Having spent fruitless time and megabytes attempting to book a bus ticket to Luxor without having to book out an entire bus, I decided to wing it and do things the old school way. I arose at seven, dumping my room keys at the reception and took an Uber to the local microbus station.
The driver drove past the station two hundred metres before dropping me off, not quite believing this white guy was not on a tour. When I walked uphill to the train station, with help from a staff member at a nearby coffee shop, I discovered that no microbuses were heading to Luxor, but I could get one to Cairo, which I was trying to avoid, and then find something to Luxor. I hopped on the bus, which was nearly empty, and waited.
The deal with these decidedly tourist-unfriendly buses is that they leave when full, not to any schedule known to man or gods. I have been told you can pay for the empty seats to leave quickly, but I have never been asked to do this, and the suggestion seems to go against the whole principle of the situation. The fare must be paid in cash, and is handed to either the driver’s offsider or an elder customer acting as trip treasurer. This leaves the driver free to talk on the phone, honk his horn, and generally make life unpleasant for other road users.
This time, it took an hour for the bus to fill up, and as usual, I was the only Westerner on board, which made me happy. I paid 160 EGP for this uncomfortable trip, with my duffel bag shoved under my seat- they are not really set up for large amounts of luggage, but it didn’t seem like I was asked to pay extra- which was virtually nothing compared to the 500 EGP I was charged for shorter trips on Gobus coaches. I arrived in Cairo just before noon, which turned out to be the dusty lot I left Cairo from. Due to a confusing series of events, I walked in traffic to another station to buy a ticket to Luxor, which ended up being a Gobus service, leaving from the dusty lot of just walked from, leaving in six hours. The staff member assumed I was a rich American and sold me some kind of deluxe VIP ticket. I took an Uber back to where the bus was leaving, and left my bag there (another 50 EGP). From there I walked, had a very Western lunch, then a more traditional coffee on Meret Basha, overlooking the Ritz Carlton. Next to the Ritz was the old Egyptian Museum, formerly the grand jewel holding the majority of the Ancient Egyptian artifacts. Now it’s dusty and has been eclipsed by the brand new and very sexy Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza. Regardless, I was close and had time to kill, so I crossed multiple lanes of chaotic traffic, passed through security measures more stringent than most airports, paid the fee, and avoided the offer of a guide, and entered.
It’s still worth a look and displays some mummified remains and smaller artifacts. Additionally, the building itself has its own old-world charm.
During my visit, the place was somehow busier than the GEM during my visit, and I only stayed an hour, concerned I was going to be swept up in a tour group and suffer an existential crisis. I didn’t take many photos, but I did like this Sphinx depicting Hatshepsut, a female pharaoh from the Eighteenth Dynasty.
Crossing the roads again, I made the mistake of buying some mints from a gentleman sitting against a tree, and another man struck up a conversation, and next thing I knew, I was drinking coffee around the corner with him. I knew it was part of a sales pitch, but the path of least resistance led me to go along with it. After coffee and a chat, he led me to his handicrafts and perfume store, and I managed to leave without buying anything, but I did promise I would come back when I am back in Cairo.
When I returned to the bus company office and was reunited with my bag, I walked back over to the dusty lot that served as the overflow bus station where the bus was leaving. This is why I usually avoid expensive bus rides. They typically end up being much like the cheaper ones. The bus, once I was able to board, was very nice, with an LCD screen in front of me in case I wanted to watch any Arabic TV, a USB port for charging (yay), and a very comfortable reclining seat. I was also offered snacks, coffee or tea, and a bottle of water. I slept on and off for the entire trip, read and watched YouTube videos, and wished I had the budget for my internal flights.
At 2 am, the bus attendant woke me as we stopped at Luxor. I gathered my things and acted dumb as a different attendant tried to get a tip out of me for taking my bag out of the bus. I stumbled in the vague direction of my hotel. The first half of this walk I had to fend off the increasingly desperate taxi drivers. In the second half of the walk I had to convince someone walking with his family that I really didn’t want to book a tour while half-asleep.
Luckily, my host was awake, and, showing an incredibly non-Egyptian pragmatism, simply grabbed my bag, showed me to my room, and left me to dream of puppies and maniac pixie dream girls.
Adrian's Got The Moose 