the heart at many approaches that were making him uncomfortable only a week ago. The people are nice; you only have to understand their gestures and communication code. And something else: Thanks to our good mood and smiles we have always managed to get big smiles from even the moodiest faces of absent-minded locals. Egyptian hospitality: 5***** (even at the most tourist places).
Below: My friend Hosni and me
14.1.2004 | Luxor, Egypt
I'm waiting and waiting, searching, looking everywhere, lifting plastic bags, spread over the landscape, pointing my flashlight into dark corners – no success. Wait a minute! What about there, behind that big hotel?! Still nothing. Where are they? Where are all those unpleasant, intrusive and hustling Egyptians everybody from Slovenia through Syria to Morocco was warning me of? I was looking for them on Sinai, in Sharm, in Cairo, in desert oasis, in the Nile valley, in front of the Valley of the Kings… I haven't seen any. Did they die out, moved away, or am I only that resistant? I have no idea – the only thing I know is that all the people I'm meeting are very nice and funny. OK, they try to sell anything to a stranger, they are constantly offering you this and that, they try to convince you, they bargain, but they are still completely harmless.
