Like a shy banana*, he peeled slowly the corner of the sleeping bag timidly from its nestled place, tempting a single ray of light to pierce my snuggled hibernation. Slow yet sure, yet quite slow, it let loose a nasty warning snarl keeping away other antagonizing creatures, only to uncover the dismantling warmth of the fresh air. The furry beast simply sat for quite some time hoping the grogginess would fade without initiative. Another more thunderous bellow echoed this time when his sunglasses had gone missing.
The sand, cold and snickering, got a kick out of the stiff old bear watching him stumble and bumble and tip-toe atop its inhospitably chilly grains. Distraught settled in with morning hunger leaving him to forgo the search for his absent sunglasses. He matched a disappointed leg hug with periodic nibbles of slightly burnt and sweaty pita bread. If the rest of the Kingdom did not wake soon he would need to gargle another gutteral guffaw. Lucky for them, about that time the blanket rolled from Kevin, unsealing his cocoon. Others followed.
Much puttering transported the lifeless bodies from tents to "breakfast" back to tents or mats used for laying out (a concept I will never understand). This last long enough for everyone to become sweaty and irritable. By mid-morning, the lifeless mutated into hairy werewolves. Egypt often does things strangely and without explanation so it is not surprising that it took a full sun instead of a moon to transform the staff into illogical mythical creatures. But soon we were on our way.
As instantaneous as Belle's kiss for Beast vanquished the curse, so did the embrace of our team to civilization semblance. In form, everyone took to their resting form - some reading, some sizzling in the hot spring, some back to tempestuous slumber. Ironic, especially since we had only sat and waited all the day long anyway.
Annie casually invited anyone for a stroll through tiny town Bahariya. Up for a run with the locals, I responded and we left the crowds for a quieter place. Misspelled signs and clever postings boasting "Popular Restrunt" or "Cheepest store in town" provide me for the most entertainment and function as perhaps my favorite idiosyncrasy of these Egyptian towns. It took some time but we tracked our footsteps back to the hotel.
An hour later, a monstrous plate of spaghetti intimidated the tomato sauce into one pitiful pile atop its layers of weaving strands. All ended well when our friend Peter lilted us with a welcome back story about the Bedouin people. Thanks Pete, old boy.
*This is only funny to me because "shai ba anana" in Arabic means "tea with mint." It was a bad joke, I know.
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