It seemed so peaceful
''Daddy, don't go,'' Marsha, my adult daughter, told me more than once during the year before my planned trip to Egypt, and especially after last July's bombings in Sharm el-Sheik that killed 64 people, mainly tourists.
I cherished her concern for her father's well-being, but I remained determined to see the great pyramids at Giza that my own father had photographed as a teenager in 1926, 80 years before, while accompanying his mother on a trip to the Mediterranean and the Holy Land.
Perhaps my steadfast intention to go came out of naiveté or stubbornness. But it was also a recognition that terrorists can strike in New York, London or Madrid, or that the home-grown variety killed 168 adults and children along the familiar streets of downtown Oklahoma City, my hometown.
Nonetheless, the Associated Press bulletin that moved Monday struck home: ``CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- Police say three explosions rocked the resort city of Dahab on Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, and casualties were reported.''
Then later, as more details became known, AP reported that the Al Capone restaurant, ''one of the area's most popular spots,'' had been destroyed. ''The tables and chairs have gone, there is nothing left,'' Joseph Nazir, a Dahab businessman, had told Britain's Press Association.
I had lunch at the Al Capone restaurant last month, and I still find it hard to comprehend that it's gone.
My traveling companions on that day of exploring the Sinai desert -- Harvey, Charlotte and Trudy, all from the Denver area -- had joked about the name, and we wondered how a restaurant on the shores of the Gulf of Aqaba had come to be named after a Chicago gangster who died in 1947 at his Palm Island winter home in Miami Beach.
The Dahab I saw was a beautiful beach town, some 65 miles south of Israel. To its back lay the barren Sinai desert; it fronted on the deep blue waters of the Gulf. As everywhere in Egypt, friendly Egyptians warmly welcomed their American visitors to Dahab, which means ''gold'' in Arabic. The sun shone brightly, with temperatures not unlike Miami's in March. Periodically, we enjoyed a light spray from the Gulf as we ate lunch. If we looked carefully, we could glimpse Saudi Arabia in the distance.
Afterward we drove south, stopping to swim near a lagoon filled with windsurfers and parasailors, perhaps foreign tourists or vacationing Egyptians. What a perfect setting: the mountains of the Sinai Peninsula, wrapped in haze, dropping to the edge of the gorgeous blue and turquoise waters of the Gulf of Aqaba. The icy cold water belied the desert setting.
We returned to our hotel in Sharm el-Sheik after our all-day Jeep ride. Some eight months after terrorists had also shaken this Egyptian resort, Sharm el-Sheik was filled with tourists, mostly Europeans, walking the promenade between the Red Sea beaches and the hotels, restaurants and casinos that have sprung up along the desert's coastline.
Earlier on my journey I had visited the Pharaonic Temple of Hatshepsuit near Luxor, where in 1997 Islamic militants killed 58 foreigners and four Egyptians.
Foreigners have often been the victims in past Egyptian attacks. But Monday's terrorist assault killed mostly Egyptians on holiday, according to news reports. It brought condemnation from Arabs throughout the region.
On my last evening in Egypt, I made a second visit to Cairo's Egyptian Museum to see once again King Tut's gold mask and other treasures of ancient Egypt. There, outside the museum's entrance five days after bidding her good-bye, I spotted my Egyptian guide, Maha -- all the more remarkable in a city of some 18 million people.
Maha gave me a big hug and said how much fun she had had describing the wonders of her country's history to American travelers -- from Abu Simbel and the Nubian temples in Upper Egypt to the Sphinx, the Solar Boat Museum and the pyramids at Giza in Lower Egypt.
With considerable excitement, she told me she was pregnant, expecting her second child.
My prayer -- as should be the prayer of people of the East and West -- is that Maha's new son or daughter will come to know a Middle East without terrorism.
BY RICH BARD
I cherished her concern for her father's well-being, but I remained determined to see the great pyramids at Giza that my own father had photographed as a teenager in 1926, 80 years before, while accompanying his mother on a trip to the Mediterranean and the Holy Land.
Perhaps my steadfast intention to go came out of naiveté or stubbornness. But it was also a recognition that terrorists can strike in New York, London or Madrid, or that the home-grown variety killed 168 adults and children along the familiar streets of downtown Oklahoma City, my hometown.
Nonetheless, the Associated Press bulletin that moved Monday struck home: ``CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- Police say three explosions rocked the resort city of Dahab on Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, and casualties were reported.''
Then later, as more details became known, AP reported that the Al Capone restaurant, ''one of the area's most popular spots,'' had been destroyed. ''The tables and chairs have gone, there is nothing left,'' Joseph Nazir, a Dahab businessman, had told Britain's Press Association.
I had lunch at the Al Capone restaurant last month, and I still find it hard to comprehend that it's gone.
My traveling companions on that day of exploring the Sinai desert -- Harvey, Charlotte and Trudy, all from the Denver area -- had joked about the name, and we wondered how a restaurant on the shores of the Gulf of Aqaba had come to be named after a Chicago gangster who died in 1947 at his Palm Island winter home in Miami Beach.
The Dahab I saw was a beautiful beach town, some 65 miles south of Israel. To its back lay the barren Sinai desert; it fronted on the deep blue waters of the Gulf. As everywhere in Egypt, friendly Egyptians warmly welcomed their American visitors to Dahab, which means ''gold'' in Arabic. The sun shone brightly, with temperatures not unlike Miami's in March. Periodically, we enjoyed a light spray from the Gulf as we ate lunch. If we looked carefully, we could glimpse Saudi Arabia in the distance.
Afterward we drove south, stopping to swim near a lagoon filled with windsurfers and parasailors, perhaps foreign tourists or vacationing Egyptians. What a perfect setting: the mountains of the Sinai Peninsula, wrapped in haze, dropping to the edge of the gorgeous blue and turquoise waters of the Gulf of Aqaba. The icy cold water belied the desert setting.
We returned to our hotel in Sharm el-Sheik after our all-day Jeep ride. Some eight months after terrorists had also shaken this Egyptian resort, Sharm el-Sheik was filled with tourists, mostly Europeans, walking the promenade between the Red Sea beaches and the hotels, restaurants and casinos that have sprung up along the desert's coastline.
Earlier on my journey I had visited the Pharaonic Temple of Hatshepsuit near Luxor, where in 1997 Islamic militants killed 58 foreigners and four Egyptians.
Foreigners have often been the victims in past Egyptian attacks. But Monday's terrorist assault killed mostly Egyptians on holiday, according to news reports. It brought condemnation from Arabs throughout the region.
On my last evening in Egypt, I made a second visit to Cairo's Egyptian Museum to see once again King Tut's gold mask and other treasures of ancient Egypt. There, outside the museum's entrance five days after bidding her good-bye, I spotted my Egyptian guide, Maha -- all the more remarkable in a city of some 18 million people.
Maha gave me a big hug and said how much fun she had had describing the wonders of her country's history to American travelers -- from Abu Simbel and the Nubian temples in Upper Egypt to the Sphinx, the Solar Boat Museum and the pyramids at Giza in Lower Egypt.
With considerable excitement, she told me she was pregnant, expecting her second child.
My prayer -- as should be the prayer of people of the East and West -- is that Maha's new son or daughter will come to know a Middle East without terrorism.
BY RICH BARD
