The next morning we awoke to see lots of fox prints about 20cm from my head. Hannah of course figured we barely escaped death itself.
“How’s your fly ankle Hannah?” at which stage she forgot about her near fox death experience and ran to the antiseptic cream.
So on the Desert Safari we saw Black Desert, White Desert, Crystal Mountain and mushroom rocks.
We got back to Barhariya Oasis at 11:00am, 1hr before our bus was scheduled to come so we sat around and at 11:20 asked ot go to the station. The man at us like we were crazy. “You want to wait in the sun for nothing?”
“I don’t know, I just want to get the bus.”
“Well wait.” He commanded.
So we waited a while and left a while later. On the way in the car, Moleface kept asking for backsheesh / money. See as far as I could see all he had done was try to molest Hannah constantly who was my ‘fiancé’, dropped my camera in the sand and put sand all through the lens, slept the whole tour complaining about being thirsty and ripped us off by making us pay more. So I told him all this in simple English and said no. He got quite angry at this so when he was out of the car we decided to give the driver some for them to share. So to repay our kindness they drive around for 5 minutes then turn back to us and say “You have missed the bus but don’t worry we will get you one tomorrow and you can stay another night at our hostel, “ then under his breathe he continued, “Or you could take the bus at midnight, but you really don’t want to do that.”
Blood instantly started pulsating violently through my veins towards my cranium. In my fury I could barely speak. Technically I didn’t call him a liar or accuse him of anything but I think he got the general picture that I was extremely pissed off and thought he was a liar.
“Take me to the tourist police”
“No you can trust me, I tell the truth.”
Instant lie because all Egyptians by simple nature are liars courtesy of the lying gene they are all born with.
“Take me anyway”
“No it’s alright I will just take you home.”
Pretty soon I was convinced I would turn green and start breaking things, but as luck would have it the hulk inside didn’t emerge.
Anyway seeing as I had seen people tell people what to tell us before, I let them take us home because I could walk into town and ask someone in peace. Before I could leave though the owner came and sat us down.
“I am sorry the bus came at 10:30 today.”
“Oh right are you sure about that?”
“Yes, absolutely.”
“So what you are telling me is this. It’s the same bus we came here on which leave Cairo at 7:30am.”
“Yes”
“And we arrived at 11:45am when we took it.”
“Yes”
By now I had the witness all primed and ready to burn.
“So your telling me today the magic speed bus did a 4 hours trip in less than 3 hours?”
“Yes”
“So seeing as we did the 500km journey in 4 hours that would mean he would have to travel 25% faster than we did so at an average speed of 125km/hr the magic bus travelled at an average of 160km/hr give or take.”
Checkmate.
“Yes of course” I felt the rage.
“Oh bloody hell mate…..” how could someone be so stupid, “Now you are taking the absolute piss with me and I don’t like it people lie to my face.”
“So you will be staying another night then?” He asked hopefully.
At this stage Hannah started getting angry and me getting angry so I just looked at him with a scowl and walking into town.
About 20m from my destination the hotel driver pilled up and offered me a ride. Good timing seeing as it had taken me 40minutes in the hot Sahara sun to get there.
I refused the generous offer.
I was pleased to find out that the bus had come at 12:00 noon and the night one was leaving at 11 at night not 12.
I saw mole face after confirming this with 3 people so I went up to him and said, “Hey man, why lie, do you enjoy taking a day out of someone’s holiday, a holiday with limited time, for your own selfish greediness”, Yes in 4 months you can only do so much you see, “lying for your own person gain is pathetic. In fact you are a lying pathetic little loser.” I was angry because we only had 7 days left in Egypt and I had carefully plotted what we would see and we only had just enough time at each of the places so now I was going to have to scratch one of the things I wanted to see. How do you chose between places like Valley of the Kings, Abu Simbel, Source of the Nile, Aswan Temples and a cruise up the Nile in a Felucca? It wasn’t like I had wanted to see all these things since I was about 11 and wasn’t going back there again, well actually it was. So having some greedy little slimy Egyptian mole face trying to force us into staying at his hostel was not my idea of fun. So to stop doing anything foolish I walked away.
To anger the manager I took off my shirt when I walked in. I was glad when I saw how angry this made him, but it was making Hannah angry but I was so angry I didn’t care and I wanted everyone else as angry as me, which she did when she found out their little scam.
So to annoy them we bought some beers and drank them on their path. Seeing as it was Ramadan and they cannot even touch beer bottles we left them on the path right in the way of everything and tried to imagine how they would tackle that little problem without damning their souls to hell. I hoped Mole Face got the job.
The owner then tried to tell us the bus left at midnight and he would take us there at 11:50 but since I knew it came at 11:00 I told him to take us to the station for 10:30. Hannah and I had been going nuts. There is only so much you can do in a desert. I had already read 2 books that afternoon. I stole 2 more of his books as well as a kind of severance pay.
The driver pretended he was doing us this massive favour but the tiger had already been released.
“So you catch bus at midnight?” he asked.
“Sorry no English”
“Excuse me.”
“N-o E-n-g-l-i-s-h.” I looked at him despairingly. I would talk to him if only I could.
“Yes you do”
“Today is Friday!” I said proudly.
He got the picture.
We waited around for our bus which came at 11:00.
I was in such a rush to leave I forgot my Havaiana thongs which are impossible to get anywhere so I added that to one of the reasons I didn’t like Mole Face. The price was £26 but he charged us £40 which made me angrier. Hannah and I were squeezed in the back seat with fat smelly disgusting Arab men who sweated and greased all over us. I added that to the list of reason I didn’t like Mole Face. The back was so boiling hot and sand was swirling around and getting into everything and the man next to me was trying to use my shoulder as a mattress. I added that to the list of reasons I didn’t like Mole Face. When he tried to use my lap as a pillow I even blamed Mole Face. When I forced the man off my bag he got up reluctantly and to show his annoyance he push real hard on the bag and broke Hannah’s sunglasses. Not sure if that was a positive or negative. Those tiger sunnies were very, how do you put it, unique, or as my Dad would say ‘their different’. I put it on the reasons I didn’t like Mole Face anyway. The fact the man next to Hannah was doing much the same thing to her but with sleazy intentions didn’t help the dislike Mole Face tally.