It’s hard to imagine, here in the second year of a global pandemic, that our international travel, pre-pandemic, was ever interrupted. We could be excused for having a rose-coloured memory.

However, time travel vicariously with me as I relive the glory days of a pre-COVID world in early December 2012. I’m travelling to London for a few days of sightseeing before embarking on the next leg of my holiday, a guided tour of Egypt and many of its pyramids.

I hope you can please excuse the highly privileged disappointment I display whilst the lives, livelihoods, and freedoms of the Egyptian people are in mortal danger.

I should have been flying to Egypt this morning, I had a week-long guided tour of the pyramids and was really excited to be going, then last night Cairo erupted. Everything had been pretty peaceful there since the Arab Spring last year, except for small protests here and there. Last night Cairo suddenly went crazy with rioters – pro and con their precipitated constitution – fighting with each other and escalating in violence and size.

I checked and double-checked the location of the riots against the location of the hotels and destinations and found it was all too close for comfort so I rang my travel agent. She checked with the tour company in Cairo who were certain that everything would be okay because we would be at least 40 mins away from the riots but that was still too close for me. As I said the protests were escalating in violence and size and by this time, there were army tanks rolling along the suburban streets well on their way to join in the fray.

It was no longer a reasonable proposition to fly over there hoping that it would all calm down within the next 24 hours. It’s not like it was in the UK where you can be certain that the police will not start going as crazy as the rioters. No government would be sympathetic towards any of its citizens who flew into a country just as riots were erupting and then complained about being caught up in a major conflict. It was spreading fast and under the circumstances, I could not accept the assurances of a tour company with a financial interest in keeping my booking so I cancelled anyway.

I can’t tell you how disappointed I am to be missing the pyramids. Will I ever get the chance again?  I will get about a 50% refund. On the bright side, I now have two extra weeks in the UK to play with so for starters I booked an extra night here in London.

(Time travelling edit, I have not yet had the chance to visit this part of the world. Speaking from mid-2021, mid global pandemic, I am not likely to get the chance any time soon