RANSVESTIA

After another long ride back and delay at the border we made Beirut again and the next morning took the plane for Cairo. So that the anti- Israeli radar scopes pointing eastward should not be confused by friendly planes, all approaching Cairo must do so from the west, so we flew way out over the Mediterranean to get away from the Israeli shoreline and then south to Egypt's coast and then east to Cairo where we landed safely having noted the slit trenches, barb wire and other military items around the field. We stayed that night at the Cairo Hilton which fronts on the Nile and is naturally very luxurious. We went out and walked around a bit and I found that Egypt produces some very marvelous mangoes which are my favorite fruit. So naturally I had to get rid of some of my new Egyp- tian money for one right away. Was it ever good.

Next morning we had to get up at 4 AM to get an early start for a flight up the Nile valley to Aswan where we again found an airport full of slit trenches, machine gun toting guards, etc. We transferred to a little plane and flew up to Abu Simbel where we saw the gigantic statues of Rameses and his queen... the ones that would have been submerged by the waters of Lake Nasser unless they were moved. They were - at great expense-by cutting the whole mountain from which they were carved into blocks, moving them up to the top of the cliff and reassembling them there in the same order. All this was complete even to the insides of the temple which occupied the original hill behind the statues - a truly terrific job of en- gineering and reconstruction. After that visit we flew back to Aswan and went to our boat the Osiris operated by the Nile Hilton and which was to be our home for several days cruising down the Nile.

The flight up to Aswan from Cairo was very interesting since it gave an opportunity to see clearly what we have all read about, namely how the Nile was the lifeline of Egypt. From the air this is very evident since the country is one long narrow strip of green on both sides of the river and with empty desert on both sides and I do mean empty. In the 700 mile flight we probably saw only 3 or 4 roads heading out from the Nile strip across the desert and no oases or green spots anywhere except along the river. But in times past that desert has seen plenty of water and storms because it was not flat sand dunes as one might imagine from reading for- eign legion stories or seeing movies about the Sahara. Maybe it is in some parts but in the areas we flew over it was cut and crossed by all sorts of junior sized Grand Canyons, cut up mesas and tributary canyons - all of it made by water erosion. With that much water it must also have sup- ported a lot of vegetation, so a few million years ago it must have been quite different. But today it is really a wasteland with the blue river and

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