The Road to Luxor

We stood at the kerbside waiting for the taxi, the luxurious all-inclusive hotel behind us and adventure in front. After a week of lazing by the pool and reading, we were ready to see the wonders of the Nile.

The taxi arrived, its boot slowly rising, a response from a signal inside the car. The driver didn't get out, neither did he speak as we got in, instead pulling out into traffic before I had even fastened my seat belt.

"Good morning.'" I offered. No response; that's fine, it's too early for chit-chat anyway, I thought.

I listened to the 'call to prayer', the soothing voice rising and falling with my breath, from the cab radio, and watched the drab outskirts of Hurghada pass by as we trundled to the bus station: half-built high rises with construction steels rising like bony fingers into the hazy, morning skyline, mounds of builder’s rubble competing with the miles of sand, and a vast array of vehicles competing for space on the busy, two-lane highway.

As we reached the centre of town, we crawled past squalid low-rise apartment blocks squatting in the dust, the washing, flapping lazily from the rope lines, the only clue that these buildings were occupied. Habitable. Homes. Homes for thousands, and such a stark contrast to the alabaster and gold façade of the hotel we'd just left.

We were dropped at the kerbside. I wished the silent driver a silent goodbye and thank you as he continued to attend his prayer, my husband's "Shukran" earning him the slightest of nods.

The bus station was just one small room with a few rickety chairs, and crowded with people, mostly Arabic: stressed mothers coaxing and bribing their children, a family travelling together with an assortment of mis-matched luggage and equally colourful attire, and a few travellers like us with backpacks or travel cases; people of all ages and races - a melting pot of culture.

A man entered in shabby western clothes and a lilac turban. 'You Luxor?' he asked everyone, taking down details on a clipboard from those who responded with an affirmative, before shepherding us out towards the bus to stow our luggage and take our seats.

We ignored the neon seat belt sign, as on inspection there were none, and hoped that we didn't need the toilet, as that was also out of order.

On the dot of 8am the engines roared and we made our way tentatively out of the yard and onto the street beyond, our driver's horn joining the constant toot of everyone else's. ‘What does it mean, all that tooting?’ I thought. ‘Hello friend, look out, get out of my way, or was it just a joyful exuberance that we were finally on our way?’

Who knows?

As our bus wound its way slowly down impossibly narrow streets, dodging oncoming traffic of every kind, I found myself thinking that I was glad we hadn't opted to hire a car. We have both driven abroad in many countries, but this was something else; frantic and aggressive, and I was happier being a passenger than being part of the maelstrom in front of us.

Once on the highway we picked up pace, travelling south with the Red Sea on our left and nothing but sand on our right.

After stopping to pick up passengers in Safaga, we turned inland, the route winding through Egypt’s Eastern Desert, rugged red sea hills and deep wadis contrasting with occasional stretches of wide, open desert, which was dotted with sparse desert flora, acacia trees and small shrubs.

We sped along the wide, new road with another four hours in front of us, many travellers choosing to sleep and others passing the time-consuming endless snacks; the couple in front were certainly not going to go hungry, munching their way through a bag full of pastries, crisps, bananas and oranges before we had even lost sight of the Red Sea.

We shared a packet of crisps and half a bottle of water, content just to leave the half-finished buildings and piles of rubble behind, and watch the endless sand hills and blue sky through the window.

After a couple of hours, and with no advanced warning, the bus veered from the highway, continuing at an alarming speed across rough gravel to come to an ungainly stop in front of a low building. The driver shouted '20 minutes' and disappeared down the steps; it would appear that we were taking a break.

It was indeed, a service area, although one like I had never seen before. A central aisle led directly to the toilets, which we accessed by crossing the palm of a young boy - any note would do, and no change was offered.

To one side of the aisle was a café of sorts; just shelves of colourful, packaged confectionery and canned soft drinks, with a few plastic tables and chairs, mainly occupied by bus drivers.

To the other side was a colourful bazaar, presided over by a large, and very determined-looking, man in a flowing white jibbah. I averted my eyes quickly, but he had already seen me, and swooped, asking, "Welcome, where are you from?"

This, I soon learned, was the standard greeting used by stall holders and shop-keepers of all kinds, whatever their business; quite clever really, as they have simply asked a polite question, which is hard to ignore, especially for us Brits for whom politeness can be an achilles heel.

From there his patter escalated predictably, until we found ourselves leaving with a t-shirt we didn't really want, but consoling ourselves with the fact that we had haggled him down to a much cheaper, but probably still inflated price - there is only ever one winner in these tussles, and it isn't the customer.

We quickly retreated to our seats on the bus where we would be safe from any more such fraudulently polite assaults, to await the driver's return.

Back on the road, we passed through Qena, picking up a couple more passengers, and then crossing the Nile for the first time, following it south towards Luxor.

We were now driving through the fertile Nile Valley and the change in landscape was startling. Fields of sugar cane, banana trees and other crops surrounded us and

we watched as they were farmed - harvested and bundled into ancient trucks, before being driven away down pot-holed tracks by donkey-pulled carts.

Out of Qena, the road became a modern highway, fairly new with four lanes, and we picked up pace; the signs told us that we were now only an hour from Luxor.

Naively, we assumed that the last stretch, on what was effectively a motorway, would be uneventful, however Egypt likes to surprise.

At first, the range of traffic was as expected, with cars, buses and lorries speeding along at up to 100kmph, however, very quickly we had concerns.

We hadn't expected to see tuc-tuc-carts with whole families teetering in their tiny trucks. Neither had we expected to see horse-drawn carriages, carts of vegetables hauled by donkeys and driven by young boys, or a family of three on a motorbike - baby swaddled between mum and dad with not a helmet in sight. There were ancient minivans, missing their sliding side-doors and full to bursting with people, and possibly the most surprising, a camel - tied down with rope - in a flat-bed truck.

The range of vehicles and varying rates of travel were astonishing, with drivers swarming; weaving in and out of the traffic with absolutely no lane discipline, and constantly beeping their horns, presumably to ward off any impending and disastrous collisions.

As if that wasn't mind-boggling enough, we started to see traffic coming towards us - on our side of the carriageway: motorbikes and cars travelling in the wrong direction at speed, a boy and girl on a push-bike crossing the central reservation, and even an elderly woman on foot less than a metre from the side of the road.

The situation was a visual definition of ‘sensory overload’, and was terrifying. I didn't want to look but somehow, I couldn't look away my eyes glued to the spectacle unfolding ahead.

After what seemed like an interminable amount of time, I was grateful to see the end of the motorway ahead - until, that is, I realised that that was exactly what it was, and we were hurtling towards an expanse of desert; a sea of sand.

My stomach flipped as the driver braked hard, making a sharp U-turn onto the opposite carriageway and then an equally bracing right down an exit road. Only then was I able to breathe normally again.

As we entered Luxor and recrossed the Nile, the road narrowed, the traffic becoming an angry frenzy of horns with every driver trying to squeeze their way through impossible gaps as they weaved their way through the bottleneck.

As we approached our stop, we left the throng to inch our way down single lane streets, crammed with market stalls, horses and carts, camels and motorbikes as well as groups of men smoking and women chatting, seemingly oblivious of the madness surrounding them. Nobody seemed to have any regard for the traffic rules (assuming there were any) and it appeared to be each man for himself.

As we came to a standstill, there seemed to be a collective exhalation, as though everyone on the bus had been holding their breath. Even the bus itself seemed to sigh as its pneumatics settled into a grateful, resting position, and on jellied legs, we exited the bus and jumped into a taxi for the final leg of our journey.

During our final, short ride, the driver asked where we had come from, and when we told him he replied,

"Ah, the new road to Luxor! It’s much better than it used to be."

And so it was that, with a shared glance and raised eyebrows we sank back in our seats and relaxed as we set off, our driver completely at ease as he expertly manoeuvred his car into the stream of never-ending pandemonium, that seems to be completely normal in this part of the world.

And I suppose that if you have never known any different, it is completely normal.