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In January 2008 my grandmother (pictured here) lead a trip to Egypt. She was a classics professor, and the trip was part of a course she was teaching. I was invited to tag along, as part of a deal that I would assist her while traveling. She was in her early eighties, and it was her eighth trip to Egypt.
Her goal was to pack as much into one trip as possible, showing us as many ancient sites as she could possibly schedule. She had us up early every morning, busy touring all day, and then calling it an early night, with lectures squeezed in wherever they could be.

I was really impressed by how well the ancient Egyptians set themselves up for an indestructible tourism economy. The country lacks a lot of infrastructure, and amenities we are used to in the Western world, but it doesn’t seem to matter. They get creative and really pull out all of the stops to provide great service to tourists, even if the means are very informal. For example, one morning at the airport before a flight within Egypt, I was feeling tired and cantankerous, and decided to carry on my bag rather than check it. I had completely forgotten about my two Leathermans in the bag, which of course security immediately found and confiscated. I was sure I had lost them for good, and was furious with myself for making this mistake, but the agent handed me a shoddy, handwritten ticket, and gave me vague instructions to redeem it at the following airport. At our destination, I asked the nearest security guard what to do with my ticket. He walked over to another guard, who happened to have my Leathermans in his pocket and returned them to me. Who knows how they made that work, but it worked, and I was happy. They made the effort to over-deliver, providing me service I didn’t expect, and never would have gotten in an American airport.