Tour delivers historic Egyptian experience

They just enjoyed traveling. Going new places, seeing the sights, trying unusual foods and making new friends were the only motivational factors for six south Louisiana residents who have made overseas journeys before and probably will again. They just did not expect their latest vacation to be interrupted by a political uprising as they toured a nation rooted in ancient civilization.

“I wanted to see the pyramids,” said Roland Henry of Bourg. The owner of Roland’s Mini-Mart, along with his wife, Paulette, and traveling companions Laurie Shannon, who operates Shannon Hardware Co. in Houma, her parents Julie and Mack Stearns of New Iberia, and Enid Clements of Franklin, thought they were taking just another vacation of a lifetime until their unplanned exodus from Egypt left them with an experience they will remember the rest of their lives.

“We’ve traveled extensively before,” Shannon said. “My mom and [stepfather], Mack, wanted to go [to Egypt]. Then my mom’s best friend, Enid, said she wanted to go. My mother had traveled to Africa with her mother before, so I decided I wanted to travel to Africa with my mom. Roland and Paulette are some of my best friends … then you know how it goes. You decide you want to go – you go.”

The six veteran tourists booked their trip through Overseas Adventure Travel out of Cambridge, Mass. The company is the largest group tour agency in the United States and books an estimated 10,000 Americans a year on various journeys.

“We left [the U.S.] Jan 17. We were suppose to stay until the 31st,” Henry said. “We toured the Cairo Museum [before rioters] set it on fire. We boarded a boat and went down the [River] Nile. We saw temples and different things. Then we flew back to Cairo on Jan. 28. We were supposed to see the pyramids on the 29th and 30th and fly out on the 31st.”

During the early part of their trip, these vacationers said they had no indication of what was yet to come. Their tour guide, Galal Moawand, had entered into friendly conversation about the political developments in his country.

Moawand told his guests how two weeks before their arrival Egypt had conducted a parliamentary election in which members of the Muslim Brotherhood had been entirely removed from power. They all soon learned that those election results would provide the spark that led to an explosive revolution.

“Galal thought that maybe the election had been fixed,” Shannon said. “He said, ‘Think about it. In the United States, never would one political party take over every single seat in government.'”

Shannon related how their guide believed that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had fixed the election to give his son political backing and an edge in the presidential election that is now to be held in either August or September.

“It was a general, political conversation like you would have with your buddies at dinner. [Moawand] just made a joke about it,” Shannon said. “‘You Americans have Democracy and you’re still complaining about politics. We don’t even have a Democracy,'” Shannon quoted her host as having said.

Shannon and Henry related how their tour progressed without incident or concern. Seven days into their vacation they began getting word that something was taking place and that their plans might be changed.

The six south Louisianans had arrived in Gaza when they heard news of disruptions taking place in Cairo. Their guide told them that a few protestors were causing trouble but would probably get tired and go home in a couple of days.

“We flew back to Cairo, but when we got to Cairo you could tell that this thing had gotten really serious,” Henry said.

Both Henry and Shannon said that they were never in any direct danger, but saw the signals that something big was taking place when more and more people were being gathered into the Iberotel hotel, only military flights were departing from the Cairo International Airport, no traffic was seen on nearby highways, and late at night they could hear the sounds of gunfire and artillery in the distance.

“I heard [gunfire] but I didn’t say nothin’ about it ’cause I didn’t want to get anybody afraid,” Henry said. “We had rooms, but there were a lot of people sleeping on the floor. We didn’t see any of the rioting. All we saw was on TV.”

“On Friday [Jan. 28, the Egyptian government] started shutting down most of the English speaking [television] channels. We were flipping between CNN and the BBC and all of a sudden both of those channels go out,” Shannon said. “Later they took out Al Jazerra. But us listening to Al Jazerra? There are no subtitles on Al Jazerra.”

After television feeds were shut down, telephone service and the Internet also went silent. Communications were restored by Jan. 30.

“Enid was my roommate. We had the window open … and started hearing gunfire Saturday night. To this day I never told my parents because they never heard it,” Shannon said. “It’s one of those things where you don’t want to give anybody more information than what they have on their own.”

“One of the reasons we didn’t take out sooner was because we already had a scheduled flight on Monday [Jan. 31],” Henry said. He explained that evacuees without already scheduled reservations were offered the first of unscheduled “emergency” flights. “We were the last scheduled flight to leave Cairo. It wasn’t dangerous enough to pull us out, but everyone was concerned.”

Henry said what impressed him about this trip was thinking about the thousands of years Egypt has been in existence andthe numbers of dynasties and kings that had changed there over the millennia. “That’s what we were seeing,” he said. “We can come back and see Egypt, but to be there when they are changing dynasties like it done so many times is extra special.”

“They weren’t protesting Americans. There was no burning of the American flag. They were protesting for Democracy,” Shannon said. “I like adventure and I like Democracy, but, boy, they could have picked a better way of going about that.”

Henry and Shannon both noted how the Egyptian hosts were acting more concerned about their foreign guests then their own interests. “Their government was falling apart in front of their faces [and] they were doing everything they could to take care of us. You just can’t say enough about all the Egyptian people that we came in contact with,” Shannon said.

The Louisiana travelers came in contact with other foreigners and gained perspective hearing about their experiences. An oil industry worker from England, they said, commented about where he might be sent or where his next job would come from. A French teacher from India reportedly told them that she was concerned that her students might not be able to complete their mid-term examinations.

“People [from other countries] working there don’t know if they are going to have jobs months from now,” Shannon said. “It’s just that you don’t know what your new normal is going to be.”

Shannon said that what she brought home from this trip was a keener appreciation regarding people willing to position themselves against the odds for their interests and what the results might be.

“When people want to stand up for what they believe in it doesn’t take a whole lot of them to create chaos. If you want to stand up and make a change and put your enthusiasm behind it you can probably make something happen,” she said. “I’m not saying they did it the right way, but if you stand up for what you believe in you can make a difference.”

Henry and Shannon credited Overseas Adventure Travel for keeping them safe and as comfortable as possible. Telephone messages left for the company’s public relations office were not returned.

The Overseas Adventure Travel website did post a notice that stated the company had canceled planned trips to Egypt and will notify those persons with reservations by Feb. 11. As of Feb. 2 all the travel agency’s customers had been confirmed as having left Egypt.

“It was a great trip, except for [the political uprising],” Paulette Henry said. “I hope one day we can go back and finish it.”

Maybe next time Roland will get to see the pyramids.

Riding camels was one of the calmer experiences for (from left) Julie Stearns, Enid Clements, Mack Stearns and Laurie Shannon as they, along with Roland and Paulette Henry, made a tour of Egypt. COURTESY PHOTOS