After a fairly late night out on deck, we woke in daylight, just before we left the wide open spaces of the lake to join our convoy through the upper stretch of the canal. With our cabin on the port side, we had the verdant view of the adjacent land which is irrigated from the Nile River, over to the west, so somewhat surprisingly, there are many areas of shallow pools and masses of cultivated vegetation.
The most memorable aspect however, is the heavy military presence along the whole length of the canal, with soldiers stationed not only on the road that runs alongside, but also on various dunes or mounds. All day long, there were open military jeeps with several armed soldiers in the tray, often flying the Egyptian flag. What was most surprising was that rather than a severe and intimidating presence, the soldiers were often whistling and waving at us. Now whilst this could well be construed as jeering and antagonistic, the reverse was the case, as the whistling was in many cases accompanies by shouts of “Welcome to Egypt”.
We can only feel sad that the ordinary Egyptians, especially those reliant on the tourism industry, suffer through the problems with the running of the country, as a cruise ship potentially disgorging up to 2,000 tourists, just passes by.
Our group commandeered the area alongside the ice cream parlour for most of the day and we popped in and out of the cabin, but I couldn’t connect to the internet at all until well after exiting the canal, which we managed early afternoon.
We were hopeless at trivia.
Meanwhile, in the atrium, there was the Cookie Man and also a competition to see who could balance a cookie (biscuit to most of us…) on the forehead, then shuffle it down and eat it without using hands.
Then just past Port Said, we dropped anchor and took on diesel from barges on both sides of the ship for a few hours. It seemed strange at dinner, looking out the window on deck 5 to see a barge tied up alongside. The pork rack was delicious.
Whilst we were so close to land and presumably due to local laws, the casino wasn’t allowed to operate, so all the pokie machines were switched off, but it didn’t stop the casino allowing free play, so we headed for the roulette table using gifted counters/chips.
After a few spins, the croupier collected in the chips then issued each player 40 chips, for a competition to see who could do the best with ten spins. Anthea was doing well in first6 place and I was holding my own in second and then on the very last spin, one of the other players, who was down to just 5 chips, plonked them all on number 26. Anthea finished second and I finished third… That is gambling of course and the free play at least managed to put Paula off playing roulette for real.
Well, just one more day at sea, then it is all on with ports most days, so I expect to fall way behind with this blog, so don’t worry, I haven’t given up, it will be nothing more than a lack of time.
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