Riding in the COW

Our travel plan today is to leave Alexandria by means of the Pink-Mobile, head back to Cairo, and catch a flight to Luxor. There, we’ll board a ship for a seven-day cruise down the Nile. I’m looking forward to this bus/plane/boat-filled day with relish. It’ll show Fate and Ramses that, like the mythical phoenix, I’ve risen from the ashes, so to speak. Even though they messed with me, I can still handle all major modes of transportation, and all in one day! They can’t keep a good pharmacist down.

I know what you’re thinking. I shouldn’t be so quick to thumb my nose at those two. I have several body parts still available for demolition, should they get the urge. Even if they’re bored with the busting of bones, pushing their buttons by boasting so much bravado is the surest way to incur a lightning bolt straight between the eyes.

So, yes, I know. But there comes a time when you have to stand up to the bullies, shake your fist at them and proclaim, “No more!” Sometimes, it works. Sometimes, they laugh so hard, they throw a COW at you. But again, I’m getting ahead of myself. 

Having boarded the bus at 6 A.M., before the restaurant had a chance to open, we’re provided with a boxed breakfast from the hotel. Most of the folks in the group wait to start their meal until we’re well on the road. I, on the other hand, have already been up for hours getting ready, a lengthy process given my ankle situation, so by now, I’m ravenous. I waste no time digging in, and attack my breakfast the minute we burn rubber. 

Packed inside my hatbox-sized container are hard boiled eggs, juice, buns, cold cuts, cheese, and a large slice of banana loaf, all nicely arranged. Within minutes, crumbs are the only things left, the lovely breakfast having been decimated by, as later described by stunned witnesses, a Tasmanian devil on crutches, wearing a geeky hat. I’ve no recollection of that incident. All I know is that one minute, I was hungry, the next minute, I was not. 

In the Pink-Mobile, everyone occupies, more or less, the same seat day after day. Mine is at the front of the bus, behind Kareem, and right across from the door. Sitting sideways across the double seat, with my legs extended onto a folding third seat—the jump seat—I’m very comfortable. This has become my regular travelling position. To sleep, I just tilt my head to the right and rest it on the back of the seat. 

As the bus cruises along the highway, the green and lush countryside floating by the window acts like a visual lullaby. It doesn’t take long before my head assumes the sleep position and I’m in dreamland. 

It seems that only minutes have elapsed, when the sudden toot of a horn prompts my eyelids to retract like twin window shades in full slingshot mode following the capitulation of the master spring. The persistent crescendo of the honking madness is a clear sign that we’ve arrived in Cairo.

In the distance, we can see the pyramids, their mighty outline faint in the morning light.  One can’t help but wonder if the ancient Egyptians who built the pyramids had any idea that their creations would stand for thousands of years, and be visited by people from every corner of the world. 

At the airport, we say our sad goodbyes to Saint Daniel and Kareem. We won’t be seeing them again and I, for one, have grown quite attached to them since landing in Egypt, less than a week ago. Without this valiant duo, I would have been up the Nile without an oar (my Egyptian equivalent of creek and paddle). Nevertheless, the undeniable excitement of the upcoming cruise eases the sombre parting and we enter the terminal for our flight. 

This is the part where Fate decides to let me experience an additional form of transit to add to my land/air/water repertoire for the day. One for which I develop a fervent disdain from the get-go. 

This is the part where you, the esteemed reader, can shout a well-earned “I knew it.”

This is the part where I remind myself that shaking my fist at Fate is never a good idea. I’m convinced that, had I behaved, I would have been allowed to board the plane with the rest of my group, the normal way. For my punishment, however, I’m constrained to use a transportation system which I will call the “cube on wheels”, or COW for short. I would like to call it something else, but politeness dictates that I refrain from using such language.

Don’t get me wrong. The COW is, without question, a godsend to handicapped passengers who cannot manage the steep stairs into the aircraft, and therefore, would be unable to board the plane. Me, I’m not one of them. My strong independent streak—okay, stubbornness—prohibits it. Not only that, it even spurs me on to attempt what, to others, may look difficult, awkward, or downright impossible. 

In this case, I have perfectly good arms, sturdy crutches, and brave cushiony travel companions, so I see no reason for me to resort to assisted means. This is why I bristle at being coerced into using the COW, and hold it in such contempt. It’s not because of what it is, so much as the fact that I don’t need it, nor do I need the unwanted attention it generates from countless onlookers. 

So, let me describe this contraption which I’ve been so happy to denigrate up to now. The COW is a charming—I’m being sarcastic—vehicle the size and shape of an armoured truck, only squarer and five times more conspicuous, painted in white so piercingly intense that you can still see it through closed eyelids. 

Its operating procedure is relatively straightforward. You, the victim, sit in a wheelchair, facing the back end of the COW from which a ramp is lowered to the ground. You are rolled onto this ramp which then lifts you, like a mini-elevator, to the rear door of the vehicle. From the ramp, you get wheeled into the COW. 

Once inside, the wheelchair is anchored to the floor, immobilizing you and ruining any plans of escape you may have. The COW then motors toward the plane with all the grace and fanfare of a parade float. Unless the vehicle is radio controlled (scary thought), the driver is most likely concealed in the underbelly of the COW; he’s certainly not in the same compartment as the prisoners—I mean passengers. 

At the plane, a man, presumably the driver, climbs aboard, opens a control panel, and flamboyantly manipulates switches, dials, levers, and buttons, thereby raising the entire body of the COW to the level of the plane’s door. This operation probably only requires the flick of one switch, but the driver has to make it look very complicated, otherwise the prisoners passengers could do it of their own volition, raising and lowering the COW willy-nilly, a kind of vertical hijacking if you will. 

Attention is now focussed on the front of the COW where, after another flurry of button pushing and lever pulling, a platform slowly extends out like a colossal tongue out of a mammoth square face. With a soft thud, the enormous tongue docks with the plane and is locked in place, creating a picture not unlike that of a kid, outdoors in the middle of winter, with his tongue stuck to a cold metal object. Only then are you freed from the floor restraints, wheeled out on the tongue, and allowed to board the plane. 

In summary, you go in the backside of the COW like a suppository, and out the front like regurgitated cud, after which you get loaded onto the plane like an old carcass, all in full view of every passenger on the aircraft. Well now, I’m armed with crutches. With the wheelchair still bolted to the floor of the COW, this carcass, having had enough of the bovine-themed transport, springs out of the chair, crutches over the tongue, and saunters onto the plane in a rush of youthful (okay, middle-aged, but not fifty) three-legged independence bordering on defiance. So there, bring on the lightning bolt!

This bit of rebelliousness, although not forceful enough to unleash fire from the sky, does not amuse the flight attendant. Sour faced, she silently points me to my seat. Conferring with my travel mates, I learn that she’s been similarly vitriolic with them. So, perhaps it isn’t just my little stunt that caused her to have the attitude of a hissing cobra. Maybe it goes deeper than that. Maybe the big pimple growing on her otherwise perfect face is distressing her to the point of markedly altering her personality. 

Despite Dracula’s glacial demeanour, the flight over the Sahara is agreeable. From the air, there’s not a lot to see other than sand and rock until we get closer to Luxor. Then, the landscape changes into quite a splendiferous sight. A blue ribbon, bordered on both sides with emerald-coloured lace, meanders through the desert: the Nile with its fertile green belt. 

The Nile from the air.

As we descend, the lush region acquires more definition. Villages can be seen as brownish clumps connected by roads, amid the greenery. Then, slowly, individual lots and fields become visible; a patchwork quilt of different shapes and shades of green and brown, depending on the harvest. Small white dots appear in the water, a pleasing polka dot pattern on a winding sapphire road, each dot eventually becoming recognisable as a cruise ship or sailboat.  

Luxor comes into view and we land with a minimum of fuss. This is good since any problems encountered would have necessitated asking for Dracula’s help, a rather unsavoury prospect. What is also good is that my penance must be over, there’s no COW on the horizon. I deplane with everyone else.