الرئيسية
Chapter 2 The man on the plane
There isn't a direct flight to Lima, the capital of Peru, from Cairo. I had to fly to New York and then change planes. It was a long flight and I read a book at first, then I fell asleep. By the time we got to New York it was still day time - New York is seven hours behind Cairo time. My connecting flight was not until very early the next day. I stayed at a hotel at the airport. Everything was so different from Cairo.
The next morning I boarded the plane to Lima at just after 6 a.m. I had asked for a window seat. I was very nervous but I was curious at the same time. As the plane took off from New York, I looked down on the city's skyscrapers. The tall buildings shone in the early morning sunlight.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" the man sitting beside me said.
"Yes, it's amazing," I said.
"Was this your first visit to America?" he asked.
'"Well, 1 only changed planes in New York. I arrived last night. So it can hardly be called a visit. But, yes, it is."
I turned to look at him. I saw a man in his mid-thirties with fair hair and a sun-tanned face. He was wearing a blue shirt and his sleeves were rolled up. He didn't look like a businessman, but he didn't look like a tourist either. I wondered what kind of work he did. It was difficult to say. He looked as if he worked outdoors a lot.
"Are you going to Peru for a holiday?" he asked. "No, not really. It's a business trip," I said. "Me too," he said. "I'm a mining engineer."
I had read a lot about Peru in the past few weeks and knew about Peru's copper and silver mines.
"And what kind of mining are you doing in Peru?" I asked. "Copper, silver?"
He smiled. "Oh, there are plenty of copper mines and silver mines
already in Peru," he replied. "I'm looking for places where there are other interesting things to find."
I wondered what he meant by that. Perhaps he didn't want to say anything definite about his work, but I was interested all the same. After all, mining and archaeology have some things in common,
He had a strange accent. I thought he might be German. He wasn't American, I was sure of that.
"Does your work take you all over Peru?" I asked him.
"That's right, I work all over the country. I'm based in the United States, but 1 spend a few months every year in Peru."
"Are you American?"
"Well, I have an American passport," he said. "But I was born in South Africa. How about you? You said you were going to Peru on business. Can 1 ask what kind of business?"
So I told him about the archaeological dig and that it was part of a UNESCO exchange programme. When he heard I was an archaeologist, he seemed quite interested in my work.
"Does this UNESCO programme mean Peruvian archaeologists are working in Egypt?"
"Yes," I said. "It's an interesting idea, because there are some similarities between the Ancient Egyptians and the ancient peoples of South America."
"So you are from Egypt?"
"Yes. I am a research assistant at Cairo University."
"What made you take up archaeology?"
