brown camel

Suez Suez

As images of the giant ship stuck in the Suez Canal appear on the news, I shake my head in wonder…again…at my incredibly marvelous adventurous parents. In 1957 we sailed from New York to India, indirectly, as my mother and father wanted to make the absolute most of this voyage into the unknown, for all of us. We landed in Southhampton, England, rented a Renault, and fast forwarding past the ancient ruins, art galleries, museums, meadows, and haystacks all over England, Scotland, France, Switzerland and Italy, we arrived in Naples, where we climbed on board on the SS Asia, and headed for Columbo, Sri Lanka. 

As we were navigating our way down the Suez Canal, adjusting to the rhythm of this particular ship and its many eccentricities and mysterious mazes, we were suddenly blasted with the announcement that there was a blockage in the canal and we would be holding steady for several days. The gleam in my father’s eye was electric. “Let’s go see the pyramids!”

WHAT?????

As was his nature, immediate inquiries and action resulted. An enthusiastic party of Europeans on the ship, fancied the amazingness of this notion, and within moments, several motor boats appeared out of nowhere to escort us to the shore. JOY for the camel owners, as we were wrangled and negotiated over, and within minutes the five members of our family and several clans of others, were jaunting across the dessert towards those infamous triangles rising up blurrily in the distance. 

We climbed down down down into the tombs, learned ancient tales of espionage and embalming, and were just surfacing into the brilliant light of day when the news that the blockage had been removed and we’d better make tracks, was breathlessly delivered.

PANIC and HILARITY.

Some of the camel drivers had apparently dispersed for a lunch break across yonder desert and now there was a shortage of camels. My sister was being pulled limb by limb by drivers who insisted that she double up with someone, my father was being decked in a flowing headpiece, with cord tied around his head, so that he looked like Lawrence of Arabia, the rest of us scrambled, and in a massive cloud of hoofed up sand, we were galloping on camels across the desert to the river.

Can anything be more wonderful?

When we arrived at the water’s edge, the ships were revved up and on the move. Motor boats swooped up and we jumped onto them and then morphed into James Bondland, where from speeding boats, we had to catch our ship and JUMP. A blind man was pushed onto the ship by his wife, and made it….my sister was on my brother’s back, and I was on my father’s back and with giant leaps we all landed in a pile.

Yes, we sailed on to Columbo, and the adventure had only begun.

Thank you giant stuck ship for this exquisite memory. 

I shall chuckle myself to sleep tonight.

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