In Egypt, a Change of the Guard By Karlyn Barker Sunday, May 3, 1998; Page E01

But my trip to Egypt had been in the works for months, long before Islamic militants gunned down 62 people at the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut, or Saddam Hussein risked another clash with the U.S. government over the inspection of suspected nuclear weapons sites. Thus, my determined group of 11 friends and relatives brazenly forged ahead with our prepaid package tour -- though we did have the good sense to make sure we could get our money back if we canceled at the last minute.

Concerns about a showdown with Iraq had pretty much faded by the time we left for Egypt in mid-March. Still, the news of plummeting tourism there did give us pause, even as we heard enticing reports of travel bargains and no lines at the Pyramids.

I'm now back from Egypt -- a two-week adventure that took us as far north as Alexandria and as far south as Abu Simbel -- and am happy to report that we all had a super, and safe, stay. Ironically, while in Egypt, we turned on CNN and learned of the violence happening at home -- on a schoolyard in Arkansas. My travel companions and I concluded that we were in more danger from sandstorms and Cairo traffic than from terrorists.

"Luxor is now guarded like a castle," our tour coordinator, Wael A. Aly, assured us shortly after we arrived in Cairo. And so is just about everything else in this Land of the Pharaohs.

The Nov. 17 temple attack by six gunmen killed 58 tourists and four Egyptians, including a guide, and exposed lax security measures at this and other popular tourist sights. Yet it also galvanized Egypt's secular, military-backed government, which since 1992 has been the target of a largely underground revolt by Islamic fundamentalists that has killed more than 1,200 people on both sides.

The attack at the massive, three-level mortuary Temple of Queen Hatshepsut, an imposing limestone edifice that dates to 1500 B.C. and honors Egypt's only woman Pharaoh, was the worst slaughter in the country's modern history. It shocked the nation and temporarily scuttled tourism -- a mainstay of the Egyptian economy.

But since that quick, lethal assault, where tourists from Switzerland, Britain, Japan and Germany were shot, stabbed and sometimes mutilated as they crouched for protection behind the temple's huge sandstone pillars, the Egyptian government has taken extraordinary precautions to protect its visitors..

Whereas only two police guards were on duty at the temple the day of the "accident" -- that's what most Egyptians call the massacre -- it and other famed temple and burial sites as well as the country's capital and busiest museums are now crawling with security.

"What happened was a horrible, horrible tragedy, but there was also a silver lining," said Abdelaleem El-Abyad, director of the Egyptian Embassy's press office here. "It made the tourist authorities very much aware of what needs to be done -- and [Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak] was the first to blame them. The whole concept of security has changed."

From the day my group landed in Cairo, about 310 miles north of Luxor, an armed guard was on our tour bus at all times. And not a piece of luggage was loaded onto it until the bag had been identified by its owner. There was only one way in to our various hotels: through the metal detectors at the main entrance. No suitcase was delivered to any room until it was identified again by the guest.

At the Sphinx and Pyramids at Giza, there were more guards than vendors. Everywhere, there were soldiers or tourist police at entrance gates, soldiers in trucks, soldiers on cliffs or other high vantage points, even soldiers on camels.

When we went to and from airports, we were accompanied by local tourist police or government soldiers. The temples, tombs and other tourist attractions were patroled by rifle-toting guards. At the Sound and Light Show at Luxor's Temple of Karnak, the harsh noise of walkie-talkies could be heard as security officers scrutinized the audience under the night sky. The museum there, as in Cairo, had guards at the entrance, and vans filled with soldiers stationed nearby. And the day we went farther into the Egyptian countryside to see the great temple at Dendera our group had to be up by 6 a.m. to join a convoy of other tour groups making the same trip, again accompanied by armed escorts in bulletproof vests.

"Perhaps there is too much visible security," said El-Abyad. "It can be a little bit scary."

At Abu Simbel, the ancient, gigantic temples that were sawed into 1,000-plus pieces and moved section by section to higher ground when the Aswan Dam was built, the guards, rifles at the ready, stood lookout atop the rock-hewn temples of Ramses II and his favorite wife, Queen Nefertari.

At the granite quarries south of Aswan, a plethora of armed guards ringed the famous Unfinished Obelisk, an abandoned monument carved on three sides but still attached to bedrock. When a member of our group took a photo of some guards in a van -- after being told not to, a police officer demanded the film, only relenting after our Lebanese-American group leader warned that confiscating it would be bad for Egypt's tourist image. Remarking on the abundance of security, my aunt surveyed the open quarry pit and mused, "We really are like sitting ducks," an expression we had to explain to our guide.

By the time we toured the Valley of the Kings, where Tutankhamen is the only mummy still in his tomb, and the Valley of the Queens, both located on the west bank of the Nile, we were used to the heavy security at these aptly-named "houses of millions of years."

At the Temple of Hatshepsut, however, where the rising plain of the Nile Valley hits the base of the barren mountains, the tourist police were less visible. The access roads are better guarded now. But the temple, including the Middle Court's Birth Colonnade and Punt Colonnade, where most of the tourists were killed, didn't have obvious security, perhaps because the Egyptian government is trying so hard to make tourists forget "the accident." And though we were told it would be crass to seek too much detail, we prevailed on our guide to discreetly point out what happened where.

Egypt's economy is heavily dependent on tourism. The country lost nearly a third of its income after the killings at the temple. Before the attack, the tourism industry had been looking forward to a record 5 million visitors, up from about 3 million the year before. After the attack, the impact was immediate and devastating.

The United States and other countries issued travel warnings advising their citizens to avoid going to Egypt. Some tour operators ordered clients home and canceled upcoming trips. By February, normally the height of the tourist season, the number of foreign visitors had dropped nearly 50 percent from the year before, according to the country's tourist office, though some say the decline was actually worse.

"In January and February, it was like a disaster. Almost nobody came," said Aly, our tour coordinator, who works for Wings Tours Inc., one of Egypt's largest travel companies. He estimates that his country lost $3 billion in direct tourism income and another $7 billion to $8 billion in indirect income.

"They knew what they were doing," Aly added bitterly, describing the anti-government Islamic Group, which took responsibility for the massacre. "It affected everything," he said, from the hotels and souvenir vendors to city taxis, the men who polish shoes from their street stands and the farmers who sell their produce to Nile River tour boats.

Mohamed Abdel Aal, our marvelous and much-in-demand tour guide, said he had been planning to buy a new car and do some remodeling on his home this year. The temple attack scrapped those plans, too.

Given all that was at stake, the Egyptian government moved swiftly. Mubarak and other officials visited the site of the massacre and immediately ordered new and increased security measures. Electronic security was improved and more tourist police were recruited. They are now better trained, better equipped and better paid, according to El-Abyad. Egypt's minister of tourism was dispatched to conventions in Berlin and Milan to reassure travel agents about the precautions being taken.

The U.S. State Department lifted its travel advisory in early March, and a team of internationally known diplomats and security experts toured Egypt and praised its "extensive and heightened security operations" in and around Luxor, the Pyramids and the Cairo Museum. The tourists started trickling back, first the Americans and, more recently, the French, Germans and Italians. The latter three groups normally account for the biggest share of foreign visitors to Egypt.

The Egyptian tourist industry has done its part, too, luring visitors by slashing air fare and hotel prices and getting the government to waive visa fees. Hotel occupancy is now about 40 percent, according to El-Abyad, who expects business to be back to normal by Christmas. Still, when my group (on St. Patrick's Day) boarded an elegant boat in Aswan for a four-day cruise down the Nile, it was one of only 25 in use. Normally, about 250 touring boats cruise the river.

The relative paucity of tourists has made for some clever and, if possible, more aggressive entrepreneurism. Haggling over purchases is a rite of passage for foreign visitors -- and an art form among Egyptian merchants and street vendors. But the bargain-seeking traveler must stay alert.

We had only been in Cairo a day and a half, for instance, when a huge hamsin, or sandstorm, hit, closing the Pyramids, shutting down the airport and, we learned later, killing four people. The storm was like something out of the film "The English Patient," arriving suddenly and quickly enveloping everything in a hazy fog. Except the fog stung our eyes. One minute we were having lunch near the Mena House, our hotel in Giza, gazing at the Pyramids and anticipating an afternoon tour of these magnificent burial tombs that date to 2650 B.C. By the time we finished our meal, we couldn't see them, let alone visit them.

Our group was supposed to fly the next day to Abu Simbel. Instead, we spent the day at a hotel near the airport. For security reasons, no one was allowed to wait at the terminal, but we had to stay close by in case the storm lifted and flights resumed. Thus stranded, we hung out in the lobby -- and decided this was a good time to get started on those postcards we promised friends and family.

One shopkeeper, sensing he had a captive market, was charging two Egyptian pounds -- about 60 cents -- per postcard, and another two pounds for the stamps needed to mail them to the States. (The normal cost of postage is a pound and, just the day before, vendors had been selling us 10 postcards for $1.) My group, both budget-conscious and offended by the price gouging, wouldn't buy from him.

An astute rival merchant across the lobby got wind of the boycott and sent word that he had cheaper postcards and would sell the stamps at cost, with no fee. Of course, we quickly filled his shop. And of course, we quickly filled his cash register -- buying papyrus bookmarks, jewelry and other souvenirs. No fool he.

We never did get out of Cairo that day, and had to arrange emergency accommodations at another hotel. When a member of our group decided to visit an Egyptian friend in the city, he, too, learned how much prices can fluctuate, especially if you're a tourist.

The clerk at the front desk said a "street taxi" would charge about 10 Egyptian pounds to take him to the apartment of his friend. Outside, the cabs parked directly in front of the hotel wanted 30 pounds for the same trip. He got a cheaper taxi on the street, paid the 10 pounds and felt pretty proud of himself -- until his Egyptian friend hailed him a cab for the return trip. The cost: three pounds.

The Egyptians we met were friendly and seemed genuinely glad to see us -- and not just because we were throwing our money around. No matter how heated the haggling became, once a price was agreed upon, the vendor who had feigned annoyance at your offer a moment earlier would pose happily with you for a photograph.

They like Americans. They like McDonald's (its "golden arches" now mar the view of the Temple of Luxor), Pizza Hut and especially Kentucky Fried Chicken. And, while they may be aggressive merchants, their essential honesty has not been altered by this year's lean winter and spring.

I learned this firsthand in the market, or souk, at Luxor, though I'm embarrassed to tell the story. I went shopping with my mother and aunt to buy some cotton bags to pack some of our accumulated extras. My aunt, a hopeless negotiator, agreed to pay the first quoted price, 35 pounds.

"How much for two bags?" I asked, offering the shopkeeper 50 pounds.

"You think you're smarter than me?" he challenged huffily. My mother immediately caved and paid the man 30 pounds for her bag. I held out until he agreed to sell me a nearly identical bag for 25 pounds. In a hurry to get to the Luxor Museum, I paid for my purchase and left the store, chiding my relatives for undercutting my bargaining efforts.

About two hours later, walking through the market again, I felt someone trotting beside me, trying to get my attention. I thought it was a vendor and kept walking, eyes straight ahead. The man then tapped me on the shoulder, and I stopped.

It was the bag vendor. In my triumphant departure from his store, it seems, I had given him 30 pounds -- and forgotten to wait for my change. He was now standing before me, holding out a 5-pound note. Astonished, and feeling more than a little foolish at my stupidity, I thanked him profusely. We shook hands.

Later, I sheepishly told the rest of the group about this man's stunning, honorable gesture. My friends were delighted, yet also surprised. But not Mohamed, our guide.

Any vendor would do the same thing, he said. "A deal is a deal."

The U.S. State Department's Consular Information Sheet on Egypt advises tourists to exercise caution throughout the country, particularly within the Nile Valley governates of Minya, Assiut, Sohag and Qena. U.S. citizens are urged to seek advice from the U.S. Embassy, tour operators or tourist police authorities. On April 3, the U.S. Embassy in Cairo released a warning that because of possible terrorist attacks, "U.S. citizens traveling to or residing in Cairo are advised to exercise greater than usual caution"; the announcement expires July 1.