On one of my trips to Cairo, Colin Davies took me to a goodbye party that he had organized for David Lamb, the eight-time Pulitzer Prize nominated journalist. (How's that for name dropping?)
The party consisted of a few of us sitting around a fire and having a picnic in the desert outside Cairo. It was quite a dramatic setting, particularly as we watched night fall over the nearby Pyramids.
David was in good form, fueled by several glasses of Canadian Club whisky. His voice raspy as always from chainsmoking, he was well into one of his war stories. I think it was the one about how he came up with the name “Hamburger Hill” to describe a particularly vicious battle that he witnessed in Vietnam.
Suddenly, a truck appeared out of the darkness. Several Egyptian soldiers surrounded our little group. Their officer came up and asked what we were doing. Colin explained.
“I’m sorry,” said the officer, “but you must leave.”
Colin asked him why.
“Because the desert is closed. It’s after 10:00 p.m. and the desert closes at 10:00. You must all leave now.”
Who would ever have thought that they closed the Sahara Desert at 10:00 every night.
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