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Khartoum, Sudan: I can tell the airport taxi drivers and sticking it to me—the “tourist rate”—so I start hiking toward town. A cab soon stops beside me and offers me a ride to town for a quarter of the price they were asking at the terminal. I guess I am learning some of the money-saving tricks of a hard-time traveler.
The fine hotel facing the Nile doesn’t want me even though I have an airline chit for a room. I hike downtown and find another hotel that will accept a traveler carrying a backpack instead of a suitcase. (By the way, I am clean, beardless, short haired and sweet smelling at this time!)
At sunset I walk out to see the famous city.
In this part of town shade trees line the broad boulevards and the buildings look new and modern. If the people were dressed differently I might be in Phoenix, Arizona.
Here is an outdoor market with luscious piles of melons and fruit for sale. Looks mighty good after the empty markets of Chad. Here is the central mosque. The minarets are outlined with rows of bright light bulbs—like movie theater marquees in the days of my boyhood—very spiffy!
A number of robed men have gathered to hear a speaker in front of the mosque. Everything seems orderly and civilized.
Morning: I ride to the airport with the flight crew for free!
A young American woman is waiting for the same flight as me. Fellow countrymen a long way from home, we naturally get together. She is bright, witty, friendly, tall, red-haired and pretty—a medical student from the east coast of America. It’s fun to share the news and speak American English again.
The plane is a big, new jet. Below is Aswan Dam and we land in Cairo.
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