Egypt 2002

I was living in London with me ex and it’s 2002 and we’ve been here for 3 years and we’re about to head home to go back to live in Sydney again. We’re devastated to be leaving the place we have called home for the past 3 years and particularly devastated to be leaving the amazing friends we have made here. My ex’s work contract has come to an end and it’s time to go home.

Our two remaining dogs (we came over with three but one died in quarantine) have to be in quarantine for a month back in Australia. We have arranged for a friend to go visit them regularly while we do the last of our travelling before heading home. I can’t believe how much our life has changed living and working in London. It has been the most incredible experience living here and we are both so sad to leave.

While our dogs are in quarantine we have decided to go to Crete and Rhodes for a week and then return to the UK for a final farewell to our friends and then on the way home we spend ten days in Egypt.

While my ex was winding up her work life in London I had done a trip with one of my friends from London and two of my friends from Sydney to South America. My friend Toni and her partner Michael (also a friend of mine) were planning a twelve week trip around South America and I invited myself to go along with them to Peru to do the camping trek with them to Machu Picchu.

Toni was my best friend back in Sydney at the time and we used to speak on an old fashioned black dial telephone (2002 mobile phones were around but nowhere near as normal as they are today) once a week. She was thrilled that I was tagging long and bringing my English friend Nicky with me.

The trip to Cusco in Peru was incredible but dealing with the high altitude was challenging. Walking around Cusco which was the funkiest, coolest, hippest city was like being a full blown asthmatic 24/7. It was so difficult to breathe and both Nicky and I walked around the city at a snail’s pace. It was all we could manage.

Nicky was a smoker at the time so she also had really bad altitude sickness and spent a great deal of time vomiting for the first few days we were in Cusco. It took a number of days to acclimatise. Luckily we were staying in a 5 star luxury hotel called the Libertador and it had elaborate urns of Coco tea (which was used for altitude sickness) in the lobby.

Toni and Michael were staying with a family in some dingy apartment on the cheap that had no hot water. I was glad Nicky and I had our 5 star luxury hotel to retire too when we were tired and done for the day exploring.

While the entire trek to Machu Picchu was so incredible it is difficult to even put into words it set me up for serious stomach issues when I got to Egypt a couple of months later. When you travel to places like Peru or Egypt you have to be incredibly careful with what you eat.

I did not drink the water or eat any salads etc. when I was in Peru and I had my bottle of iodine to put into any liquid foods to prevent stomach bugs except for the second night I forgot to put the iodine drops into the hot soup we were served.

We had an amazing guide and a couple of Sherpas cooking for us and setting up our tents and camp site for us each day and night. All our food was provided for and prepared for us which I was grateful for but I ended up with a stomach bug that played out on the second last day of our trek.

Michael had had severe stomach issues throughout his trip around South America and both he and I had bouts of diarrhoea through the high altitude mountains and steep descent down to Machu Picchu. We would constantly need to stop and find bushes to relieve ourselves from the intense stomach cramps we were experiencing.

While reaching Machu Picchu was so worth it, our stomach problems made the 33 kilometre trek at high altitude so much more difficult. I had it for a whole day on the second day of the 3 day trek and Michael was doubled over on the last day of the trek as we made our descent down from Machu Picchu and caught the train back to Cusco.

My stomach did not fully recover from my trek in South America and I continued to have some minor issues when I returned to London but generally my digestive system returned to normal or so I thought.

We had a couple of months wrapping up our life in the UK and hanging out with our friends before having to say goodbye.

Once we get through all the painful farewells to people who turned out to be our lifelong friends we headed back home to Australia via Egypt which I think is the most incredible place on earth.

We had been warned about getting sick in Egypt so again we were both really careful about what we ate and drank when we arrived in Cairo. We stayed at the Sheraton in Cairo, another luxury 5 star hotel.

We had only been there a couple of days, making our way around Cairo and doing a trip to Giza to see the Pyramids and the Sphinx. When you see the Pyramids for the first time they are indescribable. We got to go inside a Pyramid and clamber up, crawling on your hands and knees until you make your way into the open space of the chamber.

Once you are inside the chamber you can actually stand up and breathe again. I felt so happy actually being in Egypt and being inside a Pyramid.

It didn't take long however for my stomach issues from my previous trip to Machu Picchu to kick in. You would think any food you ate at a 5 star hotel in Cairo would be ok but I was wrong.

Dinner on our second night, I ordered fish from the fancy restaurant and paid the price for it the next day. I'm guessing the fish may have come from the Nile River and was full of something that did not agree with my already fragile digestive system.

In the morning I woke up feeling so queasy and while I did not vomit I was felt like I was about to any minute. I couldn't face breakfast and was only able to eat an apple which did nothing to alleviate the queasiness.

The biggest problem I faced was that my ex and I had to board a plane to go to Abu Simbel, early that morning which was a two and half hour flight. I have never been so uncomfortable in my body in my life.

I have travelled the world and many destinations numerous times and I am a good traveller but this morning was a living, breathing hell sitting on that aircraft wanting to vomit at any given moment.

The short flight felt like an eternity and just as we were about to land in Abu Simbel I couldn't hold on any longer. I lunged from my seat as the seat belt sign came on and the male steward had this alarmed look on his face as I bolted for the toilet.

"You need to sit down" he shouted at me. I had this pained expression on my face and I yelled back and shook my head "I can't I need to go to bathroom NOW."

I couldn't get inside that toilet fast enough and every bit of bodily fluid inside of me shot out both ends as I sat down on the toilet. I could not stop projectile vomiting, trying to get it into the wash basin and missing and this brown muck was coming out as an endless stream out of my rear end.

The real kicker was I was wearing crisp , white shorts that were now fully brown from the stream of shit running down both my legs. The steward was banging on the door asking me if I was alright and clearly I wasn't. I could only mumble through the vomit.

Because of the state of my shorts I couldn't step outside the cubicle. I opened the door and poked my head while still sitting on the toilet and asked the steward to get my partner. He willingly complied.

My ex sheepishly came to the toilet, not the least bit concerned about my welfare but by how humiliating the entire scene I had caused for her.

I don't know why I said this to her, it must have been from the sheer delirium of having no fluids left in my body but I said "You have to ask them to get my suitcase out of the hold because I cannot come out of this cubicle."

She gave me the most horrified look anyone had ever given me and told me flat out that she couldn't ask them to do that. I knew the chances of them finding my suitcase in a full hold were next to nothing but there was no way in hell I would ever be able to walk off that plane in those shorts.

I felt so weak and sick but somehow managed to get my ex to go fossicking for my suitcase in the hold and luckily by some blessed miracle or act of God she was able to locate my suitcase and pull out a dress that I could wear.

I have never felt so humiliated in my life as a few people were waiting outside the toilet to use it and there was no way it was able to be used in it's current state.

Egypt Air will never forget the day I decided to travel on their airline and neither will I. The same steward who kindly agreed to find my suitcase also provided me with a plastic bag to put my soiled shorts in. Had it not been Egypt Air, I don't think another airline would have allowed my ex to go into the hold and find my suitcase. I am eternally grateful that they allowed her to do so.

I cleaned myself up as best I could and waited until the plane emptied before doing my walk of shame down the aisle before exiting that plane. The stewards were concerned if I was ok or not but I couldn't get off that plane quick enough and was still amazed that they had been able to retrieve my suitcase and that I was walking off that plane in clean clothes.

Abu Simbel was amazing and the monolithic statues that form the temples were awe inspiring.

"Abu Simbel is a village in the Egyptian part of Nubia, about 240 km southwest of Aswan and near the border with Sudan. It is best known as the site of the Abu Simbel temples, which were built by King Ramses II."- Wikipedia.

Given I had released whatever bacteria had lodged itself from my gut (for the moment anyway) I was able to actually do the tour of the village and view the temples in all their magnificence.

We spent the day at Abu Simbel before boarding our Nile River Cruise that evening which would be our home for the next few days as we made our way to our next destination, Aswan.

What I didn't know was that the majority of the people on the plane from Cairo to Abu Simbel who were privy to my humiliating gut explosion were also taking the same Nile Cruise as my ex and I.

Most of the passengers were American and many recognised me from the plane at dinner that night. They were all very sweet asking me if I was ok. One woman in her deep, southern drawl tapped me on the shoulder and said "Oh honey I'm so glad to see you are ok. What an awful experience".

I recognised her from earlier that day and my face flushed crimson. I wished the floor would just open and swallow me up there and then but I knew she was asking through kindness. I just wanted to forget the whole saga.

It's bad enough being sick in a foreign country but having an entire plane witness your humiliation was just too much. I told her I was ok and thanked her for her concern as I thought about my white shorts that were soaking in the bath tub in my cabin.

I ended up throwing them out as they were not salvageable but I wanted them to be as clean as possible before I threw them out. I can laugh about this story now but for years I could not tell anyone what had happened as we landed in Abu Simbel on that Egypt Air flight.

Here's a great travel tip, never visit Egypt in the Summer when the average temperate is around 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit) and you don't feel well.

My stomach bug did not go away and I will still say hands down Egypt is the most amazing place I've ever visited but I was plagued with stomach issues the entire trip

Many people on the Nile River Cruise were also sick with stomach problemss. Some days I was fine an others I couldn't keep it together. I would eat and immediately have to run to the bathroom.

I pride myself on being pretty healthy so having these stomach bugs was not easy to deal with. When travelling to Egypt one is warned about getting sick.

The heat didn't help either. We were on a small dinghy travelling to another temple and I was throwing up over the side of the dinghy. Due to the heat my nose also started to bleed and my ex thought I was vomiting blood and panicked as both the blood and vomit mixed together to create a red, heaving mess. If I wasn't so ill, it actually would have been funny.

The fish would have been well fed that day with all that was coming out of me. At least this time it was only vomit and a bleeding nose. No soiled shorts!

I loved Egypt and there were some days I just couldn't do the tourist destinations. On the last day of our tour of this wonderous land we had a tour of the Valley of The Kings scheduled. I took the boat over with my ex but was too sick to do the tour. I had to take the tour boat straight back to our River Boat. One day I will return to the Valley of the Kings.

We had already checked out of our cabins so I lay miserably in the unoccupied dining area hoping to feel better. We had a long wait for our flight to the next leg of our journey which was the Red Sea to go snorkelling.

The general manager of the boat kindly offered me his cabin when he saw how sick I was and how miserable I looked. I gladly accepted his offer while my ex was still off on the Valley of the Kings tour. I was vomiting for hours and by the time she returned she suggested we get a doctor which I agreed to.

The doctor came and gave me an injection to stop the vomiting and I immediately felt better but the whole experience again was humiliating especially needing the General Manager's cabin and being so sick with no privacy and no control over my bodily functions.

That jab cost 200 pounds and luckily it was covered under travel insurance and it helped me feel a bit better for the rest of the trip.

When we made it back to Australia my ex's endocrinologist recommended that next time we travelled to a foreign land with the likelihood of getting sick again that we take a tablet designed for Cholera (that cost $260 AUD for 1 tablet) but would ensure that you would never have any stomach trouble whatsoever.

There were some very humiliating moments on that trip, the flight from Cairo to Abu Simbel being the most humiliating but I have no regrets about that trip. It was truly incredible.

Who hasn't had a case of Bali Belly or Montezuma's revenge or the Rangoon runs? Isn't that what travelling is all about? It's these sorts of events that make travelling an adventure and I swear every word of this story is true. Cross my heart hope to die if I tell a lie.

Humiliation or not I would not have missed out on all the adventure and magnificence of Egypt because my stomach was problematic. I can't really comment on how great the Egyptian cuisine was but I hear it's outstanding.

May have to save my food review for another time. If you want to go somewhere impressive, then go to Egypt, Montezuma's revenge or not. Just be prepared.