By Ann Joachim
Gold Solas Award-winner in the Cruise Story category
Some people travel to Egypt at Christmas and New Year’s purely for pleasure—to experience thousands of years of history and savor the delightfully dry and sunny weather, to escape the wet grayness of London or the blizzards of Michigan. Others travel to forget: a bad love, a disappointment in work, loneliness, a dire medical diagnosis, or a recently dead spouse. When their world has failed them, they take to the road. As a tour manager for one of the world’s premier travel companies, I always found the holidays a mixed challenge; you try to create a joyful experience, all while mindful that some tourists have simply come to flee the dark.
Even tourism professionals have escape fantasies. In early December 1980, I was lying around the apartment shared with my husband Michael in Ann Arbor, looking at dust bunnies under our couch and wondering how to fight the gloom of Michigan winter, when my boss Nigel called.
“Ann, how would you like to do the holiday tour of Egypt?”
Patterns of frost had formed on the windows, and I thought, “Hot damn, holidays in Egypt are great, not to mention the possibility of generous gratuities from travelers.” Plus, there was that expense account for purchasing small gifts for my group, the Christmas Eve dinner to plan, and the lovely prospect of drinks on the balcony of my hotel room overlooking the Nile.
An inveterate traveler and Egyptologist, Michael understood my wanderlust. Truthfully, if our situations had been reversed, he’d likely have jumped on a plane without too much thought. Still, with a stab of guilt, I left him home to suffer from Midwestern snow and ice during the peak holiday season.
For the trip, the group of travelers was diverse—a honeymoon couple, a father and son, and several singles, a middle-aged businessman, an octogenarian lady, a retired librarian, and an administrative assistant. A good mix of companions for the holiday, and maybe the singles would form friendships over bridge, backgammon, or chess.
These weren’t novice travelers. Most had toured throughout Europe, some had ventured into the Tunisian desert or gambled in Macau. But Egypt is not Europe, nor is it a metropolis like Hong Kong.
Even a Nile cruise can be strenuous—at each stop you might walk for distances on sandy soil, climb over uneven ground and on ruins. It helps to have good feet, stamina, and balance if you want to see all the monuments. Many are located off the Nile in the desert, though others are in the city on uneven pavement and jam-packed streets. Of course, you could lounge on the ship, but most of my travelers were game for everything. Mrs. White was one of them. Blue eyes clouded with cataracts, a slight C shaped spine, silver hair neatly curled. She was over eighty years old and curious to see everything on every tour. But her balance was not great.
We were on our way by boat to Aswan from Luxor on a glamorous three-day cruise. One stop was Kom Ombo, a Greco Roman temple and the home of at least 300 crocodile mummies. The temple is remarkable for its dual design—courts, halls, and sanctuaries dedicated to two different gods: half to the Egyptian crocodile god Sobek—a god of fertility and protection against the dangers presented by the Nile waters; the other half dedicated to the falcon god Horus, most notably the god of sky and kingship. Our ship had docked near the temple, and our group walked across a gangplank for a short hike to the ancient monument, majestically sited on the river.
Mrs. White started out just fine, making it across the gangplank with the help of the sailors on the ship. But when we entered the temple complex, she began to totter even though she was wearing thick soled shoes. My job was to keep the entire group together and moving, but I kept one eye on her.
I could hear some of the others murmuring, “How did her doctor and her family ever allow her to come on this tour?” Personally, I agreed with them. Wouldn’t it have been better for her to have a companion? What’s more, travelers over a certain age had to be cleared by their physicians for travel, and they had to sign a waiver, absolving the company of responsibility. Several other tourists ended up holding her arms or steadying her on the ruins, and even lifting her over the uneven temple floor, which was littered with shattered columns. Secretly, I said a prayer to the god Sobek to protect her from harm.
Fingers crossed, I hoped that she would make it through the tour in one piece. She was lucid most of the time yet had forgetful moments. That evening, she showed up bright and beaming for our dinner in her underwear–a slip and some old-school peach colored bloomers.
“Mrs. White,” I said as I took her aside, “The group is gathering for dinner this evening. You might want to put on some different clothes like a shirt and pants or a skirt.”
The lady didn’t take offense, but looked down, swallowed, and said, ”Oh dear. This is what happens when you’re my age. You not only lose people, you lose things too.”
I accompanied her to her cabin so she could dress, reminding myself that old age is a journey’s end for us all.
That evening we were still anchored near the temple at Kom Ombo. The night sky was blue black and clear as water, without ambient industrial light, just perfect for stargazing. From the ship’s upper deck, I could see the belt of Orion and Sirius and Betelgeuse, so far away but almost pulsing and glittering—an auspicious sign for tomorrow, sailing, and our holiday celebrations to come.
Then worn out by the day, I staggered to my cabin and fell asleep as soon as I crawled into my bunk. Hours later, I woke at dawn, body heavy, but mind alert, slumber impossible when the boat was moving, the engines thrumming. We were now cruising south to Aswan, about 50 kilometers away. Coffee was what I needed to jump start my system before facing the tourists at breakfast. Fortunately, our cabin steward Ahmed, knew of my caffeine addiction and kindly left an ibrik of strong, thick Arabic coffee on a brass tray outside my door. A cup of the black sugary drink sent a jolt into my logy body, enabling me to get dressed and to the dining room, my game face on.
We reached Aswan just as the sun was climbing in the eastern sky, casting a golden glow over the city’s mud brick dwellings, apartment buildings, and hotels. After we docked and disembarked, we boarded feluccas, traditional lateen rigged sailboats, and made our way to our hotel on the Nile’s Elephantine Island. Lush gardens with papyrus, lotus, and bougainvillea, surrounded the property—a picture-perfect spot that charmed the tourists.
“Look at the palm trees and flowers. And it’s December!”
“Goodbye arthritis. I read that you can get buried here in warm sand up to your neck if you have aches and pains.”
“The bar looks welcoming. I need a beer.”
“Get me to a masseuse.”
Contented travelers, an omen for the good days to come. But not for everyone apparently.
Early evening I cruised through the hotel’s bar to see if any of my people were having happy hour drinks. Sam, a businessman and a solo traveler, sat alone.
“Scooch over,” I said, so I could join him on the wicker settee. “What’s up?”
His large, lined face was wet and salty.
“I keep thinking about this past year. My wife died and now I’m by myself. I thought this trip might help with the sadness over the holiday. Being around people. But I keep wishing she were here.”
I was no psychologist but knew enough about grief to realize that that happy talk wasn’t the right thing. Those cliches sound disingenuous: “It takes time, a full cycle of a year.”
You can’t put a timetable on grief. The only thing to do was to listen while he released a free flowing stream of memories, bubbling up fast, too much for me to recall in perfect detail, but the gist of it was,
“It’s strange…just images and pieces of our life together come back to me. Her warm, low voice. Her delicious Italian cooking. Her dark curly hair and blue eyes. When I saw her on our wedding day, her smile nearly stopped me from breathing. She is irreplaceable. I have children and grandchildren, and even though they are a part of her, they are not her. We’d planned so many things together, like this trip. And now I am doing it alone.”
I listened and nodded my head but had no response. Maybe my open ear would help a bit to ease the crazy, sharp pain in his heart.
Christmas in Egypt is celebrated twice—once on December 25th by some Christians, and then on January 7th by Eastern Orthodox Christians, who use the Julian calendar. About 10 percent of the population are Coptic Christians, and many are so serious about the holiday that they abstain from any animal flesh for 43 days before Christmas. Muslims honor Jesus’s birthday too. The Koran names Jesus among the greatest of the prophets and mentions his miraculous birth to Mary, so some Muslims celebrate by decorating their homes with lights and exchanging gifts. To me, Christmas in Egypt always seemed to lack the commercialism of that in the States—the bombardment with trite, cheery jingles in stores starting before Thanksgiving with the pressure to buy buy buy.
As December 25th approached, I prepared to make the holiday festive for the tourists yet secular in deference to different religious beliefs in the group. One early morning I went to the souq or bazaar, where merchants sold everything from amber and woven baskets, to the famous fuul Sudani or delicious roasted peanuts, henna powder and spices that infused the air with the sharp scents of cumin, turmeric, and saffron. The market was lively with shoppers of every stripe: Nubians in headwraps, pinstripe-suited Egyptian businessman, Somali women looking like flowers with their bright purple, yellow, orange, and green headwraps, local Egyptian women in long black robes, their arms adorned with gold bangles. The southernmost city in Egypt, Aswan deserved its name as the gateway to Africa.
I bought small presents for my tourists—handmade handkerchiefs filled with trinkets—an ankh or symbol of life keychain, a brass letter opener, a tiny, gilded leather picture frame, a knotted bracelet of bright blue beads.
At one end of the market, a shopkeeper, a buff, tall and handsome Nubian who knew me, started teasing. The picture of audacity and good humor, he gave me a big gold toothed grin, “Gawwizzini, ya gazella. Marry me, oh gazelle.”
I laughed, held up my hand, and said, “See my ring? I already have a husband in Amreeka. Maybe you are permitted four wives, but I can only have one husband.”
In fact, he was kidding me, but I had shot right back at him. The Quran permits Muslim men to have four wives, but they must have the resources to treat all of them fairly, including housing, time, and family support. It’s not always a feasible lifestyle for men of limited means.
“But he’s there and you are here,” he joked. “Why would you leave him back in Amreeka?”
O.K. He struck a nerve. Yes, why? Because it was my job. It allowed me to travel. It was a way to use Arabic, a language I loved to speak and read. The undulating Nile, the green sugarcane fields, the white egrets plucking in the grain, the smells of oranges, garlic, cooking oil. Egypt, a country that I loved as nearly as much as my own. All good reasons.
On the other hand, I felt anxious that perhaps my work in tourism was a way of killing time. I’d recently completed a graduate degree in Near Eastern Studies and was unsure about my future and career. The constant shuttle between the States and Egypt made me feel split in half, one foot in each country, but belonging to neither. Then too, I’d left Michael, my husband and true love, back in the States to face the frigid Michigan winter, for the sake of my job. Over time, travel could put a strain on a marriage—to see your spouse every few weeks, breeze by the apartment to get clean clothes, then take to the road again.
Just last week, an airmail letter from him had arrived at our Egyptian agency in Cairo. He’d described the fierce wind gusts outside our bedroom window at midnight in Ann Arbor, and he wished I were there to keep him warm. At various times in our relationship, we’d followed each other around the world, but even so, that didn’t make the ocean that now separated us easier to tolerate.
Was Sam teaching me a lesson that life is fragile? If you’ve found love, seize it while you can? In the interstices between the daily worries of my job, these questions nagged me.
Back in my hotel room on Christmas Eve, I wrestled myself into a glittery Egyptian robe or gallabiyya. Examining my image in the mirror, I decided I looked like a tall blue disco ball covered in sequins. Red lipstick, a line of kohl under my eyes, blue shadow on my lids, and a spritz of orange blossom cologne completed my holiday ensemble. Ready to party.
Our group met at the bar for drinks, where I gave them the small gifts. Everyone was decked out in their holiday best. John, our understated librarian, wore a classy light blue linen sport coat and hand stitched leather shoes. Andrea, our administrative assistant, looked like a soft cloud in a white cashmere sweater decorated with pearls. And Mrs. White had put on a lavender pantsuit, low patent leather heels and diamond earrings.
Well-fortified with alcohol, we adjourned to the dining room where the aromas made my mouth water. The dinner was elegant—an eggplant puree, salad, grilled lamb and prawns in the shell, baked rice loaded with butter, green beans stewed with garlic and tomatoes, and finally traditional Egyptian sweets—basbousa, a semolina cake drenched in sugar syrup and kunafeh, made from spun shredded wheat and filled with nuts and cream. Looking out over the garden, we could watch the Nile flow by. A glorious winter in Egypt, so far from the miserable weather in the Rustbelt Midwest. Dinner ended with toasts all around to a successful trip.
After our meal, we began to hear the thrum of drums: an Afro-Egyptian beat. Drummers dressed in robes with golden braid emerged from the hallway. A reed player blew a high pitched tune like the Pied Piper, and the lead drummer began guiding people around the lobby. A long serpent of people started to conga. Right foot, left foot, spangled hips shaking, heads tossing, people dancing into exhaustion. How could you be sad while you were moving like that? I looked around. Sam was in line. Mrs. White had joined the group, though going more slowly toward the end of the snake. With her veined hands on the waist of the dancer in front of her, she likely felt stable and secure. John, the librarian, was boogying to the music. Andrea, the administrative assistant, was shaking her hips and shoulders like a windup toy.
At last, tired from dancing, I left the line and flopped onto one of the couches in the lounge. The nerve endings of my hands and feet tingled and I felt as if I were hungover, but without any headache or nausea. I thought, maybe I’m getting older and the touring life is catching up with me. My restless mind turned over and over, swinging from thoughts of Sam’s weeping and Mrs. White’s cognitive disfunction, to the Nubian vendor’s teasing and my own career dilemmas.
Then it occurred to me that though travel would never resolve the human problems of loneliness, uncertainty, sadness, or aging, our troubles might be briefly forgotten in the whirlwind of diverse peoples, different cultures, and changing schedules. We were liberated from the heartbreak of the past and the uncertainties of the future. Watching the dancers, I realized that the long snaking line of revelers had taken us away from our cares.
In that luminous moment, all anxiety, all sorrow had dissolved into the music and rhythm of Egypt.
~ ~ ~
Ann Joachim is a writer and recovering high-tech marketing executive living in Oak Park, Illinois. Chapters of her memoir about working as a tour manager on the Nile won Solas Awards for Best Cruise Stories in 2024 and 2025. Recently, she was named a finalist for her creative nonfiction essay in the Women on Writing Competition. Her business writing has been featured in magazines, annual reports, video scripts, and media releases. Ann holds a B.A. in English and an M.A. in Near Eastern and North African Studies, Arabic. When not writing, she loves boating on the Great Lakes and