May 10

May 10

We met a fascinating character at breakfast this morning – a 70 yr. old jumpy, chatty British gentleman who’s literally been on the road since 1968.  He’s had a million jobs, a million experiences, a million adventures, a million encounters in a million countries.  He’s never been married.  He has no children.  He has no family (except a brother he contacts occasionally), and no constant friends.  He’s been a transient worker since 1968 and he’s been traveling non-stop since his retirement 10 yrs. ago.  He has no real plans, no itinerary, and no final destination besides the Ultimate Final Destination.  His name’s Andrew and if he’d let me I think I might write his biography for him.  We only talked briefly in the morning but later invited him to accompany us to dinner…

We took a tour with an insightful, hilarious, boisterous tour guide named Aladdin (he has a daughter named Jasmine) and a few other fellow tourists (an American girl, two British guys and two Japanese girls).  We saw various tombs of pharos in the Valley of the Kings and also saw two temples including the fabulous Medinet Habu, Mortuary Temple of Ramesses III.  It was another educational day.

We went to dinner with Andrew.  Our first carriage driver and another carriage driver (happened to be our infamous track-suit guy from yesterday) argued heatedly over who was going to take us to a restaurant.  It wasn’t pretty.  At least, it was incredibly awkward and we both felt bad for Andrew.  Anyways, we arrived at the restaurant and listened to Andrew talk non-stop for at least an hour.  We couldn’t get a word in edge-wise, but it really didn’t matter.

I went to bed feeling sucked dry spiritually from Andrew’s empty (though interesting) ramblings and also drained from the endless, merciless hassling.