[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text dp_text_size=”size-4″]Christina Ward had barely known Wahid Kandil for six months when he proposed marriage to her.
One evening, the couple sat on a bench overlooking the Nile, the ancient Temple of Luxor lighted behind them.
Wahid looked at Christina. “So, are we getting married or what?” he inquired.
Christina almost burst out laughing. The question seemed both unexpected and long overdue.
Christina, from the United Kingdom, and Wahid, from Egypt, had spent every moment they could together since meeting as colleagues on a Nile tour boat.
“To be able to say I fell in love while sailing down the Nile under the moon and stars sounds very romantic, but that’s exactly what happened,” Christina says today to CNN Travel.
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Christina had arrived in Egypt in October 1996, motivated by her “itchy feet.” She was 28 and eager to see the world, so a six-month stint as an Egypt-based tour guide for an adventure travel firm seemed ideal. She’d be getting paid to travel. She also adored Egypt and was enthralled by its ancient history.
Christina was in charge of leading groups of 25 people on two-week travels across the country as a tour leader.
“We’d go to Luxor, Aswan, Hurghada, and Cairo, with lots of side trips like riding donkeys at sunrise to the Valley of the Kings, riding camels into desert abandoned monasteries, and dinner at Nubian family homes,” Christina recalls.
The Kimo was a small tour boat with bunk bed cabins where Christina and her charges would sleep, as well as a dining room and a sundeck where rowdy parties would take place while the boat went down the river.
Christina presented herself to the Kimo’s crew on her first night in Egypt. She wanted to get along well with her new coworkers. She was especially excited to meet the boat’s manager, Wahid Kandil, 26, because they’d be working closely together. Wahid’s responsibility as manager was to ensure that everything on board went well – which it rarely did – as well as to look after the crew, provisions, budget, and to assist Christina in making sure the visitors had a wonderful time.
She liked Wahid right away and jotted a few lines about him in her diary later that evening
Wahid liked Christina as well, but he was cautious. During his time on the Kimo, he’d spotted a pattern: young women from the UK would arrive to work in Egypt tourism and have a brief romance with a local. He had the impression that they were hunting for Egyptian boyfriends for the sake of novelty more than anything else, therefore he avoided boat romances.
“I’ve always kind of rejected that,” he admits today.
But as time passed, Wahid and Christina became more attracted to one another. Sure, they were both preoccupied with the excursions, and because there was no privacy on the Kimo, there was “no deep conversation,” as Wahid puts it. But they took advantage of every opportunity to converse and flirt.
On the Nile, falling in love
Christina has always enjoyed working as a tour guide. She enjoyed travelling around Egypt, but her favourite days were spent on board the Kimo.
“Sailing on the Nile is magical,” she exclaims.
Christina dropped her tour group off for dinner on shore in the Egyptian city of Aswan one evening. She then returned to the boat to see if she could catch Wahid. She noticed him, approached him to say hello, and subsequently inquired as to what he was doing.
“I didn’t mean anything by it,” Christina admits now.
“Yes, you did,” Wahid laughs
“Well, maybe I was flirting a little bit,” Christina admits.
Wahid indicated he’d be available that evening, so he and Christina agreed to meet at a nearby hotel bar. But Christina was called back to her tour guiding responsibilities, and she arrived 45 minutes late for the date. She had no way of informing Wahid because neither of them had cell phones. So, as soon as she finished work, she dashed to the motel.
“When I walked in, he had a face like absolute thunder,” Christina recounts.
Wahid was standing near reception, composing a message for his potential date that he wanted to leave with the receptionist.
“It was quite an angry note,” Wahid recalls, adding, “Nobody’s ever stood me up like this.”
When the news broke, the couple was aboard another ship on the Nile. The adventure travel business had leased some cabins on a large, luxury cruise ship because the Kimo had unexpectedly broken down.
Christina ignored Wahid for the rest of the day, focusing her attention on the cruise ship’s management in the hopes of making Wahid envious. Wahid was terrified that he’d lost Christina for good.
As they talked over what had happened, Christina and Wahid realised for the first time that they had strong feelings for each other. Their jealous expressions said it all: this wasn’t simply a fling. This was true.
“That was probably the catalyst and turning point,” Christina believes.
Committing to marriage
That’s how the pair ended up sitting by the Nile in Luxor, talking about marriage.
Christina was positive that she and Wahid would have a future. However, there were numerous unknowns in this equation. Where would they call home? What would their loved ones think? Should they wait a little longer before committing?
“I didn’t say yes, I didn’t say no – I ummed and ahhed about what to do,” Christina explains.
She wondered if she should return to the United Kingdom for a bit to “logically remove myself and see if this is the right thing to do.”
Christina, on the other hand, couldn’t bring herself to go back.
“I just knew I couldn’t leave Egypt without him,” she confesses.
Christina made the decision while on a tour group in Cairo. It had been a long and stressful day, and she wished Wahid was there to help her.
“I am ‘Miss Independent,’ and I am strong and capable of standing up for myself.” “But every now and then, I wish someone would speak up for me,” she says.
“So I just walked across the street to this payphone, picked it up, called him, and asked, ‘Right, what date are we getting married?'” And we planned it roughly a week after the tour ended.”
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