The camel ride place is over by the smallest of the three large pyramids. Supposedly, the camel ride is the only way to get a view of all the large pyramids (for the kings, who built them) and the smaller pyramids (for their queens). We hand over our money. I am shunted off to a boy who leads me to a disinterested camel.
I've read and heard told that camels are vile creatures. They reek. They spit. Occasionally, they bite. Uniformly, I hear camel rides are painful more than anything else. Still, when you're at Giza, you have to do it.
Every camel sex joke I've ever heard runs through my mind. "Oooh! Oooh! I got a pretty one!" I holler for the others. They laugh. Sorta. I think they're still trying to make up their minds about me. I show up looking like a bizarre mixture of Indiana Jones, the Dude from The Big Lebowski, and, possibly, a recent convert to extremist Islam. On day two, accepting that my facial hair isn't going to help me in any way, shape, or form, I shaved.
So I guess I morphed into the typical loud American tourist. But then they found out I'm a lawyer and I can't keep my damn mouth shut, constantly adding unasked-for bits of arcane trivia to whatever the guide tells us; then, I let slip I live in Afghanistan and was a soldier. By this point, I'd assume they think I'm an obnoxious, intelligent, hippie, soldier, lawyer, who needs a haircut and drinks rocket fuel scotch. My secret hope is that they think I'm some form of secret agent, but I'm pretty sure I'm just the bizarre American from the South.
I'm none of those things to my teenager camel guide. He says, "You look like a real Egyptian." He says he's 17. He doesn't look older than 14. As we start out in our gaggle, we take pictures of each other on the camels. The boy, holding the camel's leash, continues telling me I look like a real Egyptian. I know he's trying to butter me up for the infamous baksheesh, the tip/bribe/gift/gross extortion that is notorious in the Arabic speaking world. Despite what he's telling me, I know I look like, to put it delicately, a retard.
Sure enough, as we get to the prime pyramid viewing location, the extortion begins. Ten minutes in, at best, the caravan breaks apart. No coubt the camel guides are well-versed in that military maxim: divide and conquer. They try to make it seem they all know the "best" spot to take pictures. I smile to myself. This is not unexpected.
Farther away, I see the guides taking the cameras from my group members to get photos with them on the standing camels. My guide doesn't do this. He gets "Michael Jackson" to sit down (Magdolin, when we got back, asked us, "Let me guess...you rode on Michael Jackson? Michael Jordan?" We all nodded and smirked, except for Greg's wife, Krista, who had the only inventive guide and so rode on "Casanova.").
My Michael Jackson doesn't seem to notice I'm there. He barely seems to notice my guide. The guide pulls out some plants from the saddle bag and jams them in MJ's mouth. MJ chews and pees.
Which reminds me, if you ever mention you can hold off peeing a long time, do NOT say you're "like a camel." When it comes to pee and camels, they pee frequently, intensely, and it doesn't matter to them if they're standing or sitting/lying down. Basically, they're like toddlers or retirees.
At any rate, I'm bummed because my boy guide doesn't take pictures while I'm up on the camel, but then he pulls out a headdress and wraps me in it. "You look like a real Egyptian!" Actually, I look like a poorly bandaged burn victim. No worries. He takes a picture of me next to MJ with the pyramids in the background. Cool enough.
Then he tells me to stand *ON* MJ. I am hesitant. I'm not fat, but I'm not a feather either. I don't want to be the Ajax who breaks the camel's back. "Up!" commands the boy guide. Up I go. MJ continues to eat and pee furiously.
After I clamber down, it's time for the extortion. My boy guide's English is barely passable. I can't remember the specifics, but he grows plaintive doe eyes and says something about money or else his boss man will be mad with him. I explain that I paid the boss man. Magdolin had told us not to accept any "gifts" because they'd make us pay for them and that if we took a picture of them or let them take pictures of us, they'd expect payment. I give back my bandages/headdress, but I'm fine with paying him for taking the pictures.
I pull out my money wad to give him 50LE ($8-10). He takes it but then says something about change and hands it back. Before I know what he's doing, he snatches a 200LE ($35-40) note out of my hand. I get mad.
"Hand that back!"
"Change!" He says and snatches ANOTHER 200LE note out of my hand.
I cram what's left of my money wad in my pocket and demand my money back. He quickly puts both bills at the bottom of his cash wad and starts counting off smaller bills. I know where this is going.
The positive aspect of the camel guides separating us schmucks is we're easier to manipulate individually. The negative aspect is that the other guides aren't there to help when I go off.
I try my best to be good-natured and self-deprecating and not take myself seriously; I think I'm pretty wildly successful in this, in that few people who know me longer than a few minutes can fathom me being intimidating.
However, in reality, I'm a 6'2", 200lbs, trained soldier who thinks very little of dangerous situations, has an affinity for weapons (the use of which I'm not untalented in), and I'm prepared for killing if the occasion ever requires it. My camel guide is a malnourished, teenage Egyptian who is 5'5", 130lbs, and has a cheap riding crop. He has badly miscalculated that I'm a patsy.
Now, I'm not saying I was going to kill the kid. I'm not saying I was going to beat the kid up. What I am saying is this: I'm happy and content NOT to be a homicidal psychopath and play the part of the easy-going buffoon so long as, on some level, you acknowledge reality and don't bait me, particularly when you're an overmatched punk who walks through camel piss in sandals all day long. If there's a bear at the circus who wears a silly hat and suit and rides on a tricycle, you don't go up to it and poke it in the eye because you think you can get away with it because it looks silly. It's a bear. You're a weak, walking meat bag without fangs or claws.
Goodbye joking, smiling André. Hello serious, growling André.
"Young man," I growl as I step close to him and lean in. "Hand back my money right now!"
He backs up a step.
"Change! Change!"
I lower my voice more. "Hand me back my two 200LE bills or I will be angry!"
Even at a time like this, I think of Bill Bixby.
"You wouldn't like me when I'm angry!"
Inside, I'm amused. Outside, I'm setting my jaw, beginning to puff out my chest, and stepping menacingly towards him again.
"Change! Change! No angry!"
"Young man, now I'm angry."
My shoulders roll forward as my elbows flare slightly.
"Hand me back my money. Right. Now."
His eyes go wide.
"Okay! Okay! No angry!"
He pulls out my two bills and hands them to me.
Goodbye serious, growling André. Hello joking, smiling André.
The boy has moxie, I'll grant him. He goes back to pleading to make change. As I don't really want to throttle a child and be shot by an AK47 or repeatedly raped in an Egyptian jail, I put away one of the bills and then let him make change for the other. He knows I was willing to give him 50LE, so he somehow hides the rest of his cash so he only has 145LE to give me back. I'm okay with him getting me for 55LE. My adult streak of never having been in a fight remains intact.
On the walk back, I holler to the other to find out how their extortion went. David ended up coughing up way more, throwing in some American money along with the Egyptian pounds. Steven, an Aussie physical therapist manager who lives in London, got away with only 50LE.
The entire ride back, my guide keeps alternating with "You happy? You happy?" and abjectly begging for more baksheesh. I'm having none of it. Once we get back, he asks for money for the head man.
"I already paid him."
He wanders off. The head man wanders over.
"You happy? Something for the boy?"
"No. I already gave him baksheesh."
I walk away with the headman still jabbering at me for more money.
The whole experience lasted thirty minutes, tops.
So. That's what it's like to get extorted.
(next chapter: Pyramids, Sphinx, Vendors, Eastern European Tourists, and the Egyptian Antiquities museum)
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