Covid or Not Covid
Feb 8
It’s been over a week now that I’ve been here in Egypt. My tour has taken me through Cairo, Giza, and Aswan and now I’m in Luxor. Egypt is a mind-blowing country. I feel as if some ancient part of my DNA is returning home and I should know the language. I’ve dreamed of going here for as long as I can remember. We’re always told that travel to the Middle East is too “dangerous.“ It does not feel too dangerous in any way. It’s an alive place. Our Egyptian tour guide was telling me that the best tour he led here was the year of the revolution in June 2013. The crowds filled the streets and he had to gather his group and get them out of the hotel and out of the country. The protesters created a wall of people around him to keep the tourists safe and they were able to get to their van and drive off to the airport. He said the group actually loved that tour. They said it was the best experience they’d ever had.
There is still no democracy in Egypt, but I feel extremely safe here. There is security everywhere. There is so much security that people barely take it seriously. We went through four scanners at the airport flying from Cairo to Aswan. When we got to the gate two of us still had our water bottles. They didn’t want us to be thirsty. We have a personal escort every time we get in the van per request of the American and Australian embassies. That means a nicely dressed man gets in the van and accompanies us to the pyramids. At one point we even had a police escort for the van for a short distance. They keep close track of tourist groups.
So much for safety. All I can say is that we are controlled by the propaganda of fear and I’ve had enough. I’m done. I’m much more likely to be attacked by a random act of nature than a terrorist. And even that is unlikely. I’ll more likely die of a common disease of old age.
My biggest fear now is that I have Covid. I started to get what seemed like a cold a few days ago. My throat was scratchy, my nose started running and I had a low fever for a day. I’m still a little congested. It still feels like a cold. Do I have Covid? Do I not have Covid? I feel like Schrodinger’s cat! I take the PCR test today and I’ll find out tomorrow.
If I do have Covid, I may not be able to get a negative PCR test to fly out on Thurs when I leave for Israel. I don’t know what that means. I had no PCR test when I flew into Egypt. They just had me fill out a form. There are so many changing rules that nobody knows the answers..
