We arrived in Port Said, Egypt, well before dawn on the third day of our cruise. Peering over our verandah railing at the dock below, I could see vendors setting up their spaces: tables and blankets strewn with postcards and trinkets to sell to the tourists soon to disembark their ship to run this gauntlet. Little did I know that by the end of the day, the relentless and aggressive tactics of these hawkers would seem polite and refined compared to what I would encounter in Cairo.

The shore excursion staff on the Noordam warned us to move quickly and directly to our buses and to not even make eye contact or say “No, thank you,” to the offers which would come our way. It was hard for me to overcome the instinct to even offer that polite response, but I soon learned that one couldn’t give even the slightest acknowledgment to these guys. Our tour guide would offer similar warnings, in addition to a few others when we reached the pyramids. If we wanted to ride a camel, only go with an individual our guide would approve; negotiate prices and extent of service before agreeing on a camel ride; don’t engage in conversation with anyone unless you wanted to purchase something; be on time back to the bus.

I followed these instructions, but that didn’t entirely protect me from what bordered on robbery in some cases. I stood my ground with the charming young man whose camel, Snoopy, gave me the experience of clinging to his saddle while he rose, walked a few paces and then settled back down to the sand. I knew what I should pay and stuck with it even when he wanted more — and I got my camera back without further fuss. One woman on our tour was not so fortunate. She told us how the person she dealt with would not give her camera back until she paid him 50 euros!!! (Perhaps this is why some of the buses had armed escorts in addition to their guide, and why there are armed and uniformed “tourist police” at the pyramids … though I didn’t see any of them doing much more than offering to take people’s pictures — gladly accepting payment for the courtesy, of course.)

Later, a man came up to me (as I studiously ignored him) and wanted to give me a “gift” because of my beautiful (blue) eyes, so he pushed a small metal pyramid into my hands, and followed with a second and a third, all while I was saying I didn’t want anything. I placed them on the sand at his feet. He of course pretended to be wounded and offended, but then said, “I give you a gift, now you give me something?” Here’s where I made my big mistake: I sighed in exasperation and drew my wallet out to give him a dollar or euro. He reached over with an exuberant gleam in his eye to grab my bills, whereupon I proceeded to yell right in his face “NO!” I really startled him, I think, and realized I needed to return his aggressiveness with my own. I shoved the dollar at him, gave a final glare and stomped off in the direction of my husband. I felt foolish for falling for this scheme, but I got off relatively unscathed (and did come away with three little — unwanted — pyramids as a reminder of my lesson).

Next week I’ll share some of the sights I saw and some other impressions of Egypt.

— Patty Vanikiotis, associate editor/copy editor