It hit Thursday night aboard the ship. No one was ready. Few survived.
It swooped in fast, catching all by surprise, leaving a vomitous wake.
Who could have foreseen it?
What did we do to incur such wrath?
Was it our callous romp about the Philae Temple?
Was it our mere presence that provoked the powers that be?
Or have we unearthed some silent menace that has lain dormant in the sands of Luxor?
Who’s to say?
We have succumbed to the Pharaoh’s Revenge.
In less ridiculous terms, we all got sick on our cruise to Luxor and Aswan. It was probably food poisoning from our sketchy cruise ship. In a matter of hours, 6 people were puking their guts out. By the next morning the count was up to 10 and by the afternoon closer to 15. I did not suffer from the same illness although I came down with a fever the same day. About 10 people missed our entire day in Luxor on which we saw Karnak and Luxor temples and the Valley of the Kings. All very impressive. This stuff is all a few thousand years old and the inscription is immaculate, save a few crosses scratched in by Copts in the 3rd and 4th centuries. The painting in the tombs of the Valley of the Kings was beyond description and unfortunately I was unable to take any pictures. They really go all out for their pharaohs when they die. The color of all the painting is still quite vivid. It’s the same kind of paintings as the inscriptions all over the place, hieroglyphics from floor to ceiling. Amazing. Back to the plague. Fortunately everyone managed to patch themselves up by Saturday morning for our 12 hour train ride from hell back to Cairo. The vomiting had stopped but many of us had to commit the great sin of taking Immodium before boarding the train. The bathrooms on these trains are evil. There’s no other description. I don’t know what is wrong with people, but somehow they manage to get their bodily fluids and solids all over the place, the floor, the walls, it even looked like there was some on the ceiling. The toilets don’t flush so they’re just piled high with all things imaginable. The Immodium was essentially for preventing us from having to enter the bathrooms at all. I’m not sure it was worth it.
We returned to Cairo utterly wiped out. At least everyone was on the mend. Wait, not so. One got sick en route from the train station to our flat. Suddenly this was looking less like food poisoning and more like some nasty contagion polluting all of our systems. For the next three days people kept falling ill. I was again accosted by a fever of seemingly epic strength which knocked me out for an entire day and held me captive for the next 3. I don’t know if I’ve ever had a fever as bad as this one with no relief for a solid 24 hours. I am more or less well now. The plague seems to have run its course, although one other is still sick with an exceptionally high fever. We hope and pray that all will be well soon.
