“Are you sure you’ll be alright?” my husband Laurent asked again when he dropped me off at the ferry port on the left bank of the Nile.

“I’ll be fine!” I knew my way around Luxor. First, I take the ferry across the river. Then I rent a bike and ride to Karnak Temple where, for the next four hours, I hoped to study the mysterious art on its walls.

As I made my way through the taxis to the ticket taker, the veiled woman in front of me stumbled and the basket on top of her head slid to the ground. I picked it up, handed it to her. It was gorgeous—made of white and purple raffia, the size of a platter. It was more of an artwork than a household implement. It would look beautiful hanging on a wall.

The woman smiled, put the basket back on top of her head, looking a little worried, as if she’d done something wrong. I told her how beautiful the basket was. On the boat, I watched her maneuvering her way through a small herd of sheep to a bench.

All the way across the Nile I thought how pretty the basket was. When we reached the other side, I was up across the ramp and on the boardwalk waiting for her, tugged at her arm, asked her how much it was.

A man offered to interpret. “It is between us,” I told him.

A second man intervened. “She wants thirty pounds.”

He fibbed. She said twenty. The man did not suspect I spoke a little Arabic.

By myself, I bargained to a fair price of 15 pounds, but I didn’t have exact change.

A crowd gathered. Someone said, “It’s rare to see two women doing business on the dock in Luxor.”

Another man appeared and took my twenty, counting out five one-pound notes for me. I waited to make sure he paid the woman the full amount. She bowed her head and thanked me. On the way to the bike shop, nearly every Egyptian asked me how much I paid. I said twelve pounds instead of fifteen, which earned me enormous respect, although when I tried to rent a bicycle, the price went up, from the normal fee of three pounds to as much as ten.

I decided I had to hide the basket before I asked to rent a bike. The first time the owner spied it leaning against the door. Tucking it under the counter the next time, I successfully rented a bike for four pounds for five hours, including a lock.

The owner asked me to leave a deposit. I didn’t have one. I offered to leave the basket. “This is worthless,” he said.

“But I paid a lot of money for that basket!” I protested. “How much would you sell this basket for?”

He looked at me carefully. “For more than you paid,” he replied, putting it safely behind the desk in his shop.