Oh, you mean ”Babes”

I was told as I was leaving for my one-month vacation that I would have ”great vacation romance”. Apparently, this is an essential part in traveling—meeting fellow journeyers, the mixing of hows and whys of their lives up to the moment that it all spills out on the simple tabletops of coffee houses, hostels, and tourist bars so that our souls would mingle and would homogenize into a puddle of shared bodily fluids.

Unfortunately, whomever it was that imagined those vacation trysts for me wasn't aware that the Lonely Planet guide to Egypt strongly cautions single women against traveling alone. So, everywhere one looked there were tourists of all colors and sizes and beauty, but with either their parents, boyfriends, girlfriend, and the occasional gaggle of older women that reminded me of the cast of The Golden Girls, but on spring break.

Fortunately for me, I was too much in love with Egypt and the complexity of her people to feel sorry for myself for not having brought my own girl companion.

For starters, the local girls were gorgeous. The scarves around their heads give them all this air of innocence and sweetness. The smoothness and flatness surrounding their forehead and cheeks highlighted the contours of their features and the darkness of their eyes. Compared to the European and Eastern Bloc girls who wore cute, skimpy shorts and tank tops, it was so much easier to fall in love with the home team.

Not as if I was magically attracted to and chatting up the local ladies, either. To be honest, the only Egyptian females I spoke to over there was this girl selling cokes and cigarettes at the bus station, and only because her mom and younger sister (?) were there. It was too scary to talk to the local girls on the street because you never know who is lurking about keeping an eye on their ”sisters” and making sure no George Bush loving aggressor would defile their virtuous women.

But back to the only Egyptian girls I spoke to. There was no one else in the bus terminal except for three male passengers waiting as well and there was about an hour before the bus from Luxor to Hurghada arrived. I tried to buy a coke from the girl with a 20 £E bill that had a hole in it, taped over, and she looked through the hole at me and told me that no one would accept the bill from her in that condition. I gave the defective bill back to the station master (who had given it to me as change, anyway), and I went back over there to hang out and chat.

She was quite pretty, very dark, very native. She mentioned almost immediately that she had a husband and I said that that was great and that I was very happy for the both of them. I'm not sure if I understood her, though, as she struggled with her English as she asked me if I were a husband and proceeded to say that she was looking for a husband as well.

I hovered around their makeshift stall long enough for her and her mother to teach me some words like ga-zee-lan (very much) and book-rah (tomorrow) and another word for day after tomorrow that I can't remember. Her mom also was able to ask me what it was that I did for a living. She pointed to herself and her wares and said ’market’ and pointed to me in question.

I'll tell you, having to describe ’I am in advertising’ to a non-English speaker put what I did in perspective. I pointed at the Coca Cola and Pepsi logos, picked up packets of chips and wafer biscuits from her box of wares and thrusted them in their faces trying to get them to buy it. I think it became more clear when I mentioned television and pretended that I was a commercial complete with Price is Right Lady hand gestures and with an announcer's voice extolling the jolly virtues of Alybaba Biscuits.

Eventually, I had to go. The bus arrived earlier than expected and I was on the way to Hurghada, a horrible, horrible beach resort location that I would never want to revisit ever again.

It was in Hurghada, however, where I met a very pretty and very nice Russian girl named Ana, who spoke, aside from Russian, English, German, and some French. Really modest young lady who painted in watercolor as a hobby, was studying linguistics in her academy, and who introduced me to the Japanese proverb, ”He who travels alone travels fastest.”

Ironically, she was in one of those large tour groups that descended upon Egypt's historical sites and monuments en masse. (Apparently, she had a grant to study her languages abroad, but paperwork stalled her initial plans, and came to Egypt instead on an offhand recommendation by her travel agent. Sound familiar?)

The Russians on vacation based themselves in the resort town, Hurghada, and would take day-short excursions to Cairo (no doubt whizzed from the pyramids at Giza to Coptic Cairo to Islamic Cairo for the evening market), Luxor (Valley of the Kings, the temple of Hapshepsut and Medinat Habu, Temple of Ramses III), and all the places in between. Really a cheap, piecemeal way to see Egypt. Of course, considering these were people from probably the hardest countries in the world in which to live, with an economy bedraggled in the dirt of globalization, corruption and exploding inflation before, during and after the cold war, it was understandable that they would be find the idea of sitting in the sun (albeit without sand) and swimming in 80° water half of the time a dream vacation.

But I was only to be in Hurghada a day, as I was leaving for Dahab the next morning, and therefore, under no inclination to ”get to know her more”.

After all, I have this unfair stigma attached to my long hair, daring pirate looks, and aggressive behavior that makes women think that when I talk to them, all I want to do is have intimate relations. They think that all men who chat them up were just looking to get laid, and every exchange I had with a woman had the pall of suspicion that any moment hence, I would pop the question, ask whom she was with, did she have roommates, and whether her room was air-conditioned or not. In any case, my England-Egypt-England trip was blessed by the powers of traveling alone without commitment nor fear or insecurity.

It's a wonderful feeling, really, getting to meet all of these souls and learning a thing or two at a time for free, without feeling guilty for walking away and not leaving any part of my soul behind.