It Always Comes Back To Egypt.

This is the photo that Sven is trying to get onto the cover of a book on Travel Illness that his company is publishing. The camel is Anthony, a baby who lived on Crocodile Island, the Swiss-run hotel we stayed at in Luxor. You can tell by my risque, shamelessly bared shoulders that I'm on the private island where the hotel was located, and not in "public." (This is also a lesson that, in trying to dress in as shapeless and nondescript a manner as possible in order to avoid the inevitable ogling by male Egyptian staff members, you may one day find yourself on the cover of a book looking like a potato with swimming-pool hair. So, Girls, always try to look your best unless you want to one day find yourself coming off the loser when compared to a camel.)

Crocodile Island had a private zoo including donkeys (which have the most beautiful faces; I routinely visited them for a cheek-to-cheek snuggle), goats, guinea pigs, a crocodile, and monkeys, who flirted with me and jealously sprayed huge arcs of urine at Sven to keep him away.

That was funny.

Anthony and the other animals were looked after by a gentle man who, unlike the owners of working animals we'd seen, seemed to genuinely love the animals in his care, Anthony in particular. We spent a good amount of time with him (it was from him that we learned that crocodiles have no tongue). By now Anthony has long been sold through the Daraw Camel Market where camels, like most animals in Egypt, are not treated with much kindness or compassion. I hope he's OK, wherever he is.