Innocents and Broads - Travels with my mother IV

Egypt-

What mom and I don't agree on; Heat. I love, adore and seek out heat. Mom however, reacts to hot weather by swelling to twice her size and it takes her hours to deflate.

So here was a typical exchange in Egypt.
Me standing in the center of the Valley of the Kings, 95 degrees, nothing but limestone chips reflecting the relentless desert sun and bright blue sky, and it?s February, and I?m in heaven.

Me, "Hey, where did everyone go?"

My mother, "Get her back on the bus, she's going to die out there."

Me, "Am not."

Bad news, when it?s just the two of us, my mother tends to consider me as being about five, six on a particularly mature day. So it works better if I surround myself with the legitimacy and grown up accoutrements of children and husband. She has more tolerance for the boys and she loves Andrew as he doesn?t remind her of anyone in the family.

My mother does not shop, so we have to be extra careful with her and not over do it. She actually gets fatigued just looking at the entrance to a shop while I see possibilities and am energized. I have to touch everything. She has to sit down.

And when your mother says, oh you don't need to buy that book you can get it on Amazon, unless she is a retired professional from the publishing world, my recommendation is to not listen to her and buy the book anyway. She will immediately borrow it from you and you will never see it again. And no it wasn?t available on Amazon

A note about the recommendation to drink lots of water while in Egypt. Sure it?s desert and drinking gallons of bottled water is an entertaining activity, but all that good-for-you water creates two challenges:

One, there are very few toilets around those pyramids, fewer at the temples and
two, you must pay for your toilet paper, if there is any at all.

In every restroom there is an attendant, and she will hand you the toilet paper in exchange for about 1LE, so it's not really expensive, but you must be armed with a considerable amount of small change, and there is no change given at any juncture because you are negotiating for everything and the merchants always gesture dramatically, roll their eyes and round up.

So, we're in the gardens in Aswan. We have to pee.

We tipped one young man with a machine gun to point the way to the concession building. We tipped another young man who insisted on giving us directions to the toilet.
Two young men languished at the entrance of the WC and waved us in, for a tip.
Once in the restroom, we discovered there was no toilet paper, in other words, our young men were not doing their job.
So mom pulled out the last two tissues she owned and said to me "here, I am giving the last tissue to you. I will just use the money."

There is no wildlife in Egypt