Shadow Lines
Dahab, Egypt
Author’s Note
The views contained in this jolly little article are my own and are based on my own firsthand experiences. If you find them disturbing or upsetting then I apologise in advance – it’s just the way I am.
It was early January 2002 and I was standing by the side of a dusty, sterile road with my hand outstretched. I was tired, thirsty and covered in a thin layer of dust and grime. Two and a half hours had passed since an Egyptian military jeep had dropped me at off in the middle of nowhere, and I had been standing baking under an African sun ever since. I was waiting for someone to show me some kindness, and it was a long time coming. As I stood there and hummed through my full repertoire of Steely Dan songs I didn’t realise that my life was about to change by one hundred and eighty degrees, and after this day nothing could ever be the same again. But then I had more immediate concerns – getting to Dahab before the sun cooked me to a crisp.
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My day had begun under canvas in the middle of Wadi Rum and had never looked like improving since that most auspicious of starts. I had taken the gleaming new catamaran over from the Promised Land of Jordan and had finally stepped into the searing heat of Africa. However, for some inexplicable reason, which had something to do with a party of French tourists and a PLO-sponsored gun boat being found a la Maria Celeste in the Red Sea, we were kept in the tin shed of a customs hall at Aqueba for half the day. As we stood and sweated the customs officials wandered amongst the half a dozen or so tourists and scrounged cigarettes. I sat on my rucksack and slowly broiled. Once they found out I was English – though with my three-week beard and Yassar Arafat-style scarf on it was hard to be really sure – they took turns in shouting, ‘Michael Owen’ and ‘ David Beckham’ at me.
By the time they finally let us out of the compound, and had assembled the nastiest, smelliest bunch of criminally inclined taxi divers this side of Lagos, I was already in a foul mood and in no mood for the fully pitched battle which comes with trying to get anywhere near a taxi in Egypt, so I walked towards the edge of the docks and hitched a ride with a bunch of spotty-faced military recruits who didn’t really look old enough to shave let alone be toting M16 machine guns. They dropped me, inexplicably, in the middle of nowhere and told me, with luck, that another patrol should be along sometime and that, with even more luck, I should make Dahab by dinnertime. In the meantime there was nothing to do but stand at the side of the road and dream of ice-cold beer and a shower.
From my diary:
The landscape down from the border was rugged and cruel looking. The horizon, which was lost in the shimmering heat, was broken by a series of jagged spikes that could have been the gateway to Mordor. The cobalt blue sky, totally free from clouds, emphasised the cruellness of the land and made me yearn for the green hills of home.
Eventually a small cloud of dust came into hazy view. As it came closer the haze melded itself into an old Ford pickup truck, which came to a grinding stop in front of me. The driver pointed to the back, which was full of boxes of Jordanian oranges, and as I jumped in and pulled my scarf closer to my mouth he gunned the engine and pulled away, leaving clouds of dust devils dancing in the sun.
From my diary:
Quite unexpectedly we pulled to a halt at the side of the road where another car had apparently broken down. The driver jumped out and after a long and heated discussion grudgingly passed the other driver an empty plastic bottle. I imagined the conversation to be:
Driver 1: Oh, Ahmed, this old piece of shit giving you trouble again.
Driver 2: Yeah Mustaffa, I think it’s the same as last week, this black wobbly thing attached to the engine block has gone pear-shaped.
Driver 1: Oh well, here is my plastic bottle, give it a few taps with this and I will pick it up next time I am smuggling citrus fruit from Jordan. I would love to stay and help but I just picked this scruffy English man up from the side of the road and I have to drive him to the middle of the desert and leave him there.
Driver 2: That will test his Lawrence of Arabia spirit…
I felt almost overwhelmed with freedom and cheekily set about filling my pockets with oranges. By the time we reached the outskirts of Dahab I had the juice of half a dozen oranges running down my chin and my veins pumped with vitamin C. As the driver dropped me at the lights he winked at me – perhaps he could see how my life was about to change�
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