Apr 18 - Sick Bay /Grand Egyptian Museum
18 April 2018, Kanada ⋅ ☁️ 3 °C
Dr. Ahmed had left me Tuesday evening in Doug's capable hands. I shudder to think what would have happened had I been traveling alone. Neither of us got much sleep - I was still making frequent bathroom trips and discovered later that one of the drugs I was taking induces insomnia. Just my luck. Dr. Ahmed arrived back in the morning. My blood pressure was better (not great) so I got another litre of IV fluids. I thrashed around all day. Another visit that night. Another 1/2 litre of IV fluid. My blood pressure was finally normal and my other vitals were good. I still felt like trash - incredibly weak and with absolutely no appetite - a first for me and I was still not sleeping at all.
We were now at Wednesday evening. We were facing a deadline of leaving for the airport at 9:00 p.m. on Thursday for our 3-hour flight at 1:30 a.m. flight on Friday for Dubai. From there, we were supposed to fly for 14 hours to Toronto. Because we had flown from Toronto to Dubai, we needed to fly back out of Dubai, otherwise we would have incurred a huge financial penalty. Going ahead two time zones, only to then go back eight time zones seems odd, but that's what we had to do. Dr. Ahmed promised to see me Thursday morning and again Thursday evening when he would make a travel/no travel decision for me.
Through all of this, Doug was working on logistics. The tour company sent a representative, Nasser, to talk with him. We were supposed to have just stayed at the airport on Thursday after our return from Luxor, but that obviously wasn't go to happen. If I got cleared to travel, he would arrange to send a minivan with a driver along with Walid who would guide us through the airport. Nasser negotiated with the hotel who agreed to let us stay in our room at no extra cost until we had to leave for the airport. The restaurant staff were very kind and helped Doug pack up a few things that he thought I could manage to eat. They gave him a carton of apple juice too and a few bananas. They keep them out of sight, otherwise they get snapped up by the armful by the guests. The Housekeeping staff were wonderful too, keeping us supplied with towels and bottled water and respecting our need for quiet. Trust me, I wrote a lot of thank you notes when I got home. Everyone was so incredibly kind and helpful and cooperative - customer service at its finest from the hotel, the tour company and the medical clinic that services the hotel.
I suspect that the rest of the group went to the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), also known as the Giza Museum, a planned museum of artifacts of ancient Egypt. Described as the largest archaeological museum in the world, the museum is under construction and is scheduled to be partially open in 2018 exhibiting the full Tutankhamun collection with many pieces to be displayed for the first time. The museum is sited on 50 hectares (120 acres) of land approximately two kilometers from the Giza pyramids and is part of a new master plan for the plateau. The architectural competition was won by the company Heneghan Peng from Dublin, Ireland. Love my little leprechaun friends!
On 5 January 2002, then-Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak laid the foundation stone of the Grand Egyptian Museum. On 25 August 2006 the Statue of Ramesses II (a twin of the one we saw at Memphis) was moved from Ramses Square in Cairo to the Giza Plateau, in anticipation of construction of the museum. The Statue of Ramesses II, estimated to be approximately 3,200 years old will be situated at the entrance of the museum by 2018. The main attraction will be the first exhibition of the full tomb collection of King Tutankhamun.Baca selengkapnya
Apr 19 - Sick Bay continues plus Luxor
19 April 2018, Kanada ⋅ ⛅ 3 °C
By Thursday morning, I could sit up in bed, but was still completely wrung out. Vitals all stable. Progress. At the 8:00 p.m. check up, I was actually sitting up on the side of the bed. I was practising for a full day of sitting up in airline terminals and on planes. Dr. Ahmed was mightly impressed. What a vision of beauty I must have been with my sweat-encrusted three-day old bed head and now sporting Doug's oversized t-shirt from a local microbrewery. Dr. Ahmed gave me the okay to travel. Now, being medically cleared for traveling and actually feeling like traveling are two very different things. I was still rather light headed and had no energy, but the lure of my own bed was very strong. Along with a few prayers and a firm focus on home, we packed up with a survival kit for me and set off, I in a wheelchair to preserve what little strength I had.
The driver and Walid met us in the lobby and ushered us into a minivan. It took about an hour to get to the airport. Cairo is a weird place on a Thursday night (like our Friday night) - discos blaring music, huge neon billboards lit up, donkey cards in the noisy, loud traffic and women begging with their children around them on the road medians. Sad. Sad. Sad.
Walid ushered us into the airport. Walid, because he is a licensed tour guide, was allowed to come past security with us. Even though the check-in desk had just opened, the lineup for economy class was already a mile long. The lineup at First Class was very short. Walid asked if we were flying First Class. “Only in my dreams,” I replied. So, Walid strode up to the First Class check-in desk, explained the situation (not in all its gory details) and asked if we could check in via the First Class desk. I might have been able to stand long enough in that short line. The Emirates airline agent, bless his heart, actually allowed us to jump to the head of the First Class queue. We were through booking in one minute flat. That’s probably the closest we’ll ever get to First Class. What a blessing to have Walid as our shepherd!
We walked slowly to our gate - getting a wheel chair in that airport is nigh on impossible. Our attention to mobility issues in Canada and the US is far superior. I wasn't feeling any worse, and my gastrointestinal system seemed just stable enough to take a stab at this trip. Our backup plan was to assess my condition in Dubai and if I felt I couldn't survive the flight to Toronto, that we would stay with Doug's sister and brother-in-law for a few days.
So, while all of this was going on, the most of the rest of the group headed to Luxor. Paul and Cathy had been there last year as part of a cruise and opted to spend the day around the lovely pool at the hotel. Side bar - Paul ripped his leg open when he got attacked by a lounge chair on Monday night and received treatment and one of those fancy IV ports from Dr. Ahmed. We can both attest to Dr. Ahmed's wonderful manner.
The group had a 3:00 a.m. wakeup call for their 7:00 a.m. flight (about one hour to Luxor in the south of Egypt). We had cancelled our wake up call, but got it any way - just when I had finally fallen asleep. That was about the only bobble made by the hotel.
As the site of the Ancient Egyptian city of Thebes, Luxor has frequently been characterized as the "world's greatest open-air museum", as the ruins of the temple complexes at Karnak and Luxor stand within the modern city. Immediately opposite, across the River Nile, lie the monuments, temples and tombs of the West Bank Necropolis, which includes the Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens.
You can see some cool pictures here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxor
It was a long day for the group. They were returning from the airport when we were heading for the airport about 9:30 p.m. on a day that started at 3:00 a.m. My one regret is that we didn't have a chance to say a proper good bye to our fellow travellers. They were all so concerned whenever they saw Doug on Wednesday and sent their best wishes for my speedy recovery.Baca selengkapnya
Apr 20 - Home - finally!!
20 April 2018, Kanada ⋅ 🌙 5 °C
We made our 1:30 a.m. flight to Dubai and I survived it with no major incidents. I really, really didn't want to be the reason the plane would have to make an emergency landing and my face would get plastered all over CNN. No, thank you. I'll pass.
The rest of the group was staying overnight in Cairo and heading out on a 10:00 a.m. flight to London, having a 5-6 hour layover, and then onto Toronto. We were going to be home before they would be.
I still had very little appetite but I concentrated on continuing to get fluids into me. In Dubai, I felt decent and brave enough to tackle the long flight. No chance of an upgrade - the flight was fully booked. We took a deep breath and headed into battle.
Because I was still wired on meds, I was awake the whole flight, and because Doug was so on edge about me, he was awake the whole flight. I watched four movies - Marshall (about Thurgood Marshall's early days as a NAACP lawyer), The Shape of Water (best picture Oscar winner), Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri (rough language) and On Wings of Eagles (about Eric Liddell of Chariots of Fire fame when he was a POW in China).
The flight was blessedly quite smooth, although had the "feathering" of the aircraft coming into Toronto lasted much longer, Doug would have been in trouble. We used our new Nexus cards that deem us to be "trusted travellers" to access the Nexus gate that had no line up and thereby bypass the long lines at passport control. Those cards are the best $100 each we've spent in a long time. The kind officer helped us to figure out how to claim the rug that was coming.
We saw some piles of snow at the airport - the vestiges of a vicious ice storm that had slashed through Ontario the previous weekend, causing traffic havoc and power blackouts and fallen trees. We missed it all! Sweet. On the drive home (about an hour), we revelled at seeing orderly traffic with no donkey carts or tuk-tuks and no pedestrians zig zagging across the highway.
We were home safely by 7:00 p.m. and ever so happy. There is nothing, just nothing like home.
Epilogue - my gastrointestinal system got a bit better each day and I finished the medications on Sunday night. I still wasn't sleeping well because of one of the meds so adjusting to the jet lag was a lost cause. Monday morning - I woke up covered in a red, itchy rash. Great - an allergic reaction to either one of the drugs, or a combination of two or more of them. Couldn't get into see our family doctor, so we went to a walk in clinic and got Prednisone, a powerful steroid to combat the spread of the rash which was heading swiftly towards my face and throat and could have hit me with anaphylactic shock at any time. The Prednisone slowed things down. By Tuesday, I was still a mess, but at least anaphylactic shock seemed to be no longer imminent. The rash was trying to spread down my forearms and down below my knees. I spent a lot of time oatmeal baths and having Doug slather me with a non-steroidal based ointment recommended by the pharmacist. The Prednisone makes me jumpy and almost twitchy, so no chance of sleep while taking it. The doctor gave me sleeping pills but they couldn't seem to make a difference. Good thing the newspapers come nice and early because I was up at all kinds of weird hours. Saw our family doctor on Wednesday and gave him the whole sordid story. He prescribed anti-itch pill to use at night that induces drowsiness. I actually slept properly on Wednesday evening. He's going to refer me to the Adverse Reactions Clinic to get to the bottom this wicked reaction so that we can avoid it in the future. By Thursday, I was on the mend, with the rash mostly receded, but lots of weird blotchiness still remaining. What an ordeal!
And as if that wasn't enough, Doug brought home a cold from Egypt. He's getting better now but has sounded like Kermit the Frog for a few days. He refereed a couple of basket ball games yesterday with virtually no voice. Used a lot of hand signals I guess.
And so, our big Middle East adventure is over. We enjoyed so many things - seeing Patty and Bob in fascinating Dubai; visiting several World Heritage Sites; riding Casa Nova the Camel in sight of the iconic Great Pyramids; floating down the Nile River; and seeing sites of significance from the Bible. Visiting the site of the baptism of Christ was very spiritual moving for me. It was truly a memorable trip, with a bit of a bobble on the end, but we got through it, with a few valuable lessons learned.
We were delighted to travel in small group where we could get to know one another. We wish all our fellow travellers wonderful future adventures.
And to all of you who have patiently followed this blog, I say thank you. Apologies for the delay - it took me several days to be able to concentrate well enough to tackle finishing this blog. Go back to about April 15 - that's where the first posting from Cairo was when I first encountered slow upload speed. It has been a pleasure having you along for the ride. I hope you have learned some things about Dubai and Jordan and Egypt. May you too continue to enjoy learning about this fascinating world of ours.
Doug and I are off to Newfoundland for two weeks in late May - we're going to see whales and ice bergs and meet some of Canada's most friendly people - the Newfies. I'll probably blog that one too!Baca selengkapnya