Disconnect from reality

And this shows just how disconnected from normal reality I have become.

As an added anti-pirate measure, we're going to zoom through the Gulf of Aden so fast that we will arrive at our first Egyptian port, Safaga, late afternoon on April 4th instead of first thing April 5th. In consequence, a new excursion is being offered that leaves the afternoon of the 4th, makes the 3- or 4-hour drive by bus, hopefully air-conditioned, to Luxor that afternoon and evening, spends the night in a hotel, then spends the next day touring Egyptian antiquities, returning to the ship the evening of the 5th. For a single booking, the cost is $650.

Before this piracy-enhanced opportunity, I had decided not to do any of the one-day Egyptian antiquities outings, which crammed both bus rides into one gargantuan 14- or 15-hour day. They cost less than half as much, but they seemed to promise frenzy and exhaustion and the guarantee that, by the end of the day, I would not be able to distinguish one tomb from another.

Cost-conscious friends onboard tell me the price is way too high, and they are undoubtedly correct. And the code indicates strenuous activity will be involved.

But I think I'm going to sign up for it anyway. It doesn't feel as frantic as the one-day tours, and I will never be here again and if I don't, I won't set foot in Africa (the Sinai peninsula, where I take my camel ride in Sharm-el-Sheikh, may be in Egypt, but it's east of the Red Sea, hence, to my mind, in Asia).

And somewhere in the back of my mind, a lonely voice is crying plaintively, "But you will be paying $350 for an overnight hotel stay!" If I were in Portland, I might give heed to that voice. But if I were in Portland, the threat of pirates wouldn't be offering me a visit to the tomb of Hatshepsut and the Karnak Temple. QED.