The next morning after breakfast, Havilah and I made some papyrus from what I am sure was papyrus stems. We left a rock on it and asked Mohummad to come back in 15-17 days and sent it to us. It was a nice mouldy brown colour but I am sure it will be great to receive it seeing as he Egyptian promised to send it.

Once under way we sat around and traded travel stories.

Havilah began with, “I grew up with 8 brothers and sisters and we travelled to Fiji and New Zealand…”

“… New Zealand, I am sorry.” I interrupted. She gave me that special look only girls can give to rude boys who interrupt their stories and continued.

“… and we used to run around and get into small places all the time.” End of story.

“Wow” Hannah and I replied.

“That’s a really great story, We knew a man from Jordan once, you should meet him.”

No one laughed but us.

So I told the story about how once in Florence the Paky had nearly got us thrown out of a museum. We had waited 4 hours to get in and then Paky had gone to the first painting and whispered to me, “Yep mate, this is a fake.”

“No its not”

“Yes it is watch.” And he proceeded to try and scratch it with his nail which set off the alarm.

Next painting, “Mika, see this is a fake as well.” And then licked his finger and put it on the painting to ‘prove it was not oily’

The alarm goes off again.

Third painting. “Mika in case you didn’t believe me look at this picture real close and you can see there is another one underneath it. So he leans over the painting and puts his eye on the picture. Alarm goes off and the lady gives us a final warning, in none too friendly terms.

Hannah and I then told our Egyptian ferry saga.

Phil’s turn and he explained about the time in Africa he had fixed a village’s water supply and the chief had given him a cow and offered his 2 daughters 10, and 12 years old for marriage. The 12 year old was supposedly gutted on his refusal.

Conni then told a heart wrenching story about the time she wet her pants on the same day as her sisters so got no sympathy. I think she was about 20 at the time. Well in my mind she was and she cant say otherwise.

John was too busy studying up about Nile crocodiles to give a travel story.

Tanya told about the time she was on a bus in South America and it had got robbed by gunmen.

Jordan was last with her story about how in primary school she would get so excited by learning she would throw up.

At the end of the story this boat drifted past full of rocks. “Oh I love rocks!” she cried out with glee. I moved a little way away just in case she started to feel ill with all the excitement.

“Do I sound nasal to you?” Conni asked us.

“Errmm, Ummm…” we replied trying to avoid the question.

“Everyone sounds nasal in some way don’t they?” Hannah replied. The answer her mother had taught her.

“Yes, but do I sound especially nasal?” she whined.

“coughyes” she did have one though. That Chicago accent where fast was fah-st not farst and pass pah-st and not parst.

So Hannah and I took it upon ourselves to try and fix her nasally accent into a more rounded Australian one.

Tanya said, “I am from California.” So to show off my extensive knowledge about America I piped in with, “That’s on the East coast isn’t it.” more of a statement than a question.

“Ummm, no, West actually.”

Phil, Hannah and Conni and I started playing Uker. Conni and I vs the other 2 jokers. At 9 a piece it was all squared but we had to leave it there because we landed for a rest stop, Upon return Conni didn’t want to play anymore so John stepped up as my partner. We instantly went 4-0 up.

“John you’re a much better partner than Conni.” Conni looked up from the book she was reading and gave me the scowl she had perfected for people/oily Egyptian men who stared at her too much. Seeing as their response to that look was to give a grin, a wink and lick their lips, I followed suit in true Egyptian fashion. When in Rome.

At one step Havilah and I invented the natra-scratch. It all started with a simple question.

“Havilah, if you only had one arm how would you scratch your elbow?” One of life’s greatest mystery’s.

“Good question.” At this stage I spotted a nice thin flexible stick upon which I placed a nice reed handle.

“I think if I had only one arm I would use this!” I said holding up my cleverly crafted invention.

“Wow, that’s brilliant, you should call it a natra-scratch.” You’ll be seeing them in all the big stores soon. Any day now I am sure.

We stopped off at one stage to go to the camel markets. 26 of us squeezed into the back of a ute and set off to the see the camels which had just trekked from Sudan, obviously to bring in the weed to sell to the Infidels.

“Don’t touch the camels.” The man needlessly said as we went in to see them, “They are angry and bite.” He then prodded the camel until it gapped open its mouth in a far too angry manner. He then made an executive decision after looking us all up and down.

“Ok you!” He pointed to me, “Jump on the camel.”

“You mean the angry one you prodded which has no saddle.”

He grabbed my hand and chucked me on the back of it and gave it a good belt on the backside about 20 seconds before he told me to hold on.

“See how it is only half tamed,” he told the amazed crowd watching, “…but he can still ride it.”

Everyone laughed heartily. I put all their names on my list. Phil’s twice for the vanilla dung beetle call.

“Anyone else?” the camel man asked. There were no takers.

Outside the pen we watched these kids play with their latest gadgets. A tire and a stick. The main theme of the game seemed to be run with the tire and hit it with a stick. Kind of like the games I used to play growing up except I had water bombs and the tires were tourists.

This little kid about 3 showed us all how to tame a camel which was amusing.

Then there was this random baby goat which everyone joined in and played the catch the quick little confused goat game. It was real funny. One of the kids ended up getting it and everyone got to have a hold. It had satan eyes. I suspect it was the CIA again.

Once in town Hannah and Conni went on a mission to find a magnum. Everyone joined in just to shut them up seeing as they had been talking about them constantly for about 2 days.

Egyptians love a good tea and so did Conni. Well actually, she actually liked a bit of water and tea with her sugar. Mohummad would ration the amount of sugar for each round and everyone would have to get their sugar before her because she would tip the tea into the sugar container. Mohummad was a wise man and hid the mysterious source of the sugar so she couldn’t find it. She had a fair crack at it though always looking in all the little nooks and crannies. I suspect he hired Havilah to place it in small places because she was so adept at getting into small crevices. About the only place she didn’t look into was Mohummad robes. They were so flowing you could hide anything in those puppies and be struggling to find them yourself. My money was there anyway but I didn’t tell Conni of my suspicions because I suspect she might have mutinied and demanded his clothes for inspection.

That night we landed and started to look a bit worried. “Mohummad cant we land on the other side? I don’t like this west bank.” We all looked at him like he had seen too much of the Egyptian sun.

“What?” I don’t want us all to catch West Nile River fever.” Hannah looked around suspiciously and clutched her antiseptic cream.

50m up the beach was a boat full of a large group of Aussies who looked a little bit like they had their own case of River Fever I suspect. They stumbled up.

“Hey! How are you doing?” They slurred.

“Umm good thanks.”

“Oi, Red Shirt!?” I looked around hoping there was someone else with a red shirt. Unfortunately there wasn’t. “Were are you from?”

“Wisconsin.” I said in very bad American. Probably more Aboriginal/Texan than anything.

“I hear there is two Aussies here. Put your hands up.” Hannah and I looked around furiously for any 2 Aussies.

“Nope no Aussies here, I’m from Seattle.” Hannah mumbled in a clearly Indian/Yorkshire/Martian accent.

“Well you should all join our party and get crazy with us!”

“Ok thanks for the offer.”

“No Wuckin Furries mate” They said as they teetered away.

“No what!?” the Americans asked Hannah and I.

“Don’t ask” we replied as we hide under our covers. How could this happen? We had met a bunch of Americans cooler than us Aussies. So much so we still wanted to hang out with them more, even though they did sound a bit too nasally and said words like last and fast wrong.

When we got back to the hostel and tried to pay for the Felucca the price had suddenly gone up from Egyptian £95 to £110.

“Do you want beer?”

“Is there ice?”

“Yes an eski.”

“Ok then.”

Sure enough when we got on there was no eski and we had a nice refreshing warm beer.

Our boat company consisted of 6 other Americans.

Hannah rolled her eyes, “Great stuck on a small boat for a night with 6 yanks…”

“Could be worse.”

“Yeah?”

“There could be 8.”

One of the girls, Jordan, struck a conversation with us and so we introduced ourselves. They all knew each other from medical school is Israel so we felt a bit out of place.

10 minutes into out trip a boat pulled up and a French Canadian couple and a German jumped in. They were middle aged but looked interesting so we chatted to them.

Once I found out he was from Canada I asked, “Do you know Ariane?” He said he didn’t so I asked the lady, “Is your name Ariane?” She replied in the negative. She told me her real name which I instantly forgot so I just called her Ariane from then on.

The topic soon got around to talking about festivals, well Hannah and Canadian mans did seeing as my scintillating conversation with the lady had soon dried out about the moment I forgot her name and assumed it was Ariane.

“I went to Live 8 in Edinburgh, it was impossible to get tickets but I managed to get a free one at the door with someone.” Hannah boasted.

“I was in London Live 8 and got 6 tickets for free from a security guard.” Which was amazing because those tickets were like gold dust with scalpers selling them for about UK£300 each.

“Weasel” I said, “You should meet Hannah the Weasel.” Hannah beamed at my compliment.

He then went on to say, “I also got to sit in the VIP section as well.”

“Oh you are an even bigger Weasel than Hannah.” He beamed at my compliment.

He had managed to sneak in because while in the crowd he had got sore legs and St John ambulance had pulled him out into the hospital area which was close to the stage. He had even gotten a few leg massages by looking suitably sore legged. Then when no one was looking he sneaked in the adjoining VIP area from there. He was not only a weasel but a sneaky one as well.

We chatted for a while sailing up the Nile in a felucca until we got to a swimming spot which was really nice, in fact awesome.

“Hey mate is it safe to swim?” I asked one of the Americans.

“Yeah, its fine.” Phil replied. In case your wondering why I would ask him this question was because he had worked in Africa helping sick people. As soon as I heard the ‘Yeah’ I jumped in and so had the pleasure of hearing him continue, “as long as you have had the necessary shot.” Under water I got to reflect on my wise decision to skip getting most of the shots as they were too expensive. The doctor has given me a list of all the ones I needed and I had looked at the spare change in my pocket, amounting to £37.45, and had randomly picked out only the cheapest ones.

I surfaced, “Hepatitis, TB and Typhoid shots aren’t the necessary shots are they?” He must have figured I was joking and laughed heartily at my whit.

I figured I was in anyway and Mohummand the captain had been making us tea using water straight from the Nile and washing out dishes and cooking in it and he looked alright for a 89 year old 40 year old.

Hannah opted not to swim but stayed talking to the weasel King while ‘Ariane’ swam. She tol.d me later he was asking her is she had felt the same connection he was feeling.

“Ummm, how long have you been a couple?” she asked him about ‘Ariane’

“6 years but we have drifted apart.” She wondered which part of the snuggling and kissing they had displayed, constituted drifting apart.

I continued splashing about with the Americans

One of the girls found a dung beetle on shore and Phil told us they tasted like vanilla and I should try it. I picked it up tentatively and began to put it near my mouth but decided against it. It was real nice of him to point out hours later that he had only been joking.

So I told them about the time I had joked with Hannah about getting fly’s in her ankle.

“Oh yeah I have seen that in London before. The particular fly is in Egypt as well. They lay their eggs and the maggots crawl out and it is pussy and smells real bad. You have to be careful.” He was serious this time as well.

Hannah looked on smugly, “I knew it!”

“There is also this other fly that bites you and lays an egg which turns in to a worm which crawls up your skin into the inside of your eye and you can see it inside you eyeball.” Phil added. I filed that one away for later use.

Hannah and I casually went over to our bags and pulled out our 98% DEET. Its so strong a repellent it melts your clothes. I had brought it because it was cheaper than the malaria tablets.

At our swimming spot another boat pulled up and out jumped a large crowd of very drunk Aussies who stated in none too quiet a voice that everyone in our boat had better get our togs on because they were going to throw us all in the water.

Hannah and I tried unsuccessfully to find a rock to crawl under. We figured our lot with a boat of very polite and friendly Americans was probably very good.

That night we talked some more and got to know everyone. It was a really fun night so we decided to stay another day on the Felucca with them. Something which originally was only supposed to cost us £50 but somehow ballooned out to £150 in true Egyptian style. We didn’t want the Americans to know we liked them so pretended we only stay because we didn’t want to get up at 6:30 and leave so had decided to stay another night.